ANTI 2024 Catalog Sale
Green to Gold is the much-anticipated new album from New York based, Indie/Folk band, The Antlers. Perhaps what distinguishes Green to Gold from the rest of The Antlers’ canon is its, well, sunniness. Conceived and written almost entirely in the morning hours, Green to Gold is the band’s first new music in nearly seven years, and easily their most luminous to date. ”I think this is the first album I’ve made that has no eeriness in it,” singer and primary songwriter Peter Silberman asserts. “I set out to make Sunday morning music.”
The brighter outlook emerged, paradoxically, after a succession of ominous events. In 2015, Silberman suffered with an auditory condition that made touring near impossible and he retreated to the quiet of Upstate New York to heal. His return in 2017 with a solo album was short lived when he was diagnosed with lesions on his vocal chords, which required surgery and again a quiet rest and recovery period. Silberman explains. “I took these health obstacles as a sign that I should change course for a little while. I hadn’t made a full stop like that since The Antlers began.”
But he still felt the strong pull to spend time and work with longtime drummer Michael Lerner, and frequently invited him up to visit the idyllic hamlet he now called home. The two friends’ days typically involved long walks in the woods, but routinely ended up in Silberman’s converted-garage studio. “I would record him playing drums in the studio while he listened to old soul and R&B songs in headphones... and those drum recordings ultimately served as starting points for the songs that followed. At the time, we were merely attempting to make music together again, without really knowing how to approach it, or to what end.”
“I think the shift in tone is the result of getting older. It doesn’t make sense for me to try to tap into the same energy that I did ten or fifteen years ago, because I continue to grow as a person, as I’m sure our audience does too. Green to Gold is about this idea of gradual change,” he sums up. “People changing over time, struggling to accept change in those they love, and struggling to change themselves. And yet despite all our difficulty with this, nature somehow makes it look easy.”
Green to Gold is the much-anticipated new album from New York based, Indie/Folk band, The Antlers. Perhaps what distinguishes Green to Gold from the rest of The Antlers’ canon is its, well, sunniness. Conceived and written almost entirely in the morning hours, Green to Gold is the band’s first new music in nearly seven years, and easily their most luminous to date. ”I think this is the first album I’ve made that has no eeriness in it,” singer and primary songwriter Peter Silberman asserts. “I set out to make Sunday morning music.”
The brighter outlook emerged, paradoxically, after a succession of ominous events. In 2015, Silberman suffered with an auditory condition that made touring near impossible and he retreated to the quiet of Upstate New York to heal. His return in 2017 with a solo album was short lived when he was diagnosed with lesions on his vocal chords, which required surgery and again a quiet rest and recovery period. Silberman explains. “I took these health obstacles as a sign that I should change course for a little while. I hadn’t made a full stop like that since The Antlers began.”
But he still felt the strong pull to spend time and work with longtime drummer Michael Lerner, and frequently invited him up to visit the idyllic hamlet he now called home. The two friends’ days typically involved long walks in the woods, but routinely ended up in Silberman’s converted-garage studio. “I would record him playing drums in the studio while he listened to old soul and R&B songs in headphones... and those drum recordings ultimately served as starting points for the songs that followed. At the time, we were merely attempting to make music together again, without really knowing how to approach it, or to what end.”
“I think the shift in tone is the result of getting older. It doesn’t make sense for me to try to tap into the same energy that I did ten or fifteen years ago, because I continue to grow as a person, as I’m sure our audience does too. Green to Gold is about this idea of gradual change,” he sums up. “People changing over time, struggling to accept change in those they love, and struggling to change themselves. And yet despite all our difficulty with this, nature somehow makes it look easy.”
Growing up in the suburbs of Ontario, CA sisters Harmonie and Heaven Martinez have been playing music before they could walk and songwriting since middle school. It was when the two brought a few friends into the equation that they formed what is now an Indie rock band they call Ariel View. With Harmonie Martinez (vocals/lead guitar), Heaven Martinez (vocals/bass), Miranda Viramontes (rhythm guitar), and Nadina Parra (drums), Ariel View have played countless DIY and club shows across Southern California. Influenced by garage, surf, psych rock, emo, and pop punk, Ariel View make music you can dance to, party to, sing along to, or maybe even cry to if that strikes the mood.
Art Moore make vivid, heartbreaking short stories. Each song on the newly formed band’s self-titled debut album is its own individual universe of bittersweet feeling: a brief snapshot of a moment in time that captures the fragility and occasional impossibility of human connection. These songs are deft character studies, zeroing in on shy beginners, jilted friends and friendly exes, chronicling minute moments—road trips, casual dates, games of truth or dare—with rich detail and subtle wit. Featuring the inimitable songwriting of beloved Oakland luminary Taylor Vick of Boy Scouts set in sharp relief against lush production from Ezra Furman collaborators Sam Durkes and Trevor Brooks, it’s a quietly wondrous record — a set of songs that sketch out the struggle and beauty of coping with everyday life. These are songs about tiny, unspoken feelings rendered on a grand scale, moments that often get brushed aside given the weight that they should be. Across these ten stories, Vick, Brooks and Durkes
are unsparing in their focus but remarkably generous in their artistry — three pairs of steady, even hands crafting one fine, precious object.
Art Moore make vivid, heartbreaking short stories. Each song on the newly formed band’s self-titled debut album is its own individual universe of bittersweet feeling: a brief snapshot of a moment in time that captures the fragility and occasional impossibility of human connection. These songs are deft character studies, zeroing in on shy beginners, jilted friends and friendly exes, chronicling minute moments—road trips, casual dates, games of truth or dare—with rich detail and subtle wit. Featuring the inimitable songwriting of beloved Oakland luminary Taylor Vick of Boy Scouts set in sharp relief against lush production from Ezra Furman collaborators Sam Durkes and Trevor Brooks, it’s a quietly wondrous record — a set of songs that sketch out the struggle and beauty of coping with everyday life. These are songs about tiny, unspoken feelings rendered on a grand scale, moments that often get brushed aside given the weight that they should be. Across these ten stories, Vick, Brooks and Durkes
are unsparing in their focus but remarkably generous in their artistry — three pairs of steady, even hands crafting one fine, precious object.
Taylor Vick makes music that is instantly comforting and arrestingly beautiful. Under her songwriting moniker Boy Scouts, the Bay Area artist has spent over a decade refining her craft, penning heartbreak confessionals over glitchy drum loops since Myspace days. It wasn’t until 2015 that Vick put together a live band and became a staple of San Francisco and Oakland lineups. On her forthcoming album, it feels like Boy Scouts has truly arrived. Recorded and produced by Stephen Steinbrink, every element exists purely to serve the songs - the bass lines bounce and guitars are lush, but nothing gets in the way of Vick’s true superpower, her voice. Delicately layered harmonies exude an effortless grace, and make the most casual lyrics hit the hardest. There’s something so honest about her songs, they feel like late night therapy sessions with your best friend.
On Wayfinder, the follow-up to the acclaimed 2019 album Free Company, Oakland-based songwriter Taylor Vick, under her songwriting moniker Boy Scouts, chases down life’s queries to the very edge of the horizon. This is an album that’s not afraid to track down what it all means -- how life unspools around the monoliths of love and death, the heavy knots of even quotidian conflict, the task of carrying your own suffering with you day after day, the challenge of meeting other people out here in the tangled expanse of living. In a warm, expansive style that recalls the raw punctures of Lucinda Williams and Alex G, Vick once again shows herself to be a fearless seeker shedding light on the unanswerable.
Vick’s true superpower is her voice. Strands of slide guitar, organ, and strings ring under her affable, ex- pressive voice, bolstering layers and layers of harmony. There is something so honest about her songs, they feel like a late-night therapy session with your best friend.
Taylor Vick makes music that is instantly comforting and arrestingly beautiful. Under her songwriting moniker Boy Scouts, the Bay Area artist has spent over a decade refining her craft, penning heartbreak confessionals over glitchy drum loops since Myspace days. It wasn’t until 2015 that Vick put together a live band and became a staple of San Francisco and Oakland lineups. On her forthcoming album, it feels like Boy Scouts has truly arrived. Recorded and produced by Stephen Steinbrink, every element exists purely to serve the songs - the bass lines bounce and guitars are lush, but nothing gets in the way of Vick’s true superpower, her voice. Delicately layered harmonies exude an effortless grace, and make the most casual lyrics hit the hardest. There’s something so honest about her songs, they feel like late night therapy sessions with your best friend.
Artvertisement is Bradbury’s third album and second release for ANTI-, following his critically acclaimed 2019 LP Talking Dogs & Atom Bombs. Bradbury wrote Artvertisement while touring in support of Talking Dogs, and recorded the album at Trace Horse Studio in March of 2020 over the strange, anxious handful of days between Nashville’s devastating March 3rd tornado and the start of the COVID-19 shutdown.
The title Artvertisement was inspired by Bradbury’s difficult experiences navigating the polished, often soulless Nashville music industry, where record label executives would laud his songwriting — some going so far as to call him a genius — but ultimately turn him away because his music wasn’t commercial.
While music is still his primary focus, Bradbury has leaned into working on visual art, which, like his music, draws out both the darkness and the humor of the everyday. His art aligns aesthetically with his music. His portraits are abstract, while his smaller sketches veer more toward humor and commentary. He sells his art on a “pay what you want” model, explaining that he is as happy to sell a painting for a nickel as he is for five hundred dollars.
It may not be the kind of financial model that lands him a high-rise office overlooking downtown Nashville, but that’s always been the antithesis of what Bradbury is about. “Do no harm but take what you need,” he says. “Holding on to success, holding onto money... What does it matter? We’re all going to die someday.”
Darrin Bradbury writes about the way things really are in America – a singular perspective shaped by a natural gift for storytelling and a sly sense of humor. A self-described folk satirist who has toured the country for more than a decade, Bradbury collects his oddball observations in his newest album, Talking Dogs & Atom Bombs. Bradbury grew up in New Jersey with an early interest in performing, partly because of his mother’s career as a circus clown. At the age of 7, he felt certain that he would either become a songwriter or a cartoonist. He learned to play guitar as a vessel to tell his stories. By the age of 18, he’d discovered Bob Dylan, Jack Kerouac, and Paul Simon, and decided to hit the road. At 25, he moved to Nashville, to try making it as a songwriter. For three months, he slept in his car in a Walmart parking lot, and developed a local following by playing open mic nights. With a handful of self-funded EPs and albums, Bradbury steadily cultivated a national audience by touring constantly. Talking Dogs & Atom Bombs is Bradbury’s first release for ANTI- Records. - Album Produced by Kenneth Pattengale of The Milk Carton Kids - Featured players on this album include a “who’s who” of Nashville players including Margo Price (featured vocal on “The Trouble With Time” ) , Kenneth Pattengale (vocals, mellotron), Jeremy Ivey (bass, piano), Alex Munoz (guitar, lap steel, vocals) and Dillion Napier (drums).
