"Bad Religion has become synonymous with intelligent and provocative West Coast punk rock and are considered one of the most influential and important bands in the genre. Over the past three decades the band has continually pushed social boundaries and questioned authority and beliefs armed only with propulsive guitars, charging drumbeats, thoughtful lyrics and an undying will to inspire and provoke anyone who will listen. Stranger Than Fiction is the eighth album from Bad Religion, and one of their most popular. First released in 1994, the album has been certified Gold and features hit singles "21st Century Digital Boy", "Infected" and "Stranger Than Fiction." Features guest appearances from some of punk"s greatest including Rancid"s Tim Armstrong (vocals on "Television"), Jim Lindberg of Pennywise (vocals on "Marked") and Wayne Kramer of the MC5 (guitars on "Incomplete")."
ll star cast from 4 different cosmic corners comes the more electronic side of Hamam. T hink of it as the dorian gray of Frankfurt airport , but instead it's at the hamam in istanbul. Fattish - no stranger to electronic versions of loved and cherished turkish songs, Fattish delivers a monster cinematic piece, strings section...the whole lot...check anything he puts his hands on, this one made it to the wax Kozmonotosman - our man on the moon, he visits regularly so if u need any rocks or bits ask him he will bring u, I got loads of rock so u can ask me alternatively.
My man delivers a super dope and groovy number from a not so well known jam from the 70's . Just get down and boogie on this. Kurt Adam - one of the new faves of the Hamam camp, delivers a taverna cut in a housey affair. Don't be fooled by the electronics, I drink raki to this any day at the drinkery. Hold me down if u can m gonna dance in euphoria, hear the wolfman roarrr.
Mit "I Hope We Can Still Be Friends", seinem Einstand bei Saddle Creek, geht Dean Johnson einen Pakt mit den Hörern ein: Er wird Ihnen seine Wahrheit auf die herzlichste und charmanteste Art und Weise singen, die möglich ist, wenn sie versprechen, unvoreingenommen zu bleiben. Der Titel rührt von der spielerischen Art her, mit der der Singer/Songwriter/Gitarrist aus Seattle mit seinem Livepublikum kommuniziert. Im Mittelpunkt steht der Archetyp des 'Energievampirs', der nervtötende Schwätzer, dem wir alle schon mal begegnet sind, und die Texte sind zugleich intellektuell bissig und unverkennbar urkomisch. Seine zarte Stimme klingt wie der Geist von Roy Orbison oder ein Everly Brothers-Außenseiter.
Im Alter von 50 Jahren gelang Dean mit dem Debüt "Nothing For Me Please" 2023 der Durchbruch. "I Hope We Can Still Be Friends" ist im Wesentlichen eine Anthologie - von den Anfängen bis zur heutigen Reife. Jeder Track enthält scherzhafte Gesellschaftskritiken oder liebevoll wiedergegebene Herzensangelegenheiten. Wie der Country-angehauchte Sound von John Prine oder Kris Kristofferson, der umwerfende Humor und die ökonomische Tiefgründigkeit, gebrochen durch den Dunst einer Kneipe, ist das Album voller lässigem Twang, trauriger Charaktere, universeller Wahrheiten und der Absurdität des Alltags. Mit scharfen Beobachtungen und bewegenden persönlichen Einsichten bieten die 11 Songs Raum für intensive Reflexion und emotionale Befreiung. Man kann lachen, weinen oder beides.
Back by popular demand! Dive deep into the depths of the underground with Waterworld, the singular and legendary collaboration between two of hip-hop’s most innovative minds — Cage and Tame One — operating together as Leak Bros. Originally released in 2004 on Eastern Conference Records, Waterworld has remained a cult classic: a surreal, grimy, and conceptually bold record that transforms the world of PCP (aka “leak”) into an immersive sonic hallucination.
Woozy textures, gritty East Coast production, and vividly warped lyricism, earned the album its iconic status among underground heads. Across tracks like “G.O.D.,” “Dead Out,” and “Got Wet,” Cage and Tame One embody fictional leak fiends navigating an absurd, paranoiac landscape of drug-fueled delusion. The beats, handled by producers like Mighty Mi and Camu Tao, are hypnotic and lo-fi, dripping with eerie samples and warped loops that match the narcotic haze of the lyrical content.
