#SECOND ALBUM ? SECOND ALBUM ? SECOND ALBUM SLASH EP ?

[whatareyoudoingwithamaserati]

so do I start barking now orrrrr

[dustedmagazine]

Neutrals — New Town Dream (Slumberland/Static Shock)

Photo by Kelly Sullivan

Neutrals are a San Francisco-based band but you wouldn’t know it by listening. The singer, Allan McNaughton, has a knotty Scottish burr, even now, years on from relocating to the Bay Area. Musically, he and his bandmates — Lauren Matsui on bass and Phillip Lantz on drums — favors a kicky, catchy, bash-and-pop variety of post-punk that has more than a whiff of the Television Personalities in it.

New Town Dream is a bit of a concept album, referring in multiple places to the Pollok Free State protests of the early 1990s, where residents banded together to stop the construction of a highway through their beloved park in the suburbs of Glasgow. For two years, people lived in makeshift shelters in the park, cooking communally, making music and developing strong bonds with one another.  Some even took up residence in the trees themselves. The protests were ultimately unsuccessful, and the highway was built.  “Stop the Bypass,” one of the disc’s most raucous tunes, includes a chant from the protests; “The Iron that Never Swung” seems related, too, mourning a golf course promised but never delivered. Sings McNaughton, “All the effort was in vain/we lost our land to eminent domain/where there should be a fairway, the council put a new motorway.”

Indeed, if there’s a running thread through New Town Dream, it’s the gap between idealism and what actually happens once money and politics and other real-world factors come into play. “New Town Dream (Version)” is an altered version of a song from the Bus Stop Nights EP in 2022. Dusted’s Jonathan singled it out, writing, “Musically the guitar tone takes on a razoring, quixotic quality, most urgently on “New Town Dream” and its 107 seconds of keening post punk. A little more dissonant and it could be a Swell Maps tune, tucked in among that run of short songs that opens A Trip to Marineville.”  Here it runs closer to Gang of Four with its melodica and dub bass, but it slips in some extended retro-futurist spoken word about planned communities. An educational voice making the case for planned communities outside of city centers, including shops, banks, homes and, critically, green space, as an antidote to what, “people rightly deplore in this country [which] could be called a yob culture.”  The kicker is, of course, that the minute city planners need that land for something else, poof, it’s gone.

Not all the songs stick to this broad topic, and indeed, a couple of the best are less didactic. “That’s Him on the Daft Stuff Again” is pure C-86-ish bliss, full of joy and melancholy in equal measure. McNaughton sings in a half-chant, a twist of melody under a rain of mordant words and very like the Television Personalities’ Dan Treacy. The resembles continues through the instruments, all a bounding bass and chiming, rainbow-splintering guitar chords and bumptious, disruptive drumming.

“Substitute Teacher,” slashes a little more sharply, its jutting, off-kilter guitar work sharing near equal billing with the growl of bass. The “s-s-substitute” stutter nods to the Who, the lyrics are closer to the Kinks’ lyrical wordplay. The kids may have written him off before he finishes writing his name on the board, but a distinct, individual person comes to life in a few lines: “He’s got a passion for mathematics/after work he’s into amateur dramatics/you may have seen him in a Death of a Salesman, you may have seen him in Pirates of Penzance/he was a triumph in the Scottish play/he’s only here for a day.”

All of which put Neutrals in the very top tier of jangling, hyper-articulate pop-punk bands, alongside Ducks Ltd., Reds, Pinks and Purples and the Infinites. There’s really nothing neutral about them.

Jennifer Kelly

[heathermasonnum1fan]

Songs of the Week (1)

1. Bodies (Sex Pistols)

Really got into Sex Pistols this week, can’t get this song out of my head. Questionable messaging aside, this song is brilliant. I rarely find myself able to separate the music from the lyrics, so being able to enjoy this so much is a big deal for me. Indescribable energy.

2. Whale & Wasp (Alice in Chains)

The Jar of Flies EP is a goldmine that just never stops giving. I don’t know what Jerry Cantrell did to make his guitar sound like an actual whale, but this song really takes me places. Breathtakingly beautiful.

3. Disintegration (The Cure)

One of the best songs off this album. I’ve wanted to make a separate post on Disintegration (the album, not the song) for a long time now, just because it’s one of those rare records that I consider to be genuinely flawless. Cried to this song multiple times, I just don’t know how to put into words what it makes me feel.

4. Estranged (Guns N Roses)

I feel like this is an obvious one but out of their entire discography, Estranged is definitely one of my favourites. Absolutely adore Slash’s solos in this one, especially the fact that at some point the guitar becomes a second voice on equal standing with Axl’s vocals. Heartbreaking. Could cry to this for hours, no joke.

5. Guerrilla Radio (Rage Against the Machine)

One of my favourites off of The Battle of Los Angeles. Had the whole album on repeat a lot recently, but this song especially is a godsend. There’s something so special about finding music that you can really call yours, that really fits you. Guerrilla Radio is definitely one of those for me.

6. Problems (Sex Pistols)

I don’t know what it is with me and Sex Pistols this week but I feel like Problems is another song that translates their energy best. It’s provocative and dirty, I’m absolutely in love with it. Anything sporting raw emotion or genuine sentiment is an instant yes for me.

7. Halloween in Heaven (Type O Negative)

The first Type O Negative song in my playlist ever, mostly because I never really liked them much if I’m being honest, but the female vocals somewhere around the middle of the song really won me over. I’ll check out some more stuff from Dead Again, we’ll see where it goes.

[greensparty]

Stuff I'm Looking Forward To in May

How is it already May? In addition to being Asian Pacific American Heritage Month as well as Orthodox Easter (5/5), Cinco de Mayo (5/5), Mother's Day (5/12) and Memorial Day (5/27) here is what's on my radar this month:

Movies:

The Idea of You

A Michael Showalter movie is always a highly anticipated for me. I was a huge fan of his comedy group The State and I named his film The Big Sick my #1 Movie of 2017. Since then his films have been mixed (including The Eyes of Tammy Faye) but they are always unique in their own way. His new one is a romantic drama with Anne Hathaway premiering on Amazon Prime Video on 5/2.

Star Wars Episode 1 The Phantom Menace

When the first Star Wars prequel was released in May 1999, there was no way any movie could live up to the expectation. While it's not perfect by any means, it is better than people initially thought. I saw it a few times in the theater in 1999 (including opening day) and in 2012, I saw the 3-D re-release. Without the hype and fanfare it wasn't bad. There's been quite a few revisionist appraisals of Ep 1 in recent years. In addition to select theaters doing a Star Wars Eps 1-9 marathon, Ep 1 is getting a 25th anniversary re-release on 5/3.

Unfrosted

Jerry Seinfeld is a comic genius! Now he's making his directorial feature film debut with a comedy biopic about the creation of the Pop Tart in 1963. With Jerry directing, co-writing, producing and starring I'm on board! Premieres 5/3 on Netflix.

Let It Be

The 1970 documentary about The Beatles recording their final album has been out of print for years and now it has been remastered by Peter Jackson for a Disney+ streaming premiere on 5/8. Fingers crossed a blu-ray follows!

Back to Black 

Amy Winehouse had such a short musical career, but her legacy lives on. After the excellent documentary Amy in 2015, she is now getting the music biopic treatment directed by Sam Taylor-Johnson, the director of the criminally underrated Nowhere Boy about the early days of John Lennon. Opens 5/17.

IF

John Krasinski proved himself as a director with A Quiet Place. Now he is back with a fantasy about imaginary friends and it's one of those "everyone is in it" casts! Opens 5/17.

Hit Man

A Richard Linklater film is always a high film priority for me! His new action-comedy has been creating quite a buzz since its festival premiere last year. It's adapted from an article by Skip Hollandsworth and the last adaptation of his from Linklater was Bernie! Star and co-writer Glen Powell has worked with Linklater on Everybody Wants Some!! and Apollo 10 1/2. I could not be more psyched! Limited theatrical release on 5/24 and Netflix premiere on 6/7.

Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga

2015's Mad Max: Fury Road, the 4th Mad Max movie, set the bar pretty high for high octane action. Now George Miller is back with a prequel about Furiosa. Opens 5/24.

Music:

Aerosmith Get Your Wings 50th Anniversary Limited Edition

In March, Aerosmith's second album turned 50! To celebrate the anniversary they are releasing a special edition vinyl on 5/17!

Slash Orgy of the Damned

GN'R guitarist Slash is back with his sixth solo album featuring tons of guest stars including Brian Johnson and Steven Tyler doing blues covers. Album drops 5/17!

Ringo Starr Crooked Boy

Sir Ringo Starr has been on a roll knocking out tons of EPs including EP3 and Rewind Forward. Now he has his 5th EP since 2021 (my God - put all of these EPs together and it'd be a killer album!). This one was written and produced by Linda Perry. After an RSD and digital release last month, a physical release will be on 5/31 (review to come)!

Film Festivals:

Independent Film Festival Boston

My favorite film festival in Boston (and possibly the world) takes place at the best indie cinemas in Boston from May 1-8 (see my preview here).

In a category all its own:

My birthday is on 5/20! 

[airadam]

Episode 180 : Reverse Jams

"Slashed all four tyres on the bandwagon..."

- Pos

The end of the fourteenth year of the show is here, with the numerically-satisfying number 180! It's been a good month for shows, with a highlight being seeing Edo G live for the first time, so I've included a couple of his tracks alongside some recent releases, a rarity or two, and some bonafide old classics. The show is a touch longer than usual, running a little over an hour, but hopefully it still flies by for you!

Mastodon : @airadam@mastodon.me.uk

Twitch : @airadam13

Playlist/Notes

Edo G, DJ Yoda, and Brad Baloo : Talk About It

Coming off the back of seeing a great performance by Edo G and DJ Yoda at The Hip-Hop Chip Shop in Manchester this month, I thought we'd start the episode with a smooth selection from their new "Hometown Heroes" EP. Edo G is in his grown man rap bag on a Brad Baloo beat, with Yoda on the cut - and if the record he's cutting is what I think it is, then that's an A1 selection.

Visoneers : Swahililand

I finally got round to digitising the "Hipology" 7" box set, a 2012 release by Marc Mac's Visioneers project that features tributes to the Hip-Hop side of his influences, and notably contains several cover versions of famously-sampled tracks, of which this is one. This is a beautiful version of a track originally by the late great jazz pianist and composed Ahmad Jamal, which eventually breaks out into the part most people will recognise - the mighty chords sampled from the Jamal version by J Dilla for De La Soul's "Stakes Is High".

DJ Spinna ft. Dynas : More

Grab the "Sonic Smash" album by Spinna if you see it - it's no longer on streaming services and with it also not being available on Bandcamp, picking up a physical copy is the only way to secure yourself a copy of this really high-quality album. In the meantime, take this slice, with Spinna coming with his trademark synth bass as the centre of the instrumental, and Miami's Dynas, a longtime collaborator, spitting a positive message on the mic.

Buscrates ft. Soraya Watti : On My Way

It was great to hear Buscrates play this track during a DJ set on Twitch recently while Soraya Watti was actually in the chat - the love she was getting was beautiful. This warm, bassy, soulful cut is the closer on last year's "Control Center" LP, a triumph from the Pittsburgh synth maestro.

