Last month, I wrote about the Denton, TX-based singer/songwriter and guitarist Claire Morales, and as you may recall, Morales was born into a family of artists and musicians — and unsurprisingly, she began to play music […]
Category: singer/songwriters
New Video: The Gorgeous Visuals for Nicki Bluhm’s Heartbreaking and Tender Ballad “Battlechain Rose”
Nicki Bluhm is a Lafayette, CA-born, Nashville, TN-based singer/songwriter, who’s perhaps best known for a six year stint as the frontwoman of Nicki Blum and The Gramblers, an act that included her ex-husband Tim Bluhm with whom she also released two collaborative albums as a solo artist. Now, if you’ve been frequenting this site over the past few months, you may recall that her recently released, Matt Ross-Spang-produced full-length effort To Rise You Gotta Fall marks the Bluhm’s first solo album in several years, and that the album’s material was influenced by and written one the course of one of the most difficult and life-altering transitions of her life — a period in which she got divorced, The Gramblers went on hiatus and she then followed that all with a seemingly spur of the moment move to Nashville. “These songs are quite personal,” Bluhm says in press notes “They are the conversations I never got to have, the words I never had the chance to say, and the catharsis I wouldn’t have survived without.”
Interestingly, while Bluhm’s relocation to Nashville was a spur of the moment decision, it was influenced by a series of writing sessions that had her frequenting the city. As Bluhm says the city was inspiring “because of all the songwriting going on here. When I could come to Nashville on writing trips, it was just percolating . . . it was intoxicating.” Around the same time, Bluhm met renowned producer, engineer and mixer Matt Ross-Spang, who was in town working on another album, and as the story goes, Ross-Spang and Bluhm quickly hit it off. “I really needed someone who was going to take the reins and have a vision for the album and he really did,” Bluhm says of meeting Ross-Spang. “My ex-husband had been my musical director, co-writer, and producer on all my records except one and I was looking for someone to step into that leadership roll, which Matt did very gracefully. I was looking for a clean slate; the only baggage I wanted to bring into the studio were the words to the songs I was singing. I wanted it to be a fresh experience; I didn’t want to even have history with anyone in the room that would pull me into old habits or ways of thinking. So we agreed we’d record in Memphis.”
Recorded at Sam Phillips Recording, the Rise You Gotta Fall sessions were primarily centered around the live tracking of a backing band of accomplished ringers that included Will Sexton (guitar), Ross-Spang (guitar), Ken Coomer (drums, percussion), Al Gamble (Hammond B3), Rick Steff (piano), Dave Smith (bass), Reba Russell (backing vocals), Susan Marshall (backing vocals), Sam Shoup (string arrangements) and a number of special guests. “We really just recorded live and we didn’t do that many takes of each song,” Bluhm says. “The final versions we ended up with were all one take. It was really refreshing to go analog. It minimized over thinking and second-guessing; forced us all to stay in the moment and play from the heart. . . Throughout the session there was a lot of listening and trusting. Matt really spends time curating his sessions and who he decides to bring in; he knows how to keep the vibe right. What you are hearing is, as Jerry Phillips would say, ‘not perfection but captured moments in time.’”
“I had lost my partner in so many ways,” Bluhm recalls in press notes, “my musical partner, my life partner, my creative partner, and all of a sudden I was left on my own, to start my own engine. It was really intimidating and scary,” she says “but I had support from my management, my agent, my friends and family, and ultimately I just had this guttural drive that I didn’t even know I had in me. I was on auto-pilot, ready to move forward and take the steps I had to take to keep moving forward. When the album finally comes out it’s going to be like setting a caged bird free.” Unsurprisingly, album title track, “To Rise You Gotta Fall” is an effortlessly self-assured track that’s indebted to Memphis and Muscle Shoals-era soul — and as a result the single reminded me quite a bit of Nicole Atkins‘ Goodnight Rhonda Lee and Natalie Prass, complete with a “you-are-there-in-that moment” immediacy and a fully-fleshed out narrator, who has the resiliency and determination that comes from living a complex, messy life, full of struggles, heartbreak, setbacks, small victories and crushing losses — while pointing out that life will always find a way to kick your ass and it will always push you towards wherever you need to be at that particular moment.
