It’s just surreal that Athens, Georgia-born Kevin Barnes launched his band oF MONTREAL, named after a failed romance between him and a woman ‘of Montreal‘, is already 30 years in the music biz.
Tomorrow, Friday, their 20th LP, named Gethermead.
lands on our stereos. Tracklist and order info here.
Album artwork
Ahead of it comes a final preview, called TAKE THE FORM. A voltaic, strumming
riff-ripper accompanied by a multi-psychedelic-colored ‘I got my eyes on you’ video.
Barnes: “It’s a song about trying to will a person into becoming something they’re not. Something that you want them to be for your own benefit, and suffering terribly as
a result.”
As many other BIG stars CHRISSIE HYNDE
doesn’t like phones at her concerts.
Okay, no problem, that’s her opinion.
See her message on her Instagram below.
Hey Chrissie I have some Q’s for you too:
Why is live music these days for rich people and not for the young,
who have to rob a bank first before being able to buy a ticket for big
shows?
Why is the merch so criminally expensive at big concerts?
Why can we get a refund when the artist plays an awful gig?
Why do some star artists start their shows too late and finish too late,
so we miss our train/bus/metro, and nobody takes responsibility, let
alone cares, when this happens?
Why is it that artists can decide what the audience can and
can’t do at concerts, despite the fact we pay a lot of money
to get in?
I have some more Q’s on my mind, but I’ll go with these above first.
Why do we have to pay a lot of money for tickets to see a big name like you performing, Chrissie? Why can we get a refund when the artist plays an awful gig? Why is the merch so criminally expensive? Why is live music these days for rich people and not for the young, who have to rob a bank first before being able to buy a ticket for big shows? I really want to hear your opinion on that, Chrissie!
You can’t shut up the imperishable Russian collective of political and feminist activists PUSSY RIOT and their global fanbase. This year marks their 15th year of opposition against the Kremlin tyranny.
A couple of weeks ago, the clamorous PRs showed up at the Venice Biennale, the so-called “Olympics of the art world”, timed deliberately, to coincide with Russia‘s controversial return to the event. The stunt made headlines globally.
Mastermind and driving force since day one is NADYA TOLOKONNIK, who spent two years, along with fellow pussy riotiours Yekaterina Samutsevich and Maria Alyokhina, in a Russian jail for hooliganism motivated by religious hatred after her protest performance
in the Cathedral of Christ the Saviour church in 2012.
Thus far, they have expressed their fierce discontent through several mixtapes,
a series of barbed-wire singles, and countless live protests in their home country, Ukraine, and the Western world.
And on June 12th, the debut album, titled CYKA, will be unleashed.
Album artwork
Ahead of it, you can start screaming and shouting
in the streets to these 2 bloodthirsty singles.
– DISOBEY –
Nadya: “I wanted to do a classic punk song, in old school Pussy Riot style. I’ve been trying to be polite, writing letters via the Council of Europe, writing directly to the board, to the president, to people in the art world, and dead ends everywhere.
– CANDY DOPAMINE –
“This song is kind of a love & hate song to prescription and designer drug culture.
It started with my dependence on anti depressants, but it’s also looking at everyone
now mentalhealthmaxxing and looksmaxxing via pills and injections.
It’s not a judgement, it’s just an observation and my personal experience with
these things is that I have to be in a long term relationship with them for my
PTSD and depression.”
Another batch of 5 new, stellar tracks have
been added to Turn Up The Volume’s Jukebox.
Turn it up.
ALL TOGETHER
. TRACK BY TRACK
Band: VEDA RAYS Who: Indie duo from Philly, making ethereal indie rock rooted in dream pop, post-punk, and traditional shoegaze, with lyrics that explore liminality and abstraction, channeling subconscious impulses into the present moment.
Track: TRUE AGENCY
It’s the first chapter in a song
cycle years in the making.
The songs are rooted in liminality and abstraction, the songs channel subconscious impulses into the present moment, where past and future blur and meaning remains
in flux.
TUTV: Guitar dream pop at its feverish and jangly finest. True Agency sticks after just one spin. It’s pick-me-up drive and infectious euphony causes elation, yet lyrically the tone is somewhat darker. A triumphant return to the scene for the Philly tandem.
TUTV: Vampire Queen is a double-edged crackerjack. Partly a glam-rock stomper,
partly a high-octane missile. The two parts assembled combine for a super-duper rollercoaster that goes back and forth. Striking stroke.
Track: A HARD LESSON
Newest piece from his 11th LP o\i.
Release date TBA.
Gabriel: “This is the oldest track of the project. It probably started in the late 80s
or early 90s when I was in Senegal. I was falling in love with the music I heard there.
I loved the tension created by the use of polyrhythms, particularly the threes and
fours, so that was the start of this song”.
TUTV: Gabriel sticks to trippy beats
and trancy vibrations. And it works
damn well.
TUTV: Vicious blues-rock riffs and sinewy sneers open up the debates, followed by a
dreamy introspection flash, turning in a few seconds into a wall-of-agressive electricty. Swing moods mess with your head, but if you bang it against a wall, all demons will be crushed. Just do it.
Artist: KRISTIN HERSH Who: Singer-songwriter luminary (now 59), best known for her band Throwing Muses and, to a lesser extent 50 Foot Wave. And she has
11 solo albums on her résumé.
