Jill Lorean - Shaela Miller - Ellevator - Old Crow Medicine Show
Black Dog’ is final single from Glasgow trio Jill Lorean’s upcoming debut album This Rock, and sees the band carrying a danceable freak folk energy, which adds to the timeless diversity of their singles to date. An odyssey of sorts, ‘Black Dog’ lures you in with a trance-like violin loop that remains a constant throughout, before crusading through pulsing drumbeats, haunted, gothic guitar lines and playful disco-esque basslines, alongside Jill O’Sullivan’s ethereal vocal delivery, which claws your attention in on the hood laden repetitive chorus line “how can I laugh and how can I cry”.
Jill Lorean as a living breathing thing, featuring Jill O’Sullivan (Sparrow And The Workshop, Three Queens in Mourning, Bdy_Prts) in collaboration with Andy Monaghan (Frightened Rabbit) and drummer Peter Kelly (The Kills, Ladytron), the band is a unique beast inhabiting its own world, incorporating elements of many genres from folk and lo-fi to post-punk and underground rock.
“Black Dog’ is like being on a consciousness-bending, self-seeking quest. It’s a lucid dream-like adventure where a godlike figure attempts to grant all of a persons wishes by carving them all kinds of exciting things out of the clouds. But a sad dog keeps appearing so the deity swallows the sky not understanding that the person wanted to confront the whole spectrum of their emotions, including the sad dog chasing them around.”
“I worked with Pete (Kelly) on this dance project and he would do these fills and I just wanted to dance suddenly. And I like that he did that over the ‘Black Dog’, there is this slight freak folky vibe going on. And it could go down a Fairport Convention, sort of route, but it doesn't. He brings it into this transient style. And I love it. It was not what I was expecting. I like the unexpected. I like to feel surprised, I want people listening to it to feel alive and awake.”
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With her 2020 album Big Hair Small City, Shaela Miller proved yet again to have her hand on the pulse of “honky tonk noir.” With central themes rooted in the deep intricacies of heartache, loss, healing, and inner growth, Miller took the listener on a journey with her witty turns of phrase, strong finger pickin' and no-nonsense lyrics.
The native of Lethbridge, Alberta is now giving her fans an added bonus with the new, standalone single “Tidal Wave,” which was recorded during the sessions for Big Hair Small City with producer Scott Franchuk at Riverdale Recorders in Edmonton. Given the meaning behind the song, Miller has chosen to release "Tidal Wave" now to mark International Women's Day 2022.
As Shaela explains, "'Tidal Wave' is an in-depth confession of realizations and struggles of the heart and how a woman can feel, inside and outside of love, like they are drowning in the staggering, multi-dimensional duties of life. It's about how the expected and demanding responsibilities women face in life through the roles of motherhood and romantic partnerships, can leave us feeling completely void of fire, passion and inspiration, yet the expectations remain and we just have to power through it all."
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The Hamilton, Ontario-based trio, Ellevator have shared their new single, "Sacred Heart" – it's another thrilling installment lifted from their forthcoming debut album, The Words You Spoke Still Move Me which comes produced by ex-Death Cab for Cutie guitarist, Chris Walla (production for Pinegrove, Foxing, Tegan & Sara, etc) and is out via Arts & Crafts on May 6. The new single arrives following earlier tips from NPR, The Needle Drop, Exclaim, FLOOD, The Line of Best Fit, Under the Radar, CBC and more. The band will support the release of the new record with North American dates, including a stop at SXSW later this month.
Ellevator poses a fantastic ability to sculpt these mammoth, melodramatic post-rock and indie-rock soundscapes, somewhat inspired by the late-aughts sounds of Spoon, Metric, Interpol and Arcade Fire, as well as the stadium-ready sounds of U2, Kate Bush and Bruce Springsteen. The new single, "Sacred Heart" explores ideas surrounding young love, commitment and intimacy while blending racing guitar lines – somewhat reminiscent of Springsteen – with driving percussion and piano.
Speaking about the new single, which comes with a live visual directed by Cam Veitch, singer Nabi Sue Bersche says: "This one’s a love song about how intimacy and deep knowing can make it feel like there’s nothing left to discover, and choosing to push on anyway in search of new depths. Ty (guitar) and I got married on a cold spring morning when I was 22 and he was 19. There wasn’t much chance to sell each other on our own myths, to be the mysterious stranger from outta town: we wrote our origin story together. Learning to love each other better has been a strange journey and the great gift of my life."
When discussing the video, Nabi continues: "We shot, edited, and delivered the whole thing in less than 24 hrs. We’ve made a bunch of videos that I’m proud of but this one touches something special: we wanted to show what it feels like to play live as Ellevator, in all its sublime chaos, and I think we captured the lightning."
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| Photo - Kit Wood |
GRAMMY award-winning band Old Crow Medicine Show releases “Honey Chile,” the latest single from their new album Paint This Town out April 22 via ATO Records. Showcasing soaring harmonies and swooning fiddle melodies, the melancholy love song is accompanied by a live performance video featured this morning at Garden & Gun, who said “Musically, the song is something of a salvo for the whole of Paint This Town, rising out of the gates with a bold swell before settling into a traditional Americana-tinged groove.” Along with the new single, the band has announced a coast to coast spring/summer tour kicking off in April that will make stops in Philadelphia, New York, Portland, Seattle and many more.
Bandleader Ketch Secor explains the new single: “When you mine the musical traditions of the South as we have you’re always going to run head on into the region’s most successful export: Southern Rock, and my favorite performers of this style are the Charlie Daniels Band, who Old Crow was lucky enough to open for back in the early 2000’s. We’ll miss Charlie around these parts, but he lives on in songs like ‘Honey Chile,’ a backwoods slow burn about good lovin' and other hard habits to break.”
Paint This Town showcases Old Crow Medicine Show’s long-standing ability to merge profound introspection with a rapturous string band revival sound. The album shines a light on the darker aspects of the American experience, with character-driven songs underpinned by the band’s vision for a more harmonious future. The debut single “Paint This Town” has maintained the #1 slot on the Americana Singles Radio Chart for three weeks in a row, garnering praise from press including Billboard, Rolling Stone, SPIN and more. The band’s latest single “Bombs Away” (feat. Molly Tuttle on banjo) was recently hailed by Consequence, who said it’s “brimming with the euphoria of new beginnings, a tongue-in-cheek tale of throwing caution to the wind and starting over.”
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