The album’s second and latest single, the tender ballad “Battlechain Rose” was co-written with Ryan Adams and as Bluhm told American Songwriter, the song was inspired by a restless night in which her mind wouldn’t stop turning with thoughts of the past, of what she could have and should have done differently, of her inability to move forward and of her despair of knowing that relationship has become a phantom limb of regret and heartache. “Battlechain Rose” is arguably one of To Rise You Gotta Fall’s standout tracks as the song’s arrangement is roomy enough for Bluhm’s effortlessly soulful vocals to simply and earnestly express the heartache at the core of the song — and by far, it has some of the most gorgeous imagery I’ve heard in quite some time. In some way, the song sonically and thematically nods at Bonnie Raitt’s “I Can’t Make You Love Me,” and the oft-mentioned and sadly forgotten Sandra Rhodes solo album Where’s Your Love Been as the sense of loss and ache is both palpable and familiar.
Directed by Scott Sax, the recently released video for “Battlechain Rose” is an incredibly symbolic vision, unsurprisingly centered around the lingering ghosts of a relationship that has ended in an embittering and confusing fashion and its lonely aftermath.
New Video: Introducing the Singular Sound and Vision of Britsh-Nigerian Electronic Music Producer and Artist Tony Njoku
Tony Njoku is a 20-something London-based British-Nigerian electronic music producer, electronic music artist and singer/songwriter whose formative years were split between Lagos and London — and unsurprisingly, his experiences as a globetrotting, international citizen have frequently inspired his material. With the release of his full-length debut Drifting Off In A Care Powered Balloon, Njoku quickly developed a reputation for crafting material that’s been described by some media outlets as “strikingly evocative soundscapes, managing to make even the shortest pop songs sound like epic adventures.”
Njoku’s sophomore effort H.P.A.C. was released earlier this year, and with the album’s latest single “As We Danced” will further cement the British-Nigerian singer/songwriter, electronic music producer and electronic music artist’s reputation for crafting forward-looking electronic music that manages to be challenging yet hook-driven and accessible; in fact, “As We Danced” is centered around a futuristic production featuring layers of shimmering and arpeggiated synths that morph and twist at will, fluttering electronics and Njoku’s tender vocals ethereally floating over the mix, revealing an artist with a singular vision, unlike any other contemporary electronic music artist out there.
Directed by Max Jedwab, the recently released video features Njoku being tugged and pulled in different directions with a rope that’s attached to him — it’s a surrealist vision that emphasizes the tense and anxious nature of the song.
Tim Carr is a Marin County, California-born, Los Angeles, CA-based singer/songwriter, multi-instrumentalist, composer and producer, who grew up within a family of musicians. Unsurprisingly, at an early age, Carr was immersed in music, and as a result, he eventually studied jazz drums at the California Institute of the Arts. After earning a BFA, Carr began working with a number of renowned and notable acts including HAIM, Julian Casablancas, Nick Cave, and Lucinda Williams, among others. Carr can also claim a stint as a member of The Americans, with whom he performed on Late Show With David Letterman. Additionally, as member of The Americans, Carr has recorded with T. Bone Burnett and was featured in the Emmy-nominated documentary American Epic (which was produced by the aforementioned T. Bone Burnett with Jack White and Robert Redford.)
As a solo artist, Carr’s work can be described as minimalist folk, inspired by African rhythms, French Romantics and 60s pop, mixed with instrumentalist melodies — and interestingly enough, his work caught the attention of Robert Redford, who featured material off Carr’s 2016 effort, The Last Day of Fighting on the soundtrack for his movie Watershed alongside material from Beck and Thom Yorke. Carr’s forthcoming EP Swing & Turn is the anticipated follow-up to The Last Day of Fighting, and the EP reportedly derives its name after the feeling of movement, with the material sonically and thematically being a dance between intimacy and independence. The EP’s latest single is the hauntingly beautiful “Take Me There,” which is centered around Carr’s plaintive and tender falsetto, shuffling rhythms, some strummed acoustic guitar and a coda that ends with a bluesy blast of electric guitar, and finds Carr balancing a balladeer/troubadour-liek introspection and thoughtfulness with a cinematic vibe. That shouldn’t be surprising as the song is focuses on the desire to escape apathy, highlighting the difficult but necessary need to either let go and fully love — or to let go of a love, and as a result, the song has a bittersweet air to it.
