New Music From Venera featuring a member of KoRN, FKA twigs, Chelsea Wolfe, and Dis Fig
Having defined a multi-dimensional sonic universe on their acclaimed eponymous debut album, Venera — composer/filmmaker Chris Hunt and James “Munky” Shaffer (KoRN) — abandon the familiar and drift towards a kingdom of recursion on Exinfinite, staring down a tangled mass of mirrored wormholes that hum with eldritch ambiguity. Venera’s sophomore full length is darker, heavier and more percussive than its predecessor, but […]
Ink19 Likes Fruit Bats’ Baby Man, Which Goes For Radio Adds Next Week
“Rife with wonderfully expressive lyrics and Eric D. Johnson’s unique voice,” Ink19 writes, “Fruit Bats’ Baby Man offers stripped-down-to-the-glorious-essentials songwriting.” The site compares Johnson to the legendary Leon Russell in its review of the new LP, a bare collection featuring just Johnson’s voice, guitar, piano, and a few subtle synth textures. Read more here. Baby Man is […]
Tracking Angle Interviews Tape Archivist Catherine Vericolli About Restoring Funkadelic
ORG Music has just begun reissuing releases from Funkadelic‘s classic run on Westbound Records, a series that follows previous reissues of Westbound projects by the likes of The Ohio Players, Denise LaSalle, Eramus Hall, Dennis Coffey, Assemblage, and The Counts. The records sound immaculate, in large part due to the work of tape archivist Catherine Vericolli. In a recent interview with Tracking […]
Invisible Oranges Cheers Melvins’ Willful Unpredictability
In a review of a recent live show, Invisible Oranges compares Melvins to bandits. “Armed not with guns, but with riffs, odd time signatures, and four decades of willful unpredictability, they turned the venue into their killing field and the crowd into willing victims. Like the bad guys, the Melvins know exactly what they do best and don’t apologize […]
New Music From Fruit Bats
Baby Man, the new album by Fruit Bats, is like nothing else in Grammy-nominated songwriter Eric D. Johnson’s catalog. Little in the arc of his career—including Fruit Bats’ evolution from home recording project to rollicking roadshow, his solo output, and his work with Bonny Light Horseman—points the way to this album, in which his only accompaniment, aside from […]
Pasadena Weekly Speaks With Afterimage’s Dan Voznick In The Aftermath of LA’s Fires
Earlier this year, Afterimage frontman Dan Voznick lost his home in the massive fires that raged through the Los Angeles neighborhood of Altadena. In a recent article, The Pasadena Weekly details how Voznick and his family were helped by a nonprofit called the Instrumental Giving Registry, which provided the longtime musician with some vital gear after nearly all of his equipment was destroyed. […]
Springhouse’s Jack Rabid Joins Two Lads For A Podcast
Jack Rabid, of classic NYC band Springhouse as well as The Big Takeover Magazine, was recently a guest on the Only Three Lads podcast as they “examine the first half of the ’80s to ask the question – which artists had the best run during that span?” Apparently they enjoyed themselves so much that they’ll be issuing a second part of […]
New Music From The Silver Snails
The Silver Snails is an independent pop rock music project based in the medieval wine country of Romagna, Italy, with strong ties to the West Coast of the United States. Anchored by the husband-and-wife duo of Lucas Ward and Elisa Fantini, their mission is to open human hearts through song. Describing themselves as a “glam rock space pop family […]
Treblezine Details Funkadelic’s Reissue Campaign
Treblezine has details on the new Funkadelic reissue campaign from Westbound Records and ORG Music, with details from the project’s tape restoration specialist Catherine Vericolli. “It’s very rare for an archivist and a re-mastering engineer to be in the same room with the source material on a project,” Vericolli said in a statement quoted by Treble. “To investigate, troubleshoot and make decisions as […]
Mary Halvorson Chats with KBCS
In a recent feature for Flotation Device on 91.3 KBCS-FM in Bellevue, Seattle, and Tacoma, Michael Schell interviews guitarist and bandleader Mary Halvorson about her early influences (Anthony Braxton and Joe Morris in particular), her guitar setup (including her choice of a hollow-bodied Guild electric guitar), how she titles her compositions, and her new albums including About Ghosts, which is at radio now via Nonesuch Records and […]
