Not for the Masses...Best of June 2015

Mini Jupe - The Killer

Astral Swans
All My Favorite Singers Are Willie Nelson

Equally inspired by serene 60’s folk, 80’s no-wave alienation, and the insouciance of 90’s grunge, Astral Swans’ music is spacious yet constrained, hauntingly personal and oddly sincere. The skeletal “Let Their Faces All Blur Out” races softly with the punk rock abandon of early Sonic Youth and Eric’s Trip; “What Calms You Down, Freaks Me Out” bears the ominous pleasance of Syd Barrett, Arthur Russell, Nick Drake, and fellow Calgarian Chad VanGaalen. More structured than Swann’s Extra Happy Ghost!!! project (produced by VanGaalen), this album’s experimental spirit denies the haphazard “singer-songwriter” label that some might attach to Astral Swans.
 
Set for release on Dan Mangan’s Madic Records on February 24, these twelve songs lavish in Swann’s startlingly sardonic reflections, in his own words, “confronting our strange ways of experiencing personhood, in the moral gorge between ideals and inadequacies”. Tracked live in Swann’s living room, and later embellished in an old Calgary warehouse with local experimental/improv mainstay Brad Hawkins (Ghostkeeper), All My Favorite Singers Are Willie Nelson is flawed if not for its air of accidental perfection, normalizing existential struggle with rhythm and harmony, a natural marriage of the sweet to the acrid.
 
More Media Reaction for Astral Swan’s You Carry A Sickness/Park Street 7 Inch
 
“introspective late 60s folk à la Nick Drake filtered through an avant-garde 90s lens” NOW Magazine
 
“a deftly composed, razor-sharp hook wrapped in ectoplasmic ecstasy — a ghastly beautiful exhumation of cryptic poetics and dirge-laden, yet comforting singsong” Beatroute
 
“unembellished vocals float atop a spectral reverie, anchored by sparse percussion and permeated by rays of ’60s-organ sunshine” Weird Canada
 
“a haunting lo-fi hymn”  The Georgia Straight

02 Beginning Of The End

From: LIDS - TER034 

Telephoneexplosion.com

LIDS - Sarsfest

Produced by Dead Stars
Recorded and Mixed by Jeff Berner
Mastered by Alex Deturk
Artwork: JAM

2016 Weird Tree Records

Bright Colors

Calm Punk

Buy on iTunes

Built To Spill's new album 'Untethered Moon' is now available. Order at http://builttospill.com/untetheredmoon. Find your local record store at http://www.recordstoreday.com/Venues.

Order Untethered Moon:
Official Store- http://smarturl.it/btsue
Google Play- http://smarturl.it/bts.google
iTunes- http://smarturl.it/bts.itunes

Never Be The Same

Never Be the Same

Download

Assed Out 7" available 7/3 via Shea Stadium Records
http://sheastadiumrecords.com

Produced & Mixed by Adam Reich
Recorded & Engineered by Joe Pecora, Red Room Studios Staten Island NY
Mastered by Mike Tucci at The Engine Room

Assed Out

From the new album, "Restless Ones" available June 15 (UK) / June 16 (US).

Pre-order:
iTunes: ptsnre.co/RestlessOnesiT
Amazon: ptsnre.co/RestlessOnesAmazon
PTSN store: ptsnre.co/RestlessOnesLPCD

#restlessones: restlessones.net/

Official Site: www.theheartlessbastards.com/
Facebook: www.facebook.com/heartlessbastards
Instagram: instagram.com/heartlessbastards/
Twitter: twitter.com/heartlessbstrds

Partisan Artist Page: www.partisanrecords.com/artists/heart…ess-bastards/

Heartless Bastards - Black Cloud

Amanda Berry

Palehound's full length debut "Dry Food"
available August 14th, 2015 on LP and Digital

pre-order at www.explodinginsoundrecords.bandcamp.com/album/dry-food

first 150 copies on limited edition "sunny side up" vinyl

Palehound - Molly

Pre-order 
LP, CD or limited edition cream vinyl - http://smarturl.it/GirlsNames.ToughLove 
iTunes - http://radi.al/AAAViTunes

Northern Ireland’s Girls Names return this autumn with their third full-length album, Arms Around a Vision, due for an October 2nd release via long-term home, Tough Love Records.