Artvertisement is Bradbury’s third album and second release for ANTI-, following his critically acclaimed 2019 LP Talking Dogs & Atom Bombs. Bradbury wrote Artvertisement while touring in support of Talking Dogs, and recorded the album at Trace Horse Studio in March of 2020 over the strange, anxious handful of days between Nashville’s devastating March 3rd tornado and the start of the COVID-19 shutdown.
The title Artvertisement was inspired by Bradbury’s difficult experiences navigating the polished, often soulless Nashville music industry, where record label executives would laud his songwriting — some going so far as to call him a genius — but ultimately turn him away because his music wasn’t commercial.
While music is still his primary focus, Bradbury has leaned into working on visual art, which, like his music, draws out both the darkness and the humor of the everyday. His art aligns aesthetically with his music. His portraits are abstract, while his smaller sketches veer more toward humor and commentary. He sells his art on a “pay what you want” model, explaining that he is as happy to sell a painting for a nickel as he is for five hundred dollars.
It may not be the kind of financial model that lands him a high-rise office overlooking downtown Nashville, but that’s always been the antithesis of what Bradbury is about. “Do no harm but take what you need,” he says. “Holding on to success, holding onto money... What does it matter? We’re all going to die someday.”
20th Anniversary Edition of the Grammy Award Winning album by the King of Rock ‘n’ Soul - the great Solomon Burke. Newly mastered and includes the bonus track “I Need A Holiday”. The newly packaged booklet includes exclusive photos from the recording session and new liner notes.
Recorded live in the studio in a raw, organic style by Joe Henry, the album features new compositions by writers and artists including Bob Dylan, Van Morrison, Tom Waits, Elvis Costello, Barry Mann & Cynthia Weil, Nick Lowe, Brian Wilson, Joe Henry and Dan Penn, all of whom credit Solomon with deeply influencing their work. None of these songs have ever been released commercially before now, and Solomon makes each of them his own with his dynamic delivery.
Calexico occupy their signature sound on the new album, El Mira- dor; riding the continental divide between dream pop, Mexican folk and Americana. If any band understands how to expand their sound without losing the brilliant essence of the band, it’s Calexico. Their songs run the gamut from retro-tinged alt-rock, to sentimental folk to southwestern tracks with an impressive display of vision and expertly honed skills. With vocals that intertwine English and Spanish, El Mirador embraces the musical heritage of the southwest, and features guest artists from all musical genres including: Sam Beam (Iron & Wine) who drops backing vocals on “Harness the Wind”, Jairo Zavala of Depedro is featured vocalist on “Cumbia Peninsula” Gaby Moreno and Mexican Institute Of Sound are featured on “Cumbia Del Polvo”.
Combo Chimbita unleash a primal roar of catharsis on their latest album, IRÉ, channeling a burning spiritual awakening blazing through the world and in their hearts. Rapturous cumbia, ancestral drumming, free jazz, electronic distortion and wordless chants abound throughout IRÉ; a testament to the ever expanding scope of Combo Chimbita’s sonic palette and acts of resistance in realms both spiritual and terrestrial.
The New York City-based quartet are tracing their roots back to Colombia and even further to the precolonial continent of Abya Yala. Often described as tropical futurists for their ambitious melange of ancestral musical traditions and cutting edge experimentation, the creative unity of Carolina Oliveros (vocals, guacharaca), Nińo Lento es Fuego (guitar), Prince of Queens (bass, synthesizers) and Dilemastronauta (drums) transcends common concepts of time and nationality. By identifying as Abyayalistas, the ensemble takes yet another step towards unshackling their essence from the cruelty of conquest and the stifling oppression of land borders.
Deafheaven was formed in 2010 by vocalist George Clarke and guitarist Kerry McCoy. They released their debut studio album Roads To Judah in 2011 . They added drummer Daniel Tracy to the group and released their breakthrough album Sunbather in 2013. After rounding out their line up with guitarist Shiv Mehra and bassist Stephen Clark—each subsequent live set felt like a religious experience for the bigger (and bigger) shows that followed. Their third album, and first for ANTI-, 2015’s New Bermuda, was heavier, sturdier, and more grounded in the dirt than Sunbather. They toured extensively to support New Bermuda playing tours and festivals with Lamb Of God, Anthrax, Danzig, and Gojira. Deafheaven’s new album, Ordinary Corrupt Human Love, finds them working with old friends again. The Jack Shirley-produced and Nick Steinhardt-art directed (of Touché Amoré) collection gets its title from Graham Greene’s novel The End of the Affair, referencing a moment when someone is looking for love, in all of its imper¬fection and simple beauty. This sentiment is carried throughout the hazy, yearning romanticism of the record with song titles and words as sumptuous as the sounds around them. Clarke describes the composition of Ordinary Corrupt Human Love beginning with “small seeds of healing, repair, and rebirth,” and like each subsequent Deafheaven album, this record is, in fact, a revelation. Defeat has inspired some of our best art. If you survive something terrible, you surface on the other side, walk toward the light, and come back to life. If you’re an artist, this kind of new self-knowledge can lead to creating something universal and remembered, something that can live longer than you do. While Deafheaven have managed to cross over this road in the past, they’ve nailed the feeling wholly with Ordinary Corrupt Human Love, a feeling that comes with experience and wisdom. Yes, everybody deals with hurt, everybody’s been the cause of their own implosions, and everybody has the capacity to overcome and love again. Deafheaven have found a way to externalize all of this, and in making their most complete record to date, they turn it into a balm and a cathartic exorcism.
Under the name Delicate Steve, guitarist extrodinaire Steve Marion has spent the better part of the last decade establishing himself as one of the most wildly innovative and widely revered players in the game. He’s recorded with Paul Simon, been sampled by Kanye West, toured in the Black Keys, and released four critically acclaimed albums of genre-bending instrumental music. He’s your favorite musician’s favorite musician, a virtuoso songwriter, producer, and performer who occupies a lane entirely his own in the modern indie landscape, but he’s never liked the sound of the electric guitar? “I’ve tried everything under the sun to get away from it,” he explains. “Until now.”
Written and recorded on a white 1966 Fender Stratocaster that reignited his love for the instrument, Delicate Steve’s warm and captivating new album, After Hours, marks a first for Marion, an earnest, easygoing collection that revels in the simple joys of plugging in and playing. The songs are sweet and breezy here, pairing vintage soul grooves with mesmerizing, wordless melodies, and Marion’s production work is subtle and restrained, stepping back in all the right places to let the album’s masterful performances speak for themselves. In another first, Marion teamed up with outside musicians on the record, bringing in renowned bassist Shahzad Ismaily (Yoko Ono, Marc Ribot) and famed Brazilian percussionist Mauro Refosco (David Byrne, Atoms For Peace) to help flesh out the arrangements and stretch his sonic boundaries. The result is a dreamy, introspective album built for late night comedowns and deep dive soul searching, a cinematic, escapist fantasy for the wee hours of the morning that draws on everything from Bill Withers and Sly Stone to Pharoah Sanders and Salvador Dali as it explores memory and nostalgia, instinct and intuition, serenity and transcendence.
Delicate Steve is back with his 5th studio album, Till I Burn Up. A critically acclaimed guitarist beloved by music critics and his peers, Steve has played on the albums of artists from Paul Simon to Yeasayer, and toured with artists from Tame Impala to The Growlers. Check out what the critics have to say about Delicate Steve. “Steve Marion..this fierce and lyrical guitar player, who performs as Delicate Steve, writes playful instrumental music led by hooky vocals — but there is no voice. His electric guitar is often played with a glass slide, mimicking a human being and bringing a palpable personality to his songs. “ - BOB BOILAND , NPR MUSIC “Steve Marion has become something you didn’t know you even needed in this day and age: a guitar hero. And just as contemporary superhero franchise reboots tend to focus less on their protagonists’ powers and more on their flaws, Marion wields his ample talent with the humility of a mortal. On the (mostly) instrumental albums he’s released as Delicate Steve, Marion’s guitar playing is always in the spotlight, but never hogging it—rather, his luminous leads form the emotional undercurrent around which everything else flows. What makes Marion a guitar hero isn’t just his technical wizardry, but his music’s mission to help you through dark times.” - STUART BERMAN, PITCHFORK
Rage, confusion, despair, self-deception, and introspection—Madi Diaz cycles through the full spectrum of emotions on History Of A Feeling, her debut on ANTI-. It’s an album that undeniably marks Diaz’s status as a first-rate songwriter, a craft she’s spent years refining, and one wherein Diaz establishes herself as an artist capable of distilling profound feelings with ease.
Diaz pulls from a range of folk, country, and pop leanings—she is as much influ- enced by Patty Griffin and Lori McKenna as she is the sonics of PJ Harvey and di- rectness of Kathleen Hanna. On History Of A Feeling, the Nashville based songwriter comes to terms with the dissolution of a meaningful relationship. By the end of it, she wills herself into a self-reflective state where she doesn’t hate herself for being so heartbroken.
The songs on History Of A Feeling, are the most direct and introspective songs Diaz has ever written. In the few times she’s gotten to perform them live in front of an audience, Diaz describes the experience as one where she feels acutely present even though she’s singing about emotions that started to take root years ago. It’s relatable to anyone who has experienced heartbreak and great change in some manner, and this profound sense of intimacy and camaraderie she seamlessly weaves into the songs was important to her. “I wanted it to sound conversational, like I had just walked over to your house and we’re sitting and at the end of your driveway talking—just like we’re hashing it out in the same way that you’d call a best friend at one in the morning because you needed to talk about what just happened.”
Rage, confusion, despair, self-deception, and introspection—Madi Diaz cycles through the full spectrum of emotions on History Of A Feeling, her debut on ANTI-. It’s an album that undeniably marks Diaz’s status as a first-rate songwriter, a craft she’s spent years refining, and one wherein Diaz establishes herself as an artist capable of distilling profound feelings with ease.
Diaz pulls from a range of folk, country, and pop leanings—she is as much influ- enced by Patty Griffin and Lori McKenna as she is the sonics of PJ Harvey and di- rectness of Kathleen Hanna. On History Of A Feeling, the Nashville based songwriter comes to terms with the dissolution of a meaningful relationship. By the end of it, she wills herself into a self-reflective state where she doesn’t hate herself for being so heartbroken.
The songs on History Of A Feeling, are the most direct and introspective songs Diaz has ever written. In the few times she’s gotten to perform them live in front of an audience, Diaz describes the experience as one where she feels acutely present even though she’s singing about emotions that started to take root years ago. It’s relatable to anyone who has experienced heartbreak and great change in some manner, and this profound sense of intimacy and camaraderie she seamlessly weaves into the songs was important to her. “I wanted it to sound conversational, like I had just walked over to your house and we’re sitting and at the end of your driveway talking—just like we’re hashing it out in the same way that you’d call a best friend at one in the morning because you needed to talk about what just happened.”
