Pennsylvania‘s legendary big shot TODD RUNGREN,
aged 77, had a remarkable career, which is far from
over.
His latest LP, called Space Force already dates from 2022,
but the musical centipede is unstoppable on the road (as I
witnessed last year in Brussels, formidable show).
For Los Angeles grunge rock shedevils L7 (1985–2001, 2014–present)
it will be their farewell tour.
Frontwoman Donita Sparks told Pitchfork: “When L7 decided to release a documentary
in 2015, we thought maybe we would take one last victory lap around the sun by playing some shows. Instead, that lap turned into eleven more years of touring, sweat, new music, and reconnecting with the fans. We are deeply grateful and ready to give our audiences one last, loud, fun, and hopefully unforgettable night of rock & roll.”
In order to not miss a beat Turn Up The Volume scans the musical
horizon daily (doing it for years now, actually) to stay in touch with
all new things sonically great and shares the results on a weekly
basis.
Check the 10 new rad cuts just
added to this rad 2023 playlist.
TRACK-BY-TRACK
1. ‘The Badge’ by genCAB (Philadelphia, Pennsylvania)
This eclectic industrial-electro act was founded by musician David Dutton in 2006.
genCAB (generation cable) released their debut album II Transmuter in 2008.
Second full length Thoughts Beyond The Words landed last year. And now LP #3,
titled ‘Signature Flaws’, is set for release in October on Metropolis Records.
Ahead of it comes The Badge. A Krautrock-like industrial
techno burst to start and close all (il)legal raves with.
To celebrate the late genial, eccentric, allround musician Leon Russell looking
artist, a 10-track tribute album came out last week, titled A Song For Leon.
Boston’s noise icons Pixies also feature on the LP with their steaming version
of Russell‘s 1971 classic boogie woogie cracker Crystal Closet Queen, which Black Francis and Co turned into a classic boogie woogie punk cracker.
In just 102 seconds these maddening motherrockers succeed to make
you switch from hip-and-hopping like a kangaroo on dope over a funk-punk
disco beat, to dive head first into a maniacal hardcore moshpit.
The infamous 90s feminist hit team L7 broke up in 2001.
They reunited in 2015, scored new LP Scatter The Rats 4 years later,
and celebrated the 30th anniversary of their smashing Bricks Are Heavy
album, last year.
And now this new single.
L7: The song was inspired by the ongoing catastrophic news of climate change
and the strange passions of billionaire space cowboys to explore and exploit the
outer limits of our stratosphere. We feel like there is nothing “out there” that is as
mind-blowing as the biodiversity of what we have here on Earth. Because we’re
cooler than Mars, damnit.
Pastel Blank: “Dopamine,” is about the moment when you realize you’ve been flipping between apps like you’re checking an empty fridge for the 10th time, hoping to feed your receptors something that feels as good as the younger days of however long ago you picked up your phone. Ultimately, you just trust the algorithm like it were family and fall your way down each doom scroll rabbit hole.”
It’s the 2nd single from his new, upcoming album.
It’s a fervent funky and a dance-trippy stomper. My ears hear the beat
of Queen‘s Another One Bites The Dust, the ardency of A Certain Ratio‘s Shack Up and a Prince guitar solo all rolled into one. I love my ears.
Internet stands as a reflection on the web, underscoring the irony
of boundless information devolving into disputes and trolling.
It’s a tremendously catchy bass-banging and irresistibly hip-shaking disco-rock
stunner that gets you swaying, left to right and back, from the get-go. A solid gold dancefloor filler. Hands down.
7. ‘All My Friends Are Death’ by downtalker (Boston)
(Photo credit: Alexa Noe)
The Boston post-punk disco project has two new rulling
tracks out, of which ‘All My Friends Are Death‘ hit my
ears first.
Songwriter Thompson: “The way I write is quite subconscious. So much so that I have that word tattooed on me. The music just opens me up. It’s always a healing journey and it’s always a pit in my stomach because every word I sing is my truth and I believe if you’re not feeling uncomfortable with the truth in your art you’re not doing it right. I’m trying to heal and trying
to figure out why all these moments are sticking in my head.”
