A new single has recently surfaced from an artist I have seen live, streamed on Apple Music and wished I had a physical copy to play in my car. Catching Flies is the song’s name,St.Arnaud is the artist in the spotlight, and I plan to gush ebulliently about the single until the album drops in April. St.Arnaud brings together a smooth as silk vocal delivery, primo music to carry the song along and witty turns of a phrase in the lyrics. For example, the narrator in the song, Catching Flies, moves from “I’ve been taking my pills most days” to “I’ve been taking my pills some days” in the middle of the song and ends with “I’ve been looking for pills some days.” That last one is ambiguous. Is he looking for the prescription pills he has lapsed in taking, or is he looking for some pills that don’t need a prescription? I don’t know for sure, but I lean towards the latter. I like that transition through the three phases of looking. Another nifty little lyrical magic is the whole first stanza. “Listen, what’s that little voice saying? when we lie to ourselves, hey everyone, could we play pretend better?” It reminds me of a line that we used in addiction counselling. “You can lie to yourself but don’t lie to me.” And then, after the lie is outed, we put on airs until we are challenged to “play pretend better.” Humans like to play pretend a lot, but we are not always good at it. Can “we lie to ourselves” and “play pretend better?” Intelligent lyrics like those immediately endear me to an artist. The music that carries those lyrics to us is equally excellent. From gentle guitar phrases that open the song, it moves into a lilting melody joined by tasteful horns and soft percussion with a touch of what sounds like maracas. I can not find fault in any part of Catching Flies. St.Arnaud have delivered package containing a delightful listening experience. Thank you.
Continuing the series on listening through my album collection on vinyl, we come to David Bowie. I don’t have a completist collection of Bowie, but there is a decent scan through his long career and ever so many releases.
First up, I listened to his self-titled album, David Bowie, which is a good listen, plus it gives us an anchor point from which to compare his future albums. Space Oddity is a song everyone knows and a great piece to launch a career—nothing quite like starting from the top. I also like the Chris Hadfield version because he is Canadian, he played it on the International Space Station, and because I like it. We jammed to this song at a men’s retreat many, many moons ago.
Hunky Dory, this album shows him maturing and starting to find his unique voice both literally through his lyrics and figuratively through his identities.
Aladin Sane, I bought this album in England as a souvenir. For some reason, this album doesn’t grab my attention the same way that some of his other albums do. I guess they can’t all be top ten hits.
Changesonebowie is an excellent compilation album that looks back on his early career. I immensely enjoyed listening to this slab of vinyl.
Scary Monsters is a good album that maintains a steady pace as a complete album instead of having many songs thrown together. I am particularly enamoured with such well-known songs as Ashes to Ashes and Teenage Wildlife. One reason I can relisten to this album some forty years later is the emotional connection between me and the album. Scary Monsters came out in 1980, part of my rapidly expanding album collection era. I don’t buy albums to pad my collection, I buy them to listen to, and I certainly did and continue to do so with Scary Monsters.
Lets Dance was released after Scary Monsters and continues to be one of my favourite Bowie albums and a strong album on its own accord. My only gripe about this album has nothing to do with the album. It is the video for Let’s Dance that irks me. I can’t watch Bowie and Mick Jagger faking dancing down a street while they lip-sync. To quote a friend of mine, urgh!
Young Americans. I got out of sync with the chronological order and jumped backwards from 1983 with Let’s Dance to 1975 and Young Americans. I find this to be an uneven album with some excellent material popping up occasionally. I like the song Fame but there are some less than stellar recordings, such as his cover of Across The Universe.
Station To Station feels more like an EP with six tracks than a full LP. It has some lengthy jams and bumps the album’s length up to a full-on LP time of roughly 17 minutes per side. Some nice grooves are going on, such as Golden Years, which gave me an earworm that instantly kicks in with something so innocuous as typing the song’s name. It happened again just now!
Tonight, this album very nearly missed this list. Tonight is an album regarded as one of Bowie’s weaker recordings, and I suppose that is why I so quickly forgot that I had even listened to it.
We have more Bowie on CD and a sealed copy of Blackstar on vinyl. The vinyl will stay sealed, and I will get to the CD collection after listening to all of our records.
