The Slackers - The Cactus Blossoms feat. Jenny Lewis - Tom Jenkins - Colatura

The Slackers - Hanging On.

New York City reggae legends The Slackers have released “Hanging On,” the second single from the band’s upcoming record “Don’t Let The Sunlight Fool Ya” which comes out April 15th. This record, their first in 7 years and 15th full-length in their career, is now available on Pirates Press Records’ web store.

“Hanging On” is a mantra that almost every band, including The Slackers, have had to deal with during the pandemic. “Being in NYC in March of 2020 was an experience I wouldn’t wish upon my enemies. People talk about how great it was to get off the road or spend extra time with their family, but I was already tight with my family. We rallied and my apartment became a law office, a college classroom, a recording studio, a mail-order merch warehouse, and a high school classroom. We did what we had to do to keep going,” said saxophonist Dave Hillyard.

The process for bringing this album to life was, by all accounts, one that was met with twists and turns that would make most bands implode. The band used their sound engineer’s house to practice and record while also trying to accommodate everyone’s personal situations. “The main challenge/s we had to overcome in making the record had to do with distance, finding a way to involve Vic and Glen, who live on the West Coast and thus 3000 miles from the rest of the band. We put half the band in one room, half the band in another, we continued to wear masks around each other, put a giant shield around the drums and just hoped for the best. Glen and Vic very graciously gave up their West Coast lives to live at Marc Critelli’s house for 2 months while we completed the majority of the record,” remarked drummer Ara Babajian.

The band previously released an adorable and hilarious puppet video for the title track “Don’t Let The Sunlight Fool Ya.” The song was written by the band after the initial wave of COVID was over but it was certainly not the end of the pandemic.

Rootfire · Hanging On

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The Cactus Blossoms feat. Jenny Lewis - Everybody.

Acclaimed Americana duo The Cactus Blossoms have released a new video for the song “Everybody,” featuring Jenny Lewis. The song is featured on their recently released album One Day.

The Cactus Blossoms will also be kicking off the next leg of their U.S. tour on March 19th starting in Red Wing, MN. Jack Torrey, who launched the band with his brother, Page Burkum, writes, “When I wrote the song it was originally from one person’s perspective, but one morning when I was drinking coffee it hit me as a conversation between two people and really came alive for me. I heard Jenny singing it in my head and couldn’t hear it any other way, so I hopped on the phone and called her to see if she’d be interested in singing on it. I’m so glad she was into the idea.”

Page remarks that “We had the chance to open a little run of shows with Jenny a few years ago and to hear her amazing voice and watch her cast her spell over her audience night after night was truly inspiring. She’s a heavy hitter in every way possible so it's a dream come true to hear her voice on one of our songs.”

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Photo - Drew Roxanne

Tom Jenkins - Back Roads.

Tom Jenkins has announced his signing to independent label Xtra Mile Recordings. The ex-Straight Lines frontman has also unveiled the video for new single “Back Roads”, a twinkling, country-tinged track that nods to Jenkins’ rural roots, highlighting the solitude and struggle of the job that has taken lives in the rural community.

Speaking of his excitement around the new signing, Tom says: “I’ve had the privilege of sharing almost my whole journey in music with Xtra Mile Recordings. From the label releasing some of my favourite bands and artists, to eventually putting out my own music as a teenager and through to my early twenties with two Straight Lines album campaigns. I’m very excited to begin this new chapter as a solo artist and grateful to be working once again with a great group of people with a great vision and ideas for their roster.”

Likewise, Xtra Mile Recordings add: “Everyone at Xtra Mile is thrilled to be reacquainted with Tom. We loved Straight Lines and have been floored by his new album. We can’t wait to start the campaign and continue our work with Tom in 2022 and beyond.”

The news comes off the back of successes with his self-released 2019 solo album “Misery In Comfort” and 2020 EP “When The Coal Dust Settled”, a patriotic folk release in support of the victims of the South Wales Valley flood.

Tom Jenkins hails from the high country of the South Wales Valleys, with the ex-coal mining communities and rugged farming landscape forming his identity and ingraining itself in the singer-songwriter’s sound. Born into a hill farming family, a life in music seemed worlds away but somewhere along the line Jenkins’ path changed: at first playing in local rock bands before eventually fronting Straight Lines, releasing albums with his old school friends and touring with the likes of Motorhead, The Presidents of the USA and more.

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Colatura - Kids Like Us.

In the midst of their debut appearance at SXSW in Austin, New York City trio Colatura has released their latest single, “Kids Like Us” this week. The track is featured on Colatura’s debut album, And Then I’ll Be Happy, set to arrive April 22, with a hometown performance set for that night in Brooklyn at The Sultan Room. 

