New Music From Charm School
Charm School is the latest project from Louisville, KY born and LA-based multi-hyphenate artist Andrew Sellers and his longtime collaborators Matt Filip, Drew English & Brian Vega. Sellers grew up immersed in Louisville’s underground music scene, soaking up local legends like Slint, Crain, & Rodan, as well as the catalogs of Chicago’s famed indie labels Touch […]
Souled American Announces Tour
Influential Americana heroes Souled American – whose music has been called “beautiful” by Jeff Tweedy, “a wonder” by NPR Music, and “peerless” by Uncut – have re-emerged with a single, “Boom Boom,” that serves as a preview for their upcoming new album Sanctions. Get it started now! The band will be supporting the release with a tour of some […]
Fruit Bats’ Eric D. Johnson Tells Young Artists To Follow Their Spirits
In a recent feature for Santa Cruz Weekly, Fruit Bats’ Eric D. Johnson says, “My advice to younger musicians, not to quote my own advice as I don’t claim to be this font of wisdom, is not wanting to know the odds. Just do your thing because if you’re doing it for anyone other than yourself and your […]
Ink19 Calls Woo “Wonderfully Strange and Intoxicating”
According to Ink19, “Maps were of little use to Woo, whose cosmic Whichever Way You Are Going, You Are Going Wrong album went off in all different experimental directions. The kaleidoscopic 1982 debut LP from the brothers Ives, Mark and Clive, was wildly adventurous, sounding like both the future and the past all at once, sending mutating elevator music […]
Psychobabble Says Louder Than You Think Is “Never Boring”
The original soundtrack of Louder Than You Think: A Lo-Fi History of Gary Young and Pavement is at radio now from Independent Project Records. The set includes previously-unreleased live Pavement cuts as well as classics from some of Gary Young‘s other projects and pieces from the film’s original score. According to Psycobabble, “This melange of punk, indie, synth atmospheres, spoken words, and […]
Bruce Licher and Jeffrey Clark Give The Big Takeover All The Details About IPR
Last fall, The Big Takeover published a long interview with Bruce Licher and Jeffrey Clark, who have been working relentlessly over the past few years on the relaunch of their iconic label Independent Project Records. The conversation goes deep, starting with a remembrance of For Against’s Jeffrey Runnings and touching on so many elements of the legendary label’s history as […]
13th Floor Says Gary Young And Pavement Were Louder Than You Thought
As The 13th Floor explains, “Louder Than You Think: A Lo-Fi History Of Gary Young & Pavement is a documentary film about the band’s “eccentric” first drummer, Gary Young.” The site has an interview with two of the film’s producers Jeffrey Clark and Brian Thalken. Check that out here. and the film can now be seen for free via Tubi, here. The film, which won […]
Popmatters Praises The “Tribal Post-Psychedelic” Sound Of Red Temple Spirits
According to Popmatters, Red Temple Spirits wove “Roky Erickson and Syd Barrett with The Cure and early goth to create a tribal post-psychedelic ambiance… Edgy and jittery, [their] sound connects to one’s inner state, subject to alteration and mood swings. Red Temple Spirits summons up voices as an electronic shaman.” Read the full review here; Red Temple Spirits’ two albums […]
New Music From Souled American
Founded in Chicago in late 1986, Souled American played alternative country before that term existed, slowcore before that term existed, and ambient Americana (a term that never existed). Between 1988 and 1995, the band released six records. Their style evolved from alt-country precursor to an ambient Americana that one critic termed “trance roots.” Though they received little attention at the […]
New Releases Now Reviews Louder Than You Think
New Releases Now notes that the soundtrack of Louder Than You Think: A Lo-Fi History of Gary Young And Pavement “pulls together unreleased recordings, live oddities, and deep-cut scene archaeology that traces the crooked path from hardcore basements to indie-rock canon. The set, according to the site, “doesn’t clean Gary Young up or smooth out the edges. It […]