Perhaps best known for his work drumming in Brooklyn-based bands like Vaura and Tombs, Charlie Schmid is stepping out from behind the drum kit, as a multi-instrumentalist and singer/songwriter of his own right with his solo recording project Del Judas. Schmid’s Del Judas debut Deity slated for a July 13, 2018 release through Primal Architecture Records, and interestingly enough, the album and its respective material is a decided change of sonic direction from his previous work; in fact, Del Judas is largely inspired by a childhood growing up listening to country music — in particular, Johnny Cash, Patsy Cline and Hank Williams. As Schmid says in press notes “I fell in love with Silvertone by Chris Isaak when I was a kid. I always knew i could add to the genre and put my own stamp on this style, but I didn’t feel ready to step out from behind the drum kit until now.”
“Through the Glass” is Deity‘s latest single and while it features Azar Swan’s Zohra Atash contributing gorgeous backing vocals, the single is centered around Schmid’s Chris Isaak-like crooning, a haunting and hushed arrangement of shimmering and twangy guitars played through reverb and delay pedals, gently padded drumming and a propulsive yet unfussy bass line. As Primal Architecture’s label boss Josh Strawn, best known as a member of Azur Swan and Vaura says in press notes, Schmid’s Del Judas debut could very well be “the soundtrack for a future David Lynch film” — and while that is a fair description, I’m also reminded of the work of Daughn Gibson, who also specializes in a spectral yet contemporary take on broodingly dark country; but all of those various comparisons are linked by a sultry and vulnerable sensuality rooted in a desire to enjoy the pleasures of the present moment as a way to escape the pain and ache of the lingering ghosts of one’s past. As Schmid explains, “This record is about the eternal interplay between the sex drive and the death drive. It’s about killing yourself, figuratively and literally. It’s about parts of yourself dying off as you go through different romantic relationships in your life and the rebirth that happens through both sensual pleasure and psychic growth.”
New Video: Alice Merton Returns to Inspire Youthful Rebellion in Visuals for Anthemic EP Single “Lash Out”
Over the past year or so, I’ve written quite a bit about Alice Merton, a Frankfurt-am-Main, Germany-born, Berlin, Germany-based singer/songwriter and pop artist, and as you may recall Merton has lived a rather nomadic life: most of her formative years were spent in Canada but she finished high school in Germany before relocating to England. Unsurprisingly, music managed to be a major part of her life, no matter where she was; in fact, as the story goes, Merton started taking classical piano lessons when she was five, and when she was nine, she was introduced to formal, vocal training. After spending the better part of a decade in classical training, the Frankfurt-am-Main-born, Berlin-based pop artist and singer/songwriter discovered contemporary songwriting during one of her high school courses while in Germany. And from that point onward, Merton went on to study songwriting and began pursuing her dream of becoming a professional singer/songwriter.
Of course, while studying in school, Merton would wind up working with a number of producers on a variety of producers, and finding the right producer, who can both compliment and challenge a singer/songwriter as a true collaborator in the creative process is an increasing rarity. But when she met Berlin-based producer Nicolas Rebscher, Merton quickly recognized that she found a musical match, and so far their collaboration together has been wildly successful — the duo’s swaggering, hook-driven and attention grabbing smash hit debut single, “No Roots,” which was inspired by her nomadic youth held the #1 spot for 2 weeks on the Alternative Radio Charts in the States and held it for 8 weeks in Canada. The song cracked the Top 30 on the pop charts, the Top 15 on the Hot Adult Contemporary charts and entered Billboard Hot 100. Adding to a rapidly growing profile, the song has been synced in a Mini Cooper ad campaign — and earlier this year, she was featured in Rolling Stone‘s “One To Watch” and Billboard‘s “Chartbreaker” section, which has previously featured artists such as Cardi B and Khalid. Also, she’s made the rounds of national, late night TV with appearances on The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon and The Late Late Show with James Corden.
