Horse Jumper of Love
There’s a space between literal and abstract where art often resides, and few bands excel at navigating that surreal territory more deftly than Horse Jumper of Love. On their third full-length, Natural Part, the Boston-based three-piece revels in the act of grasping at something that can’t be held, smudging the lines between rich details, hazy memories, vivid moments, and intangible feelings to create their most captivating record to date. Horse Jumper of Love–guitarist/vocalist Dimitri Giannopoulos, bassist John Margaris, and drummer Jamie Vadala-Doran–have steadily evolved since their formation in 2014, honing a mix of sprawling slowcore and raw indie rock across their 2016 self-titled debut and 2019’s So Divine. Now, Natural Part feels like the band’s biggest step forward yet. The group teamed once again with engineer Bradford Krieger and convened at his Rhode Island studio, Big Nice, to record. “I definitely don’t write the same way I did for the other records anymore,” Giannopoulos explains. “I never want to force anything or try to stick to a formula, and for this record I really felt like I could do whatever I wanted. I feel like I know myself a little more, like I’m a little more tapped into who I am and the songs feel more personal because of it.” Sonically, Natural Part feels even more expansive than anything Horse Jumper of Love have done before, which is no small feat for a band whose music has often hinged on billowing guitars and roomy drums. Mixed by Danny Reisch (Sun June, Shearwater, White Denim), the album features a noticeable leap in fidelity, allowing the detailed songwriting to shine through without losing the tactile edges that imbue Horse Jumper of Love’s music with so much personality. Opener “Snakeskin” gently welcomes the listener with an enveloping atmosphere, before a sharply angled guitar riff in the towering second track “Ding Dong Ditch” fractures the aura. Familiar influences like Duster and David Berman can still be heard throughout, but new elements like cello—performed by Emily Dix Thomas and inspired by both Nirvana’s unplugged album and listening to Oasis’ “Wonderwall” in preparation for a Halloween cover set)—add different textures to the band’s reverberating sound. On “Chariots,” the new instrumentation blends effortlessly with Vadala-Doran and Margaris’ taut but roaming rhythm section, and adds an otherworldly mood to Giannopoulos’ lyrics. Horse Jumper of Love Links: Bandcamp | TwitterStrange Ranger Link: BandcampThey Are Gutting a Body of Water Link: Bandcamp | YouTube | Soundcloud
The Antlers
Earlier this year The Antlers released their first album in seven years titled Green to Gold, a bucolic record which Pitchfork described as “a post-rock orchestra playing around a campfire… the sound of hard-won peace of mind, rendered in the lightest brushstrokes.” Perhaps what distinguishes Green to Gold from the rest of The Antlers’ canon is its, well, sunniness. Conceived and written almost entirely in the morning hours, Green to Gold marked the band’s first new music in nearly seven years, and easily their most luminous to date. “I think this is the first album I’ve made that has no eeriness in it,” Silberman asserts. “I set out to make Sunday morning music.”Unlike other Antlers albums, Silberman didn’t feel compelled to turn a human experience into a circuitous mythology. He chose a more direct approach: documenting two years in his life, without overthinking or obscuring what the songs were about. “I think the shift in tone is the result of getting older,” Silberman said. “It doesn’t make sense for me to try to tap into the same energy that I did ten or fifteen years ago, because I continue to grow as a person, as I’m sure our audience does too. Green to Gold is about this idea of gradual change,” he sums up. The band followed in late 2021 with Losing Light, a new EP that reimagines four songs from Green to Gold. Crafting these new tracks, Peter Silberman wondered,“How would these songs sound if they were being reconstituted from memory fifty years from now, after decades of technological evolution, alongside analog and digital degradation? I began to consider how we reconstruct the past once we’re many years removed from it, with only scattered, decaying artifacts to reference.” “Following this premise of Green to Gold as if remembered from the distant future, we began to reassemble pieces of several songs in different iterations— the earliest versions and demos, pieces of the album versions, and newly-created recordings,” he added. “To bring them all into the same world, we processed each of these elements in ways that would repeatedly age them backwards and forwards, as if being blasted into the past, then flung into the future.” The Antlers will be embarking on a worldwide tour in the Spring of 2022 with a full band. It marks their first set of dates since 2019’s sold out Hospice 10 Year Anniversary acoustic tour. Links: Website | Instagram | Twitter | Facebook | Spotify | YouTube
