I guess we just pick up like we nearly did last time and where we left off and who needs who? Still no time for editorials, repeat, replete, reheat, let the actual music do the actual walking and the actual talking. Exact same thing as last time once again, another five (or so) slices of music that have passed our way recently, five slices of music cherry picked for your delight and however you like to slice it and of course it was the price of bird seed and yes we did say all this last time (surely no one reads the intro when the music is waiting down there)
Five? There’s something rather compelling about five. Cross-pollination? Five more? Is there another way? A better way? A cure for pulling flying swordfish out of the clouds? Is there a rhyme? Is there a reason? What do reasons make? Five more? Cake oil? Snake oil? Bake the oil, everything must go somewhere and no, we never do and the proof of the pudding is in that proof reading and who reads editorials?
When we started this thing, oh never mind, it doesn’t matter why we started this damn thing, we never should have done and like we asked last time, who are the cake? We do really try to listen to everything that comes in, we are very (very) very very picky about what we actually post on these fractured pages or about what gets played on the radio or indeed what we hang in a gallery.
Cut to the chase, never mind the editorial, skip this bit, there’s music further down the page, five or so pieces of music that have come our way in the last few days and what’s Wordsworth? On these Five Pieces of Music pages you just the basic facts and links and those sounds (and visuals), that’s surely all you need from us on these Five pages we reguarly post?
Here we go, five more slices of music that have recently come our way, this time we start somewhere in Minneapolis, Minnesota (or maybe Washington DC?)
1: Kraanerg, a music maker and (possibly) now a band who might still be from Minneapolis, Minnesota (if we have it right and they haven’t all gone to Washington DC?) has offered up a first taste of an album due out next month that sounds like it mixes colour in a slightly more adventurous kind of maximalist way.
“Kraanerg’s second album with a full band lineup all written and recorded October 2023 – January 2026, primarily in Washington DC” and well if this first taste is an indication of things to come it all sound like something to be looking forward to. Do like that they say full sheet music and concept notes are included with the download, Excellent… Bandcamp
More…
2: Lim Orion – London-based multidisciplinary artist Lim Orion, aka Cara Sebastian (of Marine renown), will release her new album ILK on 2nd October via Dragonfruit Records (details here). Following album opener Story, today she shares the 90s rock-inspired Futon, a piece of music that incorporates the hints of a Japanese folklore tale with a gently thrashing slightly grunge flavoured guitar feel that compliments her voice rather deliciously…
Lim Orion on the track: “Futon is a rebellion against the feeling of being overlooked! Based on the notion of Yokai in Japanese folklore; in this song I am a mischievous spirit inhabiting your neglected futon. Frustrated, I throw a party with all the other furniture when you are out! This song combines my deep love of 90s rock and grunge – the CDs I wore out growing up – with a fondness for odd time signatures. I imagine my voice is floating like a phantom over this hypnotic rhythm, and then head-banging in the choruses when we are throwing a furniture party!”
That previous piece from the forthcoming album via Bandcamp…
And here something with a bit much needed urgency, although, as all the flowers die in the heatwave and getting on for around eight weeks with no rain now do we really need a band callled Flowers Must Die?
“London and the surrounding areas have been experiencing an extended dry spell through mid-summer 2026, with regional monitoring showing roughly 45 dry days and virtually no measurable rainfall across early August…” If it doesn’t rain soon then Deftones and Idles in Victoria Park is going to be a dustball hell…
3: Flowers Must Die and something taken from the album Tystnad, an album due to be released via Rocket Recordings on 25th September.
4: Perennial “share new single and video Ready! Steady! Go!.. Album out 18th September on Safe Suburban Home” so reads the headline. We like their energy, we like their style, well besides the smoking, smoking just makes you look like an idiot, there’s nothing cool about bands smoking ( or in this case, even in we do like Mr Warhol rather a lot, showing an old Andy Warhol-directed clip of Sterling Morrison from the Velvet Underground from the mid 60s), it might now be cool of us to say so, we’ll say it anyway, I detest everything about smoking. We do like Perennial’s style though, we have said this before, their almost riot-grrrlish soul flavoured punk-edged rock ‘n roll urgency, the way they move, the way they look, I really do like this band (and I do like that they just came back t ous and said they don’t like smoking either)
“Perennial are excited to share their new single Ready! Steady! Go! and its accompanying music video. Following the release of singles What’s New On The Beat Scene and Modernism, the track offers a vibrant preview of the band’s anticipated new album out 18th September via Safe Suburban Home. The song channels mid-’60s Motown sparkle, vibraphones, electric organ, and fuzzed-out bass, before veering into a warped, backwards-guitar finale”.
On the song, the band’s Chad Jewitt says: “Ready! Steady! Go! Is us having an absolute blast in the studio; probably both our most POP song and our most psychedelic too. We definitely had mid/late-60s Motown in mind with the vibraphones and electric organ and fuzz bass groove, then by the end you have a backwards guitar solo and wah-wah pedals showing up.”
Says here Perennial will be touring in support of Modernism with UK dates in October, including stops in Leeds, Liverpool, Brighton, and London. Full dates below – tickets for all shows are on sale now. Not so much UK dates as English dates, that always bugged me growing up in North Wales when a band announced UK dates and they were really announcing English dates and off we had to go to Liverpool or Manchester again. Those so called UK Live Dates in full: 08 Oct – Oxford – The Library, 09 Oct – Brighton – TBC, 10 Oct – Liverpool – Outpost, 11 Oct – Leeds – Grindhouse, 13 Oct – Nottingham – JT Soar, 14 Oct – Coventry – Just Dropped In, 15 Oct – Manchester – The Modernist Gallery Shop, 16 Oct – London – The Cavendish Arms. Here’s a Linktree with all their current dates, they’re busy in the US at the moment (I know we have as many readers in the USA as we do in the UK these days)
5: Natural Information Society (NIS) “represents a convergence of musicians and artists to create sonic harbour, meditative space and kinetic momentum music. Realizing compositions by composer Joshua Abrams, the group’s core quartet includes Abrams, Lisa Alvarado, Mikel Patrick Avery and Jason Stein. Working the seams between minimalism, jazz and experimental practice, the band has become a reference for contemporary non-idiomatic creative music. They have recorded seven albums for eremite records and two collaborations with Bitchin Bajas for Drag City Records. The group has toured extensively in North America, Europe and Brazil using Alvarado’s free hanging paintings as stage settings in concert. In 2021 Abrams formed an expanded version of NIS called the Natural Information Society Community Ensemble, adding winds & Chicago tenor saxophone legend Ari Brown to the group as heard on 2023’s Since Time Is Gravity. Mandatory Reality as part of Lisa Alvarado’s exhibition at The Kitchen, NYC. Their latest album, Perseverance Flow, was released in October 2025” and we share all this because they are rather good and they play London’s Cafe Oto this coming Saturday August 16th (that link you just passed will tell you more)
THE ORGAN 