Music Connection Connects With Woo
According to Music Connection, “Woo were early pioneers of electronic-infused music, but never received the credit afforded to the likes of Tangerine Dream, Jean-Michel Jarre, and Kraftwerk. The good folk at Independent Project Records are doing a fine job of introducing the world to the joy of Woo through some quite stunning rereleases.” Go here to read the site’s review of Whichever Way […]
Trouser Press Hails Red Temple Spirits’ Sound
Trouser Press has an entry on Red Temple Spirits, who are at radio now with albums reissued via Independent Project Records. According to the zine, “Los Angeles quartet Red Temple Spirits skillfully mixes tribal post-punk influences — mid-period Cure, Savage Republic, early (Death) Cult — with a loving dose of lysergic psychedelia (Syd Barrett and Roky Erickson are […]
Joyzine Gets Louder Than You Think
Joyzine says the new Louder Than You Think soundtrack, at radio from independent Project Records, is “sad and sweet, filled with songs worth hearing.” The album features pieces of producer and original Pavement drummer Gary Young’s “long and loud career,” which included helping Pavement craft its early lo-fi soundscapes. According to Joyzine, the set “shows Young for what he was: caring, destructive, […]
Woo Is Like Clouds Passing, Writes The Midlands Rocks
The Midlands Rocks recommends that listeners experience Woo‘s new Whichever Way You Are Going, You Are Going Wrong reissue “like an old school long player; namely in one sitting to fully appreciate its ebb and flow and the journey it takes you on. And it is a journey, Woo’s musical exploration results in wide sonic vistas and evocative soundscapes […]
The Calgary Herald Interviews Fruit Bats
Fruit Bats’ Eric D. Johnson just wrapped up a solo tour behind Baby Man, his new album out now via Merge. He recently told the Calgary Herald, “I’ve learned that you can’t just go and pretend you have a band behind you [when playing solo]. You have to arrange for a solo. Every night it’s kind of different, but in a […]
New Release From Red Temple Spirits
Independent Project Records has reissued the two phenomenal albums released by Red Temple Spirits, the enigmatic Los Angeles band from the late 1980s: Dancing To Restore An Eclipsed Moon and If Tomorrow Were Leaving For Lhasa, I Wouldn’t Stay a Minute More… Originally released in 1988 and 1989, these two albums sound like nothing else from the period, deftly blending gothic […]
Stereobar Pushes Charm School’s “Blistering Post-Punk Assault”
Stereobar has coverage of Charm School‘s upcoming Schadenfreude Ploy EP, writing that “the title track arrives as a blistering post-punk assault that channels decades of underground DNA into something that feels both historically rooted and unnervingly current… [It’s] a paranoid pulse of repetition and pressure—loud, caustic, and intentionally uncomfortable. It doesn’t offer escape so much as confrontation. The lyrics paint […]
The Midlands Rocks Says Gary Young Is Great
According to The Midlands Rocks, “The word ‘maverick’ is thrown around with reckless abandon these days, so much so that it has lost much of it’s currency, yet when it comes to musician Gary Young, no other word will suffice. Breaking all conventions, his unique life was brought prominence via the award-winning documentary Louder Than You Think, the […]
Ink19 Celebrates IPR’s The Well
Ink19 writes, “Independent Project Records founder and co-owner Bruce Licher has artfully assembled an engrossing two-disc, 41-song compilation of rarities and unreleased tracks — plus newer material predicting the path forward for IPR — from an eclectic and visionary array of underground artists who strayed far from convention and never wanted to go back. The label’s given these misfits […]
Clive Ives Tells Woo’s Story To Outside Left
Outside Left recently spoke with Clive Ives, one half of the pioneering experimental act Woo, who are at radio now with a new Independent Project Records reissue of their debut Whichever Way You Are Going, You Are Going Wrong. About the origins of the group, Ives says it started when his older brother Mark got his first guitar. “I was very impressed as […]
