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JANE
Recalibrating her singular journey in the British musical landscape with her most open-hearted, direct and intimate collection of material yet. Love In Constant Spectacle evokes spectacular imagery and distills the artists’ vision in its purest form, elevating her inimitable sound and poetic vision to new heights.
Recapturing the melancholy of her early work whilst propelling it forward, she sketches scenes as we watch new colours, shapes and languages emerge and fill the frame. Love In Constant Spectacle sees her take measured steps towards a vivid, dreamlike record, that offers resolve in the face of life’s inevitability.
The foundations of Weaver’s sound are still evident – lush motorik drums, pulsating bass, custom modded synths and exotic fuzz pedals - but the stream is awash with scrabble piece poetry and Letraset lullabies leading to lush escapism, the free abandon that you’d associate with free jazz and the avant-garde. But, as determined and visionary as Weaver might be, Love In Constant Spectacle wasn’t executed without assistance. Here we find a long mooted unison with Jane’s first ever producer, John Parish (PJ Harvey, Aldous Harding), who has shared Weaver’s process in the surrounds of Rockfield Studios and Geoff Barrow’s Invada studio.
Love In Constant Spectacle is otherworldly, it is both intimate yet distant, a surrealist interpretation of the foundations that make us human – the stories and landscapes it paints are habitats of their own. A voyage into undisclosed pastures, it’s a heartfelt manifesto from an artist that continues to boundlessly evolve with each chapter in her career.
Recapturing the melancholy of her early work whilst propelling it forward, she sketches scenes as we watch new colours, shapes and languages emerge and fill the frame. Love In Constant Spectacle sees her take measured steps towards a vivid, dreamlike record, that offers resolve in the face of life’s inevitability.
The foundations of Weaver’s sound are still evident – lush motorik drums, pulsating bass, custom modded synths and exotic fuzz pedals - but the stream is awash with scrabble piece poetry and Letraset lullabies leading to lush escapism, the free abandon that you’d associate with free jazz and the avant-garde. But, as determined and visionary as Weaver might be, Love In Constant Spectacle wasn’t executed without assistance. Here we find a long mooted unison with Jane’s first ever producer, John Parish (PJ Harvey, Aldous Harding), who has shared Weaver’s process in the surrounds of Rockfield Studios and Geoff Barrow’s Invada studio.
Love In Constant Spectacle is otherworldly, it is both intimate yet distant, a surrealist interpretation of the foundations that make us human – the stories and landscapes it paints are habitats of their own. A voyage into undisclosed pastures, it’s a heartfelt manifesto from an artist that continues to boundlessly evolve with each chapter in her career.
STAFF COMMENTS
Barry says: We're big fans of Jane & co. here at Piccadilly, and 'Love In Constant Spectacle' takes everything we've known and loved from previous releases; her rich melodic thread and progressive instrumental leanings, and injects the pieces with perfectly extracted DNA from jazz, 60's psychedelic pop and art-rock.TRACK LISTING
Side A
A1 Perfect Storm
A2 Emotional Components
A3 Love In Constant Spectacle -
A4 Motif
A5 The Axis And The Seed
Side B
B1 Is Metal
B2 Happiness In Proximity
B3 Romantic Worlds
B4 Univers
B5 Family Of The Sun
Following the release of her debut album, Stay Alive (2020) and the At War With The Silverfish EP (2021), Emmy-nominated artist, author, musician, activist and Against Me! founder/songwriter, Laura Jane Grace, returns with Hole In My Head - her beautiful new album featuring eleven tracks that showcase her undeniable power as a songwriter & storyteller. The album features her most personal and emotionally gripping songs of her career - stripped down masterpieces like Dysphoria Hoodie paired with blistering distorted anthems like Hole In My Head and Birds Talk Too, tracks that demand the listener’s attention with an immediacy and urgency unlike anything Grace has written before.
Recorded at Native Sound in St. Louis, Missouri by David Beeman and mastered by Matt Allison (Lawrence Arms, Rise Against), the album is a sonic curio cabinet containing multitudes. Featuring warm 50s-rock-influenced guitar riffs and rock style melody a la Jonathan Richman and Eddie Cochran, saved-for-later lyrics, love letters to St. Louis, dysphoria apparel, and thoughtful reflections on a punk life lived, Grace's forward vocals are backed predominately by her performances on guitar and drums but are bolstered by Drive By Trucker's bassist Matt Patton.
The record's title track Hole in My Head takes off with a driving guitar-heavy approach that will be welcome to long-time fans of Against Me! electric machinations, while first single Dysphoria Hoodie has been a staple in Grace’s setlist, and one which is as personal as it is pertinent in today’s climate.
Choice cuts I’m Not A Cop and Punk Rock In Basements are written through a post-pandemic rose-colored lens, the latter looking back on the formative underground spaces of Grace’s youth. Basement shows for decades were hallmark experiences for anyone involved in their local punk scenes, shaping movements, connections, and culture through the forced, sweaty proximity necessary to pour over raucous punk music.
Hole in My Head is a record which captures the nuances of humanity and experience in a strangely optimistic manner. The lightness of its influence and the journalistic recollection of experience set against a battered and warm folk-punk delivery from beginning to end makes Hole in My Head a fun comfort. It is a welcome embrace of life and just the start of a new chapter in Laura Jane Grace’s raucous journey.
Recorded at Native Sound in St. Louis, Missouri by David Beeman and mastered by Matt Allison (Lawrence Arms, Rise Against), the album is a sonic curio cabinet containing multitudes. Featuring warm 50s-rock-influenced guitar riffs and rock style melody a la Jonathan Richman and Eddie Cochran, saved-for-later lyrics, love letters to St. Louis, dysphoria apparel, and thoughtful reflections on a punk life lived, Grace's forward vocals are backed predominately by her performances on guitar and drums but are bolstered by Drive By Trucker's bassist Matt Patton.
The record's title track Hole in My Head takes off with a driving guitar-heavy approach that will be welcome to long-time fans of Against Me! electric machinations, while first single Dysphoria Hoodie has been a staple in Grace’s setlist, and one which is as personal as it is pertinent in today’s climate.
Choice cuts I’m Not A Cop and Punk Rock In Basements are written through a post-pandemic rose-colored lens, the latter looking back on the formative underground spaces of Grace’s youth. Basement shows for decades were hallmark experiences for anyone involved in their local punk scenes, shaping movements, connections, and culture through the forced, sweaty proximity necessary to pour over raucous punk music.
Hole in My Head is a record which captures the nuances of humanity and experience in a strangely optimistic manner. The lightness of its influence and the journalistic recollection of experience set against a battered and warm folk-punk delivery from beginning to end makes Hole in My Head a fun comfort. It is a welcome embrace of life and just the start of a new chapter in Laura Jane Grace’s raucous journey.
STAFF COMMENTS
Barry says: Laura Jane Grace's journey has been a storied one, starting her career in one of the most beloved new wave punk rock bands in the late 90's, and ending up as a prolific and gifted composer, multimedia artist and writer. 'Hole In My Head' is once again a brilliantly balanced, fiery and dynamic solo outing from Grace.TRACK LISTING
Side A
1. Hole In My Head
2. I'm Not A Cop
3. Dysphoria Hoodie
4. Birds Talk Too
5. Punk Rock In Basements
Side B
1. Cuffing Season
2. Tacos & Toast
3. Mercenary
4. Keep Your Wheels Straight
5. Hard Feelings
6. Give Up The Ghost
This is the definitive history of Sarah Records; the Bristol-based label that signed the acts no major label would touch but who you wanted to hear.
Sarah put out a board game, produced cut 'n' paste fanzines and stuck two fingers up to the mainstream music industry. Sarah was your secret world and it was located in the heart of Bristol. Sarah Records lasted for seven years, nine months and 11 days.