Curren$y ft. Freddie Gibbs : Stash House

Eighties vibes here on the production, with 808-Ray going vaporwave style on the main sample and then adding his drum track to it. Curren$y fills this lane extremely well, as he uses his trademark relaxed flow to liken the dope stuff being exported out of his studio to...well, actual dope...while guest Freddie Gibbs just jumps straight out of the analogies and into the street for real. This is from the "Andretti 12/30", which was one of twelve (!) monthly releases Curren$y did back in 2016 - he might sound relaxed enough to be able to fall off the floor, but he's one of the most prolific MCs of his generation.

Fat Pat : Tops Drop

RIP Fat Pat, the creator of a true Southern classic that just overflows with good vibes! J Slash on production brings in the bassline groove from an 80s soul classic on this track from Pat's debut "Ghetto Dreams", and the lyrics are just about the joys of stunting in a nice convertible. This still gets plenty of play to this day on its home turf, and the youngsters at University of Houston basketball games hear it as the team's theme music - even though it was released before they were born!

Ilajide : Number One

The exact flavour of banging beat we've come to expect from Detroit's Ilajide, with the drums smacking, the main sample stuttering and the bass coming in strong to undergird it all. I might need to go and find/buy the original sample, which plays for a few seconds quietly at the very end, but you can find this track and some other excellent work on the "3" album.

Declaime : Exclaim The Name

A track with a bump so urgent it almost feels like it's tripping over itself (courtesy of Kankick), this is quality turn of the century underground business out of Oxnard, California from the  2001 "Andsoitisaid" LP. Declaime is perhaps better known to many as Dudley Perkins - especially if you follow the Stones Throw label - and while he can sing, don't get confused and think his bars aren't tough.

Semi Six : 24K Rap

One thing about a Semi Six record is that you rarely get a long and clear intro, which might not be ideal for us DJs but shows how eager he is to get on and demolish the track! It's fitting that he mentions Raekwon here, as the track draws its title from a track that Rae and Havoc did with J Dilla that came out on the 2009 posthumous LP "Jay Stay Paid". AntBell! produces this new single, while Semi delivers, as promised, the golden era rhymes he mentions in the hook.

Edo G ft. Krumb Snatcha and Jaysaun : Stop Dat

Pure Boston on the mic here, with the message from all the MCs being an emphatic recommendation to stay true to yourself rather than putting out a false image - one that at best is an embarrassment, and at worst a safety risk. Pete Rock's beat smacks without overly dominating, leaving space for you to understand every single word. The place to find this is the "My Own Worst Enemy" album, which has been re-released digitally in recent years with the instrumentals for every track bundled in, making it a true Hip-Hop DJ jewel.

De La Soul : Big Mouf

A bit of an obscurity for you! "Are You In?: Nike+ Original Run" was a collaboration between De La and Nike (yes, the shoe company) that was intended to be part of a series of albums as soundtracks for runners. The whole thing is a largely continuous mix, and has some really good tracks that even dedicated De La fans might not know! This particular track is a heavy Dave West production with an incredibly long intro before the lyrics properly kick in - that isn't me cutting it back and forth or extending it, the original sounds like that. You might struggle to find this one - I don't think it's on any of the streaming services or download stores, and the 2009 vinyl that I got at the time only pops up for sale occasionally.

DJ Nu-Mark ft. Full Crate : Pass The Courvoisier

Another cover version, this time of a Pharrell-produced Busta Rhymes club banger, which was a highlight of the 2021 "Run For Cover" album - a full version excursion from a DJ known best as part of Jurassic 5. Nu-Mark links up with Full Crate, a producer from Armenia via the Netherlands, for a horn-laden track that could almost make you believe that it's an old original that the Busta record was reworking!

James Brown : Don't Tell A Lie About Me And I Won't Tell The Truth On You

Topical 😆 A slice of funk from "Hell", The Godfather's thirty-eighth studio album, released back in 1974. You may well recognise this title as it was borrowed almost word-for-word for a recent lyric!

[Easy Mo Bee] Termanology : It's Time

This is the tasty, but extremely short, beat that opens up Term's "Politics As Usual" LP, produced by the great Easy Mo Bee. I'd almost forgotten about it, but it provides a nice bridge into the next cut...

Portishead : Strangers

There's not much I can say about the brilliant Portishead debut album "Dummy" that hasn't been said by full-time writers, so just take it from me - it's a must-listen. Beth Gibbons' voice is processed here as though it's coming from a recording decades older, and the union of that and that heavy production was highly innovative at the time. 

Chalk : Stay With Me

This month we were treated to a new release by Manchester artist Chalk that has been four years in the making, a real labour of love. His new LP "Death Knocks And He Shall Die" is a film noir-influenced instrumental album, a soundtrack to a film that doesn't exist - think of a darker, more vintage take on Prince Paul's "A Prince Among Thieves" without any MCs. It's best appreciated over the full length of its sixteen tracks, but this is a nice sample of what you can expect. When I played this track on a recent Twitch stream, at least a couple of people immediately said that it reminded them of DJ Shadow's "Endtroducing" - high praise indeed.

Planet Asia : Place Of Birth

I can't remember where I first heard this, but it was probably an underground mixtape somewhere, and it reminds me of the kind of thing I often used to end up buying when I was supposed to be shopping for tracks for a club night! Planet Asia is a veteran MC out of Fresno, California, and this 1999 single was a fine one as just the second release in his career. He gets a big assist here from two-thirds of Cali compatriots Dilated Peoples - Evidence's beat is dark and fairly sparse, with Babu's cuts adding extra texture in the hooks, intro, and outro.

Evil Needle ft. Venuz Beats : Dive

Evil Needle is becoming a favorite instrumental producer of mine, and together with Venuz Beats he brings us a heavy-bottomed yet floaty head-nodder which you can find on the "Sound Escapes" EP - well worth picking up just for this one.

UGK : Ridin' Dirty

Finishing up with another Southern classic, another car themed track, but a world away from the celebratory air of "Tops Drop". As funky and mellow as the late Pimp C's production is, this is lyrically dark and paranoid - but as a wise man once said, just because you're paranoid doesn't mean they're not out to get you. The "they" in this case are the police and their informants, the natural enemies of anyone riding in a car carrying something that they legally shouldn't be... This is the title track from UGK's third LP, and a perfect example of what Pimp C's stepfather meant when advised his son to "put some music into" his Hip-Hop - the multi-instrumentalist was a master at bringing that live feel to his work in a way that ensures it hasn't dated a day.

Please remember to support the artists you like! The purpose of putting the podcast out and providing the full tracklist is to try and give some light, so do use the songs on each episode as a starting point to search out more material. If you have Spotify in your country it's a great way to explore, but otherwise there's always Youtube and the like. Seeing your favourite artists live is the best way to put money in their pockets, and buy the vinyl/CDs/downloads of the stuff you like the most!

Check out this episode!

[c0smic-coral]

let me make this more clear

Hey guys! I know I’ve said several things about my one-person band over the months, so let me make my discography plans clear.

My first EP that I plan to release in the coming months is called “heart”. All of the tracks are based on Qcard, the ship between Captain Jean-Luc Picard and Q from Star Trek: The Next Generation and Star Trek: Picard. This EP will feature my previously released “staring into space” and “toujours mon coeur” re-recorded, as well as a new song called “now or never”. My second EP, “broken”, will also be based on the ship. It will feature three entirely new tracks.

“back for you” and “break you free” will be bonus tracks respectively.

Afterwards, I plan to release two full-length albums. I’m not announcing their titles yet (I may have accidentally done so on a previous post) but I will admit that one will contain songs based on several other slash pairings and one based entirely on the MCU (mostly Lokius and Stucky). I believe I have leaked lyrics from a Lokius song and a Benthan (Ethan Hunt and Benji Dunn from Mission: Impossible) song and those leaks are true!

I do have plans for after those as well, but this is all I’m revealing for now.

[luuurien]

Chat Pile - God’s Country

(Sludge Metal, Noise Rock, Post-Hardcore)

Stuffing your face with the most heinous, brutal and violent parts of American industry and culture, Chat Pile's debut album is a spine-tingling, blood-soaked dive into the rot sitting underneath our feet. The stories Raygun Bush tells in God's Country are remarkably hilarious and horrifying at once, their mercilessly muddy instrumentation cutting deep into America’s decaying arteries.

☆☆☆☆☆

Chat Pile are taking the world down with them, and they don't care one bit about making things clean and easy. The Oklahoma City noise rock outfit has been around for a few years now, releasing two delectably dark EP's in the second half of 2019, and right from the start their vicious and slow-paced take on industrial rock and sludge metal made them one of the most singular voices in modern hardcore, opting to spend time soaking their skin in the oil vat rather than thrashing it all around the room. Three years later, and what's risen from that time is God's Country, one of the most tantalizing and horrifying albums in recent years that refuses to take a step back from its descent into the rot sitting under our feet. While the topics their songs explore - murder, revenge, the corporate grind, drug addiction - are never dug too deep into, that's part of the point: all of this is already happening, and there's nothing Chat Pile alone can do about it. If the world goes down like this, they're crashing into the fire on their own terms. In sound alone, God's Country is one intimidating listen, even discounting the chilling performances of Raygun Busch. Rarely does the instrumentation approach anything tangible or melodic: Bass player Stin tunes everything so low and slathers it in so much distortion that it barely registers as individual notes, like dirt turned into mush by gasoline; drummer Cap'n Ron keeps the music at a brooding downtempo while slamming on his snare and slashing into hit cymbals as hard as he can every single time, God's Country's apocalyptic atmosphere set at an agonizingly slow pace that makes every burn mark they leave on your skin that much more painful, only picking up the pace on Wicked Puppet Dance and Tropical Beaches, Inc. to set up specific moments of intensity that never fail to leave you in a daze. Nothing is ever kept precious in Chat Pile's songs, from the angular melody they sneak into the start of Anywhere that quickly devolves into stabs of guitar and a curdling bassline to the anxious verses of Pamela where the promise of salvation in brightly strummed chords gets drowned in a lake of buzzing distortion and needle-sharp percussive stabs - there's never a safe resting place within God's Country, Chat Pile refusing to pad their message with the usual tension-and-release cycles slower rock like this often falls into, a constant assault on the senses from the meat industry lambast of opener Slaughterhouse to the angry, lonely suicide that bookends the nine-minute finale grimace_smoking_weed.jpg. You're placed directly in confrontation with the inhumanities of homelessness (Why), child murder (The Mask), and gun violence (Anywhere), and the only thing you can do is look forward and stare it all straight in the eye. It's quite the heavy listen by design, but the force and fire behind Chat Pile's music makes it impossible to not want more of God's Country once you've had your first taste. The Mask's loose narrative around serial murderer Roger Dale Stafford does a balancing act between manic, almost absurd barking orders ("No, don't go to him, stay on the ground, I didn't hit him that hard / And anyway I can hit a lot harder if you want to find out") and genuinely frightening imagery ("It's all broken faces in this nightmare world / And jamming fingers"), but there's something so undeniable about those scuzzy guitars and crashing drum fills that only makes you crave more of that violence with every listen. On longer, more atmospheric tracks like Pamela or grimace_smoking_weed.jpg, God's Country pulls you in like no other before treating you to some of the darkest music this year, the former's tale of Pamela Voorhees taking out her fury on innocent campgoers after the death of her son, and the latter's paranoid, drug-fueled suicide with an anxiously ambiguous ending nerve-wracking listens that are still so dominating and enrapturing, a tragedy you can't take your eyes off of. It's the magic of Chat Pile's music, rejecting the usual escapism albums naturally provide with an experience grounded in the worst parts of reality and never letting you turn away, every gunshot and stab wound and homeless person suffering on the side of the road placed inches away from your face. If God's Country knows one thing, it's how to make you miserable with little more than words. Bitter, covered in grease and ready to kill, God's Country refuses to let anything get near its core and rips apart anyone who tries to get too close, unleashing its violent attack of sludgy guitars and oily percussion with enough vitriol and madness behind it to burn down everything it pleases. Chat Pile, while a new face in the hardcore scene, are not one to be messed with, a band with a complete understanding of their sound and the ability to perfectly harness it to create some of the most grim and untamed songs to come out in a long time. It may seem outlandish at times, but there's an underlying truth to everything they do here: the abject cruelty and exploitation inherent to industrialized meat on Slaughterhouse, the gateways to addiction and the lack of support in recovering Wicked Puppet Dance speaks of, how Busch plays a character attempting to find peace while wanting nothing more than to suck the life out of someone he despises at any cost on I Don't Care If I Burn. All of God's Country is based on things that aren't happening all too far from any of us, and knowing that makes the destructive power of Chat Pile even more frightening than it is in isolation. They recognize all the bullshit and distress circling around us, all the feelings we try and avoid to get through our day, and God's Country gives those animalistic desires all the space in the world to wreak havoc through Chat Pile's tortured songcraft.

