The Heavy's new album, 'AMEN', is out now.

Stream/buy it now at https://theheavyuk.lnk.to/AMEN and buy tickets for the band's 2023 UK/EU tour dates at https://theheavy.co.uk/.

Sign up for news and updates from the band at https://laylo.com/theheavy.  

Follow The Heavy: 

Facebook: https://TheHeavy.lnk.to/FacebookID
Twitter: https://TheHeavy.lnk.to/TwitterID
Instagram: https://TheHeavy.lnk.to/TwitterIN

http://theheavy.co.uk/

South Soul Project
Introducing South Soul Project, a hot new collective from London that are swiftly making a name for themselves on the bass music circuit.  With their unique production style they are become well know for their genre busting new-school house & garage sound.

South Soul Project were recently picked up by one of the most exciting independent UK labels - Black Butter; who are best known for being the home of last years biggest breakthrough electronic act – Rudimental.  With numerous releases and remixes lined up for 2013, including an amazing remix of Lana Del Rey’s latest single ‘Summertime Sadness’, remix on AUS, and an EP in progress for Hypercolour.

Sound & Color – the follow-up to Alabama Shakes’ Gold-certified debut album, Boys & Girls, which earned the group three GRAMMY® nominations, including a nod for Best New Artist – will be released in North America on April 21 by ATO Records. Rough Trade will release the album in the UK/Europe on April 20. 

Sound & Color demonstrates the tremendous strides made by Alabama Shakes since the release of 2012’s Boys & Girls. From the gently swaying, chiming title song to the garage-rock freak-out on “The Greatest” to the psychedelic space jam “Gemini,” Alabama Shakes build on the soulful blues-rock base and map a surprising, innovative new direction. 

“We took our time to write this record, and I’m really glad we did,” says lead singer/guitarist Brittany Howard. “We were able to sit down and think about what’s exciting to us. This record is full of genre-bending songs.”

Sound & Color was recorded at Nashville’s Sound Emporium studio. The band co-produced the album with Blake Mills—a young guitar wizard who has helmed sessions by Sara Watkins and Sky Ferreira, and played alongside everyone from Norah Jones and the Dixie Chicks to Lana Del Ray and Kid Rock. 

The success of Boys & Girls paved the way for Alabama Shakes – comprising lead singer/guitarist Brittany Howard, guitarist Heath Fogg, bassist Zac Cockrell, drummer Steve Johnson, and touring keyboard players Ben Tanner and Paul Horton – to become one of the most celebrated live acts in the world, as they delivered unforgettable performances everywhere from “Saturday Night Live” to the main stages of festivals like Bonnaroo and Glastonbury. Boys & Girls charted in the Top 10 in both the U.S. and the U.K. and "Hold On," the Gold-certified lead single, was voted the #1 Best Song of 2012 by Rolling Stone.


https://phantogram.komi.io/

Fall In Love Again (Desmond Remix) Out Now
Move In Silence feat. Big Boi Out Now

Sparked by a color or song that recalls the most joyful and tragic moments in your life, a sense memory vaults you into the distant past. These subtle triggers remind us that memory isn’t confined to the mind; it lives in the body, too. Phantogram’s fifth album, Memory of a Day, captures that disorienting sense of time travel. “We put these songs together as a capsule, thinking about how a certain sound or melody can bring you back instantly to a memory of a day,” Phantogram says. 

While they were recording, the duo fixated on life calendars, a gridded sheet in which each unit represents a single week of a person’s life on the planet. As you fill in the grid, you witness the progression of your life in stark terms. The older you get, the darker the grid becomes, reminding you of how much time you have lived, and how little you may have left. “It’s this exploded view,” Phantogram says. “Like an image of Earth from a distance.” The life calendar is both morbid and nostalgic, a physical representation of our ephemeral time on Earth. 

“Days are only numbers,” Sarah Barthel sings on the chorus of “Come Alive.” That lyric became a north star for the duo as they set forth to make Memory of a Day. At once heavy and ebullient, “Come Alive” distills the lasting impact Phantogram has made on popular culture. Since their 2010 debut, Eyelid Movies, Phantogram has been comparable to no one, futurists who still manage to stay ahead of the curve more than a decade into their career. Their genre-bending approach to pop has led them to work with everyone, from Big Boi, with whom they founded Big Grams, to Subtronics, Future Islands, Deftones, the Flaming Lips, Tom Morello, and Miley Cyrus, to name just a few. A festival staple across the globe, Phantogram has also toured with Queens of the Stone Age, Arcade Fire, the XX, and many more. “We’ve always been proud of that: not being afraid of the experimental.”

Though their music has always been future-facing, to make Memory of a Day, Phantogram looked back. “Recording this album, it felt like how it did when we first started making music together,” Phantogram says. Alongside special collaborators like Mikky Ekko and Dan Wilson, Phantogram was joined in the studio by producer John Hill, who helmed Phantogram’s second album, Voices. The duo experimented in the studio and indulged in the music that brought them together in the beginning, artists such as J Dilla, Prince, Slowdive, and so much more. They reference new wave acts like the Talking Heads, ESG, and Liquid Liquid as influences on the percussive punk track “Feedback Invisible,” which is followed by the wistful burst of color “Attaway.” It’s a shoegaze song so sumptuous “you can almost see the grain in the guitar sounds.” 

Phantogram think in images when they write, drawing on scenes from films that linger with them years on. “Ever since Eyelid Movies, our work has been visually driven,” Phantogram says. In the video for the fuzzed-out waltz “All a Mystery,” snippets of human lives coalesce into a montage of experience. “Erase all the tapes in my mind/ Throw them all away,” Barthel sings, accompanied by a bittersweet swell of synths. “Turn back the tables of time/ Let all those memories die.” A swirl of memories, both triumphant and tragic, surface on Memory of a Day. “Come Alive” was written after Barthel experienced a transformative live show on her own, while the title track recounts the moment Josh Carter had to put his dog down. “It’s what you wanted, but couldn’t say,” he sings. “I’m not afraid of dying or what it feels like”

The album’s penultimate track, “Happy Again,” is a thrumming, bass-heavy rock song with a chorus that sounds like a wave crashing against the sand. “Another empty summer sunset/ Feeling homesick,” Barthel sings ahead of the bridge, her voice catching on the breezy, luminous production. “Can you believe this is your life?” It’s a moment of realization Phantogram compares to the dour scene in Forrest Gump, where Lieutenant Dan, “mega depressed and drunk,” throws a bummer New Year’s Eve party. Still, the song ends with an enlivening mantra. “I can be happy again,” Barthel repeats as guitars careen and crash. If days are only numbers, then how else can a person measure a life? On “Ashes,” the answer seems to be in moments of resilience. Based on the adage “you came into this world alone and you’ll leave it alone,” the throbbing production infused with elements of trip hop, shoegaze and indie accompanies Barthel as she reminds the listener: “Ashes rise, ashes rise.”

When they penned the lyrics, Phantogram thought of the mythical phoenix spreading its wings after catastrophe to take flight. The vulnerable, even despairing moments on Memory of a Day are stark, but they’re buoyed by a relentless optimism that has driven this project from the outset. In the Los Angeles studio where they recorded Memory of a Day, Phantogram often marveled at the distance they’ve come, both physically and spiritually, since they first started making music together in a barn in Upstate New York. “Tomorrow never knows,” Barthel nods to the Beatles on “Come Alive.” The accumulation of days together tell a story bigger than any finite lifetime, and Phantogram’s life calendar is only a fraction full.


SAY HI: THEVOYEURISTMUSIC@YAHOO.COM

http://thevoyeuristmusic.tumblr.com/

jezza_child is following