In These Things Happen, those who were there at the beating heart of the indie-pop world reveal the deepest, darkest secrets of what really went into making Sarah’s pop masterpieces. Featuring almost 130 interviews, including at least one member of every single band (as well as the world exclusive first interview with Christine of Christine’s Cat fame), this book is an oral history of a defining moment in pop history.
Who stripped naked on stage to another band’s drum solo? Why did Julian Knowles sleep with his boots on his stomach in Hull? Whatever happened to Mr James C Urchin? All of these burning questions and more will be answered in this book. With no tatty old gig flyer left unturned in the pursuit of exposing the true political pop pandemonium that went on in the wonderful world of Sarah Records.
Sarah put out a board game, produced cut 'n' paste fanzines and stuck two fingers up to the mainstream music industry. Sarah was your secret world and it was located in the heart of Bristol. Sarah Records lasted for seven years, nine months and 11 days.
In These Things Happen, those who were there at the beating heart of the indie-pop world reveal the deepest, darkest secrets of what really went into making Sarah’s pop masterpieces. Featuring almost 130 interviews, including at least one member of every single band (as well as the world exclusive first interview with Christine of Christine’s Cat fame), this book is an oral history of a defining moment in pop history.
Who stripped naked on stage to another band’s drum solo? Why did Julian Knowles sleep with his boots on his stomach in Hull? Whatever happened to Mr James C Urchin? All of these burning questions and more will be answered in this book. With no tatty old gig flyer left unturned in the pursuit of exposing the true political pop pandemonium that went on in the wonderful world of Sarah Records.
When a handful of broadsheet music columns and reputable blog pages began tomention the vaguely familiar name Jane Weaver in the ‘Here’s One We Missed’-themed features during 2014’s End Of Year round-ups, it became quickly apparent that the singer’s concept album,‘The Silver Globe’, had already independently garnered a ‘must have’ status amongst virtually any self respecting music buyers. But unlike so many other big label campaigns that vied for PR attention viaego-fuelled video promos and down your throat advertising, this unassuming, dedicated, focused piece of experimental female vocal pop was in no way spoon fed to editors nor playlisters. Nor did it fall within the lines of what might have been considered fashionable or culturally relevant.
‘The Silver Globe’ defied species, and for once, was judged on its own merit as a brilliant uncompromising pop record. The sixth album by a long-standing pillar of the North West music scene (loosely based on a lost Polish dystopian feature film and a French novella featuring a personnel of vintage Atari music composers next to Australian synth pioneers) was a simply typical product of the way Jane Weaver has always operated - as an independent and resilient female experimental songwriter, on her own label, on the outskirts of anything that resembles a music industry. Throughout her twenty-year career she has stayed focused, avoided whimsical fads and distractions and used her experience to work as hard as she can when she can. By Christmas ‘The Silver Globe’ had been announced as Piccadilly Records’ Best Album Of The Year, earned a Worldwide Top Ten Track Of The Year accolade by Gilles Peterson, gleaned across the board full-stars and thumbs up from the music press, benefitted unanimous repeat plays from virtually every specialist DJ on 6 Music (amongst many more global radio stations), found DJ mix support from Andrew Weatherall, and filled most of the pages in a twelve month diary with gig and festival requests. Meanwhile, Jane’s own BirdImprint (via Finders Keepers) had to worked around the clock to keep up with stock demands of her new (and old) music. Album collaborators such as David Holmes, Andy Votel and BC Camplight shared gushing pride in the project and with this unanimous critical support (and long earned respect) Jane reacted in the only way she knows best - to keep creating.
‘The Silver Globe’ defied species, and for once, was judged on its own merit as a brilliant uncompromising pop record. The sixth album by a long-standing pillar of the North West music scene (loosely based on a lost Polish dystopian feature film and a French novella featuring a personnel of vintage Atari music composers next to Australian synth pioneers) was a simply typical product of the way Jane Weaver has always operated - as an independent and resilient female experimental songwriter, on her own label, on the outskirts of anything that resembles a music industry. Throughout her twenty-year career she has stayed focused, avoided whimsical fads and distractions and used her experience to work as hard as she can when she can. By Christmas ‘The Silver Globe’ had been announced as Piccadilly Records’ Best Album Of The Year, earned a Worldwide Top Ten Track Of The Year accolade by Gilles Peterson, gleaned across the board full-stars and thumbs up from the music press, benefitted unanimous repeat plays from virtually every specialist DJ on 6 Music (amongst many more global radio stations), found DJ mix support from Andrew Weatherall, and filled most of the pages in a twelve month diary with gig and festival requests. Meanwhile, Jane’s own BirdImprint (via Finders Keepers) had to worked around the clock to keep up with stock demands of her new (and old) music. Album collaborators such as David Holmes, Andy Votel and BC Camplight shared gushing pride in the project and with this unanimous critical support (and long earned respect) Jane reacted in the only way she knows best - to keep creating.
STAFF COMMENTS
Andy says: An incredible album, a concept album, a whole world of dreams, a portal. With analogue synths, Krautrock grooves, strange wonky disco and whispy, dislocated folk, Jane created a world of sound you couldn't help but fall in love with and ultimately lose yourself in. The song-writing is top notch, the production incredible, the artwork absolutely beautiful. Everything is perfect about this record.TRACK LISTING
1. The Silver Globe
2. Argent
3. The Electric Mountain
4. If Only We Could Be In Love
5. Don’t Take My Soul
6. Cells
7. Mission Desire
8. Stealing Gold
9. Arrows
10. Your Time In This Life Is Just
11. Temporary
‘The Amber Light’: Originally issued as a limited CD only bonus disc for ‘The Silver Globe’ album global re-release and a subsequent vinyl pressing, ‘The Amber Light’ surprised fans expecting B-sidesand outtakes with what, for many, stood up as its own isolated project, including some of Jane’s bestmaterial to date, including the pulsating synth anthem ‘I Need A Connection’, which since became aradio favourite also appearing on film and fashion shows throughout the latter half of 2015.
‘The Amber Light’ also included further collaborations with Finders Keepers’ Andy Votel, as well aslong awaited collaborations with Atari / Star Wars synthesist Suzanne Ciani, Tom Furse (keyboardistfrom The Horrors) and Sean Canty from Demdike Stare. Recorded over the course of two long weekends between tours with her custom-built band operating atan energetic optimum, ‘The Amber Light’ captures Jane exuding the passion, experimentalism andjustified confidence which is instantly reflected with some of her best songwriting to date. Currently gearing up for a US tour and within the final throes of recording a brand-new LP for FireRecords, it is a very exciting time for this unique multi-tasking independent female composer whoseloyal long-running fanbase multiplies with everyy closely recorded breath. Trepidation is not requiredhere, ‘The Amber Light’ means you can go.
‘The Amber Light’ also included further collaborations with Finders Keepers’ Andy Votel, as well aslong awaited collaborations with Atari / Star Wars synthesist Suzanne Ciani, Tom Furse (keyboardistfrom The Horrors) and Sean Canty from Demdike Stare. Recorded over the course of two long weekends between tours with her custom-built band operating atan energetic optimum, ‘The Amber Light’ captures Jane exuding the passion, experimentalism andjustified confidence which is instantly reflected with some of her best songwriting to date. Currently gearing up for a US tour and within the final throes of recording a brand-new LP for FireRecords, it is a very exciting time for this unique multi-tasking independent female composer whoseloyal long-running fanbase multiplies with everyy closely recorded breath. Trepidation is not requiredhere, ‘The Amber Light’ means you can go.
