RIP John Prine

Posted: April 8, 2020 in Acoustic, Americana, Country, Music
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John Prine was a late discovery for me – but some of his songs and lyrics have become some of my favourite ever. It was so desperately sad to hear the news of his passing this morning.

I don’t think there has ever been a more desperate or more telling line than this found in his early classic Sam Stone, the poignant and unflinchingly bleak tale of the abandonment of Vietnam vets returning home, “There’s a hole in daddy’s arm where all the money goes, Jesus Christ died for nothin I suppose”

So, here are two of my favourites to listen to one more time.

RiP John Prine.

 

 

Lovely Eggs – I Am Moron

Posted: April 7, 2020 in Alternative, Garage, Music, Psychedelic, Punk, Rock
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The madcap, psychedelic punk thrash of the Lovely Eggs is back on the turntable with a new, typically uncompromising long-player, I Am Moron.

It mostly crams twelve insanely hectic, and utterly infectious tracks into just under 40 minutes of warped humour, biting satire and lo-fi anarchy – there is a brief pause for some dream-pop, a smattering of surfy guitars – but overall it is a wonderful package of garage rock sleaze.

Listen to You Can Go Now as it namechecks everything that is no longer required in the Eggs’ world, from Anthea Turner to football fixtures to ziplock freshness and magic mushrooms.

Buy the album here.

 

 

 

Protomartyr – Processed By The Boys

Posted: April 7, 2020 in Alternative, Music, Post Punk, Rock
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Somehow we completely missed that Protomartyr have a new album coming out. Detroit’s post punk anti-heroes will release Ultimate Success Today, their fifth long-player, on the 29th May (pre-order here).

This is the excellent first single, Processed By The Boys, which is a fierce, panic-fuelled ride and showcases the band at their reverb-laden heaviest.

Listen below.

 

 

Laura Marling Announces New Album, Shares Held Down

Posted: April 6, 2020 in Folk, Indie, Music, Pop
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Singer-songwriter Laura Marling has shared details of a surprise new album which will be released on Friday 10th April via Chrysalis/Partisan. It is her seventh solo release, and titled Song For Our Daughter, it’s preceded with the first single, Held Down.

With a touch of melodic poppiness to it, you can stream it below.

 

The Warlocks – The Chain

Posted: April 5, 2020 in Alternative, Garage, Music, Psychedelic, Rock
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LA’s ultra reliable psych-warriors The Warlocks have released a new album, The Chain which, over the course of ten densely layered guitar tracks spiced with keyboards and reinforced with powerful bass and percussion grooves, tells the story of two star-crossed lovers who commit a bank heist together. The band’s Bobby Hecksher describes it as “based around “a Bonnie & Clyde-ish twenty-something couple who rob a bank but get caught and then are cast down the bottomless pit of our justice system. The main characters, Rocky and Diamond, come from different means and thus have very different outcomes. It’s a loose collection of ‘you got fucked and swept under the rug’-type feelings revealed amid happy songs about their relationship, provided as a kind of relief.”

The latest taste comes in the shape of I’m Not Good Enough / Party Like We Used To, a typically powerful, dreamlike swirl into a fever-soaked haze of climactic reverb.

Out now – you can order from Bandcamp here.

 

Mush – Fear Index

Posted: April 3, 2020 in Alternative, Indie, Music, Rock
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Following on from their debut album 3D Routine, Leeds art rockers Mush have shared their new single Fear Index which is taken from their upcoming 5 track 7” EP Great Artisanal Formats, which will be released via Memphis Industries on 20th June for RecordStore Day 2020.

The single is a crisp one minute forty seconds, juxtaposing lead-singer Dan Hyndman’s existential woes against absurdist guitar wrangling.

Stream it below. Buy the single (pay what you want), and 3D Routine, from Bandcamp here.

 

Damien Jurado – Alice Hyatt

Posted: April 1, 2020 in Americana, Folk, Indie, Music
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Damien Jurado recently announced details of his new album What’s New, Tomboy? which sees him stepping back into a more fleshed out sound with his voice and rhythm section at the fore. it is a collection of songs that exude the inviting warmth of a lone porch light gleaming amidst the disorienting darkness.

On latest single Alice Hyatt, the sparse instrumental elements add a deeper poignancy to Jurado’s lyrics. The song could be read as a dour one, eliciting a feeling of misinterpretation, missing something, or someone. That is until the last few moments before the final organ line chimes in and he cuts the melancholy by singing “I was busy, being myself”.

Listen to it below, and also album opener, the beautiful Birds Tricked Into The Trees. You can pre-order the record here.

 

 

Rolling Blackouts Coastal Fever – She’s There

Posted: April 1, 2020 in Alternative, Indie, Music, Rock
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Rolling Blackouts Coastal Fever’s highly anticipated second album, Sideways To New Italy will be released on Friday 5th June.

They have already shared a first single Cars In Space and their new single, She’s There, is a cosmic, wistful love song championed by surging guitar riffs, driving beats and lots of energy.

Listen to both below.

 

 

Psychic Ills Release Never Learn Not To Love / Cease To Exist 7″

Posted: March 31, 2020 in Alternative, Indie, Music, Post Punk, Psychedelic, Rock
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A little earlier this month, we were very sad to learn of the loss of Psychic Ills founder, frontman, and songwriter Tres Warren at just 41 years old. Regulars on MM, at the time of his death, Warren was overflowing with creativity, actively writing new songs, and excited about the next phase of the band and was getting ready to go into the studio alongside longtime collaborator Elizabeth Hart and their bandmates to record the sixth Psychic Ills full-length, which was supposed to be out this fall.

While those songs were tragically not recorded, the band did record a pair of covers for a new 7″, which we’ve got for you today. Never Learn Not to Love and Cease to Exist are the first new Psychic Ills songs to be released since 2016’s Inner Journey Out, and while they no longer precede a new album as originally intended, they stand as a celebration of Tres Warren’s beautiful musical spirit. You can listen to both songs now, and order the vinyl from the Sacred Bones website.

Originally appearing on The Beach Boys 1969 album 20/20, credited to Dennis Wilson and with changes to the arrangement and lyrics, Never Learn Not To Love was written as Cease To Exist by a then unknown songwriter named Charles Manson. His version would eventually appear on his album Lie: The Love and Terror Cult, released in 1970, by which time he was already incarcerated for the events that he is most commonly known for today.

Stream them both below.

 

 

Cabbage – You’ve Made An Art Form (From Falling To Pieces)

Posted: March 26, 2020 in Alternative, Indie, Music, Post Punk, Rock
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Cabbage are back in our time of global crisis to share a new single – You’ve Made An Art Form (From Falling To Pieces) is three minutes of wiry, full-bodied and typically erudite new-wave-post-punk-agit-indie.

Watch the band immersed in a world of heady, arts and crafts-meets-shroomy psychedelia for the single’s colourful video.

Now just need to find something to fill the other twenty three hours and fifty six minutes of daily lockdown…

 

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