One of the best heavy rock albums of the last couple of years was without doubt Holding On by Virginian rock quartet Freedom Hawk. Good news then that the band are due to play some rare European dates this April. Unfortunately good ol' Blighty is not on the itinerary but hey, the mainland just a short hop these days.
April 5 - Siegen, Germany, VORTEX April 6 - Antwerp, Belgium, AMC April 7 - Paris, France, Le Glazart April 8 - Dusseldorf, Germany, The Pitcher April 9 - Berlin, Germany, Jagerklause April 10 - Tilburg, Netherlands, Roadburn Festival April 11 - Wurzburg, Germany, Immerhin April 12 - Munster, Germany, RARE Guitar
Good news for fans of ethereal bluesy folk duo Smoke Fairies. A string of live dates have been announced for May and June, along with the promise of a new eponymous album due for release on April 14th on Full Time Hobby.
The album will be available on CD, heavyweight vinyl, download as well as a special deluxe edition. There's also going to be a limited Record Store Day only vinyl version. The deluxe edition box will be available for pre-order from 4pm GMT this Friday via www.smokefairies.com
A
winning mix of shoegaze and Sabbath-inspired riffage from
female-fronted Detroit four piece.
If a band was to pick a
Davie Bowie song to cover, most would opt for for something from his
'70s or early '80s output. There are not many bands that would choose
Bowie's 1997 single “I'm Afraid Of Americans”. But there again
Luder (for it is they) are no ordinary band. On Adelphophagia,
the band's 2nd long-player and follow up to 2009's
Sonoluminescence, the band's
version of the lesser-spotted-Bowie-single adds a rock guitar slant
to Bowie and Eno's squelchy electro-funk. It's a choice that tells
you much about Luder. They've one foot in the four-square grunge rock
classicist camp, while slyly casting admiring eyes and taking note of
the more avant-garde, artful and experimental. The Lady Gagas of rock
if you can picture that for a second. Well maybe not, but if anyone
remembers electronic rock duo Curve, that may give you an idea of
what we're dealing with.
It's this mix of
leftfield rock and big choruses that gives the album it's strength.
It's moody, but big on groove. The album's release on Small Stone
Records marks something of a stylistic departure for a label that's
usually associated with a more macho stoner rock sound. This
branching out into more cerebral meditative territory can do no harm
though. The riffs when they do come will still satisfy die-hard rock
fans, they're hard hitting and perhaps all the more effective for the
band's otherwise restrained use of dynamics. While difficult to
pigeon-hole into one stylistic genre, as there are various strands in
Luder's musical DNA, it's this effortless blending that ultimately
stands in the band's favour, and anyone willing to listen will no
doubt be won over. Oh and the album title? It's what happens when an
embryo consumes another in utero. So now you know!
Next month sees two our our favourite acts, Trevor Moss & Hannah-Lou, and Benjamin Folke Thomas, take to the road for a small tour of cafes and coffee shops (see dates above). So as well as having your mind and soul replenished by some inspired folk-based songwriting and musicianship, the body can also benefit from a cup and a slice. Nice!
For a chance to grab a couple of free tickets along with Trevor and Hannah's three LP releases to date, head over to their website -www.trevormossandhannahlou.com
Booze-sodden
new punk anthems for fans of The Ramones, The Boys, The Briefs
Buzzcocks, The Exploding Hearts and all that '77 style punk.
Fans
of '77 style punk-pop will be frothing at the mouth over the latest
release on the legendary Slovenly label. Bad
Patterns
sees the Nightmare Boyzzz from Huntsville, Alabama unleash 11 tracks
of self-loathing, booze-sodden anthems for dispossessed romantics
everywhere.
With
nifty I, IV, V chord permutations (and some relative minors for the
middle eights), more hooks than a chain of haberdashers, and lead
guitar lines worthy of The Damned's Captain Sensible. (Or should that
be Jimmy Page on cheap speed and snakebite?)
There's
some shades and nuances to keep any non-purists happy; You're A Star
tips a hat to punk's glam roots, while My Body Breaks Down may just
be the best new powerpop tune you're likely to hear all year. Puke My
Life Up reworks the Velvet Underground's Sweet Jane Riff into the
ultimate slacker-punk manifesto.
