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New Hallelujah The Hills: Here Goes Nothing

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Video: Hallelujah The Hills – “Here Goes Nothing” (ft. Patrick Stickles)

Directed by Ryan H. Walsh. From DECK, their forthcoming 52-song, 4-album collection.

A new anthem for our doomed timeline! Featuring Patrick Stickles from Titus Andronicus.

Walsh says, “Back in 2010, Titus Andronicus’s Patrick Stickles asked me to sing on ‘A More Perfect Union’ with him, which turned out to be the stunning opener of their classic album The Monitor. I’ve always hoped he’d return the favor and sing one alongside me, but I knew it had to be the right match. Fourteen years later (!), I finally had one that felt like the perfect fit and he happily reciprocated with ‘Here Goes Nothing’ from our forthcoming DECK project.”

The results are as uplifting and triumphant as you could hope for: Crazy Horse guitars and first-pumping chorus. You can imagine a sweaty crowd spilling their drinks and hollering, FUCK! I’M STARTING OVER AGAIN! And you can to see it in person when they play Brooklyn’s Gold Sounds on May 10 and at Deep Cuts in Medford, Massachusetts on May 11.

Somebody made a lot of news last week for releasing a set of 31 new songs, but the tortured poets in Hallelujah The Hills are going to put that to shame when they unleash their 52-song collection called DECK, with one song for each card in a standard deck of playing cards. (Of course, it’s been five years since the Hills released their last full-length, 2019’s timeless I’m You, in which time that other artist has released approximately 113 new original songs…but at least nobody’s going to be comparing the Hills to Ryan Adams!)

“Here Goes Nothing” is the King of Diamonds and it’s the fourth song we’ve heard from DECK after “Alone, In Love” (December 2023), “God is So Lonely Tonight” (September 2022), and “Superglued to You” (July 2022). And they’re all great. Can the remaining 48 songs live up to the standard they’ve set so far? I’m excited to witness all the weirdness and wild.

Hallelujah the Hills: web, bandcamp, amazon, apple, spotify, wiki.
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New Orville Peck: Cowboys Are Frequently Secretly Fond Of Each Other (ft. Willie Nelson)

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Video: Orville Peck & Willie Nelson – “Cowboys Are Frequently Secretly Fond Of Each Other”

Directed by Ben Prince. From Stampede, coming soon on Warner Bros.

Orville Peck is a phony. He’s about as “country” as Elon Musk…although Peck looks way better in a cowboy hat. He’s a phony, but he’s a real phony. You can tell he believes his own bullshit. But he still needs to recruit Willie Nelson to boost his credibility. And I guess it works. This is a good song. It was originally written and recorded by Ned Sublette in 1981 and released on an arty compilation that also featured William S. Burroughs, Brion Gysin and Jim Carroll. Willie covered it in 2006 after Brokeback Mountain came out and redefined manliness.

And, really, Willie’s version is all you need.

Peck would probably agree. He told Out, “Being around Willie Nelson, it’s like when you’re a kid and you meet Santa at the mall. It’s the most unabashed, raw, unfiltered joy that emanates from that man. And he’s just such a legend. He’s 91 and he’s still just so cool and tours all the time, you know, still playing Trigger, his guitar that he’s had for… I think that guitar is almost as old as he is. He’s great.”

Almost twenty year’s after his original recording, Willie’s voice might be shot but his spirits are high and he’s still got a twinkle in his eye. You can tell he’s getting a kick out of shooting this video with this young South African whippersnapper. And if nothing else it’s nice that Peck is introducing a new generation to this song…and to Willie Nelson, too, although I bet Peck is getting introduced to a lot more Willie fans than vice versa.

Orville Peck: web, bandcamp, amazon, apple, spotify, wiki.

Continue reading New Orville Peck: Cowboys Are Frequently Secretly Fond Of Each Other (ft. Willie Nelson) →

Shorties

New Kid Congo: Wicked World

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Video: Kid Congo & the Pink Monkey Birds (ft. Alice Bag) – “Wicked World”

Directed by Christopher Carlone. From That Delicious Vice, out April 19 on In the Red.

You know the saying: “Old punks never die, they just stand in the back.” But sometimes they’re right up front. Kid Congo who made his name with the Cramps and the Bad Seeds has teamed up with Alice Bag of the Bags for a new song. If there’s such a thing as L.A. punk royalty these two could be its king and queen.

