“To the new wavers of ’77, Elvis Costello must have looked a straightforward proposition, a black and white world. Punk’s febrile, combative energies and the naïve excitement of golden age rock’n’roll and mod beat encapsulated in one bespectacled, legs-akimbo, skinny tied package. And so, for a short while, it would prove; as the arrival of The Attractions – and a pill-popping angry young man attitude – powered Costello on to the new wave front lines with This Year’s Model and Armed Forces, his aesthetic cohered around barbed and allusive dissections of pop culture, cutting social commentary and the politics of love and war. A critical darling, and not just because, as Dave Lee Roth bitterly attested, the sleeve of …Model was, for most journalists, like looking in a mirror.”
In the 148 pages of this Deluxe Ultimate Music Guide, fully updated to account for his most recent activity, you’ll read some of Costello’s most memorable interactions with just those journalists. Here you’ll find spiky moments – “Getting it all down are you?” – and expansive encounters. Not to mention a full reckoning of the many recordings, collaborations and other adventures which caused them to occur in the first place.
You can purchase a copy and let it send to your home. Info here.
“In the 148 pages of this Deluxe Ultimate Music Guide, fully updated to account for his most recent activity, you’ll read some of Costello’s most memorable interactions with journalists.
Here you’ll find spiky moments – “Getting it all down are you?” – and expansive encounters.
Not to mention a full reckoning of the many recordings, collaborations, and other adventures which caused them to occur in the first place.” More infohere.
You can buy your copyhere and have it sent to your home.
Kamikaze guitars, boiling bluster, insane vocals. The London’s post-punks
are back with a holy smoke hammer as a warm-up for their second LP,
titled Beware Believers, out 1st of April.
I know it’s only January, but this is//will
be one of the best singles of 2022.
After 28 years, Skunk Anansie still is a massively popular band with Skin
screaming her lungs on this new killer single as if she’s still 28 years herself. ‘Piggy’ is an enraged eruption calling out all incompetent governments,
specifically UK’s short-sighted Brexit statesmen.
This red-hot-blistering shock wave explodes like
a metallic bomb with a volcanic Skin chorus.
These politically charged indie gunslingers from Leeds are the talk-of-the-town
lately. Every music website/zine is raving about, them. Their dazzling debut longplayer entered the British charts on #2 last weekend. One of the highlights is this bass-driven jackhammer. Infectious from the kick-off.
A sirens intro, David Bowie‘s saxophone, and steel drums straight from Trinidad. Sounds like an exotic swing and shake ditty is coming up. No folks, it’s a lazy rap-sody you can play the morning after a drinking marathon. A slow start to get out of bed and sober up. Soul voice Clare Gillet takes care of the chirpy chorus and finally Domestic gets up for a couple of Mañana shouts.
After a ghostly intro, the drone machine starts up hitting like
a massive sledgehammer with an industrial exuberance. Merciless
and puissant. No rest for the wicked. Think The Horrors and NIN.
Following in the soundsteps of legendary mega-funk-groover Sly Stone with
a 21st Century post-punk coolness and a pumped-up synth-tastic puissance
this London combo activates all of your muscles, your bloodstream, and your
appetite for behaving like a midnight rambler.
This mid-tempo disco jam helps you to keep in shape at your hot spot
at home until the nightclubs reopen. It’s a Warmduscher affair, folks.
Socially engaged indie pop-rockers who started their journey back in 2003.
In the very beginning, they operated as British Air Power, but changed it quickly
to British Sea Power. But last summer the band announced another name change,
dropping ‘British‘.
Their new, 7th full-length, titled Everything Was Forever lands on 11 February.
With new single Green Goddess they do what they do best, writing anthemic pop
tunes that stick after one play.
After a 5-4-3-2-1 countdown this rocket blasts into space with supersonic speed.
No looking back, full steam ahead, pushed by a banging drum/bass beat and crazed guitars. Somewhere in the middle, it’s time to reload the batteries and start all over
again fueled by swirling synths etles dernier mots de M. Lonely.
Psychedelia at its mind-boggling best.
Un coup de poing formidable!
Eels made another Eels album sounding like an Eels album.
But as Mark Oliver Everett moves and grooves, rocks and rolls
like in the good days Extreme Witchcraft feels like he’s having fun,
although you never know for sure with his capricious state of mind.
This twilight hallucination resonates as the shadowy side of Depeche Mode
and the enigmatic darkwave murk of The Soft Moon. The iterating synth-riff
at work here gets under your skin without asking. The atmosphere is impending,
the tone is obscure, the color is black. All you need for a sonic nightmare.
New cut from the Boston duo’s forthcoming
sophomore album Moon Reflections.
This is a rotating remix of the title track of Anika‘s excellent album
released last year. British electronic musician Planningtorock
turned the song into a trippy and vibrant electro beat-breaker.
Anika‘s distorted voice changes the mood
of the original recording. More mystifying,
more mysterious.
The smooth pop elegance of Kevin Parker (Tame Impala), the mellow
vocality of Adam Granduciel (The War Drugs) and his twinkling guitar
play to end this sweet little pearl. Sonic dreaming at its finest with
a tantalizing pearl that gets under your skin, slowly but surely. Top!
This is the moniker of Vancouver-based Dubliner Stephen Nicholas White describes
himself as a post-punk/nugaze/electro artist. This new single circles around a repetitive
guitar riff and shiny synths with Eels echoes. Magnetic, hypnotic, and mesmeric.
In the past few years, another Britwave of young rousing wolves
has emerged and looks to turn into a sonic tsunami. Black Midi,
Black Country New Road, Black Honey, Fontaines D.C. (I know they’re
Irish), Yard Act, and several more prove that guitar rock is
alive and kicking again.