TRACK LISTING
1. La Pomme D’Argent
2. I Need A Connection
3. You Are Dissolved
4. Cascade In Dark
5. Argent (Tom Furse
6. Extrapolation)
7. The Amber Light (Edit)
8. Parade Of Blood Red Sorrows
9. Neotantrik Globes (Excerpt)
Emily Jane White is a musician, songwriter, and poet from Oakland, CA. She began performing under her own name in 2003 and released her first album "Dark Undercoat" in 2007.
Rooted in a moment of catastrophe, Alluvion is an album about personal and collective grief resulting from the loss of human life and the continued loss of our natural world. We live in a moment of merging traumas, of converging environ- mental, social, and political crises. These crises are exacerbated by our lack of cultural practices for individual and also shared, public grieving--which is not without consequence. We often find ourselves mired in "disenfranchised grief," a grieving that cannot be recognized, shared, or named. Emily's album offers a space to consider where grieving is absent in our world, and where it is deeply necessary. Grief moves in waves and cycles, and through its flood we can build anew.
Alluvion: the gradual addition to the land by the wash of water against a shore. How can we mourn what we cannot know we've lost? While living through the "sixth extinction," we may not always perceive the mass death that surrounds us, even as we sometimes remain unconscious of pervasive violence against women, or racist police violence. Emily's new album is an act of public grieving, grieving as breathing: breathing the space in which we might be able to gather up ourselves and move toward the wake of this disaster, the spark of what is yet to come.
Produced and arranged by multi-instrumentalist Anton Patzner (Foxtails Brigade, Judgement Day), Alluvion was written and recorded during the height of the pandemic. Although Nick Ott's drums and John Courage's guitars were recorded in studios with all parties present, most of the instruments were recorded while Emily and Anton were in different locations. More so than on any previous release, Emily almost completely eschews folk arrangements and instrumentation. Alluvion edges the borders of shoegaze and electronic pop without losing sight of the light within the gloom, the hope inside the void.
Rooted in a moment of catastrophe, Alluvion is an album about personal and collective grief resulting from the loss of human life and the continued loss of our natural world. We live in a moment of merging traumas, of converging environ- mental, social, and political crises. These crises are exacerbated by our lack of cultural practices for individual and also shared, public grieving--which is not without consequence. We often find ourselves mired in "disenfranchised grief," a grieving that cannot be recognized, shared, or named. Emily's album offers a space to consider where grieving is absent in our world, and where it is deeply necessary. Grief moves in waves and cycles, and through its flood we can build anew.
Alluvion: the gradual addition to the land by the wash of water against a shore. How can we mourn what we cannot know we've lost? While living through the "sixth extinction," we may not always perceive the mass death that surrounds us, even as we sometimes remain unconscious of pervasive violence against women, or racist police violence. Emily's new album is an act of public grieving, grieving as breathing: breathing the space in which we might be able to gather up ourselves and move toward the wake of this disaster, the spark of what is yet to come.
Produced and arranged by multi-instrumentalist Anton Patzner (Foxtails Brigade, Judgement Day), Alluvion was written and recorded during the height of the pandemic. Although Nick Ott's drums and John Courage's guitars were recorded in studios with all parties present, most of the instruments were recorded while Emily and Anton were in different locations. More so than on any previous release, Emily almost completely eschews folk arrangements and instrumentation. Alluvion edges the borders of shoegaze and electronic pop without losing sight of the light within the gloom, the hope inside the void.
TRACK LISTING
1. Show Me The War
2. Crepuscule
3. Heresy
4. Poisoned
5. Body Against The Gun
6. The Hands Above Me
7. Mute Swan
8. Hold Them Alive
9. Hollow Years
10. I Spent The Years Frozen
11. Battle Call
“A big part of the project and why I did it,” says Sloppy Jane’s Haley Dahl of her Saddest Factory debut Madison, “Was because it felt similar to being a little kid and buying an outfit that was too big that I’d have to grow into. I really valued from the start that making Madison gave me someone I had to become.” The record, which Dahl first conceived of back in late 2017, is a grand gesture, a statement about big love, and about growing into yourself in the process.
Dahl and her 21 bandmates recorded all of Madison at the Lost World Caverns in West Virginia from 3pm to 8:30am each day over the course of two weeks (they also made four music videos on location during this time). To access the space, they’d enter through the back of a gift shop, down a long tunnel where they’d walk down 200 feet of stairs to reach the entrance. Dahl and her bandmates did this steep walk with a piano. The ceiling of Lost World Caverns is massively high and is a perfect dome. The inside was also 98 percent humidity, leading to both stellar sound and also problems with tuning and gear.
Engineer Ryan Howe sat in his parents Subaru above the cave with his mixing board and computer, and threaded cables down 90 feet through a hole in the ground to the ceiling of the cave. It’s the first time someone has ever recorded an entire album in a cave, and the results are pretty sonically stunning. That alone is a marvelous thing. Madison is an astounding, glorious record of melodrama of the highest order
Dahl and her 21 bandmates recorded all of Madison at the Lost World Caverns in West Virginia from 3pm to 8:30am each day over the course of two weeks (they also made four music videos on location during this time). To access the space, they’d enter through the back of a gift shop, down a long tunnel where they’d walk down 200 feet of stairs to reach the entrance. Dahl and her bandmates did this steep walk with a piano. The ceiling of Lost World Caverns is massively high and is a perfect dome. The inside was also 98 percent humidity, leading to both stellar sound and also problems with tuning and gear.
Engineer Ryan Howe sat in his parents Subaru above the cave with his mixing board and computer, and threaded cables down 90 feet through a hole in the ground to the ceiling of the cave. It’s the first time someone has ever recorded an entire album in a cave, and the results are pretty sonically stunning. That alone is a marvelous thing. Madison is an astounding, glorious record of melodrama of the highest order
TRACK LISTING
1. Overture
2. Party Anthem
3. Jesus And Your Living Room Floor
4. Judy’s Bedroom
5. Bianca Castafiore
6. Lullaby Formica
7. Madison
8. Wilt
9. Wonderama
10. The Constable
11. Epilogue
Following the recently released and highly praised Trees 50th Anniversary box set on Earth Recordings, Trees reissue their debut album ‘The Garden of Jane Delawney’as a standalone release. It’s now over fifty years since Trees’ formation, a band who helped define ‘Acid Folk’, creating a subcategory in the lexicon of record dealers and music critics alike. “When we are talking about psych folk or acid folk, we are really talking about music like this by Trees” Stuart Maconie, BBC6 Music. Trees first album, ‘The Garden of Jane Delawney’ (1970) snuggles nicely into contemporary nu-folkies’ idea of the genre, and shares some of the pastoral-whimsy that characterised The Incredible String Band or Donovan, offset by some stunning interpretations of traditional material and Bias’ own songs. The record includes readings of ‘Lady Margaret’, ‘Glasgerion’, the old standard ‘She Moved Thro’ The Fair’, and the extended fade of the group’s own ‘Road’, presage the explosive instrumental duelling that would come to characterise the follow up album, ‘On The Shore’.
TRACK LISTING
A1. Nothing Special
A2. The Great Silkie
A3. The Garden Of Jane Delawney
A4. Lady Margaret
B1. Glasgerion
B2. She Moved Thro' The Fair
B3. Road B4. Epitaph
B5. Snail's Lament
One of the North-West’s finest exponents of otherworldly pop has landed back on earth with an album of shimmering space age bliss. Elements of disco, new wave and krautrock are undoubtedly present in Flock, but Jane never relies on genre tropes to carry her work. Instead, she harnesses familiar rhythmic devices and choices of instrumentation in her own distinctive way. And while comparisons could be drawn between Jane and contemporaries like Vanishing Twin and Gwenno, she has undeniably staked out her own domain within the realm of off-kilter synth pop.