Both a conceptual experiment and a raw snapshot of early 2000s hip-hop’s shadowy edges, Waterworld remains as strange and captivating today as it was two decades ago. This repress preserves the original tracklist and aesthetic, with newly remastered audio pressed on high-quality vinyl — perfect for longtime fans and new listeners ready to get wet.
Black Vinyl[23,49 €]
Sydney's Lipstick Killers released just one single in their lifetime – the perfect ’79 pairing of “Hindu Gods of Love” and ”Shakedown USA”, released on both their own Lost in Space Records and Greg Shaw’s Voxx Records and produced by Deniz Tek of the band's heroes Radio Birdman - but a posthumous live album and a couple of archival releases followed. It was all incredible.
And it was all put together a few years ago on Grown Up Wrong!'s 2CD set Strange Flash! And while the 2LP version of that release included all the studio stuff and the live in LA 1981 set, there was no room for this brain-burning, chaotic live set from '79. Tour De Force, which was recorded for local radio station 5UV, captures the band as they were still emerging from the cocoon that was the Psycho Surgeons.
The Nuggets influences are there, but it's a Stooges influences which dominate proceedings, and definitive readings of both sides of the Psycho Surgeons classic 45 "Wild Weekend"/"Horizontal Action" are included alongside early Killers killers like "Teen Police" and "Sockman" and later faves like "Hindu Gods of Love', "Shakedown USA" and "Dying Boy's Crawl". The band's hot take on the Thirteenth Floor Elevators' "I've Got Levitation" is also featured. There's also plenty of tunes that were only ever captured on tape on this wild night, including "Human Crash", "Crush On You", "Head Off" and "Bully"!
Sydney's Lipstick Killers released just one single in their lifetime – the perfect ’79 pairing of “Hindu Gods of Love” and ”Shakedown USA”, released on both their own Lost in Space Records and Greg Shaw’s Voxx Records and produced by Deniz Tek of the band's heroes Radio Birdman - but a posthumous live album and a couple of archival releases followed. It was all incredible.
And it was all put together a few years ago on Grown Up Wrong!'s 2CD set Strange Flash! And while the 2LP version of that release included all the studio stuff and the live in LA 1981 set, there was no room for this brain-burning, chaotic live set from '79. Tour De Force, which was recorded for local radio station 5UV, captures the band as they were still emerging from the cocoon that was the Psycho Surgeons.
The Nuggets influences are there, but it's a Stooges influences which dominate proceedings, and definitive readings of both sides of the Psycho Surgeons classic 45 "Wild Weekend"/"Horizontal Action" are included alongside early Killers killers like "Teen Police" and "Sockman" and later faves like "Hindu Gods of Love', "Shakedown USA" and "Dying Boy's Crawl". The band's hot take on the Thirteenth Floor Elevators' "I've Got Levitation" is also featured. There's also plenty of tunes that were only ever captured on tape on this wild night, including "Human Crash", "Crush On You", "Head Off" and "Bully"!
White vinyl. The record is housed in a gatefold jacket, designed as your own personal treasure chest. Akupara Games and Black Screen Records are over the moon (and down in the crypt) to announce the soundtrack release of the game hit Cryptmaster on vinyl. For the music, sound expert Surasshu, part of the duo Aivi & Surasshu (i.a. Steven Universe), has teamed up with Stemage and Catton Arthur to virtuously solve the puzzle of a perfectly fitting game score. SAY ANYTHING in this bizarre dungeon adventure where words control everything. Fill in the blanks with text or voice to uncover lost abilities, embark on strange quests, and solve mindbending riddles. Can you conquer the crypt and uncover the mystery at the heart of Cryptmaster? In the ancient past, four brave heroes banded together to destroy a terrible evil, giving their lives to save countless others. But now their eternal rest has been disturbed by the Cryptmaster, a capricious necromancer in whose thrall they must ascend through the buried strata of the city above them - the gloomy Bonehouses, mysterious Sunken Sea and freakish Downwood. With the enigmatic Soulstone in hand, the four adventurers must recover their memories, solve whimsical puzzles and defeat outlandish enemies. From fishing and card games to bardic rap battles, finding the right word is the key to success. Who knows, maybe you'll even remember a little more than you bargained for. Surasshu, veteran of television and game music, brings out the best in the Cryptmaster soundtrack, featuring his peers Catton Arthur on bass and Stemage on guitar. From laid back accordions of the Bonehouses, to the shredding guitar of battles, to the piper's haunting melody, this album features enough musical morsels to keep all kinds of dungeon-crawling deviants tapping their toes.