And now, building upon the buzz surrounding her since the release of “No Roots,” Merton’s latest single “Lash Out” is an incredibly hook-driven song centered around a young woman narrator, who feels the need to speak up boldly (and loudly!) about what she wants and needs, about what she’s ready to fight for — and perhaps, more important to confidently answer her needs as she felt fit, in her own way. It’s an earnest, empowering feminist anthem that says to its listener, you better go out there, be bold and get what you deserve because no one else is going to be paying attention or care.
Co-directed by Max Nadolny and Jonas Stark, the recently released video features sequences shot in Berlin and South Africa and focuses on a diverse cast of people, including Merton, who through a series of similar yet very different circumstances have rebelliously broken out against tormentors and social norms.
With the release of her attention grabbing debut single “Lemons & Limes,” which focuses on the relationship between the police and young people, the London-born and-based singer/songwriter and businesswoman Mina Rose has quickly developed a reputation for socially conscious songwriting and a sound that draws from and meshes trip-hop, dub, hip-hop and soul (in particular, the work of Gorillaz, Massive Attack, Gil Scott-Heron, Outkast and Lily Allen), as well as her own background — her mother’s side of the family claims Roman ancestry, including the famous “Queen of Kent Gypsies,” Urania Boswell Lee. Adding to a growing profile, Rose has collaborated with the likes of Tricky and Conducta, has played a set at The Great Escape Festival, and has received airplay from the likes of BBC Radio 1, BBC Radio 1Xtra, as well as nods from the likes of Spotify and Apple Music.
Reportedly, the up-and-coming British artist’s forthcoming EP London Burning finds her translating her own experiences of a changing community into material that’s rooted into present day paradoxes, as well as the consciousness of history and hierarchy in British society. The EP’s latest single is the incredibly cinematic and moody track “Paradise,” which is centered around a Massive Attack and Tricky-like production consisting of soaring strings, stuttering beats and Rose’s ethereal yet sultry vocals — and while seemingly effortless, the song may arguably be among the most ambitious track of her young career. As the British singer/songwriter explains in press notes, “When I visualise the idea of someone getting lost in their own thoughts, I imagine them sitting in a room with red walls,” says Mina Rose. “Paradise’ focuses on our want to make this life as perfect as we can by finding escape, and the fact that a lot of the time it might appear that the easiest way to do that is to shut the world out: whether that’s from taking something heavy or cat fishing online to whatever vices you explore within the four walls of your own space, so as to tackle your demons. ‘Paradise’ is about the idea that if heaven and hell exist on earth, then finding your own heaven here in hell would be the greatest heaven of all.”
New Video: Gospelbeach Returns with a Glorious 70s Rock-Inspired Ode to California
Last year, I wrote about the Los Angeles, CA-based indie rock collective GospelbeacH, and as you may recall the band is fronted by the Florida-born, Los Angeles-based singer/songwriter and guitarist Brent Rademaker, who has had stints in Further, The Tyde and is a founding member of Beachwood Sparks, and featured Rademaker collaborating with a rotating cast of friends and associates, as well as producer Jon Neiman, Jason Soda, Ben Redell, and Derek Brown. “You’re Already Home,” off the band’s sophomore 2017 album Summer of Love further cemented Rademaker and company’s reputation for crafting sunny and optimistic indie rock that draws from 60s and 70s AM rock and renegade country centered around soulful and thoughtful lyrics that focus on the age-old theme of timeless love.