Available
now on CD or LP, the album comes complete with gloriously gonzoid
cover art by none other than Pork Magazine's Sean Äaberg. Check out
selected tracks on the the band's widget type thingy below.
Quietly
ambitious second album from the Liverpool duo packed with lyrically
and musically rich baroque indie-pop. (Out Now on Elefant Records.)
It's easy in the modern
world to feel jaded and world weary. Despite the technological
advances we've experienced in the last few years, advances that our
ancestors would never have believed possible, we still bemoan slow
wi-fi, the intrusiveness of social media, and having to wait over 24
hours for the delivery of our online shopping. Which is why this
album by Liverpool's The Magic Theatre is so refreshing and does much
to re-install a much needed sense of wonder in the modern maze.
Take the album's
opening track 'The Sampler', not as you might think a homage to a
piece of kit by Korg, but a song sung from the perspective of a young
Victorian girl, 200 years ago, busy embroidering her needlework in
time for her birthday. A timely reminder that once people put their
heart and soul into a craft rather than constantly updating their
Facebook status.
The pleasant surprises
don't end there. 'It Was Glorious' looks back at the initial rush of
new young love in the height of summer. Passionate and alive, and
full of warm sentiments. Glorious indeed! 'Festival Of Fire' throws
in some Bollywood touches, which along with the samba percussion on
'I Got The Answer' indicates a tasteful musicality not often found in
the indie pop world.
The album's centrepiece
'Cathedrals Of The Mind' takes a wry look at human achievement in
science, art, music and architecture. As is said in the song - ”with
bi-polar grandiosity....what high achieving deadly apes are we”,
it's both a celebration and an acknowledgement of our status as a
dying species. On top of that it may just be the greatest list song
since The Beloved's 'Hello'. Yes that good!
The album's sole cover
is a delightful version of 'Love Is Blue', Luxembourg's entry in the
1967 Eurovision Song Contest. Underpinned by harpsichord and lush
orchestration. It's an indication of The Magic Theatre's
inspirations, baroque '60s pop, sensual and sophisticated ballads,
and lushly sympathetic orchestration.
Song after song there's
a compounding sense wholesomeness and heartfelt goodness that would
come across as twee in lesser hands, but here is as refreshing as a
mountain spring. An album unlike any other you'll hear this year. And
one which might just make you see the world afresh.
40 years since it's original release Françoise Hardy's 1973 album Message Personnel is set for a deluxe 2CD reissue. Here at Harmonic Distortion we've always had a soft spot for French pop, especially when it's as sophisticated
and sensual as that by the legendary Françoise Hardy. So it's great to hear that this
cult classic is getting an in depth reissue complete with the promise of
unreleased extras. It hits the shops on February 17th.
Paris,
1973: Iconic French figure in music, fashion and style Francoise Hardy
is going through changes. Not only is she expecting her first child, she
has changed labels to WEA, and is in search
of new musicians, songwriters and inspiration for her next record. One
name quickly comes to mind: Michel Berger, the legendary French
producer, singer and songwriter. Françoise Hardy & Michel Berger’s
collaboration resulted in
Message Personnel, a cult album and instant classic in French music history.
Now reissued to coincide with both her 70th
birthday and 40 years since its original release, this new set contains
the original album, remastered for the very first time, plus a
second CD including the 45 rpm 12’’ vinyl mix of ‘Je Suis Moi’, English
and German versions of cult tracks, instrumental versions and various
radio and television performances. Also included is a twenty-page
booklet, with exclusive artwork, a Françoise Hardy
interview and rare photos and lyrics.
Brave
reinvention from former Soundtrack Of Our Lives singer. Atonal
dirges, revolutionary rock and free jazz make for some enjoyably
un-easy listening.
Ebbot
Lundberg will be best known to most of us as the lead singer of
almost famous band The Soundtrack Of Our Lives. While they didn't
fit neatly into the Britpop led guitar revival, not gaining as much
press coverage as they deserved, for those in the know they were a
bright beacon of hope, releasing inventive yet catchy, intelligent
indie rock. Noel Gallagher was a fan, taking the band on tour with
Oasis and even copping ideas and arrangements from them for his own
ends. Lyla anyone? (A fact strangely predicted on TSOOL's song 21st
Century Rip Off on their 2001 album Behind
The Music perhaps?)