Mutant is proud to present Academy Award®-winning composer Michael Giacchino’s latest installment of his Exotic Themes for the Silver Screen series - Featuring more iconic scores from Giacchino’s career that have been exclusively rearranged and re-recorded for this series in the retro lounge style of the 1950s. Volume 2 spans the period of 2012 to 2022 and features not only his work with Marvel Studios (including their iconic Marvel Studios Fanfare, Spider-Man, Doctor Strange and more!) but also more career defining music for Disney Pixar (Inside Out, Coco and Lightyear) as well as smaller, cult classics like John Carter, and Tomorrowland, more personal films such as Jojo Rabbit and The Book of Henry. He has taken these iconic themes and transformed them into soothing, beautiful 60’s lounge-inspired reworks.
Released exclusively in Germany in March 1966, "Black Monk Time" by The Monks has become a cult classic -praised as a groundbreaking forerunner to punk and krautrock. Though the album was overlooked at the time, its bold sound and sharp lyrics have earned it lasting influence and critical acclaim. The Monks were five American G.I.s stationed near Heidelberg, West Germany. Originally performing as a typical beat group under the name the 5 Torquays, they evolved into something far more radical. After discovering guitar feedback by accident and embracing a raw, percussive approach, they caught the attention of two German ad men-Walther Niemann and Karl Remy-who became their managers and helped reinvent their identity. Dressed in monks' robes with tonsured hair and noose neckties, the band developed a confrontational, rhythm heavy sound. Nowhere is this clearer than in the album's opening track, 'Monk Time,' which captures their entire aesthetic in under three minutes. A pounding, repetitive groove of bass and drums anchors the track, layered with distorted guitar bursts, percussive electric banjo, chaotic organ stabs, and unrestrained, shouted vocals. It's a declaration of intent-urgent, jarring, and unforgettable. Their sole studio album, produced by Jimmy Bowien and recorded in Cologne in late 1965, defied musical norms. From the explosive opener 'Monk Time' to the fierce 'Complication,' "Black Monk Time" rejected flower power for something more urgent-anger, humor, and innovation. At the time, Polydor Records deemed the music too radical for American audiences, delaying its U.S. release. Despite its initial commercial failure, the album is now seen as a pivotal moment in rock history-loud, strange, and unapologetically ahead of its time. The Monks' story is as unlikely as their sound: five ex-soldiers and two ad executives creating one of the most daring records of the '60s. The band never sparked the revolution they hinted at, but decades later, "Black Monk Time" still resonates. This is your chance to experience the album that dared to be different - don't miss it. Remastered sound from the tapes, pressed on 180g vinyl.
Produced by Joe Barresi (Queens of the Stone Age, Tool), The Dissent of Man finds Bad Religion pushing the boundaries of their music as much today as they did in their formative years as a genre defining punk band. Over the course of making the album, primary songwriters Greg Graffin and Brett Gurewitz"s songwriting was informed by life changing events, with Graffin writing his forthcoming book "Anarchy Evolution" and Gurewitz embarking on parenthood again. The result is one of the band"s most forward thinking and musically varied albums ever. The Dissent of Man is not only a snapshot of the band"s personal experiences of the past years but also of their continued maturity in songwriting, capturing an array of styles ranging from blazing punk rock songs like the opener "The Day That the Earth Stalled" and "Meeting of the Minds" and classic rock-tinged cuts like "Cyanide" and "Turn Your Back on Me" to radio rock ready hits like the first single "The Devil in Stitches." The Dissent of Man is a testament to why Bad Religion has remained relevant for the better part of three decades. Already having cemented their place in history as a groundbreaking band who helped create a movement in Los Angeles with classic releases like How Could Hell Be Any Worse?, Suffer, Recipe for Hate, Stranger Than Fiction and Process of Belief, Bad Religion continue to inspire and create with a unique style that continues to cross boundaries and transcends genres."
"Astral Americana hymns hovering somewhere between the dirt and the stars" Pitchfork
"Mood music for moments of solitude, best experienced without distraction" The Times
"Overwhelmingly effective and ravishingly beautiful" The Wire
American Dust is an ode to the beauty of the American Southwest, where vast desert landscapes hold stories both stark and tender. Eve Adams’ characteristic folk noir weaves a vivid tapestry of love, sacrifice and quiet revelation, conjuring images of dust storms, stray dogs and far off trains.
