Napalm Death
Art reflects life. Extreme times demand extreme responses. Silence sucks. Noise is always the answer. And yes, NAPALM DEATH continue to be one of the few bands on this planet that adhere to all these principles and more. For the last three decades, their name as been synonymous with heavy music taken to the extreme – music that confronts, confounds and eviscerates in equal measure.NAPALM DEATH’s enduring impact on the world of sonic savagery began in earnest in the late 80s, when the band’s first two albums – 1987’s Scum and its 1988 follow-up From Enslavement To Obliteration – refined and redefined the notion of brutality and velocity in the worlds of punk, hardcore and metal. Endorsed by legendary and much-missed DJ John Peel, the Brummie grindcore pioneers were such an exhilarating and yet alien dose of jolting adrenaline that even the mainstream media were forced to prick up their ears and take note. Throw in the fact that NAPALM DEATH were – and still are – driven by a ferocious intelligence and a genuine desire to make the world a better place through the promotion of rational thought and respect for all fellow humans, they stood apart from the often nihilistic and intellectually bankrupt underground metal scene and have re- mained unique and unerring ever since. While grind purists may point to those earliest records as evidence of the band’s signifi- cance, it is the tireless and terrorising exploits of the now classic line-up of vocalist Mark ‘Barney’ Greenway, bassist Shane Embury, guitarist Mitch Harris and drummer Danny Herrera that have cemented NAPALM DEATH’s status as extreme music leg- ends. Over the last 20 years, the band have released a relentless slew of groundbreaking and fearless albums and other releases that have consistently punched holes in the heavy music world’s perimeter fence, espousing an indestructible credo of creativity and lyrical fire along the way.However, unlike the vast majority of so-called veteran bands, NAPALM DEATH seem to be gaining momentum and focus as their story continues into its fourth decade. Albums like Smear Campaign (2006), Time Waits For No Slave (2009) and Utilitarian (2012) have proved beyond doubt that while their creators remain firmly at the forefront of the grindcore scene, they are also increasingly capable of expanding the boundaries of their own sound while exhibiting an undying passion for incorporating the most unimaginably intense and perverse fresh elements into their otherwise remorselessly fast and furious blueprint. And now, with the release of their fifteenth studio album, Apex Predator – Easy Meat, the undisputed Gods of Grind are poised to shatter preconceptions and redefine what it means to be truly extreme all over again.Links: Website | Instagram | Twitter | Facebook | Spotify
Dar Williams
Recognized as an author, educator and urban-planning expert, Williams is also penning a new book, Writing a Song That Matters, based on her popular songwriting retreats.When Dar Williams starts discussing her latest album, I’ll Meet You Here, she’s not yet sure she can identify its through line; a thread that might connect its 10 songs together. But as she delves into the collection, releasing Oct. 1 on BMG’s recently launched Renew label, she mentions her attempt to turn her yard into a meadow. Unfortunately, the wildflower seeds she scattered on the grass around her home, in New York’s Hudson Valley, didn’t take. Now she just has an unruly lawn.“It kind of has a crazy-lady look,” Williams says, laughing. “I’m on a corner in a village, so everybody sees it. I do all this remedial stuff; it’s not really working. But I know why I did it, and I know what I was going for. Generally, people are saying ‘I see what you’re trying to do.’ And I’m sure some people are shaking their heads. And I’m OK either way.”“At some point,” she adds, “you have to meet life where it meets you … I think what the songs all have in common is the willingness to meet life as it arrives.”We might even simplify it as “acceptance,” that concept Buddhists and behavioral therapists try so hard to teach. But that’s far from passivity; on the contrary (and unlike her lawn), Williams’ lyrics contain bouquets of optimism, delivered on melodies alternating between beguiling lightness and understated gravity. In “Today and Every Day,” for example, she sings, There’s no time for this smug frustration, I say everyone, EVERYONE’S a power station. And we’ll light the way, but we got to say we can save the world a little every day.But she also writes from the viewpoint of a woman who has weathered plenty of storms (as vividly described in “Let the Wind Blow”), and is no longer willing to delude herself into believing someone else’s definition of love (as noted in “I Never Knew”).Comparing “Magical Thinking,” one of several relationship songs, with “Time Be My Friend,” from which the album takes its title, Williams remarks, “There’s a piece of your brain that you have to calm in order to meet time, and to not sit there saying, ‘If I keep on following these rituals, maybe I’ll influence what’s going to happen.’ It’s like, ‘Why not just be OK with what’s happening now?’“I’ve been very interested in how to control my future,” she adds, “and this album has to do with the fact that at some point, you just can’t.”Like everyone else, Williams spent 2020 in that state of non-control. She and longtime producer Stewart Lerman tracked most of the album, her 12th studio recording, in November of 2019. In late February of 2020, she cut the title tune in Woodstock with bassist Gail Ann Dorsey and Larry Campbell, who produced the track and played guitars, pedal steel and twangy baritone guitar. When told they had to postpone a mid-March mixing date, Campbell said he wasn’t feeling well anyway. Turns out he’d contracted a serious case of COVID-19. By the time he recovered, they knew a 2020 release was not in the cards — tarot or otherwise.Links: Website | Facebook | Twitter | Instagram | YouTube | Spotify