Yoke Lore
“A ‘yoke’ is something that holds things together. ‘Lore’ means a set of stories or a collection of ideas about an event, time, or culture,” explains Adrian Galvin, when asked about the meaning behind his musical moniker Yoke Lore. New York indie pop project Yoke Lore is the solo musical venture of Adrian Galvin, previously of Yellerkin and Walk the Moon. Yoke Lore layers the harmonies of Panda Bear, the soulful beats of M83, and the modern pop of Blackbird Blackbird to tell “the stories of how we are bound.” Galvin’s songs combine echoing waves of banjo, vocals, and percussion to create arresting pop music with tactile candor and conviction. Galvin continues, “I want to tell stories about how memories, relationships, apprehensions, and big dreams hold us together. I think that exploring universal experiences both emotional and spiritual are best conveyed through the potency of personal stories. And music wields a power to render the very personal, epic.”Galvin grew up in an artistic family, his mother a director and his father an actor and sculptor. He was immersed in painting, photography, and ballet from an early age, eventually finding his first musical passion in the drums. While pursuing music, his artistry in other disciplines has not faltered, even lending his own designs to all of his music’s cover art, as well as choreographing & dancing for some of his music videos. In between putting out four acclaimed EPs — Far Shore (2016), Goodpain (2017), Absolutes (2018), and Meditations (2019) — Galvin tours non-stop, playing shows and festivals spanning North America and Europe. After releasing a handful of singles and collaborations with NVDES, Jax Anderson, & Great Good Fine Ok, Yoke Lore put out his new original song “Seeds,” which can be heard in the end credits roll in critically-acclaimed indie film Pink Skies Ahead.Links: Website | Instagram | Twitter | Facebook
Calexico
Calexico’s Joey Burns and John Convertino return in 2022 with their luminous 10th studio album, El Mirador; a hopeful, kaleidoscopic beacon of rock, bluesy ruminations and Latin American sounds, to be released on April 8. Convening at longtime bandmate Sergio Mendoza’s home studio in Tucson, Arizona, the ensemble recorded throughout the summer of 2021, crafting one of their most riveting and whimsical productions to date. Convertino, who now resides in El Paso, and Burns, who relocated to Boise in 2020, channeled cherished memories of Southwestern landscapes and joyful barrio melting pots into an evocative love letter to the desert borderlands that nourished them for over 20 years.“El Mirador is dedicated to family, friends and community,” says Burns; singer, multi-instrumentalist and co-founder of Calexico. “The pandemic highlighted all the ways we need each other, and music happens to be my way of building bridges and encouraging inclusiveness and positivity. That comes along with sadness and melancholy, but music sparks change and movement.”Oscillating between haunting desert noirs and buoyant jolts of cumbia and Cuban son, the album is permeated by longing. The title track conjures images of a lighthouse, beckoning to lost souls in the night with hypnotic bass lines and cascading percussion. That same search for meaning and safety carries over onto “Cumbia Peninsula,” a soaring dance floor epic about confronting our fear of the unknown. The song weaves themes of immigration, a world in turmoil, and the virulent manipulation of information; never offering a diagnosis but wholeheartedly advocating for unity and compassion as a treatment for our social ills.“El Mirador” features gossamer vocals from Guatemalan singer-songwriter Gaby Moreno, while Spanish rocker Jairo Zavala brings his signature bravado to “Cumbia Peninsula.” By working with friends and recurring collaborators, Calexico also highlights the unique social and linguistic intersections at the US-Mexico border and the magnificent possibilities of a borderless world. “The album is trying to convey openness,” adds Burns. “Look around you. If you’re in the North, you need a South to live in balance. We’re all breathing together.”