Throughout Flock Jane demonstrates her delicate vocal agility over a series of hypnotic loops and clever synthesis. The lazy disco strut of “The Revolution Of Super Visions” sets up a jangling interplay between Jane’s sweetly sung declamations, new wave style guitar interjections and Cowley-esque synth squelch. While “Modern Reputation” is propelled forwards by a Broadcast style motorik rhythm with electronics whirring in the background and mantra-like vocal loops swirling in a strange ecstasy.
In the title track Jane’s gauzy vocals reverberate over the ebb and flow of a loose knit groove, while in “Sunset Dreams” ornate guitar riffs weave in amongst a haze of twinkling chimes and fizzing sawtooth synthesis. The album culminates in a moment of escapist pop euphoria with final track “Solarised”, laden with cascading arps and irresistible vocal hooks. Once again Jane has succeeded in creating something playful, fresh and unpretentious which is in equal parts a fun and intelligent listen. All hail the cosmic synth queen!
Throughout Flock Jane demonstrates her delicate vocal agility over a series of hypnotic loops and clever synthesis. The lazy disco strut of “The Revolution Of Super Visions” sets up a jangling interplay between Jane’s sweetly sung declamations, new wave style guitar interjections and Cowley-esque synth squelch. While “Modern Reputation” is propelled forwards by a Broadcast style motorik rhythm with electronics whirring in the background and mantra-like vocal loops swirling in a strange ecstasy.
In the title track Jane’s gauzy vocals reverberate over the ebb and flow of a loose knit groove, while in “Sunset Dreams” ornate guitar riffs weave in amongst a haze of twinkling chimes and fizzing sawtooth synthesis. The album culminates in a moment of escapist pop euphoria with final track “Solarised”, laden with cascading arps and irresistible vocal hooks. Once again Jane has succeeded in creating something playful, fresh and unpretentious which is in equal parts a fun and intelligent listen. All hail the cosmic synth queen!
STAFF COMMENTS
Barry says: This new outing from Jane Weaver sees Jane and co skirting the outer reaches of Disco, Synth-pop and ambient to stunning effect, rich with hooks but unmeasurably deep, it's one that will reveal more and more with each listen. Unsurprisingly superb.TRACK LISTING
Side A
A1 Heartlow
A2 The Revolution Of Super Visions
A3 Stages Of Phases
A4 Lux
A5 Modern Reputation
Side B
B1 Flock
B2 Sunset Dreams
B3 All The Things You Do
B4 Pyramid Schemes
B5 Solarised
Rediscover the whole universe of Jane Birkin. She embodies the femininity of the 70s and brings the vocal signature to the words and music of Gainsbourg. This is the opportunity to dive back into a brilliant and seductive catalogue where elegance rhymes with sensuality.
A Very Best Of LP that covers the highlights of the career of Jane Birkin.
A Very Best Of LP that covers the highlights of the career of Jane Birkin.
This unique package successfully archives the key elements of Jane’s ‘Loops In The Secret Society’ tour. Housed in a concise limited-edition pocket-compendium the new CD version brings Jane’s fully realised ‘Loops Variations’ and sonic installations into your own environment with new illustrations based on the songs by Andy Votel and DVD featuring the experimental film installation featured on the tour by Nick Farrimond. When science fiction turns science fact the effect can be truly momentous. The state demands that no-one wants an unlicensed machine-hum from an outbuilding; no-one wants clever prose mapping the future, no-one wants “music” that is attention-seeking, soul-defining, beneficial, Biblical, baroque and beautiful.
No-one told Jane Weaver that. Jane Weaver’s multi-layered synthetics evolved into a welcoming slew with 2014’s ‘The Silver Globe’, continuing through to 2017’s ‘Modern Kosmology’. ‘Loops In The Secret Society’ is a re-imagined journey through parts of both albums, with new ambient pieces primed and polished; with new tangents explored in a lab-friendly blossoming of the Weaver vision that travels yet further into the psych of our future. A continuous experience with one-line observations set in glorious sense-stimulating sound. That source material was then united in an expansionist experiment in late 2018. The ‘Loops In The Secret Society’ tour fused unrelated sounds set off against sympathetic new textures, tones and drones; hot-housed into an idealistic soundscape that formed the conducive parts of the imminent album of the same name. Co-conspirators include Henry Broadhead, PJ Phillipson and Andy Votel. Renegades all, headed by the enigmatic Weaver all under surveillance.
No-one told Jane Weaver that. Jane Weaver’s multi-layered synthetics evolved into a welcoming slew with 2014’s ‘The Silver Globe’, continuing through to 2017’s ‘Modern Kosmology’. ‘Loops In The Secret Society’ is a re-imagined journey through parts of both albums, with new ambient pieces primed and polished; with new tangents explored in a lab-friendly blossoming of the Weaver vision that travels yet further into the psych of our future. A continuous experience with one-line observations set in glorious sense-stimulating sound. That source material was then united in an expansionist experiment in late 2018. The ‘Loops In The Secret Society’ tour fused unrelated sounds set off against sympathetic new textures, tones and drones; hot-housed into an idealistic soundscape that formed the conducive parts of the imminent album of the same name. Co-conspirators include Henry Broadhead, PJ Phillipson and Andy Votel. Renegades all, headed by the enigmatic Weaver all under surveillance.
TRACK LISTING
1 Element (Loops Variation)
2 Milk Loop
3 Arrows (Loops Variation)
4 Found Birds
5 H>A>K (Loops Variation)
6 Did You See Butterflies (Loops Variation)
7 Sun House
8 I Wish (Loops Variation)
9 Mission Desire (Loops Variation)
10 Battle Ropes
11 Found Birds
12 Slow Motion (Loops Variation)
13 Margins
14 Cells (Loops Variation)
15 Code (Loops Variation)
16 Signs Are Rising
17 Ravenspoint (Loops Variation)
18 Sous Le Même Soleil, Vie Disparu Dans Le Ciel (Loops Variation)
19 Majic Milk (Loops Variation)
20 Conduit
21 Ivana Vessel
22 Battle Ropes
Emily Jane White's new album juxtaposes a heavy melancholy with an intimate touching lightness through her singular alto voice backed by orchestral percussion, soaring strings, heavy guitars, a choir of voices, and an overall cinematic presentation of dynamic songwriting.
Ten songs, all written in minor keys, present a deepening storm of melody that offers the hopeful ray of Emily's voice as the waves of rhythm crash and dance around her. Her voice is the listener's guide, a steady and reassuring presence as they march through eerie landscapes, caverns of reverb, church organs and synthetic arpeggios. The occasional samples of birds, insects, and thunder mix with the blend of electronic and acoustic instruments, a subtle reminder of the necessary link between the fate of our ecology and the moral use of technology.
Ten songs, all written in minor keys, present a deepening storm of melody that offers the hopeful ray of Emily's voice as the waves of rhythm crash and dance around her. Her voice is the listener's guide, a steady and reassuring presence as they march through eerie landscapes, caverns of reverb, church organs and synthetic arpeggios. The occasional samples of birds, insects, and thunder mix with the blend of electronic and acoustic instruments, a subtle reminder of the necessary link between the fate of our ecology and the moral use of technology.
When science fiction turns science fact the effect can be truly momentous. The state demands that no-one wants an unlicensed machine-hum from an outbuilding; no-one wants clever prose mapping the future, no-one wants “music” that is attention-seeking, soul-defining, beneficial, Biblical, baroque and beautiful. No-one told Jane Weaver that.