[tomorrowxtogether]

TOMORROW X TOGETHER On Their EP Minisode1: Blue Hour's Meaning And What Their Teen Years Taught Them

The coronavirus pandemic drastically changed TOMORROW X TOGETHER's second year as a group, like all other musicians who have needed to put touring plans on hold. But it hasn't stopped the five-piece teen K-pop boy band's prolific musical output; in fact, it shaped their latest release, minisode1 : Blue Hour, which came out on Monday, October 26.

In the less than two years since TOMORROW X TOGETHER's March 2019 debut, the five-piece K-pop boy band has released one full album and three EPs, including minisode1 : Blue Hour. During their first month as a group alone, the boys made Billboard chart history when they became the fastest K-pop act to top World Albums and World Digital Song Sales Charts with their lead single "Crown" and first EP The Dream Chapter: Star. They also captured the hearts of millions of fans (whose official fandom name is MOA), with their Instagram boasting 7.3 million followers, Twitter six million followers, and the millions of views on their every YouTube video.

Their new EP minisode1 : Blue Hour, with its wistful but bright tracks, explores the teen experience quarantining during the pandemic while touching on the deeper themes of dealing with unfamiliarity and the loss of routine, as the group explains to ELLE. With their lead single "Blue Hour" specifically, the song has a resonating message to all, SOOBIN says: "Even though we may feel solitude in these times, we will continue to hope we still feel the same way as one another."

All but one member of TXT are in their late teen years—YEONJUN is 21 while HUENINGKAI and TAEHYUN are 18, and SOOBIN and BEOMGYU are 19—and the group has progressively taken a more active role creating their music. The boys talk to ELLE about every track on minisode 1 : Blue Hour's meaning, how their MOA fan base changed the way they see themselves over the past year, and the biggest lessons they've learned during their teen years.

Tell ELLE a little bit about what inspired the theme of minisode1 : Blue Hour. Is there anything you can tease about the symbolism of 5:53?

TOMORROW X TOGETHER: 5:53 PM is actually the time of sunset in October here in Seoul. You could also call it the hour between dog and wolf. "Blue Hour," the lead single of minisode1 : Blue Hour, is about that moment in sunset when the sky becomes too dark for one to distinguish their surroundings. The song reflects the conflicting yet coexisting senses of familiarity and unfamiliarity as we look at the world and at our friends around us right now in this blue hour.

Take ELLE through each track of the EP. What is each song’s meaning?

TAEHYUN: “Ghosting” is the song that kicks off our new EP. It’s an Indie Rock slash 1980s’ vibe Nu Gaze track. You can probably guess what this song is about: ghosting, also known as cutting off communication and disappearing without a word. In this song, we express the confusion and disheartenment of a boy who has become cut off and isolated. The person he has been talking with stops responding, and he wishes they would come back. SOOBIN and I helped write the lyrics.

SOOBIN: “Blue Hour” is TOMORROW X TOGETHER’s take on Disco. It’s mellow but bright and energetic with lots of great instrumentals like synth sounds and guitar as well as groovy bass. It’s about 5:53 PM, the hour of sunset in Seoul in October. More specifically, it’s about the beauty and darkness that comes with sunset. The scene is mesmerizing, but it’s also too dark to recognize and “know” the people around us, including our friends. There are concepts of unfamiliarity in familiar surroundings; the song expresses a message: even though we may feel solitude in these times, we will continue to hope we still feel the same way as one another.

BEOMGYU: TOMORROW X TOGETHER has always told our own story through our music. “We Lost The Summer” was created as we were brainstorming what stories we could tell amidst the COVID-19 pandemic. People lost routineness in their lives; people of our age couldn’t even physically attend school anymore. This song is a teen narrative about the changes in the world this year. In terms of the sound, it’s a refreshing Dance Hall track with amazing guitar sounds. Also, thanks to Charli XCX for her contributions to this track.

HUENINGKAI: I helped write the lyrics of "Wishlist" together with YEONJUN and TAEHYUN. “Wishlist” is about wanting to give a special someone the perfect birthday gift, but they won’t tell you what it is they want. As everyone can probably imagine, this is really hard to figure out. I think that it’s a very relatable subject for many people. The song is Pop-rock, and it’s very bright and refreshing. I think our fans will like it.

YEONJUN: “Way Home” is about the way back home from school. It’s the same path and scenery we walk through almost every day, but in this track, everything around us seems foreign and surreal like a mirage in a desert or a figment of our imagination, and we grow a little unsettled. The message of this song is that regardless of everything, as long as we continue to remember each other, we will stay together forever.

Minisode1 : Blue Hour explores a variety of music genres, from disco to R&B. What genre is your favorite to experiment in so far and why?

SOOBIN: My choice is “Blue Hour.” Disco is fantastic to both record and dance to.

YEONJUN: “Way Home.” I love Future R&B, so recording this track was a really great and enjoyable experience for me.

BEOMGYU: “Ghosting” was really memorable for me. It’s Indie Rock and Nu Gaze. I had a lot of fun while recording this song—there was a lot of emotional excitement all around.

TAEHYUN: “Blue Hour,” the lead single. It’s Disco Dance Pop and very upbeat and exciting so I couldn’t keep still from dancing during the recording process.

HUENINGKAI: I really enjoyed “Blue Hour” and “Wishlist.” I’ve never tried Disco before, and “Blue Hour” is our interpretation of the genre. They’re both very fun tracks, so I really liked recording them.

You’ve all had a more active role writing the songs on this EP. What track are you most proud of and why? How has your song-writing evolved over the last year?

TXT: This album encompasses a lot of genres like Disco, Nu Gaze, Future R&B, Dance Hall, and Pop Rock. It was a great experience working with all of them. Our lead single “Blue Hour” is great because it’s TOMORROW X TOGETHER’s unique take on Disco. In terms of the EP as a whole, we had great experiences brainstorming ideas and writing lyrics. SOOBIN and TAEHYUN helped write the lyrics for “Ghosting,” and YEONJUN, TAEHYUN, and HUENINGKAI helped with the lyrics for “Wishlist.” We've grown musically in that we were able to immerse ourselves into the music and expand our understanding. Some of us have become agile in the lyric-writing process, and we'd like to think our musical spectrum has widened.

You debuted during this big moment of K-pop really taking off in the U.S. and globally. How does it feel to now be part of it, representing K-pop abroad alongside BTS and other peer groups?

TXT: Thank you for your kind words. We don’t think that we “represent” K-pop; we’re simply doing our best at what we can do.

What is your dream goal of accomplishing in the U.S. music scene?

SOOBIN: I’d like to perform at a large venue in front of many people. I think it will be an extremely valuable experience.

YEONJUN: It’d be a dream to collaborate with globally renowned artists on stage at an iconic music award ceremony.

BEOMGYU: I want to go on tour and perform in front of many, many of our fans. I wish there would be MOA to greet us wherever we go.

TAEHYUN: I want to become an acclaimed artist. It would mean a lot if TOMORROW X TOGETHER could perform for a big award show.

HUENINGKAI: Collaborations with other artists would be an honor. I’d also like to participate in an award show and perform for many people.

What’s been the biggest lesson you’ve taken from your teenage years as you enter your 20s (or get close to them)?

SOOBIN: Don’t rush yourself. Do your best at your own pace.

YEONJUN: There are certain things you can only do as a teenager. Enjoy these things. No regret.

BEOMGYU: Be happy.

TAEHYUN: Stay diligent!

HUENINGKAI: Enjoy music and positivity.

What have you learned about friendship from the close bonds you’ve built with each other?

SOOBIN: Opening up and sharing your thoughts will strengthen your friendship.

YEONJUN: Don’t be afraid of conflict.

BEOMGYU: If there is something on your mind, speak it out and listen to one another. Great friends will be able to smile again together as though nothing had happened.

TAEHYUN: I think that real friendship is about addressing conflicts instead of avoiding them.

HUENINGKAI: I’ve learned to deal with issues quickly and efficiently through team discussions.

How has getting to know and interact with your MOA fan base changed the way you see yourself?

SOOBIN: I wasn’t so sure of my strengths but our MOA have made me more assured of myself.

YEONJUN: Our wonderful MOA always give me confidence and pride.

BEOMGYU: I had a chance to look into myself as a person.

TAEHYUN: As our MOA have been very kind and supportive with their words, I have even more faith in myself.

HUENINGKAI: Conversations with our MOA have grown more and more enjoyable by day. I’ve gotten to know our fans better and I think we’ve really found a lot of common ground.

For those new to TXT, what songs do you recommend they listen to? Give us your essential playlist.

TXT: We’d like to suggest: “CROWN,” “Run Away,” “Can’t You See Me?,” “Blue Hour,” “Our Summer,” and “Maze in the Mirror.”

This has been a really unusual year with COVID changing the way everyone lives and putting all tours on hold for a bit. But what has been your favorite moment from this year in quarantine?

TXT: We miss our fans a lot and wanted very dearly to meet them. We put our all into preparing this EP so that we could present our MOA with great music. We’re very excited to be able to share new music. Although we can’t meet in person yet, we were able to interact on socials. Those interactions were probably our favorite moments.

As a group, you’re maturing in the public eye. How has your fashion evolved over these past two years? How would you describe your personal style off-duty and on-duty, for this era?

SOOBIN: I don’t think my style has changed much at all. I prioritize comfort and prefer warm clothes in the winter and breezy ones in the summer.

YEONJUN: I still enjoy trying a variety of styles.

BEOMGYU: Compared to my trainee days, my attire is a lot more relaxed. I wear whatever feels best.

TAEHYUN: I prefer t-shirts and shorts. It’s the most comfortable for both mind and body.

HUENINGKAI: I still wear a lot of hoodies and track pants so that I can stay comfortable during rehearsals or when working on music. When I go out, I try on different things.

What can you tease about what’s next for TXT? Are there any themes musically you’d like to explore in your future songwriting?

TXT: We want to share a lot of great music. We want to become a group that can process any theme and concept, and show the world our many talents as a multifaceted group.

SOOBIN: I ’d like to try A cappella.

YEONJUN: Future R&B, Rap, and Hip hop.

BEOMGYU: I think it would be cool to try more acoustic sounds.

TAEHYUN: I like Soul.

HUENINGKAI: I would like to try Piano Rock someday!