“It’s really great to be playing with someone who I’ve known for over 40 years,” Kid says. “I respect her as an artist. I respect her stance as a feminist. I respect that she’s such a great role model for a lot of young Chicano kids. We have a lot of parallels that make it joyful.”

Warning: This fuzzed out bass-six riff is guaranteed to get stuck in your head!

Kid Congo: web, bandcamp, amazon, apple, spotify, wiki.
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New Phosphorescent: Impossible House

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Video: Phosphorescent – “Impossible House”

Directed by Curtis Wayne Millard. From Revelator, out April 5 on Verve.

I love Phosphorescent. Matthew Houck is one of my favorite songwriters and his voice never fails to break my heart. But there’s something decidedly weird about hearing him reference a dopey Macaulay Culkin movie as a metaphor for the sense of dread and abandonment looming over a relationship.

Went to your palace and hid
As the thieves approached the throne
Like that McCallister kid
You have been left at home alone.

Does that work, or is it just goofy? It still might be too early to tell. We’ll have to give it some time and see how it sits in the context of the album. You never know. Maybe it will eventually hit me in the face like a bucket of paint.

Phosphorescent: web, bandcamp, amazon, apple, spotify, wiki.
Shorties

New St. Vincent: Broken Man

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Video: St. Vincent – “Broken Man”

Directed by Alex Da Corte. From All Born Screaming, out April 26 on Total Pleasure/Virgin/Fiction.

Sounds like Annie Clark is getting back into guitars. That’s probably unfair, but Daddy’s Home seemed to focus more on Wurlitzer sounds and seventies creepout vibes. She’s also ditched Jack Antonoff and has self-produced the new album. So that’s promising.

She told MOJO, “This record is darker and harder and more close to the bone. I’d say it’s my least funny record yet! There’s nothing cute about it.”

Clark explained the decision to produce it herself: “I needed to go deeper in finding my own sonic vocabulary. I like to think of [the record] as post-plague pop, it’s a lot about heaven and hell – the metaphorical kinds. Which is appropriate, because sitting alone in a studio for that many hours I would say is a version of hell.”

“Broken Man” feels claustrophobic and unsettled. And aggressive.

On the street I’m a kingsize killer
I can make your kingdom come.

What a way to open a scene!

Lover nail yourself right to me
If you go I won’t be well.
I can hold my arms right open
But I need you to drive the nail.

She’s so cool. And scary.

St. Vincent: web, bandcamp, amazon, apple, spotify, wiki.
Shorties

New PJ Harvey: Seem an I

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Video: PJ Harvey – “Seem an I”

Directed by Colm Bairead. From I Inside the Old Year Dying, out now on Partisan.

When I first heard this song my inclination was that it must be adapted from a Robert Burns poem or some other barely English literary source. The sounds of the words are emotionally evocative on their own, but thankfully PJ Harvey provides a glossary in the lyrics section of her website.

Seem an I – seems to me; bedraggled angels – wet sheep; blether – to bleat or blare much, take noisily; bwoneyard – graveyard, churchyard; rangle – to reach about like a trailing or climbing plant; archet – orchard; conzum-ed – consumed; twanketen – melancholy; dummet – dusk; zun – sun; wordle – world; lwone – lone; quartere’il – a disease of sheep, a corruption of the blood; vog – fog; devil’s bird, chattermag – magpie; chilver hog – a yearling ewe lamb; fleecy – fleece; drunk, drunken; nuts – joy, testicles; reapy – reap

So now you know!

The video stars English actress Ruth Wilson. Harvey says, “Ruth and I became friends after working together on Clio Barnard’s film ‘Dark River’. I have always greatly admired Ruth’s work as an actor, so had long harboured a dream that we might work together again in some way. When the opportunity to work with Colm Bairéad came up I knew him to be a director Ruth thought highly of, as I did, so it felt right to ask her if she would star in the film. I find the resulting short film beautiful and moving for having Ruth’s magical presence, and Colm’s unique vision.”

Wilson says, “I have always been a huge fan of PJ, so it was a great privilege to work alongside Colm and Polly to bring ‘Seem an I’ to visual life in this mysterious and hypnotic short film. There is no better way to spend a day than in the magical world of PJ Harvey.”

