Sam Nicholas’ C-86 inspired brand of post-punk, ‘corrections’ began in 2013, when he was studying to become a teacher in QLD, Australia. His debut LP, ‘Idolatry’ was recorded in Townsville, QLD, at around the same time as music was becoming a ‘way of life’ instead of a passing obsession.
Recognising his music was not built for the humidity, he relocated to the UK for inspiration and full-time employment. His sophomore LP, romantically entitled, ‘Birdsong’ is a summation of his up until this point and all the beauty and complications that come with leaving everything behind.
LINKS:
https://www.facebook.com/correctionsau
http://custommademusicva.com/release/birdsong-cassette
https://corrections.bandcamp.com
-
Your 33 Black Angels – Hott Funn
Your 33 Black Angels (a.k.a. Y33BA) has announced their new album ‘Eternities I’, which is their seventh long-play to date, to be released in early May. Ahead of that, they are previewing the lead track ‘Hott Funn’.
Recorded over three years and more than 60 studio days with endless mixes in the making, ‘Eternities I’ is 13 tracks that are built to stand as the culmination of Y33BA’s labors.
Based out of New York City, Y33BA is a long-running noise-pop freakshow. This genre-defying project has its own stamp of dark pop, electro-paisley new wave space rock, with a dose of crunk bass and rhythm. They produce elegant vibrant melodies with strange, novel sounds. This is the New Age underground for the End Times.
How do a group that has danced around sensibilities and sounds refresh the template? More cutting-edge instruments and riskier, avant-garde pop songs than ever. Imagine Madchester, and imagine dream pop meets Aphex Twin. Imagine the bastard child of Arthur Russell, Rain Parade and Rza and add original 21st century sound design and guitar webs.
This is a radical, angry, watermark record. Designed to embrace and rattle against the times. Combining haute popcraft with touches of the undercurrents of our lives–acid house, Paisley Underground, synth wave, field recordings, minimal electronica and epic RAWK.
As well, the Y33BA wordsmiths have always been equal part poetry fans as lyricists, so the Poesia Concreta of Augusto de Campos or Guillaume Apollonaire may have as much influence as wonderful lyricists like Neil Hannon, Bjork or Serge Gainsbourg. Breaking rhythms and broken meter match the polarized sounds from start to finish.
Formed in 2003, Y33BA debuted with the album ‘Lonely Street’ in 2007, which was a vinyl-only limited edition. Once the initial pressings sold out, Y33BA released the album on CD and digitally. They followed up with ‘Tales of my Pop-Rock Love Life’ (2008), ‘Pagan Princess’ (2009), ‘Songs from the Near Bleak Future’ (Optical Sounds, 2010), ‘Moon and Morning Star’ ( Optical Sounds, 2012) and ‘Glamour’ (2015).
In that time, they have played over 500 shows across Europe and North America, sharing the stage with some rather fine acts during recent tours. The Monochrome Set selected Y33BA as the direct support act for its first New York City show in 30 years. La Femme, The Veldt and Dyr Faser have toured or shared many nights with the group. The band has also played with King Tuff, Blitzen Trapper, Suuns, Six Organs of Admittance, Blonde Elvis, B-17 and We Melt Chocolate.
The video for ‘Hott Funn’ was made by Richie of Vinyl Villains. “Richie is a mysterious Bushwick programmer that doesn’t leave his loft til the light has disappeared and the day has turned to dark. He is part vampire, part design whiz. He has invented an automated animation program that turns songs into aliens, furry creatures, whatever the sound seems to suggest. Obviously, Your 33 Black Angels has a very alien sound, but he might have horses singing to Neil Young, vegan cupcakes singing Fiona Apple, dolphins singing Supergrass, etc. Richie is so ineffable and distant, we don’t even know his last name. All we know is he commands legions of aliens, faeries, and elves. Literally, that’s what he does!”
Y33BA ‘Eternities I’ is slated for release on May 7 and will be available across digital stores and streaming platforms. It can also be pre-ordered via Bandcamp. The band’s album release show will take place on May 10 at Alphaville in Brooklyn.