Jane Weaver’s multi-layered synthetics evolved into a welcoming slew with 2014’s ‘The Silver Globe’, continuing through to 2017’s ‘Modern Kosmology’. ‘Loops In The Secret Society’ is a re-imagined journey through parts of both albums, with new ambient pieces primed and polished; with new tangents explored in a lab-friendly blossoming of the Weaver vision that travels yet further into the psych of our future. A continuous experience with one-line observations set in glorious sense-stimulating sound.
That source material was then united in an expansionist experiment in late 2018. The ‘Loops In The Secret Society’ tour fused unrelated sounds set off against sympathetic new textures, tones and drones ; hot-housed into an idealistic soundscape that formed the conducive parts of the imminent album of the same name.
Co-conspirators include Henry Broadhead, PJ Phillipson and Andy Votel. Renegades all, headed by the enigmatic Weaver – all under surveillance.
Jane Weaver’s multi-layered synthetics evolved into a welcoming slew with 2014’s ‘The Silver Globe’, continuing through to 2017’s ‘Modern Kosmology’. ‘Loops In The Secret Society’ is a re-imagined journey through parts of both albums, with new ambient pieces primed and polished; with new tangents explored in a lab-friendly blossoming of the Weaver vision that travels yet further into the psych of our future. A continuous experience with one-line observations set in glorious sense-stimulating sound.
That source material was then united in an expansionist experiment in late 2018. The ‘Loops In The Secret Society’ tour fused unrelated sounds set off against sympathetic new textures, tones and drones ; hot-housed into an idealistic soundscape that formed the conducive parts of the imminent album of the same name.
Co-conspirators include Henry Broadhead, PJ Phillipson and Andy Votel. Renegades all, headed by the enigmatic Weaver – all under surveillance.
STAFF COMMENTS
Andy says: Beautiful reinterperations of tracks from Jane's last two albums, interspersed with new ambient style pieces to make a brand new album in its own right. Gorgeous.TRACK LISTING
1 Element (Loops Variation)
2 Milk Loop
3 Arrows (Loops Variation)
4 Found Birds
5 H>A>K (Loops Variation)
6 Did You See Butterflies (Loops Variation)
7 Sun House
8 I Wish (Loops Variation)
9 Mission Desire (Loops Variation)
10 Battle Ropes
11 Found Birds
12 Slow Motion (Loops Variation)
13 Margins
14 Cells (Loops Variation)
15 Code (Loops Variation)
16 Signs Are Rising
17 Ravenspoint (Loops Variation)
18 Sous Le Même Soleil, Vie Disparu Dans Le Ciel (Loops Variation)
19 Majic Milk (Loops Variation)
20 Conduit
21 Ivana Vessel
22 Battle Ropes
Skip leaves his hotel. Its a cold day in Nashville, climbing to only 43 F in the afternoon. It may be Sunday, but on this day a 22-year-old musician is working at Columbia Recording Studios. Over the past few days, hes recorded a slew of new songs and today will be no different. On December 7, 1968, Skip Spence will record no less than 8 different songs. He has only 3 more days left to finish the album. It's been fast and furious and its also been tough, recording every instrument on every track, layer after layer, song after song, overdub after overdub.
In a sense, Skip is now a one-man rock & roll band. A few months ago, he was in a band, but now hes on a different path. On one of today's tracks, he opens with a low growl, "I want a rock & roll band." He then sighs, perhaps wishing he didn't have to do it all himself. After repeating the phrase, he adds, "One that spits fire and chews blood!" Skip was in that sort of band just a few months earlier the talented but jinxed Moby Grape. It's like he was writing a note to himself, thinking about his old band, thinking about himself as a band, and perhaps thinking about other bands as well. Maybe he was also writing a reply to the Byrds, who once sang, "So you want to be a rock & roll star." Like the Byrds, Skip was grounded in folk music. Twenty months ago, Moby Grape opened for the Byrds at the Fillmore and Winterland in San Francisco. They’d rehearsed tirelessly for days-on-end beforehand. But Skip doesn't want to go back to his past. "I don't want the Fillmore," he roars, "I want a rock & roll plan."
While his future may be unclear, Skip is on a mission to record everything he has in his body & soul. For a part of that Sunday so long ago, that included, "I Want a Rock & Roll Band” a song that features so many of Skips hallmarks, wit, spontaneity, wordplay, a mixture of intricate & percussive guitar, verve, & a beautiful falsetto. It's a rollicking snapshot of where Skip Spence was at, smack dab in the middle of his Oar sessions one cold Sunday in Nashville, Tennessee.
In a sense, Skip is now a one-man rock & roll band. A few months ago, he was in a band, but now hes on a different path. On one of today's tracks, he opens with a low growl, "I want a rock & roll band." He then sighs, perhaps wishing he didn't have to do it all himself. After repeating the phrase, he adds, "One that spits fire and chews blood!" Skip was in that sort of band just a few months earlier the talented but jinxed Moby Grape. It's like he was writing a note to himself, thinking about his old band, thinking about himself as a band, and perhaps thinking about other bands as well. Maybe he was also writing a reply to the Byrds, who once sang, "So you want to be a rock & roll star." Like the Byrds, Skip was grounded in folk music. Twenty months ago, Moby Grape opened for the Byrds at the Fillmore and Winterland in San Francisco. They’d rehearsed tirelessly for days-on-end beforehand. But Skip doesn't want to go back to his past. "I don't want the Fillmore," he roars, "I want a rock & roll plan."
While his future may be unclear, Skip is on a mission to record everything he has in his body & soul. For a part of that Sunday so long ago, that included, "I Want a Rock & Roll Band” a song that features so many of Skips hallmarks, wit, spontaneity, wordplay, a mixture of intricate & percussive guitar, verve, & a beautiful falsetto. It's a rollicking snapshot of where Skip Spence was at, smack dab in the middle of his Oar sessions one cold Sunday in Nashville, Tennessee.
14 tracks spanning Laura Jane Grace's fractured relationship with her adopted hometown of Chicago, true friendship, complicated romance, and reconciling everything in the end, Bought to Rot stands as the most musically diverse collection of songs Grace has written to date.
Inspired in large part by Tom Petty's Full Moon Fever, the first album Grace ever owned, Bought to Rot finds her at the same age Petty was when he created his solo debut masterpiece. In light of his recent passing, Grace was motivated to pay homage to one of her lifelong heroes.
Laura Jane Grace & the Devouring Mothers are Laura Jane Grace, Atom Willard, and Marc Jacob Hudson. Grace is a musician, author, and activist best known as the founder, lead singer, songwriter, and guitarist of the punk rock band Against Me!. Willard, also of Against Me!, is a drummer who has played in iconic punk bands such as Rocket from the Crypt, Social Distortion, and The Offspring. Devouring Mothers bassist Hudson is a recordist and mixer at Rancho Recordo, a recording studio and creative space in the woods of Michigan, and the sound engineer for Against Me
Inspired in large part by Tom Petty's Full Moon Fever, the first album Grace ever owned, Bought to Rot finds her at the same age Petty was when he created his solo debut masterpiece. In light of his recent passing, Grace was motivated to pay homage to one of her lifelong heroes.
Laura Jane Grace & the Devouring Mothers are Laura Jane Grace, Atom Willard, and Marc Jacob Hudson. Grace is a musician, author, and activist best known as the founder, lead singer, songwriter, and guitarist of the punk rock band Against Me!. Willard, also of Against Me!, is a drummer who has played in iconic punk bands such as Rocket from the Crypt, Social Distortion, and The Offspring. Devouring Mothers bassist Hudson is a recordist and mixer at Rancho Recordo, a recording studio and creative space in the woods of Michigan, and the sound engineer for Against Me
TRACK LISTING
1.China Beach
2.Born In Black
3.The Airplane Song
4.Apocalypse Now (& Later)
5.Reality Bites
6.Amsterdam Hotel Room
7.The Friendship Song
8.I Hate Chicago
9.Screamy Dreamy
10.Manic Depression
11.The Acid Test Song
12.The Hotel Song
13.Valeria Golino
14.The Apology Song
‘Love Letter’, the opening track from The County Liners’ debut mini album, cuts “Lucinda Williams’ own particular strain of lonesome” with “Rolling Stones swagger” (NPR) to set the tone for a collection of five “country-rock songs that buck like an old pickup” (NPR).