Today I am listening to the EP Kris from the Swedish death disco band, KÅRP. The opening track, also named Kris, features some deep rich dark tones that immediately hooked me and dragged me into the swirling maelstrom of Kris. It becomes apparent that this is not a coincidence. KÅRP tells us that they started working on a trilogy of EP’s representing the three stages of an apocalypse: chaos, silence, and new world order, shortly after their first album release. I love the name of their first album, Album 1.
Their first EP – Kris – brings us right into the chaos and disorientation of the downfall. KÅRP elucidate, “The world is burning. The police are shooting innocent people. Natural disasters and wars are forcing families to flee for their lives. The barbed wire gets sharpened by the wealthy nation’s borders, and a pandemic is closing our societies down in a way that’s never been seen before. Turn off the lights. Close the windows and put your mask on because this is the real pandemic, and it comes with a thundering death disco.”
Death Disco is what KÅRP calls their style of music, and I think it is a good choice. Death is the message in the songs, and the disco bass that pervades this EP is an excellent way to drive that message home. I somewhat expect music associated with death to be morbid and dreary, but Kris keeps the listeners’ attention with the danceable part of disco. I associate this style of music where the content is not readily apparent within the context of the piece, i.e. dark messages in bright and likely music, to artists such as of Montreal, among others. It confuses my body when the music says dance and the lyrics say dirge.
I will be keeping an ear aimed at KÅRP to find out where they are going with this musical triptych’s middle and third panels, which will be about silence and the new world order. I am especially keen on how they will express silence through the medium of sound. There have been a lot of good songs on the topic, I just googled it, and I need to make a playlist now that I’ve started talking about it. Hush by Deep Purple is probably my favourite, although Sounds of Silence by Simon & Garfunkel isn’t far behind.
I look forward to hearing more from KÅRP. You should check them out for yourself; they make some catchy music with lyrics that make you think. KÅRP has already planted an earworm in my brain, thanks a lot. 🙂
Big Stir Records is proud to announce our first major album release of 2022: Darling Please from celebrated North Carolina singer-songwriter Chris Church. Recorded eleven years ago and seeing full-scale release for the first time in a newly remastered version (courtesy of audio maestro Nick Bertling and adorned with newly tracked backing vocals from Lindsay Murray of Gretchen’s Wheel), the album is out on CD and digital January 21 and features the lead single “Bad Summer”. It’s up for preorder at www.bigstirrecords.com, www.bigstirrecords.bandcamp.com, and on sale everywhere music is sold or streamed on the release date.
The new record sees the genre-hopping Chris Church in full on rock and roll mode, with dominant Crazy Horse-style guitars topped with some of the most immediate and aching vocal performances in Chris Church catalog. The emotionally direct and often elegiac tone of Darling Please derived in large part from its origins: “I made the album in my basement studio,” says Chris Church. “It was and is dedicated with love to my late great brother Mike Church, who’d passed not long prior to my decision to start this project. It was actually the first time I’d played all instruments on an entire album.” The self-produced ethic makes the album a forerunner to last year’s acclaimed, home-recorded Game Dirt, but Darling Please is if anything even more visceral.
Opening with the rough, ready and stately “History” and diving directly into the “Satisfaction”-beat rocker “We’re Going Downtown,” the album pays overt and indirect tribute to Mike Church (who’d played drums on most of Chris’s earlier music) on a number of tracks. The Sugar-inflected “Pillar To Post” finds the singer feeling “like a guest and a host, like taking a walk with my own ghost” while Chris Church describes the loping “Never So Far Away” as “my legit attempt to bridge loss and love, the big struggles, mortality, how the same old stuff still surprises us no matter how repetitive.” “We Could Pretend” channels “all of what it takes to cope… The hugeness is empty, and vice versa” over a “Cinnamon Girl” groove, and closing track “Triple Crown” sees Chris Church on the drums, recreating Mike’s restrained approach from live performances of the song.
Elsewhere, the empathetic backing vocals of Lindsay Murray (who also designed the sleeve art) illuminate the choruses of the single “Bad Summer” and the whole of “Atlantic”. Both tunes are sharp and heartfelt character studies derived from Chris Church’s circle of friends at the time. “I Wish I Could Say I Was Sorry” opens with a guitar and piano workout that sets the stage for one of the album’s most indelible choruses, again spotlighting Murray. And “Nepenthean” dives into psychedelic sludge to immersive effect.
