Andy Bell hasn’t let a pandemic slow him down, after a productive few years with a resurrected RIDE. ‘Love Comes In Waves’ is the excellent first taste of his debut solo album The View From Halfway Down, due out on October 9th via Sonic Cathedral.
The View From Halfway Down:
1 Love Comes in Waves
2 Indica
3 Ghost Tones
4 Skywalker
5 Aubrey Drylands Gladwell
6 Cherry Cola
7 I Was Alone
8 Heat Haze on Weyland Road
IDLES drop another single from their forthcoming new LP Ultra Mono – out Friday 25 September via Partisan Records/Liberator Music.
Frontman Joe Talbot elaborates on the song’s meaning: “I hated growing up in a city that was really a town that was really a fishbowl. I left as soon as I could, only to realise the fishbowl didn’t exist…just the fish, and they’re everywhere.”
The song is accompanied by an animated music video directed by Michel Gondry (Daft Punk, Radiohead, The White Stripes) and Olivier Gondry.
On the creation of the video, Talbot explains: “Michel’s work is handmade and it’s human and that’s something that our society pushes against: you need to be perfect. You need to look perfect and everything needs to be seamless and strong. But actually, vulnerability and naivety are strengths. To be vulnerable and to be naive is to have empathy. And so, to empathise with your adversaries and allow yourself to be naked on film or on record is a really strong thing to do. It liberates you and it also liberates your audience. That’s something that I hope that IDLES can do, and that Gondry’s been doing for years.”
Produced by Nick Launay (Nick Cave, Yeah Yeah Yeahs, Arcade Fire) and Adam ‘Atom’ Greenspan (Anna Calvi, Cut Copy), Ultra Mono was sonically constructed to capture the feeling of a hip-hop record. The album also features guest vocals from Jehnny Beth (Savages), and additional guest contributions from Warren Ellis (Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds), David Yow, and Jamie Cullum.
There’s a wonderfully warm and rolling feel to this new track from The Finch Cycle. It’s post -rock at its core but it also dials into that beautifully emotive 90s/early 00s indie rock sound of Australian bands such as Bluebottle Kiss – when it was as important for the guitars to lull and serenade as much as they needed to swerve and coruscate. The trombone gives the track an additional depth and melancholic tone and is a key ingredient to why the track works so well for us.
‘Forty Minus Zero‘, and it’s single partner ‘Ale Of Steam (live)’, are the debut release from The Finch Cycle (Melbourne VIC), an instrumental project for Bradley Murray (ex owner of Wireless Records and member of the band Sunny Disposition) who recorded it in a single day, in a converted barn, on a cattle farm estate, Rochford, Victoria, Australia.
Bradley Murray – guitar
Daniel Zugna – guitar
Kirsty Letts – guitar
Andrew McLaughlin – guitar
Brendan Bartlett – trombone
Joe Magee – bass
Michael Evans-Barket – drums
Protomartyr
Ultimate Success Today
Domino
Once more Protomartyr take the four elements of rock ’n’ roll – guitar bass drums and vocals, and twist, caress and mangle them into a new version of the band’s ever-evolving sound. On their fifth album that sound is more urgent, disillusioned and anxious amid the record’s dystopian assessment of modern America.
There’s a desperate, pleading quality to singer Joe Casey’s words and the band complement and elevate his voice perfectly. With thrilling sonic veracity they lay down high velocity, post-punk textures, with balanced amounts of nuance and noise.
Jazz legend Jameel Moondoc guests on alto sax as well as other horn and cello players. On ‘June 21’ the female voice of Half Waif is a symbiotic foil to Casey’s wearied mantras as they work up a clanging krautrock noise. ‘Processed By The Boys’ documents the insidious creep of authoritarianism, the brilliant rush of ‘Michigan Hammers’ rails against exploitation for financial gain, while closer ‘Worm In Heaven’ is Casey looking back from the other side, contemplating one’s legacy.
There’s a lot to bum out the listener on this record yet musically it’s full of life and life-affirming creative protest. It’s a band finding new and thrilling ways to channel their music and convey their hopes and fears. It’s a full-blooded state of the nation address from the heart and soul.
Christopher Familton
Golden Fang, a melodic guitar band that captures the joys and contradictions of life in Sydney’s Inner West, are an indie rock group in the truest sense – independently releasing their own unique blend of rock music since 2014.
Cast an ear back across the last three decades and you’ll hear the influence of the Pixies, The Drones and Straitjacket Fits mixing sonically with the dirty grooves of the Bad Seeds and The Cruel Sea. Like local Sydney acts such as Peabody, Bluebottle Kiss and Crow, Golden Fang are a band that know how to harness poetry and visceral rock ’n’ roll.