Discussing the track, guitarist/vocalist Meredith Lampe noted, "This song is about collective family baggage, mental illness, and destructive patterns that can repeat generation after generation. We wrote it from the perspective of one sibling calling another to remind them that they made a pact to never have kids in the hopes of cutting off the negative cycle and to stop passing down traits that they wish they didn’t have themselves. The music video was made by our friend Matt Sklar (of the band Phantom Handshakes) using a collage of footage from each of our childhoods.”

Featuring the triple songwriting attack of Jennica Best (bass/vocals), Digo Degorio (guitar/vocals) and Lampe (guitar/vocals), Colatura has been called, "Fleetwood Mac with shoegaze guitars," by Fadeaway Radiate, and described by Popmatters as, “Drawing on a range of influences from '50s female-fronted outfits to Manchester post-punk and all manner of noisy things, Colatura sounds both of and out of its time, delivering music that seems to have always been.” Sonically, their foot is in a number of genres, writing music that is sometimes dreamy, sometimes heavy, with pop-leaning melodies and post-punk atmospherics.

Formed in 2019, the trio, joined by a drummer live, has played notable shows throughout New York City supporting acts such as Nation of Language, Pom Pom Squad, and Oceanator, amongst others, receiving praise from NYC tastemakers and music blogs alike. The band announced And Then I’ll Be Happy in January, with the single, “Team Sport,” which Brooklyn Vegan called, “a dreamy, warm treat in the dead of winter,” and led Under The Radar to state, “The upbeat surf guitar, blissful washes of synths, and brilliant bursts of melody make for a decadent dream pop reverie, recalling classic influences like Cocteau Twins as well as contemporaries like Alvvays or Yumi Zouma.” They followed with “Scars” last month, leading The Revue to say that Colatura create "melodies that have the same effect of a cool ocean breeze on a hot day.”



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Colatura - Abigail Lapell - Ruby Tingle - Little Wretches - Stella Diana

Photo Credit: Justin Buschardt

Colatura - Scars.

New York City trio Colatura released their latest single, “Scars,” this week, sharing a video homage to the earliest days of television musical performances. Colatura’s debut album, And Then I’ll Be Happy, will arrive April 22, with a hometown performance set for that night in Brooklyn, at The Sultan Room [tickets here]. Prior, they will head to Austin, Texas for this year’s SXSW Music Conference.

Discussing the single, the band noted, "‘Scars' explores the dark fantasies of revenge you might indulge in, about someone who has caused you pain. It’s wanting to hurt someone who has hurt you and thinking that doing so will heal your own pain, but also knowing deep down that it won’t actually make the pain go away. But you indulge the fantasy regardless.

The chorus is rooted in doo wop, but in a dark way (doo wop noir, if you will), so in the video we wanted to reference that by doing a recreation of a '50s girl group soundstage performance, but to make the movements more robotic and unnerving, and also have it feel like a kind of strange afterlife limbo.

The emotionlessness of the singing and the movements seem on the surface like the pain is gone, but we wanted to use the juxtaposition of dark and light imagery to make it clear that even when you try to bury it, the pain will still live beneath the surface and be a part of who you are regardless. Not to be completely bleak, the flowers growing from our bodies show that there can be some regrowth and beauty even in the damage."

Featuring the triple songwriting attack of Jennica (bass/vocals), Digo (guitar/vocals) and Meredith (guitar/vocals), Colatura been called, "Fleetwood Mac with shoegaze guitars," by Fadeaway Radiate, and described by Popmatters as, “Drawing on a range of influences from '50s female-fronted outfits to Manchester post-punk and all manner of noisy things, Colatura sounds both of and out of its time, delivering music that seems to have always been.” Sonically, their foot is in a number of genres, writing music that is sometimes dreamy, sometimes heavy, with pop-leaning melodies and post-punk atmospherics.

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Abigail Lapell - Ships.

With a cyclical, hypnotizing guitar part and foggy, maritime imagery, Toronto songwriter Abigail Lapell’s new song “Ships” crashes on top of itself again and again until its subtle power tops the seawall and floods the landscape. Sounding like a mellower Sleater-Kinney or Laura Veirs with a horn section, “Ships” explores the insatiable, contradictory impulses that drive doomed love and other addictions, or as Lapell puts it, “Leaving versus staying, quitting versus relapsing—familiar shores and uncharted waters.” 