Now you can add Leeds’ hungry squad Eades. With
6-track EPAbstract Education EP, released last Spring,
they made it loud and clear they’re not a one-trick pony.
This is a mindboggling knockout. You The People starts as a meditative harbinger
for a mindboggling sonic orgasm midway, inflamed by whamming percussion, an
ear-shattering guitar explosion, and haunting male/female, English/Italian vocals
before an abrupt comedown ends this rad rush of blood to the head. Wow!
Gallows progresses like a death march, on its way to the graveyard,
with a somber and macabre reverberation. Its repetitive and raucous
slo-mo dynamics evoke images of confusion, agitation, and transitoriness.
19. ‘Happy Birthday Forever’ by TESS PARKS (Toronto, CA)
Toronto-born, London-based femme fatale Tess Parks has a new album,
called And Those Who Were Seen Dancing, out 2 April. Her first longplayer
in 13 years.
Lead single Happy Birthday Forever is a pretty catchy surprise.
It spins around in your head before you’re even aware of it.
This is the solo project of Jérôme R. Desrosiers, who played
drums in different Black Metal and Death Metal in the late 90s.
He’s making synth music for about 20 years now, but it’s only
since 2018 that he decided to share his work.
He just issued his new album Mon Odyssée. An imaginative
journey with cinematic synth symphonies, like this one…
Flamboyant Rage Against The Machine guitarist Tom Morello drops his second solo
full-length THE ATLAS UNDERGROUND FIRE next week. On the album’s cover, a giant elephant is pictured.
42 years ago, in 1979, Elvis Costello released his 3rd album Armed Forces. Could the elephant in the middle be the same as Morello‘s one? How long can elephants live?
Artist: ELVIS COSTELLO (age 66) Active: Since 1970 / 31 studio LPs, so far
New album: SPANISH MODEL What: An entire Spanish reimagining of his
outstanding 1978 LP This Year’s Model
recorded with The Attractions. Release: 10 September 2021 via UMe
I don’t know if it’s due to the past lockdowns with artists having a lot
of time on their hands following canceled tours and shows, but in the
past 18 months, some of them came up with some weird ideas. But the
most bizarre project so far is Elvis Costello joining (armed) forces with
his frequent collaborator Sebastian Krys for a full Spanish remake of This Year’s Model.
The duo picked a cast of Latin artists to sing each and every song
of the original – now remastered – album in Spanish. Que pasa?
Costello: “Part of the fun of this project is its unexpected nature. Although,
I think people in my audience that have been paying attention are pretty
much used to surprises by now.”
Krys: “When Elvis told me the idea, it took me about 15 seconds to answer.
I have been in so many situations where I was trying to turn Latin artists onto
Elvis’ music. The feedback I heard most often was ‘I love it. I wish I knew what
he was saying.’ Spanish Model is an opportunity to turn an entire side of the
world onto this great record and through these voices, get these ideas out. ”
Pump up the first taster right here…
Tracklist:
1. Nina Diaz – “No Action”
2. Raquel Sofía y Fuego – “(Yo No Quiero Ir A) Chelsea ((I Don’t Want To Go To) Chelsea)”
3. Draco Rosa – “Yo Te Vi (The Beat)”
4. Juanes – “Pump It Up”
5. La Marisoul – “Detonantes (Little Triggers)”
6. Luis Fonsi – “Tu Eres Para Mi (You Belong To Me)”
7. Francisca Valenzuela y Luis Humberto Navejas – “Hand In Hand”
8. Cami – “La Chica de Hoy (This Year’s Girl)”
9. Pablo López – “Mentira (Lip Service)”
10. Jesse & Joy – “Viviendo en el Paraiso (Living In Paradise)”
11. Morat – “Lipstick Vogue”
12. Jorge Drexler – “La Turba (Night Rally)”
13. Sebastián Yatra – “Llorar (Big Tears)”
14. Fito Páez – “Radio Radio”
15. Gian Marco y Nicole Zignago– “Crawling To The U.S.A.”
16. Vega – “Se Esta Perdiendo La Inocencia (Running Out Of Angels)”
‘Tokyo Storm Warning’ by ELVIS COSTELLO AND THE ATTRACTIONS
What do we care if the world is a joke? (Tokyo Storm Warning)
We’ll give it a big kiss, we’ll give it a poke (Tokyo Storm Warning)
Death wears a big hat ’cause he’s a big bloke (Tokyo Storm Warning)
We’re only living this instant
AllMusic: “All This Useless Beauty doesn’t quite add up
to a major statement, but the simple pleasures it offers
makes it one of the more rewarding records of the latter
part of Costello’s career.”
Artist: ELVIS COSTELLO Born: Declan Patrick Aloysius MacManus Active since 1970 / 31 studio albums (so far)
Album: MIGHTY LIKE A ROSE – his 13th LP Released: 14 May 191 – 30 years ago
Rolling Stone wrote: “In time you can turn these obsessions into careers,”
sings Elvis Costello on ‘Mighty Like a Rose’. This is true. Almost a decade and
a half after emerging as punk’s brightest angry young man, Costello faces a
musical midlife crisis. Will his caustic anger, once so cathartic and cleansing,
congeal into bitterness?
Is he stuck romanticizing his pain, or will he break through to some hard-won understanding and resolution?… While the bleak story lines still revolve around bad relationships and indict others for the singer’s own problems, the music reveals a more encouraging subtext. This is Costello’s most ambitious and adventurous
musicin ages.” Score: 3/5
TURN UP THE VOLUME 