“A delight of jangling guitars, spacey-sweet vocals, and electronic squiggles, a psych record rooted in beat-pop and experimentalism”
– Village Voice (on ‘Glamour’)“One of this year’s treasures… is worth the hunt for its pop-wise rattle (Pavement with a case of the Strokes) and singer Josh Westfal’s resemblance, in dry, frank voice and cautious optimism, to another local institution: Lou Reed on the Velvet Underground’s fourth album, Loaded”
– Rolling Stone (On ‘Lonely Street’)“This is dark electric frenzied New Wave space-rock, blasting by like a fiery and unexpected sonic guest, clearly defying genres and interacting with cosmic messengers”
– Big Takeover Magazine“Retro-leaning, though hardly flower pop fetishists… pacey keyboard textures and groove-oriented arrangements, while their penchant for laid-back Daniel Johnston vocals and warbly lo-fi riffs more closely resembles the classic college rock of Pavement and Built to Spill”
– NOW Toronto (On ‘Songs from the Near Bleak Future’)“Your 33 Black Angels are known for frenetic, unpredictable shows. the interlocking guitars sometimes surged into what seemed like an eternal groove”
– Washington Post (live review)LINKS:
https://www.facebook.com/your33blackangels
https://y33ba.bandcamp.com
https://twitter.com/y33ba
https://www.instagram.com/y33ba
https://soundcloud.com/y33ba
https://itunes.apple.com/bn/artist/your-33-black-angels/271047566 -
2Square & Mark Gardener – Chained
2Square has teamed up with RIDE’s Mark Gardener for their video for the new single titled ‘Chained’. The video captures the mood and moments of the song in that it appears as a quiet dream. An almost solemn memory of a moment captured more with feeling than with recollection. The director chooses subtlety over substance and it works to an almost relaxing state, perfectly complimenting the track.
The song is done in an almost avant-garde style of songwriting with a jazz-fusion style piano alongside the gaze-stylings of Mark Gardener and the post-modern wrapping that is the representation of the track but, when you listen again, there is so much more going on under the surface. Both electric and stylistically. Listen to this a few times for the sake of artistic comprehension. You won’t be disappointed.
‘Chained’ is available now via Mark Gardener’s own Bandcamp and will appear on other streaming and sales platform soon (date to be announced). Look forward to several more singles from this collaboration to be announced this summer.
ABOUT ‘CHAINED’
Recorded in Haeri’s small Parisian smoky apartment in the Strasbourg-Saint-Denis area, Gardener notes that this is “up there with my favorite collaborations ever”, saying this will “hopefully take our minds away from all current madness we’re living in”. Written by Stephan Haeri and Mark Gardener with Gardener’s lyrics, this single was mixed by Stephan Haeri and mastered by Mark Gardener at OX4 Sound.
Mark is best known as a songwriter, lead vocalist, and guitarist with shoegaze trailblazers Ride. He also owns and runs the OX4 Sound recording studio. Over the past 20 years, Mark has produced and mixed the work of many highly respected artists, producers and bands including The Brian Jonestown Massacre, Robin Guthrie, Telepopmusik, Dive Index, Rinocerose, Ulrich Schnauss, Man With No Name, Hopewell, Jam+Spoon, Mikel Erentxun, Dead Horse One, Cat Martino and Swervedriver, along with scoring the soundtrack for the Mojo award-winning film ‘Upside Down’ (The Creation Records Story). Mark now brings this knowledge and experience to his new purpose-built studio.
“I met Stephan through a mutual friend – Melanie Bauer, a well-known DJ on Paris radio. I had known and become close lifelong friends with Melanie since meeting her to interview on her program during an early Ride promo tour in Paris. Our paths with Stephan had crossed a few times but Melanie basically set up this recording session, thinking it could be a great combination. Stephan had a small apartment, which he lived in and had turned into a studio. I always loved to visit Paris so I was happy to go and spend a week with Stephan at his apartment, where I also stayed for the best part of a week,” says Mark Gardener.
“Stephan had some loose instrumental ideas and I got to work with lyrics and vocal topline ideas in reaction to these instrumental sketches I was hearing and then Stephan would mess around with my vocal lines. I think I popped out for food now and again, but we basically didn’t stop for a week until the songs were written and recorded. Stephan mixed it as we were going and then finished the mixes when I had gone back to England. This and the other two tracks are among my lifetime favorite collaborations.
Earlier, Telepopmusik released the highly acclaimed single ‘Sound’, featuring vocals by Mark Gardener, for which they released an intriguing video by Japan’s Toshiaki Toyoda. The vocals for that particular track were recorded during the same Paris session that spawned this new single ‘Chained’.
