The always-prolific Ty Segall has announced the dawn of a new era. His next record, Three Bells, will arrive January 26 via Drag City. In the previous months, Segall has unveiled singles like “Void” and “Eggman,” both psychedelic and fuzzed-out to oblivion. This time around, his official teaser single “My Room” cools it on the distortion and plays up the blistering rock tones he’s become known for. The track is melodic and impassioned, working its way through stone-cold rock riffs and searing melodies.
King Gizzard and the Lizard Wizard are back with a triple-single to announce their monumental 25th album, The Silver Cord. The band also have unveiled a lineup of 3-hour marathon sets beginning next year. The Australian six-piece dropped “Theia / The Silver Cord / Set” in a trippy 12-minute music video showcasing the album’s range from melodic synths to hard-hitting techno with distorted vocals.
Oakland singer/songwriter and experimentalist SPELLLING is following up her 2021 masterpiece The Turning Wheel this August with SPELLLING & The Mystery School, a collection of tracks that surf between minimalism, glitchy percussive rhythm and hypnotic pianistic patterns. Full of mysticism and drama and haunting, evocative exploration, The gravity of SPELLLING’s songwriting is immense and, in turn, she makes left-field pop music that is both alien and ambitious. SPELLING & The Mystery School is on our radar because, after teaser singles “Cherry” and “Under the Sun,” it’s shaping up to be one of the best things she’s made—which says a great deal, given that The Turning Wheel was one of the very best records of 2021
“DIY pioneer Mac Demarco found solace in solitude as traveled the U.S. and abroad to record his newest instrumental record with his makeshift mobile studio. Five Easy Hot Dogs isn’t his first rodeo with instrumental tracks. The singer/songwriter released a small, eight-track instrumental album Some Other Ones for fans back in 2015. This time, the opening track “Gualala” gives Demarco fans a familiar feeling with his signature synths tweeting in and around the song, accompanied by a mixed style of plucking and strumming from an acoustic guitar and a rounded bass line to keep the song moving steady. The LP attests to the joys of escaping to places where no one knows you, if just for a moment. Each song’s runtime is about two minutes and is named after the location where the track was recorded. And the tracks from each place maintain a particular theme with the use of similar instruments. Vancouver, which consists of three tracks on the album, quickens the pace of the record. You can imagine DeMarco getting a little more pep in his step as he takes a little walk around town. The 14-track album bears a light feeling throughout the listening experience, thanks to the stripped-down production, and encourages you to find the beauty in the mundane—create when you feel inspired, and create because you love doing it”
“[Five Easy Hot Dogs] bears a light feeling throughout the listening experience, thanks to the stripped-down production, and encourages you to find the beauty in the mundane—create when you feel inspired, and create because you love doing it.“
Legendary feminist punk band Bikini Kill recently regrouped for 10 thrilling performances in select cities NYC, LA and London + a special headlining Riot Fest appearance, marking their first full shows since 1997. These shows sold out quickly and the enthusiastic fan response encouraged the band to launch a more expansive run. Their recently announced 2020 international tour dates are selling out quickly and today, the band is thrilled to announce additional dates with stops at NYC’s Prospect Park Bandshell, Red Rocks, Burger Boogaloo and a special second show in Olympia.
As is typically the case with Furman’s songwriting, “Calm Down aka I Should Not Be Alone” just shreds. Furman has always been able to bridge this gap between pop-rock and garage meltdowns with a particular punk-rock sensibility; the immediately laid-back and groovy bass line that kicks the song off paves the way for an absolute ripper of a bridge that finds Furman yelling, supportively, at the listener to calm down. —Harry Todd
“..the record is an absolutely evil stunner from front to back, top to bottom, head to toes and everywhere in between, and whips up the same kind of radiant, strange awe that the band’s overdriven catalog has so generously perpetrated album after wicked album.”
“…Murder has an ominous propulsion that leaves you feeling aghast and helpless, with two-minute sprints of charging drums and distortion that feel like a dilapidated truck carving through a bombed-out city with a cut brake line.”
“Obvious comparisons can be made to any number of hard rock heroes from decades past: Black Sabbath, Deep Purple, Uriah Heep, Iron Maiden and other outfits that built their brand based on sinister intent and sonic excess. Yet even those aforementioned bands sound like weary shoegazers in comparison, given the agitation, fury and frenzy that’s well served by King Gizzard’s urgency and intensity.”
“As an anti-star who, at his heart, would likely be happy playing in a Midwest basement for beer money, DeMarco possesses innately strong songwriting abilities, endearing him to bedroom lo-fi purists and besandled Parrotheads alike.”
“…There’s no single from album number two yet, but there’s an appropriately ominous and trippy video for Murder of the Universe that talks of new worlds replacing old ones and memories being blown up in the mushroom clouds. If everything on the album is as intense as this clip’s one minute, it’ll be one hell of a ride…”
“Rather than steadily hone a signature sound, Segall has used each new release to giddily leapfrog between rock ‘n’ roll subgenres with disorienting speed and finesse.”
In the interest of foregoing the usual chronicling of Ty Segall’s chameleonic artistic turnarounds, suffice it to say that here is another Ty Segall album.
To those for whom simply owning a vinyl copy of one album or another is not enough, the eternally vintage-scoped Ty Segall teamed up with Famous Class Records for a collector’s treasure. Outside of the music itself, the Mr. Face EP comes with 3D glasses within the gatefold, the better with which to view the album’s trippy, mirror-reflection photography on another dimension, man!
“The Mac Demarcult seems to just grow and grow each year—and for good reason. He really hasn’t released a bad record, and the new mini-LP, Another One, is another solid entry into an esteemed and well-loved catalog…”
Songs like “Salad Days,” “Let My Baby Stay” and “Cooking Up Something Good” sound timeless live and serve as reminders that for all the cheekiness, DeMarco’s actually extremely talented.
Mikal Cronin knows how to write a pop song. Not like a Max Martin pop song, but a pop song that could’ve existed at almost any point in the last 50 or so years of rock history. Parents and children alike can unite in appreciation for how this guy writes a guitar song.
Segall’s next release will come to us from the Ty Segall Band—the band who unapologetically brought us Slaughterhouse in 2012 (Segall, Mikal Cronin, Emily Rose Epstein, and Charles Moothart). Live in San Francisco was recorded at San Francisco’s Rickshaw Stop venue on February 25th.
Earlier this year, Ty Segall released Manipulator, a massive, 17-track album that has received great acclaim. Segall has announced $INGLE$ 2, a compilation album of loose tracks he recorded between 2011 and 2013.
For the Recently Found Innocent is a fantastic-sounding record, the production bringing to life the small details that make it more than a retread or homage. Presley clearly moves to the beat of his own tripped-out drummer…
It was high time we caught up with Ezra Furman. Between leaving his band, the Harpoons, moving across the country and putting out two excellent records this year (The Year of No Returning and Day of the Dog), there was a lot that we were overdue for a chat about.
“Cronin’s sophomore release, MCII, is a nuanced collage of quintessentially “California” pop songs—or, at the very least, how the rest of the country perceives such songs to look and feel…”
“Coffin is an easy, spring-appropriate listen. Something about Thee Oh Sees always sighs warm air. This album does that, too, but with hurriedly-spiked punch heavy on its breath. Drink up, Johnny.”