Devo fan? C’mon in, here’s the place to be. Their kooky-punky-cacthy disco wackiness
is omnipresent, but there’s more at play here, folks. Jagged Gang Of Four guitar frenzy, reptitive Yello synth-booms, and mouthy-shouty vocals, will give you s-a-t-i-s-f-a-c-t-i-o-n.
The band’s name is a testament to their stature and nature – alter kaker is a Yiddish term for an old person, or as the band likes to call it, “an old fart.” That level of self-awareness helps when creating a song like “When You’re Gone.”
The band’s Steve Bronstein wrote this new one years ago near the close of a relationship. But unlike the more common musical theme in breakup songs, the singer isn’t sad about the conclusion – he relishes it.
Looking for an infectious jump-for-joy post-breakup tune? Here it is.
The song is “about those moments that happen between what we think of as events – walking from one place to the next, waiting for something. Generally these happen when you’re alone, and it’s in these moments that self-reflection happens – when we give ourselves permission to think about what things actually mean.”
This seasoned indie combo know precisely well how to touch your heart and soul. Inbewteening is a breezy, tender and gentle lullaby for quiet dream-away moments.
Moony vocals, mellifluent backup harmonies, candlelight romanticism. Top!
Band: L7 Who: L.A.’s female punk devils.
Reformed in 2014 Album: SCATTER THE RATS Turn Up The Volume says:
11 crushing hammers to party hard to L7 interview with L.A. Weekly here
Los Angeles‘ sharp rockers L7 first reunited in 2015 and repeated this sometime last year with some shaking singles and a documentary. Their new longplayer entitled SCATTER THE RATS, their first LP in 20 years will see the day of light early next month. Ahead of
it the band just dropped another firecracker called STADIUM WEST. A highly infectious poppy corker with a killer chorus. Listen/watch here…
Last year Los Angeles gusty rockers L7 returned with their first new track in 18 years,
the boisterous bang-up Dispatch From Mar-a-Lago and they also confirmed they were working on a full album. And here it is. New longplayer SCATTER THE RATS will hit the streets on 3rd May via legend Joan Jett‘s label Blackheart Records. The band’s Donita Sparks said of the LP’s title: “There were a couple of rats in the basement of the studio, where all the amplifiers were, and at one point Norm said to us, ‘Let’s get rockin’, we can scatter the rats.’”
Ahead of it here’s new single ‘BURN BABY‘. An infectious
and bouncy ripsnorter. Catch the blustery beat here…
‘Bricks Are Heavy’
by L7
Released: 14 April 1992
Third longplayer
ALL MUSIC wrote: “Though they hailed from sunny L.A., L7 became the poster girls for grunge in 1992, with the meteoric success of their third album, Bricks Are Heavy. While their previous efforts had sounded sloppy and uneven, Nevermind producer Butch Vig helped the girls obtain a tight, compact sound on Bricks, pushing them to focus on their songwriting to boot. After all, great albums need great songs, and that’s exactly what you have here. these four ladies had been doing this kind of thing for as long as the Seattle trio. L7’s crowning achievement, Bricks Are Heavy sadly proved to be an impossible act to follow, and the band gradually faded into obscurity thereafter.”
TURN UP THE VOLUME‘s (and almost anybody’s) favorite track: PRETEND WE’RE DEAD
L7, the all-female kick-ass turbine from sunny Los Angeles split at the end of the ’90s,
but returned in 2015 to work on the 2016 Trump-baiting hammer ‘Dispatch From Mar-A-Lago’. Now, after the recent released band’s documentary, the outspoken loudmouths
are back again and obviously on a loud and clear mission. I CAME BACK TO BITCH is a red-hot sledgehammer with massive guitars, bloody loud drums, lots of sneering and
raging, and a matching ‘fuck you’ clip…