Transforming pain into transcendence is the genius of many pop artists, but Doe Paoro brings an entirely new depth to that process. On her third album Soft Power, the L.A.-based singer/songwriter digs into her own frustration and anguish, and ultimately comes away with a newfound strength that’s profoundly inspiring. Soft Power thus bears a raw vitality that marks a major departure from Doe’s previous album. Naming Carole King among her inspirations, Doe notes that the new record’s more urgent feel comes partly from reconnecting with the instinctive approach of her earliest songwriting. Throughout the album, Doe infuses her songs with a rebellious spirit. A passionately charged track about misogyny, “Guilty” blends cascading guitar lines with sharply cutting lyrics (I know I’m not the first / that you made defend her word). . “Over” brings classic girl-group harmonies and smoldering vocal work to speak to the song’s central question: Now that I’m older / does it get easier / to get over? Several songs also confront the notion of setting boundaries, with “Projector” centering on “the refusal to let someone else superimpose their story onto yours” and “Walk Through the Fire” emerging as a brutal testament to the fact that “self-examination is ultimately a solo job – and there’s no easy way to do it.” The result is an album that’s undeniably potent in its emotional impact. “One thing I’ve continued to find through writing songs is the ability to alchemize painful experiences into something that’s useful and healing,” says Doe. “For me that’s the highest purpose of music—both in terms of what it offers to me and what I wish to offer to others.”
Transforming pain into transcendence is the genius of many pop artists, but Doe Paoro brings an entirely new depth to that process. On her third album Soft Power, the L.A.-based singer/songwriter digs into her own frustration and anguish, and ultimately comes away with a newfound strength that’s profoundly inspiring. Soft Power thus bears a raw vitality that marks a major departure from Doe’s previous album. Naming Carole King among her inspirations, Doe notes that the new record’s more urgent feel comes partly from reconnecting with the instinctive approach of her earliest songwriting. Throughout the album, Doe infuses her songs with a rebellious spirit. A passionately charged track about misogyny, “Guilty” blends cascading guitar lines with sharply cutting lyrics (I know I’m not the first / that you made defend her word). “Over” brings classic girl-group harmonies and smoldering vocal work to speak to the song’s central question: Now that I’m older / does it get easier / to get over? Several songs also confront the notion of setting boundaries, with “Projector” centering on “the refusal to let someone else superimpose their story onto yours” and “Walk Through the Fire” emerging as a brutal testament to the fact that “self-examination is ultimately a solo job – and there’s no easy way to do it”. The result is an album that’s undeniably potent in its emotional impact. “One thing I’ve continued to find through writing songs is the ability to alchemize painful experiences into something that’s useful and healing”, says Doe. “For me that’s the highest purpose of music—both in terms of what it offers to me and what I wish to offer to others”. - PRODUCED IN LONDON WITH JIMMY HOGARTH (AMY WINEHOUSE, SIA, CORINNE BAILEY RAE) - SOFT POWER IS THE THIRD ALBUM BY DOE PAORO - FOR FANS OF FLORENCE AND THE MACHINE, ST. VINCENT AND SKY FERREIRA
There are two phases of The Dream Syndicate. There was the band with revolving lineups that existed from 1982 to 1988 and made four albums including The Days of Wine and Roses and have influenced bands and delighted fans in the years since. And then there’s the band that reunited in 2012 and is closing in on its seventh year with nary a lineup change. This 21st Century version of the Dream Syndicate released How Did I Find Myself Here in 2017 to universal acclaim, no small feat for a band reuniting after almost three decades. With that reintroduction and a full year of touring behind them, the Dream Syndicate had the freedom to take it all somewhere new, to dig a little deeper, get outside of themselves a little bit. Their new album ‘These Times’ feels like a late-night radio show that you might have heard as a kid, drifting off into dreams and wondering the next morning if any of it was real. So, what does it sound like? If How Did I Find Myself Here was a 10 pm record, all swagger and cathartic explosion, then These Times is the 2 am sibling, moodier and more mercurial, the band acting as DJs of their own overnight radio station, riffing on an idea of what a Dream Syndicate album could be at this moment in time. It is Radio DS19. So, what’s it all about? Founder and singer/guitarist/songwriter Steve Wynn says, “These Times. That’s it. It’s all we’re talking about, all we’re thinking about. There’s no avoiding the existential panic of a world that’s hurtling somewhere quickly and evolving and shifting course by the hour. It seems like a lie to not address or reflect the things that we can’t stop thinking about—the whole world’s watching indeed.”
Brutalism is quite possibly the best collection of songs in The Drums’ ten-year career. The album is defined by growth, transformation and questions, but it doesn’t provide all the answers. Brutalism is a form of simplistic architecture defined by blocks of raw concrete. Brutalism is rooted in an emotional rawness but its layers are soft, intricate and warm, full of frivolous and exquisitely crafted pop songs that blast sunlight and high energy in the face of anxiety, solitude and crippling self-doubt. Even the fact that Brutalism sounds intentional, focused and efficient is a symbol of how Pierce’s prioritizing of his own health and wellbeing has bled into how he makes music. For the making of this album, between his lake house in Upstate New York and a studio in Stinson Beach, California, Pierce was more open than ever, keeping his control freakery at bay, working with others to produce and record the album. He brought in Chris Coady (Beach House, Future Islands, Amen Dunes) to mix it. If there was a guitar part he wanted to write but couldn’t play, he brought in a guitarist. It’s also the first Drums record with a live drummer. Delegating freed up Pierce’s time to produce a more specific vision. His intentions were rooted in pop, as they’ve always been. Back in The Drums’ previous iterations, however, the pressure was on Pierce to maintain the innocent and nostalgic sound of this surf-pop indie band and it didn’t allow him to explore sex, drug use, darker emotions or how he felt currently. Abysmal Thoughts was the first occasion he had chance to do that. Lyrically Brutalism is another giant step in that direction. It’s much more cut-throat. “I think there’s a parental advisory sticker on the cover!” laughs Pierce. “I didn’t have the courage to stand up for what I wanted before. I felt I had to keep things whimsical and that’s not who I am. It feels empty.” Sonically he had been devoid of external influences, so afraid of being accused of losing the purism of The Drums’ sound. Now he’s rediscovering music: everything from SOPHIE to 90s band Whale. They inspired the loop-based, breakbeat drums on ‘Kiss It Away’ and ‘Body Chemistry’. “I used to think our songs sounded like they were held together by scotch tape. These are more bulletproof.”
Following his triumphant performances at the 2022 Coachella Music and Arts Festival, Danny Elfman delivers Bigger.Messier., an ambitious double-album collection of remixed and reimagined tracks from his highly acclaimed Big Mess album. This sprawling, 23 track collection (available on 2 LP or 2 CD) features tracks reworked by some of the most groundbreaking and subversive artists around today. Bigger.Messier. views the Grammy and Emmy Award-winning composers songs through the lens of luminaries from diverse sides of the music business, including Trent Reznor, Iggy Pop, Squarepusher, and Ghostemane. Elfman once again has achieved a kind of artistic liberation on the record that had been eluding him for decades, and connecting him to brand new audience. Born and raised in southern California, Elfman began his career as part of a surrealist, avant-garde musical theater troupe known as The Mystic Knights of Oingo Boingo. The group would eventually morph into the critically acclaimed rock band Oingo Boingo, whose high-energy performances and genre-bending sound garnered them a fanatically devoted cult following in the 1980s and ’90s. Among the group’s early fans was fledgling director Tim Burton and Paul Reubens (aka Pee-wee Herman), who enlisted Elfman to score their first feature film, Pee-wee’s Big Adventure. The collaboration would prove to be the start of a long and fruitful partnership for Elfman and Burton, with Elfman going on to score a string of iconic Burton features like Batman, Beetlejuice, Big Fish, Edward Scissorhands, and The Nightmare Before Christmas. To date, Elfman has scored more than 100 films.
Fleet Foxes will release their fourth studio album entitled SHORE, a collection of 15 new songs, on February 5, 2021 on double-gatefold 2LP vinyl and CD.
Fleet Foxes’ Robin Pecknold shares, “SHORE feels like a relief, like you’d feel when your feet finally hit sand after getting caught in a riptide. It’s a celebration of life in the face of death, honoring our lost musical heroes, from David Berman to John Prine to Judee Sill to Bill Withers, embracing the joy and solace they brought to our lives and honoring their memory. SHORE is an object levitating between the magnetic fields of the past and the future.”
SHORE was released digitally in its entirety on the fall equinox (9/22) alongside an album length Super-16mm landscape film captured and edited in Washington State by the filmmaker Kersti Jan Werdal. The album was recorded in upstate New York at Aaron Dessner’s Long Pond Studio, in Paris at Studios St. Germain, in Los Angeles at the legendary Vox, in Long Island City at Diamond Mine, and New York City’s Electric Lady.
Fleet Foxes' self-titled debut made a profound impact on the international musical landscape, earning them Uncut's first ever Music Award Prize and a spot in Rolling Stone's 100 Best Albums of the 2000’s. The follow-up album Helplessness Blues was met with the same critical praise as its predecessor (MOJO ★★★★★, Pitchfork’s Best New Music) and earned them a GRAMMY nomination. Both Fleet Foxes and Helplessness Blues are certified Gold in the US. The band’s third studio album Crack-Up, released in 2017, charted #9 on the Billboard Top 200.
With their powerful harmonies and imaginative songwriting in full force, Girlpool are making new creative leaps with their new album, What Chaos Is Imaginary. Combining elements of shoegaze, folk, and 80’s postpunk with their own melodic gifts, these two great songwriters come up with a modern classic full of great tunes and sonic surprises. Impressive growth for this already celebrated band.
With their powerful harmonies and imaginative songwriting in full force, Girlpool are making new creative leaps with their new album, What Chaos Is Imaginary. Combining elements of shoegaze, folk, and 80’s postpunk with their own melodic gifts, these two great songwriters come up with a modern classic full of great tunes and sonic surprises. Impressive growth for this already celebrated band.
THE GOOD ONES renown is evidenced by the stellar musicians who collaborated with them on their new album: Wilco’s Nels Cline, TV on the Radio’s Tunde Adebimpe, Sleater-Kinney’s Corin Tucker, My Bloody Valentine’s Kevin Shields, and Fugazi’s Joe Lally. In 2009, Grammy-winning producer Ian Brennan (Tinariwen, Ramblin’ Jack Elliott) traveled to Rwanda in search of local music with his Italian-Rwandan wife, filmmaker and photographer, Marilena Delli. After two weeks of crisscrossing the country and listening to countless artists, they met THE GOOD ONES.
