#Anti Records

[thepermanentrainpress]

Gallery: Slow Pulp @ The Pearl - Vancouver, BC Date: October 13, 2023 Photographed by: Danielle Costelo

[garadinervi]

Freedom Is A Constant Struggle, Performed by Leyla McCalla, Joy Clark, Lilli Lewis, Sabine McCalla, Sula Spirit & Cassie Watson Francillon, Written by Roberta Slavitt, ANTI- Records, 2023

[nofatclips]

Creep Out // Freak Out by Gary V (formerly Prism Tats) from the album Prism Tats - Directed, Photographed, and Edited by Christopher Good

[lauraepartain]

The lovely Leyla McCalla | Feb 2023

[sinceileftyoublog]

Madi Diaz & Jack Van Cleaf Live Show Review: 3/6, Lincoln Hall, Chicago

Madi Diaz

BY JORDAN MAINZER

"I've got these purple shoes--they're very cool," Madi Diaz shared Wednesday night at Lincoln Hall as she tuned her guitar. Someone in the audience replied, "Tell us more!" Diaz didn't hear them, but the crowd member's response was apropos of Diaz's open-book nature as a songwriter and performer. Over her past two albums, 2021's History of a Feeling and last month's Weird Faith (Anti-), through her unflinching honesty, Diaz has created a solidarity of self-expression, anthems out of moments and feelings we might otherwise be ashamed of (loneliness, crying in public). She's put to song the peaks and valleys and beginnings and ends of relationships with others and herself, the non-linear nature of realizing that she loves, hates, feels a burning desire, and in turn deserves to feel it all. Turns out, a lot of other folks have had experiences similar to hers, making it easy for them to sing Diaz's words back to her and feel a palpable connection.

Diaz

Diaz walked out to Cass Elliot's "Make Your Own Kind of Music", a fitting sentiment to introduce a show in which she laid bare her vulnerability and created an atmosphere for others to do the same. Truth be told, she knows how to start a song, an album, and a set; "Same Risk" confronts a love interest about a level emotional playing field. "What the fuck do you want? Cause I'll give you all that I got," she sings on the Weird Faith and set opener, each subsequent line one-upping the prior in terms of frankness, culminating with the question, "Do you think this could ruin your life?" and the admission, "Cause I could see it ruining mine." Though the album version has the proper canyons of space to give room for Diaz's heavy confessions, the live version was comparatively stripped-down. On stage, Diaz played guitar and sang alongside multi-instrumentalist Adam Popick, who played drums and synthesizer, sometimes simultaneously. Though Diaz's lyrics are often diaristic, conversational, and clear, that they were less obscured by instrumentation as on the album made them all the more in-your-face. As such, a song like upbeat strummer "Everything Almost", wherein she wonders whether she's doing and saying the right things in a burgeoning relationship (and she's even doing the wondering out loud, in real time) is borderline like watching theater: At one moment, she cracks up at the thought of being a needy pregnant partner, and at the next, cowers at the idea that her parents might not be around to meet their grandchild.

Diaz

Diaz's unbridled outpouring can be jarring, but it's undoubtedly powerful. On Wednesday, huge-sounding songs like "For Months Now", "KFM", and "Resentment" transformed into intimate singalongs. "Hurting You", performed solo on acoustic guitar, became an even more hushed ode to picking yourself back up after a heartbreak, learning how to move on from grief. And though Kacey Musgraves didn't show up to duet "Don't Do Me Good", the crowd's belting of the all-timer country chorus was as stubborn as the song's protagonist herself.

If Diaz has grown as a songwriter over time and as she's penned for pop and country stars, it's clear that her time opening for the likes of Waxahatchee, Angel Olsen, and Harry Styles has allowed her to understand that, when performing, just because a space is big doesn't mean it always needs to be filled. The subject matter of her songs could be constantly cried out, but she belted only for maximum impact, contrasting the dulled tom thuds on "Get to Know Me", or holding a single note on "Crying in Public". For the most part, her vocal delivery was subtle, especially when she harmonized with Popick on "Girlfriend" and delved into fatalistic tricks on the unreleased "Worst Case Scenario", a song that tests her "theory of imagining the worst possible thing happening" so that it won't happen, or "expecting nothing and then being pleasantly surprised." At one point, on "Worst Case Scenario", she exclaimed, off-beat, "I'm gonna think of it!" over chugging drums and barn-burning riffs, recalling the tossed-off singing of Jason Molina.