[1962dude420-blog]

Today we remember the passing of Mick Ronson who Died: April 29, 1993, London, England

Michael Ronson (26 May 1946 – 29 April 1993) was an English guitarist, songwriter, multi-instrumentalist, arranger, and producer. He achieved critical and commercial success working with David Bowie as one of the Spiders from Mars. He was a session musician who recorded five studio albums with Bowie followed by four with Ian Hunter, and also worked as a sideman in touring bands with Van Morrison and Bob Dylan.

Ronson and Bowie also produced Lou Reed's Transformer with Ronson playing lead guitar and piano and writing string arrangements, and brought mainstream recognition. The album is considered an influential landmark of the glam rock genre, anchored by Reed's most successful single, "Walk on the Wild Side".

Ronson also recorded five solo studio albums, the most popular being Slaughter on 10th Avenue, which reached No. 9 on the UK Albums Chart. He played with various bands after his time with Bowie. A classically trained musician, Ronson was known for his melodic approach to guitar playing. He was named the 64th-greatest guitarist of all time by Rolling Stone in 2003 and 41st in 2012 by the same magazine.

Early in 1970, John Cambridge came back to Hull in search of Ronson, intent upon recruiting him for a new David Bowie backing band called The Hype. He found Ronson marking out a rugby pitch, one of his duties as a Parks Department gardener for Hull City Council. Having failed in his earlier attempts in London, Ronson was reluctant, but eventually agreed to accompany Cambridge to a meeting with Bowie. Two days later, on 5 February, Ronson made his debut with Bowie on John Peel's national BBC Radio 1 show.

The Hype played their first gig at The Roundhouse on 22 February with a line-up that included Bowie, Ronson, Cambridge, and producer/bassist Tony Visconti. The group dressed up in superhero costumes, with Bowie as Rainbowman, Visconti as Hypeman, Ronson as Gangsterman, and Cambridge as Cowboyman. Also on the bill that day were Bachdenkel, The Groundhogs and Caravan. The following day they performed at the Streatham Arms in London under the pseudonym of 'Harry The Butcher'. They also performed on 28 February at the Basildon Arts Lab experimental music club at the Basildon Arts Centre in Essex, billed as 'David Bowie's New Electric Band'. Also on the bill were High Tide, Overson and Iron Butterfly. Strawbs were due to perform but were replaced by Bowie's New Electric Band. John Cambridge left in March, again replaced by Woody Woodmansey. In April 1970, Ronson, Woodmansey, and Visconti started recording Bowie's The Man Who Sold the World album.

During the sessions for The Man Who Sold the World, the trio of Ronson, Visconti, and Woodmansey – still under The Hype moniker – signed to Vertigo Records. The group recruited Benny Marshall from The Rats as vocalist, and entered the studio to record an album. By the time a single appeared, The Hype had been renamed Ronno. "4th Hour of My Sleep" was released on Vertigo to an indifferent reception in January 1971. The song was written by Tucker Zimmerman. The B-side was a Ronson/Marshall composition called "Powers of Darkness". The Ronno album was never completed.

Bowie's backing ensemble, which now included Trevor Bolder, who had replaced Visconti on bass guitar, and keyboardist Rick Wakeman, were used in the recording of Hunky Dory. The departure of Visconti also meant that Ronson, with Bowie, took over the arrangements, while Ken Scott co-produced with Bowie. Hunky Dory featured Ronson's string arrangements on several tracks, including "Life On Mars?".

It was this band, minus Wakeman, that became known as The Spiders from Mars from the title of the next Bowie album. Again, Ronson was a key part of The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars, providing string arrangements and various instrumentation, as well as playing lead guitar. Ronson and Bowie achieved some popularity over the concerts promoting this album, when Bowie would simulate fellatio on Ronson's guitar as he played. Ronson's guitar and arranging during the Spiders from Mars era provided much of the underpinning for later punk rock musicians. In 1972 Ronson provided a strings-and-brass arrangement for the song "Sea Diver" on the Bowie-produced All the Young Dudes album for Mott the Hoople. Ronson co-produced Lou Reed's album Transformer with Bowie, playing lead guitar and piano on the songs "Perfect Day" and "Satellite of Love". Again with Bowie, he re-recorded and produced the track "The Man Who Sold the World" for Lulu, released as a single in the UK, and played on a few tracks on the Dana Gillespie album Weren't Born a Man. Ronson appeared on the 1972 country rock album Bustin' Out by Pure Prairie League, where he undertook string ensemble arrangements. Ronson recorded "Angel #9" for his second solo LP Play Don't Worry), and string arrangements on "Boulder Skies" and "Call Me, Tell Me" .

His guitar work was next heard on Bowie's Aladdin Sane and 1973 covers album Pin Ups. However, he was absent from the subsequent Diamond Dogs album. In September 1983 he was a special guest at the Toronto leg of the Serious Moonlight Tour, playing lead guitar during the performance of "The Jean Genie". He had only been asked to play the day before.

Bowie said in a 1994 interview that "Mick was the perfect foil for the Ziggy character. He was very much a salt-of-the-earth type, the blunt northerner with a defiantly masculine personality, so that what you got was the old-fashioned Yin and Yang thing. As a rock duo, I thought we were every bit as good as Mick and Keith or Axl and Slash. Ziggy and Mick were the personification of that rock n roll dualism.

After leaving Bowie's entourage after the "Farewell Concert" in 1973, Ronson released three solo albums. His solo debut Slaughter on 10th Avenue, featured a version of Elvis Presley's "Love Me Tender", as well as Ronson's most famous solo track, "Only After Dark". In addition, his sister, Margaret (Maggi) Ronson, provided the backing vocals for the set. Between this and the 1975 follow-up, Ronson had a short-lived stint with Mott the Hoople.

He then became a long-time collaborator with Mott's former leader Ian Hunter, commencing with the album Ian Hunter and featuring the UK Singles Chart No. 14 hit "Once Bitten, Twice Shy", including a spell touring as the Hunter Ronson Band. In 1980, the live album Welcome to the Club was released, including a couple of Ronson contributions, although it also contained a few studio-based tracks – one of which was a Hunter/Ronson composition. In 1974, Ronson secured the No. 2 spot from a reader's poll in Creem magazine as the best guitarist that year (with Jimmy Page taking first place), and Eric Clapton in third place after Ronson.

Ronson contributed guitar to the title track of the 1976 David Cassidy release Getting It in the Street. On 11 February 1977 the single "Billy Porter" (b/w "Seven Days") was released on RCA Victor Records, but did not chart. Roger Daltrey employed Ronson's guitar on his 1977 solo release One of the Boys. In 1979, Ronson and Hunter produced and played on the Ellen Foley debut album, Night Out, with "We Belong to the Night" and the hit single "What's a Matter Baby".

He also played guitar on Roger C Reale’s “Reptiles in Motion” album recorded in 1979 and only released in 2019 after the master tapes were acquired from the family of the original rights owners. The label Big Sound, based in Connecticut, had gone bust and the album remained unreleased for forty years.

In 1982, Ronson worked with John Mellencamp on his American Fool album, and in particular the song "Jack & Diane". Both "Jack & Diane" and American Fool topped their respective US Billboard charts.

In 1990, Ronson again collaborated with Hunter on the album YUI Orta, this time getting joint credit, as "Hunter/Ronson". One of the backing singers on the album was Carola Westerlund. While in Sweden Ronson wrote and produced three new songs with Estelle Millburne and Westerlund as EC2: "I'm So Sorry"/"Kiss Me" (1990), then a second single as ECII: "Passion" with a B-side cover of J. Kilette and K. Brown's "I'm Forever Blowing Bubbles".

In 1993, he again appeared on a Bowie album, Black Tie White Noise, playing on the track "I Feel Free", originally recorded by Cream. Ronson and Bowie had already covered this track live 20 years earlier, whilst touring as Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars. He also played lead guitar on the Morrissey-penned "I Know It's Gonna Happen Someday".

His second and third solo albums were Play Don't Worry in 1975, and Heaven and Hull in 1994. The latter set was only partly completed at the time of Ronson's death, and was released posthumously. Artists involved with the album included Bowie, John Mellencamp, Joe Elliott, Ian Hunter, Chrissie Hynde, and Martin Chambers.

Besides Bowie and Hunter, Ronson went on to work as a musician, songwriter and record producer with many other acts. He did not restrict his influence behind the recording desk to just established acts. His production work appears on albums by more obscure artists, such as Payolas, Phil Rambow and Los Illegals, The Mundanes and Italian band Moda. Ronson produced The Visible Targets, a Seattle, Washington-based group, on their 1983 five track EP, "Autistic Savant". In 1985 he produced and played on the four song EP "Stillwell Avenue" with the NYC based band XDAVIS.

Ronson was also a member of Bob Dylan's "Rolling Thunder Revue" live band, and can be seen both on and off-stage in the film of the tour. He made a connection with Roger McGuinn during this time, which led to his producing and contributing guitar and arrangements to McGuinn's 1976 solo album Cardiff Rose.

In 1982, he participated on lead guitar in a short-lived band with Hilly Michaels on drums and Les Fradkin on bass guitar. One of their recordings from this group, "Spare Change", appeared on the Fradkin's 2006 album, Goin' Back. In 1987, Ronson made an appearance on a record by The Toll. Ronson played lead on the band's song, "Stand in Winter", from the album The Price of Progression.

In 1991, Ronson produced the Swedish cult band The Leather Nun's album, Nun Permanent, adding backing vocals and guitar overdubs on several tracks. At the end of the production, during a short visit to his sister in London, Ronson was diagnosed with cancer. In 1992 he produced Morrissey's album, Your Arsenal. The same year, Ronson's final high-profile live performance was his appearance at The Freddie Mercury Tribute Concert. He played on "All the Young Dudes" with Bowie and Hunter; and "Heroes" with Bowie. Ronson's final recorded session was as a guest on the 1993 Wildhearts album Earth vs the Wildhearts, where he played the guitar solo on the song "My Baby is a Headfuck". Liner notes for the Earth vs The Wildhearts album give credit to Mick Ronson for guitar on the track "My Baby Is A Headfuck" and the "album is dedicated to Mick Ronson".

Ronson died of liver cancer on April 29, 1993 at age 46.

[anyahopes]

They saved the rock music and more : The Battle At Gardens Gate Review [French]

[Sorry for English people but my skills are awful and it was more easy for me to write this review in French. ]

Peut-on savoir qu'un groupe va écrire l'histoire du rock ? Probablement que non. Encore moins en 2021 où 70 ans d'histoires, de chansons et de mélodies semblent avoir déjà tout dit. Beaucoup d'artistes tentent, à leur manière, de se détacher du passé quitte à sombrer dans une relative insipidité de création. D'autres au contraire puisent leur inspiration dans ce qu'ont construit leurs aînés pour offrir au monde une autre destinée au rock : celle de son retour fracassant.

L'avantage d'avoir grandit avec les légendes du rock c'est que j'ai à mes côtés l'individu le plus à même de me raconter la glorieuse épopée de The Beatles, de à quel point des groupes comme Pink Floyd et Led Zeppelin ont crée un boulevard pour ceux qui allaient suivre et que jamais une génération comme la sienne connaîtra ce qu'il a vécu : l'avènement du rock et du hard rock et d'une époque où la musique a écrite ses plus belles heures.