Summer of Love’s latest single “California Fantasy” manages to blend a sunny and clear-eyed optimism with a subtle but world-weary cynicism — and that shouldn’t be surprising as it captures folks who rush out to California with dreams of the Summer of Love, of starting fresh, of love and endless summer. of drinking wine, getting high and bullshitting with your dearest and most beloved, of wandering to Mexico with great rock ‘n’ roll on your radio and signing along to your favorite tunes. And while capturing the sense of awe and discovery in a road trip, of wisdom gained and new friends met, there’s an underlying reality that sometimes the reality doesn’t quite add up to your hopes and dreams — and even then, roll with the punches, make it what you need it to be, man ’cause this is but a fleeting dream. Sonically, the song will bring to mind Neil Young and Crazy Horse, early Stones and the like — but they do so while carefully avoiding mimicry; there’s a soulfulness and thoughtfulness here that makes it stand on its own.
Directed by Steve Hanft, the recently released video for “California Fantasy” is centered around the band hanging out and jamming during a glorious and endless summer day — and of course, it includes catching local surfers and skaters, driving around and daydreaming aimlessly, further emphasizing the song’s chill out and enjoy the vibes and scenery around you vibe.
New Video: Introducing the Incendiary Pop of Giselle
Giselle is an up-and-coming New York-based pop artist, who has received attention with the Not Ready to Grow Up mixtape, which was released last fall — but far and away, the highlight of the mixtape is the incendiary Adam Tilzer-produced single “Fuck ’em. Brand ’em. Leave ’em.” The track is centered around a sparse, dusty and production featuring an old-timey strummed blues guitar figure and stomping drumming paired with the mononymic pop artist’s boozy pop star belter vocals, which will draw some comparisons to Amy Winehouse and Heartless Bastards’ Erika Wennerstom. Much like those two insanely accomplished vocalists, Giselle’s vocals express an aching and earnest vulnerability, a quiet yet defiant and resolute pride and strength that seems to belie her relative youth.
Unsurprisingly, the song’s earnest nature comes from lived in personal experience — in this case, the horribly misguided, inappropriate and fucked up advice Giselle received from an adult she knew, when she was a young girl. “This was a person I’d spent so much time with growing up,” Giselle explains in press notes. “As I
started to get older, I started noticing that he’d bring different women around all the time and my curiosity began to grow. ‘Why did they all have the same tattoos? Why were there so many of them?’ When I questioned it, he told me exactly what the song opens with: ‘I fuck’em, I brand’em, and then I leave’em.’ These women would literally get tattoos with his name or symbols dedicated to him and he treated them as if they were disposable. Ironically, he thought he was trying to teach me a lesson… But the lesson I learned was much different.”
The Meghan Ianiro-produced official video, which I have the pleasure and honor of premiering on this site, draws from Giselle’s childhood — in particular, the moment that actually inspires the song, and as the Ianiro says in press notes, “I wanted to really highlight a stark contrast between childhood trust and innocence, and the harsh reality of growing up and seeing how dark the world can be sometimes, which is the very essence of Not Ready To Grow Up itself. The scene sequence of a young Giselle innocently being given a friendship bracelet, for example, while one of the objectified women is being given a diamond necklace, or the scene of her playing with two female dolls and one male doll, are moments that I wanted to capture in order to make the presence of those two distinct-but-coexisting realities palpable.” Interestingly along with that, the video makes a couple of point about sex, men and their relationships with women that’s — well, undeniable: most men can manage to be both tender and kind to someone who they’d never have anything more than a platonic or familial relationship with, and they can be scumbags with everyone else.
Born Jennifer Hays, the Seattle, WA-based multi-instrumentalist, singer/songwriter and producer Jenn Champion grew up in Tucson, AZ, where in the mid 90s, she worked at a local pizza shop with future bandmates Ben Bridwell and Mat Brooke. In 1997 the trio moved to Olympia, WA for about a year, before settling in Seattle and forming Hays’ first band Carissa’s Wierd. Although they only released three albums before splitting up in 2003, the band had a cult following that has resulted in the release of three compilation albums of their work, including 2010’s They’ll Only Miss You When You’re Gone: Songs 1996-2003, which was released through Hardly Art Records.