For The THE GOOD ONES’ new album, Rwanda, You Should Be Loved, bandleader Adrien Kazigira composed over forty songs. The recording was done live without overdubs on Adrien’s farm in Rwanda. Since they live without electricity and have had little access to devices to reproduce musical recordings, THE GOOD ONES’ vocalizations are based on the singing traditions and dialect of their local immediate, agricultural district more than by outside and Western influences. Primary songwriter Adrien Kazigira interweaves intricate harmonies with co-singer, Janvier Havugimana, in a style frequently referred to as “worker songs from the streets.” With the musicians rural and remote hilltop origins, the harmonic similarities to American Bluegrass vocals is often eerie. Third member, Javan Mahoro, lends additional background vocals and percussion on select songs. From the moment he laid eyes on them, Brennan said he knew, “What these guys do is precious and rare. Don’t f*** it up!”
THE GOOD ONES formed the band as a healing process after the Rwandan genocide, which marks its 25th anniversary in 2019. The band will be touring in the US for the first time this Fall, playing dates with Glen Hansard in the North West and performing at bookshops nationwide along with producer Ian Brennan, as he travels the US speaking about his latest book “Silenced By Sound.”
With her musical project Half Waif, Nandi Rose dives deep into the waters of artistic expression by layering evocative vocals and synths to create a powerful form of pop music. On Mythopoetics, Rose ex- plores a full spectrum of sounds that sparkle with memorable hooks, otherworldly production and uplifting grooves. “This is the record I’ve been trying to make for 10 years,” Rose says.
Previous albums The Caretaker (2020) and Lavender (2018) garnered acclaim for their compelling journeys through solitude, desire and the search for independence. Half Waif declares a new chapter on Mytho- poetics, a collection of 12 new songs – mythical stories that transcend time, each sung with a glorious contralto wrapped up in synths and electronic percussion, and her lyrical piano serving as the backbone. It is an essential reminder that we have the power to shape the stories we tell and the myths we make of our lives. This is music that you feel.
Half Waif Nandi Rose is on her own again, and three songs into her forthcoming album The Caretaker, the singer, songwriter and producer declares her fearlessness: "Baby don't worry about me, I don't worry about you." Here, on "Ordinary Talk," Rose meditates on the heaviness of ordinary moments, the constellation of tears and chores and self-doubt and small talk that comprise being a person, accompanied by her most cinematic, pulsing arrangements to date. It's an apt introduction to The Caretaker, an ax-lbum that negotiates the space between working alone and with others, between isolation and connection. The result is her boldest work yet. Over the course of eleven songs, Rose creates the lush world of a humid summer night, dreaming of and reaching for a season in which she is her "best self."
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Half Waif Nandi Rose is on her own again, and three songs into her forthcoming album The Caretaker, the singer, songwriter and producer declares her fearlessness: "Baby don't worry about me, I don't worry about you." Here, on "Ordinary Talk," Rose meditates on the heaviness of ordinary moments, the constellation of tears and chores and self-doubt and small talk that comprise being a person, accompanied by her most cinematic, pulsing arrangements to date. It's an apt introduction to The Caretaker, an ax-lbum that negotiates the space between working alone and with others, between isolation and connection. The result is her boldest work yet. Over the course of eleven songs, Rose creates the lush world of a humid summer night, dreaming of and reaching for a season in which she is her "best self."
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This Wild Willing is Glen Hansard’s fourth solo album. Written and created in Paris, France with a band of brothers; new friends and old, more than 24 musicians collaborating on the album. From his partners in The Frames (Joe Doyle) and Swell Season (Marketa Irglova & Joe Doyle), to his touring family of players , to three Iranian brothers he met in Paris (the Kroshravesh brothers) , Glen brought together a group of global talents who each left an indelible mark on this recording. “It became quickly apparent in the studio we were onto something interesting. I was finding new ways into the existing songs and we were improvising new ideas every day. When you surround yourself with great musicians and do your best to keep up, stay loose, give little direction, and allow everyone to bring what they bring, something transformative may happen. This collection of songs is mainly made up of those that came through while improvising and following the melodic lines and threads. Sometimes when you take a small musical fragment and you care for it, follow it, and build it up slowly, it can become a thing of wonder. In this sense, some of these songs weren’t written in the traditional form; they were ideas followed to a conclusion. I want to thank all these great musicians for coming and giving these songs their best. All a song wants is to be heard. I hope something in this music can be of use to you. I know it’s been of great use to me to make it. Beauty is in the ear of the behearer.”
This Wild Willing is Glen Hansard’s fourth solo album. Written and created in Paris, France with a band of brothers; new friends and old, more than 24 musicians collaborating on the album. From his partners in The Frames (Joe Doyle) and Swell Season (Marketa Irglova & Joe Doyle), to his touring family of players , to three Iranian brothers he met in Paris (the Kroshravesh brothers) , Glen brought together a group of global talents who each left an indelible mark on this recording. “It became quickly apparent in the studio we were onto something interesting. I was finding new ways into the existing songs and we were improvising new ideas every day. When you surround yourself with great musicians and do your best to keep up, stay loose, give little direction, and allow everyone to bring what they bring, something transformative may happen. This collection of songs is mainly made up of those that came through while improvising and following the melodic lines and threads. Sometimes when you take a small musical fragment and you care for it, follow it, and build it up slowly, it can become a thing of wonder. In this sense, some of these songs weren’t written in the traditional form; they were ideas followed to a conclusion. I want to thank all these great musicians for coming and giving these songs their best. All a song wants is to be heard. I hope something in this music can be of use to you. I know it’s been of great use to me to make it. Beauty is in the ear of the behearer.”
CURTIS HARDING could best be described as a student of the gritty, sweat-dripping, hip-swinging blues that wafted through the air of the American sixties. The offspring of a mother who sang gospel, and a retired veteran, he traveled all over the country as a child, singing alongside his parents, learning that music was in fact the great communicator, and that the key was not just in how pretty the notes were, but how if you were honest in what you were singing, you could stir a person on the inside. This is what Otis Redding knew. What Sam Cooke, and Bo Diddley, and B. B. King knew. That somehow there was a way to take your experiences, your pain and joy, and give them melody, cause them to live and breathe and massage the hearts and minds of all those who hear.
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No Mercy In This Land is a blues record. Charlie Musselwhite and Ben Harper were introduced to one another by John Lee Hooker. The legendary musician thought the two men should play together, so he brought them into the studio to record a song called simply “Burnin’ Hell.” The two remained friends and their paths periodically crossed out there on the road. But it wasn’t until 2013 that the two met up in a studio to record what would be their Grammy winning album Get Up!. And as good as that record was, it was just the beginning. Both men agree that their friendship deepened in the many months of touring that followed. And it’s that bond, that closeness, that makes this new record something special. At first glance, Ben Harper and Charlie Musselwhite might seem an unlikely pairing. While Ben grew up in in the tree lined Southern California college town of Claremont, a bastion of culture and liberalism just east of Los Angeles, Charlie was raised in Memphis during the time of rockabilly and Sun Records. But while the two might have come to their musical knowledge in different eras and places, as Charlie explains, “We were both searchers and we’re still seeking.” Each of them possess an enduring hunger for musical knowledge that came to them early.
“We’re a bunch of outsiders who refused to be kept out,” says High Pulp drummer Bobby Granfelt. “We’ve never had an academic approach to jazz—most of us grew up playing in DIY bands—so it was the rawness and the energy and the absolute freedom of the music that called to us in the first place.”
Indeed, there’s something defiant, something utterly liberating about High Pulp’s remarkable ANTI- Records debut, Pursuit of Ends. Drawing on punk rock, shoegaze, hip-hop, and electronic music, the band’s brand of experimental jazz is both vintage and futuristic all at once, hinting at times to everything from Miles Davis and Duke Ellington to Aphex Twin and My Bloody Valentine. The songs here balance meticulous composition with visceral spontaneity, and the performances are nothing short of virtuosic, fueled by raw, ecstatic horn runs ducking and weaving their way around thick bass lines and dizzying percussion.
While the Seattle-based collective is centered around a crew of six core members, they also make judicious use of a broad network of collaborators on the album, wrangling special guests like sax star Jaleel Shaw (Roy Haynes, Mingus Big Band), harpist Brandee Younger (Ravi Coltrane, The Roots), GRAMMY-nominated trumpeter Theo Coker, and keyboardist Jacob Mann (Rufus Wainwright, Louis Cole) to help stretch the boundaries of their already-expansive sonic universe. The result is a lush, cinematic collection that’s as unpredictable as it is engrossing, an urgent, exhilarating instrumental album that manages to speak to the moment without uttering a single word.
“We’re a bunch of outsiders who refused to be kept out,” says High Pulp drummer Bobby Granfelt. “We’ve never had an academic approach to jazz—most of us grew up playing in DIY bands—so it was the rawness and the energy and the absolute freedom of the music that called to us in the first place.”
Indeed, there’s something defiant, something utterly liberating about High Pulp’s remarkable ANTI- Records debut, Pursuit of Ends. Drawing on punk rock, shoegaze, hip-hop, and electronic music, the band’s brand of experimental jazz is both vintage and futuristic all at once, hinting at times to everything from Miles Davis and Duke Ellington to Aphex Twin and My Bloody Valentine. The songs here balance meticulous composition with visceral spontaneity, and the performances are nothing short of virtuosic, fueled by raw, ecstatic horn runs ducking and weaving their way around thick bass lines and dizzying percussion.
While the Seattle-based collective is centered around a crew of six core members, they also make judicious use of a broad network of collaborators on the album, wrangling special guests like sax star Jaleel Shaw (Roy Haynes, Mingus Big Band), harpist Brandee Younger (Ravi Coltrane, The Roots), GRAMMY-nominated trumpeter Theo Coker, and keyboardist Jacob Mann (Rufus Wainwright, Louis Cole) to help stretch the boundaries of their already-expansive sonic universe. The result is a lush, cinematic collection that’s as unpredictable as it is engrossing, an urgent, exhilarating instrumental album that manages to speak to the moment without uttering a single word.
Christian Lee Hutson starts his new album Quitters with a laugh. In this follow up to his ANTI Records debut, Beginners, Hutson moves away from a focus on growing up to the dread and complications of growing older. Written under lock down, the laugh that announces Quitters is the kind you’ll find at the end of John Huston films, one of resignation and release, and somehow a cosmic laugh that says “California,” a place where lonely people gather together like birds.
The song “Rubberneckers” follows the story a romance from beginning to breakup, with backing vocals by Phoebe Bridges, who returns as producer along with Conor Oberst. Quitters is a departure from the digital recording of his debut. Hutson shares, “With this record, Phoebe and Conor had an idea that it would be fun to make it to tape. Phoebe is my best friend and making Beginners with her was so comfortable and easy. So I wanted to work with her again and Conor is someone who I really respect as a lyricist.”
If every great record is a world, then this is Christian Lee Hutson’s world. It’s one filled with the fuzzy haze of a dream, and the half-remembered moments of a forgotten life. It’s a record brave enough to say, In the good old days, when times were bad. But beyond the songs, it is this voice. The voice of someone who was alive in 2021 and recorded a group of songs with his friends for us to hear.
