Indie Pop 17

After one year of Covid, we highlight the songs our artists have created during quarantine. Featuring new tracks from Deerhoof, Ohmme, Kishi Bashi & El Ten Eleven, plus an interview & music from the infamous Rob Crow (Pinback, Goblin Cock, Optiganally Yours, Thingy, Anal Trump, etc.).

Hosted by Karl Hofstetter, founder and curator of Joyful Noise Recordings.

Background music by Dumb Numbers, Joan of Arc, and Thor & Friends.

Intro by David Woodruff, featuring music by El Ten Eleven.

For more, visit joyfulnoiserecordings.com

Joyful Noise Radio Hour - Episode 3, with Rob Crow

snowflyer - ep

From the album Freedays, released by Joyful Noise Recordings, 2/17/17.

To say that Mike Savino is an innovator would be an understatement. Touring under the moniker Tall Tall Trees, the banjo-wielding bard has reshaped the landscape of what is possible with the instrument. On stage and in studio, Savino breaks down the banjo into its most basic iteration, reminding audiences that the banjo is, at root, a drum. Coupled with his mastery of electronic effects, loops, toy ray guns, and heaps of spontaneous creativity, Tall Tall Trees has been encapsulating audience members worldwide with his mystifying solo shows, as well as playing alongside fellow innovator Kishi Bashi.  

His latest album Freedays is, in a way, his debut album. Having recorded two previous albums in a traditional collaborative band setting, Freedays is the first album Savino wrote and recorded as a solo project. Beginning in 2015, Savino took a much-needed respite from New York City, where he had spent a decade and a half honing his craft, and assumed the role of sole caretaker at an abandoned health retreat nestled in the green mountains of northern Georgia. The Bird’s Nest, as it was called, completely surrounded by national forest, provided the freedom and space to work without time constraints or interruption. 

Composed and recorded over a period of eight months, Freedays tells the story of a man in transition and documents an artist alone at the crossroads of the life he has and the one he wants. The album begins with “Backroads”, which drops the listener into a darkened forest amidst a chorus of wailing coyotes and quickly takes off on a midnight drive. Tracks like “Being There”, “A Place to Call Your Own”, and “CLC” provide an honest look into the author’s thought process and decision making. Although it’s often hard to imagine, most of the sounds on the album are experiments with the banjo, and they all reflect the innovative musings of one of the freshest sounds to come out of the Appalachians in decades.

Purchase 'Freedays' here: http://joyfulnoi.se/Freedays

Purchase The Album

Tall Tall Trees - Backroads

From the album "Moh Lhean", released on Joyful Noise Recordings 3/3/17.
Get the album here: http://joyfulnoi.se/MohLhean
Tickets at http://www.mohlhean.com

WHY? - This Ole King

"He's Got The Whole This Land Is Your Land In His Hands" releases on Joyful Noise Recordings January 20th, 2017.

Order here: http://joyfulnoi.se/newJoanofArc

He's Got The Whole This Land Is Your Land in His Hands

Joan Of Arc - Full Moon And Rainbo Repair

Round The Bend

Download via bandcamp at: https://3dfriends.bandcamp.com/track/seventeen
Also available on iTunes, Spotify, CDBaby and more.

Written and recorded by Dan C. Wright
Mixed and mastered by Ethan Kaufmann
Photo by Pagan Gold

Lyrics: 

I was seventeen a long time ago, I thought everything would work out.
But I lost everything some time ago, 
I was all in, and now I'm all out. 

I'm standing on the edge I'm looking down. 
I'm listening to rain. 

Well only this song can save me now 
so let's hear it again. 

Well people understand that what you get, depends on what you put out. 
I've been chasing after this so long, I thought I was one who would stand out. 

I left everyone just for this town, 
I wonder if I'll make it out. 

Only my self can stop me now, 
and he's the one I'm breaking down. 

If only, you could, see me now. 

I've been fearing time is running out, 
well it's about time that it begins. 

'cause i've been hearing that it's my time now 
but we never know when the clock ends. 

I'm missing the life I had back then, 
and everyone I love. 

and everything I do, I do it for them, 
I wish it was enough. 
I know it's not enough. 

If only, you could, see me now. 

If this is our only life, 
then I just wanna live it right. 
If this is our only life, 
then I just wanna be by your side.

Seventeen

'Dépaysement' is the sound of being somewhere far, far away from home. It hums with the shock of being suddenly alone—in a place where no one cares who you are or what you’re doing.

On their debut album, Melbourne band Foreign/National sound enlivened. Having worked tirelessly on a string of acclaimed singles since the release of their self-titled EP in 2014, the band have embraced the longer format with open arms and a healthy dose of ambition.

