VIA PRESS RELEASE | The Songs of Bacharach & Costello, personally compiled by Elvis Costello, brings together all of the published songs that Costello has written with the legendary Burt Bacharach, one of the great composers of popular music in the 20th and now 21st Century. Releasing March 3 via UMe, The Songs of Bacharach & Costello, celebrates a collaboration which began in 1995 and which continues to this day.

It was Costello who wrote the first musical draft of “God Give Me Strength,” communicating from Dublin to Los Angeles by fax—back in the 20th Century—and far from being offended by this presumption, Bacharach sent back an amended copy, laying out the signature intro motif for flugelhorn, adding the expansive bridge section, and making all sorts of subtle but crucial amendments to the melodic and rhythmic phrasing of Costello’s first draft.

Those who were surprised by the writers of “I’m Not Angry” and “What’s New Pussycat?” working together perhaps overlooked that Bacharach was engaging in musical collaboration for only the second time in his storied career—the first resulting in just a handful of songs musically written with Neil Diamond.

This song was a commission for the Allison Anders’ motion picture, Grace Of My Heart, and though both song and movie were overlooked by the Academy Awards, the song did place in the GRAMMY nominations of the following year, as Costello remarked in his book Unfaithful Music & Disappearing Ink: “To have written a song like “God Give Me Strength” and simply stopped would have been ridiculous.”

So began a series of face-to-face songwriting sessions in both California and New York City. Their working methods ranged from one writer responding to the other’s opening musical statement to Costello trying to put lyrical substance and definition to a complete Bacharach composition that did not need any such musical reply. By the end of their initial sessions, there were occasions when they were seated across the room at two pianos, writing successive bars of the new tune.

Read More »

VIA PRESS RELEASE | Continue as a Guest, the new album from The New Pornographers, is set for release on March 31 via Merge Records—their first for the label. Pre-save/pre-order here. The first single, “Really Really Light,” is out now with an accompanying video directed by Christian Cerezo.

In celebration of the new album, The New Pornographers are set for a run of U.S. shows this spring, with support from Wild Pink. The dates include two nights at Chicago’s Thalia Hall, as well as further performances at New York’s Brooklyn Steel and Boston’s Royale. Artist presale begins Tuesday, January 10 at 10 a.m. local—sign up for the presale code here. A portion of proceeds from presale tickets sold via the band’s website will be donated to abortion rights organization Frontera Fund. Tickets will go on sale to the general public Friday, January 13 at 10 a.m. local time.

A co-write with Dan Bejar (Destroyer), “Really Really Light” is a refashioning of a cutting-room-floor track from the band’s acclaimed 2014 album Brill Bruisers. “Part of my process throughout the years has been messing with things I never finished. I really liked Dan’s chorus, and for a while I was just trying to write something that I felt like belonged with it,” A.C. Newman shares. “I was thinking of the Aloe Blacc song ‘The Man’ which interpolated the chorus from Elton John’s ‘Your Song’ and thought it would be fun to interpolate a song that no one knows. Not trying to sound like Aloe Blacc, just doing some interpolating of my own. It became a game of writing a verse that felt like a part of the same song. In my mind, I was striving for a little Jeff Lynne–era Tom Petty, a classic go-to.”

Read More »

Consisting entirely of Caribbean-born musicians (predominantly from Guyana, Jamaica, and Saint Vincent) living in early 1970s London, Cymande was formed by guitarist-vocalist Patrick Patterson and bassist-vocalist Steve Scipio, who then expanded the group to nine members. They proceeded to release three albums in their original incarnation, all of them worthwhile, with their eponymous debut from 1972 set for vinyl reissue by Partisan Records on January 13. The record’s sounds, at times described as Afro Rock or Calypso Rock and even Nyah-Rock, hold up spectacularly well in 2023.

Primarily associated with Cymande, Nyah-Rock is a potent blend of funk, soul, calypso, jazz, reggae, African roots (e.g. Nyabinghi percussion), and yes indeed, rock. Upon arrival in 1972, Cymande were considered innovators, and after giving the debut a few fresh spins 50 years hence, it’s easy to understand why; although built from familiar styles, nobody else at the point of the band’s emergence on the scene had really harnessed such breadth in a comparable fashion.

Cymande, who reunited in 2012 and are still active, have influenced numerous outfits in the half century since their inception, along with becoming a discerning crate-digger’s sample source of choice (and many will recognize “Bra” from the soundtrack to the Spike Lee joint Crooklyn), so it’d be understandable if they’d lost a bit or a lot of their cutting edge as so many absorbed and adapted their moves, but the nine songs (11 on the digital) that shape their first record are still quite vital while being simultaneously infused with aspects of an early ‘70s vintage.