The County Liners started in Mary Jane Dunphe (Vexx, CC Dust, CCFX) and Chris McDonnell (CC Dust, CCFX, Trans FX)’s country home in Olympia, WA in the winter of 2016. Longtime friends and collaborators, Chris and Mary Jane began writing 80s / 90s inspired country tunes when Mary Jane found herself bedridden with a debilitating ankle injury. Riley Kendig, also living with Dunphe and McDonnell, and Mirce Popovic (Trans FX) joined the band to help arrange and perform these deeply personal songs.
“Loaded with broad desert plains and cloudless skies and open roads and a time lost in memories of blood and industry” - Impose
“Deeply grooved, intelligently written and electrified by immediacy” - Autumn Roses
The County Liners started in Mary Jane Dunphe (Vexx, CC Dust, CCFX) and Chris McDonnell (CC Dust, CCFX, Trans FX)’s country home in Olympia, WA in the winter of 2016. Longtime friends and collaborators, Chris and Mary Jane began writing 80s / 90s inspired country tunes when Mary Jane found herself bedridden with a debilitating ankle injury. Riley Kendig, also living with Dunphe and McDonnell, and Mirce Popovic (Trans FX) joined the band to help arrange and perform these deeply personal songs.
“Loaded with broad desert plains and cloudless skies and open roads and a time lost in memories of blood and industry” - Impose
“Deeply grooved, intelligently written and electrified by immediacy” - Autumn Roses
TRACK LISTING
Love Letter
Walkin’ Out
Maria
The County Line
Oklahoma
Modern Kosmology sees Jane Weaver's melodic-protagonist channeling new depths of creative cosmic energy within. After the huge critical acclaim of 2012's “Fallen By Watchbird”, followed by 2014's exploratory "Silver Globe" LP winning her unanimous "record of the year accolades" and hefty measures of radio play-listing Jane Weaver's conceptual trajectory has sent her neo-kosmische penchants to the point of no-return. Jane Weaver's unwaning yearning for psychoactive pop energy has just reached a new level of magnetism. As snowclones go, Modern Kosmology is the new Silver. Another Spectrum to add to the tension.
TRACK LISTING
A1 H>A>K
A2 Did You See Butterflies?
A3 Modern Kosmology
A4 Slow Motion
A5 Loops In The Secret Society
B1 The Architect
B2 The Lightning Back
B3 Valley
B4 Ravenspoint
B5 I Wish
Tara Jane O’Neil describes her latest and eighth solo album “Self Titled” as a “singer songwriter” endeavor. At the invitation and design of Mark Greenberg (The Coctails), she recorded, mostly live, half of the record at Wilco’s Loft Studio in Chicago with a band that included James Elkington, Gerald Dowd, Nick Macri, and Greenberg himself. The other half was made in O’Neil’s home studio in California with Devin Hoff, Wilder Zoby, Walt McClements and string supervisor Jim James.
The album also features the voices of Chris Cohen, Carolyn Pennypacker-Riggs and Joan Shelley. O’Neil herself plays guitar, bass and percussion. A founding member of Rodan, The Sonora Pine, amongst other ensembles, O’Neil has also collaborated on recordings and stages with Papa M, Michael Hurley, Little Wings, Marisa Anderson, Catherine Irwin, Mirah, Mount Eerie, and many, many others. She’s performed at clubs, galleries, and DIY spaces around the world and venues such as the Centre de Pompdou, the Whitney Museum of American Art, and All Tomorrow’s Parties, while also starring in the cult classic film Half-Cocked. Her visual art work has been shown in cities including London, Tokyo and Portland and has been published in three monographs.
The album also features the voices of Chris Cohen, Carolyn Pennypacker-Riggs and Joan Shelley. O’Neil herself plays guitar, bass and percussion. A founding member of Rodan, The Sonora Pine, amongst other ensembles, O’Neil has also collaborated on recordings and stages with Papa M, Michael Hurley, Little Wings, Marisa Anderson, Catherine Irwin, Mirah, Mount Eerie, and many, many others. She’s performed at clubs, galleries, and DIY spaces around the world and venues such as the Centre de Pompdou, the Whitney Museum of American Art, and All Tomorrow’s Parties, while also starring in the cult classic film Half-Cocked. Her visual art work has been shown in cities including London, Tokyo and Portland and has been published in three monographs.
TRACK LISTING
1. Flutter
2. Blow
3. Sand
4. Joshua
5. Kelley
6. Laugh
7. Cali
8. Purple
9. Pink
10. Great
11. Metta
Like all good parables Jane Weaver’s sixth solo album, a concept album called ‘The Silver Globe’, is as multifaceted as it is beguiling. Part coming of age / part cautionary tale and part romantic paeon, this twelve track synth ridden post-apocalyptic prog pop opus is based on tightly embroidered, non-linear recurring themes and inspired by esoteric stories, cosmic imagery and refiltered past experiences.
Written from the optimistic vantage of a long-standing female independent artist, in an desperately evolving industry, Jane’s latest set of self penned pop abstractions combine mechanical rock / recycled European cinema / empyrean vocalisations and an arsenal of rescued vintage synths to create a futurist narrative backdrop of a allegorical post apocalyptic landscape.
‘The Silver Globe’ features collaborations with David Holmes, Australian space rockers Cybotron, Damon Gough (Badly Drawn Boy), Suzanne Ciani and Andy Votel, as well as a recycled chunk of an 80s Hawkwind track.
As well as being voted our album of 2014, by the end of last year, ‘The Silver Globe’ had earned a Worldwide Top Ten Track Of The Year accolade by Gilles Peterson, gleaned across the board full-stars and thumbs up from the music press, benefitted unanimous repeat plays from virtually every specialist DJ on BBC6 Music (amongst many more global radio stations), found DJ mix support from Andrew Weatherall and filled most of the pages in a twelve month diary with gig and festival requests. Meanwhile, Jane’s own Bird Imprint (via Finders Keepers) has worked around the clock to keep up with stock demands of her new (and old) music. Album collaborators such as David Holmes, Andy Votel and BC Camplight share gushing pride in the project and with this unanimous critical support (and long earned respect) Jane has reacted in the only way she knows best - to keep creating.
Barely six months since its initial release Jane releases an expanded edition of ‘The Silver Globe’, including a second full-length disc called ‘The Amber Light’, which follows the original album with the same dedication and adventurous zeal.
With a title that alludes to the toils of trepidation and a running theme of industrial procreativity and DIY handy craft, ‘The Amber Light’ carves a niche between new age motivational music, Radiophonic folk and snarling Krautrock, echoing the kosmische stylings of ‘The Silver Globe’ with the punk urgency of 80s domestic-synth pop. Featuring four brand new songs, three exclusive instrumental themes (including a commissioned theme from an American vampire film) and three new collaborative re-workings / duets based on tracks from ‘The Silver Globe’, this extensive package harbours co-production work from Tom Furse (The Horrors), Andy Votel, Suzanne Ciani, members of Demdike Stare and original ‘Silver Globe’ inhabitants Pete J Phillipson and Martin King.
Written from the optimistic vantage of a long-standing female independent artist, in an desperately evolving industry, Jane’s latest set of self penned pop abstractions combine mechanical rock / recycled European cinema / empyrean vocalisations and an arsenal of rescued vintage synths to create a futurist narrative backdrop of a allegorical post apocalyptic landscape.