Songbar Gives Song Of The Day Honors To Patrick Watson and Martha Wainwright
Songbar notes that Patrick Watson‘s “House on Fire,” a duet with Martha Wainwright, was written at a time when the singer feared he wouldn’t be able to sing again. Fortunately, “his sensitive tenor voice has returned,” making for a song that was featured by the site as its song of the day last week. Hear the song and read […]
Jeffrey Runnings Reviewed By Bay Area Reporter
The Bay Area Reporter is out with a list of “gay and queer music acts you may not yet know, but you should,” and Piqued by Jeffrey Runnings is on the list. The site explains that Runnings, the longtime For Against frontman, said before he died that the album “wasn’t made for anyone, it wasn’t even intended to be put […]
New Release From Funkadelic
Though it found little commercial traction upon release, Funkadelic‘s George Clinton-produced debut LP Funkadelic would eventually come to be recognized as a foundational work in a broader movement in music that embraced complexity, cosmic vision, and sonic experimentation. Its DNA runs through the work of Prince, Bad Brains, Erykah Badu, Outkast, and countless others. Drawing from psychedelic rock, gospel, blues, and […]
Photog Says Patrick Watson And Martha Wainwright Are “Deeply Moving”
Photog Music writes, “Blending Patrick Watson’s signature orchestral pop with Martha Wainwright’s evocative vocals, ‘House on Fire’ is a deeply moving and cinematic piece—easily one of the standout moments we’ve heard so far from Uh Oh.” The new album, which was inspired in part by a period of time during which Watson lost his voice, is due September 26 […]
Teppen! Digs Into Jeffrey Runnings’ Piqued
Piqued, the posthumous LP from Jeffrey Runnings, writes Teppen!, “frequently lacks words, evoking images of a fantasy world filled with soft synths and drum machines. It feels somewhere in between the jagged darkness of early For Against and the melancholic, jangly dreams that began in the 90s.” The site has a review of the record, which is at radio […]
Mary Halvorson Shares Her “Turning Point” With Jazzwise
In a “Turning Point” feature for Jazzwise, Mary Halvorson shares her affection for the album Rock Bottom by Robert Wyatt. “When you’re a teenager and you hear things for the first time they have an incredible impact; and I certainly had experiences like that at that age. But it’s much rarer that you get that kind of impact later in life; […]
Norman Records Highlights Jeffrey Runnings’ Piqued
Norman Records appreciates the legacy of For Against, a band that “made dark post-punk in an era when it was completely unfashionable to do so.” The shop has a review of the posthumous release from the band’s frontman, Jeffrey Runnings, that’s at radio now from Independent Project Records. Go here for the review – select the July 11 edition to read […]
Jazz Trail Enjoys Mary Halvorson’s Creative Mind
Jazz Trail has a review of the new Mary Halvorson album, which is out now on Nonesuch.”Produced by Deerhoof’s John Dieterich,” the site writes, “About Ghosts allows another worthy journey into the musical imagination of one of contemporary jazz’s most creative minds. Groundbreaking guitarist and composer Mary Halvorson presents eight originals, impeccably arranged for her widely praised Amaryllis sextet… The material is unmistakably Halvorson’s. She […]
New Music From Patrick Watson, Martha Wainwright, and Solann
Featuring Martha Wainwright, “House On Fire” is another preview of Patrick Watson’s forthcoming LP Uh Oh, out September 26 via Secret City Records. Written by Watson during a period where he lost his ability to sing – and by Wainwright, “House On Fire” features his voice effortlessly intertwined with Wainwright’s in a moving duet: “I’ll be wrong / you’ll […]
Springhouse’s From Now To OK “Works,” Writes The Midlands Rocks
The Midlands Rocks writes, “Who knows why some bands only attain cult status whilst less talented bands reap commercial rewards? In the case of New York trio Springhouse, that question is all the more puzzling. In many ways they were too far ahead of the curve; shoegaze before the term was coined, they signed to Caroline Records and were […]