Lundberg's
latest project sees him re-unite with his old pal and collaborator,
sound artist Per Svensson. The pair met in the '80s at the Radium
226.05, Gothenburg's multi-media art space. It's a shared sense of
exploration and “making new” that permeates all five tracks of
the pair's first musical release On
The Other Side Of The Light.
Although the album has many classic musical touchstones (The Doors,
The Velvet Underground, Funkadelic, The Stooges, John Coltrane), it's
unlike any other record you're likely to hear this year. Backward
phasing, squalling reedy free-jazz sax lines, spoken word,
distortion, and dirge-like chord progressions. It feels as if
psychedelic rock has re-ignited its revolutionary spark, connected
with a long lost progressive bent.
Opening
track Solar Eclipse is the most free-form offering. A beat-less,
rhythm-less cut up let's you know that this is going to be a ride not
for the faint-hearted. Afterwards things become slightly more trad,
though no less impressive. The album closes with the Extra
Terrestrial Blues. At 24 minutes in length it may test the average
music fan's patience but those that stick it out will be rewarded
with lyrics of stones, sunrise, rituals and ceremonies. Dark lost
magick complete with poetry, drone and free jazz sax and organ. In
between the relatively light title track channels a Nordic, pagan
version of Pink Floyd, slowly lurching forward towards in search of
some long lost arcane knowledge.
Factor
in the album cover's black and white mandala, festooned with flaming
eye, runes and hieroglyphics, and the photo of Lundberg and Svensson
posing with standing stones on the back cover, and a one sitting
headphone listen in a dark room will take you to places in your mind
you didn't know existed.
Scottish
beat 'n' folk. Part four in State Records' Soundgate Sound Acetate
series.
Edinburgh's garage-folk
overlords The Thanes break with tradition on the fourth instalment in
State Records' Sandgate Sound Acetate series, being as the single was
recorded at the band's own Ravencraig studio as opposed to State's
own Sandgate Studio. It's no less satisfying however with the A-side
being an original composition. She's Coming Back To Me is a stomping
slice of biting 12-sting fuzz and Jagger-ish snarl, with a vocal plea
that sounds simultaneously hopeful yet worried that things might not
actually work out.
The B-side is a
poignantly dedicated to George Gallacher, lead vocalist and
songwriter with '60s beat legends The Poets who sadly passed away in
August 2012. Here The Thanes cover Love Is Fading Away, a track
originally recorded by The Poets back in 1965, but which remained
unavailable for three decades. An altogether gentler affair to the
A-side, its arpeggio jangle underpinning a more reflective and
resigned take on love's passing and non-true course. Good stuff!
Limited to 500 copies
on heavy vinyl with hand-stamped sleeve.
Krautrock,
kosmiche and prog alert! Explore some inner space with this limited
double 7” white vinyl!
More usually associated
with the long-playing record, such genres as krautrock and
progressive rock sit remarkably well on this double 7” single. As
is customary with Fruits De Mer Records it's a selection of covers
given over to modern make-overs. This double single opens with
Frobisher Neck covering Brainticket's To Another Universe. Made with
just a a Mellotron, it's impressive stuff, setting the tone of
exploratory repetitiveness that characterises the rest of the EP.
Black Tempest bravely
have a stab at Tangerine Dream's Rubycon Part 1, reining it in at
five and half minutes in length. It works though, meditative drone
giving way to motorik drive, all the while oscillating nicely.
Vespero show they're
equally adept at covering Faust as they are Pink Floyd with their
version of J'ai Mal Aux Dents. Repetitively hypnotic with conscious
expanding guitar explorations and random vocal declarations. It's
seven and a half minutes of driving band dynamics, with not a blues
scale in sight.
Jay Tausig rounds the
EP off with a version of Gong's The Glorious Om Riff. The opening
vocal mantra giving way to the EP's most rockist track, with panned
guitar breaks, synthesized sonics, and Coltrane-esque squally
saxophone lines, all held together by a solid rhythm section. Get in!
A truly satisfying collection, this may just be the pick of the crop
in Fruit De Mer's current batch of 7” releases.
TRACKLISTING
1 – Frobisher Neck –
To Another Universe (originally by Brainticket)
2 – Black Tempest –
Rubycon Part 1 (Tangerine Dream)