Jonathan Richman with Tommy Larkins
Dear ArtsCenter Patrons, Mask and Proof of Vaccination and or a negative Covid-19 test taken by a licensed health professional within the previous 72 hours before the event are required for entry. “Richman is one of America’s most unique and dynamic songwriters…” – Nashville Scene “Richman didn’t need much else besides a beat to work his magic.” – New York Daily News“Buy tickets early. Buy tickets often. This is just good general life advice, but even more so when you’re talking about Jonathan Richman. Don’t get denied at the door, don’t leave things up to chance: You will regret it.” – Nashville Scene“Rhymes worthy of Ogden Nash.” – The New York Times“Richman has spent decades removing barriers between himself and his audience, cultivating an intimacy that is almost extinct in modern music.”- Nashville Scene“The music we’re doing now works well in quiet places like theaters and performing art centers. We still don’t use a program or a set list so we don’t know what we’ll do until we do it. Please do not expect old songs. Many singers my age do a retrospective; this show is not like that. It’s mostly stuff made up in the last 3 and 4 years. Some of the songs presented might be in different languages; this is not to be esoteric or clever, it’s because the different languages help me express different feelings sometimes. One last thing, my idea of a good show has nothing to do with applause. It’s about if all the songs I sang that night were ones that I felt.” – JonathanLinks: Bandcamp | Blue Arrow Records
Illiterate Light
Illiterate Light has been stretching boundaries and upending expectations with a captivating blend of soaring indie rock, swirling psychedelia, and atmospheric folk that calls to mind everything from Neil Young and My Morning Jacket to Fleet Foxes and Band of Horses. Recorded with producers Adrian Olsen (Foxygen, Natalie Prass) and Vance Powell (Jack White, Kings Of Leon, Chris Stapleton), the record is blissful and ecstatic, with a mix of raw electric guitars, propulsive drums, and shimmering harmonies that showcases the band’s remarkable live setup—Gorman plays guitar with his hands and synth bass with his feet, while his musical partner, Jake Cochran, plays a standup drum kit, which captures the scintillating energy that’s fueled their journey.Gorman and Cochran first met while attending college in Harrisonburg, VA, where they discovered a shared passion for sustainable living and community building. After graduation, they took over a local organic farm, spending their days tending crops and working farmer’s markets and their nights performing anywhere they could land (or make) a gig. Dubbing themselves the Petrol Free Jubilee Carnival Tour, the pair would often tour the region on their bikes, sometimes joined by as many as two-dozen other cyclists and artists, performing at coffee houses, street corners, rock clubs, and off-the-grid communities.Hailed as “a perfect addition to your summertime playlist” by NPR, the band honed in on their distinctive sound and identity over years of relentless touring, earning dates along the way with the likes of Shakey Graves, Rayland Baxter, Mt. Joy, Rainbow Kitten Surprise, Futurebirds, and The Head and The Heart in addition to high-profile festival slots at Bonnaroo, Lollapalooza, Newport Folk, and more.Links: Website | Instagram | Twitter | Facebook | Spotify | YouTube
Cory Branan
“I pulled these songs from a batch of fifty that mostly predate the pandemic, and all of these felt kin. They’re about doubt, loss, depression, general stir-craziness.“But I knew I didn’t want to make a record that pondered itself, I wanted it to have motion, so I gave this record an overarching rule: The sadder the song, the more it had to move and groove. That’s how the country weeper ‘That Look I Lost’ got the Motown treatment. I wanted you to nod along, then after listening ask, Wait, what am I shaking my ass to?”When I Go I Ghost is Cory Branan’s sixth full length release. His first was 20 years ago: He ain’t banging out pulp here. A writer’s writer, Cory’s lines grip like a page-turner, giddy with interior rhyming and wordplay:I took a shower but the shower didn’t take– “O’ Charlene”the kinda wreck I recognize– “C’Mon If You Wanna Come”You post a picture, notice the mixtureThe camera capturesThat ‘before and after’ look in your eye– “C’Mon If You Wanna Come”When she’s staring down the bad end of the barrelOf yet another long and loaded night– “That Look I Lost”One propulsive song that jangles with hope is “Come On If You Wanna Come,” with lyrics