Ben McElroy "...to warm their hearts, if not their hands." E.P. (benmcelroy.bandcamp.com)
Another remarkable release from this Nottingham based ambient/drone/folk musician Ben McElroy. Opening piece "To Warm Their Hearts" captures a beautiful drone alongside a sea of inspiring strings and acoustic guitar that reminds me of the legendary Mike Oldfield.
"Autumn Later" has a great balance between dark wandering sounds and uplifting mystical like tones while "The Cloud Council's Quarterly Meeting" is a collage of all types of moods and instruments making it atmospheric, cinematic and warm. Overall an incredible release from beginning to end.
David Byrne "Everybody's Coming To My House" Single (Todomundo/Nonesuch Records)
A fun, upbeat yet demented track from the former Talking Heads founder that is sure to delight long time fans. The song was co-written with Brian Eno and is from Byrne's upcoming album "American Utopia", his first since 2004. The song also features contributions from TTY, Happa Isaiah Barr, and Sampha. Byrne says that the world tour he's doing in March will be “the most ambitious show I’ve done since the shows that were filmed for Stop Making Sense.” "American Utopia" will be out March 8th courtesy of Todomundo/Nonesuch Records.
Kyle Craft "Exhile Rag" Single (Sub Pop)
Another top notch track from the upcoming Kyle Craft album "Full Circle Nightmare". His country swing meets ragtime feel is truly amazing and there are some really nice sounding horns that give it even more energy. This track along with "Heartbreak Junky" which was previewed a few weeks back give all signs that this new album is going to be pretty spectacular and I must say I can't wait for it.
Soccer Mommy "Your Dog" Single (Fat Possum)
"Your Dog" the first single from Soccer Mommy's debut album "Clean" is pretty damn impressive. The chiming guitars and walking bass line blend perfectly with Sophie Allison's captivating vocal delivery. There's some really great changes and dynamics that flow throughout the track and get you humming along in seconds. After a series of successfully self released E.P.'s which were later released as a "collection" album on Fat Possum, Allison has said to consider "Clean" her first proper full length album. Reflecting on "Your Dog" Allison said "The song comes from a feeling of being paralyzed in a relationship to the point where you feel like you are a pawn in someone else's world,". "The song and the video are meant to show someone breaking away and taking action, but at the same time, it's only a quick burst of motivation. It's a moment of strength amidst a long period of weakness.". "Clean" will be available March 2.
Superchunk "Erasure" Single (Merge)
So after a week totally stuck in the house through a dreary snow storm this gift from the rock n roll gods came out to brighter our moods. This song has it all. A driving beat, mean yet melodic guitars and guest vocals from Stephin Merritt and Katie Crutchfield.
I think I've played this 237 times this week and I'm sure even my neighbors know all the words by now. Get into it.
Ty Segall "Every 1's A Winner" Single (tysegall.bandcamp.com)
It's no secret Ty Segall is one of the most prolific musicians going today and later this month he will release a new album called "Freedom's Goblin" which includes this incredible cover of "Everyone's A Winner" originally by Hot Chocolate. Ty's take on the soul classic is led by a sputtering fuzzed out guitar sound and an infectious drum beat that is sure to make you move and shows off that there's really not much this guy can't pull off. "Freedom's Goblin" comes out January 28th and should certainly be a ripper.
Caustic Roll Dave "Approaching Noise" LP (causticrolldave.bandcamp.com)
Hailing from Barcelona Spain Caustic Roll Dave is a true original and his latest album "Approaching Noise" embraces the spirit of raw rock n roll and blues and adds plenty of experimental elements throughout that give it a sound that's truly it's own. The crushing beat and driving riff of "What We Understand" sets the pace for a roller coaster ride of enigmatic energy that immediately jumps into the dirty blues brilliance of "You've Got Your Silver, You've Got Your Gold". "Thoughts Send Him Down" harnesses a bit of a Stones like strut while tracks like "Restart" and "Reality Falls" are a bit more spacey and ambient but retain an underlying roots rock vibe. Stand out track "Low Cost Countdown Beat" sounds like Gene Vincent fronting Skinny Puppy with it's thunderous industrial beat and in your face old time rock n roll vocal. "Many Pigs" has even more of a touch of industrial flair to it as the droning drum machine adds a layer of gloom and doom that sits well next to Dave's screaming harmonica. Other highlights include the colorful and mysterious trip of "Paranoid Blues" and blistering attack of "Looking For Something That I Never Had". Simply put Caustic Roll Dave is a one of a kind artist that makes rock n roll from the heart and in his own way. "Approaching Noise" is a relentless album made to be played often and made to be played played LOUD!!!
