Category Archives: Gothic

Introducing >>> The Graphite Set

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Introducing >>> The Graphite Set

These Streets, the debut EP by Lily Buchanan AKA The Graphite Set, will see a release on 3rd June via Thumbscrew Music.

Dealing a nice line in dark psych-folk melded to art-rock, and with some gothic flourishes, the final product sounds like a sonic amalgam of Nico, The Electric Prunes, Julie Driscoll, PJ Harvey, and Jefferson Airplane.

Have a listen to the humming, hypnotic title track over which her distinctive vocals swoop and surge and duel fiercely with the guitar lines of guest player, the Smoke Fairies’ Katherine Blamire.

It is powerful, compelling stuff and we’re looking forward to hearing the whole EP.

New Album From Georgia’s Horse

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New Album From Georgia's Horse

The brilliant debut album The Mammoth Sessions by Georgia’s Horse was a big hit round these parts. Mrs M in particular loved the mysterious, haunting vocals of Texan songwriter Teresa Maidonado set over a backdrop of swirling, dusty Americana and old-time folk. It was gorgeous, mesmerising and unsettling in equal measure and as fine a debut record as you were likely to hear.

Her new album Weather Codes will emerge blinking into the light of day on the 25th June courtesy of the mighty fine Fire Records. Consisting of fourteen tracks written during a failing relationship, they are shot through with a melancholy and sadness that is almost real enough to touch. This is a record to spend time with, to wallow in and to absorb until every nuance is revealed. A record for the forlorn and the forgotten, the lonely and the sorrowful, and for those needing to find comfort or solace from their own heartbreak in the middle of the night when the darkness is blacker than ever and daybreak feels as if it will never come.

Weather Codes draws on influences ranging from the vast open spaces of Texas and it’s parched, unforgiving sun to the struggles of coping with small-town gossip and game-playing via musical touchpoints that include the fractured psych-folk of Bonnie ‘Prince’ Billy, the black metal of Venom and the dark gothic undertones of Bauhaus. We’ve just listened to it a couple of times so far, but have no fear, the result is something wonderful – evocative, poignant, sometimes unnerving, but always magical.

Download Ginger below, and put this album to the top of your “must-have’ list.

New Track From Grass House

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New Single From Grass House

We have been big supporters of Grass House from the days of their brilliant debut EP back in the spring of 2010. So it is a genuine pleasure to hear they have now been signed by Marshall Teller Records, and even more so that they have unveiled a brand new album track which they are giving away as a free download.

Spinning As We Turn is classic Grass House - hypnotic, propulsive, and oozing at the edges with a faint whiff of unmistakeable menace. The influences range from the Velvet’s chug to Spector’s wall of sound by way of the fatalism of Leonard Cohen, but this London four-piece have always possessed the originality and imagination to create something truly of their own making.

Their debut album is due later in the year, and if this is anything to go by we are in for a real treat.

See all our previous Grass House posts here.

MM Shorts 336: The Mohawk Lodge

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MM Shorts 336: The Mohawk Lodge

Canadian indie-rockers The Mohawk Lodge have announced details of their fourth album, Damaged Goods, out on the 7th May. An intense mix of clattering rock, sonic reverb, and blues inspired grooves, all meshed together to create something urgent and demanding, but above all fiercely catchy.

The first single is the stripped back, lo-fi of Howling At The Moon. Have a listen.

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Videos of the Day: The Paper Kites || The Ruminaters || Sanders Bohlke || Eyes On Film

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Videos of the Day

Short films of the musical variety to enjoy with the sweet folk of The Paper Kites, and the hillbilly swamp-rock of The Ruminaters. There is Sanders Bohlke’s slightly macabre and dreamlike video for Ghost Boy, and some powerful electro tinged rock from Waking Up Dead, with a video based on the opening scene from the 1983 cult, art-horror flick The Hunger.

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(Click through to download for free.)

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Introducing >>> Black Hay

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Introducing >>> Black Hay

If you follow a route to an intersection where garage rock meets jazz, where rockabilly meets gothic and where country meets punk, you might well see Black Hay sitting roadside ready to scrounge a cigarette and tell you a few stories.

Stories that you might subsequently find on their Nightsong EP.

Stories that are shadowy – skewed romantica if you will – with echoes of  Nick Cave and Mark Lanegan at their most dark hearted and compelling.

Have a listen to the title track and buy the EP from their Bandcamp page here.

Mad Mackerel’s Best Of The Month: January 2013

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Mad Mackerel's Best Of The Month: January 2013

So, all things considered January got off to a rip-roaring start where new tunes are concerned. Here is our selection of our best of the month’s downloads (27 in all) and a few new tunes too – more than 30 to pick from, so blow those January blues away with these babies.

Prissy Clerks – Bruise or Be Bruised
Mix of fuzzed up punk and slacker indie with garage pop undertones managing to balance a confused, dark isolation with some tender sweetness.

Download The Chaw – The Whole Night Through mp3 (from The Chaw)
Propulsive rhythms and guitar squalls drenched in reverb, referencing soundtracks of the classic spaghetti westerns, big open bar chords and barky low register guitar leads ala Dick Dale.

Download Water Liars – Fake Heat mp3 (from Wyoming)
Plaintive vocals building over the slowly increasing guitar distortion creates a real treat of a first taste from forthcoming album.

Big Harp – Waiting For Some Drunk
Literate Americana, with fuzzed-out, needle-sharp textures.

Download Indian Wars – Sweetheart Of The North mp3 (from Songs From The North)
First taste of new album is a cracker from countrified rockers.