“I wrote ‘Chained’, reflecting on my old home in Oxford, which had become a non-stop nightclub during a time post Ride breakup, when I was living alone. All got a bit out of control for a while and I had some great parties and friends, but one, in particular, would always show up late at my house when I was working in my attic studio. He was a bit of a walking chemistry set, so he would always show up with substances. I was not in the best head-space at that time and was trying to get away from substances, which was not so easy when it kept on coming through my front door,” explains Gardener.
“We’d always end up having big and good nights drinking, getting high and listening to records until dawn for a period; hence the line ‘Chained till dawn to find a new way’ lyric. I knew this was slowly dragging me down so, in the end, I packed up my car with a friend and we drove to the Medieval Wilds of France in search of a new life. I ended up living in France for four years, experiencing a much-needed break from that life. It was just what the doctor ordered! France and nature basically refueled me and put back everything I felt I had lost after Ride and then a few lost party years in Oxford after that.”
‘Chained’ is available now via Mark Gardener’s own Bandcamp and will appear on other streaming and sales platform soon (date to be announced). Look forward to several more singles from this collaboration to be announced this summer.
CREDITS
Written and recorded in Paris
Music by Stephan Haeri and Mark Gardener
Words by Mark Gardener
Mixed by Stephan Haeri
Mastered by Mark Gardener at OX4 SoundLINKS:
https://www.ox4sound.co.uk
https://www.facebook.com/ox4sound
https://markgardener.bandcamp.com
https://soundcloud.com/ox-4-sound
https://twitter.com/OX4Sound
https://twitter.com/MarkGardener
https://www.instagram.com/ox4sound
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCFFgoaqoGlLaRjvfNf-vUoQ -
The Digital Masquerade – Straight Jacket
Covina, CA based metal band The Digital Masquerade has released the Official Music Video for their single, “Straight Jacket,” off of their full-length LP, Digital Train Time Machine. “Straight Jacket” was directed and edited by renown Society 1 front-man and artist Matt Zane of Lord Zane Productions.
“Straight Jacket,” Digital Masquerade’s first music video, was filmed in Glendale, CA at the old abandoned police facility. The song is a story about getting institutionalize in a criminally insane asylum and tortured. Then the inmates overtake the asylum and escape, which story is visually captured by director Matt Zane.
The Digital Masquerade started back 2013 in the city of Azusa, California. It all started when Kurt and Trevor met each other at a party through Kurt’s old guitarist from his previous band, Sixteen Till. Immediately, they clicked and started jamming. They wrote a couple songs and knew that they had something going, so naturally, they picked up a bassist and drummer and formed ‘The Digital Masquerade’. Before acquiring a bassist and drummer, Trevor and Kurt pretty much wrote the entire first album.
A little while later, they recorded the first album, “Welcome to the Masquerade”. However, before recording had begun, the former bassist had left to join the Air Force. This left Trevor to record all the bass parts. The former drummer had moved to Tennessee after recording and before the album was ever released. With only a singer and a guitarist, the band was going through a bit of a hiatus. Even though all of this had happened, Kurt and Trevor decided to keep the band alive and start jamming again.
They wrote a few more songs before finding a bassist. Trevor had known of a guy that played bass and guitar by the name of Collin. Collin filled in on bass before finding now bassist, Jim. Jim had been in a band Mind-vent on the east coast and moved to California. After being recruited to play bass, Collin then moved to rhythm guitar.
Now with Kurt on lead vocals, Trevor on lead guitar, Collin on rhythm guitar and Jim on bass, all the band needed was a drummer. This brings us to Red. Red had found an ad on craigslist for a band seeking a drummer and immediately contacted them. The band asked if he could try out and he did. They immediately connected and thus completing The Digital Masquerade. With a complete band, they recorded their first album together, Digital Train Time Machine. They played a few local shows, promoting their album. Then set out for more rewarding shows. They received their first show in the “light” at The Whisky A Go Go in Hollywood, Ca.
They opened up for Circus of Power and got great reviews. Since then they have opened for other national acts such as Stephen Pearcy from Ratt, LA Guns, Dizzy Reed from Guns N’ Roses, Motograter etc.. They since have been playing and continuing to write music. They recently made a music video for their single, “Straight Jacket” in which they are touring to promote it along with writing new material to be recorded in the fall of 2017.
SOURCE: Official Bio
LINKS:
http://www.thedigitalmasquerade.com
https://www.facebook.com/thedigitalmasquerade
https://twitter.com/Thedigitalmasq
https://www.instagram.com/thedigitalmasquerade