Evidemment il est de cette génération qui juge sévèrement le rock d'aujourd'hui, qui peste devant ces nouveaux artistes tous plus insupportables les uns que les autres et que "décidément ça vaut pas un bon [insérer nom random d'album culte de groupe tout aussi culte]. Etant née dans les années 1990 j'ai connu à l'adolescence le punk rock de Green Day, le neo-metal de Linkin Park et l'avènement du rock mainstream à deux balles où il suffit qu'un mec sait un peu près bien jouer de la guitare pour faire crier les groupies ; option belle gueule en passant. Il est certain que pour mon papa, malgré une relative satisfaction de voir que je choisissais la musique rock, il était nettement plus préoccupé par la qualité médiocre de l'industrie.

Je lui en ai fait écouter des groupes, des musiciens, des chanteurs et chanteuses. AUCUN n'a réussi à approcher, même un peu son univers. Bien sûr, il va aimer des chansons récentes (dernièrement Glasgow du groupe anglais The Snuts) et jeter des coups d'oeil curieux à l'actualité musicale. Reste une constante : dans ses moments cools à la maison, c'est toujours un disque de The Who, Pink Floyd ou Led Zeppelin qui tourne sur la chaîne Hi-Fi.

Et puis il y a eu Greta Van Fleet.

La rencontre était à double-tranchant : soit il allait adhérer ou au contraire rejeter en bloc l'idée même qu'un groupe puisse toucher à sa jeunesse. Je m'attendais qu'il me rende les disques au bout d'une seule écoute, comme il le fait habituellement.

Des semaines plus tard, les disques ont fini par trouver leur place auprès de ses légendes. Ce moment dingue où je suis rentrée du boulot et que Safari Song résonnait à fond sur la chaîne Hi-Fi. Ce moment où il m'a demandé s'il pouvait garder les disques un peu plus longtemps. Ce moment où j'ai réalisé que Greta Van Fleet n'était pas un simple groupe de rock : ils avaient gagné le droit d'entrée dans l'univers musical de mon père.

The Battle At Garden's Gate est sorti aujourd'hui, en ce vendredi 16 avril 2021. Dire que j'attendais (je rectifie : on attendait) cet album est un euphémisme. J'avais été bouleversé par Heat Above (spoiler : je suis toujours) comme rarement une chanson avait pu le faire. Comment dire que je n'étais absolument pas prête pour les deux ballades de l'album Tears Of Rain et Light My Love. Qu'en réalité, je n'étais pas prête tout court pour cet album.

La première écoute est, selon les spécialistes la plus parlante. Les suivantes ne font que confirmer, nous permettent de décortiquer et comprendre chaque mécanique qui nous ont fait aimer une chanson. Pour autant, l'appréciation est une histoire d'émotion, de timing et d'histoire musicale. C'est probablement pour cela que j'ai autant de mal à mettre des mots sur l'émotion qui m'a galvanisé (et continue toujours) durant l'écoute de The Battle At Gardens Gate : comme si l'album n'était plus seulement leur histoire mais celle de milliers d'autres, dont la mienne.

Plus grandiose encore, c'est de mettre bout à bout From The Fires, Anthem Of The Peaceful Army and The Battle At Gardens Gate pour saisir la richesse, l'émotion, la force incroyable et surtout l'authenticité derrière chaque titre. Oui, on peut trouver Greta Van Fleet pompeux, exubérant, agaçant. Oui, on peut même être jaloux face à une telle maîtrise musicale atteinte seulement au second album (From The Fires est un EP), de leur capacité à réunir jeunes et anciens autour d'eux et tout simplement de brillamment à créer un univers bien à eux.

Alors parlons de The Battle At Gardens Gate.

Tout d'abord il est intéressant de voir le contexte de sortie de l'album : From The Fires, leur premier EP avait fait un boucan remarquable et pas vraiment anticipé par le groupe qui s'est retrouvé nominé aux Grammy Awards 2018 (oui quand même) avant de repartir avec la récompense du meilleur album rock. On parle bien du premier EP d'un groupe de rock. C'est lunaire, ça ne veut rien dire mais la hype autour de Greta Van Fleet a pris des proportions hallucinantes et il a fallu que Joe Satriani et Slash disent aux journalistes de laisser le groupe tranquille en voyant l'énorme bordel provoqué par juste quatre gars qui n'avaient rien demandé.

Un an après sortait Anthem Of the Peaceful Army et cette fois-ci l'accueil fut nettement plus tiède de la part des journalistes. Dans la lignée direct de l'EP, il est clair que l'album ne prenait aucun risque et c'est finalement sur scène que Greta Van Fleet a fini par conquérir le public. 2 ans et demi plus tard, l'album est pourtant de qualité avec des chansons qui mettent littéralement une tannée (Brave New World, You're The One, Mountain Of The Sun). La douche froide des critiques n'est pourtant pas étonnante : à nouveau, les médias s'étaient pris de folie face aux [attentions propos merdiques en approche] nouveaux Led Zeppelin et attendait que Greta Van Fleet soit exactement ça.

J'ai déjà expliqué plusieurs fois à quel point il était navrant de voir que chaque nouveau phénomène musical soit comparé à des légendes du rock puisque cela ne fait que générer plus d'espoirs qui forcément ont des risques assez grands de ne pas être atteints. Cela arrive bien trop souvent pour n'être qu'un hasard.

Greta Van Fleet aurait pu prendre la tangente en s'extirpant de cette pression écrasante. Même pas. The Battle At Gardens Gate est à l'image du groupe et bien plus encore : Entre anthems fédérateurs (Build By Nations, Stardust Chords, The Barbarians), ballades rock (Light My Love, Tears Of Rain) et expérimentations (Age Of Machine, The Weight Of Dreams), la solidité de l'album est incroyablement scandaleuse. Chaque écoute prend encore plus aux tripes et la maîtrise vocale de Josh impressionne par sa justesse autant au niveau de la performance que de l'émotion.

Loin de correspondre aux standards du rock mainstream, loin de correspondre à l'industrie musicale tout court, Greta Van Fleet trace sa propre route musicale sans regarder derrière lui. The Battle At Gardens Gate est plus cinématique, plus magistral, plus impressionnant. Surtout l'album reste authentique, magistralement orchestré par des choix d'enregistrements exceptionnels (à l'ancienne soit le groupe entier jouant les morceaux) sans effets supplémentaires. Greta Van Fleet livre un album sans filtre à une époque où les artistes ne cessent d'abuser des effets sur leurs compositions au risque de perdre en spontanéité. Ce choix de production, audacieux et que certains qualifieront d'austère est pourtant la marque de fabrique du groupe depuis From The Fires.

Greta Van Fleet a toujours été un groupe taillé pour la scène et qui s'est construit par l'expérience scénique, conduisant à des élans d'improvisation hallucinants loin des codes d'aujourd'hui où chaque chanson est millimétrée pour rentrer dans un cadre. Sur scène, en studio, Greta Van Fleet ne triche jamais.

On voit pourtant venir les critiques (celle du magazine Pop Matters est honteuse) arguant le manque criant d'originalité. Ces mêmes critiques qui, quatre années auparavant, encensait Greta Van Fleet. Comme si From The Fires avait été écrit juste pour le buzz. Absolument pas : ces 8 titres présentaient déjà ce qu'était le groupe. Simplement galvanisé par ces "enfants de Led Zeppelin", on oubliait un peu vite que Greta Van Fleet avait déjà sa propre identité, loin de tomber dans les travers de la Vague Revival 70.

Ou peut-être bien que les gens sont effrayés par ce talent indécent, cette facilité pour le groupe d'être aussi sincère dans leur démarche artistique, de ne pas avoir besoin de tricher, de gommer leurs imperfections. Dans une industrie musicale où les artistes doivent absolument être "parfaits" et ne rien laisser au hasard, il est certain que la direction prise par Greta Van Fleet effraie. Si à la vingtaine ces gars-là sont capables d'une telle maîtrise musicale, qu'en sera-t-il dans dix ans, vingt ans ?

En attendant profitons de ce que Greta Van Fleet nous offre. Un album incroyable, rempli d'émotions et d'espoirs mais également authentique et inspirant.

[howaminotinthestrokesyet]

Behind The Album: Appetite For Destruction

In July 1987, Guns N’ Roses released their debut album, Appetite For Destruction. The album would go on to become the biggest selling debut record in music history. Furthermore, it would be the 11th highest selling album of all time in the United States. The strange thing was that the record did not actually achieve this immediate success after its release. Its popularity was a very gradual growth that needed the help of singles, a tour, and music videos including their only number one hit “Sweet Child O’ Mine.” The record company, Geffen, did not do much in the way of promotion for the band, Critics at the time did not think very much of the album at first, but now they all agree that Appetite For Destruction now represents a classic album that changed music.

The recording sessions began in January 1987 as the band had signed with Geffen Records six months prior. They could have signed with Chrysalis Records for twice the money, but they would not give them complete artistic freedom. For their part, Geffen Records did not have very much faith in the album anyway pushing the band to release the EP Live ?!*@ Like A Suicide the previous December. The executives did not feel that GNR had enough material to make a full album, but they did not want to miss out on the buzz that was building about their live shows. Most of the tracks for the album had been written while playing their club shows primarily in LA from 1985-1986. As stated previously, they produced a wealth of material that actually went on their other albums, G N’ R Lies and Use Your Illusion I and II. For example, “November Rain” was seriously considered for this album, but they only wanted one ballad on there, which became “Sweet Child O’ Mine,” a love letter to Axl’s girlfriend Erin Everly. The band considered several producers to record the album including Paul Stanley of Kiss and Mutt Lang, who had produced Def Leppard. The rejection of Lang really came down to the producer being too expensive. The first producer they worked with, Spencer Proffer, actually recorded nine tracks with the band, but he was ultimately rejected. They finally chose Mike Clink, who had produced several records by the band,Triumph. The album would be mostly recorded at Rumbo Studios in the San Fernando Valley. One of the reasons for this decision represented the fact that the location was away from Los Angeles, which meant the band members could focus a lot more on the music. The distractions of sex and drugs were problematic from the very beginning. The record company from the time they were signed began to fear that the band would not be around long enough to record any album because one of them was probably going to die very soon. Recording was slow at first because Slash needed to work on perfecting the guitar sound for the album. Once he got that down, the album still took quite a bit of time because Axl Rose demanded that his vocals only be recorded one line at a time. Steven Adler would later say that his drum tracks only took six days. As Axl gradually recorded his vocals, the rest of the band stayed completely away from the studio to let him work. A good number of the tracks for the album had actually been written when band members were in other groups. “Rocket Queen” had been a song written by Duff McKagan, Slash, and Stephen Adler when they had the group, The Road Crew. The song “Anything Goes” had been a Hollywood Rose tune. The lyrics reflected personal experiences of the band members. The song, “Welcome to the Jungle” came from Axl hitchhiking to New York. A homeless stranger came up to him upon arrival and said, “Welcome to the jungle you’re gonna die, man.” The song, “Out To Get Me” had been based on Rose’s troubles with the police that essentially forced him to leave Lafayette, Indiana to avoid prosecution. The song, “Mr. Brownstone was a direct reference to their seemingly full-time pastime of doing heroin. The song” “Paradise City” was written just after a disastrous trip to Seattle for one of their first tours. They had been left stranded on the way there needing to ditch much of their equipment just to make the tour. Paradise City emerged as a reference to Los Angeles upon their return.