There is an eerie tone that runs through "Dim Nachttag" the debut album from German instrumental post rock band KOSMOBERKH.The songs all work together as one binding force that harnesses a primal energy and evokes a moving and inspiring feeling throughout. The organic approach of the album is based around the astonishingly warm work of acoustic guitarist David Adrian and the mysterious presence of violinist Paula Töpper along with the vibrant rhythm section of drummer Alex Pojda and bassist Thorge Freidel. Tracks like "A Muse Meant" bring to mind the likes of Mahavishnu Orchestra and King Crimson while "Zeichenlos" comes off like a combination of legendary composer Mike Oldfield and slow-core pioneers Low. Overall "Dim Nachttag" is an excellent movement that combines stellar arrangements with top notch musicianship from beginning to end. Highly recommended.
Loving this debut E.P. from Denmark's Moon Loves Honey. It comes off like a beautiful breath of fresh air as opening number "Tell Me More Of Your Lies" is a bright energetic blast of dream like jangle pop. The weightless feel of "Balloon" is matched with ethereal layers of atmospheric sound, while the shimmering feel of "Start All Over Again" is good spirited and fun. "Quiet Goodbye" features a strong ambient vocal delivery and brilliant arrangement that matches well with the liquid like flow of stand out track "My Friends". The E.P. closes with the delicate sounds of "Nothing Will Change" which creates a wandering cinematic vibe that sends things off in fine form.
Snowball ii "?" LP (snowballii.bandcamp.com)
Snowball ii is the brainchild of Los Angeles musician Jackson Wargo. He wrote, performed, arranged, produced, and engineered this debut album which is a truly remarkable effort. The infectious sounds of opening number ""Don't Feel Bad (For Me) take you through a psychedelic underworld of atmospheric bliss that's backed by a pounding beat and shimmering guitars. The cleverly titled "Antonio Banderas & a Semester Abroad" is a well crafted track that shows off Nargo's stellar song writing abilities. As the album continues it takes you further into a colorful world of intrigue as the captivating sounds of "Off/On" and "Lived/In" stir up a sea of beautiful imagery and sound. "Hurry' features an earth shattering riff backed by a lulling vocal presence that's second to none. Closing piece "The Sight Of Setting" winds everything down well as it's combination of gloomy tones also offer a feeling of warmth and hope. An inspiring release that's most excellent from beginning to end.
Swall "A Swall Kinda Feeling" LP (shanewatt.bandcamp.com)
An experimental masterpiece of an album from Montreal's Swall. The sound collage fueled "Binary Built For Two" takes me back to my love of artists like Ringworm Sideshow and John Oswald. "Plainview" is a straight up blast of 60's psychedelia that's full of fuzzed out guitar mayhem and a felling that "anything is possible on the road". Another standout piece is the experimental based "HJKL" which blends hip hop, dub and psych sounds in amazing fashion while "A Serious Error Has Occurred" is a haunting piece that is truly a work of it's own and goes quite well with the "Progressive" sounds of "Natural Animals". "Too Damn Tough" sounds like The Beatles and The Beach Boys joined forces with Zappa to create the ultimate in mind altering music. Besides amazing songs my favorite part of this album is the amount of textures created throughout. It's such a vibrant and colorful record that shows you something new with each listen. Hands down this is just brilliant and I look forward to hearing more and more from Swall for years to come.
The Owens S/T E.P. (theowens.bandcamp.com)
Made up of twin brothers Larry & Randy Owens this Boston duo create their own brilliant world of indie rock. From the opening notes of the spooky "Stay Drivin" you know you are in for a treat. It's the type of song that may appear to be light and quiet but actually sets one of the heaviest moods I've heard in a long while. It's got an early Velvet's type vibe that I love and also makes great use of a beautiful phase effect mid way through the track. "Your Way Through Mine" is more upbeat with a flourishing pattern of experimental sounds that flow alongside it's punchy lo-fi beat while the breezy spirit of "Things" falls someplace between Mercury Rev and Galaxy 500. Closing track "1980's Poison" has a feel good swagger and swing to it that I really love. It moves with such elegance and eventually fades out with a brief but thought provoking noise that leaves me wondering what will be next for this promising new project.
Brooklyn based band Lazy Queen combine elements of shoegaze and psych with garage and punk sounds to create a vibrant blend of reverb drenched rock n roll. We sat down with Vocalist/Guitarist Henrik Soeberg, Guitarist Reyson Morales and Bassist Julian S to discuss the formation of the band, the making of their debut E.P. "Drift", and their recent tour of Puerto Rico. You can pick up all of the bands music at lazyqueen.bandcamp.com
CMM-How did Lazy Queen get together and who all makes up the band?