Christian Lee Hutson starts his new album Quitters with a laugh. In this follow up to his ANTI Records debut, Beginners, Hutson moves away from a focus on growing up to the dread and complications of growing older. Written under lock down, the laugh that announces Quitters is the kind you’ll find at the end of John Huston films, one of resignation and release, and somehow a cosmic laugh that says “California,” a place where lonely people gather together like birds.
The song “Rubberneckers” follows the story a romance from beginning to breakup, with backing vocals by Phoebe Bridges, who returns as producer along with Conor Oberst. Quitters is a departure from the digital recording of his debut. Hutson shares, “With this record, Phoebe and Conor had an idea that it would be fun to make it to tape. Phoebe is my best friend and making Beginners with her was so comfortable and easy. So I wanted to work with her again and Conor is someone who I really respect as a lyricist.”
If every great record is a world, then this is Christian Lee Hutson’s world. It’s one filled with the fuzzy haze of a dream, and the half-remembered moments of a forgotten life. It’s a record brave enough to say, In the good old days, when times were bad. But beyond the songs, it is this voice. The voice of someone who was alive in 2021 and recorded a group of songs with his friends for us to hear.
Nashville-based performer Jeremy Ivey has operated in the background for years, initially performing in bands like Secret Handshake and country-soul group Buffalo Clover with his wife, celebrated country-rock luminary Margo Price. But now Ivey is ready to take a much-deserved step into the spotlight with a debut LP, The Dream and the Dreamer via Anti- Records). Recorded in a “little bitty house studio” in Nashville and produced by Price, the nine-song album hosts a collection of homespun, deeply introspective tracks. Ivey, who writes prolifically and cites everyone from the Beatles to Neil Young to Leonard Cohen and Bob Dylan as influences. Unlike his country-soul aesthetic in Buffalo Clover, which disbanded in 2013, Ivey’s solo material is much more straightforward yet still travels through a wide spectrum of classic folk, gently frayed psychedelia, pop, and yes, even a bit of Southern rock and Americana. Ivey is invested in his own version of the American Dream—specifically, offering up a melting pot of genres, ideas, and stories. “The best thing I could say is that I’m trying to fill the holes that I can see in the scene,” he says. “Whether it be Americana or country or rock or whatever. There’s a certain type of song that isn’t being written.”
Wilderness is a powerhouse of a record by Jade Jackson, a follow-up to her 2017 debut, Gilded. Her new work deals heavily with the in-betweens and stepping stones we dwell in and leap across while coming to terms with our sense of self, and how melancholy can be a powerful weapon to wield, especially in the form of a roots-rock or country song. Wilderness, like Gilded, was produced by Mike Ness, the SoCal punk rock legend who essentially plucked Jackson from obscurity several years ago and helped hone her craft and sound. Jackson calls Ness “a master of feel and rhythm” and credits him with showing her how to invoke more of those calling cards in her new work, in addition to those countless tools now in her arsenal that they developed together over time. As the pair’s master-pupil relationship continues to evolve, Jackson recognizes that Ness has become more open to her input while she herself has gotten more hands-on in the studio, a process that ultimately resulted in delivering the sound for which both parties were striving. “The message of ‘Wilderness’ is in how to get through tough situations—if you visualize yourself somewhere, all that good energy and intention can get you where you want to go.” – Jade Jackson
Introducing Jackson + Sellers and their debut album Breaking Point, on ANTI records. Jade Jackson and Aubrie Sellers, two rising stars who aligned during the pandemic to write one of the most compelling duo albums of the last decade.
Drawn together by instant chemistry, cosmic forces and their ability to write intuitive romantic breakup songs for each other, their album is a window into the dissolution of two different relationships and the formation of another: a perfect, platonic, creative union. United in their desire to write a record that reflected their expansive musical interest from 70s rock to raucous roots to indie pop, their LA written, Nashville recorded album is a masterclass in unexpected vocal harmonic convergence.
With Breaking Point, Jackson + Sellers will establish themselves as two individual artists who together, share a deep friendship, musical kinship and the ability to craft tight singular pop rock songs that will embed themselves in your ears for the rest of time.
Yves Jarvis is back with his third solo album entitled, The Zug. The Montreal, Canada based artist’s unique vision for “psychedelic-jazz-folk” comes into sharper focus, with elevated production and a waterfall of creative ideas presented with an ever growing confidence in craft.
Jarvis continues to refine his creative approach to the core of his being, where music and life intertwine in harmonious fashion. He fuses genre elements into a symbiotic relationship where wistful folk, tender R&B, and jazz experiments feed into one another to grow lush new forms. Though he maintains an air of mystery with his lyrics, Jarvis’s whisper-soft words can be interpreted as both deeply personal and politically motivated.
On Sundry Rock Song Stock, Yves Jarvis continues to refine his creative approach to the core of his being, where music and life intertwine in harmonious fashion. The latest album from the Montreal-based musician fuses genre elements into a symbiotic relationship where wistful folk, tender R&B, pastoral prog, and musique concrète experiments feed into one another to grow lush new forms. Though he maintains an air of mystery with his lyrics, Jarvis's whisper-soft words can be interpreted as both deeply personal and politically motivated in ways we haven't heard from him before. While Jarvis' 2019 album, The Same But By Different Means stretches out across 22 sonic sketches ranging in length from 14 seconds to eight minutes, Sundry Rock Song Stocks takes a more traditional approach with it's 10 concise tunes. Jarvis's preferred self-contained process found him recording every instrument, mixing the album, and even painting the portrait on it's cover. The only outside contribution came from engineer Mark Lawson (Arcade Fire, Basia Bulat, Peter Gabriel), who helped roll tape while Jarvis played drums.
Yves Jarvis is back with his third solo album entitled, The Zug. The Montreal, Canada based artist’s unique vision for “psychedelic-jazz-folk” comes into sharper focus, with elevated production and a waterfall of creative ideas presented with an ever growing confidence in craft.
Jarvis continues to refine his creative approach to the core of his being, where music and life intertwine in harmonious fashion. He fuses genre elements into a symbiotic relationship where wistful folk, tender R&B, and jazz experiments feed into one another to grow lush new forms. Though he maintains an air of mystery with his lyrics, Jarvis’s whisper-soft words can be interpreted as both deeply personal and politically motivated.
Jasmyn is the new solo project created by Jasmyn Burke, former singer-song- writer and frontwoman of the critically acclaimed Canadian band, Weaves. Having two JUNO nominations for Alternative Album of the Year and two SOCAN Songwriting Prize nominations, Burke has established herself as one of Canada’s most exciting and fresh voices.
With this new project, she has decided to use her own name, Jasmyn, to mark the start of exploring her own unique sound as a solo artist. Collaborating remotely with Los Angeles-based producer John Congleton (St. Vincent, Angel Olsen, Sharon Van Etten) on a body of work she had compiled over months of being in lockdown. Finally in the Spring of 2021, Jasmyn went to LA to record with Congleton, exploring themes of finding patterns in life and how to perhaps change them.
On the general direction of her new album In the Wild, Jasmyn said, “This was written during the Fall of 2020; The world was feeling pretty heavy, and I felt myself wanting to write music that created a mood of happiness and space to grow. I feel like I have grown and changed as a person over the last few years and wanted to write songs that created a sense of confidence and well-being.”
With Weaves receiving worldwide support from the likes of Rolling Stone Magazine, NPR, Pitchfork, and more, Jasmyn is excited to share a new side of herself, perhaps her most honest and raw work to date.
Jasmyn is the new solo project created by Jasmyn Burke, former singer-song- writer and frontwoman of the critically acclaimed Canadian band, Weaves. Having two JUNO nominations for Alternative Album of the Year and two SOCAN Songwriting Prize nominations, Burke has established herself as one of Canada’s most exciting and fresh voices.
With this new project, she has decided to use her own name, Jasmyn, to mark the start of exploring her own unique sound as a solo artist. Collaborating remotely with Los Angeles-based producer John Congleton (St. Vincent, Angel Olsen, Sharon Van Etten) on a body of work she had compiled over months of being in lockdown. Finally in the Spring of 2021, Jasmyn went to LA to record with Congleton, exploring themes of finding patterns in life and how to perhaps change them.
On the general direction of her new album In the Wild, Jasmyn said, “This was written during the Fall of 2020; The world was feeling pretty heavy, and I felt myself wanting to write music that created a mood of happiness and space to grow. I feel like I have grown and changed as a person over the last few years and wanted to write songs that created a sense of confidence and well-being.”
With Weaves receiving worldwide support from the likes of Rolling Stone Magazine, NPR, Pitchfork, and more, Jasmyn is excited to share a new side of herself, perhaps her most honest and raw work to date.
On the cusp of releasing his first-ever solo album, Every Feeling on a Loop (ANTI-Records), songwriter Josiah Johnson is aware he wasn’t supposed to be here. Just five years ago when he took a leave of absence from the acclaimed indie-folk band, The Head and the Heart, the question was less where Johnson’s star would take him and more whether his struggles with addiction would end his music career. But then, he wasn’t supposed to be there, either.
Prior to co-founding the band, Johnson studied math and computer science in graduate school. But the magic of song led him to an open mic that changed his life. At Seattle’s Conor Byrne Pub, Johnson sparked collaborations with fellow musicians who would eventually form The Head and the Heart. The group’s rise was rapid. They built a loyal fanbase and zigzagged the globe, with sold-out shows at historic venues from The Fillmore to Red Rocks and festival appearances at Coachella and Lollapalooza. Their 2011 self-titled debut went on to receive RIAA Gold certification, followed by 2013’s Let’s Be Still, which landed on Billboard’s Top 10 Albums Chart.
On Every Feeling on a Loop, lush musical arrangements and harmonies support Johnson’s baritone crooning. At times, the songs sound like prayers. At others, his exuberance feels like the euphoria he’d always sought, this time hard-earned and wiser. He says he feels like a new person making it, charting his journey out of the dark into the wide awake of the morning, using the magic that was his all along.
Kristine Leschper’s The Opening, Or Closing Of A Door, is a paean to the sensory world. It’s the first Leschper has released under her given name, having retired the moniker Mothers after eight years of performing and releasing music under it. Though both projects are guided by Leschper’s idiosyncratic approach to songwriting, they couldn’t sound more different. While Mothers drew inspiration from the stark, skeletal sounds of post-punk and contemporary folk, Leschper’s new work is practically baroque, integrating an array of synthesizers, strings, woodwinds, and over a dozen percussive instruments. “Earlier work didn’t involve recording as part of the writing process, recordings were simply made as a document of something that had been written and rehearsed. I have since discovered a deep affection for home recording and sound exploration, finding that I thrive in those rabbit holes of texture, timbre, rhythm, which can add so much complexity to the emotionality of a composition.”
