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Tuesday, Feb 25 2020, 6AM
Ulrich Schnauss recently released a free album on his Bandcamp page, titled
Ozora At 3am - Improvisation #3. Find it here:
bit.ly
"Is there anything as tumultuous to your life as finding out that you’re going to become a parent? That in nine short months you will have another entity to look after. An entity that is completely and utterly dependent on your existence. Deserta’s debut album ‘Black Aura My Sun’ is an otherworldly reaction to being put in that very same position." Read more here: bit.ly
Their new LP, called Introduction, Presence will be out in April. This is what frontman Ian Devaney has to say about it:
"Nation Of Language was sparked by a period of personal awakening around early new wave — specifically, as I was listening to a version of OMD’s “Electricity.” It occurred to me that a moment in time existed when it seemed everyone still had a kind of “beginners mind” about how synthesizers could be used and fit into the musical landscape. They were wielding this technology as a blunt instrument, and it felt like I had been given permission to do the same.
We knew very little about the tools used on this record before we began recording. There’s something fascinating to me about how emotions can present themselves when one is unsure of what exactly they’re doing. It’s important to me that people feel that core of innocence and pure discovery out of which these songs were born."
You can still get tickets for Bombay Bicycle Club's show on April 30th at The Showbox: bit.ly
The song's refrain of "Everything's gonna be OK," is about the self-delusion that is sometimes necessary for surviving modern life. The band's Dave Sitek told NME: "The 'I keep telling myself...' line means that it might not be true. Everyone goes through that, on multiple levels. There's a lot of doubt floating around. What has modern living and its aspirations led to? ''Trouble' at least for me, is about putting your helmet on."
"Down in the River to Pray" is a traditional American song variously described as a Christian folk hymn, an African-American spiritual, an Appalachian song, and a gospel song. The exact origin of the song is unknown.
Lea Porcelain: "It just felt good to write something beautiful with no other purpose than to let this feeling out." Read KEXP's 2019 interview with Lea Porcelain here: bit.ly
Remembering Mark Hollis, who passed away a year ago. Read all about his life: bit.ly
Torres will be at The Tractor with Ariana & The Rose on March 31st: bit.ly
The song had long been rumored to exist but went largely unheard until a few years ago when someone, as of yet still unidentified and in possession of the master tapes, leaked the song online. Because this song was never officially released and because it is so (almost painfully) intimate listening to it almost feels a little like an intrusion.
Chris Bailoni of Grapetooth stated, “I wanted [“Fantasy Movie”] to be filled with lots of layers of wobbly detuned organs and synths with a similar timbre that constantly cut in and out throughout the arrangement.” He continued, “[On “Valentine”] Lillie and Clay [Frankel] sang beautifully for hours and left the session file with almost 100 tracks on it – organizing and then mixing that song was a wild maneuver but I’m super happy with how the songs came out. I love making music with these two pals.”
Songs From the Big Chair is 35 years old today
Christine And The Queens performed live in the KEXP October 23, 2018. bit.ly
Geoff Barrow told Q magazine February 2008 about the album's sound: "It's a lot more evil. It still sounds like us, but there's some electronic stuff on it too." Guitarist Adrian Utley added to Billboard magazine: "It sounds nothing like Dummy or Portishead, but it's definitely its older brother or sister. It's the same mindset we've always had, only further down the road."
Yves Tumor is performing at Neumos on April 5th: bit.ly
The new album, Undying Thirst, is out Friday. Find the limited edition gold vinyl here: bit.ly
Hinds are playing Neumos on May 31st: bit.ly
Question: what do you do when your musical heroes call you to play with them this week, but you're 800 miles away and filled with cold?
Answer: you say yes, of course. Duh.
That's the position Madrid-based indie band Hinds found themselves in on Sunday, after The Strokes invited the group to join them for a series of hastily-arranged (and not so) secret gigs in Paris, London and Belfast. Read more: www.bbc.com
"Sprawl II" was released as a 12-inch single on April 21, 2012 as part of Record Store Day 2012.
To mark George's birthday today, the Liverpool City Council and the Harrison Estate proudly announce The George Harrison Woodland Walk, a memorial woodland opening in Liverpool in 2021. Artists are encouraged to submit artwork for the garden here – cultureliverpool.co.uk
Nonesuch Records releases the Magnetic Fields’ Quickies on May 15, 2020. The set—available on five vinyl EPs, one CD, and digitally, features twenty-eight new short songs by Stephin Merritt, ranging in length from thirteen seconds to two minutes and thirty-five seconds.
Stephin Merritt talks about the Quickies concept:
“I’ve been reading a lot of very short fiction, and enjoyed writing 101 Two Letter Words, the poetry book about the shortest words you can use in Scrabble. Also I’ve been listening to a lot of French baroque harpsichord music. Harpsichord doesn’t lend itself to languor. I’ve been thinking about one instrument at a time, playing for about a minute or so and then stopping, and narratives that are only a few lines long. To make the album, I used a lot of small notebooks, so when I reach the bottom of the page, I’ve only gone a short way.”
Hamilton Leithauser is heading out on tour but there is no Seattle date. California is the closest but maybe you fancy a trip to Nashville?
