Frisco-based alt hip hop artist Morsifire is well versed in the art of committing his mental anguish to tape.

He’s experienced an unbelievable amount of trauma in his young adult life, and his honest songs bravely explore the depths of his pain. Yes, his debut LP, Metanoia, is clearly a therapeutic exorcism of his inner demons, but it also shows the boundless promise of an MC who is not afraid to tackle more substantial themes.

“Contact” is about the untimely loss of his younger sister, (one of the several family members he’s lost along the way), and Morsifire succeeds in honoring her by constructing a cathartic memorial of heartfelt verses that delve into the past and project into the future—all weaved together with a beautiful hook from San Fran songbird Emily Afton. It’s an evocative interplay of tones that recalls Eminem’s career high collaboration with Dido, “Stan.”

The forthcoming LP, Metanoia, arrives in stores on October 11, 2019.

If folk music scares me–and it does–English folk music really scares me; I’m still trying to recover from the traumatic consequences of inadvertently viewing a YouTube video of Pentangle performing the pro-virginity dirge “Let No Man Steal Your Thyme.”

That said, I’ve always made an exception for Fairport Convention in general, and their LP 1969’s Unhalfbricking in particular. Unhalfbricking was the work of a band moving away from American influences towards the Ye Olde English-style minstrelsy, and the music they performed during said transition is some of their best.

Fairport Convention’s take on folk rock is decidedly English–as English as eel pie. And how couldn’t it be–listening to Sandy Denny, who remains arguably the best English folk singer in the history of recorded music, is like walking the Cornish cliffs of Tintagel on a lovely May morn. But–and the caveat is critical–you never get the awful sense you’ve wandered into the bucolic pagan setting of the 1973 film The Wicker Man, where you’ll be shoved into a wicker totem and burned alive, a sacrifice to a bountiful harvest, as the happy villagers sing “Sumer Is Icumen In.” (A tune I’m sure Pentangle performed all the time.)

While “lovely” best describes the songs on Unhalfbricking, you get plenty of variety: a trio of exceptional Dylan covers; one instant classic; a pair of slower numbers that creep up on you, and one Cajun-flavored rock’n’roller that sticks out, if you’ll bear the obscure allusion, like Beau Brummell at a stevedores’ convention. Oh, and there’s one simply incredible song that somehow manages to bridge the gap between the English traditional folk form and the Velvet Underground.

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A native of Kent, England, Alexander Tucker’s musical roots span back to hardcore in the 1990s, but he’s come to prominence through the interweaving of drone, electroacoustic elements, psychedelia, post-industrial ambiance and honest-to-goodness songs. Tucker’s latest solo effort (he’s also part of Grumbling Fur) is Guild of the Asbestos Weaver, his eighth full-length and the fourth to be released by Thrill Jockey. Offering five expansive tracks and a “classic” album runtime, the contents blend focused experimentation and trad tunesmithing to a result that’s as inviting as it is edgy. It’s out on vinyl, compact disc, and digital August 23.

The title of Alexander Tucker’s new record derives from the underground opposition in Ray Bradbury’s dystopian science-fiction classic Fahrenheit 451, a borrowing that’s representative of the artist’s stated desire to combine his longstanding interest in sci-fi and “cosmic horror” (from comic art, filmic and literary forms) with minimalism, drone and dream music.

To elaborate on that last style, it’s not dream-pop Tucker is tapping into but rather, explicitly stated, the “Dreamweapon” modus operandi of Angus MacLise, a legendary 1960s NYC-based percussionist-composer who was part of La Monte Young’s groundbreaking drone endeavor the Theater of Eternal Music. MacLise died in 1979, and it took roughly two decades for recordings (both under his own name and as a part of Young’s group) to become commercially available.

Still, MacLise’s biggest claim to “fame” (notably a goal he never strived for) is as an inaugural member of the Velvet Underground; that no recordings featuring his contribution survive from this era only adds to his mythic stature. As mentioned above, the impact of MacLise’s aesthetic on Guild of the Asbestos Weaver is right there in Thrill Jockey’s promo text, and it’s worth expanding upon due to Tucker’s similarity, both vocally and compositionally, to MacLise’s associate John Cale.