PJ Harvey: web, bandcamp, amazon, apple, spotify, wiki.
Shorties

New Isobel Campbell: 4316

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Video: Isobel Campbell – “4316”

Directed by Richard Heslop, Vee Vee and Natalya KD. From Bow To Love, out May 17 on Cooking Vinyl.

The world is a mess and Isobel Campbell is tired of it.

Campbell says, “I was talking to an Uber driver the other day and I said, ‘I don’t want to be living in a video game.’ And he said, ‘Well, we are.’ I feel like I’m offering a human element in these transhuman days of artificial intelligence.”

With her signature breathy vocals over a chugging acoustic guitar with bloopy, pulsing synths, “4316” is an anthem for the fucked up times we’re living in/

Isobel Campbell: web, bandcamp, amazon, apple, spotify, wiki.
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New Vampire Weekend: Gen-X Cops and Capricorn

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Video: Vampire Weekend – “Gen-X Cops”

Directed by Drew Pearce. From Only God Was Above Us, out April 5 on Columbia.

In retrospect Father of the Bride was a disappointment. It was too long, too many guest vocals. It sounded “mature.” Boring. Maybe Modern Vampires of the City had set the bar too high and nothing they did could’ve lived up to it. Which kind of makes me think it might be time to give it another spin to see if it really does suck or if I was just heaping my own baggage and expectations onto it.

Regardless, they made us wait another five years since then before putting out something new so maybe this time it’ll be worth the wait. These first two songs are pretty dope. On first listen “Gen-X Cops” and “Capricorn” both sound more akin to Modern Vampires than anything on Father of the Bride. That’s not to say it sounds like a step backwards, but more like a return to form. The upside to waiting five or six years between albums is that everybody gets all excited for something new and forgets about the stuff that bugged them last time.

So I’m cautiously optimistic for Only God Was Above Us. These two songs are what I want my Vampire Weekend to sound like. Plus, the new album is only 47 minutes long, which is how long an album should be…so it can just barely fit on one side of a 90-minute tape. There’s also the whole thing about vinyl albums only being able to fit about 23 minutes per side at maximum fidelity. So there we go. Cross your fingers and hope the other eight songs are as good as these first two.

Vampire Weekend: web, bandcamp, amazon, apple, spotify, wiki.

Continue reading New Vampire Weekend: Gen-X Cops and Capricorn →

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New Old 97s: Where The Road Goes

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Video: Old 97’s – “Where The Road Goes”

From American Primitive, out April 5 on ATO.

It used to be easy to hate the Old 97s because Rhett Miller was so beautiful, but now that he’s aged into being just extremely handsome I guess we’ll have to reconsider.

Just kidding, they’ve always been good.

And they’ve been around for thirty years now, which seems hard to believe but time is a motherfucker. The first time I heard them was on a mixtape of “insurgent country” from my man Vitas that turned me on to all kinds of great new stuff like Jack Logan and Wilco and Son Volt. Thirty years. Wow.

Miller says, “I started building this song as a statement of gratitude for having survived this long. It revisits some of the darkest moments of my life, including a suicide attempt at age 14 that by all rights I shouldn’t have lived through and yet somehow did. In a way it’s like a spiritual travelogue that rolls back through all the places that shaped me for better or worse, and ends up in this beautiful place that I felt so thankful to experience.”

Old 97’s: web, bandcamp, amazon, apple, spotify, wiki.
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New Waxahatchee: Bored

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Video: Waxahatchee – “Bored”

Directed by Corbett Jones and Nick Simonite. From Tigers Blood, out on March 22 on Anti-.

I love the Joey Santiago-style guitar that opens this song.

Katie Crutchfield says, “I feel like my comfort zone when writing songs lies somewhere on the emotional spectrum of sadness and heartache. Writing from a place of happiness scares me. Too earnest. Anger scares me even more. I wrote ‘Bored’ about one of those situations where anger was called for and was the only authentic place from which to write about what I was experiencing. It was a challenge for me and ‘Bored’ is the end result.”

Anger scares me too. I feel angry way too much lately. It sucks. But I’m not writing cool songs about it when I get angry. I just grump at my family. Crutchfield is dealing with her anger in a far more productive way.

Waxahatchee: web, bandcamp, amazon, apple, spotify, wiki.