Gripping and emotive, Darling Please is a belated but essential addition to the Chris Church catalog, following on the heels of the 2021 relaunches of his SpyderPop Records albums Backwards Compatible and Limitations of Source Tape. More than a relic, it’s a rewardingly rough-hewn gem deserving of inspection and a sincere tribute to a musical and familial brother, and it stands among Chris Church’s very best.
Lost In A Daydream is the second song from the album Flavor Of The Month. Dang it all, the British Canadian in me wants to spell it Flavour. I wonder if I can avoid using that word for the remainder of this blog. Yeah, O.K., the song Lost In A Daydream is a nice tip of the hat to the Beatles. It is a subtle but engaging bit of music-making—well done, Lannie Flowers. The essence of Lannie Flowers can be captured in his own words from 1986: “The two most import things in my life when I was growing up was The Beatles and the Dallas Cowboys.” Lannie Flowers is another artist that I had to search for information about since I hadn’t listened to his music until this landed in my inbox courtesy of the fine folks at www.spyderpop.com and www.bigstirrecords.com.
So here is the low down on Lannie Flowers. He is from Texas. The guitar is his weapon of choice, and Lannie Flowers makes power-pop that gets close to rock and roll at times—putting artists in a genre box, eh, what a fool’s errand. Lannie Flowers is not the fool. He is a genius at making power pop records, and this is his fifth by my reckoning.
If you want your daily dose of pop-rock, Lannie Flowers is an excellent place to listen for it. This album, the name is up above, is one of those records where I jerk my head up like a long dog on a short leash and say, “Hey, that sounds like …’;. And then I can’t quite figure out who the so and so is. Lannie is a master class on making accessible, easy pop music that sounds familiar and fresh at the same time.
What follow below is from the web of these fine folks who save me from the anguish of writing the album name in the lingua franca of the fine folks south of the 49th.
SPYDERPOP RECORDS (and our partners at Big Stir Records) are proud to announce the February 25 release of FLAVOR OF THE MONTH, a brand new album from Texas guitar pop legend LANNIE FLOWERS, on CD and all digital platforms. It’s both a completely new collection and the long-awaited physical media debut for the songs that made up Lannie’s celebrated and groundbreaking March To Home Singles Series in 2019 all newly remixed by Lannie himself and featuring the new lead single “Summer Blue.” Flavor Of The Month is up for pre-order now at www.spyderpop.com and www.bigstirrecords.com and will be streaming, as well as on records store shelves worldwide, on release day. A deluxe vinyl edition including a special bonus CD will follow later in 2022
Telefis and Jah Wobble release ‘Falun Gong Dancer’ EP and new video.Debut Telefis album ‘a hAon’ is out March 4. That’s the short press intro. Enough to get my attention and the itch to know what Telefis means. To understand what a Jah Wobble is. And finally, what is a Falun Gong Dancer?
I like to learn one new thing every day, sometimes more than one nugget. Today, I learned four new things. Number one is that Telefis is Irish Gaelic for Television, another good band with no connection to this blog.
Number two is not so much learning as a remembering moment. Jah is one of the names of God and may be more familiar to you in the name of another song, Hallelujah. Which version of the song do you like? Hallelujah has been covered over 300 times. I like the Jeff Buckley version myself.
To wobble is to move unsteadily from one side to the other, to waver and a tonne of other synonyms. So Jah Wobble could be wavering in our faith in God, been there done that. Our impression of God could be that He/She/Jah wobbles and shows a lack of steadiness. The implications of the name Jah Wobble are many. Let’s let that go and focus on the music from Telefis and Jah Wobble.
Telefis and Jah Wobble have a new album out today, January 21. It is an EP, but on endless repeat, it is a mute question of whether it is an EP or an LP. Electronic duo Telefís, composed of Irish iconoclasts (more religious innuendo in that word), Jacknife Lee and Cathal Coughlan, have mixed Falun Gong Dancer with the legendary bass of Jah Wobble (Public Image Limited, Invaders Of The Heart).
Falun Gong is a relatively recent addition to the pantheon of faith movements worldwide. It originated in China in the 1990s and has since evolved into a worldwide business, media and political venture. I couldn’t find any reference to their dancing, so I can only assume that it expresses their faith through movement.