about being too depressed – maybe too hungover – to venture out, accompanied by music that catches the buoyancy one feels after recovering. “’Come On’ is about as optimistic as I can get. We did all the fun Simmons 1980’s drum samples on there, and added concert toms, putting reverse gated reverb on the drums – an old ‘80s Cars-era trick. There’s Rickenbacker and a 12 string guitar. It’s a respite in the record. It evokes the Traveling Wilbury’s, though maybe a meth-y Wilburys.”Cory’s stories don’t resolve neatly. “I embrace my fluctuating doubt. The way I write, I feel my way through these dark halls and then realize, Oh, this is how the house is shaped.”Like a novelist, he inhabits the minds and hearts of his creations, much as they inhabit him. “I’m interested in characters at a crossroads, getting in the flux and staying there. In ‘Of Two Minds,’ I got this feel for the lead character and I asked myself, Who else is in the room with her? Then I realized – she’s the other character too! And by the end, I found myself so wholly identifying that I realized she’s also me.” First she says, “I’m gonna quit while I’m behind,” but in a later verse it’s: “I double down when I’m behind.” Flux indeed, just like real life. That song also features this stinger: “Set the pistol on the dresser and the bed on fire.”On “Pocket of God,” he’s created a noir movie. “I tried to get as much of a story as I could in there, with someone in the hot seat. You don’t know who he’s singing to until the end, and it’s a s story of what happened to someone he cared deeply about. That song began as a sweet line about somebody thinking he picked the pocket of God to have met someone, and I thought, That’s too Hallmark, so I tried to balance it with a Raymond Carver sensibility, where definitions aren’t the same for everyone, where the narrator is untrustworthy. I’m a big fan of Randy Newman, the songwriter king of untrustworthy narrators.Links: Website | Twitter | Facebook | YouTube
Dead Horses
A bustling boulevard in the heart of Milwaukee provides a colorful backdrop for the latest album by folk duo Dead Horses. Brady Street, which is due out on August 12, 2022, is Dead Horses’ first full-length release since their arresting 2018 record, My Mother the Moon. The last album charted on the Americana Top 50 radio charts for three consecutive months. The single “Turntable” accrued more than 35 million spins on Spotify and was also featured on the Amazon and Apple Americana playlists. The pair’s select media highlights include a Rolling Stone “Artist You Should Know” mention as well as profiles in Billboard, Noisey, and even independent global news publication Democracy Now!For their fourth full-length press, the pair decided to stick to their roots and record at Honeytone Studios in Neenah. “We wanted to produce something that seemed true to us, so we opted for a closer-to-home approach,” explains Daniel Wolff. “The experience allowed us to dive in and out of the studio and really work with the individual songs and the overall feel of Brady Street. Because of this, I believe we created a set of songs that contain a wider variety of sounds and textures that we knew were possible for us but didn’t have the chance to accomplish yet based on our previous recording strategies.”The new record kicks off with its title track, “Brady Street,” a song that took many months to finish, but one that Sarah Vos says she “never lost faith in because it seemed to really capture a mood I’ve never been able to through song.” The second and third tracks open to reveal Dead Horses’ evolution into more intricate places rhythmically and sonically, only to pull away to the live recorded, sparsely beautiful, intimate “Bird Over the Train.” Track 8, titled “You Are Who You Need to Be,” is a ballad meant to empower those who don’t fit into society’s gender and sexuality norms. The final tracks, “Under Grey Skies” and “Days Grow Longer,” leave the listener with an unexpected sound from the band. “The sound is more fun and lighthearted than what we usually create, unless you’re looking too hard,” Vos observes. “I feel that Brady Street is a coming-of-age record for us – both musically and thematically,” Vos shares. “In some ways, Brady Street is an answer to My Mother the Moon. The latter was written and recorded in the midst of working through childhood traumas and first venturing out on my own. Brady Street is less naive, more gritty, more focused.” Brady Street takes the intimacy of nature and brings it into the oftentimes reckless city life. Instead of walks through the forest, the songs take the audience on walks through the city, past all the old churches and bars with rich histories. Both records are filled with songs of hope and the search for beauty, as well as compassion for others, especially strangers. Written primarily throughout the COVID lockdown, Brady Street turns inward and reflects the introspection many of us encountered over the course of the often-melancholy pandemic.Since the band’s early days, Dead Horses has been something of a fluid project centered around Sarah and Dan but has also welcomed other like minded musicians for recording and touring. The band’s seemingly dark name is a loving tribute to a former friend of the band who passed away due to struggles with opioid abuse.Links: Website | Twitter | Facebook | YouTube | Snapchat
