Americana is where the song is king – a broad genre that encompasses country, alt-country, and rock –and it is here that Good Will Remedy find themselves at home.
With a long history in the local and national music scene and a C.V that includes Brisbane legends Pharaoh’s Playground and BUZZkillers – Good Will Remedy are a band awash with strong songwriting and performance craft with an honest southern fried feel tinged with alt Countryesque Americana styling.
Following on from their well-received debut album, GWR have released their second album Silver Lined – launching the album to a packed house at iconic Brisbane venue Lefty’s Old Time Music Hall in May.
Lead Singer Will Lebihan suggests that “the strength of the songs allows quite a bit of flexibility performance wise -we work hard to ensure that the song remains king – the other flashy stuff can come later – if at all!”
That flexibility in performance has seen GWR perform on larger stages in full band mode as well as smaller more intimate venues in a more stripped back format – no matter which way it comes, the crowds continue to grow and word continues to spread – but the song remains king – and so it should!
SOURCE: Official Bio
LINKS:
http://www.goodwillremedy.com
https://www.facebook.com/Good-Will-Remedy-1562219384082100/
https://www.instagram.com/will_remedy
https://goodwillremedy.bandcamp.com
https://soundcloud.com/pharaohleb
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We Are Parasols – Dim
A throbbing beat. Machines on a march. Guitars can be a drill or sing like an angel. A voice like a computer caught in a human throat. A whisper. A howl. Synthesizers are sometimes smooth and glassy, sometimes jagged and bloody. A walk on the shore can easily turn into an apocalyptic landscape, depending on your perception.
Influenced by Curve, Wire, Cocteau Twins, Depeche Mode, Gazelle Twin, Skinny Puppy, Nine Inch Nails and Bloody Knives, their new offerings on ‘Inertia’ features tracks ranging from the analogue postpunk near-industrial enigma of projects like Clan of Xymox and The Tear Garden to electronic dark reverie similar to Delerium and Gazelle Twin classics to the stripped back melancholy served up by This Mortal Coil.
Dubbing their own music as ‘industrialgaze’ and ‘darkwave’, We Are Parasols is comprised of D (vocals and bass), Jerman (guitars, piano, synthesizers, programming, and samples), and Alec Eye (drums, programming, and synthesizers).
“I have a stronger desire — or, really, a need — to continue to make and perform music. So that deep need often overrides the fears I have about creating and sharing our art, and performing live,” says D.
We Are Parasols began as a shoegaze-electronic hybrid band. Their debut full-length ‘Infrastructure’ was followed by their ‘bite_your_tongue’ EP, a more minimal ambient release. The song ‘No Movement’ off the band’s debut album, which was about an android sex worker, ultimately spawned the musical world of their new album ‘Inertia’.
‘Inertia’ combines industrial, shoegaze, dream pop and darkwave with sci-fi in order to tell a dystopian, possibly humanist, probably anti-human, story about violence, technology, politics, control, and an android feminist anti-hero known only as a synthetic sexual tasked android body.
There are 13 tracks on the cassette version of the EP, which comes with a full-color 4-panel J-Card featuring all the lyrics, as well as a digital download (a poster is also available). While these same 13 tracks are available through online stores and streaming platforms everywhere, the Bandcamp edition includes a special bonus track – ‘hush (Piano Version)’ – especially for lovers of early 4AD output.
LINKS:
http://nomovementrecords.com/weareparasols
http://www.facebook.com/weareparasols
http://twitter.com/WeAreParasols
http://soundcloud.com/weareparasols
http://www.youtube.com/user/PredatorFriendly/videos
http://www.instagram.com/weareparasols
http://weareparasols.bandcamp.com
http://open.spotify.com/artist/7dmvcoPsZ4Vy4Fy4WALQMP
http://itunes.apple.com/us/artist/we-are-parasols/id1044013285 -
Musta Paraati – The Leader
Finnish post-punk legends Musta Paraati will be releasing their first new album in 34 years on October 2018, through Cleopatra Records. The ‘Black Parade’ LP features 11 tracks in English. 10 of these are new and ‘The Leader’ is a new English rendition of their song ‘Johtaja’, which released as a single in 1983. The band is previewing this track ahead of the album release.
This release follows Cleopatra Records’ 23-track deluxe reissue of their 1983 debut album ‘Peilitalossa’ on CD & digitally, also featuring bonus material from their 1984 sophomore album ‘Käärmeet’.
Highly regarded as Finland’s premier post-punk/goth rockers, Musta Paraati was making music before their countrymen Russian Love, Two Witches, and The 69 Eyes. With their own unique sound that is upbeat and with an old-school punk attitude, their music gained them cult status in their native Finland, their albums being considered prized contributions to record collections, and also led to touring with other cult bands like Lords of the New Church and Hanoi Rocks.
It is not surprising that Jyrki ’69’ Linnankivi from The 69 Eyes joined Musta Paraati members Sakari ‘Saku’ Paasiniemi (guitar), Pasi ‘Panda’ Nikander (bass), Yrjö ‘Ykä’ Knuuttila (drums) on this album. The band’s original vocalist was Jore Vastelin, who passed away in 1993.
“We started this project with Jyrki to make a couple of songs in English for our fans abroad, but it grew into a full album. We are really excited and proud of our new album ‘Black Parade’. It has pushed us to the next level and we are already working new material for the future releases,” says Yrjö.
“Since the material sounded virtually like the music Musta Paraati was making back in the 80’s, I took an imaginative journey back in time and studied everything I found from that era, including music, movies, and politics. I also kept the somewhat naive approach for lyrics and rock’n’roll to keep things simple,” comments Jyrki 69.
In 2015, Musta Paraati had a new lineup with vocalist Herra Ylppö, with whom they played a string of well-received shows and released the two-track EP ‘Uusi Musta/Uudet Juhlat’. Ylppö’s work with solo career and his band Maj Karma led to Musta Paraati guitarist Saku Paasiniemi sending some new tracks to Jyrki 69.
“Two hours after I sent the demos to Jyrki, I received three completed songs,” says Saku. “We didn’t really think of our collaboration marked the new coming of Musta Paraati at all – it was just another cool project!”
Following the re-release of ‘Peilitalossa’, Jyrki 69 shared the new demos with Cleopatra Records, the label signed on for a new album and Musta Paraati joined Jyrki 69 in the studio to record what would become the ‘Black Parade’ album.
The album cover for ‘Black Parade’ features photography by Stefan Bremer, the same photographer whose image features on the band’s debut album, taken at exactly the same location.
As of October 19, 2018, ‘Black Parade’ will be available from online stores and streaming platforms, such as Spotify. It can already be pre-ordered digitally via Bandcamp and on both CD and vinyl via Cleopatra Records. This Musta Paraati vinyl is a limited edition purple vinyl pressing. This album will be supported with a full-scale international tour starting in November 2018.
LINKS:
https://www.facebook.com/mustaparaati
https://mustaparaati.bandcamp.com
https://soundcloud.com/musta-paraati
https://www.instagram.com/sakupaasiniemi -
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