GNR needed to battle the record company over the original cover art for the album. They had wanted an image of a robotic rapist being punished by a metal avenger, but record stores said they would not sell the album. Band members would later say that the robotic rapist was a symbol for the industrial system polluting our environment. Sometimes when it comes to Guns N’ Roses, you simply could not make this stuff up. A compromise was finally reached to allow the image to be included on the insert. The cover of the album, which is now iconic actually originated from a tattoo Rose had gotten the year before. Along with his tattoo artist, the singer would receive most of the credit for that logo. A little known fact emerges in that the knot symbol in the cross on the logo was actually a reference to Thin Lizzy. Another creative difference that most people may not realize was that the record did not have an A and B side, but a G and R side. The G side represented songs that took on darker themes like drugs and violence, while the R side were the ones about love, sex, and relationships. Originally, Axl had wanted to have a picture of the Challenger space shuttle exploding as the cover of the album, but the record company refused because it would have been in extremely poor taste.

At first, nobody noticed that the album had even been released. For example, in August 1987 Appetite For Destruction was number 182 on the charts, but exactly one year later the album was number one. Author Stephen Davis said that competition from other groups like Aerosmith and Def Leppard at the time hindered the group's ability to effectively promote the album. Slash would recall, "We thought we'd made a record that might do as well as, say, Motörhead, it was totally uncommercial. It took a year for it to even get on the charts. No one wanted to know about it." Another thing that must be noted that absolutely helped the success of Appetite For Destruction was the music video for “Welcome To The Jungle.” MTV had refused to play the video until David Geffen from the record company requested that the channel play it. The video aired for the first time at 4 AM on a Sunday, but some people saw it that lead to a tremendous number of requests for the video. Surprisingly looking back now, but critics absolutely hated the album at first. Dave Ling of Metal Hammer said the band simply copied other groups like Aerosmith, Hanoi Rocks, and AC/DC, and not very well at that. Other critics believed that the band’s popularity could be wholly attributed to their embrace of sex and drugs in their lyrics. They felt the group was glorifying it at a time when America was suffering from the AIDS epidemic and the war on drugs. Now in retrospect, critics undoubtedly keep lavishing praise upon the album being a turning point as rock and roll turned away from hair metal and glam metal to hard rock. Many agree that it represented the best metal record of the late 1980’s, if not the entire decade. Ann Powers of Rolling Stone would write, it “produced a unique mix of different rock values, speed and musicianship, flash and dirt,” that "changed hard rock's sensibilities at the time." Christa Titus of Billboard also noted that overall Appetite For Destruction embraced multiple other sub genres besides what would become hard rock. The album had, “metal's forceful playing, punk rock's rebellious themes, glam metal's aesthetic, and bluesy guitar riffs that appealed to purists." As other critics brought up that the record was more in line with The Rolling Stones and Aerosmith in the 1970’s, rather than any current band. In 1999, Axl Rose with all new members of Guns N’ Roses re-recorded the entire album. His reasoning had been to utilize new recording technology to improve upon the master. This new version was never released to the public, except for the second half of the song, Sweet Child O’ Mine which can be heard in the credits for the film, Big Daddy. In 2018, the band released a deluxe version of the album including early demos recorded at Sound City, Live ?!*@ Like a Suicide remastered, and early versions of the tracks that would eventually land in some form on Use Your Illusion I and II.

[thesunlounge]

Reviews 353: Island Sounds from Japan 2009 - 2016

The newest release from Time Capsule carries the completely irresistible title of Island Sounds from Japan 2009 - 2016 and finds label co-founder Kay Suzuki curating a miniature compilation aiming to present a personalized window into modern Japanese music. I say personalized because, rather than seeking to reflect what is contemporaneously popular, this release celebrates what Kay calls the “Island Sound,” which comprises a sort of loose and tropically-minded ideology dedicated to expanding genre boundaries and fusing musical traditions from all around the world. Thus across the vinyl’s five tracks, we are treated to a Caribbean-tinged reggae rewrite of a legendary jazz classic, a polychromatic surf slide and Hawaiian psych groove out, a fried and freaky mutant disco stomper led by chugging funk basslines, slashing fuzz riffs, and southern blues slide guitars, and an elegiac fusion of Aino folk, Afrobeat, and dub exotica made in tribute to the profound grief experience by both Syrian refugees and oppressed indigenous cultures within Japan’s own borders. As well, Island Sounds from Japan 2009 - 2016 sits nicely alongside the recently released Oto No Wa: Selected Sounds of Japan 1988​-​2018 in the following sense. While many reissue labels have their sights set on Japan’s musical past, with most of the focus being given to the rare groove, jazz, city pop, and environmental ambient music of the 70s and 80s, the curators of both Island Sounds of Japan 2009 - 2016 and Oto No Wa: Selected Sounds of Japan 1988​-​2018 choose instead to spotlight lesser known and ever more modern corners of Japanese music, thus collecting together the kind of leftfield oddities and impossibly creative genre mashups that will inspire future generations of obsessive crate diggers, balearic minded DJs, and visionary producers.

Island Sounds from Japan 2009 - 2016 (Time Capsule, 2020) Saxophonist Akira Tatsumi made his name with The Determinations, an Osaka-based ska band operating throughout the 90s and early 00s. Following the group’s dissolution, Tatsumi dove ever deeper into Caribbean musical forms such as calypso and soca and following a solo album in 2013, he began to brainstorm ways he and his fellow musicians could develop a more distinctive musical identity…something “they could export to the world instead of merely following their influences.” Thus a regular jam out called “Akira Tatsumi presents Island Jazz Session” was born, featuring an ever-shifting collective of jazz and reggae musicians who eventually recorded an EP under the name Speak No Evil, the centerpiece of which is an inspired re-interpretation of the Wayne Shorter classic of the same name. Stabbing piano chords bring in a throbbing riddim, with hi-hats guiding the flow, snare rimshots cracking, piano chords skanking on waves of tropical sunshine, and Shinichiro Akihiro’s palm-muted guitars scratching on the beat. Tanko’s sensual basslines bob the body and work through zany high note accents as familiar horn themes flow over the mix, with Tatsumi’s alto and Motoharu’s tenor and soprano singing together through moaning reveries, descending through cinematic refrains, and bleating in bombast as Pablo Anthony’s martial snare rolls and proto-fusion drum fills break free from the riddim glide to bash and crash towards the sky. Eventually, we settle down into a deep reggae zone out while the saxophonists alight on dizzying solos, with hyperkinetic blues spirals and circular marathon cascades intertwining and occasionally shrieking towards free jazz desperation. Then comes a dreamy piano solo from Tetsuya Hataya, which intersperses blazing runs and percussive cluster chords as the entire length of the keyboard is explored. After these solo passages, we return to Shorter’s classical horn themes, with pleading blues melodies and soar ascents married to a sun-soaked Kingston skank. And following a false ending, everything drops back in heavier than before…the bass now locked into a sinister pulse while ghostly dub pianos underly a panning panorama of alien saxophone mesmerism.

The second track comes from AQATUKI, a group formed by “two guitar kids” Taaki and Chen who, together with a fluid collective of musicians, have been developing their own strand of psychedelia since the late 90s, one equally influenced by 70s space rock and 90s rave. However, for “Wakanoura,” Taaki, Chen, and friends are in bathing in rays of tropical sunshine, as the track is based around a Chen’s gemstone guitar harmonics, which themselves take inspiration from the junkyard-sourced idiophonics of Konono Nº1. As the prismatic guitar layers spread out across an infinite ocean surface, tight psych rock beats from Toda3 and Moro enter to sway the body while Taaki’s slide guitar glides between textures of Hawaiian rock and surfadelic splendor. Aknee’s bass chugs along and brings atmospheres of 50s pop romance as Chen’s crystalline harmonic webs flow into shimmering seaside arpeggios…the whole thing bringing visions of sunset skies and dolphins dashing through coral reefs. In fact, the liner notes explain that, in addition to taking inspiration from Konono Nº1, “Wakanoura” in finds the band lost in nostalgic revery as they collectively remember a beautiful sunset bar they played in the titular location. At some point, the track erupts in small scale as rimshots rain over the stereo field, basslines move down low, and double-time hi-hats add further propulsion to the rhythmic flow, with my mind drifting to the drug-induced balearica of Pharaohs and the post-rock exotica of Cul de Sac…especially as shimmering webs of polyrhythmic six string harmony support increasingly far out slide guitar explorations. Descending surf chords signal another transition, with the rhythms evolving into a sort of equatorial breakbeat while basslines dance on sunbeams, fuzzy slide hooks refract rays of tropical light, and distorted surf-psych licks hold down the groove. Elsewhere, we lock into a sort eternal two-note loop of tropical island fantasy…with everything breathing in unison and seeking out an eternal horizon…all before the cycles are broken by a glorious guitar solo, which rides high in the sky as tapped ride cymbals spread golden wavefronts in every direction.

Just as Aqatuki found themselves backpacking to India and Southeast Asia in the 90s to bathe in psychedelic radiance, so did Altz, who also took inspiratios from “Japanese punk originator[s]” Murahachibu and a host of other avant-rock bands discovered in his youth. Around the turn of the millennium, the artist began producing on his own via a computer and MPC, and has since enjoyed a prolific and eclectic career, with releases appearing on well known labels such as DFA, EM Records, and Bearfunk. “Orympia Rocks,” which comes from Bear Funk’s Hibernation (Vol. 1) sampler, slams right away into crushing disco kicks and ringing cymbals, with strange reverb effects spreading outwards into exo-planetary caverns. Chugging punk funk basslines cut in and out alongside chopped and mangled fuzz guitar riffs, which drop in and out from all sides of the mix or suddenly rocket across the spectrum while everything else flows and transforms through dub delay chains. After a surprising cut to silence, we drop back into the groove, with stoned basslines and muscular disco house freakbeats stomping beneath a grease-soaked cascade of country-fried slide guitar…a completely strange and inspired mash up that, as told by the liner notes, was inspired by Altz spinning southern rock classics such as The Allman Brothers and Lynyrd Skynyrd. The result comes off like something from the wildest reaches of the Mind Fair universe…with everything anxious, unsettled, and stubbornly refusing to lock in, preferring instead to tease out various elements while maniacally subverting well known forms of disco, house, funk, and stoner rock into a maddening dancefloor fever dream. Bleeping and blooping synthesizers beam in from faraway galaxies, crazed whistles zoom skywards, and occasionally, the slide guitar flies solo over the drums...its tremolo-soaked blues meditations fly solo before everything devolves into a storm of dubwise chaos. Later, laughing children induce LSD visions that obscure the mutant disco rock groove out and towards the end, after the drums disperse, the southern rock slide guitars transform towards Hawaiian tropicalia as calming ocean waves crash to shore.

In the liner notes, Kay Suzuki presents a beautiful and personal meditation on Keiichi Tanaka’s unique talents as well as his tragic passing. Indeed, Tanaka was a world traveller, having ventured as far as Mali, Senegal, and Morocco to learn a wide swath of rhythmic folk traditions. Coupled with a private lesson from Afrobeat legend Tony Allen, these experience established Tanaka as a distinctly skilled and diverse drummer…something that was on full display in his band Kingdom Afrorocks. After Kingdom Afrorock dissolved in 2014, Tanaka relocated from Tokyo to Hokkaido and reconnected with deep dub and Ainu folk fusionist OKI, who encouraged Tanaka to record a solo album, which eventually led to Keta Iicna Hika. However, Tanaka passed before seeing the LP’s release, which is all the more heartbreaking given how incredible the music is, with the record hinting at a deeply creative musical mind who was only just beginning to explore the full reaches of his artistic imagination. Taken from Keta Iicna Hika, “City of Aleppo” sees Tanaka and OKI creating a unique sort of blues inspired by the bombing of Aleppo, wherein mystically aligned basslines snake up and down through Afrobeat and tradition folk drum accents led by urgently tapped hats, four-four kicks, and sparse snare smacks. Sawing scrapes background kaleidoscopic layers of Ainu folk psaltery, with buzzing spiderwebs and psychotropic spirals woven from OKI’s tonkori and mukkuri. And the whole thing ebbs and flows in intensity to evoke the way sorrow hits in waves…as moments of apparent calm give way to dense cascades of pain and anguish, with the exotica drum gallop erupting into climactic flamboyance while infinite string webs evoke the spiritual suffocation of Aleppo’s occupation, as well as the historic oppression of the Ainu people at the hands of Japan’s government. OKI’s dub version of the track from Keta Iicna Hika is also included, which brilliantly deconstructs everything into miasma of oscillating echo and prismatic future folk. Basslines dance over beatless stretches, dubwise fx chains mutate and morph the Afro-Aino rhythms amidst echoing bursts of plucked string violence, and the mix is increasingly overwhelmed by psychedelic editing, with elements dropping unexpectedly, black smoke drone clouds cycling through chasms of silence, and cavernous drum fills ricocheting beneath waterfalls of fractalized psaltery.

