Dreamy post-punk rockers Crooked Ghost have announced that their new album ‘Skeleton House’ will be released on CD on November 23, followed by a limited edition 12″ vinyl release in February 2019. Ahead of this, the Asheville, NC outfit presents their ‘Sleepwalker’ single, accompanied by a video, directed by Rome Widenhouse.
“Skeleton House’ is the band’s sophomore long-play – a dark and hazy dreamscape of lush and angular melody, with a stark lyrical rawness touching upon such subjects as addiction, trauma, loss, superstition, and everything that gets left behind after a catastrophic event. The album consists of eight tracks, ranging from dreamy and playful to anguished and harrowing. Billowing vocal patterns weave intricate stories between shimmering guitar crescendos, cascading synths, and mathematical percussion.
This album follows up their debut LP ‘Strange Burial Rituals’, released in March 2017. This new offering has two distinct halves: the first is lighter, the second darker. The whole thing plays out like a story, or rather, two opposite stories that are intertwined.
“The song ‘Sleepwalker’ was one of the first written for the new album, and everything about it just worked. The song itself is in reference to addiction and a dissolution of one’s sense of self; self-medicating and numbness. I wanted to bring light to something dark, yet still tell an honest story. Something about this song has always stood out for us, says frontman Ray Clark.
“The music video was shot by Rome Widenhouse over a period of several weeks and includes shots of that eclipse everyone was so excited about. The video is a bit surreal and has a sort of Twin Peaks meets the X-Files vibe. It was a lot of fun to shoot, even the traipsing barefoot through the woods in nothing but a bedsheet and getting poison ivy part. At one point our director took a tumble down a cliffside and we thought he was done for!”
Formed in Seattle in 2013 as an acoustic side project by Ray Clark, Crooked Ghost was initially a channel for leftover songs that didn’t seem to fit in any of the other bands Clark was involved in, but quickly became the focal point of Ray’s creative energy. Ray soon fled the musically-saturated Seattle scene to find himself in the intensely creative heart of Asheville, North Carolina.
With a guitar case full of lyrics of songs never intended to be heard by anyone, somehow, something had begun to spark again. Intimidated by the idea of a solo project, Ray joined with Chris Saldin, who would play bass, and bought an electric guitar, set on bringing Crooked Ghost to life. Together with drummer Jon Wyatt, the songs came to life. A few months later, they entered the studio to record their debut album.
They were eventually joined by Charles Reed on guitar and Alex Cannon on keyboards before recording the heavily emotive and dreamily lush ‘Skeleton House’. With the power-pop punch of Catch Fire, the dark-disco punk breakdown of Roadkill, to the angular yet dreamy swoon of Sleepwalker, Skeleton House will impress and even haunt you.
“These songs were inspired by the loss of someone I loved to a fire. The idea that something like a fire could destroy so much, but still leave something behind was so enticing to me. I wanted these songs to represent resilience and strength, and to be able to process loss in a healthy way. I wanted to find a way to bring light to the darker things I was experiencing, and to arrange the pieces into something beautiful,” says Ray Clark.
“We recorded this album up in Black Mountain, NC in the dead of winter. The snowy and icy landscape definitely added to the album’s atmosphere. This is also our first release on vinyl, making it very special for all of us. As kaleidoscopic as it sounds, I feel we very much achieved the piece of art we were wanting to make.”
As of November 23, ‘Skeleton House’ will be available on CD. It can already be ordered via Bandcamp and is also available across music stores and streaming platforms such as iTunes and Spotify.
LINKS:
https://www.facebook.com/CrookedGhost
https://crookedghost.bandcamp.com
https://www.instagram.com/crookedghost
https://twitter.com/thecrookedghost
https://soundcloud.com/crookedghost
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCIgVwlr638HsQbVuTZGH6EQ
https://itunes.apple.com/us/album/skeleton-house/1394361906
https://open.spotify.com/artist/1dQla5TZY6h1hmDyAIDtrF?si=5Qufr3YuSmGi_5FdwECCPA
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corrections – Glitter
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 -
Sa-Roc – Goddess Gang
Goddess Gang is the ultimate squad anthem of 2018. “Goddess Gang” barrels through staid interpretations of femininity and turns respectability politics on its head with a spitfire lyrical cadence and 808 heavy track reminiscent of the dopest HBCU marching band. Throughout the Sol Messiah produced banger, Sa-Roc rejects conventional expectations of female rappers so prevalent within the industry, demanding to be judged not on her appearance, but lyrical skill alone. At one point she rhymes, “Beauty irrelevant, this is not pageants. I’m a rap dragon. Every time I open my trap its fire and your outlook ending up tragic”, warning all who underestimate her talent to beware.
The video, directed by Tommy Nova, symbolically employs color-saturated visuals to both engage the viewer and to illuminate the faces of women that have long been rendered invisible from historical narratives, religious iconography, and traditionally gendered career roles. The song perfectly punctuates this imagery with jarringly bright horns and staccato percussion, challenging the world to prepare for a future defined by our own terms. To put it plainly, it’s a certified bop. Only one thing remains in question. You ready?
About Sa-Roc:
Sa-Roc has carved out her own lane through a combination of airtight wordplay and intelligent concepts. Over the course of her illustrious career, she’s released a series of independent releases, performed alongside the likes of Talib Kweli, Dead Prez, and Atmosphere, and she’s one of the few MC’s to perform regularly as a featured artist with The Roots, all around the country. Sa-Roc landed an underground hit in 2014 with “The Who?” featuring David Banner before signing to Rhymesayers Entertainment. In 2017, she delivered a fiery cameo on “We Got This” from Brother Ali’s All The Beauty In This Whole Life LP, before joining him as direct support on his Own Light Tour across North America, which she followed with an unforgettable performance to an audience of over 30K at Soundset Festival.Then she made waves in 2018 with the release of her newest single, “Forever”, quickly racking up 400k streams on Spotify and over 1M views on YouTube. She also appeared William Feagins Jr.’s film, The Possibility Of Her, this year–a feature-length documentary that highlights 12 women of color who are actively involved in non-traditional careers or passions, echoing many of the same obstacles overcome by Sa-Roc in her own career.
LINKS:
http://sarocthemc.com
https://rhymesayers.com/artists/saroc
https://twitter.com/sarocthemc
https://www.facebook.com/sarocthemc -
Foals Live @ ARTE Concert Festival
Four years after the release of “What Went Down”, the Britons Foals return not with one but with two albums. What delight fans of their hypnotic pop and morning math rock. We find Yannis Philippakis and his clique on the stage of Gaîté Lyrique, on the occasion of the fourth edition of the ARTE Concert Festival.