In 2017, Redd Kross embarked on a world tour supporting the Melvins (bassist Steven McDonald and drummer Dale Crover play in both bands) which took them to the UK, Europe, and Australia.
Fast forward to 2018: The band is hard at work putting the finishing touches on a new album to be released on Merge in late summer of 2019! It’s the first collection of new Redd Kross songs since 2012’s Researching the Blues. And prior to the new album, Third Man Records will be reissuing vinyl editions of the currently unavailable 1990s albums Phaseshifter and Show World in the spring. 2019 is shaping up to be a huge year for the band!
In the meantime, Redd Kross will embark on a 12-date tour of the West Coast and Southwest in December.
Son Volt’s ninth studio album, Union (Transmit Sound/Thirty Tigers), will be released worldwide on March 29th. Pre-order starts January 18.
Jay Farrar channels folk music’s enduring legacy of the troubadour on Union. “There are so many forces driving our country apart,” observes Farrar. “What can we do to bring our society back together?” Initially intended to be an entirely political statement, Union morphed into a combination of politically inspired material balanced by a cluster of new songs reflecting the power of love, time and music that sustains us. “While Rome Burns” emphasizes finding unity during times of turmoil while an album highlight, “Devil May Care,” offers the distraction we need, an effusive tribute to the fun of playing and creating music.
A unique aspect of Union is that eight of the thirteen songs were recorded at places associated with two figures in American history whom Farrar considers important – labor and community organizer Mary Harris “Mother Jones” and iconic folk hero Woody Guthrie. Three songs were tracked at the Mother Jones Museum in Mount Olive, IL and four others were recorded at the Woody Guthrie Center in Tulsa, Oklahoma. The legacy of Woody Guthrie helped to inform Union’s closing song “The Symbol” which was inspired by Guthrie’s classic “Deportee” (“Plane Wreck at Los Gatos”).
Union features long time band members Mark Spencer (piano, organ, acoustic slide, lap steel, backing vocals) Andrew DuPlantis (bass, backing vocals), returning member Chris Frame (guitar), as well as newest member Mark Patterson on drums and percussion.
tracklist:
While Rome Burns
The 99
Devil May Care
Broadsides
Reality Winner
Union
The Reason
Lady Liberty
Holding Your Own
Truth To Power Blues
Rebel Girl
Slow Burn
The Symbol
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The sprawling, 32-song, seventy-five minute Zeppelin Over China will crash-land with a mighty thud on February 1. It features Doug Gillard (guitar), Kevin March (drums), Mark Shue (bass), Bobby Bare Jr. (guitar), and Travis Harrison (engineer); and you can rest rhetorically-assured (by the album’s press release) that “this line-up’s virtuosic talents spur him to his most ambitious work yet, a grand album of emotional resonance and narrative drama.”
Ex Hex the D.C. trio fronted by Mary Timony, have announced their sophomore album It’s Real. The follow-up to their 2014 debut Rips is out March 22 via Merge. The 10-track LP was produced by Jonah Takagi, who also worked on Rips. Today, Ex Hex have also released the first single, “Cosmic Cave.”
Guster has announced its new album Look Alive -- out Jan. 18, 2019 — on Nettwerk/Ocho Mule. The nine-song collection is the band's first new album in four years – their eighth overall since releasing its debut album in 1995. The album was produced by Leo Abrahams and recorded in a vintage keyboard museum in Calgary AB
Guster has announced its new album Look Alive -- out Jan. 18, 2019 — on Nettwerk/Ocho Mule. The nine-song collection is the band's first new album in four years – their eighth overall since releasing its debut album in 1995. The album was produced by Leo Abrahams and recorded in a vintage keyboard museum in Calgary AB
This is so bizarre. An English producer and an American band recording in Calgary. I had to figure out why and found the following post on Guster's Facebook page:
Quote:
Look Alive is our 8th album. The bulk of it was recorded in a vintage keyboard museum in Calgary AB, during a January stretch when the temperature reached 30 degrees below zero. We ended up in Canada because our British producer, Leo Abrahams, couldn’t turn around an American work visa fast enough, and we feel lucky to have discovered Studio Bell at the last minute. Despite having access to room after room of well-maintained analog keys, Leo gravitated to a cheap Ensoniq Mirage synth from the 1980’s that made Janet Jackson Rhythm Nation-era sounds from floppy disks. Leo spent countless hours poring over these floppy disks while the band gawked at the mellotrons, harpsichords, and other vintage equipment housed at Studio Bell. It was the beginnings of a stylistic clash that would ultimately play out beautifully. Our band had always gravitated to “warm” sounds. Leo would introduce us to “cold” sounds and the way they challenge us as listeners. He was the perfect complementary piece for Guster.
After working with the late Richard Swift four years ago and discovering a more raw and vintage sound on Evermotion, we fully embraced studio production with Leo this time around. The sheer amount of production on Look Alive grew into its own statement. There is a lot to unpack. One day in Calgary we arrived at the studio to discover that Leo had put in a few extra hours on our song “Summertime.” He’d built an entire new intro using the Ensoniq Mirage overnight and played it for us. The band reaction wasn’t too kind. Our beautiful song now had a jarring, harsh, disruptive introduction, instead of the soft mellotron flutes we’d known. After some days of light bickering about it, Leo finally shed his proper British diplomatic side and belted out that “the world doesn’t need another ####ing Beatles pastiche!” This would eventually become a rallying cry for the album as we strove to make something new and powerful together.
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"Life is hard here,” confesses Aleksandr Ivanov, one of the most active members of the Yakutsk, Russia punk scene. “Summers are airless and dusty, while winters are dark, foggy and last about eight months. I know it sounds bad, but I love this city. It’s the only place where I can feel at home.” Yakutsk is the capital of Sakha-Yakutia, the largest Russian federal subject—the region spans three time zones, with a total area comparable to that of India. One of the most remote and impervious places on earth, Yakutsk proper is known as one of the coldest cities in the world—and yet, it also houses a substantial and heterogeneous punk scene.