“When we made Rats’ Nest, it felt experimental,” singer Stu Mackenzie said in a statement. “Like, ‘Here’s this music that some of us grew up on but we’d never had the guts or confidence to really play before, so let’s give it a go and see what happens.’ And when we made that album we were like, ‘Fuck, why did it take us so long to do this?’ It’s just so much fun to play that music, and those songs work so well when we play them live. So we always had it in our minds to make another metal record.”
The Murlocs offered the final preview of their coming album Calm Ya Farmwith the swirling psychedelic single, “Queen Pinky”. The new album from the King Gizzard & The Lizard Wizard offshoot led by multi-instrumentalist Ambrose Kenny-Smith is out on Friday via ATO Records.
King Gizzard & The Lizard Wizard will release new album ‘PetroDragonic Apocalypse; or, Dawn of Eternal Night: An Annihilation of Planet Earth and the Beginning of Merciless Damnation’ on June 16th.
The Australian band are ever-productive, releasing a string of albums throughout 2022. The coming year brings yet more projects, with King Gizzard set to release a grandiosely titled album this summer.
King Gizzard and the Lizard Wizard have announced details of their forthcoming album ‘PetroDragonic Apocalypse’, which is apparently “heavy as fuck”. The album will be out on 16th June via KGLW
An empty cabaret in the wee hours of the night is the setting for a surprising twist on the good, old-fashioned love song in the Murlocs‘ “Queen Pinky” video, directed by Hayden Somerville. The track can be found on the Australian band’s new album, Calm Ya Farm, which is out on Friday (May 19).
“If I’m going to write something, I need to move forward,” he said in a recent interview, his first since his opus, “One Wayne G,” was released. “I like this stuff. I’d like to share it. I don’t really know how. I might as well just give it all at the same time.”
“Celebrate they did, though there was also a shared sense of purpose marinating in the venue. One could feel the unspoken agreement that – while there is a lot of work to do to combat all of the recent legislative and judicial attacks on reproductive heath, gender-affirming care, and democracy in general – tonight was a time to dance and recharge in order to rise to fight another day.”
By the end of the first song there is one undeniable truth: Bikini Kill is just as paramount today as they were 30 years ago. Formed in 1990 in Olympia, Washington, Bikini Kill broke into music with the intention of igniting change. They were a beacon of resistance and actively encouraged other women to embrace their power. Kathleen Hanna is credited for coining phrases such as “girls to the front” and the infamous “girl power.” Their influence on alternative music and feminism during recent decades has been immeasurable. Now back on tour, the women who helped pioneer the Riot Grrrl Movement are reminding us all that our anger is our power.
The Murlocs turn reality upside down in the video for “Undone and Unashamed,” the second single from their upcoming album Calm Ya Farm. In the Jack Rule-directed clip, group member Ambrose Kenny-Smith does his best to snap an unidentified couch potato out of his bathrobe-wearing, beer-drinking, canned foot-eating malaise, while also offering up a nifty saxophone solo in the process.
“With Bikini Kill, Kathleen Hanna had led a band that challenged and changed the gender dynamics of punk rock. Then came Le Tigre. Hanna says that their MO was to “write political pop songs and be the dance party after the protest.” And their debut in 1999 delivered: it’s a record that’s clever and political but not too clever and political to get in the way of having fun: these are shouty, exhilarating songs, charged with a DIY spirit using drum machines, samplers, turntables and also a sense of discovery, celebration and solidarity. “Deceptacon” remains an indie dance-floor filler and “My My Metrocard” has the lines ““Oh, fuck Giuliani! He’s such a fucking jerk!”. What’s not to love?”
The artist will be playing a one-off show in Los Angeles as well as residencies in New York, Paris and at London’s Hackney Empire. Accompanied by a full band, he will be performing ‘Five Easy Hot Dogs’ in its entirety, as well as other songs from his catalogue with new arrangements.
Most bands wring their hands over whether to reunite or not, but for Le Tigre it was easy. The impetus was a festival in Pasadena, Los Angeles, in 2022. “It was three miles from my house,” says frontwoman Kathleen Hanna, laughing. “I was like: ‘I want to do this because I can cruise down the hill and go to the festival and all my friends can come.’” Then they concluded that the rehearsals for the festival – done over video call, and in LA and New York where bandmates Johanna Fateman and JD Samson live – shouldn’t be wasted. They announced a full tour, their first since 2005, which hits the UK in June.
“Look, I’ve already waxed poetic in the e-pages of this particular publication about what be your own PET reuniting last year meant to me. To see them a year later as one of the biggest and busiest bands at SXSW warmed the cockles of my jaded 6th-time-at-SXSW heart. The nighttime set I saw at Mohawk was raw power, delivering favorites like “Adventure” and future hearing loss I’ll be billing to my HMO. They played a Damned cover and a couple new tunes; bands don’t reunite to play the hits at SXSW. A new album must be coming soon, and my internal 21-year-old and I are extremely pumped. “
“Ominously distorted minimal synth chords bang underneath a whooshing chant cranked on my best speakers while I think about how best to describe this music. The artist’s name is Spellling because that is what she does, cast spells.”
“Working quickly on the heels of their 2022 garage rock concept album Rapscallion, Australian rock outfit the Murlocs will return with another new project, Calm Ya Farm, on May 19 via ATO Records. Rarely content to work in one genre, the group dabbles here in the country rock stylings of the Byrds in tandem with tinges of ’70s British pub rockers such as Nick Lowe.”
