Blues rock veteran JON SPENCER has been riffin’ around since 1983. He did so, with…
take a deep breath, his first band Pussy Galore, his gang the Blues Explosion, with his wife Christina Martinez‘s inBoss Hog, with his group the Hitmakers, and now as a trio (under his own name) with Kendall Wind on bass and Spider Bowman on drums.
Press info: “Garage punk for today, hyper-driven soul and powerhouse grooves,
beats hard as diamonds and slick as ice, fuzz bass in your face, and an avalanche
of uncontrollable urges, pushing Jon’s latest outbursts — hollering, drooling, sexified crooning, and vociferously lamenting these difficult times — to new levels of rock’n’roll expressionism.”
Spencer: “I’m in a time of spiritual reckoning. These past few years, there has been a lot of emotional conflict and personal loss, the passing of time takes its toll. Losing friends, losing family, and all of this set against a world gone topsy-turvy, where it feels like we are losing
basic freedoms I’m trying to balance a lot of things, but the answer is always rock ’n’ roll.”
TUTV: Spencer is fed up, as millions of us, with that monkey in the White House. He totally messed up the world’s balance with trade wars, insulting and intimidating other countries and their leaders for not kissing his fat ass, and with his economically disastrous Iran war, and all this in just 18 months. Whatever disturbs Spencer’s mind, he seeks distraction in his music, as we music junkies do in listening to it.
There’s an abundance of anxiety, anger, and fury to ventilate on this new record, instigating a non-stop riff-licks-hooks flood. Old skool blues explosions. A 32-minute
tirade of raging rock ‘n’ rebellious roll excitation. Songs Of Personal Loss And Protest has enough deliberative firepower to reinvigorate us with the confidence to face and fight
the daily turmoil caused by larger-than-life egos in charge, who derail our lives.
Thanks, Jon.
“It’s a song about impossible tasks. It’s about trying to do everything you have been told to do in life, and never achieving what was promised. The goalposts have shifted, no, that isn’t how you do it.”
TUTV: Really Good Time are manic motherrockers, racing and rushing with puissance and roasting power. They develop a kind of Gilla Band disturbance, but less chaotic, way more movin’ and groovin’. Whether you want it or not, your head goes 360. Blimey.
Band: FARVEBLIND Who: Electro dance-pop-rock trio from Copenhagen, Denmark that fabricates
sonic touchstones ranging from Battles and The Chemical Brothers to Underworld
and Viagra Boys.
TUTV: A cocksure, motorik-feverish dancefloor filler for sweaty nightclubs. A tsunami of synth extravaganza hits you straight in the face, while rollicking vocals add a jaunty feel.
Artists: ARAB STRAP Who: Trippy Scottish electro-pop vets, Aidan Moffat and Malcolm Middleton (1995–2006, 2011, 2016–present).
Track: YOU YOU YOU
First single from their new full-length Half-Told Tales,
their 9th, out on September 4th. Tracklist here.
AS: “A disco-metal sound and lyrics that explore
overcoming troubles and tumultuous times”.
TUTV: Trip Trip Trip! Hip Hip Hip! We We We!
“I’ve got a portly paunch I just can’t shift/I feel undesired, dismissed, adrift/
My get-up-and-go is long gone/ and the days keep dragging on/ But I’ve got
you, you, you”
Okereke wrote the record in the wake of a more than decade-long relationship.
“Every lyric you’re hearing on this record was something that actually happened to me.
I had to tell the story, from start to finish.”
TUTV: Damn. Time flies with supersonic speed. BC are entertaining our eager eardrums since 1999. Well Okereke took time, now and then, for solo work, but it’s always a sonic pleasure to hear them coming up, again and again with firm, dance-spiked singles.
TUTV: Soft Cell on adrenaline. Erasure on amphetamine. Enriching electro pop nirvana
at its most beautiful. Ignore the outside bedlam for about 6 minutes on repeat. The beat goes on and on and on. Twirl yourself dizzy.
Track: WHAT FUTURE
The title song of his new album.
Carr: “I’ve been putting together these sounds for many years but this
is the first time where I thought ‘this doesn’t really sound like anything else
and decided to put it out.”
TUTV: Techno daft-punk on the run. Electro rock shock. Winding mix of paranoic synths, bass booms, and some helium-infused Carr interventions. Good grief. What a brainfucker.
TUTV: This is a sassy, kind of fuck you stunner, that speeds all over your
trembling stereo with Rønnenfelt throwing sneers around. Vicious sucker
punch all the way.
Band: THE CHRONICLES OF MANIMAL AND SAMARA Who: London-based DIY duo – Daphne Ang (Singapore) and Andrea Papi (Italy)
that fills a gap in music by bringing literature, art, and history together into a
space where rock and metal meet electronica.
Track: GIROTONDO
Single from their forthcoming 4th album, named Misantropi.
Out June 22nd. Tracklist and pre-order info here.
TUTV: This Metallica-echoing shocker thunders unstoppably and peaks every time its fistpumping chorus kicks in. TCOMAS rock here as never before. They kick ass with this striking uppercut.
Band:SOCIAL DISTORTION Who: The robust, generational Californian rockers fronted by the only
original member, voice/guitarist/songwriter Mike Ness, who beat tonsil
cancer a few years ago, are one of the most notorious and celebrated
American punk bands ever.
Band: CASSIUS WOLF & DAS ABS Who: The musical project of Cassius Wolf and Don Watson. Formed in Liverpool during the original wave of post-punk and new wave. Now, decades later, that same spirit is driving the band’s long-awaited return.
Track: LOSING SLEEP
Single from their brand new full-length, An Afternoon in Bedlam. Stream here.
