Shall we do it again, five more? The Five music things thing for whatever it still might still be worth. Five? There’s something rather compelling about five. Cross-pollination? Five more? and why do we do all this? Do we need to do the editorial bit again? Is there another way? A cure for pulling cats out of hats? Is there a rhyme? Is there a reason? Was there ever? What do reasons make? Five more, same as last time (and the time before) five, and no, we never do and the proof of the pudding is in that proof reading. When we started this thing, oh never mind, it doesn’t matter and like we asked last time, does anyone bother reading the editorial? Does anyone ever actually look down the rabbit hole or is it all just method acting? We do listen to everything that comes in, we do it so you don’t have to, we are very (very) picky about what we actually post on these pages or play on the radio or hang in a gallery. Cut to the chase, never mind the editorial there’s loads of music further down the page, well five or so pieces of music that have come our way in the last few days and cut cut slash and cut to the damn chase, who needs an editorial?
Here’s your five or so pieces of music for today….
1: Lullahush – More Lullahush, “Dublin experimental producer Lullahush shares new video ‘Our Glass Lake'” reads the headline, rather enjoying these tastes of the new album, the debut album, A City Made of Water and Small Love (out May 27th), we’ve featured a numvber of tracks now
“Today, Irish multi-instrumentalist and producer lullahush shares the new single and video ‘Our Glass Lake’. The track is the third taken from his debut album A City Made of Water and Small Love, an intricate love letter to the small, everyday moments that make up a life, which is due out May 27th.Described by lullahush as his “weirdest lullaby yet”, ‘Our Glass Lake’ is a trippy piece of electronica featuring guest vocals from Maria Kelly. The accompanying video, shot by Cian Brennan and featuring two of lullahush’s best friends Aaron Lafferty and Emil Hernon, builds on the album’s central theme of friendship, capturing those sweet and subtle moments that make life better.
Upcoming album A City Made of Water and Small Love takes inspiration from the particularly Irish worldview of being able to find the magic in the everyday and exalt it to a higher plane. These observations are woven into an electronic landscape of patchwork synths and throbbing bass. lullahush’s music is at times bright and sparkling, at times low and sea-swayed, imbued always with a sense of warmth, longing and hope.
lullahush draws inspiration from the lilted beats of Mount Kimbie, Four Tet and Floating Points, the hushed ambience of Mary Lattimore, the attention to detail of Japanese composers like Ryuichi Sakamoto, Nobukazu Takemora and Aoki Takamasa, and the old school lyricism of Nick Cave and Leonard Cohen. He synthesises these influences to breathe human life into electronic machine sounds, holding the inherent chaos and awkwardness close.”
2: David Knudson, he of Minus The Bear/Botch has just officially released his new LP The Only Thing You Have to Change is Everything via Platoon/Seawall. The 10-track LP is said to “traverse Knudson’s dizzying riffage and energized instrumentation while excising the full-band format in favor of intricately layered guitar, bold programmed beats. Along with the album’s release, Knudson is also sharing a new video for the album’s intro track “Varv,” which finds Knudson collaborating with director Adam CK Vollick. The bright, warped visuals match the intense instrumental track reflecting Knudson’s journey towards newfound sobriety”. the whole album can be found here via good old Bandcamp, must admit we haven’t explored the album that much yet although
“This record wouldn’t exist without my sobriety,” Knudson asserts. “It prompted me to learn and embrace new passions like drum programming and engineering. I haven’t felt a burst of inspiration like this in a long time. Removing all the self-inflicted chaos and complications opened my eyes to real life and opened my ears to new possibilities.”
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3: Weasel Walter Quartet – Is listening to Weasel Walther on a Monday morning a good thing? He certainly clears your head! The thing about the rather challenging Flying Luttenbacher is whatever he does, his seemingly thousands of bands, projects, collaborations and such, they all come laced with that same defiant attitude of a serious artist at work, that get-out-of-the-way-I’m-coming-through-you’re-either-riding-with-me-or-you-can-damn-well-fall-off-the-back. There is of course a distinctive musical thread that runs through all the work he’s involved in, is it work? Of course it is his work but is it “work”? This is art, high art, fine art, Weasel Walter is one of my favourite painters, he paints with those drums sticks and that attitude, he’s as precise as Jackson Pollock even when he is improvising. And this, a release from 2006 called Revolt Music by the Weasel Walter Quartet is as dangerously wild as most things he’s involved in. This is the latest instalment in the ongoing What Weasel did this week feature, this week he made this fine album a free to download thing via Bandcamp because “I’m nice”, but do remember, even artists have to eat. Revolt Music is alive with “a star-studded cast of characters”, it improved jazz but don’t let that put you off, park your ideas over there and just go hit play, this is electric, this is alive, this is dynamic, this is jazz for people who probably think they don’t like jazz, there’s some glorious interaction, people coming together and understand where hey want to go, musicians feeding of each other, jumping into the spaces at just the right time, hey look, you don’t need a review, reviews are so last century, all you need are recommendations from those you know to trust by now, here you go, we recommend this. See, sometimes we’re nice as well. Here’s the Bandcamp link
“In 2006, Damon Smith dragged be back into the improvised music game after me turning my nose up on it in Chicago during the early 2000s. “Revolt Music” was my first album back in the game, with a star-studded cast of characters including Aram Shelton, the mythic John Gruntfest, Henry Kaiser, and others. It’s dense, chaotic, gnarly free jazz and today it’s a FREE DOWNLOAD, because i’m nice”
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3: Abbie from Mars – And well that bit of Weasel Walter treasure was rather old treasure (timeless old treasure, as vita lnow as the day it came out) so we should really add a proper fifth, something new that jsut landed here (and none of this is in order, what you’re exploring here are five or so pieces of music presented in no particular order).