“There is romance in this music,” says Convertino, Calexico’s drummer and fellow co-founder. “When I was driving out to Tucson to work with Sergio and Joey, I didn’t have any specific song ideas in mind. I was searching for a vibe and a mood.” The instrumental “Turquoise” perfectly captures El Mirador’s atmospheric universe, where swirling rhythm guitars and distant horns recall dark, heavy skies, almost echoing the record-setting monsoon season that engulfed Arizona during their studio sessions.Burns and Convertino have been performing together for over 30 years, sharing a deep love of jazz and usually building songs on a foundation of bass and drums. But all these years later, Calexico is still breaking new ground. El Mirador showcases a sunnier side of the band, cutting through two years of pandemic fog with a blast of danceable optimism. Writing and recording alongside Sergio Mendoza (keys, accordion, percussion), the album expands on long running influences of cumbia, mariachi and the plethora of diaspora sounds flourishing throughout the Southwest.Links: Website | Instagram | Twitter | Facebook | Spotify | YouTube
KMFDM
Links: Website | Facebook | YouTube
School of Rock Chapel Hill’s End of Season Showcase
Noon – Best of The Cars1:00 – Best of Foo Fighters2:00 – Best of U23:00 – Best of the Red Hot Chili Peppers4:00 – Best of The Doors5:00 – Metal Mania6:00 – Pink Floyd’s The WallLinks: Website | Instagram | Twitter | Facebook
Lost Dog Street Band
Returning to the stripped-back, string band sound of their busking years, Lost Dog Street Band’s new album Glory is a searing testament to recovery, redemption and resolve. Fronted by songwriter Benjamin Tod and his wife, fiddler Ashley Mae, the DIY band began out of desperation on the sidewalks of Nashville roughly a decade ago, but now sustains a significant national audience that’s drawn to their authentic songwriting, old-time instrumentation, and hard-won independence.“I wanted to make an album with the specific intention of being raw but full at the same time and to get back to our roots,” Benjamin Tod says. “Everyone on this album has been a busker. Douglas Francisco, who plays slide guitar — I met him on the streets busking. Jeff Loops, our bassist, was in a busking band, too. That flavor was important to me, just getting back to the root of things.”By centering the songs of Glory around acoustic arrangements, without the drums or steel guitar of prior albums, these harrowing personal stories become even more graphic. It’s a feeling that Benjamin Tod himself describes as “a logical glimpse of climbing out of hell.” He observes, “Something that was shocking to me was realizing that as soon as I got sober, that was really the beginning of the journey. Choosing to get sober was barely even a milestone.”Leading the album, “Until I Recoup (Glory I)” vengefully demands justice and describes the fight for glory after it’s been unjustly taken away. The lyrics read like a mission statement of redemption.Similar to Steve Earle’s influential Train a Comin’ album from 1999, Glory conveys the hard work that goes into getting clean, particularly in tracks like “Fighting Like Hell to Be Free,”“Beautiful Curse” and “Jalisco Bloom.” Calling to mind the skillful writing of Guy Clark or Townes Van Zandt, “What Keeps Me Up Now” views that phrase from multiple angles, from sleepless nights to a suicide attempt, where “the belt was a noose when I came to on the ground.” It’s one example of the “dark country” description that the band occasionally uses to describe their sound. In contrast, “End With You” finds Benjamin Tod feeling damn glad that he’s found a relationship that’s sustained him for a decade, through the achievements as well as the obstacles.Raised in Sumner County, just outside of Nashville, Benjamin Tod was primarily raised by his grandmother and grandfather. However, at age 7, his mother surprised him with a cheap electric guitar –then his competing father bought him a pawnshop classical guitar. With nobody to show him how to play, they were little more than toys. However, at 14, he and a friend each received a Fullerton parlor guitar from his friend’s father. The boys started getting interested in folk music and protest songs, which led Benjamin to the streets of Nashville to busk.Meanwhile, Ashley Mae was spending more and more time in Nashville, where her mother worked the overnight shift at rock station WKDF. She’d already tapped into the small punk scene in Rapid City, South Dakota, where she grew up, but found an even deeper community in Music City. At 20, she taught herself to play fiddle, shedding as much of her classical violin training as she could.Links: Website | Facebook | Instagram | Spotify | YouTube
Bass Extremes – Victor Wooten, Steve Bailey, & Jeff Sipe