TUTV: When I say that this avid anthem has an epic Echo & Bunnymen sonority,
you should pay attention instantly. The flamboyant flair, the whirling drive, the
euphoric vocals. I see Ian McCulloch standing around the corner, with a big smile
on his face.
Band: DELFOI ROAD Who: A Finnish alternative rock act, formed at the turn of the millennium.
The four-piece blends artistic sensitivity, strong melodic songwriting, and
atmospheric depth with an energetic and dynamic edge.
Track: TAKE ME AWAY
New piece from their upcoming debut full-length, planned to come out in the fall. “It’s one of the catchiest and most radio-friendly tracks on the album.”
Artwork single
TUTV: Think Mumford and Sons‘ arousing passion and vocal eagerness. Take Me Away draws you into its stirring spirits, its intensifying orchestration,
and its exhilarating euphoniousness. Towering tour de force.
BZ: “I’ve spent a long time thinking about where to take my musical journey next & Real Problems, ironically, has become an unexpected solution. I wrote this track off the cuff a while back, as an outlet for feeling disconnected from the so called “real world”. For my entire life I’ve been told “that’s just how the world is” but all I’ve learnt in my 23 years alive is that it seems the world was never meant to be like this.
Humans have this disturbing desire to disconnect themselves from the natural world & forget that we’re in fact all a part of it. Real Problems is my attempt to reconnect to that part of myself that I feel has been hidden away due to societal noise. I’ve never met ‘these people’ & they’ve never met me, so why am I expected to uphold their ideas of who I was meant to be!”
TUTV: Industrial slam-bang EBM for all dance-addicted misfits out there.
You need to be in top shape to catch up with Bizarre Fae. She zooms with
steamy swiftness throughout this boomtastic missile. Face your problems
and sway them into oblivion. Trust me, it’s unquestionably worth a try.
Artist: KAT FIVE Who: EBM songstress from London. She fuses together a raw
punk energy with a dark pop magic, she consistently creates
indefinable, politically-engaged glitched-up anthems.
FIVE: “This is a call out to all kinds of creators, and also a shout out
for some simple moves you can make against techno-feudalism.”
TUTV: Kat Five offers a both luring and foreboding-sounding EBM tune for
shadow-dancing fans. Despite the hazardous times worldwide, she suggests,
rightly so, that togetherness is the only way to get out of the intolerant chaos
we have to go through right now.
Artist: SOUTHPAW GRAMMAR Who: British garage musician and producer. He has toured extensively with some
of the biggest names in popular music. His music speaks directly to the realities of working-class life while delivering dancefloor-ready grooves.
“It captures the evolution of a generation raised on late nights and pirate radio, now navigating mortgages, energy bills, and nursery pickups. With his signature dry wit and unmistakably British storytelling, Southpaw Grammar delivers a relatable anthem for anyone who’s swapped the rave for responsibility but still hears the bassline in everyday life.”
TUTV: This is cheer fun. Its ska-esque beat and jumpy flow kick-start hectic body movements. Bouncy piano touches and frolicsome rappin’ piggyback the feel-good tone. Ideal to play when workin’ out, although I fear that many of us (certainly me) will fall over our feet when trying to follow the pace. Fervid ambiance.
LV: “At least four or five of the songs on the record speak to a life lived being in bands, the bonds forged, and the life of a musician and performer, with themes of loss, addiction, death and redemption woven through. All the cliches about spending your time in bars, being on the road, being ‘out’ and not at home, are real.”
TUTV: Overall, this is a warm, hearty, and nostalgic energizer, spiced with classic textbook riffs and bright-eyed and bushy-tailed vocals. A stimulating upper for moody moments. It’s only rock ‘n’ roll, but we’ll never stop liking it.
Blues rock veteran JON SPENCER has been riffin’ around since 1983. He did so, with…
take a deep breath, his first band Pussy Galore, his gang the Blues Explosion, with his wife Christina Martinez‘s inBoss Hog, with his group the Hitmakers, and now as a trio (under his own name) with Kendall Wind on bass and Spider Bowman on drums.
Press info: “Garage punk for today, hyper-driven soul and powerhouse grooves,
beats hard as diamonds and slick as ice, fuzz bass in your face, and an avalanche
of uncontrollable urges, pushing Jon’s latest outbursts — hollering, drooling, sexified crooning, and vociferously lamenting these difficult times — to new levels of rock’n’roll expressionism.”
Ahead of the album, we get these 2 riff-insane sucker-punches.
If you like your blues rough, devilish, dirty and burning as hell you’ll be as ecstatic
as I am about the spectacular return of BOSS HOG. After 16 years this glowing gang
featuring legendary blues junkie Jon Spencer and his charismatic wife and ex-Pussy
Galore tiger Cristina Martinez released new album BROOD X earlier this year. The longplayer bellows viciously as if the 5-piece band is involved in a merciless, sonic fight
with evil demons, with unsightly cacodemons and anything nasty in daily life on this troubled planet. A deranged pièce de résistance, a nasty triumph. Have a slice here…
Yesterday the band nailed it gloriously in my hometown Ghent. A trashing steamroller from start to finish. Spencer still plays like a hellbent obsessive who only functions when producing an electrifying stream of messy riffs Satan listens to 24/7. He makes lighting sounding like thunder while the irresistibly eye-catching Martinez moves from left to right and back like a hungry snake on two legs. She looks like a voodoo priestess who’s after your wicked soul and growls freakishly, assisted now and then by Jon’s striking vox, like the apocalypse is just around the corner, and she hits the shit out of her big drum like it was the last thing she ever will do. Volcanic stuff extra fueled by a roaring rhythm section and spiced with sultry keys. If you want any day of the year feels like a smashing Halloween party here’s the one and only soundtrack to do the job…
