The perfect warm-up to Halloween comes from our favourite eerie Fens folksters Straw Bear, and the track The Land Witch taken from their excellent album Black Bank. A boy stares out from a car window as it meanders through a rain-soaked wood. “Don’t let the boys go in there with the Land Witch,” his grandmother mutters, and from the backseat the wide-eyed child scours the darkness to … Continue reading Straw Bear – The Land Witch
Calgary James is from the Boston-based band High Diner. He has a new single out for free download titled Days Like These. It is a thoroughly enjoyable, meandering acoustic guitar ditty with a nicely judged psych-pop undercurrent – should appeal to fans of Mac DeMarco. Continue reading MM Shorts 466: Calgary James
Louisville-based psychedelic/experimental duo Wax Fang’s third standalone single of 2013 will be Hearts Are Made For Beating, out on the 5th November. It is like a classic college rock song that has been left out in the sun too long and has gradually warped and stretched, metamorphosing into something that is slightly off-kilter, a little bit alien even. Whatever it is, it is out of sync … Continue reading New Single From Wax Fang
We thoroughly enjoyed The Hale & Hearty LP by Heyward Howkins, a record full of melancholy and playfulness and distinguished by some unusual arrangements and instrumentation. Now he is back with Be Frank Furness, which is equal parts turmoil and glittering melodies and idles somewhere comfortably between the sound of Andrew Bird and Dent May. Within the opening moments of the new album, the cheerful guitar instantly … Continue reading New Album From Heyward Howkins
We’re way late on this one, but having hit a (rich) psych-pop vein earlier, we’re now loving the 60s pastoral, jangly psychedelia of Candy Flip the debut 7″ single by another New York outfit, Spires. It is backed by the equally good, and vintage sounding, Comic Book. Fire up a fat one and listen below. Continue reading Spires – Candy Flip 7″
Zula are a four-piece psych pop band from Brooklyn. Their debut LP, This Hopeful, is currently streaming on SPIN, and gets an official release tomorrow (29th) on Inflated Records. Listen to the first single from the album, the irresistible Twin Loss, a perfect mix of sunshine, hypnotics, restlessness, and weaving, sinewy melody. Continue reading MM Shorts 465: Zula
Occupying his own unique space in American music somewhere between the throaty junkyard stomp of Tom Waits and the wild mercurial ramblings of Dylan, James Keyes is a musician who travels solo with only a guitar and his right foot beating out the time on a home made pedal board. Gut-bucket blues, honky-tonk tear jerkers, songs of the road and its endless freedom, dark nights in … Continue reading Mad Mackerel Recommends… James Keyes
Back at the beginning of February we posted the excellent debut single Mifune from all-female folk band Scowlin Owl. Taking influences from the classic (Dylan, Baez, The Band, Fairport Convention) to the contemporary (Decemberists, Midlake, Sufjan Stevens) and led by main songwriter Nina Lovelace, the band prefer to be inspired by life’s great stories, places or people rather than simpler themes of love or loss. In November they … Continue reading Debut EP From Scowlin Owl
There are plenty who will find far better words than I to mourn the passing of Lou Reed. Suffice to say he soundtracked much of my teenage years and fuelled many bedroom dreams of partying with NY’s avant-garde finest and haughty, heroin fuelled ice maidens. Only a few weeks ago I splashed some download credits on exploring his later back catalogue of solo albums like … Continue reading RIP Lou Reed
Peggy Sue’s new album Choir Of Echoes will be out in January on Yep Roc Records. We were big fans of their previous release of noirish folk Acrobats and of the new record, the band says “Choir of Echoes is an album about singing. About losing your voice and finding it again. Voices keeping each other company and voices competing for space. The call and response … Continue reading New Peggy Sue Album
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