From the opening bars of its titular track to the haunting death-rattle of ‘22’, the album’s closer, the band weave their way through a sprawling narrative with fresh lucidity.

“I swear I used to be a confident man. What happened to the confident man?” asks frontman Mark Gage on ‘Too Sentimental’, the LP’s first single, sifting through a distant memory—or perhaps a fading fantasy— with uncompromising honesty.

On ‘Mombasa’, we hear cues from Brian Wilson and Kamuran Akkor and as always, the sound of bassist Sean Gage and drummer Rhys Grunden sticking together like liquid nails, hurling the record forward with impossibly tight rhythmic interplay.

On keys, Sam Stearne brings palpable tension to ‘Ballerina’, and imbues ‘Nicole Warren’ with a gorgeous sense of weightlessness. Tom Stephenson, similarly omnipresent and shapeshifting, reaches dizzying heights of slacker ecstasy on ‘Sunny Afternoon’ and ‘Never Really’.

More than anything, however, ‘Dèpaysement’ shines as a product of undeniable chemistry and collective devotion. This is an album of songs that have lived many lives and taken many forms, but now feel strangely familiar and at home together.

Foreign/National’s debut LP, Dépaysement, will be released February 3 through DOWNTIME.

ARTWORK: Alex Jennings ( www.ajayjennings.com )

Mombasa

Soundtrack to the inauguration / apocalypse. 
Available now: http://joyfulnoi.se/NewJoanOfArc

Featuring such classic lyrical content as:
"I've had a 26-year old girlfriend since the day that I turned eleven",
"I know how the nicest guy in ISIS feels",
and, "I'm going to kill the little Hitler in my heart."

Joan of Arc - Smooshed That Cocoon

I Give You Power

Chronic Sunshine

Psychic Temple - Turn Off The Lights

In 1970, Southern soul music maverick Jerry Williams, Jr. made the most radical move of his career. Frustrated with music business politics Williams reinvented himself as Swamp Dogg, an irreverent anti-hero smashing the conventions of commercial R&B music. Swamp Dogg’s debut release Total Destruction to Your Mind featured a post-apocalyptic take on the Muscle Shoals’ sound, with lyrics inspired by the revolutionary politics and psychedelic drugs of the late ‘60s. The music on Total Destruction to Your Mind stood worlds apart from the formulaic pop tunes Williams started cutting in 1954 under the name Little Jerry, and Swamp Dogg hasn’t looked back since. 

But the music business wasn’t ready for Swamp Dogg, nor was the rest of America. His bizarre album titles and wild cover art turned the average consumer off, while his subversive lyrics earned him a spot on Richard Nixon’s infamous enemies list. Swamp Dogg was not deterred. He seemed to relish operating from the margins of the music business, consequently becoming one of the quintessential outsider figures in American music. 

Now, nearly fifty years after his debut release, Swamp Dogg stands on the precipice of another radical reinvention. His latest creation, Love, Loss, and Auto-Tune, is a nine song collection featuring production by Poliça’s Ryan Olson, and finds Swamp Dogg’s bluesy southern soul colliding head-on with 21st Century electronic music production techniques.

Love, Loss, and Auto-Tune

LP/CD/Digital

I'll Pretend

This is an unauthorized mashup of Alan Watts' "Do You Do It or Does It Do You?" and Sigur Rós "Liminal Sleep". Best experienced while sleeping or in an altered state of consciousness.

The Pattern (Alan Watts & Sigur Rós)

Featuring new and unreleased tracks from Joyful Noise Recordings, plus a candid and philosophical interview with Tim Kinsella. 

Songs from: Sleep Party People, Swamp Dogg, jess joy, Danielson, Kishi Bashi, Dale Crover, Anal Trump, Alan Watts & Sigur Rós, Big Business, and Joan of Arc. 

Background music by El Ten Eleven, Joan of Arc, and Dale Crover. 

For more, visit joyfulnoiserecordings.com

Joyful Noise Radio Hour - Episode 1, with Tim Kinsella

Featuring new and unreleased tracks from Joyful Noise Recordings, plus an interview with our artist and friend Dale Crover (aka, legendary drummer of the Melvins, Nirvana, Redd Kross, etc.). 

Songs from: Paul Leary, Serengeti, The Ophelias, Dumb Numbers, Joshua Virtue, Toshi Kasai, Dale Crover, and Melvins. 

Intro by David Woodruff, featuring music by El Ten Eleven.

Background music by El Ten Eleven, Joan of Arc, and Thor & Friends. 

For more, visit joyfulnoiserecordings.com

Joan of Arc - Smooshed That Cocoon

Joyful Noise Recordings

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