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EP review: Real Estate – ‘Half A Human’: capturing the hollowness of quarantine
THE ISOLATION of the pandemic has caused millions of people worldwide to realize how instrumental socialization and interaction has been in our lives. Separated from this aspect of ourselves for over a year has left many of us feeling hollow and aware of the hole left in our lives. We have tried to stay connected …
Album review: New Bums – ‘Last Time I Saw Grace’: Ben and Donovan reveal an unexpected treat
Last Time I Saw I Grace reveals more depth than the two single drops really hinted it contained; yeah sure, there’s cracking moments of that raggedy-assness, but the run of wider-screen psych-country and other tracks are deft and prettily arranged, less … excellently thrown down than you might expect. It probably isn’t the kind of album that throws you back against the wall at some party downtown for a ruby-red lipped snog; but it very much is the kind of album you end up on a spontaneous road trip with, or hanging with on a rainy Sunday, and realised you had deep feelings for all along.
Album review: Chad VanGaalen – ‘The World’s Most Stressed Out Gardener’: an excellent, multifaceted curio of psych and fun
YOU’VE gotta love Chad VanGaalen, the Albertan singer-songwriter who completely follows his own muse, sees the world his own goddam way, thank you very much; and who’s been delighting those of us in the know for a decade and a half now. He first emerged blinking into the musical sunlight with his Infiniheart album for …
News: Dinosaur Jr. announce April album for Jagjaguwar; see the animation for ‘I Ran Away’
YOUR favourite alt.rock shredder, J. Mascis – I mean are the guitar breaks in “Freak Scene” the best ever committed to tape? There’s a strong argument – has announced the excellent news that Dinosaur Jr. are all set to release their thirteenth studio album, Sweep It Into Space, on Jagjaguwar come April 23rd; which good …
Track: New Bums – ‘Cover Band’: lamentin’ the life of the working combo
NEW BUMS, the duo of Six Organs of Admittance’s Ben Chasny and Skygreen Leopards’ Donovan Quinn, are all set to release their actually really lovely second album, Last Time I Saw Grace, in about three weeks, via the offices of Drag City; and they’ve made it three’s company this very afternoon with a new single …
SEE: Kim Gordon -‘Hungry Baby’: kick out the jams with some proper noise
KIM GORDON really should need no introduction if you at all profess to be a music head; unless, of course, deep in the Amazon, Livingstone I presume, &c. She’s just dropped the video for “Hungry Baby”, a rip-roaring track taken from her solo debut, No Home Record, which came out on Matador in October 2019; …
SEE: Martha’s Vineyard Ferries – ‘Jail Material’: deliciously dirty US underground trio return
THE MARTHA’S VINEYARD FERRIES, the loud and deliciously, abrasively proud trio brought together by Shellac’s mighty Bob Weston, Chris Brokaw, of Come and Codeine, and Elisha Wiesner, otherwise of Kahoots, have dropped the video for a lip-curlingly LOUD and guitar heavy new song, “Jail Material” – you can take a dive down the bottom there. It’s …
NEWS: Chad Vangaalen announces a March album for Sub Pop; see the properly brilliant animation for ‘Samurai Sword’
HE’S SO much fun, right? Sub Pop’s favourite Albertan singer-songwriter, Chad VanGaalen – he’s made his whimsical home at the Seattle imprint since 2006’s Skelliconnection – has revealed that actually, horticulturally speaking, he’s the World’s Most Stressed Out Gardener; well, actually that would be musically too, since that’s also how his new album will be …
TRACK: Allison Lorenzen feat. Midwife – ‘VALE’: dark Denver fuzz atmospheres
EXACTLY half of Denver’s percussive synth outfit School Dance, Allison Lorenzen has refined the art of bringing vocal colour and life to stripped back tunes; an aesthetic we can now experience in full as she steps into a more analogue world for her debut outing under her own name, in which project she’s enlisted Midwife, …
PREMIERE: Mute Swan – ‘Sedative Sun’: dazzling Tucson shoegaze tees up for their new album
THINK Arizona, think big, big skies; and maybe we just need to amend that a little, what with Citrus Clouds carving out an impressive shoegaze aesthetic over in Phoenix, and Mute Swan a hundred-odd clicks south-east down the Arizona Sun Corridor in Tucson also wielding massive, FX-laden six strings with potency – the state is …