The at-home recording process gave Leschper freedom to set her personal ethos to music divorced from the pressure of an audience. As she worked on The Opening, Or Closing Of A Door, the constellation of ideas that had guided her personal transformation began to cohere into something communicable through music.
Kristine Leschper’s The Opening, Or Closing Of A Door, is a paean to the sensory world. It’s the first Leschper has released under her given name, having retired the moniker Mothers after eight years of performing and releasing music under it. Though both projects are guided by Leschper’s idiosyncratic approach to songwriting, they couldn’t sound more different. While Mothers drew inspiration from the stark, skeletal sounds of post-punk and contemporary folk, Leschper’s new work is practically baroque, integrating an array of synthesizers, strings, woodwinds, and over a dozen percussive instruments. “Earlier work didn’t involve recording as part of the writing process, recordings were simply made as a document of something that had been written and rehearsed. I have since discovered a deep affection for home recording and sound exploration, finding that I thrive in those rabbit holes of texture, timbre, rhythm, which can add so much complexity to the emotionality of a composition.”
The at-home recording process gave Leschper freedom to set her personal ethos to music divorced from the pressure of an audience. As she worked on The Opening, Or Closing Of A Door, the constellation of ideas that had guided her personal transformation began to cohere into something communicable through music.
Yves Jarvis and Romy Lightman are a pair of idiosyncratic and restlessly creative artists. In the past decade, Jarvis’s ever-expanding swatch have earned international acclaim, while Lightman’s twin-sister-led band Tasseomancy has transfixed listeners since the late 2000s. The Lightman Jarvis Ecstatic Band marks the duo’s first collaboration, slingshotting both musicians out of their comfort zones into spellbinding territories of lysergic folk and impressionistic rock.
Banned was recorded in the tranquil environment of the Tree Museum, an outdoor art gallery in rural Ontario, Canada, hosting residencies for contemporary sculptors over the past 20 years. The pair credit its 200 acres of natural spaces intermingling with human-made creations as the fuel for their unfettered process. Recorded over two weeks in a free-flowing stream of improvisation, the album finds Lightman on synthesizer with Jarvis on drums and guitar, as their voices weave together into an electrified pastoral tapestry.
For both musicians, the creation offered a chance to challenge themselves: Jarvis defying his solitary practice to record with another person, while open jams provided Lightman an alternative to her preference for thoroughly composed songwriting. “This album is a loose manifesto in our shared vision for a way of being,” says Lightman. “It’s about our relationship and the dynamics in that. There’s an epicness to it and tension at times. It’s like the ways particles collide. There’s an alchemical aspect to it with these base components slamming together.”
Yves Jarvis and Romy Lightman are a pair of idiosyncratic and restlessly creative artists. In the past decade, Jarvis’s ever-expanding swatch have earned international acclaim, while Lightman’s twin-sister-led band Tasseomancy has transfixed listeners since the late 2000s. The Lightman Jarvis Ecstatic Band marks the duo’s first collaboration, slingshotting both musicians out of their comfort zones into spellbinding territories of lysergic folk and impressionistic rock.
Banned was recorded in the tranquil environment of the Tree Museum, an outdoor art gallery in rural Ontario, Canada, hosting residencies for contemporary sculptors over the past 20 years. The pair credit its 200 acres of natural spaces intermingling with human-made creations as the fuel for their unfettered process. Recorded over two weeks in a free-flowing stream of improvisation, the album finds Lightman on synthesizer with Jarvis on drums and guitar, as their voices weave together into an electrified pastoral tapestry.
For both musicians, the creation offered a chance to challenge themselves: Jarvis defying his solitary practice to record with another person, while open jams provided Lightman an alternative to her preference for thoroughly composed songwriting. “This album is a loose manifesto in our shared vision for a way of being,” says Lightman. “It’s about our relationship and the dynamics in that. There’s an epicness to it and tension at times. It’s like the ways particles collide. There’s an alchemical aspect to it with these base components slamming together.”
Yves Jarvis and Romy Lightman are a pair of idiosyncratic and restlessly creative artists. In the past decade, Jarvis’s ever-expanding swatch have earned international acclaim, while Lightman’s twin-sister-led band Tasseomancy has transfixed listeners since the late 2000s. The Lightman Jarvis Ecstatic Band marks the duo’s first collaboration, slingshotting both musicians out of their comfort zones into spellbinding territories of lysergic folk and impressionistic rock.
Banned was recorded in the tranquil environment of the Tree Museum, an outdoor art gallery in rural Ontario, Canada, hosting residencies for contemporary sculptors over the past 20 years. The pair credit its 200 acres of natural spaces intermingling with human-made creations as the fuel for their unfettered process. Recorded over two weeks in a free-flowing stream of improvisation, the album finds Lightman on synthesizer with Jarvis on drums and guitar, as their voices weave together into an electrified pastoral tapestry.
For both musicians, the creation offered a chance to challenge themselves: Jarvis defying his solitary practice to record with another person, while open jams provided Lightman an alternative to her preference for thoroughly composed songwriting. “This album is a loose manifesto in our shared vision for a way of being,” says Lightman. “It’s about our relationship and the dynamics in that. There’s an epicness to it and tension at times. It’s like the ways particles collide. There’s an alchemical aspect to it with these base components slamming together.”
On Heartmind, Cass McCombs enters the double-digit-album phase of his career, a quantitatively rarified place for any songwriter; rarer still, though, is the fact that he does not yet seem to have settled into a qualitative sound or pattern, of singing the same thought twice (or perhaps even once). Songs like “Karaoke” are a god-level burst of power-pop perfection, as fetching as anything Cass has ever cut. The springy staccato guitar, the vaporized electric keys, the melody seemingly born for singing or clapping or dancing along: Cass triangulates a perch of his very own out among The Go-Betweens, The dB’s, and The Cure, and vibrates there, a beacon. And then, of course, there is the song’s playful if painful lyrical conceit—the lover who is making all the sacred motions of commitment but whose feelings may be no more deep or real than someone simply reading the lyrics for “Vision of Love” or “Stand by Your Man” from some crowded bar’s TV screen.
There are, at least, some basic facts to share about Heartmind, logistical evidence that may in turn shape your own questions: Cass recorded these songs in multiple sessions on both coasts, in Brooklyn and Burbank. The great Shahzad Ismaily not only cut the staggering “Unproud Warrior” and four others here but also played lots of bass. Buddy Ross tracked “New Earth,” a paean of post-humanity renewal with several sharp wisecracks. Ariel Rechtshaid—now a dozen years into his collaboration with Cass, which began with 2009’s Catacombs—captured Cass’ scintillating guitars on “Belong to Heaven,” a thoughtful consideration of what we all lose when we lose an old friend to the inevitable end. The steadfast Rob Schnapf (who previously produced McCombs’ ANTI- debut, Mangy Love) mixed and merged it all. Wynonna Judd (yes, that one) offers harmonies, while her beau Cactus Moser provides some lap steel. Joe Russo, Kassa Overall, Danielle Haim, Nestor Gomez are featured on the album, too.
Over the past decade, Cass McCombs has established himself as one of our premier songwriters. It’s a ca- reer that’s twisted and turned, from style to subject, both between records and within them. McCombs has never made two albums that sound the same. His new one, Tip of the Sphere, is particularly unique. Tip of the Sphere is McCombs’ 9th studio album and while many of his records have been comprised of songs recorded in different studios and pieced togeth- er over time, this one was recorded quickly in one lo- cation with a strong sense of purpose, resulting in his most consistent record to date. This approach brings a raw immediacy to his songs, which are some of his best yet as he finds the perfect balance of compassion and experimentation. The rock songs rock harder, the ballads are more beautiful, the experiments more confident; with the sounds of jazz and latin music creeping in through the back window. This is an artist trying to make sense of it all through a relentless, ever searching creative process.
Easy Street Online review by Ian Bremner
Cass McCombs has been doing this a long time. He knows what he’s doing and he does not sit still. The Bay Area artist has been pumping out albums for a decade. He is an outstanding guitar player and songwriter, yet his style is always changing. His debut for Anti Records, Mangy Love, may be his best. Summer and Fall 2016 have been so good to us as music consumers.
Cass McCombs dropped Mangy Love in the middle of Frank Ocean hype and Angel Olsen’s instant-classic My Woman, but it deserves to be up there with both of those records. In this harshly political season, perhaps we can all listen to the words of McCombs and an album like Mangy Love. His wit and wry lyrics hit even deeper than normal and touch on everything including racist government, misogyny, California porn industry. Everything. It’s not a protest record or anything of the like, because you have to listen hard to pick up certain vibes, but that is never a chore on Mangy Love.
The music surrounding the messages is plain beautiful so it could be easy to get lost. Swirling guitars, horns flirting with soul tunes join blues and folk rock with a hint of '80s, but sometimes all at the same time, making it difficult to pin down, but very easy to enjoy.
Mothers attempt to exist in two places at once - both singular and collaborative, sprawling and concise, present and distant. Kristine Leschper, songwriter and founding member of the project, explains that it is in the space between opposites that she finds herself. The multifaceted is, by nature, fragmented - each facet reflecting a slightly different perspective of the whole. On their latest record, Render Another Ugly Method, the band attempts to gain an expanded view of its surroundings through splintered sound, thought, and image. Leschper began exploring songwriting when she moved to Athens, Georgia as a teenager. Inspired by the growth that studying art allowed her and energized by the buzzing southern town, she started to perform publicly in 2013 and quickly developed local acclaim for her stark, unflinchingly vulnerable songs. During this time, she met many local artists and musicians, among them Matthew Anderegg, whom she quickly recognized as an artistic kindred spirit and friend. The following year they began working together to flesh out and arrange a collection of songs she had written, which would become the project’s 2016 debut release, When You Walk A Long Distance You Are Tired. Released in 2016, the album kicked off a sprawling eight months of touring across the US, UK and Europe, as the group honed their take on left-of center indie rock with an explosive and surprising live show that displayed how forceful the songs translated to a full-band setting. " Within Mothers, Leschper and Anderegg have remained a creative constant, with other collaborators changing over time. Render Another Ugly Method sees the remnants of Leschper and Anderegg, Chris Goggans and Drew Kirby in musical conversation, through cut-up songs that were torn apart and rebuilt over and over again.