The idea of opposites attracting—or repelling—shows up in the song’s arrangement, too. What begins as a soft indie rock head-nodder—with drums (Dani Nash), bass (Dan Fortin), and guitars (Christine Bougie)—starts to sneak in a horn or two, a step on the overdrive pedal, and layers of vocal harmonies before climaxing with a wild sax solo only met in energy by Lapell’s reactive vocals. Fortunately, cameras caught the whole recording process at Montreal’s hotel2tango recording studio, and today, Under The Radar premiered that footage in the music video for “Ships” who stated, “Lapell’s latest single sees her follow further in a folk rock direction, taking full advantage of her band’s explosive live chemistry.”

“Ships” is the second single from Lapell’s upcoming album Stolen Time—out April 22nd on Outside Music. Fans can hear the previously-released “Pines” at this link and pre-order or pre-save Stolen Time right here. Abigail will also appear at this year’s SXSW on March 16 at Stephen F’s Bar

The upcoming Stolen Time strikes a balance between Lapell’s acoustic debut, Great Survivor, and her two rockier Chris Stringer-produced records, Hide Nor Hair and Getaway, while bringing a live-off-the-floor 70s folk-rock vibe and more structural experimentation to the table on songs that feel expansive in their scope—unhurried, psychedelic, and other-worldly. Lapell’s band underscores and meets the power of her vocals on songs like “Ships,” a wild sax solo seemingly enticing her higher and louder to meet the crashing waves. But many of Stolen Time’s standout tracks are solo acoustic guitar songs, backed by little more than Lapell’s harmonica, pump organ, or accordion. “Old Flames,” with Lapell’s melodic fingerstyle guitar mimicking flickering embers, is a bit of an answer song to Bruce Springsteen’s “I’m On Fire,” and the swirling and woozy “Scarlet Fever” was inspired by an elderly relative’s tales of being quarantined as a child. “Land Of Plenty” was influenced by Lapell’s family history of escaping the Holocaust by immigrating from Eastern Europe to North America, as well as more recent immigration stories.



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Ruby Tingle - Flood.

Audio visual artist and performer Ruby Tingle is set to release her first solo EP ‘Lagoons’, on No Such Thing Records, in conjunction with her public gallery exhibition at Warrington Museum and Art Gallery. ‘Flood’ is the first single to be released from 5 track EP, exploring the romance of dancing alone at night in an imagined wetlands, whilst desiring connection with someone else.

The remaining 4 EP tracks are based around Warrington Museum’s collection of amphibians and reptiles, and the artist’s lifelong connection with these animals throughout her own emotional experiences. Ruby’s music mixes natural sound processes and high range celestial vocals to compose original and dreamy, experimental “music from the swamp”.

She is an award-winning multidisciplinary artist working with progressive electronica in Manchester, represented by No Such Thing Records and PAPER Gallery Manchester. She exhibits and performs regularly across the UK and Europe, including Saatchi Gallery, Manchester Art Gallery, 48 Hours Neukolln, Axel Orbinger Berlin, Art Basel, HOME, sluice___ and Chethams Library. She is also one half of cinematic bass act Dirty Freud with whom she performed and headlined stages at Glastonbury 2019, and recently released EP ‘Love in the Backwater’ with Modern Sky.

Recent commissions include new compositional work for Lancashire Encounter and upcoming collaborative performances for British Art Show 2022. She has been awarded 2022’s Manchester Jazz Festival Originals Commission and will also exhibit at the Whitaker Gallery in 2023.

 

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Little Wretches - Running  (Was the Only Thing to Do).

With the 2020 release of their album, "Undesirables And Anarchists," indie folk rock pioneers Little Wretches hit the ground "running." The album received national college radio airplay on over 115 AM/FM stations in North America. Propelled by international iTunes chart hits like "Ballad of Johnny Blowtorch" and "All Of My Friends," Robert Andrew Wagner and company have amassed more than 130K Spotify streams. Their Youtube videos are quickly approaching 70K views. Now, the Pittsburgh-based band has released their most poignant video yet.

The music video for "Running (Was The Only Thing To Do)" was released on February 15th, 2022. Taken from "Undesirables And Anarchists," the Wagner-written song was inspired by Cecil B. DeMille's movie, "The Ten Commandments" and band member/spotlight vocalist, Rosa Colucci's life story.

Wagner tells the story behind the song: "Prior to joining The Little Wretches, Rosa Colucci had never sung in a band. She'd been the only white soloist in a predominantly African-American Gospel choir, and she'd sung some karaoke, but that was the extent of it. Shortly after Rosa joined the band, Scott Mervis of The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette wrote, 'Rosa Colucci is the best thing that ever happened to The Little Wretches.' Given Rosa's vocal power, audiences came to expect her to have a 'spotlight' number in band's live shows, so she asked me to write something for her."

