Bob Marston & the Credible Sources - Coltura - Sister Ray - Death Bells
Bob Marston & the Credible Sources, the pride of Birmingham, Alabama, released their new single "Real Magic, Good People," yesterday. The track is from their debut LP, So Long, out on June 3rd. Fun fact - Matt Slocum (Susan Tedeschi, Widespread Panic, Allman Brothers, Railroad Earth, and more) plays keys on the album!
Fronted by troubadour Bob Marston, this group is truly a whole greater than the sum of its wildly capable parts. The band makes music that sits comfortably at the intersections of folk and rock with a penchant for improvisation--intricately-woven guitar parts, tight and compelling bass and drum grooves, and pure, emotive vocals, a sound that garners comparisons to The Grateful Dead, Wilco, Creedence Clearwater Revival, and more. "Real Magic, Good People'' is a head-bobbing, reggae-tinged, all-around good time.
One day, Bob was walking his dog at a Birmingham nature preserve, processing a difficult breakup, and the groove for the song bubbled up through his soul. "The first half of each verse presents my attempt to balance my love of Birmingham with what I had, at the time, recently learned about her history of labor injustice, including convict-leasing and union-busting," Bob explains of the track. "The chorus is a rallying cry to believe in ourselves and our potential as a community, realizing that for all of our differences we share more in common." The inspiration came from his hometown's troubling history, but the overall themes are universal: the power of honest expression, understanding, complete forgiveness, and acceptance is what really connects and unifies our communities.
Bob's been on a journey of self-discovery, and with the help of therapy, meditation, and cannabis, his empathic creativity comes shining through the lyrics of every song on So Long. The album’s tracks explore love and devotion through the lens of managing challenging relationships and processing life-altering heartbreak to pondering life’s big questions and issues of social injustice. Ultimately, So Long is about striving to find humanity in ourselves, our communities, and in society as a whole.
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In advance of the release of their debut album And Then I’ll Be Happy arriving this Friday, April 22, New York City trio Colatura have shared a new single and video, “R U Content,” a relevant comment on our current culture consumption.
Colatura headed down to Austin to make their SXSW debut, with five performances. Austin Town Hall said to file them under the “band I wish I had seen,” while calling their “Kids Like Us” single, "solid gold indie pop.” The band will celebrate this Friday, album release night, at The Sultan Room in Brooklyn, and have announced a summer tour taking them across the Eastern half of the U.S., culminating at DZ Fest outside Chicago on July 9.
Discussing the single, guitarist/vocalist Digo Best noted that, “‘R U Content’ is about the monetization of the individual as a brand. In order to be successful these days you have to sell an alternate version of yourself that usually has no basis in reality. Authenticity as a marketing ploy. Yet we all line up, pretending aesthetic photos will make up for the hole that we are creating inside of ourselves. The lyrics 'Are you content or are you content?’ play with the two different pronunciations of the word to ask an important question.
The backdrop of the music video is a combination of every previous music video we have made for this album, superimposed over each other to make a sort of super-content visualizer. Since the song is an examination of the role of content in our society and whether it is actually an indicator of our reality, authenticity, and happiness as humans or just a 'story with a market price', we thought it appropriate to have us be sort of halfway human and constantly fighting being swallowed by all the content we ourselves have made."
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Sister Ray, the project of Edmonton-born songwriter, Ella Coyes (they/she) is today sharing their new single, "Good News" which follows recent singles tipped at Paste Magazine, Exclaim and more. The new track comes as the final advance single to be lifted from Sister Ray's forthcoming debut album, Communion which is set for release on May 13 via Royal Mountain Records (Alvvays, Wild Pink, U.S. Girls). They will support Communion with a full tour – TBC – but for now, have confirmed US dates opening for The Rural Alberta Advantage, these come off the back of recent slots opening for Hurray for the Riff Raff and dates as part of SXSW.
Communion is a raw, meticulously-crafted portrait of momentous, ordinary moments; experiences that define your past and instruct how you move through the world. It’s also a break-up album invested in exploring the motivations behind actions, rather than attempting moral judgment. It’s about “shitty shit” says Coyes. Backed by Ginla, the Brooklyn-based duo behind early Big Thief's Adrianne Lenker and Lorely Rodriguez (Empress Of), Communion is anchored by guitar melodies that bear an undercurrent of turmoil and echoes with the wisdom of hard-won lessons.
"Good News" thematically marks the darkest song on Communion despite being the lightest in sound. Speaking about the track, Coyes explains: "This song is about my frustration watching me, members of my family and the people around me experiencing issues that have affected us intergenerationally – and continue to do so – and see many suffer in silence. It’s written like a series of vignettes about a few moments that have really stood out in my memory. At first, it didn’t click with me that this song sounded so light because it felt heavy to me, but I feel now that a big part of this song is the freedom that I feel in the actual act of airing out those things that I would have willfully ignored or hidden from.”
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Death Bells — the long-running musical collaboration between Will Canning and Remy Veselis — are thrilled to announce their third full-length album, Between Here & Everywhere. Set for release on July 29th via Dais Records, the LP captures the cross-section of Southern California’s shadowy hidden interzones, outside of the lights and luxury.
The group teased this new full-length with the pre-release of “Intruder” and "Passerby" singles — now, they’ve unveiled another new track from the album, “Lifespring.” Of the song, Canning comments, “We initially wrote ‘Lifespring’ at a friend’s studio, before the last record was even an idea. I thought I had lost the stems, but discovered them recently on a USB that had been sitting in my jacket pocket for the last few years, so we were able to finally finish the song.” He continues, “The lyrical inspiration for 'Lifespring' came from reading about a fairly spurious organization of the same name that were around until the mid-90s. Musically, it feels very different from anything we’ve done before; sleazier, groovier.”
Adopting a collaborative approach for the recording of Between Here & Everywhere, the LP features nine new songs that represent Will Canning and Remy Veselis’ continual growth, as well as accompaniment by an experienced cast of contributors on keys, strings, piano, and operatic backup vocals. Recorded with Colin Knight at Paradise Studios, and mixed by Mike Kriebel at Golden Beat, Between Here & Everywhere bristles with immediacy and emotion, with every element tactile, balanced, and elevated.
Between Here & Everywhere sets out to map the potent mess of Los Angeles. Canning cites the “vastness” of the band’s adopted home as a constant muse, and much like the city itself, the album ebbs gradually from harrowing to hopeful over its 35-minute runtime. The lyrics are categorized as “narrative, but not autobiographical,” born of intrigue, intimacy, and a sense of “looking outward.”
Formed in 2015 in Sydney, Australia, Death Bells has proven to be a mainstay in the alternative underground musical landscape both in their homeland and overseas. Death Bells released their sophomore full-length and Dais Records debut New Signs of Life in September of 2020. On this record, the group embraced their diverse tastes to deliver unforgettable hooks and more expansive sounds across its nine graceful songs. Following, and in direct response to the pandemic, Death Bells secluded themselves at Bombay Beach to record and release 5 live recordings of songs from New Signs of Life in April of 2021 — the gorgeous live performance and recording Live from Bombay.
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