Richard Reed Parry’s Quiet River of Dust, is a meditative, widescreen musical experience with Beach Boy harmonies and a hypnotic pulse. Layered songs that move in a linear fashion, following a current rather than circular composition. Japanese folk myths, death poems and British folk music are tributaries flowing into a river of avant-garde composition and traditional song craft, written and performed by a member of the Grammy-winning rock band, Arcade Fire. Being released as two volumes, Quiet River of Dust Vol. 1 will be available on the start of the autumn equinox, September 21 2018. Quiet River of Dust Vol. 2 is coming out next year on the spring equinox 2019. Long before he joined Arcade Fire in 2003, Richard Reed Parry grew up in a thriving folk music community in Toronto, where house parties were full of singing. While a student of electroacoustic music and contemporary dance in university, he formed the instrumental ensemble Bell Orchestre, who have released three albums. In 2014, he released an album of biologically inspired compositions, Music for Heart and Breath, on the prestigious Deutsche Grammophon classical label. The genesis of these songs came after Arcade Fire’s first tour of Japan in February 2008. Parry stayed on for weeks after the last show, heading to a monastery for some solace in “the biggest silence you’ve ever heard.” One day he was walking alone in a massive, snow-covered cedar forest when he heard distant voices, voices that sounded a lot like his father’s folk group back in Toronto, Friends of Fiddlers Green. (Parry was 18 when his father died in 1995.) “There was no reason for something to sound like full-throated, British-Isle folk singing there,” he recalls. “I walked and walked but I could never get closer to where the music was coming from.” The ghostly experience inspired the song “On the Ground,” which in turn inspired the rest of the song cycle. When it came time to record “On the Ground,” he enlisted his father’s former colleagues on concertina, Northumbrian pipes and fiddle. For a musician raised in a musical family and environment, collaboration and community are essential parts of the process. Guest performers on this project include Parry’s partner Laurel Sprengelmeyer of Little Scream, Stef Schneider of Bell Orchestre, Dallas Good of the Sadies, Yuka Honda of Cibo Matto, Amedeo Pace from Blonde Redhead, and The National’s Aaron and Bryce Dessner.
Richard Reed Parry’s Quiet River of Dust, is a meditative, widescreen musical experience with Beach Boy harmonies and a hypnotic pulse. Layered songs that move in a linear fashion, following a current rather than circular composition. Japanese folk myths, death poems and British folk music are tributaries flowing into a river of avant-garde composition and traditional song craft, written and performed by a member of the Grammy-winning rock band, Arcade Fire. Being released as two volumes, Quiet River of Dust Vol. 2 is the follow up to 2018’s Quiet River of Dust Vol. 1 . Long before he joined Arcade Fire in 2003, Richard Reed Parry grew up in a thriving folk music community in Toronto, where house parties were full of singing. While a student of electroacoustic music and contemporary dance in university, he formed the instrumental ensemble Bell Orchestre, who have released three albums. In 2014, he released an album of biologically inspired compositions, Music for Heart and Breath, on the prestigious Deutsche Grammophon classical label. Guest performers on this project include Parry’s partner Laurel Sprengelmeyer of Little Scream, Stef Schneider of Bell Orchestre, Dallas Good of the Sadies, Yuka Honda of Cibo Matto, Amedeo Pace from Blonde Redhead, and The National’s Aaron and Bryce Dessner.
Richard Reed Parry’s Quiet River of Dust, is a meditative, widescreen musical experience with Beach Boy harmonies and a hypnotic pulse. Layered songs that move in a linear fashion, following a current rather than circular composition. Japanese folk myths, death poems and British folk music are tributaries flowing into a river of avant-garde composition and traditional song craft, written and performed by a member of the Grammy-winning rock band, Arcade Fire. Being released as two volumes, Quiet River of Dust Vol. 1 will be available on the start of the autumn equinox, September 21 2018. Quiet River of Dust Vol. 2 is coming out next year on the spring equinox 2019. Long before he joined Arcade Fire in 2003, Richard Reed Parry grew up in a thriving folk music community in Toronto, where house parties were full of singing. While a student of electroacoustic music and contemporary dance in university, he formed the instrumental ensemble Bell Orchestre, who have released three albums. In 2014, he released an album of biologically inspired compositions, Music for Heart and Breath, on the prestigious Deutsche Grammophon classical label. The genesis of these songs came after Arcade Fire’s first tour of Japan in February 2008. Parry stayed on for weeks after the last show, heading to a monastery for some solace in “the biggest silence you’ve ever heard.” One day he was walking alone in a massive, snow-covered cedar forest when he heard distant voices, voices that sounded a lot like his father’s folk group back in Toronto, Friends of Fiddlers Green. (Parry was 18 when his father died in 1995.) “There was no reason for something to sound like full-throated, British-Isle folk singing there,” he recalls. “I walked and walked but I could never get closer to where the music was coming from.” The ghostly experience inspired the song “On the Ground,” which in turn inspired the rest of the song cycle. When it came time to record “On the Ground,” he enlisted his father’s former colleagues on concertina, Northumbrian pipes and fiddle. For a musician raised in a musical family and environment, collaboration and community are essential parts of the process. Guest performers on this project include Parry’s partner Laurel Sprengelmeyer of Little Scream, Stef Schneider of Bell Orchestre, Dallas Good of the Sadies, Yuka Honda of Cibo Matto, Amedeo Pace from Blonde Redhead, and The National’s Aaron and Bryce Dessner.
Lido Pimienta is a Toronto-based, Colombian-born interdisciplinary musician and artist-curator. She has performed, exhibited, and curated around the world since 2002, exploring the politics of gender, race, motherhood, identity and the construct of the Canadian landscape in the Latin American diaspora and vernacular.
Her 2017 Polaris Prize-winning album La Papessa charts Pimienta’s evolution into an independent woman and artist who refuses to fit into pre-conceived notions of what a pop Latina artist ought to be.
Inspired by the warm, inviting sounds of ‘70s singer-songwriters like Jackson Browne and Graham Nash, Ryan Pollie wanted to make the most personal music of his career. He had released two albums as Los Angeles Police Department, and now he was ready to shed the protective barrier of his old band name — to make music, simply, as himself. Bolder and crisper than the albums he’s made as Los Angeles Police Department, his self-titled record emerges from a deeply collaborative place. He invited many of his closest friends over to his home to record the album, and a feeling of warm camaraderie shines through the music. “When somebody plays on a song, their character is in it,” he says. “I like to think all my friends are on this record. Their personality is in it. That was really important to me. I’m able to do what I do, mentally and emotionally, because of the people around me.”
2020 debut album from New York City born, raised and forever-based songwriting partners Eliza Barry Callahan and Jack Staffen. Like New was produced by Jonathan Rado (Weyes Blood, Father John Misty, Whitney, The Lemon Twigs). The duo - who had previously captured attention releasing deft, stripped down, warm-toned pysch-pop under their names, Jack and Eliza - shifted to what naturally felt like their next musical gear. If Jack and Eliza showcased the songwriting prowess of a promising young duo (they are both still in their early twenties), then Purr let's Callahan's and Staffen's work bloom in the fertile ground of a fully realized soundscape. Purr builds upon an ageless, classic sound that at once looks at the past while leaning into their own, individual future - with Staffen's and Callahan's vocals humming at the center.
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Vinyl LP pressing. 2020 debut album from New York City born, raised and forever-based songwriting partners Eliza Barry Callahan and Jack Staffen. Like New was produced by Jonathan Rado (Weyes Blood, Father John Misty, Whitney, The Lemon Twigs). The duo - who had previously captured attention releasing deft, stripped down, warm-toned pysch-pop under their names, Jack and Eliza - shifted to what naturally felt like their next musical gear. If Jack and Eliza showcased the songwriting prowess of a promising young duo (they are both still in their early twenties), then Purr let's Callahan's and Staffen's work bloom in the fertile ground of a fully realized soundscape. Purr builds upon an ageless, classic sound that at once looks at the past while leaning into their own, individual future - with Staffen's and Callahan's vocals humming at the center.
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Saintseneca’s Zac Little has been thinking a lot about memory. Not necessarily his memories, though they creep in often, too. Rather, he mulls over the idea of memory itself: its resilience, its haziness, how it slips away as we try to hang on, the way it resurfaces despite our best efforts to forget. Memory is the common thread running throughout the Columbus, OH folk-punk band’s fourth album, Pillar of Na, arriving in late summer via ANTI- Records. Following 2015's critically lauded Such Things, the new album’s name is rooted in remembrance, referencing the Genesis story of Lot’s wife who looks back at a burning Sodom after God instructs her not to. She looks back, and God turns her into a pillar of salt. “Na,” meanwhile, is the chemical symbol for sodium. "Nah" is a passive refusal and the universal song word. It means nothing and stands for nothing. It is "as it is." Musically, Pillar of Na is Saintseneca’s most ambitious album to date, with Little aiming to incorporate genre elements he’d rarely heard in folk. “I wanted to use the idiom of folk-rock, or whatever you want to call it, and to try to do something that had never been done before," Little explains. I told Mike Mogis I wanted Violent Femmes meets the new Blade Runner soundtrack. I'm looking for the intersection between Kendrick Lamar and The Fairport Convention.”
Few artists are storytellers as deft and disarmingly observational as Andy Shauf. The Toronto-based, Saskatchewan-raised musician’s songs unfold like short fiction: they’re densely layered with colorful characters and a rich emotional depth. Like he’s done throughout his career, Shauf wrote, performed, arranged, and produced every song on his new album Wilds at his studio space in the west end of Toronto.
Over the course of a year-and-a-half, Shauf had written more than 50 songs, and pared down this massive body of work, into a single album’s worth of material, which became 2020’s highly acclaimed The Neon Skyline album. These songs focused on a theme by intertwining the individual characters stories of a group of friends who gathered for one night at the same local bar. Wilds includes songs from those same writing sessions, that did not fit into the Skyline storyline and had their own singular identity apart from that album, though he does revisit with his old friends Judy and Jeremy in this outing.
Few artists are storytellers as deft and disarmingly observational as Andy Shauf. The Toronto-based, Saskatchewan-raised musician’s songs unfold like short fiction: they’re densely layered with colorful characters and a rich emotional depth. Like he’s done throughout his career, Shauf wrote, performed, arranged, and produced every song on his new album Wilds at his studio space in the west end of Toronto.
Over the course of a year-and-a-half, Shauf had written more than 50 songs, and pared down this massive body of work, into a single album’s worth of material, which became 2020’s highly acclaimed The Neon Skyline album. These songs focused on a theme by intertwining the individual characters stories of a group of friends who gathered for one night at the same local bar. Wilds includes songs from those same writing sessions, that did not fit into the Skyline storyline and had their own singular identity apart from that album, though he does revisit with his old friends Judy and Jeremy in this outing.
2020 release. "Letting go can be a scary prospect," says Son Little. "But there's beauty in it, too. Everything you leave behind opens up space for something new in your life." That was certainly the case with his album, Aloha, his third studio album. Recorded at Paris's iconic Studio Ferber, the entire project was an exercise in letting go, in ceding control, in surrendering to fate. While Son Little (the stage name of songwriter, producer, and multi-instrumentalist Aaron Livingston) still plays nearly every instrument on the album himself, he put his songs in the hands of an outside producer for the first time here, collaborating with French studio wizard Renaud Letang (Feist, Manu Chao) to create his boldest, most self-assured statement yet. Equal parts vintage and modern, the collection blends classic soul, old-school R&B, and adventurous indie sensibilities into a timeless swirl fueled by gritty instrumental virtuosity and raw, raspy vocals. It's an ambitious work of vision and reflection, to be sure, but more than that, it's an ecstatic testament to the freedom that comes from torching the map and trusting the currents of life to carry you where you belong.