"Rosa is an April baby, the season of Easter and Passover, and I wanted to have a song ready for her birthday. Watching Cecil B. DeMille's THE TEN COMMANDMENTS on television while strumming my guitar, I paused to marvel at the big scene when Charlton Heston as Moses raises his staff and God parts The Red Sea. Bondage and hopelessness behind them and the impossible before them, what would the average Israelite do? What else could they do? RUN! Believers and non-believers alike. Oh, well... Here goes nothing. Or everything. I recalled Rosa having told me that she'd been on her own since the age of fifteen. The details are for Rosa to tell, but I saw the parallels. EXODUS. Let My People Go! In her own way, Rosa had fled a kind of bondage and leapt into an uncertain future with only faith to guide her."


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Photo - Oriana Spadaro

Stella Diana - Sleepless Girl.

"Sleepless Girl" is the first single off Stella Diana's awaited new album "Nothing To Expect", set for release on 22-2-22 via Vipchoyo / A State of Flux Records. Well established as one of the most appreciated acts in the international underground scene, the Neapolitan band pushes even further the boundaries of their sonic venture.

Like the praised previous album '57', 'Nothing to Expect' masterfully interwines new wave, dark post-punk textures and spirals of shoegaze light, this time highlighting a more brazen opening towards the melody.

As the band says: “In this new album we tried to create the soundtrack of something that ends, something that can never be again. The air you breathe is something ultimate, something that puts an end to everything. The sound is dark, sinister, evocative and compressed, very compressed. The first single, Sleepless girl, absolutely represents this atmosphere. The mood is rarefied and full of reverb.”

Named after the ancient name of planet Venus (Morning Star), Stella Diana were formed in 1998 in Southern Italy’s city of Naples by Dario Torre (vocals and guitar) and Giacomo Salzano (bass guitar), joined by Giulio Grasso on drums.


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The Delines - Colatura - Onsloow - North Mississippi Allstars (featuring William Bell)

Photo Credit: Jason Quigley

The Delines - Kid Codeine.

Portland, Oregon based country-soul group The Delines share the third single and music video from their upcoming album, The Sea Drift, which will be released on February 11, 2022 via their new American label home Jealous Butcher Records. The new song, titled “Kid Codeine”,  has a 60’s pop feel and is more upbeat than previous singles; but the song captures the same weary world and deep, wistful emotions that musician and author Willy Vlautin has become known for. 

The song is accompanied by a music video starring The Delines lead singer Amy Boone, walking around the streets of the band’s hometown of Portland with her hair done up just like the song’s titular character “Kid Codeine”, who has a boyfriend who is a boxer and is described as always wearing a perfect bouffant hairdo “just to walk down the street”.

Speaking to the real life inspiration to the character of “Kid Codeine”, Willy wrote: “Years ago in Los Angeles, Richmond Fontaine was playing at a club downtown called Al’s Bar and after the gig the bartender invited us to a strip joint. She was maybe thirty-five and had a big bouffant and a twenty-one-year-old boyfriend who never said a word. Nothing. It was almost like she had him on a chain. She took us to a place where the dancers come to your table. 

The woman who came to ours was a friend of hers but a junkie and nodded out and crashed into our table. Drinks spilled everywhere but the bouffanted bartender got hers out in time and she and her boyfriend got up and she said, “I gotta run but bet the third horse in the fifth race at Hollywood Park tomorrow.” Man oh man, she was really wild and she drove the coolest car and nothing seem to phase her. I hadn’t thought of her in years but during the time I was writing The Sea Drift tunes I just woke up one morning and she came to me and I wrote the song.”

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Colatura - Team Sport.

New York City trio Colatura released their latest single, “Team Sport,” last Friday, to announce their debut album, And Then I’ll Be Happy, for an April 22 release. The band will celebrate that night in Brooklyn, at The Sultan Room.

Featuring the triple songwriting attack of Jennica (bass/vocals), Digo (guitar/vocals) and Meredith (guitar/synths/vocals), Colatura has been called, "Fleetwood Mac with shoegaze guitars," by Fadeaway Radiate, and described by Popmatters as, “Drawing on a range of influences from '50s female-fronted outfits to Manchester post-punk and all manner of noisy things, Colatura sounds both of and out of its time, delivering music that seems to have always been.” 

Sonically, their foot is in a number of genres, writing music that is sometimes dreamy, sometimes heavy, with pop-leaning melodies and post-punk atmospherics.