I digress. Let us get back to the music, shall we? As I said previously, I just put this EP on repeat, and I lose track of how many times I listened to it over the last day or two. I don’t exactly know what makes this EP so compelling, but it is. The anatomy of this music is almost as complicated as the meaning of Telefis, Jah Wobble and Falun Gong Dancer. The short explanation is that Telefis have a full-length album coming out this February or March. Telefis have been releasing singles and accompanying videos with various mixes. In November of 2021, I listened to and wrote about a previously dropped single, https://weatheredmusic.ca/2021/11/08/we-need-mister-imperator/.
Telefis are consistently good and play well with others. I like that, and I have my ears primed for what I anticipate will be one hell of an LP. Stay tuned. Meanwhile, listen to this EP and the other mixes from Telefis. I love the 13 minutes of mind-bending good music.
I have long had a soft spot for New Wave music and the whole scene that revolved around it. The fashion, I was into casual business, a tweed jacket over a pastel shirt with the top two buttons undone with a skinny tie worn inside the collar. Reebok sneakers for footwear and stone-washed jeans completed the dressing. The music went from American bands such as The Talking Heads to the British groups like Ian Dury and the Blockheads and spilled over into the continental scene with Kraftwerk and too many other bands to mention here.
Enough waxing poetically over the fond memories of that era. Fast forward to 2022 and a musician who captures New Wave’s ethos while sounding fresh and exciting. That artist is Richard Evans, and his newly released album is Sentinel. If I could afford vinyl, that platter would be wearing out the needle.
He not only captures the sound of the New Wave, but he also builds on the shoulders (probably padded, think David Byrne) of those who blazed the trail back in the ’70s and ’80s to offer us music that is both retro and new.
This album blows my mind. It captures the sound of the New Wave so well I keep thinking it must be from 1980 instead of today. The synth is so Gary Numan is it often unsettling. This is just one example from an album full of new waves and, at times, even post-wave and hints of New Order.
Sentinel is a strong album that I am sure will get many more spins around the imaginary turntable on my computer. Do yourself a favour and give this a listen, Sentinel by Richard Evans. The album drops on Feb. 25th; just a few more days to wait.
Back in September of last year I gave my opinion on the single Ghosts of New York State by Star Rover, who are two musicians, Will Graefe and Jeremy Gustin. I gave them a favourable rating for the single and was looking forward for the album’s release.
Somewhere in the wacky world of Norman, I missed the album release, and I am now making up for the lost time. And the lost moments of hearing this album, over and over again.
The album opens with a drone and a brush on a snare. Then the bass drum kicks in, followed by a gritty guitar and some keys. Pause, and restart. Find that sweet spot, the groove. Star Rover does. They settle into a comfortable groove. And then they bring it back to earth with those ever so deliciously distorted guitars. That is just Springs, is just the opener on this self-titled album from Star Rover.
The album is light on lyrical content, but that plays into the strength of their music. I won’t even attempt to put Star Rover in a genre box; they do their own thing. And they do that thing very well indeed.
I heard echoes of King Crimson, Jeff Beck and even something so diverse as Simon & Garfunkel. Mostly I heard Star Rover. I loved the garage band lo-fi power of songs such as Rag Doll. I would love to see them live, Star Rover is a band that I will follow on Facebook and Soundcloud, so I don’t miss anything from them again.
Through early sessions playing together at Gustin’s Bushwick loft in 2011, Gustin and Graefe bonded over their shared love of John Fahey, as well as the spiky post-rock of Deerhoof and Lightning Bolt. Later that year, they recorded Western Winds Bitter Christians’, a short lo-fi collection of grungy Fahey covers and distorted originals. Besides touring the USA, Europe and Japan, they are both in-demand session and touring artists, working with David Byrne, Kimbra, Bill Frissel, Okkervil River, Sam Amidon, Marc Ribot, Delicate Steve and Nels Cline, among others.
Star Rover’s writing developed towards futuristic post-rock between touring and other recording work. They found themselves connected to the directness of folk melodies, leading to their 2018 album ‘I May Be Lost But I’m Laughing.’ That became a more polished and produced effort featuring Sam Evian, Shahzad Ismailly, Rob Moose (yMusic), Daniel Rossen (Grizzly Bear) and Sarah K Pedinotti.