Opener “Zion I” is rhythmically huge (hand drums galore), and with a bold bass groove that’s supple but never too busy. The group chanting of the title intensifies the Jamaican roots, as the presence of a flautist fluting (Mike Rose, who also plays alto sax and smacks the bongos) nods to jazz with a touch of hippiedom’s charms.

Read More »

VIA PRESS RELEASE | Saved from obscurity by a series of chance events, John Fizer’s only recorded album entitled Treasure Man will finally see the light of day. John’s story is a sad but triumphant one. The album producer, James Johnson, and his daughter met John in Berkeley, CA where he is beloved by the community and has been performing and living rough since the summer of ‘69. John would hang semi-precious stones, crystals, and jewelry on the Treasure Tree and invite children to choose a treasure. The children named him the “Treasure Man.”

James got to know John and found out John was a musician with an amazing treasure trove of songs that had never been released. James explains, “He is brilliant (he does the Sunday NYT crossword in 20 minutes) and has a fascinating story. I learned he started out playing the same Lower East Side folk scene as Dylan in the ’60s and has a song out on the Smithsonian Folkways CD Original Folk. When John learned that I am an immersive audio pioneer, with credits including a 3D sound remix of Jimi Hendrix and 3D sound designer for the LA production of the musical The Who’s Tommy, he handed me an old third generation audio cassette tape and asked if I could make it sound better. When I listened, I was blown away. Such amazing songs, singing, and guitar playing.”

Though the Treasure Man masters were initially thought to be lost, they were eventually unearthed deep in John’s old Volvo where he had been living for several years. James continues, “I had cleaned up John’s old cassettes, making them sound as good as possible. Over the course of a year, on four different occasions, I asked John if he had the original master tapes. Each time he said “No.” But one day, out the clear blue, John showed up with a 15 inches per second, quarter inch, half track, real deal master of some of his songs he recorded with the smokin’ hot Ray Bonneville Blues Band backing him. Now I knew the world was going to hear his music the way John intended: big, fat, analog, and on vinyl.”

Read More »

VIA PRESS RELEASE | Craft Recordings proudly announces the release of Birthright: A Black Roots Music Compendium, an expansive overview of American Black roots music. Produced by author, professor, and GRAMMY®-nominated music historian Dr. Ted Olson, along with GRAMMY-winning producer, musician, and author Scott Billington, Birthright offers an introduction to the rich and often nuanced world of Black roots music. Spanning generations and genres, the 40 songs in this brand-new collection showcase a broad range of styles: from gospel and blues to Louisiana Creole, jazz, Gullah music, and more, while the artists range from little-known musicians to enduring icons like John Lee Hooker, Odetta, The Staple Singers, and Lightnin’ Hopkins.

Due out February 17th on 2-CD/digital formats and available for pre-order now, Birthright features a handful of rarities, as well as the previously unreleased “Georgie Buck” by the Carolina Chocolate Drops (a collective of musicians that includes Dom Flemons, Rhiannon Giddens, and Justin Robinson) featuring fiddler Joe Thompson. The 2-CD edition includes insightful essays from musicians/scholars Corey Harris and Dom Flemons (music from both artists also appears on the album), as well as an introduction and detailed track notes by Olson. Through word and song, Birthright not only seeks to pay tribute to an essential canon of American music, but also demonstrates the pervasive influence of Black roots music on popular culture—from country to hip-hop.

While the recordings on Birthright date back to the ’50s, one must take into account the historical through line, which begins centuries ago. “Music in Africa was woven into every aspect of life and every song was specific to a certain time of year, festival, activity or life event,” writes Harris. “When our captive ancestors were driven off the slave ship on to the shores of a strange land, they had these songs with them.” Amid the horrors of slavery, music served as an important form of communication. While African drums were banned, Harris explains, “Stringed instruments and household items like jugs, spoons, bones, and washboards became our weapons of circumstance… But no matter how many laws were passed, you couldn’t outlaw rhythm.”

Read More »

Talk about the Fall of America. By 1984 the folk-rock trio that gave us “Horse with No Name,” “Ventura Highway,” and “Sister Golden Hair” had been reduced to a duo (multi-instrumentalist and vocalist Dan Peek quit the fold in 1977), barely broke the top 200 with its LP of the same year Perspective, had but one charting single worth mentioning since 1976, and become such a poor concert draw that in one notable instance they were reduced to playing a bowling alley. You could almost hear that horse with no name whinnying, “Who are the no namers now?”