‘The Silver Globe’ features collaborations with David Holmes, Australian space rockers Cybotron, Damon Gough (Badly Drawn Boy), Suzanne Ciani and Andy Votel, as well as a recycled chunk of an 80s Hawkwind track.
As well as being voted our album of 2014, by the end of last year, ‘The Silver Globe’ had earned a Worldwide Top Ten Track Of The Year accolade by Gilles Peterson, gleaned across the board full-stars and thumbs up from the music press, benefitted unanimous repeat plays from virtually every specialist DJ on BBC6 Music (amongst many more global radio stations), found DJ mix support from Andrew Weatherall and filled most of the pages in a twelve month diary with gig and festival requests. Meanwhile, Jane’s own Bird Imprint (via Finders Keepers) has worked around the clock to keep up with stock demands of her new (and old) music. Album collaborators such as David Holmes, Andy Votel and BC Camplight share gushing pride in the project and with this unanimous critical support (and long earned respect) Jane has reacted in the only way she knows best - to keep creating.
Barely six months since its initial release Jane releases an expanded edition of ‘The Silver Globe’, including a second full-length disc called ‘The Amber Light’, which follows the original album with the same dedication and adventurous zeal.
With a title that alludes to the toils of trepidation and a running theme of industrial procreativity and DIY handy craft, ‘The Amber Light’ carves a niche between new age motivational music, Radiophonic folk and snarling Krautrock, echoing the kosmische stylings of ‘The Silver Globe’ with the punk urgency of 80s domestic-synth pop. Featuring four brand new songs, three exclusive instrumental themes (including a commissioned theme from an American vampire film) and three new collaborative re-workings / duets based on tracks from ‘The Silver Globe’, this extensive package harbours co-production work from Tom Furse (The Horrors), Andy Votel, Suzanne Ciani, members of Demdike Stare and original ‘Silver Globe’ inhabitants Pete J Phillipson and Martin King.
THE PICCADILLY RECORDS ALBUM OF THE YEAR 2014.
Like all good parables Jane Weaver’s sixth solo album, a concept album called ‘The Silver Globe’, is as multifaceted as it is beguiling. Part coming of age / part cautionary tale and part romantic paeon, this twelve track synth ridden post-apocalyptic prog pop opus is based on tightly embroidered, non-linear recurring themes and inspired by esoteric stories, cosmic imagery and refiltered past experiences.
Written from the optimistic vantage of a long-standing female independent artist, in an desperately evolving industry, Jane’s latest set of self penned pop abstractions combine mechanical rock / recycled European cinema / empyrean vocalisations and an arsenal of rescued vintage synths to create a futurist narrative backdrop of a allegorical post apocalyptic landscape.
‘The Silver Globe’ features collaborations with David Holmes, Australian space rockers Cybotron, Damon Gough (Badly Drawn Boy), Suzanne Ciani and Andy Votel, as well as a recycled chunk of an 80s Hawkwind track.
Click here to view the full Q&A that Jane Weaver did with Piccadilly Records for our End Of Year Review Booklet 2014.
Like all good parables Jane Weaver’s sixth solo album, a concept album called ‘The Silver Globe’, is as multifaceted as it is beguiling. Part coming of age / part cautionary tale and part romantic paeon, this twelve track synth ridden post-apocalyptic prog pop opus is based on tightly embroidered, non-linear recurring themes and inspired by esoteric stories, cosmic imagery and refiltered past experiences.
Written from the optimistic vantage of a long-standing female independent artist, in an desperately evolving industry, Jane’s latest set of self penned pop abstractions combine mechanical rock / recycled European cinema / empyrean vocalisations and an arsenal of rescued vintage synths to create a futurist narrative backdrop of a allegorical post apocalyptic landscape.
‘The Silver Globe’ features collaborations with David Holmes, Australian space rockers Cybotron, Damon Gough (Badly Drawn Boy), Suzanne Ciani and Andy Votel, as well as a recycled chunk of an 80s Hawkwind track.
Click here to view the full Q&A that Jane Weaver did with Piccadilly Records for our End Of Year Review Booklet 2014.
STAFF COMMENTS
Andy says: An incredible album, a concept album, a whole world of dreams, a portal. With analogue synths, Krautrock grooves, strange wonky disco and whispy, dislocated folk, Jane created a world of sound you couldn't help but fall in love with and ultimately lose yourself in. The song-writing is top notch, the production incredible, the artwork absolutely beautiful. Everything is perfect about this record.TRACK LISTING
1. The Silver Globe
2. Argent
3. The Electric Mountain
4. Arrows
5. Don't Take My Soul
6. Cells
7. Mission Desire
8. Stealing Gold
9. If Only We Could Be In Love
10. Your Time In This Life Is Just Temporary
Evelyn Jane Mason and Jeremiah Klein met in Vancouver in 2011 and connected via a shared love of bass music, R&B and pop. Though their work is collaborative, Jeremiah leans towards production, with Evelyn providing startling vocals and frank lyrics. The results are enthrallingly hazy.
Popping up two years ago in February 2012 with a staggeringly brilliant 12" via Canadian creative collective and imprint King Deluxe, FACT compared Evy Jane's "frozen pop futurism" to the likes of Clams Casino and The Weeknd, whilst Pitchfork simply labelled it "stunning," giving it a Best New Track feature. Newly signed to Ninja Tune, Evy Jane's Closer EP neatly rounds up the duo’s sonic excursions since their explosive debut.
Inherently DIY, Evelyn and Jeremiah draw upon Vancouver's mystical aura to create a world that mirrors and magnifies it. From self-directed videos to hypnotic songwriting, Evy Jane is inspired by the hooks and melodies of R&B as much as the sub low shudder of the UK’s shifting bass music spectrum and the ebb and swell of tidal synth washes and grainy atmospherics.
Title track "Closer" draws the listener into its swirling electronic textures, catchy melodies and bass. The effect is to be caught helpless in its current, and the combination with the song’s lyrical plea for further closeness is heady. ‘Nothing So Great’ is a simply magical combination of synths rising gradually from heavy to urgent with commanding vocals describing the dark aftermath of sex. "Sosoft" is future R&B that charts the fear and wonder of romance via fathoms-deep bass and utterly beguiling vocals, dark veins spreading through lullaby softness. Final track "Worry Heart" ventures into dubbier territory, a recollected vision of failed reassurance seeing Evelyn’s vocals soar: "You are so damn fair. With your anchors gone, you are floating too free".
The beautiful 'Closer EP' vinyl format features artwork by the amazing Leif Podhajsky.
Popping up two years ago in February 2012 with a staggeringly brilliant 12" via Canadian creative collective and imprint King Deluxe, FACT compared Evy Jane's "frozen pop futurism" to the likes of Clams Casino and The Weeknd, whilst Pitchfork simply labelled it "stunning," giving it a Best New Track feature. Newly signed to Ninja Tune, Evy Jane's Closer EP neatly rounds up the duo’s sonic excursions since their explosive debut.
Inherently DIY, Evelyn and Jeremiah draw upon Vancouver's mystical aura to create a world that mirrors and magnifies it. From self-directed videos to hypnotic songwriting, Evy Jane is inspired by the hooks and melodies of R&B as much as the sub low shudder of the UK’s shifting bass music spectrum and the ebb and swell of tidal synth washes and grainy atmospherics.