See all the dates here: bit.ly
Neil Diamond performed this on The Johnny Cash Show, where he explained:
"This song was written about a revival meeting I was at in Jackson, Mississippi. I went there because I was curious, and also because I was a college kid who had all the answers - no one was going to teach me anything and I could lay a few answers on them. I sat in the back of this tent meeting and I got really caught up in the music - clapping, the singing - tremendously exciting. After a while I felt something about the people - there was a tremendous yearning, looking for answers. Trying to ease a very hard burden of very rough lives. After a while the music stopped and a preacher walked out. I remember thinking that all the education I had, all the books, all the words, all the learning I went through at college didn't mean anything to these people, I had nothing for them. So I found myself pulling for this man who was about to give them something that I couldn't even begin to give them."
“Malkmus took on Traditional Techniques as a kind of self-dare,” reads a statement accompanying the album announcement. “Conceived while recording Sparkle Hard at Portland’s Halfling Studio, Malkmus had observed the variety of acoustic instruments available for use. The idea escalated within a matter of weeks into a full set of songs, and shortly thereafter into a realized and fully committed album.”
Stephen Malkmus will head out on tour in support of Traditional Techniques in March and will be at The Showbox on June 27th
bit.ly
Until "Raleigh Days", Archers of Loaf hadn’t released a new song since their final studio album White Trash Heroes came out in 1998. We're glad they finally did!
They're coming to The Showbox on July 11th
If you pre-order Gigaton on vinyl it comes with a 7" of the album's first single, "Dance Of The Clairvoyants": bit.ly
Mike Hadreas describes "Describe": “It started as a really somber ballad. It was very minimal and very slow. And then it turned into this beast of a song. I started writing that about when you are in such a dark place that you don’t even remember what goodness is or what anything feels like. And so, the idea was having someone describe that to you, because you forgot or can’t get to it.”
Lucinda Williams' new album, Good Souls, Better Angels will be out on April 24th
Steve Earle performing "Copperhead Road" live in the KEXP studio.
Yeah, that happened. February 21, 2015.
bit.ly
Elkington shared this quote about "Ever-Roving Eye": “A more cosmic acquaintance of mine once told me that when your life is going in the direction you want it to, it’s the universe’s way of telling you that you are in the place you’re meant to be. Does that sound likely? Not at all, but the song asks the question anyway…”
Tue. March 24 - Portland, OR @ Arlene Schnitzler Concert Hall
Frightened Rabbit performing "Swim Until You Can't See Land" live in the KEXP studio. Recorded 10/7/10. bit.ly
Lemonheads lead singer Evan Dando, talked about this song. "It's spooky," he said. "It's about a disappearing person. It's a very open-ended, grey sort of song. I think it's one of those things, like The Trouble with Harry [a 1955 Alfred Hitchcock film]. Like a mysterious sort of song."
Levellers have a new album, Peace, out August 14th.
www.levellers.co.uk
30 Something was recorded in 20 days on 8-track, costing only £4,000
Hopefully your 7th best day of the week can be upgraded to the 6th. Or even the 5th, but that's unheard of. Happy Tuesday!
The B side to "A Thousand Words" is "Can't Sleep". Listen to it here: bit.ly
'England Is A Garden' is out on March 6th and you can pre-order here on same sweet blue and green vinyl: bit.ly
Kinks frontman Ray Davies wrote this song after the group's 1965 tour of the United States. The tour did not go well, with infighting, fatigue and a conflict with the musician's union that kept them from performing in the country for another four years.
Davies recovered from the tour with a vacation at the English resort town of Torquay, Devon. There, a wealthy hotel guest recognized him and asked Ray to play a round of golf. Far from being flattered by the invitation, he took great offense. "I'm not gonna play fucking golf with you," he told him. "I'm not gonna be your caddy so you can say you played with a pop singer."
Tres Leches' Homecoming show / Vinyl and Single Release Party is April 17th at The Tractor. Get your tickets now! bit.ly
The single was released in two formats: as a 7" single with "Need You Around" as the A-side and the additional album track "Adena" as the B-side, and as a CD single with these two tracks as well as a cover version of Willie Nelson's "Angel Flying Too Close to the Ground" and a live recording of "Adena".
First new Man Man album in 7 years! Also teasing a tour but nothing announced yet. Stay tuned.
In a 1995 interview with RIP magazine, Toadies lead singer Todd Lewis, who wrote the song, said: "It's just a story I heard long ago; it's just a really cool, eerie lake, and some stuff I heard and some stuff I just make up. I tend to do that. They dammed up this big river up there, and it's got all these spooky names like Hell's Gate. It's really cool."
Last year, Tera Melos singer/guitarist Nick Reinhart launched his new project Disheveled Cuss with the single “Wanna Be My Friend” and said he planned to release its debut album on Sargent House in 2020. Now, that album is announced. It’s self-titled and comes out May 8 via Sargent House, and it features “Wanna Be My Friend” as well as the just-released “Nu Complication.”
Visit UFO House Party's Facebook page: www.facebook.com
Happy Mardi Gras! Watch The Joy Formidable in a live performance in the KEXP studio from 2016: www.youtube.com