Download Airstrip – Pleasure Center mp3 (from Willing)
Hypnotic and dark “nightmare pop”

Download Colleen Green – Time In The World mp3 (from Sock it to Me)
Showcases vintage synth tones alongside Green’s trademark multi-tracked harmonies, deep-fried guitar chords, and spartan drum machine beats.

Download Milo Greene – Parents mp3 (from Filter Presents: Milo Turns 50)
Eerily hushed and woozy version of the scathing 1982 classic Descendents track Parents. Cover of the month undoubtedly.

Lower Plenty – Strange Beast
Hazy, beautifully melancholy, suburban-country music. Click through to download for free.

Download Tom Morgan – Taste For Blood mp3 (from Orange Syringe)
Stripped back and laconic folk laced with self effacing black humour.

Download Swallows – The Winnowing mp3 (from Witching & Divining)
Rasping, gravelly vocals, sombre cello and chanted junkyard chorus call to mind Tom Waits and The Wicker Man in equal measure.

Wooden Wand – Outsider Blues
No description needed – best album of the month. Mellow, oak-aged, yet still oddly warped folk. Brilliant.

Download Summer Aviation – Love So Fine mp3 (from Love So Fine single)
Combine the fresh, supercharged sound of 60s pop arrangements with post-punk avant-garde: Think Burt Bacharach meets My Bloody Valentine.

Honeyslide – Sugar Routine
Warm distorted guitars, complex hooks and captivating melodies swathed in reverb to create piercing sonic landscapes.

PRAVADA – Campfire Song
Catchy-as-hell tune filled with swirling guitars and sugary indie pop harmonies.

Download Frontier Ruckus – Dealerships mp3 (from Eternity of Dimming)
Wonderfully folky Americana from much anticipated new album.

Harry George Johns – Hospital Blues
Raw personal folk, an incredibly personal diary of a dark and desperate time.

Download Cobalt Cranes – Head In The Clouds mp3 (from Head In The Clouds)
Blend elements of desert, psychedelic and shoegaze sounds, taking a modern approach to classic California rock.

Download The Lovely Bad Things – Fried Eggs mp3 (from The Late Great Whatever)
Garage-punk masterclass.

Download Torres – Mother Earth, Father God mp3 (from Torres)
Minimal, ragged, and raw folk from singer-songwriter’s debut release.

As Elephants Are – Lucifer
Another blistering slice of epic, widescreen indie rock.

Download Fletcher C Johnson – Happy Birthday mp3 (from Salutations)
A nostalgic paean to the 60s with a sweet melody and chorus. Perfect garage pop.

Download The Futurebirds – Man With No Knees (demo) mp3 (from Exhume)
Brilliantly ramshackle Americana and pedal-steel inspired psychedelia.

Download Little Wings – Sandy Babe mp3 (from LAST)
Little Wings at their warmest and most mellow.

Pickering Pick – Standing Stone
Warm, sensitive, thoughtful and restrained – perfect fare from singer-songwriter par-excellence.

Download Lazy Talkers – Killing Time mp3 (from Lazy Talkers)
Sweet, easy-going jangle from indie-folksters.

Jack James – Three Names
Brooding slice of dark folk (click through to download for free).

And to finish off, new tunes from Screaming Females with the sinewy and rickety Poison Arrow from their forthcoming tape release Chalk Tape, a second (brilliant) track from John Grant’s much anticipated new record Pale Green Ghosts, the excellent literate Americana tinged indie of Yellow Red Sparks and the song that gave them their name, and finally the mesmerising brilliance of Secret Mountains and their haunting track Coasting.

Download Screaming Females – Poison Arrow mp3 (from Chalk Tape)

Download John Grant – Black Belt mp3 (from Pale Green Ghosts)

Download Yellow Red Sparks – Yellow Red Sparks mp3 (from Yellow Red Sparks)

Download Secret Mountains – Coasting mp3 (from Rainer)

Mad Mackerel Recommends…Dorado

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Mad Mackerel Recommends ... Dorado

Jody Nelson had a busy 2012 with a fantastic EP release from Through the Sparks, production duties on Some Dark Holler’s Hollow Chest, performing on Wooden Wand’s Blood Oaths of the New Blues, and touring and working diligently throughout the year on his own Dorado project.

And it is this project that has seriously got our attention – the album Anger, Hunger, Love and the Fear of Death is the first release of the year on This is American Music and it sets the bar pretty damn high.

The album is large in scope, divergent in tone, and somehow simultaneously disjointed and perfectly cohesive. It isn’t easy listening, but it is mighty rewarding. At first it seems that sonic chaos has been unleashed – mayhem abounds with Nelson seemingly a cackling maniac at the controls – our first impression was of an album that Heath Ledger’s Joker might have on repeat on his iPod. While its roots might nominally be in southern rock, there are plenty of other forces at work here – psychedelia, folk, country-noir, art-rock, straight-up indie – the musical cauldron bubbles and seethes with every imaginable ingredient.

Thankfully, there is plenty of method in the madness though; Dorado’s wild, noisy jaunts feel right at home alongside folksier numbers as evidenced by the album’s final pair of tracks—Deleted Scene dissolves like Jay Bennett-era Wilco right into Birds of Paradise which nods to Dylan’s I Want You. Meanwhile Ape of Dorado is right up there with our favourite tunes of the year so far.

Dorado is distinctly Nelson in all of his dramatic, poetic, student-of-sounds glory, and Anger, Hunger, Love, and the Fear of Death might well prove to be one of the first great releases of 2013.

Purchase it here.