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VIA PRESS RELEASE | Vinyl edition to be available on translucent blue with printed inner sleeve with liner notes from original album contributors and the surviving band members.

Big Star formed in 1971, and in its brief four years together, created three albums that consistently make “Best of All-Time” lists. Eighteen years after officially disbanding, original members Alex Chilton and Jody Stephens joined forces with the Posies’ Jon Auer and Ken Stringfellow for a live performance, which led to a tour (documented on Omnivore Recordings’ Live in Memphis), and years of concerts. While the live shows were a joy and surprise, a bigger surprise happened in 2005, after more than a decade playing together: a new studio album. As Ryko A&R’s Jeff Rougvie said, “It was the easiest approval for a project I ever got.”

In Space featured new 12 tracks (10 originals and a cover of The Olympics’ “Mine Exclusively” and French baroque composer Georg Muffat’s “Aria, Largo”) recorded where Big Star began, at the classic Ardent Studios. The new lineup was creating a new chapter for the band while honoring its past.

With original albums going for outrageous prices, In Space returns as an LP on translucent blue vinyl, and expanded CD with six bonus tracks including “Hot Thing” (previously available on the out-of-print Big Star Story) and five previously unissued demos and alternate mixes. Packaging contains liner notes from Rougvie, original album co-producer/engineer Jeff Powell (who also cut the new vinyl), assistant Ardent engineer Adam Hill, and surviving band members Jon Auer, Ken Stringfellow, and Jody Stephens.

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Led by siblings Jeff and Steven McDonald, Redd Kross is a byproduct of the original Los Angeles punk scene. Having been through myriad changes and periods of inactivity across the decades since, that they are releasing quality music in 2019 is a circumstance worth celebrating. That is to say, the McDonald’s latest is a beacon of inspired punk-edged pop-rocking, a record brought to fruition with guitarist Jason Shapiro and Melvins drummer Dale Crover (this duo part of the recording process for the first time). A tidy and consistent slab of muscular catchiness, Beyond the Door is out digitally, on CD in a 4-panel digipak, and on black or opaque purple vinyl August 23 through Merge Records of Durham, NC.

Researching the Blues, which marked a return to activity for Redd Kross, was one of 2012’s most pleasant surprises. ‘twas such because the band didn’t exactly cease operations on a high note in the ’90s (though I do rate ’96’s Show World, their third and final album before the long break, as their best of the decade). And let us face it; by 2012 the brothers were frankly getting up there in years, and while this 48-year old doesn’t want to come off as ageist, older folks dishing out shit-hot rock ‘n’ roll is still very much the exception and not the norm.

Crover and Shapiro (who was in ’80s punk-glamsters Celebrity Skin and before that San Fran hardcore act Verbal Abuse) are no spring chickens either. As the McDonalds’ pop-rock elder status intensifies, their ability to deliver lively hard-pop hasn’t diminished, perhaps because they’ve resisted the formulaic, and not only by opening up the recording process to the current live band; it’s made plain in the promo text that Steven is more involved in the songwriting process than ever before.

Opener “The Party” underscores the collective engagement in the process as the track outlines the band’s “total commitment to having the best fucking time we can have while we’re all still here.” This might radiate vibes similar to Urge Overkill in smoking jackets with cigars and brandy snifters, but the band has resisted any impulse to direct the above mission statement into a retro-sophisto-livin’-the-high-life costume trip, and for that, I’m glad.

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VIA PRESS RELEASE | Warner Bros. Pictures will release a cinematic film version of Bruce Springsteen’s latest album, ‘Western Stars’, worldwide, on the big screen. Longtime collaborator Thom Zimny directs together with Springsteen in his directorial debut. The announcement was made today by Toby Emmerich, Chairman Warner Bros. Pictures Group. ‘Western Stars’, which will make its world premiere at the 2019 Toronto International Film Festival, is slated for release this Autumn.

Springsteen’s first studio album in five years, ‘Western Stars’ marks a departure for the legendary singer/songwriter while still drawing on his roots. Touching on themes of love and loss, loneliness and family and the inexorable passage of time, the documentary film evokes the American West—both the mythic and the hardscrabble—weaving archival footage and Springsteen’s personal narration with song to tell the story of Western Stars. ‘Western Stars’ offers fans the world over their only opportunity to see Springsteen perform all 13 songs on the album, backed up by a band and a full orchestra, under the cathedral ceiling of his historic nearly 100-year-old barn.