Since the breakup of Carissa’s Wierd, Champion has focused on several acclaimed solo projects including, the sparse, guitar and vocals-based pop project S, and with S she has released four albums, including 2010’s I’m Not As Good At It As You and 2014’s Chris Walla-produced Cool Choices. Critics and fans have applauded her open-hearted lyrics, technical skill and willingness to eschew conventions — and perhaps more important for writing sad songs meant to be cried to (or should I say be cried with?). Interestingly, the B side of Champion’s last S album found her moving towards a more electronic-based sound; however, her single “No One” found Champion fully embracing electronics. “I feel like a door got opened in my mind with electronic and digital music. There was a room I hadn’t explored before and I stepped in,” Champion says in press notes. While she’d initially intended to follow Cool Choices with “a rock record – guitar, a lot of pedals, heavy riffs,” plans changed. “I couldn’t pull myself away from the synthesizers and I realized the record I really wanted to make was more of a cross between Drake and Billy Joel than Blue Oyster Cult.”
After the release of “No One,” Champion’s publishers partnered her with Brian Fennell, an electronic music artist, songwriter and producer best known as SYML and the pair co-wrote “Leave Like That,” which was featured on SYML‘s Hurt For Me EP. Champion and Fennell hit it off so well that after Champion had written the demos for her forthcoming full-length Single Rider, she enlisted Fennell as a producer. Fennell agreed and they spent the next five months working on and refining the material on Single Rider. As Champion recalls, “In the studio with Brian, I was more open than I had ever been,” and as a result the material evolved into a slickly produced, anthemic dance floor friendly album; however, the new album reportedly finds Champion maintaining the earnest emotionality and vulnerability that has won her attention — but this time, the album’s material finds the acclaimed Seattle-based singer/songwriter imploring the listener to dance, dance, dance, dance, dance heartache, outrage and disappointment away, for a little bit at least. And goddamn it, sometimes strobe light, thumping bass and shimmering synths are so absolutely necessary to your basic survival.
Single Rider‘s latest single “Time To Regulate” is a slickly produced, sultry and propulsive bit of dance music centered around layers of shimmering, arpeggiated synths, cowbell-led percussion, thumping beats and an anthemic hook that reminds me of Soft Metals‘ Lenses, Cut Copy‘s In Ghost Colours, of 80s synth soul and Giorgio Moroder; but underneath the slick production, thumping beats and razor sharp hooks, there’s a desperate person trying to put on a brave face on a daily basis — with the acknowledgment that sometimes just being can be difficult in itself, and that adds a triumphant, “well, fuck man,” vibe to the shimmering proceedings.
TOUR DATES
08.09.18 – Seattle, WA – Chop Suey
08.10.18 – Portland, OR – Mississippi Studios
08.16.18 – Los Angeles, CA – Bootleg T
Numb.er is the brainchild of its Los Angeles, CA-based mastermind and primary songwriter, photographer and visual artist Jeff Fribourg, who’s probably best known as a founding member of psych rock/kraut rock band Froth. Thanks to a background in graphic design and visual art, Fribourg has developed a reputation for his work being imbued with a sense of architectural composition with angular guitar riffs and analog synths being layered over throbbing drums and propulsive bass lines. And although Fribourg can trace the origins of his love of synthesizers to when he was in Froth, Numb.er finds the Los Angeles-based songwriter, photographer and visual artist fully exploring his eclectic influences and inclinations with the project meshing elements of punk rock, shoegaze, post-punk and noise rock — without committing to a singular worldview and without sounding overly ironic or forced.
Goodbye, Numb.er’s latest effort is slated for release at the end of the week through Felte Records, and the album’s latest single “Numerical Depression” will further cement Fribourg’s reputation for genre-defying sound as you’ll hear elements of classic ’77-era punk, post-punk and noise punk as the song is centered around a propulsive bass line, power chord-based guitar lines played through copious guitar effect pedals and rolling drums — and while sonically the song brings to mind Wire, Nirvana, The Clash, Bauhaus, and others, complete with a similar urgency, and yet the song doesn’t find the band resorting to clueless, self-obsessed mimicry and cliches.