“Mid 2000s Nashville garage rock band be your own PET got back together for the first time in 14 years in 2022 after being asked by Jack White to open part of his tour. Their shows have still been rare, but they’re gearing up for a busy SXSW, including one of the Third Man shows and the free BrooklynVegan day party at Mohawk on Wednesday (3/15). The band initially formed in 2004 when they were still teenagers, and they were overnight sensations right from the start with their single “Damn Damn Leash.” They caught the attention of Thurston Moore, who signed them to his Ecstatic Peace label and had them open for Sonic Youth. They broke up in 2008–after which singer Jemina Pearl went solo and other members formed JEFF the Brotherhood, Turbo Fruits, Public Access TV, and more–but they left an impact that’s continued to reach younger fans and influence new bands”
“For sophomore Get Awkward, BYOP pivoted to Sixties girl-group sophistication and leather-jacket-clad art rock riffs. Even slightly more polished, their appetite for the unruly remained. Throughout their four-year run, the singer and bandmates – guitarist Jonas Stein, bassist Nathan Vasquez, and drummer John Eatherly – garnered critical acclaim from almost every major music publication, before even turning 21″
“Some musicians aren’t invited to play the Sydney Opera House. They’re invited to fight against it. Bikini Kill are such a band, which is something lead singer Kathleen Hanna noted numerous times during their set, in between blasts of raucous, compact punk.”
“After 14 years, 23 albums, and one pandemic-driven period of “defragmenting the hard drive,” the members of Australian psych-rockers King Gizzard & The Lizard Wizard look back on a banner year and their newfound place in the jamband pantheon”
“In the last 30 years, much of what Hanna fought for has materialised and to see them back together is a vindication of their fraught mission. The Riot Grrrls of the 90s are now women of the new millennium. Yet there’s still plenty of work to do, giving the music an enduring contemporary relevance while retaining its abrasive causticness”
“As his addictive new album Five Easy Hot Dogs is released, the artist opens up to Emma Garland about the emotional – and real-life – journeys he’s been on lately, his monk-like existence and the worst thing he ate on the road…”
Although this record is something different from what it is expected from the artist, it keeps Demarco’s distinctive sound and personality that characterize his songs. With every tune, more instruments and harmonies arise and maintain a smooth mood that is reflected in each melody. Overall, this album is the perfect company for any road trip.
“Five Easy Hot Dogs captures the essence of DeMarco—the person and the musician. The relaxed and somewhat bittersweet record falls between stories of love and youth that characterize his earlier works, like 2, and the melancholy melodies of This Old Dog. The new record relies solely on sound—no lyrics—a decision made by the artist to differentiate his work, and to propose something new. Five Easy Hot Dogs debuts a DeMarco without complacency; he invites the range offered in ambiguity—in storytelling unrestricted by the specificities of language.”
“…Suddenly the scene bursts into action as the rest of the Freedom Band emerge amongst a dervish of roadies preparing the stage for the full-band assault, and there’s a sudden wall of noise as they unleash into the buzzsaw dirge of older track Wave Goodbye, the thick molten riffs getting heads up the front, banging in unison before dissolving into a lengthy wig-out. It’s immediately apparent that this is a far different beast to the Ty Segall of last visit, having evolved away from his garage-pop foundations into a more cosmic, jamming behemoth. He’s always given the vibe of not caring the slightest about anything but what he likes, so the shift works seamlessly. His bandmates are fully invested in the transformation and follow their leader into the fray with gleeful abandon”
“Mac DeMarco has already tallied Billboard chart accolades, and now he’s also a Billboard Hot 100-charting artist, as his song “Heart to Heart” debuts on the Jan. 28-dated ranking at No. 98
The track, from the Canadian singer-songwriter’s fourth studio album, 2019’s Here Comes the Cowboy, debuts almost entirely on the strength of 5.8 million U.S. streams (up 7%) in the Jan. 13-19 tracking week, according to Luminate”
“Ultimately DeMarco spent four months in this state of creative transit. The result is a rewarding abundance of vibes and textures, less a collection of songs than a state of mind to be explored. It’s as chill as you’d expect — as chill as you’d hope. Stream Five Easy Hot Dogs below.”
“DIY pioneer Mac Demarco found solace in solitude as traveled the U.S. and abroad to record his newest instrumental record with his makeshift mobile studio. Five Easy Hot Dogs isn’t his first rodeo with instrumental tracks. The singer/songwriter released a small, eight-track instrumental album Some Other Ones for fans back in 2015. This time, the opening track “Gualala” gives Demarco fans a familiar feeling with his signature synths tweeting in and around the song, accompanied by a mixed style of plucking and strumming from an acoustic guitar and a rounded bass line to keep the song moving steady. The LP attests to the joys of escaping to places where no one knows you, if just for a moment. Each song’s runtime is about two minutes and is named after the location where the track was recorded. And the tracks from each place maintain a particular theme with the use of similar instruments. Vancouver, which consists of three tracks on the album, quickens the pace of the record. You can imagine DeMarco getting a little more pep in his step as he takes a little walk around town. The 14-track album bears a light feeling throughout the listening experience, thanks to the stripped-down production, and encourages you to find the beauty in the mundane—create when you feel inspired, and create because you love doing it”