PRESS RELEASE:
“We look to Europe for inspiration. For romance. For the idea of a better life,” says the band’s frontman, Cathal Cully, when discussing the album. “For me, living in Belfast just makes you focus on your own art.”

True, Girls Names formed in Belfast, but they’ve long considered themselves a European band. The distinction is important – their vision of Europe is one of weird, labyrinthian histories, blackest-ever-black coffee, and long drives to dismal places. Romantic notions for those of a certain disposition, but behind the thousand-yard stares they’ve always been a soft-hearted lot. As the title of Arms Around a Vision would suggest, they’re all set to let love in.  

The band initially came together as a relatively lean two-piece back in the summer of 2010, but over the course of a handful of EPs and three very different albums, they’ve grown in number and ambition. Their last album, The New Life, was an unexpected underground hit in early 2013, taking the band around the world and garnering much critical praise, culminating in nominations for both the Northern Irish and Irish Music Prizes. Emboldened by the reception to that record, in March they returned with an 11-minute single that was played in full on Radio 1 and, typically, does not feature on their new album. Girls Names like to do things a little differently. 

On Arms Around a Vision, they’re more widescreen than ever but also more direct and aggressive. The bass, drums and guitars are still there, but so are saxophones, organs, detuned broken guitars and pianos, and even sheets of metal assaulted with hammers. Conceptually, Arms Around a Vision acts as a love letter to European elegance – Italian futurism, Russian constructivism, Germany’s Zero Group and both Neubaten and Bowie’s Berlin. 

Love and pain, romance and fucking. It’s all in there somewhere. Grand claims, perhaps, but in an ever bleak world, why not skygaze? The album opens with ‘Reticence’, a song in two parts that’s half metallic knockout, half midnight swagger. It sounds unlike anything they’ve ever done before, and is a perfect primer for an album that treads a course between Eno-era Roxy sleaze, Birthday Party dissonance and M.E.S’ three R’s: repetition, repetition, repetition.  

As confident as it sounds, hardship has equally played a role in shaping Arms Around a Vision. “I'm not starving or anything, but I've practically been living hand to mouth since I was 22,” confirms Cully. “Most guitar music now is just a playground for the rich middle classes and it's really boring and elitist. We're elitist in our own way, in that we're on our own and you can't fuck with us when we’ve nothing to lose”. The near-6 minute ‘A Hunger Artist’ tackles that subject full on, addressing that age old adage of suffering for one’s art.

While the songs aren’t narrative-driven as such – the band still generally favour abstraction and ambiguity – there is a consistent underlying message: “We've got nothing. We’ve never had anything. And we don't expect to. The only person I ever wanted to impress was myself. I've never got anywhere close to succeeding in doing that until this album. I'm proud of it. I think I can start saying I'm a musician now.”

Tracklisting:

1. Reticence
2. An Artificial Spring
3. Desire Oscillations
4. (Obsession)
5. Chrome Rose
6. A Hunger Artist
7. Málaga
8. Dysmorphia
9. (Convalescence)
10. Exploit Me
11. Take Out the Hand
12. I Was You 


iTunes pre-order

Girls Names - Reticence

Single from the forthcoming Dope Body album Kunk, Out August 28th!

Dope Body-"Old Grey"

Specialized

Nonsense - Frantic Mall Mom / G.O.L.
///
http://nonsenseny.bandcamp.com/album/s-t-2

Nonsense - Frantic Mall Mom / G.O.L.

DONE - Slash Fiction
///
http://donewithmusic.bandcamp.com/album/fuckups-i

DONE - Slash Fiction

Collection of interesting or cool stuff I find from bands, blogs and record labels. Sharing is caring, but don't forget to support the artists. 

Not for the Masses...Best of June 2015

The Fire Note Presents: Not for the Masses...