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Born Aaron Livingston, GRAMMY Award winning Son Little unleashes his album Like Neptune never sounding stronger or more confident than now, showcasing his original vision of r&b, informed by his love for hip-hop imbued with tinges of funk, pop, and psychedelia. While Little’s collaborations with The Roots and RJD2 had already helped him make a name for himself by that point in his adopted hometown of Philadelphia, critics on both sides of the pond were quick to recognize the unique power of Little’s solo recordings, which stripped the past for parts that could be reconstituted into something wholly new and original. NPR hailed Little’s “impeccably crafted songs” as “honest and unpretentious,” while The Independent proclaimed him “a formidable talent,” and Vice declared that he was “dissolving the barrier between R&B and rock ‘n’ roll one tearjerker at a time.”
Son Little, the singer and songwriter born Aaron Livingston, is the easygoing musical alchemist of our time. He is a conjurer, and much like those of his heroes Stevie Wonder and Jimi Hendrix, his songs are deconstructions of the diaspora of American R&B. Deftly he weaves different eras of the sound—blues, soul, gospel, rock and roll—through his own unique vision, never forced, always smooth, each note a tributary on the flowing river of rhythm and blues. And now, with his second full-length album, New Magic, he has delivered a profound statement, a cohesive creation that captures the diverse spirit of American music in a fresh and modern way. The song that serves as the album’s true centerpiece is “Blue Magic,” a Philly Soul inspired number deconstructed almost like a rap song or the best of production savants like J Dilla or Madlib, complete with chiming glockenspiel bells and old school female backing vocals. The song has the appeal of an instant classic. On the heels of his 2015 self-titled debut and the 5-song EP, Songs I Forgot, that came before it, Son Little found his reach steadily growing. His song “Lay Down” had been streamed over seven million times, he had toured the world with artists as diverse as Leon Bridges, Kelis, Mumford & Sons, Portual. The Man and Shakey Graves in addition to his own headlining runs, and also became a Grammy Award winning producer, earning a 2016 Best Roots Performance award for his work on Mavis Staples.
"Letting go can be a scary prospect," says Son Little. "But there's beauty in it, too. Everything you leave behind opens up space for something new in your life." That was certainly the case with his new album, Aloha, his third studio album. Recorded at Paris's iconic Studio Ferber, the entire project was an exercise in letting go, in ceding control, in surrendering to fate. While SON LITTLE (the stage name of songwriter, producer, and multi-instrumentalist Aaron Livingston) still plays nearly every instrument on the album himself, he put his songs in the hands of an outside producer for the first time here, collaborating with French studio wizard Renaud Letang (Feist, Manu Chao) to create his boldest, most self-assured statement yet. Equal parts vintage and modern, the collection blends classic soul, old-school R&B, and adventurous indie sensibilities into a timeless swirl fueled by gritty instrumental virtuosity and raw, raspy vocals. It's an ambitious work of vision and reflection, to be sure, but more than that, it's an ecstatic testament to the freedom that comes from torching the map and trusting the currents of life to carry you where you belong.
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Mavis Staples returns with a brand new studio album produced and written by Ben Harper. Backed by Mavis’ critically acclaimed live band, We Get By features 10 songs of longing, strength, and spirituality, presented with simplicity, grit and sublime beauty. Highlights include the buoyant, “Anytime”, the cathartic, “Change”, and the title track, an uplifting duet with Ben Harper.
Mavis Staples has been a soul and gospel music legend for more than 50 years. Her work fronting the legendary Staples Singers defined the sound of politically-committed soul and influenced generations of musicians. As a solo artist in her own right, she has helped to define much of what is righteous and soulful in American music. There are few people who can claim to have been performing as long as Mavis Staples, let alone to her standards. This album captures her live at the Union Chapel in London with her band performing some of the greatest songs from her musical catalog, while celebrating her 79th birthday.
When we started our family group, The Staple Singers, we started out mostly singing in churches in the south. Pops saw Dr. Martin Luther King speak in 1963 and from there we started to broaden our musical vision beyond just gospel songs. Pops told us, “I like this man. I like his message. and if he can preach it, we can sing it” So we started to write “Freedom Songs,” like “Why Am I Treated So Bad,” “When Will We Be Paid For The Work We’ve Done,” “Long Walk To DC,” and many others. Like many in the civil rights movement, we drew on the spirituality and the strength from the church to help gain social justice and try to achieve equal rights.
We became a major voice for the civil rights movement and hopefully helped to make a difference in this country. It was a difficult and dangerous time (in 1965 we spent a night in jail in West Memphis, Arkansas and I wondered if we’d ever make it out alive) but we felt we needed to stand up and be heard.
So for us, and for many in the civil rights movement, we looked to the church for inner strength and to help make positive changes. And that seems to be missing today. Here it is, 2007, and there are still so many problems and social injustices in the world. Well, I tell you we need a change now more than ever, and I’m turning to the church again for strength.
With this record, I hope to get across the same feeling, the same spirit and the same message as we did with the Staple Singers and to hopefully continue to make positive changes. We’ve got to keep pushing to make the world a better place. Things are better but we’re not where we need to be and we’ll never turn back. 99 and 1/2 just won’t do! - Mavis
“Mavis has done it all and worked with just about everybody from Bob Dylan to Prince to Jeff Tweedy… She still is singing for justice and equality and influencing a new generation of musicians and fans.” -PRESIDENT BARACK OBAMA
MAVIS STAPLES is an American Music legend. She was at the forefront of the civil rights movement in the 1960’s, as singer for the legendary gospel group, The Staples Singers. Mavis, along with her father, Pops, and siblings marched and worked alongside Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr on the fight for equality in this country.
In December 2016, Mavis went to Washington, DC to receive the coveted Kennedy Center Honors from President Obama, with whom she has had a long standing friendship. Mavis invited Wilco frontman and dear friend, Jeff Tweedy as her guest for the weekend’s festivities. The two spent hours discussing the current events and how today’s fight for equality is very similar to those in the 60’s. Inspired by these events, Mavis and Jeff got together and wrote Mavis’ new album, If All I Was Was Black, produced by Jeff Tweedy. The new album is a perfect message for our time and is by far Mavis’ best work to date.
Mavis Staples has been a soul and gospel music legend for more than 50 years. Her work fronting the legendary Staples Singers defined the sound of politically-committed soul and influenced generations of musicians. As a solo artist in her own right, she has helped to define much of what is righteous and soulful in American music. There are few people who can claim to have been performing as long as Mavis Staples, let alone to her standards. This album captures her live at the Union Chapel in London with her band performing some of the greatest songs from her musical catalog, while celebrating her 79th birthday.
Christopher Paul Stelling is a guitar virtuoso, a folk singer- songwriter and a touring troubadour. His new album Best of Luck was produced by Grammy award winning musician-producer, Ben Harper.The album's title, Best Of Luck, mirrored perfectly the emotional landscape in which it was created. "Depending on how you say it, it can either be a blessing or a dismissal," Stelling says. "And that was exactly the point I was coming to with myself, my career as an artist, as a friend and as a person." Harper and Stelling met a few years back when Harper invited Stelling to open a series of shows. "Ben gave me a true gift back then," Stelling says. "I'd been on the road for a long time and he put me onstage in front of his fans. He took me to the Beacon, The Ryman, Massey Hall, all these legendary rooms. Just to see that what I could do would even translate in spaces like that was revelatory."When Harper talks about his admiration for Stelling,. "A guy that can play any instrument from any country and play it with real feeling. He crosses genres but manages to respect them; he is a folk singer with an unusual soulfulness. He understands where this music comes from and why it's remains so essential. Of all the record's I have produced, this is one I'm most proud of."
Christopher Paul Stelling is a guitar virtuoso, a folk singer- songwriter and a touring troubadour. His new album Best of Luck was produced by Grammy award winning musician-producer, Ben Harper.The album's title, Best Of Luck, mirrored perfectly the emotional landscape in which it was created. "Depending on how you say it, it can either be a blessing or a dismissal," Stelling says. "And that was exactly the point I was coming to with myself, my career as an artist, as a friend and as a person." Harper and Stelling met a few years back when Harper invited Stelling to open a series of shows. "Ben gave me a true gift back then," Stelling says. "I'd been on the road for a long time and he put me onstage in front of his fans. He took me to the Beacon, The Ryman, Massey Hall, all these legendary rooms. Just to see that what I could do would even translate in spaces like that was revelatory."When Harper talks about his admiration for Stelling,. "A guy that can play any instrument from any country and play it with real feeling. He crosses genres but manages to respect them; he is a folk singer with an unusual soulfulness. He understands where this music comes from and why it's remains so essential. Of all the record's I have produced, this is one I'm most proud of."
"It was in winter 18/19 - I flew to Montreal to meet with Tim Kingsbury, Richard Reed Parry, Craig Silvey and Teddy Impakt at Le Studio Du Arcade Fire. It was a fine time with a dream team in a city I love. Winter in beautiful Quebec. Les semaines les plus froides de ma vie. I had a bunch of demos that were inspired by migration stories I had heard from friends or read in newspapers while on tour in Europe and North America. I remember being struck by the similarities of the stories I heard from both continents and how really only the names of the powerful and the powerless had changed - thinking, "Is this the future? Is this our future?"Some time went by, the stories wove together and I remember them now closer to characters in a dream of how people could treat each other than any kind of front-page news realism. I think music subconsciously - whether writing or listening - is a filter for me - helping to process all the bad news into something new to build from - some records to me are like self-fulfilling prophecies - visualizing change to wish something into being - those records inspired this one." - M. Ward
“I feel like I’m right back where I started,” says Wynonna Judd, “like I’m 18 all over again. When I sing these songs, it feels like I’m coming home.”
Indeed, Recollections, Wynonna’s captivating new EP, marks both a literal and a figurative homecoming for the GRAMMY-winning icon, who recorded much of the collection while quarantining on her Tennessee farmin the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic. Forced off the road for the first time in years, she found herself reconnecting with her roots as she sang once again for the sheer joy of it, performing a series of loose and lively covers with her husband, former Highway 101 drummer, multi-instrumentalist and producer Cactus Moser. The resulting EP is a testament not only to Wynonna’s status as a jawdropping vocalist and electrifying frontwoman, but also a consummate interpreter of song and a dedicated student of craft. Wynonna drills down to the essence of each song, stripping back layer after layer until she’s laid bare the raw, emotional core of the music. There’s no pretense or posturing on Recollections, just pure heart and soul.
“I’ve learned a lot being at home these last few months,” Wynonna reflects. “When there’s no touring, no concerts, no band, no lights, no action, all that’s left is you and the song. All that’s left is your gift.”