Crooner, balladeer, countryman, poet, and seasoned songsmithJEFF TWEEDY and his band WILCO released their 13th LP, named COUSIN, in their 31-year career
PITCHFORK: “With help from producer Cate Le Bon, the Chicago band’s 13th album
flickers to life on several songs that hint at the controlled chaos of their bygone experimental era. It’s the first Wilco album in years to activate, in fits and starts, the band’s long-dormant experimental gene; the first one in years where the songwriting feels as guided by the production as vice versa. It’s a reminder that, as much as Wilco have become known for longevity and sturdy perseverance, the group’s creative restlessness remains their calling card.” Score: 7/10.
Press photo
TUTV: Except for upbeat rockers Cousin and Meant To Be songsmith Tweedy
and Wilco take it easy on this new record with laid-back country-pop tunes
and introspective and life-inspired musings.
“It’s pretty sculpted art pop. It’s alien. The songs are alien shapes,” he says. To be
honest, I have no idea what he’s talking about. Anyway, Tweedy and Wilco know
their craft for years now and used it again for this longplayer.
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!
“Wilco make their debut on the cover of the new Uncut. The issue also comes with a free Wilco CD, compiled by the band, celebrating the 20th anniversary of their landmark album, Yankee Hotel Foxtrot. Plus Blondie, The Kinks, Kate Bush, The Rolling Stones, Love, Cass McCombs and plenty more!
Purchase a copy and let it sent to your home. Infohere.
Wilco‘s magnum opus Yankee Foxtrot Hotel
was released 20 years ago, last year…
It features 21 Jeff Tweedy-penned tracks,
made almost entirely of live takes,
created with all six members together.
Pitchfork says: “On a 21-track double album recorded live in the studio, Wilco embrace
a simple, buoyant approach that hearkens back to Jeff Tweedy’s earliest work… There may
be a gentle current flowing through its 21 songs, but the sheer abundance can also feel overwhelming. As lovely as they often are, the songs seem to drift and float, and Cruel
Country plays less like a sculpted double album than a vividly detailed snapshot of a
particular moment in time.” Score: 7/10.
Turn Up The Volume: Chicago songsmith Jeff Tweedy and his amigos are experts of electrical country music as they prove once more on this double LP. But as it often happens with double albums they’re too long which makes the quality go downwards.
Also here, it would have been a lot better to select the 11 best songs on 1 longplayer.
Band: WILCO (Chicago) Who: Singer-songwriter Jeff Tweedy‘s combo Active: Since 1994 / 11 LPs so far
Anniversary album:BEING THERE 2nd LP Released: 29 October 1996 – 25 years ago today
AllMusic wrote; “Being There’s 19 tracks are individually outstanding, and taken
together, they add up to a three-way cross between Neil Young’s Harvest, the Rolling
Stones’ Exile on Main St., and Big Star’s 3rd that still leaves room for some impressive
tricks of its own. If Being There isn’t Wilco’s best album, it’s the one that staked their
claim as an important American band, and it’s a rich, dazzling experience from
beginning to end.” Full review here. Score: 4.5/5.
Turn Up The Volume: First big Wilco triumph, several to follow.