Adam Popick and Diaz

Where Diaz finds ultimate peace is not in fatalism or nihilism but a sort of existentialism. She spends a lot of Weird Faith looking for meaning in giving your all to someone, and even weather patterns. But on "Kiss the Wall", she proclaims, "Nothin' is a waste of time," connecting the most boring moments when we're waiting in line for something to one's own legacy, perceiving that we all make tiny changes to earth. During her encore, Diaz said she didn't believe a mere two years ago that she could spend time on stage singing about such a raw period in her life. As she wrote Weird Faith "on the backs of mantras," she started to believe in herself. It's clear, now, that one of those mantras is that every moment carries weight. She ended the night performing the title track on acoustic guitar, visibly emotional as she left the stage. As the house lights went up, we were graced by none other than Limp Bizkit's cacophonous cover of George Michael's "Faith", a reminder that even the cruelest of jokes can be earnest expressions of the universe's necessary chaos.

Jack Van Cleaf

Opening was Nashville-via-Chicago songwriter Jack Van Cleaf, an acoustic guitar picker whose songs and performances, like Diaz's contain heart-to-heart chatter. Lines like, "Love is like a rattlesnake / Before it bites, it tries to warn ya," from "Rattlesnake" were perfect bedfellows to Diaz's "Same Risk". And perhaps it was a mix of Van Cleaf fans and Diaz fans attuned to storytelling, but I was wowed by the audience's reaction to his songs as much as the songs themselves. On the unreleased "Using You"--which employs drug metaphors to explore how people use each other for attention during a relationship--the audience reacted with every lyrical twist and turn, despite likely never before having heard the song. After performing it, Van Cleaf asked those taking videos to tag him on Instagram, not for clout, but so he could watch it and fine-tune the song. Yes, such symbiosis carried seamlessly into Diaz's set, but for Van Cleaf in a vacuum, it's easy to see how another unreleased song like "Piñata" came to be given his appetite for feedback. It wasn't just the words themselves but the way he delivered the line, "I'm full of sugar / I'm full of niceties / I'm full of shit," that hit harder than a candy bar after too many edibles. Next time Van Cleaf comes to Lincoln Hall, he might be the headliner making people cry.

Van Cleaf

Van Cleaf

Van Cleaf

[underachievers-please-try-harder]

Track of the day // Katy Kirby - Party of the Century

From the album Blue Raspberry, out January 26th 2024 on ANTI-.

[tuuneoftheday]

Waxahatchee - Right Back to It feat. MJ Lenderman

[rober-noir]

Glen Hansard - "There's No Mountain"

#glenhansard #antirecords

 "There's No Mountain" by @Glenhansardmusic from the upcoming album 'All That Was East Is West Of Me Now', out on October 20 Pre-order, stream & download: https://glenhansard.ffm.to/atweiwomn 

Directed by Myles O'Reilly

 Produced, Recorded and Mixed by David Odlum 

Written by Glen Hansard 

Mastered by Bob Ludwig at Gateway Mastering

 Earl Harvin : Drums Joseph Doyle : Bass, Vocals Rob Bochnik, Guitar, Vocals Ruth O’Mahony-Brady : Piano, Keyboards, Synths Glen Hansard : Guitar, Mandolin, Vocals Piero Perrelli : Percussion Paula Hughes : Cello Katie O’Connor : Violin Una O’Kane : Violin, Viola and String Arrangement

(vía (126) Glen Hansard - "There's No Mountain" - YouTube)

[thisthat-ortheother]

Maybe I lose some followers along the way but that is okayyy I am not sorry to see them go ✌️

[garadinervi]

Leyla McCalla, Breaking The Thermometer, ANTI- Records, 2022

Leyla McCalla: vocals, cello, tenor banjo, guitar Shawn Myers: drums, percussion Pete Olynciw: electric & upright bass Jeff Pierre: tanbou Nahum Johnson Zdybel: guitars Melissa Laveaux: special guest vocalist on 'Pouki'

Cover photography: Noé Cugny Inside photography: Rush Jagoe Design: Noelle Panepento & Gina Leslie

[nofatclips]

My Little Ruin by Glen Hansard from the album Didn't He Ramble - Video by Myles O’Reilly

[lauraepartain]

New work for the lovely Leyla McCalla! Feb 2023

[musicollage]

Andy Shauf — Norm. 2023 : Anti-.

! acquire the album ★ attach a coffee !

[stevenvenn]

Cass McCombs - New Earth (from Heartmind) Another great album from this past year that I think may be in contention for the Nifty 50. One of my favourite tracks on Cass’ album this year.

[underachievers-please-try-harder]

Track of the day // Waxahatchee - Right Back To It feat. MJ Lenderman

From the album Tiger's Blood, out March 22nd on -ANTI.

[clonehub]

For the purposes of this poll, ship and let ship means you don't care what people ship; everything is fair game. Some might refer to you as "pro ship".

If you think certain things shouldn't be shipped, if you apply morals to what you or others ship, and/or you do care, then answer "no".

You define white for yourself.

No results option bc you either pick or you don't.

Please reblog for sample size.