The high desert of California is a vast and confounding place. Equally inspiring as it is punishing, it’s a landscape that carries magic in its deep dark nights, holding stories both tender and stark in the coarse layer of dust that settles upon everything. It’s long been a source of inspiration for musicians, writers, and painters, each of them adding to the same current, carried forward over time, through hope and hardship and the passing years.
Somewhere out there in that broad and boundless landscape, Eve Adams has been living her own desert life, quietly writing the follow-up to 2021’s Metal Bird LP. Where that album sang of liminal space, the dream-like turbulence of Hollywood’s golden age, American Dust is far more rooted in traditional storytelling; a eulogy for the American Dream channeled through that sweeping part of the country that holds such power and mystery. Slipping into different and varied costumes throughout its ten songs, it finds Eve not just observing the people around her but stepping into their shoes and peeling back the layers of their quiet lives.
Adams writes from within. A few years ago she moved out there, to “the middle of nowhere”, finding a slowness that didn’t exist in the city, and she knows only too well about the mystical nature of the land and those who live within it. Weaving together themes of grit and romance, American Dust holds its focus on the bittersweet poetry of lives lived in solitude, most notably the women who sustain life at the center of it all. “There’s something very radical about domestic life,” Adams says of this thread. “So many women live their entire lives behind closed doors, completely in the shadows. Within those lives is such sacrifice, devotion, and love. I wanted to honor that: the poetry in the mundane, the longing in the repetition. The way love survives boredom and dust and time.”
Eve is joined on American Dust by Canadian musician Bryce Cloghesy, aka Military Genius of Crack Cloud, who plays throughout and also helped produce the album. Musically bold and vivid, it’s an ambitious and detailed stride forward from what’s come before, the scope of the LP’s narrative reflected in the radiant sweep of the playing. On top of gentle piano and guitar, gorgeous strings drift through the album, lending the songs a woozy sense of romanticism; a collaboration with Gamaliel Traynor (Cello) and Caroline’s Oliver Hamilton (Violin).
For all the drama that’s coiled around these songs, it’s the recurring notion of love and hope fighting against everything that holds true throughout American Dust. Musically it’s lush and vibrant, intimate and cinematic side by side, and always bursting with warmth. But it’s what it holds in its weary bones that elevates it to something truly special, something more than just a collection of songs penned in the heart of the desert. The characters it speaks of, and from, feel shadowed but wholly real, like they’re bursting to share their stories that have remained hidden for years and years and they allow Eve Adams to grow as a songwriter right in front of our eyes.
“The same swirling dust that clung to the covered wagons of my ancestors as they crossed the Great American Desert is the same dust my great-great-grandmother swept off her porch during the Dust Bowl of 1936 in Oklahoma, is the same dust that blows in through the cracks in my windows here in the desert, carrying stories from a time long gone,” Eve says, reflecting on the personal narrative that runs through her new album.
“It’s not just dust—it’s American Dust, the kind that settles into the bones of a family and never leaves. I think about that dust as a symbol of the passage of time. I hope this album will be part of that same current, carrying forward for the next generations of my family to find. I’ve been lucky enough to have journals and poetry from my ancestors that documents their lives during times of pure hope and pure hardship. I’d like to think of this album as a contribution to that family history.”