It’s the lead single of her new, upcoming LP,
titled Sugar On Blackstone. Out August 18th.
Tracklist here.
Hersh: “He was a ‘Dark Eyed Junco’ and I was a light-eyed weirdo. We’d play basketball until after dark then, when we couldn’t even see the hoop anymore, so that we didn’t have to go home. After our stepfather moved in, it wasn’t a home anymore.”
TUTV: A feverish torch song spiced with Hersh‘s ever-transfixing vocality.
Artists: PEARLY DROPS Who: Celebrated Finnish trippy pop duo from Helsinki.
Actually, two experienced musicians and producers, Juuso Malin and Sandra Tervonen.
Album: THE VOICES ARE COMING BACK
Their 3rd, released last August.
Artwork by Sandra Tervonen
at Studio Pearly Drops.
The famous tandem will release a deluxe edition of that triumphant LP,
dubbed The Voices Became Louder on July 17th, featuring an impressive
cast of guests.
The original album’s as well as the deluxe edition’s cover are bizarre
and weird, but artistically amazing (so are their promo photos).
This day 60 years ago, on 3 June 1966, Brit-pop-rock legends THE KINKS,
featuring the siblings Davies, released one of their biggest hits with their
everlasting summer-juiced earworm SUNNY AFTERNOON.
Ray Davies said he wrote the song when listening
continuously to Frank Sinatra, Bob Dylan and Bach.
The song’s story is actually not a happy one.
Davies: “The only way I could interpret how I felt was through a dusty, fallen aristocrat
who had come from old money as opposed to the wealth I had created for myself. In order
to prevent the listener from sympathizing with the song’s protagonist I turned him into a scoundrel who fought with his girlfriend after a night of drunkenness and cruelty.“.
Save me, save me, save me from this squeeze
I got a big fat mama tryna break me
And I love to live so pleasantly
Live this life of luxury
Lazin’ on a sunny afternoon
In the summertime
In the summertime
Band: KIDS WITH BUNS Who: Belgian dream pop duo, featuring Marie Van Uytvanck and Amber Piddington.
“We started out with Kids With Buns at age 18 and 20 respectively, and we were not trained musicians by any means. To be able to put that complete puzzle together; the arrangement, the songs, the production everything contributes to the whole of a song. We have had the privilege of learning it by doing it, from the bedroom to the stage. And we see the potential in each other’s ideas where no one else would.”
Track: CAR CRASH
Newest single, following the two sweet little pearlsBlind and Half Of A Dream
from their forthcoming sophomore LP, named Bell Jar. It’ll land on October 16th.
Pre-order info here.
TUTV: The two DIY kids are now full-grown and are getting better with each release. Car Crash, like the two previous singles, is dream pop romanticism at its starry-eyed best. Marvelous melodiousness, frisky guitar sparks, and the always slightly hoarse, tantalising vocals.
Paste Magazine (US) writes: “It recalls the kinetic energy of their first two records but possesses the sophistication of their more recent output. Equal parts jangly and muscular,
the five-piece forge a new path while staying true to their roots.”
TUTV: The Danish indie heroes return with sonic panacherie and a sense of urgency, rockier and punkier than on predecessor Seek Shelter (still my fav one). Rønnenfelt is omnipresent, although obviously in a feverish place of his own, torn from reality at
times. Iceage fans will have their time of the year.
HIGHLIGHTS: Ember / The Weak / Salve For Every Sore / Mother-Of-Pearl / Lifetime
Band: BOARDS OF CANADA Who: Scottish electro vets, Mike Sandison and Marcus Eoin, twisting
buttons since 1986. After several EPs they released their debut LP
in 1998.
The Guardian (English newspaper): “The Scottish electronic duo remain hugely influential – but their new album’s interrogation of religion is dubious, and the drum programming is worse still.”
BOC press
TUTV: After a fine atmospheric/cinematic, and panoramic start, repetition starts
to creep in, and my attention weakened. With its 79-minute length, the record is
way too long. Sure, there are some appealing pieces here and there, but overall,
the defective balance gets in the way too much.
Band: SPARTA Who: Veteran rockers from El Paso, Texas (2001–2008, 2011–2013, 2017–present).
Founding members Paul Hinojos and Tony Hajjar played also withAt The Drive-In (Hajjar still does now and then).
Kerrang says: “This new album finds mainman Jim Ward playing to his strengths, with a clutch of concise tunes that contains a few real gems. It’s an album which traces the outline of Sparta’s identity with satisfying clarity. Echoes of revered influences and peers, from Fugazi and Jawbox to AFI and Jimmy Eat World, swing by. Sixth time’s a charm, it turns out.”
📸: @visualritual
TUTV: The Texan vets don’t waste time. From the word go their energy punches holes
in the ceiling. They run and sweat like young dogs. Their post-hardcore-rock-punk engines still burn fierily. But to avoid going over the top they slow down now and then with trenchant and expressive ballads (See You Soon, Midnights and Glimmer). Rock on!
The late musical genius PRINCE (1958-2016) played his first show
in the UK, today 45 years ago, on 2 June 1981. It happened at the Lyceum, The Strand in London.
By then, he had already achieved some success in the US, not
really much in the UK, but that would change almost overnight.
Later in the year, he released his 4th LP, Controversy,
#21 on the US charts, with the title track as its single.
