Songwriter MC Taylor aka Hiss Golden Messenger has shared a new track, Cat’s Eye Blue, from his upcoming album Terms of Surrender.
His is a unique and experimental vision aligned to a magpie-like approximation of musical styles – drawing on the great American songbook to create emotional experiences that inspire devotees for life. In turns melancholic, joyful, eerie, bitter, restless and uplifting, the human psyche is laid out for inspection in a way that provokes and soothes in equal measure.
The world is a better place for talents like this – listen to the single below and order the album from Bandcamp here.
We shared their brilliant Bad Blood single back in January and now newly signed to Heavenly Recordings, Working Men’s Club’s pounding new single Teeth is a stomping masterpiece, one that bites deep into their broad influences, bringing in machine-subverted rave music you’d find in 80s Detroit, to their NY post-punk grooves, and all delivered with their marvellous Northern snarling approach.
Watch the video here.
Catch them live too
15 July Manchester International Festival w/ The Orielles
20 July Macclesfield, Bluedot Festival
21 July Suffolk Latitude Festival (Lake Stage)
28 July Cornwall, Port Eliot Festival
11 Aug Hebden Bridge Trades Club w/ Bodega
12 Aug Edinburgh Summerhall w/ Bodega
13 Aug Newcastle The Riverside w/ Bodega
24 Aug Birkenhead Futureyard Festival
27 Aug Brighton Concorde 2 w/ Bodega
28 Aug Birmingham The Hare and Hounds w/ Bodega
29 Aug Bedford Esquires w/ Bodega
30 Aug Manchester Psych Festival
01 Sep County Laois, Electric Picnic
05 Sep London, The Lexington
07 Sep Blackburn Confessional Festival
13 Sep Hawarden The Good Life Experience
19 Sep Manchester, Yes (Basement)
11 Oct Warrington, Rusgan House
12 Oct Manchester Neighbourhood Festival
16 Oct Leeds, Brudenell Social Club
17 Oct York, The Fulford Arms
18 Oct Hull, The Polar Bear
19 Oct Oxford, Ritual Union
20 Oct Cardiff SWN Festival
23 Oct Southampton, Heartbreakers
25 Oct Guildford, Boileroom
27 Oct Glasgow, Broadcast
28 Oct Birmingham, Hare and Hounds 2
31 Oct Bristol, The Louisiana
02 Nov Sheffield, Record Junkee
07 Nov Norwich, The Waterfront Studio
08 Nov Reading, Purple Turtle
09 Nov Derby 2Q Festival
DZ Deathrays have shared the second taste of their forthcoming album Positive Rising: Part 1, which is scheduled for release on Friday 30th August through Alcopop! Records here in the UK.
Teaming up with The Bronx frontman Matt Caughthran, who adds his distinctive scream to proceedings, new single Year Of The Dog is a pedal-to-the-metal thrash-party riot.
Known for delivering layered echo-drenched guitar with heavy, relentless drums, London based duo Black Doldrums are returning with their expansive new EP She Divine on Club AC30. The title refers to Aldous Huxley’s 1954 psychedelia-induced masterpiece The Doors of Perception, where constant reference is made to the search for divinity and how all cultures are united in the need for that same search.
Utilising waves of reverb-drenched distortion, the pair construct a sonic monolith over the five tracks that make up the EP. From the infectious, garage-inflected Those With A Rope Around Their Neck (Don’t Always Hang) to the more delicate, Hearts That Beat, Will Never Mend, the release explores themes of the divine and femininity.
With echoes of the proto-psych of the 60s, icy post-punk of the 80s and the Brit-rock swagger of the 90s and more specifically recalling the early ragged glory of Black Rebel Motorcycle Club or the Black Angels, it has to be said that the band offer their own, satisfyingly original, take on some savagely malevolent percussion and gloriously ferocious riffs.
Couple of tracks to listen to here. Nice and loud mind!
Taking their cues from the likes of Devo, Talking Heads and Wire, New York trio B Boys find inspiration in the chaos that surrounds them: the aggressive attitude and sonic lawlessness of the city they live, work, and breathe in every day. Their raw, yet meticulous style is characterized by rhythmic complexity, commanding riffs, and introspective lyrics that are as playful and self-aware as they are cutting.
Their sophomore album Dudu is out on the 26th July and the latest track to be shared from it is Instant Pace, another acerbic slice of subversive, frustrated punk rock.
Hot on the heels of our post about The Murder Capital earlier, Leeds indie outfit Party Hardly have shared a rousing new anthem of their own – Rats In The Kitchen – the second track lifted from forthcoming EP Modern Strife Is Snobbish, which sees a release later this summer.
Giving their jangly guitar rock some hefty punk overtones, the track follows on from The Hopskotch Man, and is the musical equivalent of waking a guard dog – a bit woozy in places, but equally likely to suddenly tear your ears off with no warning and no apology.
The Murder Capital have been deservedly generating lots of interest and plaudits with the propulsive post-punk darkness of their first two singles, both from their forthcoming debut album When I Have Fears, which will be released on 16th August via Human Season Records.
The Dublin band have now shared a third, the anthemic Don’t Cling To Life. Another cracker – watch the video below and pre-order the album here.
Melbourne’s post-punk masters Terry are back with a new single – Bizzo And Top Hat – which comes from a new EP Who’s terry?, out on the 19th July via Upset The Rhythm.
Typically, catchy, typically sharp, typically sardonic, typically excellent.
Famed for their wall of sound, and notoriously difficult to label (they themselves describe their music as “psychedelic, socialist, utopian, death raga, erroneous funk, trapdoor jazz, bastard muzak“), the origins of Meatraffle are lost in obscurity although it has been said that they came about as the result of a drunken afternoon shared by Clams Baker and Zsa Zsa Sapien in a South London Wetherspoon pub, and that the original idea was to actually do a meat raffle. Indeed, early photos of the band feature raffle tickets and pig’s heads. Whatever the truth may be Meatraffle took shape in places like the fetid cauldrons of the Queen’s Head and the Windmill in Brixton alongside former label and tour mates The Fat White Family.
They released their first album, the truly excellent HiFi Classics on Trashmouth Records back in 2015, and their new album Bastard Music is out on August 30th on Delayed Records (pre-order here). The first single from it is The Day The Earth Stood Still, a love letter to the working class on an imagined global holiday, and is backed with Meatraffle On The Moon.
David Berman of the wonderfully literate and melancholic indie rockers Silver Jews is back after an absence of ten long years, with a new band Purple Mountains, and a self-titled debut album of the same name. I have to confess I’d missed the news and a couple of tracks have been floating around for a few weeks now – the marvellously named All My Happiness Is Gone and the possibly marginally more upbeat title Darkness and Cold.
More recently a third track Margaritas at the Mall has also surfaced. Listen to them all below and rejoice at his return with lines like “Lately I’ve been making strangers wherever I go” – just brilliant!