H: Well, Reyson moved to New York from Puerto Rico about six months before I met him. I had moved to the city from Norway a couple years before for school. We started playing together a little over two years ago. In the beginning we treated it more as a recording project where we’d play and record all the instruments ourselves in Reyson’s Harlem apartment. But when our music started getting around and we were offered gigs, we found ourselves in need of either a cloning devise or some actual band members. The technology just wasn’t there so we settled with band mates. Starting with Julian…
J: I came in as a temporary replacement, but quickly set up camp in their hearts, and I’ve stayed there ever since.
H: Currently our friend Duke Taylor finds himself behind the drum kit, and we’re happy to have him there.
CMM-You all draw influences from shoegaze, to 90's alterna-rock to punk. What bands did you all really get into growing up and who made the biggest impression on you all as players and songwriters?
J: John Frusciante really got me into home recordings and songwriting, as well as experimenting with instruments. I'm not very dexterous but I think I like to play around with different sounds like slides and strums on the bass that I think if it weren't for a lot of the post-punk bands I used to listen to, and John Frusciante, I wouldn't even care to try out.
R: I mostly grew up listening to punk and metal bands in my early youth ‘cause that's what most of my friends were listening to in PR. But later on I discovered British post punk and new wave bands like Jesus and Marry Chain and Echo and the Bunnymen and was captivated by the intricate guitar lines, atmospheric noise and melodies. Then came newer Brit pop bands like Blur, Pulp, Suede, Ned's Atomic Dustbin, Ride, Chapterhouse etc.
H: I’m not ashamed to say that I started picked up the guitar in my youth to learn to play Green Day and Blink 182 songs. In terms of influences today, and for most of my latter teen years, I have my usual suspects that I’ll return to frequently like Nirvana, Pixies, Sonic Youth, My Bloody Valentine, sprinkled out with whatever is the current obsession. Right now I’m not able to stop listening to Single Mothers from Ontario. Loud and dirty is the name of the game.
CMM-The bands debut E.P. "Drift" is available now on Seattle label Pacific Trash. What was the songwriting and recording process of the E.P. like? How do you all approach putting together the bands songs?
H: Most of the songs were written throughout a three-month period last winter, with the exception of "Lesion", which is one of out oldest songs that we just never got around to recording. For most of the songs Reyson and I will bring in a skeleton and then we’ll all lazify it together. And eventually I’ll get around to writing some words and vocal melodies for it. The release was recorded at 1989 Recordings in Bushwick over a couple of really fucking long nights. The songs were pretty much all recorded live with all of us playing together to capture our live energy. Then Reyson and I would record a layer of guitar noise each for texture. We wanted to create a full sound, without it sounding too produced or tampered with.
J: All I'm gonna say is, it was damn exhausting getting out of work at 6pm, picking up gear, having a dollar slice or two and heading into the studio for a zillion hours on a weekday, wake up and do it all over again. So worth it though.
H: I have some great pictures of Reyson sleeping with a beer in one hand and a cigarette in the other, while listening to me scream in the vocal booth through a pair of huge headphones.
CMM-Any particular gear you guys used when making the record?
R: I have this amazing fuzz with a loop switch called Absynth, and also the Electro-Harmonix Holy Stain, both of which played a big part in molding my noise textures and sound throughout Drift.
CMM-Being in Brooklyn you get to check out new music all the time. Any new bands and stand out venues you all can recommend?
H: We definitely have to recommend our talented friends in LADY. They keep getting better every time we see them.. Which is a lot.
J: In terms of venues, our collective favorite is The Gateway! It’s run by local musicians that really care about the local music scene and put a lot of hard work into creating a place for that exchange to happen. The backline is great and the people that work there are amazing. Venue crush. As far as other live acts around town, WALL has been a great experience (what’s up with all these caps names) and so has Future Punx, Uniform.
H: And Vomitface, Big Ups, Dead Tenants and Hunters.. I mean, in general there’s pretty much a great show to see everyday.. I think we’re spoiled.
CMM-How was the recent tour of Puerto Rico?
J: The vibe down there is just so different. I loved that almost everyone was dancing and just having a great time. Though I'm never driving these punks around again. We need an intern.
H: We quickly learned that one third of this group is a terrible backseat driver...
R: It was so incredible to play back home coming with a band from outside of PR and see the shows packed, when just a couple of years ago I was playing there and was part of the small but very vibrant indie scene. It was really great to see the kids follow us to all the shows, four days in a row.
H: As the only non-Puerto Rican of the group what struck me the most was how engaged the audience was compared to what we’re used to back in Brooklyn. People actually physically express their feelings for the music. Showing too much passion for anything isn’t cool anymore back home. You’ll look out into the audience and be met with a bunch of blank stares and crossed arms. If somebody nods their head along to the music you’re like, “oh shit, he must LOVE us.” Then after the show they’ll come up and give compliments, but it’s like “why the fuck didn’t you move around a little then.” And I mean, this is a general feeling as both a performer and someone who goes to a lot of local shows. So the feeling of the music, the performance and the way the energy felt like a mutual exchange and shared moment between the band and the audience, which is why I first wanted to play music in the first place, stood out a lot down there.