Emmerich stated, “Bruce lives in the super rarified air of artists who have blazed new and important trails deep into their careers. With ‘Western Stars,’ Bruce is pivoting yet again, taking us with him on an emotional and introspective cinematic journey, looking back and looking ahead. As one of his many fans for over 40 years, I couldn’t be happier to be a rider on this train with Bruce and Thom.”

‘Western Stars’, Springsteen’s 19th studio album, has achieved global success. It has been #1 on the iTunes charts on every continent, including such countries as the U.S., the UK, Belgium, Germany, Spain, Italy, the Netherlands, Australia, India, South Africa, and all of Scandinavia, among other countries. It has also received rave reviews, with critics using words like “hauntingly brilliant,” “beguiling,” “gorgeous” and a “masterpiece.”

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Today we remember actor Peter Fonda who passed away on Friday, August 16 with a look back at the soundtrack from one of his most iconic roles, Easy Rider.

After seeing Easy Rider for the first time, I wanted nothing more than to take off across America on a chopper with a tear drop gas tank emblazoned with the red, white, and blue, smoke tons of grass and gobble lots of acid, and meet a lunatic ACLU lawyer in a gold football helmet looking to turn on, tune in, and drop out. Alas, it wasn’t meant to be, as my first motorcycle ride also turned out to be my last, after losing control of the thing and crashing head-on into our next door neighbor’s barn. And nothing’s changed over the years; the last time I tried to ride a bicycle I decided to smoke a cigarette at the same time, and ended up toppling into some rat-infested shrubbery.

So Captain America I’m not. But I love the movie, which was all about freedom, man, freedom to wear your hair long and get stoned and do whatever the hell you wanted to do without kowtowing to the Man, man. Billy (Dennis Hopper) and Captain America (Peter Fonda) represented the outlaw biker life, which came without the shackles of job, home, and hearth, but carried its own risks; as the ACLU lawyer Hanson (Jack Nicholson) tells Billy and Captain America, their freedom makes the squares “dangerous. Buh, neh! Neh! Neh! Neh! Swamp!”

But the thing I love most about the world’s greatest hippie exploitation film is its soundtrack, the rights to which cost more than the film itself. It includes two great Steppenwolf tunes and one and a half Dylan tunes, both of which were performed by Roger McGuinn, and intersperses dope anthems with dismal songs of doom, in keeping with the movie’s groovier moments and lingering sense—what with homicidal rednecks and pigs everywhere—that things won’t end well for Billy, Captain America, and Hanson. (Spoiler alert! Shit, too late.) And when I talk about the soundtrack I’m not talking about the 2004 Deluxe Edition, but the one you could listen to in your groovy pad with its beaded doorways, day glo ceilings, and black light poster of Three Dog Night (okay, so you were one very unhip hippie; don’t beat yourself up about it).

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“It’s remarkable how the music that resonates with you through the years depends at least as much on who you were when you first heard it as it does on some”objective” criteria of its quality.”

“The first record I ever owned was Barry Manilow’s Greatest Hits which I got when I was 10 in 1978. His big hit at the time was “Ready to Take a Chance Again,” which was used to great effect in the Goldie Hawn, Chevy Chase thriller Foul Play (which I also loved, by the way). So everything from “Daybreak” to “Can’t Smile Without You” to his “rocking” numbers like “Copacabana”—I loved all of it. I loved the singing. I loved the instrumentation. I loved the over-the-top sentimentality.

All of those qualities found themselves into my own work. Not that I would ever put myself in the same category either talent-wise or obviously success-wise as Barry Manilow. But man I loved that record and I wore it out, and I remember even being assigned to be the lead male dancer at my camp and the tune was the theme to American Bandstand that our choreographer had chosen and discovering that song also had been written by Barry Manilow just felt quite perfect to me.

Predictably, as I got to high school and wanted to seem cooler and probably also not get pummeled, I wasn’t as willing to publicly acknowledge how much I loved that particular genre of sappy love ballads. But secretly I still did. And then something funny happened as I entered the punk and indie-rock phases of my musical career.

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