New Video: Grunge Pioneer Mark Lanegan Teams Up with Duke Garwood on an Atmospheric and Eerie Single
Over the past few years, I’ve written quite a bit about Mark Lanegan, the Ellensburg, WA-born, Los Angeles, CA-based singer/songwriter and guitarist, who is best known as the frontman, and founding member of Seattle-based grunge rock pioneers Screaming Trees, and for collaborating with an incredibly diverse array of artists and bands throughout his lengthy career, including Nirvana’s Kurt Cobain on an unreleased Lead Belly cover/tribute album recorded before the release of Nevermind; as a member of the renowned grunge All-Star supergroup/side project Mad Season with Alice in Chains‘ Layne Staley and Pearl Jam‘s Mike McCready; as a member of Queens of the Stone Age featured on five of the band’s albums — 2000’s Rated R, 2002’s Songs for the Deaf, 2005’s Lullabies to Paralyze, 2007’s Era Vulgaris and 2013’s . . . Like Clockwork; with The Afghan Whigs‘ Greg Dulli in The Gutter Twins; as well as former Belle and Sebastian vocalist Isobel Campbell on three albums. Additionally, Lanegan has contributed or guested on albums by Melisa Auf der Maur, Martina Topley-Bird, Creature with the Atom Brain, Moby, Bomb the Bass, Soulsavers, Greg Dulli’s The Twilight Singers, UNKLE and others.
While developing a reputation for being a highly sought-after collaborator, Lanegan has also managed to maintain a solo career that has seen him release ten, critically applauded and somewhat commercially successful albums; in fact, ironically, his solo work has seen more commercial success than his work with Screaming Trees. Lanegan’s tenth solo album, 2017’s Gargoyle found the Ellensburg, WA-born, Los Angeles, CA-based singer/songwriter and guitarist collaborating with British-based musician Rob Marshall, who’s best known for stints with Exit Calm and Humanist and his longtime collaborator, multi-instrumentalist and producer Alain Johannes. Sonically speaking, the material was both a refinement and an expansion of the Krautrock-tinged blues of his previous two albums Blues Funeral and Phantom Radio.
Duke Garwood is a British-based blues/indie rock multi-instrumentalist and singer/songwriter, who has written and released six albums as a solo artist — 2005’s Holy Week, 2006’s Emerald Palace, 2009’s The Sand That Falls, 2011’s Dreamboatsafari, 2015’s Heavy Love and 2017’s Garden of Ashes. He’s also collaborated with renowned The Orb, Archie Bronson Outfit, Savages, Shezad Dawood and the aforementioned Mark Lanegan among others; in fact, Garwood has released an album with Lanegan — 2013’s Black Pudding and as has recorded and toured as a member of Lanegan’s backing band for the renowned grunge pioneer’s last three albums. Interestingly, Garwood and Lanegan continue their ongoing collaboration with their forthcoming, second album together With Animals, which is slated for an August 24, 2018 release through Heavenly Records, and the album, which was split between old-fashioned studio collaboration and Trans-Atlantic file sharing is a decided sonic departure for both artists, as it finds them crafting spectral and sinewy music, focusing on the spaces between notes while employing much different instrumentation — dusty, analog synthesizers and drum machines. The album’s first single, the sparse, mournful and aching “Save Me” is centered around Lanegan’s imitable vocals, fluttering, synths and metronomic drum machines, and in some way the track sounds like a discarded remnant of life just before the apocalypse; but underneath, the song feels made of some older stuff, as though it channels an ancient pagan ritual.
As Harwood says of his lengthy collaboration with the renowned grunge pioneer, “Over the years, we’ve recorded together and apart. This time, I started this record alone with many animals as company. It flowed, I set to work and out it came. Our music is instinct, there is not much talking about it, just creating. I think that if you are at peace with your work, and feeling it right, it flows, and can feel ‘easy’. Music isn’t meant to be hard. Though sometimes it can burn you to ashes. Making music for a singer, so they can inhabit it with a song means hitting the right soul buttons. There is no hit without a miss. It is a healing record, for us the makers, and for the listeners. It grows natural. We are gardeners of sonic feelings. The recently released video features footage of 80s wrestlers but in heavily filtered negatives, which further emphasizes the song’s trippy vibes.