CMM-If you all could do a film score for any director who would it be and why?
J:I think I watch too many movies to be even able to decide. I feel we work very well between noise and melody. Jodorowsky's escalating craziness would be awesome to score (since this is all hypothetical and all). If we could work with Danny Boyle's calm vs. chaos contrasts I'd die a happy musician as well. 28 Days Later is one of my favorite films.
R: I’d pick Guillermo del Toro, not only cause his films are amazing, especially Pan's Labyrinth, but also cause I could totally identify musically with the moods and imagery he creates.
H: I think we’d do well making scores for those late-night TV-shop commercials. Like Shake-weights, or those knifes that cut through rocks. I’d love to score a porn.
CMM-What's next for the band? Any new recordings or upcoming tours?
H: We’ve already written some new songs and are working on more. Hopefully we’ll be back in the studio sometime this spring. Other than that we are currently putting together a West Coast tour with LADY that’ll take place at some point this coming summer.
Hot Glew is the project of Nashville musician Brett Keller. His latest album "May I Come In?" is an enticing conglomeration of songs that show a wide variety of sounds and textures and it's available now as a limited edition cassette on CMM. We sat down with Brett to talk about his early musical memories, life in Nashville and his process for making the album. Enjoy the conversation with one of our favorite new artists.
CMM-What are your first musical memories and what musicians really made a big impression on you when you where growing up?
Brett-When I was pretty young my dad gave me his old record player and would take me to the record store with him. When I first started getting records, I was really into blues music so that made a huge impact on me at a young age. People like Buddy Guy and B.B. King (RIP).
CMM-When did you start playing music yourself and what instruments did you first learn to play?
Brett-I was probably about 12 when I first started playing music. I got an electric guitar for Christmas one year and that kind of started everything. Now I try a little bit of everything but guitar is still the bread and butter.
CMM-What where some of your first bands like? Did any of them make any recordings or release anything?
Brett-The first band I was in was called The Grim Wilderness. We were a 5 piece psychedelic rock band. I was fortunate enough to join this band with a couple of really close friends and we played some local shows. After that band broke up, I started a project with my friend Shane Graybill (he was the singer in The Grim Wilderness) called Cult Choir. We did an EP that is on Soundcloud called “The Midnight Praise EP”. It was just me on acoustic guitar and Shane playing a conga. There is probably a few videos on Youtube as well. Shortly after, I decided to move to Nashville and Shane kept up Cult as a solo project and has been putting out great records ever since.
CMM-Your originally from Pennsylvania. How long have you been based in Nashville and what brought you there?
Brett-I’ve been in Nashville for about 4 years now. I came down here to go to college to study audio production and when I graduated, I wasn’t ready to leave. The music scene here is so much stronger and I’ve met a lot of great people.
CMM-When did you start making music as Hot Glew and what was the inspiration for the project?
Brett-I guess it started about a year ago. I was doing another project with my friend Zach Helsinger called Nowweseeeast. Eventually through jobs and school our schedules didn’t line up anymore so I started writing and recording alone. After a few months I realized that I had about 15 songs and needed to do something with them. Nowweseeeast was more rock based which was really cool but I was ready to try something different. I started using tools that I would never normally use just to see what I could come up with.
CMM-Your latest album "May I Come In?" is a collection of 10 tracks that all have their own distinct vibe to them. What was the song writing and recording process like for it?
Brett-When I was writing and recording this album I was working at URP on the night shift. I would always come home with little pieces of cardboard that had little phrases or lines I would think of while inspecting records. When I would get home I would just sit down and try to turn these words into a song. I lived in a small apartment at the time so I couldn’t be loud late at night.
CMM-Any particular stand out gear you used for the sessions?
Brett-All the gear I have is really cheap second hand stuff. I bought this Alesis SR-16 from a pawn shop that had a ton of corny 80’s drums sounds on it. A lot of the drums on the album came from that machine. I also have a Concertmate 1100. As far as I know it is a keyboard made by Radioshack in the late 80’s- early 90’s. I had a lot of fun using the sounds from that as well. The song “Walking” was recorded entirely with this keyboard.
CMM-Do you have any plans to play the songs out live?
Brett-I have some things in the works. At this point, it’s just me in my bedroom making recordings so it’s hard to have them translate live the way I want them to. I’m looking for musicians to join and help out with the live shows.
CMM-Any new songs or recordings in the works?
Brett-I have about half of the next album recorded now it is just a matter of mixing them and writing a few more to finish it up. Just looking to keep making music that excites me. Hopefully there will be some shows in the near future as well.
You can hear "May I Com In?" in it's entirety at www.hotglew.bandcamp.com and pick up a copy of the cassette at www.custommademusicva.com