Recorded from late 1996 through early 1997, Hold Onto I.D., The Shadow Ring's fourth album, marks the apogee of the trio's experimental rock epoch - their last record clinging to their factitious bandness before they let all song and structure go awash in sonic malaise for their final run of releases on Swill Radio. The surrealist dreams of City Lights and Put the Music in Its Coffin give way to pseudo-expressionistic lyrics mired in the banality and bleakness of the everyday, set against the backdrop of the Coombe House (as pictured on the album's cover). While Hold Onto I.D. is the group's most overtly autobiographical release to date, Lambkin's lyrics obfuscate his expressionist tendencies filtering them through the codes and languages of officialdom, linking the "inner self" with documents of the state_identification cards, National Insurance numbers, and British passport numbers. Having moved out of their parents' homes and into the top floor of the famed Coombe House, Graham Lambkin and Darren Harris set out to rework material drafted over the previous year, aided by Tim Goss, still safely in residence at the "Valebrook Inn." While the familiar sounds of Harris's deadpan recitation and Lambkin's electric guitar, amateurishly strummed, dominate the album, the emotive interludes of Goss's keyboards populate the record along with of home-cooked tape experiments and dime-store concrète. Originally released on CD and supported by a US tour with friends Scott Foust and Karla Borecky's Idea Fire Company, Hold Onto I.D. is perhaps the band's best-known and most accessible album. (The Shadow Ring's sole representative on a streaming platform, it was once acknowledged by the Guardian as one of "the 101 strangest records on Spotify.") Offered here for the first time on vinyl, Hold Onto I.D. is an essential album for both completists and the uninitiated alike. Throughout their legendary, decade-long run, the Shadow Ring were an enigmatic force on the international musical sub-underground. Before their disbandment in 2002, this shambolic rock outfit, formed by a group of rowdy teenagers in southeast England, left behind a mighty run of eight LPs, a handful of 7"s, and a spate of raucous live shows and cryptic zine appearances on both sides of the Atlantic, all which have bolstered their enduring word-of-mouth mystique. Beginning in 2023 with the first-ever vinyl pressing of the self-released pre-Shadow Ring tape The Cat & Bells Club (1992), Blank Forms Editions has been conducting a systematic retrospective of the storied group. Wax-Work Echoes and Hold Onto I.D. are the latest releases in a multiyear reissue effort that includes several LPs, a comprehensive CD box set, and a nearly five-hundred-page book.
No one can help you build something beautiful quite like those who know you best. Alan Sparhawk knows this well. In his years in Low, he built decades of stirring music with his wife and lifelong creative partner Mimi Parker. In recent years, he has performed around Minnesota with his son Cyrus in DERECHO Rhythm Section, a funk band that also frequently features his daughter Hollis on vocals. There's an irreplaceable naturalism that comes with this kind of dynamic. Those who know you understand you. They love you. They want to help you bring your greatest passions to fruition. So it made sense that Sparhawk would turn to fellow Duluth musicians Trampled by Turtles to realize his latest record. As friends and mentees of Low's, taken under Sparhawk and Parker's wing from their earliest days as a bar band, Trampled by Turtles have performed with Sparhawk countless times over the years. The Duluth ties run deep: "There's a certain vibe that has to do with underdog syndrome, coming from a small town," Sparhawk muses. "Some of it is the weird grind and slackness that being at the mercy of Mother Nature puts in you. It humbles you." The two artists hold the kind of ironclad bond. Following Parker's passing in 2022, Trampled by Turtles invited Sparhawk to join them on tour to give him a space to be surrounded by friends. Occasionally, he would join them onstage. The outpouring of love was palpable every time they played together, a surge of warmth. When playing together is that powerful, why stop there? In winter, 2024, Sparhawk and Trampled by Turtles created With Trampled by Turtles, a record exactly as its name implies: Collective. Communal. Fraternal. Empathetic. A vessel for comfort, a reminder of the harmony that can exist when surrounded by those closest to you. Where White Roses, My God, Sparhawk's last album, plunged headfirst into electronica and radical vocal modulation, With Trampled by Turtles leans into the folk and bluegrass stylings of its backing band, Sparhawk's voice now completely unvarnished. With Trampled by Turtles is far more than just Alan Sparhawk and Trampled by Turtles. It's an affirmation of all the people who have been vital in Sparhawk's life and music, and an opportunity to hold each of their gifts into the light. It's producer Nat Harvie, who has been collaborating and performing with him for years. It's Sparhawk's daughter Hollis, who duets with her father on "Not Broken." And it's Mimi Parker, too: "Too High," "Princess Road Surgery," and "Not Broken" were all tracks she and Sparhawk had been working on in the last few years. These songs finally found a setting that stirringly commemorates them, bolstered by a full ensemble to make every note sing. Their presence is a kind of eternal connection to Parker, a way her musical grace will keep flourishing.
Zur Feier des 40-jährigen Jubiläums des Debütalbums "First And Last And Always" von The Sisters Of Mercy wird ein 4LP-Vinylset veröffentlicht.
Es enthält das Originalalbum sowie die drei EPs auf Black & Red Marbled Vinyl, die vor der Veröffentlichung erschienen sind - »Body & Soul«, »Walk Away« und »No Time To Cry«. Jede EP enthält Bonustracks, die nicht auf dem Album enthalten sind.