(images from my personal copy)

[dustedmagazine]

David Long & Shane O’Neill — And you can’t dream that (Country Pylon)

Photo by Noel Farrell and Sabrina Colley

And you can't dream that by David Long & Shane O'Neill

David Long and Shane O’Neill are two Irish musicians of a certain age, who had their brush with the mainstream a few decades ago, Long with the stark Joy Division-influenced post-punk of Into Paradise, O’Neill with the early 1990s new wave Blue in Heaven, which seems to have taken a page from the Bunnyman handbook. Both groups had their fans, but neither broke big in the way that, likely, everyone hoped. The two work together in the guitar-fuzzed, hook happy Supernaut and, since the turn of this decade, in a series of duet recordings: a pair of singles, the soundtrack for the short film Whelve, an EP called the Age of Falling Stars and now And you can’t dream that. This latest album is quite good, surprisingly varied and utterly beguiling, as good as an argument as you could construct for making music for the joy of it.

“The Last Night” is a shambling, shuffling, bittersweet beauty, akin to vintage Teenage Fanclub the way that blistered guitars erupt from wistful melodies. It mourns the gentrification of Dublin, not likely something that would have bothered Long or O’Neill in their heyday, but that’s the only hint of age. “Memory” moves faster, a blur of guitar propulsion that recalls the Feelies. It’s a delicate balance of romp and daydream. The hard backbone of drum and riff melt into echo-sheathed rainbows.

“It Comes and Goes” dips back into the two musicians’ post-punk-into-new-wave beginnings, a rifle shot beat puncturing romantic flourishes of string, baroque swoops of sung melody. The title track saunters trippily, a miasma of overtones enveloping Primal Scream-ish slashing drones. It’s the black leather basic rock song of this particular disc, a little blues in its slanting vamp. Elsewhere the floor pulses with strobe flashes, as on pulsing “Taxi,” a psychedelic raver wrapped around confessional songwriting.

The point is that the songs are all different in subtle ways and all quite good. These songs have soft, self-revealing centers, but bristle with banging rock noise.  Here’s to second acts that sound like they could be first ones, and records made for their own rewards. 

Jennifer Kelly

[sagehaleyofficial]

HERE’S WHAT YOU MISSED THIS WEEK (10.23-10.29.19):

NEW MUSIC:

·         While currently slated to continue touring the record well into 2020, Billie Eilish and her brother FINNEAS are already working on new ideas for her next album. During an interview on Apple Music’s Beats 1, FINNEAS confirmed that the duo is currently working on new music.

·         New Found Glory debuted the final video from their recently released From the Screen to Your Stereo 3, the third in a series of film-inspired covers. They rounded out the seven videos with “Accidentally in Love” off the film Shrek 2.

·         According to Slash Film, writer and director Kevin Smith revealed that Gerard Way has been recruited to score the upcoming Clerks 3 film. The news was revealed while Smith is currently on the road promoting the Jay and Silent Bob Reboot.

·         The 1975 debuted a brand new track from their forthcoming fourth album, Notes on a Conditional Form. Marking the second song from the album, “Frail State of Mind” hits on the topic of anxiety.

·         Simple Creatures released a new music video for their song “One Little Lie.” Directed by Morgan Freed, the video features the dynamic duo of Mark Hoppus and Alex Gaskarth in an epic “true or false?” pop-up trivia game.

·         We the Kings surprised fans with a brand-new single, “Turn It Up.” The new song comes just two weeks after their epic collab with current tourmates Simple Plan and State Champs, “Where I Belong.”

·         The Regrettes dropped an early holiday gift off in the form of a new track called “Holiday-ish.” The new song, also featuring 13 Reasons Why actor and Willows vocalist Dylan Minnette, will also be released as a 7” vinyl available on November 29th.

·         Highly Suspect dropped their latest single, “Canals,” off of their upcoming third full-length record, MCID. At the beginning of this month, the band released a new collaboration with rapper Young Thug called “Tokyo Ghoul.”

TOUR ANNOUNCEMENTS:

·         We Are the In Crowd announced that they will be returning for Slam Dunk Festival 2020, which hits the UK next summer. The festival took to socials to reveal the next round of announcements, which includes the band.

·         Anti-Flag will be heading across North America and Europe starting this month and capping off in 2020. They’ll be receiving support from Grade 2 and Doll Skin on one leg of the tour, with Bad Cop/Bad Cop and Grumpster handling other dates.

·         Green Day announced a one-off, small-venue show (only 2,500 capacity) in Madrid. Since the announcement, there have been some serious clues pointing to Green Day playing Dookie front-to-back at the Spanish venue, La Riviera.

·         Halsey hosted her annual Halloween Party in Los Angeles and she brought along a very special guest in Avril Lavigne for an incredible performance. The two singers linked up for a duet of Lavigne’s hit track “Girlfriend” during Halsey’s performance.

·         Coheed and Cambria have canceled their remaining 2019 tour dates after drummer Josh Eppard fainted during the band’s set on Friday. The band released a statement revealing that Eppard would be undergoing a heart procedure to close an “extra pathway” to his heart.

·         Some Waterparks fans expressed concern over Yung Pinch due to the language used in some of his tracks, which frontman Awsten Knight addressed on Twitter. Yung Pinch later released a statement on his social media, apologizing for his lyrics.

·         At the final show of Grayscale’s UK run in Southampton, Benjamin Langford-Biss of As It Is jumped up and shared vocal duties for “Palette.” The guitarist took to social media earlier last month to announce his departure from the band.

OTHER NEWS:

·         YUNGBLUD celebrated the release of his latest EP with a high-energy performance of his Dan Reynolds collab, “Original Me.” The Imagine Dragons vocalist joined the musician on The Late Show with Stephen Colbert last Monday night.

·         Waterparks secured the No. 1 spot on Billboard’s Emerging Artists chart. Released via Hopeless Records on October 11th, their latest album Fandom also debuted at No. 2 on the Alternative Albums chart, No. 5 on Top Rock Albums and No. 32 on the Billboard 200.

·         This year’s American Music Awards nominations include Post Malone, Panic! at the Disco, Halsey and more. Known as the largest fan-voted award show, the ceremony is set to take place on November 24th in Los Angeles.

·         A Kickstarter has been launched to fund the docu-series The Story of Warped Tour. Originally believed to be a four-part series, the Kickstarter launched last Thursday and is seeking $150,000 to fund the three-part series.

·         Ice Nine Kills teamed up with Swan City Bagels in Orlando, Florida, for a special horror-themed bagel. The circle of baked bread is called “The Silver S-cream Cheese” and is available for a limited time.

·         Twenty One Pilots’ Josh Dun posted a clip of him and boxer Glenn Holmesla training on the steps where Sylvester Stalone famously trained in Rocky. Dun also revealed he’s been doing boxing training every day for the past two weeks.

___

Check in next Tuesday for more “Posi Talk with Sage Haley,” only at @sagehaleyofficial!

[dustedandsocial]

Favorite 21 Albums Of 2019 That Were Released In Either 2018 or 2019 That I Heard For The First Time In 2019

1. Bad Breeding - Exiled (One Little Indian / Iron Lung)

2. Ukryte Zalety Systemu - Sposób Użycia (Antena Krzyku)

3. Rakta - Falha Comum (Iron Lung / La Vida Es Un Mus)

4. Berrocal / Fenech / Epplay - Ice Exposure (Blackest Ever Black)

5. Spröde Lippen - Schleifen (Latenz)

6. Hygiene - Private Sector (Upset The Rhythm)

7. MoE + Mette Rasmussen - Tolerancia Picante (Conrad Sound)

8. Tree & Vic Spencer - Nothing Is Something (self-released)

9. Club Sieste - Club Sieste (Collectif Coax)

10. Fith - Swamp (Outer Reaches)

11. Maxo Kream - Brandon Banks

12. Artefactos de Dolor - La Niña (HELIC.AL)

13. Receptacles - That Explains Everything (Maternal Voice)

14. Sada Baby - Bartier Bounty

15. Future Nuns -  Future Nuns (Superdreamer)

16. EXEK - Some Beautiful Species Left (Anti Fade / SDZ / Digital Regress)

17. Pozi - PZ1 (PRAH Recordings)

18. Taiwan Housing Project - Sub-Language Trustees (ever/never)

19. Dana - Glowing Auras and Black Money (Heel Turn)

20. Peter Kris and Tara Tavi - Lines in Dirt (Skrot Up)

21. Tropical Trash - Southern Indiana Drone Footage (National Waste Products)

All this stuff is also worth checking out probably:

The Birthmarks - No Slash Eye - Metamujer Autumn Casey - Calypso Style Beat Detectives - Nefertiti Abstract Movie Budokan Boys - Dad Is Bad Posset & Glands of External Secretion - Obedience to Authority Private Anarchy - Central Planning Isabella - Post-Tonal Bouquet Woo - All Is Well Chalk - Prickly Pear Charlène Darling - Saint-Guidon Artús & Adam Cadell - Improvisations 21 mai 2018 Shady Glyphs - Meditations on Caligari's Shadow Stefan Christensen ‎– The Upcoming Flame Pauwels - Poena cullei Adé Hakim - HAPPIEST PEOPLE IN THE WORLD WIDE WEB Evan Parker & Paul G. Smyth - The Dogs of Nile Sandro Mussida - Eeeooosss Eddy Current Suppression Ring - All in Good Time De Sang Froid - Vox Dei Új Bála - Diacritical Marks And Angels Soren Roi - Retrograde Amnesia The Wilful Boys - Life Lessons Ivan The Tolerable & The Elastic Band - Rations Claus Comedi - La Historia De Tu Alma 7" Maxine Funke & P WITS - Forest Photographer EP Tropa Macaca - Guia Interior Die Orangen - Zwei Orangen Brandon Seabrook & Philip White - Shock Breakout The Chinese Restaurants - Instant Music Kohti Tuhoa - Ihmisen Kasvot Abstract Nympho - Static EP Mister Water Wet - Bought the Farm Garland - #2 Carrageenan - Invisible Design Echo Ohs - Wild Weeds EP The Attitude Robots - We Shall Overcompensate Orphan Swords - Ascent Humming Dogs - Les Borigènes MoE - Oslo Janus (IV) Keller Crackers - KC The Dayton Exchange - S/T The Tapes - News From Nowhere The Dictaphone ‎– How To Improve Your Relaxing Sir EU - Red Helly/Twin Towers all NappyNappa EPs (x5, I believe) Razorlegs - Skip School Your Old Droog - 'Transportation' & 'It Wasn't Even Close' Parallel Thought & Tree - The Wild End Tree - We Grown Now Errant Monks - Service User Operations Couverture de survie - Etat d'urgence Ce Soir - Stations astrales Omen - Prol Bamya / Horse Whisperer / Dr. VZX Moist - Split CS (2018, heard this year) Shimmer - And I Revel Hot Date - Tell Us Flesh Narc - Understanding Reality Bukkake Moms - Raisins Mother Dearest - River City Beef The Clog - S/T 7" EP Pengo - File Under WTF??? Dry Cleaning's second tape Triple Negative / Colour Buk - Split CS Whirling Hall of Knives - Knukke Brick Brick - Chip 4 Chip Dame Area - Estás en un sueño Terebentina - EP 01 VA - Eminent Domain (L.I.E.S. Records comp) Denmark Vessey, DrxQuinnx, Azarias - Bullies (いじめっ子) Sleep D - U​+​Zone / Centro 12″ Marker - New Industries Roman Nose - S/T clara! - Meiga de Acero Chris Crack - (all albums) Fixity - No Man Can Tell Just Friends and Lovers - Her Most Criminal Crimes clara! & Maoupa Mazzocchetti - Luna Nueva Epiphany Now - 0,666 Benedict Drew - The Ughhh Ballads Glamour and Gloom - Ply Rutger Houser - The Swim StrangerStill - What Cosima - Ploaia 7" Assetstripper - Heavy hard hitting music... everything Ikuisuus put out