Discussing “Team Sport,” Colatura calls it, "A sad song that sounds happy. It's a feel-good tune until you start to listen to the lyrics… 'who knew drowning was a team sport?’. The song is about two people who try really hard to make a relationship work but can’t seem to, despite their best efforts. It explores the difficult reality that in many relationships both people want it to work, but can’t seem to get on the same page, and in trying to make the other person happy, both end up feeling like they’re drowning.”

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Onsloow - Unstoppable.

Onsloow's eight-track, self-titled album sees release digital release via How is Annie records on January 21, 2022. The Trondheim, Norway's band is a fresh, well-crafted indie rock band that creates rousing and dreamy powerpop sounds with nuances and nods to pop punk.

The sweet, feminine energy of Johanne Rimul's charming vocal work mixes confidently with the confident and ferocious playing of guitarists Mathias Nylenna, bassist Lasse Berg and drummer Morten Samdal, and finds the band in league with contemporaries like The Beths, Tigers Jaw, Girl In Red and Paramore, and even Superchunk, Weezer and The Get Up Kids.

It's no surprise then that among their fans it's easy to find aging parents of young children who long for the sweet nostalgia of their glory days as well as young hipsters who have embraced the aesthetics and charm of melodic guitars and catchy singalongs that wouldn't have been out of place in the '90s.

Onsloow was produced by Marius Ergo (Lukestar, Truls and The Trees, Insomniac Bears), and the album is proceeded by the album's first single, "Overthinking," which was launched to rave reviews in the British music press, a second single, "A Good Day to Forget," which is currently on heavy rotation with NRK-P13, Norway's BBC 6 equivalent.

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North Mississippi Allstars (featuring William Bell) - Never Want To Be Kissed.

North Mississippi Allstars will release Set Sail on January 28th via New West Records. The 10-song set was produced by Luther and Cody Dickinson and follows their Grammy Award nominated 2019 album Up and Rolling. Set Sail features an appearance by Stax Records legend William Bell on the album standout “Never Want To Be Kissed” (which Bell also co-wrote and co-produced). The album has already been met with critical acclaim with Uncut Magazine stating, "Bloodlines and geography figure into every NMAs album, but on Set Sail, Luther and Cody Dickinson make family and setting the conjoined theme..." in their 8 out 10 Star rated review.

The “Never Want To Be Kissed” video which was shot at William Bell’s recording studio outside of Atlanta, GA.  Luther Dickinson said of working with Bell, “He had the whole plot of the song conceptualized, as if it was a movie. I’ve never seen a song written like that before. Usually, for me, story lines unfold as they are written. We simply helped William turn the plot into lyrics and added music but we were truly only helping William realize his vision. We recorded a voice memo at the session and built the song up from there. Some of the audio on the record is from the original voice memo. It’s an honor to work with a living legend and soul music pioneer.” William Bell said, “Luther and Cody are my kind of people, locked in the tradition of Blues and Soul stories and songs. Pure perfectionists at their craft!” See the Cartter Fontaine-directed “Never Want to Be Kissed” Video HERE.

After 25 years, twelve albums, four Grammy Award nominations, and sold out shows everywhere, North Mississippi Allstars open up their world once again on Set Sail, welcoming other family into the fold. As sons of the legendary producer and musician Jim Dickinson, Luther and Cody Dickinson started the band in 1996 as a loose collective of like-minded second-generation musicians who shared a local repertoire and regional style. Over the years, the lineup has shifted by design, and with Set Sail, they mined the talents of Jesse Williams on bass and Lamar Williams, Jr., the son of Allman Brothers bassist Lamar Williams, Sr, on vocals. During the Allman Betts Band Family Revival, the Dickinsons first linked up with Lamar, becoming fast friends and collaborators, paving the way for Set Sail.

“The chemistry we have with this lineup is powerful,” observes Luther. “We are all second-generation musicians and share a telepathic, relaxed ease about creating and performing. I believe music is a form of communion with our loved ones and conjuring this vibe with members of musical families can be inspirational. Lamar and I are like-minded. I’ve never had the pleasure of working with a singing partner like Lamar. He has a true-blue quality in his musicality that will pull you in and break your heart. At the same time, Jesse grew up playing music with his brothers and his father—as did we. He plays like a sibling. I’m drawn to musical families, regardless of style. Playing with second- or third-generation players allows us an easy unspoken musical dialog. It’s not a big thing; it’s just what we do. We never had to figure out what it means and takes to be a musician. We all inherently know.” He continues, “Each generation has to reinvent itself and shed the skin of the elders. On Set Sail, we feel as if we’ve once again ‘broken the code,’ and know what we want and how to get it.”

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