But America wasn’t about to lower the flag. Believers in the principle that desperate times call for really stupid measures, on 1984’s Perspective the band’s remaining members Dewey Bunnell and Gerry Beckley decided to get with the times and update their sound with synthesizer players (eight in all) and drum machines. This was akin to Emerson, Lake and Palmer tossing their $8 million of state-of-the-art musical equipment to become a ukulele trio.

America were one of many representatives of the early seventies Southern California folk rock dream, this despite such risible lines from “Horse with No Name” as “the heat was hot” and Randy Newman’s hilarious dismissal of the song’s subject as “a kid who thinks he’s taken acid.” But “Ventura Highway” is almost as good a freewheeling song about chilling on the road as the Eagles’ “Take It Easy,” and four of the band’s five LPs broke into the American Top 10. But by 1979’s Silent Letter, America had permanently lost the plot. Even John Denver, that chipmunk epitome of the un-hip, maintained a tenuous grip on the pop charts until 1983’s It’s About Time.

You can tell from Perspective’s cover that times had been a changin’, and not for the better. Gone are the long hair and iconic imagery of the American West, replaced by Bunnell and Beckley standing before an image of a high-rise that seems to climb to infinity. They’re wearing sports coats, a pathetic image remake if there ever was one, and Beckley appears to have ripped his off the back of Miami Vice’s Don Johnson.

Read More »

VIA PRESS RELEASE | Somewhere between the Dilate album in 2001 ( “a combination of Kyuss and Spacemen 3” NME, with a “looser, more spontaneous feel” Pitchfork) and On the Ellipse in 2003 (“Nowhere is feedback more melancholic, more emotive, than that fashioned by Bardo Pond. And their misty depths have never been more tempting than here and now.” Brainwashed), Bardo Pond transcended into a mantra-like, multi-layered, cross-dimensional, wah wah powered nirvana.

In some circles, they say, spaceships wafted them away and they only returned some-time later, mind-altered and bedraggled, ears ringing. But that is the stuff of supposition.

As we already know, there is no “off” switch on Bardo Pond, they are never knowingly unplugged. Indeed, the modal evolution of their sound continues unabated and, in 2002 in the chasm between albums, they beget the third in the band’s series of limited-edition releases showcasing jam sessions and other miscellany, a trippier trip, postcards from where are super rare.

This sonorous sojourn now appears for the first time on vinyl. It’s part three of their succinctly named Volume series, an unbridled miasma that led to comments in the Village Voice: “Sublimely dissonant psych-smear.”

Double LP Volume 3 is set for release on 10th March on Fire Records.

Jason Pierce (aka J. Spaceman) is the kind of person so enamored of his illicit extracurricular pursuits (think primarily heroin) that he entitled a 1990 album with his then neo-psychedelic band Spacemen 3 Taking Drugs to Make Music to Take Drugs To. And he took his openness to narcotic predilections with him when Spacemen 3 disbanded and he formed Spiritualized.

Spaceman took his loves for exploring inner (and outer) space (see 1997’s Ladies and Gentlemen We Are Floating in Space) and feedback-drenched rock along as well. And on 2003’s Amazing Grace he added a gospel influence, the better to express his very real spiritual yearning. Because unlike his fellow neo-psychedelic genius Anton Newcombe, Pierce has a knack for intensely moving personal lyrics that express his pain, hope, defiance, and yes, love.

On Amazing Grace Pierce breaks things down the middle. Supercharged feedback storms like “This Little Life of Mine” and “She Kissed Me (It Felt Like a Hit)” alternate with spirituals like “Lord Let It Rain on Me” and “Lay It Down Slow,” just as hope is intermixed with “fuck it all” despair. What you’re left with is a man who personifies the lines from Grandaddy’s “He’s Simple, He’s Dumb, He’s the Pilot” that go “Did you love this world (and this world not love you?)”

On the chaotic “This Little Life of Mine” Pierce goes feedback feral and defiantly announces his intention to let go and self-combust—”This little life of mine/I’m gonna let it slide/I’m gonna let it burn/’Cause I’m getting sick of trying.” This is junkie autobiography that is every bit as Fahrenheit 451 as the Velvet Underground’s “Heroin” is New York cool. Forget Lou’s great big clipper ship—Pierce isn’t spouting poetry, he’s dousing himself in gasoline and striking a match.

Read More »