Die 1980 in Leeds von Gitarrist Gary Marx und Sänger Andrew Eldritch gegründete Band veröffentlichte im März 1985 »First And Last And Always«, den Höhepunkt von fünf Jahren unabhängiger Veröffentlichungen, mit denen sie sich eine große Fangemeinde erspielte.
Ihre erste Veröffentlichung bei Warner (die sie 1984 unter Vertrag nahmen) erreichte Platz 14 der UK Album Charts. Zu dieser Zeit spielte die Band mit Wayne Hussey an der Gitarre und Craig Adams am Bass - beide verließen später die Band und gründeten The Mission.
The quietest voices can be the most durable.
American Football’s original triumph, on their 1999 self-titled debut, was to reunite two shy siblings: emo and post-rock. It was a pioneering album where lyrical clarity was obscured and complicated by the stealth musical textures surrounding it.
Like Slint’s Spiderland, or Codeine’s The White Birch, even Talk Talk’s Laughing Stock, American Football asked far more questions than it cared to answer. But there wasn’t a band around anymore to explain it, anyway. The three young men who made the album – Mike Kinsella, Steve Holmes, and Steve Lamos – split up pretty much on its release.
Fifteen years later, American Football reunited (now as a four-piece, with the addition of Nate Kinsella). They played far larger shows than in their original incarnation and recorded their long-anticipated second album, 2016’s American Football (LP2). The release was widely praised, but the band members still felt like their best work was yet to come.
‘I feel like the second album was us figuring it out,’ says Nate. ‘For me, it wasn’t quite done. I knew there was still more.’
Enter American Football (LP3). ‘We put a lot of time and a lot of energy into it,’ says Mike. ‘We were all thoughtful about what we wanted to put out there. Last time, it was figuring out how to use all of our different arms. This time, we were like – Ok we have these arms, let’s use them.’ The band used the same producer, Jason Cupp, and recorded the album at the same studio (Arc Studios in Omaha, Nebraska) as its predecessor – yet they approached it in a markedly different way. There was a determination to let the songs breathe, to trust in ideas finding their own pace. The final result is a definite, and deliberate, stretching of the band.
As a result, LP3 is less obviously tethered to the band’s past than the second album. An immediate contrast between LP3 and its two predecessors is its cover. The two previous albums featured the exterior and interior of a residence in the band’s original hometown of Urbana, Illinois (now attracting fans for pilgrimages and photo opportunities), by the photographer Chris Strong. But American Football knew that LP3 was an outside record. Instead of the familiar house, this time the cover photo (again by Strong) features open, rolling fields on Urbana’s borders. It is a sign of the album’s magnitude in sound, and of the band’s boldness in breaking away from home comforts.
American Football also joked that LP3’s genre was ‘post-house’, because of this very conscious visual break. But, in a strange way, there are links in LP3 with an actual post-house genre: shoegaze. The more exploratory members of the original British shoegaze scene were inspired by the dreamtime and circularity of house music (ambient house in particular), cherishing its sonic possibilities. That spirit drips into LP3, most obviously on ‘I Can’t Feel You’, a collaboration with Rachel Goswell of Slowdive.
The album also features Hayley Williams from Paramore on the album’s catchiest moment, ‘Uncomfortably Numb’, and Elizabeth Powell, of the Québécoise act Land Of Talk. Mike wrote lyrics in French especially for her.
LP3 is contemplative, rich, expressive, yet with a queasy undercurrent. It is heavy with expectancy, revealing its ideas slowly, eliciting the hidden stories people carry around with them. ‘I feel like my lyric writing has changed a lot over the years,’ says Mike. ‘The goal is to be conversational, maybe to state something giant and heavy, but in a very plain way. But, definitely in this record, I keep things a little more vague.’ As on the first album, the lyrics on LP3 may seem confessional and concentrated, but the more you scrutinize them, the further their meaning slinks away. Or, as Mike tellingly sings on ‘I Can’t Feel You”: I’m fluent in subtlety.
‘Somewhere along the way we moved from being a reunion band to just being a band,’ says Steve Holmes. American Football is now a bona fide ongoing focus, and they are making some of the best music of their lives. American Football (LP3) stands with two other rare reunion successes – Slowdive and My Bloody Valentine’s mbv – as a fine example of how a band refinding one another can augment, rather than taint, their legacy.
