We caught up with legendary producer Adrian Sherwood on the heels of his latest effort behind the boards: Horace Andy’s new album, Midnight Scorchers.
“I’m just very, very proud of it. We didn’t rush it. We spent two years making it. We started it before lockdown. And we kept improving it, so I was sending Horace back and forth to Jamaica. Let’s do this better. Let’s do this again.”
Nearly a decade from the release of Labor, Bob Keal’s Small Sur project has returned with the remarkable Attic Room. Presented is a deeply personal record capturing slivers of life from the father, teacher, woodworker, and songwriter. Keal showcases an ability to take a second in time – “A thundercloud unfolding after the rain,” “I’ll have one last cigarette then lie down to rest,” “the silhouette in space formed by the morning sun” – and expand it into a landscape of abstraction.
For the uninitiated Tommy McLain’s music has been categorized as Swamp Pop. A term that was popularized by author John Broven in his wonderfully enthusiastic and extremely well researched book about the depth and range of the music of the Bayous of Louisiana entitled “South To Louisiana”. His songs have the emotional feel of soul music, the distinct melodies of the back country and certainly the rhythms of New Orleans R&B. But when he starts singing his voice grabs your attention, draws you in and you don’t want to be any where else.
On their self-titled album as Mess Esque, Helen Franzmann and Mick Turner generate poignant and skeletal melodies that float in a self-contained dream pop universe. They joined us to discuss tuning their approach to each other and more.
Experimental guitarist Oren Ambarchi is one of music’s most prolific and inventive collaborators, working with everyone from Keith Rowe and Keiji Haino to Jim O’Rourke and Merzbow in largely improvised sessions, then layering the results into intricate constructed pieces that blur the boundaries between jazz, noise, rock, minimalism, drone and electronics.
His tenth full-length, Heartmind at times feels like a representation of Cass McCombs’ own wandering mindset. While the album’s eight songs vary in tone and style, they all seem to hold a common thread, whether lyrically or musically. It’s an album that McCombs couldn’t have intended to make precisely, as to direct himself toward it, would’ve been to betray his own ambitions.
In a longform, career-spanning conversation, Tim Kinsella of Cap’n Jazz, discusses the Gimme Altamont project with Jenny Pulse, writing “systems” instead of songs, acting, and more.
In the liner notes of Cass McCombs’ tenth full-length album Heartmind is a rambling paragraph that hides within it a depiction of the creation process: “If I direct myself, I betray my direction, so I keep walking..” McCombs seems to be telling a story about caroming about the streets of San Francisco, but it’s also something akin to a lost Oblique Strategy. Within the album’s classic run-time of 8 songs and 43 minutes is a genuine attempt at avoiding betraying direction and attempting to understand more of the world around us.
More than four decades into it, punk gentleman Tav Falco is still on the road, still tapping into flowing channels of primal rock & roll. Fresh off last year’s release of Club Car Zodiac, he’s united The Panther Burns for the “Rogue Male” tour, and plotting a course through the U.S. Ahead of the shows, Jared Artaud of The Vacant Lots/Alan Vega Archive caught up with Falco to discuss his recent work, relationship with Alex Chilton, and the fractured state of the union.
Hiroshi Asada’s Greetings From Nashville (You Who’s In My Mind) turned 50 this year, the artist’s expressive aural love letter to Country Music and America. Spoken of reverentially by fans and artists from Japan and beyond, the LP was cut in Nashville at the Acuff-Rose studio with a grip of the industry’s most in-demand session players including members of Nashville’s Area Code 615.
If time is a flat circle, the members of Oneida have figured out how to toss it like a frisbee. Nearly a quarter century since their debut album, the avant-rock quintet have returned with one of the most straightforward, riff-heavy records in their vast discography: Success. Bobby Matador and Kid Millions join us to discuss the record, the band’s history, and the Grateful Dead.
On the heels of his latest and seventh long-player, This Is A Photograph, we caught up with Kevin Morby to discuss Memphis, Butterflies, and his appreciation for someone who died 25 years ago. Hallelujah! Hallelujah.
For his most recent OSEES album, A Foul Form, John Dwyer shifts again, this time revisiting the punk and hardcore that shaped his Rhode Island adolescence. And since he’s looking back, it seemed like a good time for us to look back, too, in an interview that spans the Dwyer career so far, from Providence skate punk to SF garage rock to Castle Face honcho to free improv experimenter.
Stringed-thing wizard and tireless sonic explorer Joseph Allred is in the process of moving back to the only place that truly feels like home: The verdant sliver of rural Tennessee that inspired their new album The Rambles & Rags of Shiloh, a collection of 10 gorgeous instrumental works for acoustic guitar and banjo. We recently connected with Allred for a wide-ranging chat about Black Sabbath, Buck Gooter, being a hillbilly in a big city and finding a sense of belonging in music.
The hymn of images is difficult to convey. Daughn Gibson has returned. His first new music in six years. We caught up with him to talk about his new EP, Kriminelle Energie. What was difficult now seems easy. He sings for us. Stay tuned.