The following year, Star Rover collaborated with Brazilian musician (and frequent Caetano Veloso collaborator) Ricardo Dias Gomes. They wrote and recorded ‘This Whole Emptiness’ album in Lisbon at the studio of Marcelo Camelo.
The ‘Star Rover‘ album is now available across digital platforms, including Spotify and Apple Music or at https://ffm.to/starroveralbum or via Bandcamp.
Less than two weeks into 2022, and the music world is exploding between my ears. I have been listening through all my albums alphabetically, all the albums, the good, the bad, and the ugly. I am up to DavidBowie today and had to pause three albums in. I have found from experience that if I binge-listen to an artist, I risk not wanting to hear any music from that artist for a long spell. So I am going slow and steady on the good ship Bowie.
A litmus test that I frequently use with new music is listening to it, putting it on the shelf, and going back to it later. If I still like it, that passes the litmus test. I have a couple of albums today that passed that test.
First up is Sacred Places by Dope Sagittarius. When I first listened to this album back in May of 2021, I had focused on the music, which was good. Today I focused on the video for their song Black Empress.
This video is a signpost for the times we live in and, for far too many, the times we die in. The video features violinist Mazz Swift (Whitney Houston, Valerie June). Paris-based hip-hop legend/wordsmith/rap pioneer Mike Ladd. This rocking hip-hop electro soundclash is a song for this Black Lives Matter age. Morgan Freeman directed this videowith support from cinematographer Andrew Coury. The Black Empress video was produced by Carlyle Smith with executive Producers Luqman Brown and LaRonda Davis. Filmed at YouTube Studios New York City, it stars Angelana Jones and Anthony Bowman, M.C. Whistler on Vox/ guitar, Ernest G. D’Amaso on Bass, Entrified Mcloud on keys Ramsey Jones on drums.
This video is worth the four minutes and 17 seconds of your life that you will spend watching it. It is a far better way to spend that time than watching a cat doing stupid things video on YouTube.
Next up is Loud Apartment. I like that name, Loud Apartment. I have had neighbours knock on my door to turn the music down more than once, and I had a loud apartment. Fortunately, I live in a house now, and I can crank the volume up if I want to.
I first listened to Loud Apartments‘ new album, New Future, in November of 2021, and I have relistened to it over the last two days. It easily passed the litmus test. I like it even more today than I did back in November. Good music can keep sounding good over time, and the album New Future from Loud Apartment retained its fresh sound with flying colours.
I first listened to An Anthem for the Strange by Black Rose Burning only a month ago, so it isn’t a big gap between the first and second listens. That didn’t dim my respect for Black Rose Burning and this excellent album.
I was fortunate to listen to a sneak peek of Roman Angelos’s album ‘Music for Underwater Supermarkets,’ the full release of the LP is January 28 via Happy Robots Records. Music for Underwater Supermarkets isn’t Muzak, but it ain’t far away from it. It is good music to chill out with, so grab your beverage of choice, sit back with a good book, and listen to Music for Underwater Supermarkets. It works its magic above water.
There we go then; a flash shout-outs to David Bowie, Sacred Places by Dope Sagittarius and their video Black Empress, Mazz Swift, Mike Ladd, Loud Apartment, Black Rose Burning, and Roman Angelos.
2022 is shaping up to be a stellar year for music, both old and new. Just before Christmas my son, Joel, gave me a Soundcloud file of my Dad singing and playing. He has passed away but his music will be with us forever.
Do you know what all of those artists have in common?
They all appeared on a mixtape that I made sometime in the ’70s. The first name on that list is Jerry Jeff Walker, who wrote the song. All the other names are people who had covered the song, and I had the album in my collection; there was no streaming back then, and a mixtape was literally on tape, cassette in this case. I like the song, and I enjoyed hearing how different people interpreted the song. The best-known cover is by the Nitty Gritty Dirt Band, which I enjoyed seeing twice at the same venue, just forty years between shows.
Back to the 70s again, I meticulously made the mixtape enjoying every moment and note played. That weekend I got together with some family and friends, and as per usual, I was nominated as DJ for the night since I had the best stereo in my car and the most tapes. Several beers and a couple of joints into the night when I made the ignominious decision to play the Mr. Bojangles mixtape. The first couple of songs went well, but then there was a shift in the party’s momentum; the good vibes were turning into sour notes. Thankfully, someone told me they had heard all the Bojangles songs they cared to listen to for the night and could someone play some good party music. I swapped Mr. Bojangles for some BTO, and the vibes came back into the party.