“Good morning, I wanted to let you know about the new single “Kittens Will Bite” and upcoming release My Second Debut Album by Abbie from Mars,out June 10th.
Abbie from Mars is a performance-oriented experimental pop musician and weekly late-night radio DJ at WFMU, living in NYC. Her live act is unique for incorporating tap dance with electronic processing.
The record cites disparate influences including St.Vincent, Tuxedomoon, Palberta, Eartheater, DNA, Carla Dal Forno, Macula Dog, Björk, Ralph Carney, and Dorian Electra — fans of catchy, emotive experimentalism and percussive electronics will find lots to enjoy on this release”.
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4: Bad Breeding – Ahead of the new album ‘Human Capital’, out on July 8th via One Little Independent Records Stevenage hardcore punk band Bad Breading have released another sinhle, Joyride.
It sounds as committed as they ever are, it sounds as angry as things should be right now, it sounds proud, defiant, a woking class call to something or other while the working class are busy keeping this damn appalling Eton mess of a government in power. They sound like things matter to them, they take their time building up to it this time, a run at it you might say. Right now Bad Breeding matter more than most bands out there. Lets hope we can pay the electricity bill next month so we can play the album when it comes out (if we can afford a copy of the album that is)
“Bad Breeding, the Stevenage-based hardcore-punk foursome, call for solidarity in their fourth album ‘Human Capital’, a pointed and brutal display of aggression steeped in political awareness, out on July 8th via One Little Independent Records and Iron Lung Records in the US. Across twelve merciless tracks they attack Conservative meritocracy and the exploitative forces of late capitalism with a cacophony of blistering guitars and thunderous drums played with an intensity that refuses to abate”.
“Storming new single ‘Joyride’ stands up defiantly for the working-class towns they feel are “constantly at the boot-end of neoliberal dogma”, fighting misrepresentation and “unattainable Tory-painted dreams, of pernicious scapegoating and punitive abuse”.
5: Hooveriii – Los Angeles psych-rock band Hooveriii (pronounced “Hoover Three”) have announced the July 29 release of their new album A Round of Applause. The LP is being released by The Reverberation Appreciation Society and is available for pre-order here (aren’t we good for sharing these things, the bands and labels rarely say thanks, they most come back and demand more). Today the band shares the first take of the album by way of A Round Of Applause’s opening track, “See.” The band’s Bert Hoover notes, “‘See’ is about trying not to take life for granted. Some things are easier said than done. It’s our first song to feature Anna Wallace singing along with us and it came together rather seamlessly. It was a pretty bare bones jangle jam until the band filled it with ear candy.” The video was filmed on 16mm at the Trona Pinnacles in Trona CA. Conceived and co-directed by the mighty Nikki Houston and Owen Summers it features aliens stranded on earth try to find their way home until things go very wrong”
Do so like the way this one flows, it does sound and feel like the real deal, spot-on production, right amount of electricity, just the right edge, the sun is out in London today, the studio door the birds are flying in, birds not Byrds or Bevis Frond, now the Bevis Frond flying in would be a worry and I waste my time and you have the video and that beautiful riff that kicks back in just after the third minute and you don’t need our words, no one does, most of this us a waste of out time, cut t othe chase, the video is there
And while we’re here, electric music and electric painting has been very much the order of the last few weeks, one of the 15 paintings in the series so far was an interpretation of an MC5 album covee – fast interpretations of album covers painted during the time it takes to play album very loudly just once. The MC5 painting has now been sold, however there are limited edition prints of the painting available alongside prints of the others in the series. Plug over, here’s a very electric performance from the very very electric MC5, possibly the most electric band of them all, heck out this version of Kick Out The Jams. mutherflippers…
THE ORGAN 