Victor Wooten is a 5-time Grammy Award winner and a founding member of the supergroup Béla Fleck and the Flecktones. He has been called the most influential bassist of the last 2 decades and was listed as one of the Top Ten Bassists of All Time by Rolling Stone Magazine. Wooten was also the winner of Bass Player Magazine’s reader poll 3 times and remains the only person to have won it more than once. Having released multiple solo recordings, he is also the author of the widely read novel The Music Lesson: A Spiritual Search for Growth Through Music. Steve Bailey is a pioneer of the six string fretless bass whose techniques are studied around the world. Steve, an avid recording artist with two solo recordings under his belt, currently holds the position of Chair of the Bass Department at the prestigious Berklee College of Music in Boston. Bailey has played and recorded with Dizzy Gillespie, The Rippingtons, Jethro Tull, Paquito D’rivera, Larry Carlton, and Willie Nelson, to name just a few. Bass Player Magazine wrote: “Steve Bailey is to the 6 string fretless bass what Columbus is to America.” Together, they formed Bass Extremes in 1992, releasing their self-titled debut which remains one of the top selling musical/instructional bass products of all time. Subsequent DVD and CD releases followed as they toured the world performing clinics and concerts. They are also known and respected as the dynamic teaching duo who continue to teach together at events, colleges, and universities around the world. They were also instrumental in introducing the original “Bass Camp” idea when they ran their first Bass/Nature Camp in Tennessee in the year 2000 and Bass at the Beach in South Carolina a few years later- both intensive camps which attract students from all over the world. Links: Website | Facebook | Twitter | YouTube
Tyrone Wells
First things first. Let’s get this out-of-the-way. Tyrone Wells (I) wrote this bio. I figured, “who better to talk about myself than myself?”. I’m a lot of things in no particular order… a preacher’s son, a brother, a husband, a dad, a real estate lover, a major-label artist, an independent artist, an opener, a headliner, a very self-conscious dancer (think “Footloose”, only without the cathartic cutting loose), a gardener, a wanna be surfer, a person who has needed therapy, a pickleball player, a barstool theologian, and this next one kind of goes without saying because you’re here reading my bio.. I’m a singer-songwriter. I’ve written a lot of songs. Probably approaching around 1,000 songs now… to me, when I wrote them, they were all good songs. The luxury of time has informed me, some of the songs were maybe just good to me. And some of the songs, inexplicably, have millions upon millions of listeners. Meanwhile, others have tens upon tens. I don’t know why, I just write them and set them free. Ultimately, I’m trying my best to be honest, and write a song that I, and you can both love. I’m gonna keep trying. I’m so grateful that you have listened. Be it once, or be it a hundred times. I’ve got big love for you. I’ll be over here chopping away and reminding myself to be vulnerable. Peace and Love, XOXO Tyrone Links: Website | Instagram | Twitter | Facebook
Dissimilar South Album Release Show
About Dissimilar South:North Carolina-based Americana band, Dissimilar South, uses tight harmonies and acoustic instruments to explore the bittersweet nature of relationships and queerness with honesty and whit. Dissimilar South’s music pays homage to country folk elements, while leaping into the indie pop world of synthesizers, drum kits, and electric guitars.About Earleine: Originally from Nashville, TN, Earleine is now making a life in Durham, NC. Their open hearted songwriting makes you enter an indie folk/pop dream state. With rotating band members, Ashley Wright is the core vocalist/songwriter/guitarist. Earleine’s debut self-titled EP (out on Carborro-based Sleepy Cat Records) is a journey through personal exploration and acceptance. About Chessa Rich: Chessa Rich is a singer, songwriter, teacher, and multi-instrumentalist based in Durham, NC. After a period living in Spain, Chessa moved back to her North Carolina home in 2013 and quickly became a sought-after collaborator, adding keyboards, flute, and vocals to projects by NC artists including Dante High, Skylar Gudasz, Kate Rhudy, and Hiss Golden Messenger.Chessa will release her debut full-length album late this year, following a solo EP in 2018 produced by Nick Sanborn of Sylvan Esso. The songwriting on display has been honed by a decade of collaboration and music teaching, making the collection shine with the maturity and curiosity of someone continually re-encountering the wonder of the world through music.