I say all of this in the context of a release that I streamed. Yeah, I know it’s not the same as a mixtape, but it has some familiar vibes.
Revolution Above Disorder recently debuted with ‘Illuminate,’ a 3-track offering. Produced, mixed and mastered at Jacknife Sound by Jason Corbett of ACTORS, which also featured all other members of ACTORS’ (Shannon Hemmett and Kendall Wooding on backing vocals, Adam Fink on drums) and Josiah Webb of Magic Shoppe on guitar. The video, directed and edited by Eliot Galán of Galán Films, stars Analissa Longoria and Mat Durie. Dublin-based artist Delta Omega a.k.a. Conor Paxton (House of Dolls, Buffalo Sunn, The Brothers Movement), also contributed to the more dance-oriented ‘Illuminate (Delta Omega Remix).’
I was grooving with the first mix, which I assume is the original version mixed by Jason Corbett. It had some good things going for it, and I wanted to hear more by Revolution Above Disorder. Then it moved to the Delta Omega Remix. Not much different but listenable. Then Acoustic Remix kicked in, and it was then that someone shouted to play some party music. Oh, wait! That was me shouting. Nothing wrong with the song, but three in a row was more than I could handle. My shout was answered with the song Scream Quietly, Revolution Above Disorders tribute to Television Personalities.
Yeah, I had to look Television Personalities up, having never heard them before. So much music and so little time, right? I am glad I took the time to familiarize myself with Television Personalities. I don’t know how I missed them for the last 45 years. Their music is right up there with some of my favourites of that era.
I’m going to listen to some more Television Personalities, but before I do, I will throw this out there for you.
Revolution Above Disorder pays tribute to Television Personalities on ‘Scream Quietly,’ produced by ACTORS’ Jason Corbett.
Dublin postpunk / nugaze / electro artist Revolution Above Disorder presents the single ‘Scream Quietly,’ paying tribute to the groundbreaking band Television Personalities and the songwriting genius of Dan Treacy.
Revolution Above Disorder is the solo moniker of Vancouver-based Dubliner Stephen Nicholas White (The Orange Kyte, House of Dolls, Magic Shoppe). Revolution Above Disorder’s music is a melting pot of postpunk, psychedelic rock and electronic music. This is guitar-based rock augmented by synths, drum machines and heavily treated instrumentation with haunting reverb-soaked vocals.
“The lo-fi outsider-art indie-pop of Dan Treacy’s Television Personalities occupies a place in my heart all of its own. Stylistically all over the map, Treacy’s four decades (and counting) of off-kilter demonstrations of punk and psychedelia are held together by the emotional depth of the songwriting and the vocal delivery, which sees Treacy careering unconstrained from acerbic, to playfully whimsical, to heartbroken and vulnerable. Beautiful,” says Stephen Nicholas White.
This cover originally appeared on ‘Mummy, Mummy Please Look At Me: A Tribute to the Television Personalities,’ released via Dandy Boy Records.
Revolution Above Disorder recently debuted with ‘Illuminate,’ a 3-track offering produced, mixed and mastered at Jacknife Sound by Jason Corbett of ACTORS. Which also featured all other members of ACTORS’ (Shannon Hemmett and Kendall Wooding on backing vocals, Adam Fink on drums) and Josiah Webb of Magic Shoppe on guitar. The video, directed and edited by Eliot Galán of Galán Films, stars Analissa Longoria and Mat Durie. Dublin-based artist Delta Omega a.k.a. Conor Paxton (House of Dolls, Buffalo Sunn, The Brothers Movement), also contributed to the more dance-oriented ‘Illuminate (Delta Omega Remix).’
As of January 11, ‘Scream Quietly’ will be available via Apple Music, Spotify and elsewhere digitally. Scream Quietly can already be downloaded via Bandcamp, where the debut single ‘Illuminate’ is also available.
I am now off to listen to more Television Personalities and quit typing because it is a real pain in the ass with a massive bandaid on one finger that keeps wanting to hit two keys at a time.
Also, keep listening for new music by Revolution Above Disorder; there is a surge of new music coming out of the wet west coast and I’m loving it.
Weathered Music 