Songs We Like - October 2019

No Weaknesses is taken from the forthcoming 7" from The Dirty Nil. 

Buy on iTunes: http://geni.us/noweaknesses

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The Dirty Nil - No Weaknesses

This Party

The Future Is Here

Spectre

Joanna

One thing you won’t be able to avoid on Bambara’s Stray is death. It’s everywhere and inescapable, abstract and personified  – perhaps the key to the whole record. Death, however, won’t be the first thing that strikes you about the group’s fourth – and greatest – album to date. That instead will be its pulverising soundscape; by turns, vast, atmospheric, cool, broiling and at times – on stand out tracks like “Sing Me To The Street” and “Serafina” – simply overwhelming
 
Bambara – twin brothers Reid and Blaze Bateh, singer/guitarist and drummer respectively, and bassist William Brookshire – have been evolving their midnight-black noise into something more subtle and expansive ever since the release of their 2013 debut Dreamviolence. That process greatly accelerated on 2018’s Shadow On Everything, their first on New York’s Wharf Cat Records and  a huge stride forward for the band both lyrically and sonically. 
 
The album was rapturously received by the press, listeners and their peers. NPR called it a “mesmerising...western, gothic opus,” Bandcamp called the "horror-house rampage" "one of the year's most gripping listens," and Alexis Marshall of Daughters named it his “favorite record of 2018.”  Shadow also garnered much acclaim on the other side of the Atlantic. Influential British 6Music DJ Steve Lamacq, dubbed them the best band of 2019’s SXSW, and Joe Talbot of the UK band IDLES said, "The best thing I heard last year was easily Bambara and their album Shadow On Everything."  The question was, though, how to follow it?
 
To start, the band did what they always do: they locked themselves in their windowless Brooklyn basement to write. Decisions were made early on to try and experiment with new instrumentation and song structures, even if the resulting compositions would force the band to adapt their storied live set, known for its tenacity and technical prowess. Throughout the songwriting process, the band pulled from their deep well of creative references, drawing on the likes of Leonard Cohen, Ennio Morricone, Sade, classic French noir L’Ascenseur Pour L’Echafraud, as well as Southern Gothic stalwarts Flannery O’Connor and Harry Crews.
 
Once the building blocks were set in place, they met with producer Drew Vandenberg, who mixed Shadow On Everything, in Athens, GA to record the foundation of Stray. After recruiting friends Adam Markiewicz (The Dreebs) on violin, Sean Smith (Klavenauts) on trumpet and a crucial blend of backing vocals by Drew Citron (Public Practice) and Anina Ivry-Block (Palberta), Bambara convened in a remote cabin in rural Georgia, where Reid laid down his vocals.
 
The finished product represents both the band's most experimental and accessible work to date. The addition of Citron and Ivory-Block’s vocals create a hauntingly beautiful contrast to Bateh’s commanding  baritone on tracks like “Sing Me to the Street”, “Death Croons” and “Stay Cruel," while the Dick Dale inspired guitar riffs on “Serafina” and "Heat Lightning" and the call-and-response choruses throughout the album showcase Bambara’s ability to write songs that immediately demand repeat listens.
 
While the music itself is evocative and propulsive, a fever dream all of its own, the lyrical content pushes the record even further into its own darkly thrilling realm. If the songs on Shadow On Everything were like chapters in a novel, then this time they’re short stories. Short stories connected by death and its effect on the characters in contact with it. “Death is what you make it” runs a lyric in “Sweat,” a line which may very well be the thread  that ties  these stories together.

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Bambara - Serafina (from the 'Stray' album out 2/14)

ANIMAL

Self Released 01/10/2019
Songwriters: Millie Duthie, Mitch Duce, Danny Southwell, Dan Hole 
Engineer/Producer: Josh (Hoagie) Harrison
Artwork: Sapphire Needham
MGMT: mhowes@theorchard.com

Two Sense

Death Stranding

Loosie

The Shadow I Remember

Am I Something

Sleater-Kinney first emerged from Olympia, WA in 1994. The group’s 1997 landmark album, Dig Me Out, earned a spot on Rolling Stone’s “The 500 Greatest Albums of All Time.” During 2015, they returned from a decade-long hiatus with the triumphant No Cities To Love, which closed out 2015 on dozens of year-end lists, reaching #1 for The Daily Beast and The Skinny. In 2019, they teamed up with St. Vincent to produce The Center Won’t Hold followed by a North American and European tour with multiple sold-out dates. Path of Wellness, their tenth studio and first self-produced album was released last year before embarking on a summer co-headlining tour with Wilco that included iconic venues such as Red Rocks, Merriweather Post Pavilion, and more. To commemorate 25 years of their iconic record, Dig Me Out, the band gathered artists across genres to reimagine the 13 original tracks. Artists include Courtney Barnett, St. Vincent, Wilco, The Linda Lindas, NNAMDÏ, Jason Isbell and Amanda Shires, and more. Their most recent record to date, Dig Me In: A Dig Me Out Covers Album was released on October 21, 2022.

We are not music snobs. We prefer music connoisseurs.

ANIMAL

Sleater-Kinney

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