[exobyharu]

PCY - Ch4

Chapter 4: Tomorrow will be better

(Part 1)(Part 2)(Part 3)...(Part 5)(Part 6)

Summary: After some delays, you end up in the cafe with PCY just the same. You dish about life in general. At the end of the night, all hate left you and you fall asleep with a smile on your face.

⏰11:58 PM 🌏Hotel (S), City of (L) 🌚It was finally raining but neither of you notice 👥 YN, Park Chanyeol, your best friend Jane (mentioned), Kim Jongdae (mentioned)

Notes: I am still alive! I am so sorry that my update took too long! This is Part 4, the final part of my sort of introduction-slash-build-up for the actual story where PCY becomes a permanent fixture in your life :D

Words: ~2,000

💙💙💙

The server ushered you to the center of the café since it was the only unoccupied spot. The place was packed and ever since you stepped in, you had encountered all sorts of curious glances from the tables nearby. Maybe they recognised your companion, or maybe he was simply much too tall to be anyone insignificant. You tilted your head in apprehension, because you surely would have done the same and gawked at these spectacularly underdressed guests.

While Chanyeol was quick to brush them off, that was something you could not manage. In fact, you did not know which made you more uneasy: to have people stare at you because you looked like you had stepped out of a slasher film, or to have people discreetly eyeing the person you were with by pretending to just be facing in your general direction.

When you finally sat down across from each other, Chanyeol asked, “what are you having?” and that was a timely distraction from your thoughts. He looked blissfully oblivious to how he had managed to divert everyone’s attention to himself. You knew that he did not care. You did, though. It was uncomfortable.

“Just… whatever you’re having,” you answered, not because you weren’t fond of coffee, but because you believed that it was the polite thing to say. You also did not know what you wanted, frankly. It was starting to become the recurring theme of your life.

“Nocciola?” He said it like an invitation.

You shrugged.

Perhaps as a precaution, he ordered the sweetest drink on the list. The silence that ensued as you watched him scan through the menu made you realise that a proper conversation with Park Chanyeol is incredibly difficult compared to just heatedly yelling back at him from your suite’s balcony. You felt as if some part of your pride was softening up as you watched this guy kindly flag down a server. You were never the type to be moved just by someone’s looks and here you were, thinking to yourself that there had to be a first time for everything.

Making sure that he did not grow on you, you made it objectively clear that he was simply more perceptive than you gave him credit for. He was nice, only because he was on the penalty here - or at least he thought so.

“I just want to formally apologise to you for last night,” he said, confirming your suspicion, and for a second, the warmth in his voice made you think that he did not have to do this. You had to remind yourself about how difficult it was to arrange a room transfer to strengthen your resolve.

“Well, this is quite formal.”

“You don’t like it here?”

“It’s a bit much for an apology,” you admitted, still. Ten dollars for a shot of espresso? This place was too excessive for your taste. Whatever it was that he ordered, you hoped that it did not cost more than the money you had on you. You also hoped that he did not see through your worry.

“Could be your luck turning around. Had a bad day, right?”

Bad day? Absolutely. Luck? If a reversal of today’s luck meant having Park Chanyeol buy you a drink, then you did not want it. Your pride was not worth a tiny serving of overpriced Italian coffee.

Perhaps today was not really getting better for you. “Please don’t make me talk about it.”

Chanyeol was smiling with what felt like shining endearment. “You don’t have to.”

It was too much. He was either laying it on thick, or his smile was simply breathtaking up close. Your defences needed back up. “Then tell me why you’re so nice all of a sudden.”

“I’m nice all the time!” he whined, leaning back against the velvet seat in slight exasperation. He was a good four feet away from your face now. That’s better, you thought, until he pouted. His pout was equally lovable. “Last night was… just a breaking point.”

“U-huh,” was all you managed because you were damned and that was a big problem for you. Why was it such a difficult affair to ignore his charm? You, on the get go, had established that Chanyeol looked much better if he were nice, and tonight, he was exceptionally nice. This made him, by inference, exceptionally handsome too.

He dazzled.

You focused on your hands that were gripping the cold glass of water because you could not look at him. Breathe in, breathe out. You were having a difficult time keeping yourself together. You needed another massive glass of sangria poured on you. It was almost depressing that it came an hour and a half too early.

It proved to be too much effort, prompting your eyes to meet his. How was it possible when the rest of your body seemed to misbehave, too? Your fingers would not stop trembling and your feet shuffled under the table. This was worse than public speaking, except that nothing was really at stake. There was a very handsome guy seated before you, though. That was not supposed to be a problem.

“…never wanted it, so that’s why we’re on this date right now.”

You heard the word and your head snapped up in an instant.

A date?

You counted up to five while your head buzzed with what you would always say whenever you called Jane out for swooning over Kim Jongdae: Woman! We’re not teenagers anymore! We should stop crushing on celebrities and start dating actual real people!

How did you end up in a date with a celebrity and crushing on an actual real person instead?

In your head, you rallied to disprove both counts. But if you could not refute the latter, you decided to capitalise on the fact that this time was not a date. It’s not! “This isn’t a date, Mr. Park,” you clarified, definitely not watching the slight curve of his lips as he tried to suppress his smile.

“I know, I know. I was just hoping to get a reaction from you.” He had laughter in his eyes, which made his gaze even more magnetic. “And call me Chanyeol, for crying out loud!”

“You are loud. Don’t you ever get into trouble for it?”

“Sometimes, I have to be loud to make a living.”

“Sounds like a fun job to me,” you answered wryly.

“It’s not, when your boss thinks you’re not good enough.”

“U-huh.” His remark was surprisingly loaded and you were not sure if you were willing to explore that. You left the decision up to him instead. “From what I gathered, the world loves you.”

“What a life that would be. How about you?”

He did not seem inclined to entertain the direction you suggested. And even though you were not particularly excited to tell him, a stranger if not by name, about the summary of your life’s current struggles, you decided that this day was bad enough to deserve a proper rant as well.

“Well, since I’m an unemployed post-graduate, my displeased parents want to marry me off to their friend’s equally unemployed, but much more financially endowed son.”

Chanyeol’s eyes grew bigger. “…who poured red wine over your head at dinner?”

You managed a laugh despite your paranoia telling you that two middle-aged women were now taking photos of Chanyeol’s back. You had to focus. “…whose pregnant girlfriend poured wine over my head at dinner, actually.”

He whistled. “It’s never easy, is it? Life?”

“Sounds like a backstory you’d like to share.”

Chanyeol shook his head. “Nope.”

“Can I ask you questions then?”

He considered it. “As long as you answer them too.”

Given your excellent talent for sarcasm, this was not the response that you were hoping for. You always felt vulnerable talking about yourself, but if you always veered away from discomfort, you knew that you were veering away from self-discovery as well. Besides, a complete stranger would definitely give you the most objective assessment. And even though you never expected conversations like this to go down tonight, this was just the type that you may need.

“Life sucks, but I’m happiest when I can make other people happy,” you started vaguely after a few thoughtful seconds. “What makes life more tolerable for you?”

“Same.”

“The hell???” you choked, keeping your voice in check. “You can’t copy my answer!”

Chanyeol’s smile finally eased in again. “But I think the same!”

“Explain then.”

He hummed absently in response as the server arrived to serve your drinks. You breathed in the sweet scent the coffee placed on the table, only opening your eyes when he finally started talking.

“Tonkatsu,”  he said, taking a sip from his drink. “Tonkatsu makes me happy. And performing on stage. With thousands of fans. Hearing them sing to our songs as we dance on stage with lights illuminating everything and confetti falling everywhere around me. That’s when I’m happiest.”

When you said nothing, he grinned. “Too detailed?”

“Not the details I’m looking for, but I guess it’s enough to paint a picture. It must be nice to be a superstar.”

“The people who matter are those who support you. Ignore everyone else who doesn’t. You don’t need to be a superstar to know that.”

“So, only your fans matter and your boss doesn’t. Is that what you’re saying?”

He playfully pointed a finger at you. “That is exactly what I’m saying. In fact...” Trailing off, Chanyeol turned to the bag beside his seat and fished out the only thing that could make a musician so thrilled. It was a signed copy of his album with some other guy that Jane would probably recognise with her eyes closed.

Seriously?

It was impossible for you to mirror his excitement, but you did not want to be rude. “What is this?” you asked instead.

The guy’s smile was beaming at you, no doubt eager to see you react positively. “It’s our subunit’s EP.”

Unfortunately, you were not one to fake it to be kind. “Thank you, I appreciate it. Even though, like I said, I’m not actually a fan.”

“Oh, but you will be, when you listen to it later!”

With that, you did not argue any further. It was enough that he believed you already and soon enough, the rest of the conversation flowed without effort. He even ended up telling you about why he was there in the hotel, and why his mentors think that isolation was a great opportunity for uninfluenced introspection and creativity. In return, you shared pretty much everything, including those that you refused to tell even Jane. It was not until the cafe was closing that the both of you realised that it had been at least a couple of hours since you sat down and started talking. Regretfully, with only Chanyeol’s EP as a souvenir, it was time to leave.

You took the elevator back to your floor that night feeling easy, having had a once-in-a-lifetime café conversation with an insanely handsome, remarkably perceptive and contagiously cheerful stranger. You could not remember the last time you enjoyed spending an evening, just being yourself without fear of being judged or told off. Maybe part of it was because you knew that he was what you would call a passerby – a person that you would meet once and never see again. For that, you had nothing to lose. And unlike last night, he turned out to be capable of sweet when he put in the effort. Even sweeter was the inviting scent when you entered your unit as you discovered the giant bouquet of pink roses that adorned the living room table like a centrepiece. On it was a note, written in sloppy handwriting and for some reason, you knew who sent it. Chanyeol must have had it delivered to your room while you were at the café and you could almost hear his voice as you read the message.

Tomorrow will be better. I promise. - PCY

And so you fell asleep with the visual memory of your favourite passerby’s smile, wrapping over you like a warm blanket. Only for tonight, you promised yourself. Tomorrow, you will leave the memory of meeting this wonderful person behind.