New Music, Emerging from your Local Scene
FCKR JR will be releasing their debut LP, I’m Sorry Mom and Dad, this Friday, August 2nd, via Born Yesterday.
This is work of Ben Grigg of Geronimo!, Whelpwisher on Guitar and vocals, Liz Bustamante on Drums and backing vocals, Emily Bean on Bass, and Emily Wrong on Guitar.
The band has released two singles from the album, “Frogs” and “The Pain and Sleep Department”.
You can help the group celebrate the release of the album on August 2nd at 7th Street Space in DeKalb, IL.
Myles Donovan (A Stick And A Stone, Ominous Cloud Ensemble, Disemballerina) and Eric Bandel (Nymph, Victory and Good Hunting) creatively combine talents to form Forgotten Bottom. The duo recently released Hostile Architecture, which will be available on cassette via Black Horizons. Subtle, intricate, suspenseful soundscapes are unravelled. A complex, classical beauty captures one’s focus. These compositions move with an organic, scene-transporting ardor.
Influences: Watching a city you love and grew up in become gentrified and developed beyond recognition over the decades, working with folks experiencing homelessness, working in psychiatric rehabilitation, old greek songs about prison and hash, the sound of the market frankford el, addiction and recovery, bartok duets, sonny sharrock, manic depression, too much caffeine, abandoned buildings, the opiod crisis in kensington, the overlooked crack cocaine epidemic in north philly, that oil refinery with the divine natural acoustics that exploded, profound and beautiful things muttered by nursing home residents, don’t get us started
The Wolff Sisters serve their folk music with a bluesy glaze that brings out the unique flavor of their storytelling. Using vivid imagery, leading basslines, and brilliant acoustic guitar strings Rebecca, Rachael, and Kat Wolff compose tunes rooted in New England’s folk culture. In the group’s latest single “Drive” the steady drumbeat and embellishing electric guitar riffs accompany a sentient vocal delivery that evokes images of nature and a rebellious love. The single is a preview of the group’s upcoming fall album Queendom of Nothing. The Boston-based sisters have a show upcoming at The Barn in Chaplin, Connecticut on August 3rd. We are streaming “Drive” for your listening pleasure below. – Rene Cobar
Sad Brad Smith (aka Bradley Grant Smith) is returning this Friday, August 2nd with a new album, his first since 2014, called Sweet Dreams. Smith has released two singles from the stripped down acoustic affair, “The Citizen” and “Citizen Two”.
Both tracks demonstrate Smith’s ability to tell a story with words while setting the tone with his guitar.
Maybird’s musical vision is made for a future that relies on pulling from the past. Toy-sounding synthesizers, acoustic guitars plus distorted and processed guitars, and the chorus-like harmonies that make their music sound a bit like it’s from a retro movie give the band cinematic flair. The band has a taste for writing truisms, and perhaps their nostalgic sound adds to the emphasis. The story behind their debut album, Things I Remember From Earth cuts to the core of the human experience in terms of what people are searching for and come to find self-evident. The journey to writing the album comes from Kurt Vonnegut’s The Sirens of Titan as a crucial source for inspiration. The philosophical themes surely inform the thoughtful hooks, which sometimes admonish looking too far into the future.
A key influence behind Maybird is the reputable rock band Dangermouse, who helped them release the EP Turning into Water after discovering them in 2016. The four-song EP Unraveling followed soon after in 2017 with the help of producer Patrick Carney of The Black Keys. The clash and eventual concoction of these experiences resulted in the songs on their debut, all of which are tinged with the right amount of apathy that ultimately makes their music so cool.
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Susan Moon
“When you talk about a revolution, most people think violence without realizing that the real content of any kind of revolutionary thrust lies in the principles and the goals you’re striving for.” This excerpt from a 1972 interview with Angela Davis begins Rahill Jamalifard’s mix Songs of Dissidence, laying the foundation for an hour-long intercultural musical odyssey throughout the southern United States (as well as the Global South). Beginning with Dorothy Ashby’s “Soul Vibrations” before quickly segueing through international deep cuts such as “Funeral of a Worker” by Melia Barbosa and “Bravo” by Jacqueline Taïeb, Jamalifard (who performs under the name Radio Rahill) demonstrates a keen ear; not only for the ways in which she blends differing sonic textures into a cohesive project, but for her ability to curate songs of dissent from the world over. In doing so, Radio Rahill creates a portrait of resistance that spans continents and decades, painting a portrait of an enduring, continuing struggle for equality, justice, and respect. Listen below, and catch Radio Rahill spin at Soho Grand on August 7th. -Connor Beckett McInerney
Push33 formed in September 1996, and played their last show at Chicago’s original Double Door in the summer of 1998. The original line-up was Derbhile Fabie (vocals and keyboards), Steven Perna (guitar), Pete Danos (bass) and CL Fabie (drums). They recently came back together to have so fun and discovered an old collections of demos they had recorded. Now with Max Perna, Steve’s son, on Bass, Push33 recorded and released an album based on these “forgotten songs” called Ode To The Family. The songs on the album, which was released back in April, have that classic ’90’s feel, but with a several nods to current sounds.
You can catch Push33 at The Underground Lounge on August 31st.
Photo by Tina Rogers Nolan
A Garden Everywhere You Go, the latest album from Birdspotter, is out now via Bratislava, Slovakia’s Z Tapes. Delicately delightful, experimental folk-pop springs forward. Those gentle, sonic layers establish a sense of intimate proximity, which grips as it grooves. Discover meaning in the minute moments.
Goth-Pop duo Wingtips, Vincent Segretario and Hannah Avalon, is preparing to release their debut full-length album, Exposure Therapy, on August 23rd via Artoffact Records. The album’s lead single is called “Deaf Pursuit” and is accompanied by the Luke O’Neill direct video below.
You can catch Wingtips at Subt tonight, July 30th, with Hibou and The Hazy Seas. The release event for Exposure Therapy will take place on August 22nd at Late Bar.
Dēmodex’s debut EP, Padded Cell, is available for download and on cassette via Get Better Records. The band revs its instrumental engine, before a fierce savageness is unleashed. The vocals rein down in a commanding manner – emotive and unshakable. The steamrolling combination of backend and jarring guitar never flinches as it barrels ahead. The quartet creates a sound that cannot be contained.
Psych Pop supergroup Column recently released a video for “II” from their debut 7” “I & II” which is due out on August 16th via Grand Jury.
Column is Cadien James of Twin Peaks along with Dalton Allison, Jake Hirshland, Javier Reyes, Matt Williams, and Wes Toledo all of Post Animal.
New York synth duo So Sensitive swagger back into the limelight with new single “What’s A Girl To Do,” bolstered by its absolute-unit-sized keyboard hits and member Kira Clark’s breathy, intimate vocal delivery. Lyrically, the track finds a linkage between the death of a parent and the qualities we look for in a romantic partner, conveying sentiments of helplessness through glam-laden vox and dark, interweaving keys. So Sensitive arrive at no easy answers to these feelings, preferring to bask in uncertainty; in doing so, they impart an uneasy feeling upon the listener through both their lyrical honesty and sultry instrumental soundscapes. As such, it’s required listening for anyone who finds themselves looking towards an undetermined future, unable to find the necessary guidance as to what they should do. Listen to it below, and stream the rest of their new album, Bedroom Drama, when it drops August 2nd. –Connor Beckett McInerney, Photo by Spencer Hotchkiss