Title track "Closer" draws the listener into its swirling electronic textures, catchy melodies and bass. The effect is to be caught helpless in its current, and the combination with the song’s lyrical plea for further closeness is heady. ‘Nothing So Great’ is a simply magical combination of synths rising gradually from heavy to urgent with commanding vocals describing the dark aftermath of sex. "Sosoft" is future R&B that charts the fear and wonder of romance via fathoms-deep bass and utterly beguiling vocals, dark veins spreading through lullaby softness. Final track "Worry Heart" ventures into dubbier territory, a recollected vision of failed reassurance seeing Evelyn’s vocals soar: "You are so damn fair. With your anchors gone, you are floating too free".
The beautiful 'Closer EP' vinyl format features artwork by the amazing Leif Podhajsky.
TRACK LISTING
Closer
Nothing So Great
Sosoft
Worry Heart
There's a rare confidence to Emily Jane White's songwriting: it's at once generous and tough-minded, reflective and unsentimental. Her work shares some elements with folk music, but the term does not do justice to her ambitious songwriting and robust arrangements. White possesses a singular voice inspired by the raveled threads of the uncanny in American culture, including depression-era blues and classic works of gothic literature such as Toni Morrison's Beloved and Charlotte Perkins Gilman's The Yellow Wallpaper.
Emily's previous two albums were composed of songs written by her but collaboratively arranged with her band prior to recording. "Blood / Lines" is a different, more personal record, one she was free to explore new directions and avenues, though not altogether by herself. The bass tracks were written by Darwin Meiners, the orchestral string by Shawn Alpay, and the drums by Nick Ott. Emily Jane White also feels blessed to have Marissa Nadler's presence on two tracks ('Faster Than The Devil', "Dandelion Daze') . "Blood / Lines" is a fresh, inspiring and somewhat experimental record in terms of song writing, recording and producing.
Emily's previous two albums were composed of songs written by her but collaboratively arranged with her band prior to recording. "Blood / Lines" is a different, more personal record, one she was free to explore new directions and avenues, though not altogether by herself. The bass tracks were written by Darwin Meiners, the orchestral string by Shawn Alpay, and the drums by Nick Ott. Emily Jane White also feels blessed to have Marissa Nadler's presence on two tracks ('Faster Than The Devil', "Dandelion Daze') . "Blood / Lines" is a fresh, inspiring and somewhat experimental record in terms of song writing, recording and producing.
Remaining faithful to her influences of Germanic märchen tales, Eastern European children’s cinema and mechanical pop music, Jane Weaver expands her critically acclaimed ‘Fallen By Watchbird’ concept album in this ten chapter sequel-of-sorts by employing a cast of new actors and narrators to reinterpret her surreal ‘cosmic aquatic folklore’.
Here Jane experiments with volks-music in its purest, most innocent form using modern tools to re-tell and recycle secondhand stories. Inspired by post-war cinematic interpretations and hand-me-down mistranslations of global folk tales, Jane has collaborated with a close-knit group of musicians, noisemakers and vocalists / narrators to create automatic-music and reilluminate an eleven-page novella about telepathy, technology, lost-love, wiccan, war and watchbirds.
As part of ongoing voice and electronic experiments with the people behind Pre-Cert Records, ‘The Watchbird Alluminate’ includes a wordless vocal introduction and interlude from both Demdike Stare and the elusive Anworth Kirk, while the spoken-word narrative of Finders Keepers’ lost American pop folk singer Susan Christie is reinterpreted by Ghostbox’s Focus Group with results comparable to Ruth White’s 1968 electronic / vox interpretations of Baudelaire’s ‘Flowers Of Evil’.
Jane’s own Bird Records label roster contributes two new cover versions of Weaver’s self-penned tracks re-sung by Italian singer Emma Tricca and Rochdale’s time-slipped falsetto soloist Magpahi (in a track evokes cinematic scenes from ‘Night Of The Hunter’ or ‘The Innocents’). Elsewhere vintage soft-pop royalty appears in the form of a lead vocal from Wendy & Bonnie’s, Wendy Flower, a close friend and confidant of Jane’s since their first collaborations in New York and London in 2006 at the request of Jarvis Cocker for his guest curation at the Meltdown festival.
Other lead performances from Weaver add a new poetic twist to the story in both solo capacity and alongside Samandtheplants’ Sam McLoughlin, whose ‘Natural / Supernatural Lancashire’ library project (with Alison Cooper) from 2010 still resonates as one of that year’s finest new releases.
With a unique approach to making non-linear mechanical music, this pop-up collective adds a further creative perspective to the oft mistreated ‘concept album’ virtually eliminating genre distinction in favour of communal noise - a unique product of genuinely independent music which continues to sprout further branches.
Here Jane experiments with volks-music in its purest, most innocent form using modern tools to re-tell and recycle secondhand stories. Inspired by post-war cinematic interpretations and hand-me-down mistranslations of global folk tales, Jane has collaborated with a close-knit group of musicians, noisemakers and vocalists / narrators to create automatic-music and reilluminate an eleven-page novella about telepathy, technology, lost-love, wiccan, war and watchbirds.
As part of ongoing voice and electronic experiments with the people behind Pre-Cert Records, ‘The Watchbird Alluminate’ includes a wordless vocal introduction and interlude from both Demdike Stare and the elusive Anworth Kirk, while the spoken-word narrative of Finders Keepers’ lost American pop folk singer Susan Christie is reinterpreted by Ghostbox’s Focus Group with results comparable to Ruth White’s 1968 electronic / vox interpretations of Baudelaire’s ‘Flowers Of Evil’.
Jane’s own Bird Records label roster contributes two new cover versions of Weaver’s self-penned tracks re-sung by Italian singer Emma Tricca and Rochdale’s time-slipped falsetto soloist Magpahi (in a track evokes cinematic scenes from ‘Night Of The Hunter’ or ‘The Innocents’). Elsewhere vintage soft-pop royalty appears in the form of a lead vocal from Wendy & Bonnie’s, Wendy Flower, a close friend and confidant of Jane’s since their first collaborations in New York and London in 2006 at the request of Jarvis Cocker for his guest curation at the Meltdown festival.
Other lead performances from Weaver add a new poetic twist to the story in both solo capacity and alongside Samandtheplants’ Sam McLoughlin, whose ‘Natural / Supernatural Lancashire’ library project (with Alison Cooper) from 2010 still resonates as one of that year’s finest new releases.
With a unique approach to making non-linear mechanical music, this pop-up collective adds a further creative perspective to the oft mistreated ‘concept album’ virtually eliminating genre distinction in favour of communal noise - a unique product of genuinely independent music which continues to sprout further branches.
TRACK LISTING
Europium Alluminate (With Demdike Stare)
A Circle And A Star Part 1 (With The Focus Group & Susan Christie)
The Fallen By Watchbird (Video Mix)
Turning In Circles (By Emma Tricca)
Majic Milk
Whispers Of Winter (with Wendy Flower)
Noctilmina (with Anworth Kirk)
My Soul Was Lost, My Soul Was Lost And No-One Saved Me (by Magpahi)
Silver Chord (with Samandtheplants)
A Circle And A Star Part 2 (with The Focus Group & Susan Christie)
Tara Jane O'Neil and Dan Littleton have been seminal figures in the indie rock scene for some time now. Tara first surfaced in 1991 as part of the influential, yet short-lived, band Rodan. Tara then assumed duties concurrently in Retsin and Sonora Pine before embarking on a solo career in early 2000. Over the last ten years or so, you can see Tara's transformation from post-punk rocker to intimate singer-songwriter. This album is reflective of her musical progression.
"Jane Doe" is dangerously heavy, the most devastating release of Converge's long career. They've re-defined and created a new standard for a hardcore / metal band. Converge are one of the leaders of a scene they practically single-handedly created over the last decade and "Jane Doe" is nothing less than one of the heaviest metal / hardcore titles you are ever likely to experience.