‘I think that there are those albums, or the music that you heard when you were younger, and they imprint on you,’ says Nate. ‘And no matter where you go, or what you do they’re always there.’ He is talking of Steve Reich – an early and ongoing influence on American Football – but he might as well be reflecting what is said of his own band, and the ardent following they inspire. American Football stands as an enduring symbol of elusive emotional landscapes, where introspection can be as dramatic as confrontation
SEAWEED GREEN VINYL[22,27 €]
Old-time and traditional music stay exciting for their contrasts. Exacting instrumentation honed through mentorships and late-night jams at fiddler's conventions tangles with a community-sourced inventiveness that influences variants and new sounds. Joseph Decosimo is a master of this genre for this very reason, blending deep technique with an openness and curiosity that keep his music crackling with life. A "marvelous fiddler" (No Depression) and banjo player who braids "exultation and veneration" (INDY Week) into his music, on his third solo album Fiery Gizzard Decosimo gathers a close-knit ensemble of friends from his musical career to infuse his interpretations of fiddle and banjo pieces with a contagious communal joy. As an artist working with traditional music from the South and Appalachia, Decosimo chooses songs based not only on historical significance and lineage but also his own sensory approach. For Fiery Gizzard, his ear was tuned to otherworldly tones and mystery, sourcing from field recordings such as Virginia fiddler Luther Davis' hypnotic version of "Shady Grove" while amping up the music's psychedelic potential. On the middle Tennessee banjo composition "Flowery Girls," a VHS of bluesman Abner Jay inspired Decosimo to rig up a pickup inside a fretless banjo and play it thr ough a tube amp to capture some of Jay's edge and funkiness. But to round out the sound and keep it kinetic meant galvanizing a genre-eschewing crew to jam out - and not in a "spaced-out drooly" kind of way, he laughs, but as a sort of "responsive conversation." Decosimo has always been a community-minded artist. He began playing as a seventh graderin Tennessee, fostering relationships with older players at jams and in homes, a learning mode natural to his inquisitive nature and desire for musical connection. A folklorist by intuition, he later became one by profession, studying with old-time legend Clyde Davenport, teaching in East Tennessee State University's renowned bluegrass program, and receiving his PhD at the University of North Carolina with a dissertation titled "Catching the `Wild Note': Listening, Learning, and Connoisseurship in Old-Time Music." In North Carolina, Decosimo kicked about in the verdant environment of Durham and Chapel Hill's folk and indie scenes, collaborating with artists including Alice Gerrard, Hiss Golden Messenger, and Jake Xerxes Fussell. This community has influenced his own music, including his "sublime and strangely heartening" (Bandcamp Daily) 2022 release While You Were Slumbering and Beehive Cathedral, Decosimo's 2024 "Appalachian mountain music treasury" (New Commute) trio album with Luke Richardson and Cleek Schrey for Dear Life Records. Continuing on this path, Fiery Gizzard is home base for a loose outfit of mostly Tarheel-based musicians from within and beyond traditional music. Inspired by a tour with fiddler Stephanie Coleman (Nora Brown), guitarist Jay Hammond, and synth builder and multi-instrumentalist Matthew O'Connell, Decosimo assembled studiomates based on close friendships and comfort. Coleman, O'Connell, and Hammond contribute to Fiery Gizzard, along with bassist and producer Andy Stack (Helado Negro, Wye Oak), horn player Kelly Pratt (Beirut, David Byrne), Mipso and Fust's Libby Rodenbough, Joseph O'Connell (Elephant Micah), andtrad/experimental artist Cleek Schrey. Decosimo's fiddle and banjo work is virtuosic, intricate and simple simultaneously, a testament to his many years of study. On some tracks, his playing or lovely, plain-hearted singing is the centerpiece, such as on his interpretations of Texan street preacher Washington Phillips' 1929 recording "I Had a Good Father and Mother" or the Eastern Kentucky fiddle barn-burner "Glory in the Meetinghouse," famously played by Luther Strong for Alan Lomax. But there's also a trusting open-door policy, like where Southern Appalachian tune "Ida Red" relaxes into Coleman's sweet, confident fiddling and Hammond's loping guitar. As a bandleader, Decosimo's confidence and enthusiasm for the music reveal the heart of traditional music and how it can come to life through community. Fiery Gizzard is Joseph Decosimo as a powerful champion of traditional music - a sponge who soaks up as much as he squeezes out, a responsive artist who makes his genre accessible, and a magnet who can bring musicians of all sorts into his orbit with his same passion.