Receiving its world premiere on UK indie website Backseat Mafia, ‘Don’t Take Your God To Town’ announces its arrival with clanging guitar chords and a primitive rhythm before it blossoms into sweet and reticent vocal and guitar melodies. Musically there’s both a tumbling swagger and a haunting shoegaze quality, courtesy of the guest vocals of artist Donna Amini, that gives it a beguiling, contradictory sound.
‘Don’t Take Your God To Town’ is in tune with bands such as the Pixies, Nick Cave and even a touch of the Tindersticks – you get the picture: intelligent, driving music with a touch of gothic grit and a hint of late night smoky bars, a squinting eye and clenched teeth. Melodic malevolence at its finest. Golden Fangs indeed.”
– Arun Kendall (Backseat Mafia)
Of the song, singer/guitarist Carl Redfern says, “‘Don’t Take Your God To Town’ was a song that took me a while to write. It started out specifically being about a dysfunctional personal relationship but eventually ended up being less specifically a dark groove and meditation on the feeling of dread and hopelessness I, and I’m sure many people, feel when looking at the seemingly endless parade of grifters and corrupt fanatics that infest social media and public life. The abandonment of reason in the denial of climate change, the horror-show of border policing and the sobering realisation that “we’ve” lost all these battles.”
From the melancholic, melodic classicism of opener ‘Clouds Go Round’ to the gritty power-pop of ‘Bad Actors’, the cowbell suburban hoedown of ‘Cowboy For Love’ (a love song dedication to good friend and confidant of the band – Jo Meares) to the punk rockabilly rave of ‘Jonny Your Money’s No Good’ and on through the dark gothic dissonance of ‘Tonight We’re Gonna Party Like It’s Dunedin 1989’ and the wandering autumnal psychedelia of ‘Gold Chains And Card Games’ – the range and depth on display across Here. Now Here. marks it as a cohesive statement of modern Australian guitar rock.
In recording sessions at his Pet Food Factory studio in Marrickville, NSW, during Australia’s black summer of 2020, producer Jay Whalley (of Frenzal Rhomb)has captured the sound of a band that doesn’t hide its rough edges. It celebrates the energy and swagger of their live shows and the artful belligerence of Redfern’s lyrics and delivery. The earthy quality of his voice and questioning lyrics add a layer of irreverence and intimacy to the music as it weaves and crashes around him.
“It’s the first album we’ve done where the line up has had a sense of stability about it and where we were writing and working on the songs with an eventual album being the main focus while putting the songs together,” explains Redfern. “For Here. Now Here. we allowed ourselves a bit more time so that we could get things as we wanted them rather than how they ended up on the day! In that regard I think we can say it’s our most considered album.”
“Musically the album has a harder or darker edge than our previous work but draws water from some of the same wells as we have on previous albums with songs about anxiety, personal reflection and nostalgia with a healthy dash of humour thrown in. We cycle through lots of songs pull them to pieces, chop them up and mould them till we’re left with a collection of tunes that everyone is happy with. We’re kind of like a rock n roll Rotary Club,” grins Redfern.
Brighton UK duo Chappaqua Wrestling make a bold dash for indie guitar heaven on their new single ‘Football‘.
Chiming guitar chords ring out, stepping through a melody that conjures up the sound of New Zealand indie rock of yesteryear, the skewed pop-nugget quality of Sonic Youth’s most accessible moments and the melodic brilliance of Australia’s Underground Lovers. The jangle is balanced by a warm guitar fuzz while a keening, nonchalant vocal rides the sonic wave.
Great stuff all round from Charlie Woods and Jake Mac, who have clearly also been influenced by fellow countrymen on labels such as Creation Records.
Straight outta the gates come The Earnest Spears with four-to-the-floor drums, wired, frantic, distorted and heavily reverbed guitar that flails and hammers in equal amounts. The vocals are pretty much indeciperable but hey, it’s all about the energy and the post-hardcore, psych-punk riff and pummel on ‘Liar‘, the first of a run of singles the Worcester, UK group have got coming in 2020.
Last year the quartet released their debut EP Sincere and Intense Conviction.
If you dig IDLES, Refused, METZ, Shame etc then these guys might be up your alley too.
Lewis Goldmark is the name of the new project from Liam Judson, best known for his work with Belles Will Ring and his production work with bands such as Rolling Blackouts Coastal Fever and Cloud Control. ‘Twilighting‘ is his debut single and the first taste of a full-length album, set for release in 2020.
The single is a warm and wistful slice of indie guitar pop. There’s a nostalgic and atmospheric psychedelic streak winding through the chiming six-string action that recalls the more subtle moments of Sonic Youth. There’s also a super-catchy chorus that hits the melodic heights of bands such as The Chills.
“Twilighting is a way of me describing the moment just before sleep where your brain wanders off into the craziest thoughts and you accept them – only to realise how crazy they are if you happen to snap out of it and wake up. The fact that you don’t see them as strange thoughts when they’re happening is interesting to me. It’s the twilight of going to sleep. The guitars are meant to glow and represent the purple and pinks of late sunset.”