Alesana
Positive Mental Attitude. This is the mantra that is not only a driving force for Raleigh, North Carolina based Alesana, but also a way of life. Celebrating eleven years as a band, the pop-metal sextet is always in high spirits and accustomed to playing their hearts out every night when on the road. Countless US tours, several trips around the world, and seven major releases later, Alesana is living proof that hard work and dedication to dreams can go a long, long way. Calling Revival Recordings their home, the band released the conclusion to their Annabel Trilogy in April 2015 with Confessions. Released in December of 2013, the stand-alone single Fatima Rusalka progressed the band’s conceptual trilogy en route to its conclusion with Confessions. The song does what has come to be expected of the storytelling rock machine which is to draw from past influences while incorporating new possibilities, dynamics, and sonic exploration. Having spent time on Tragic Hero Records, Fearless Records, and Epitaph Records, Alesana’s entire catalogue, consisting of Try This With Your Eyes Closed, On Frail Wings of Vanity and Wax, Where Myth Fades To Legend, The Emptiness, A Place Where The Sun Is Silent, and Confessions, has charted on the Billboard Top 200. In summer 2016, Alesana released a special edition of Confessions including two new tracks along with a novella, entitled Annabel, which inspired The Annabel Triology. The album is available on all digital outlets now and the novella is available for purchase on Amazon Kindle now. In 2017, Alesana began working on the ulitmate fan project which they called Origins. Filled with hours worth of behind the scenes and never before seen footage, demos, and a brand new EP The Lost Chapters, Origins was born as a visual history of the past thirteen years of the band. In early 2018, Alesana released The Lost Chapters EP digitally. Origins bundles are currently available on the Revival Recordings shop page. The Lost Chapters EP is available to stream on all digital platforms and to purchase on iTunes now! Links: Facebook | Twitter | Instagram | Apple Music
Ghostly Kisses
Music has always been around Margaux Sauvé, born in Quebec to a family of musicians; she picked up the violin at the tender age of five. Moving on to the Conservatoire in Quebec, she quit due to “missing the fun part of it” but still loved music so started to play violin in local bands. Singing came a bit later as she thought that “to be a singer you had to have a powerful voice and be loud”, something that doesn’t come naturally to her as a quiet, thoughtful person. Alongside this, the pop music on the radio whilst growing up in Quebec wasn’t connecting with her, so it wasn’t until she started to write music whilst studying psychology at University that the creativity and desire to express revealed itself: “it just opened a completely new path for me”. Writing music as Ghostly Kisses arrived at a moment where Margaux was in “a living situation I was not able to get out of. A toxic relationship where I had a hard time understanding what was happening.” With this knowledge, it is understandable that most of her early music has a sorrowful but exploratory mood; knowing there were things she needed to express, but not understanding quite how instinctively she was writing until years later it became apparent what she was singing about.And now, with ‘Heaven, Wait’, her mesmeric debut album ready for release, her songwriting has developed to the point that this is the first time she has written and felt like she was part of the conversation. Able to view herself with an external eye, the album reflects transitions and rebirth – still talking about difficult situations, but with the ability to cast someone else in the lead role, giving the music a deeply personal yet starkly universal appeal. One which Margaux feels has come from “a more mature, adult way of looking at it.”Identifying key themes of the album, Margaux frames the album artwork within the context of the songs as being “from water towards the air, there’s a lot of dark around me and I’m just going through to the light.” And that feels like the crux of the album, that nothing is perfect – there are always difficult situations, but it is about trusting the process and working hard towards something positive.All the songs on ‘Heaven, Wait’ talk at some point about a transition or a relationship she had to work on, not wanting to be stuck in a situation forever. Whilst the story of the album is an intensely personal journey, it’s the first time we find Margaux writing about excitement and desire. We also hear her develop as an artist with liberating songs that can be danced to amongst the darker, more melodramatic songs she has built her name on.If title track ‘Heaven, Wait’ encapsulates the positive side of growth, then other songs, such as first single ‘Don’t Know Why’ is about how “at some point I had to let go and accept defeat, it was my own choice to leave and it was painful.” ‘Blackbirds’ is about depression; something she experienced first hand when she was eighteen going into an intensely dark place: “there was no grey area, there was only black or an idea of being free.”Links: Website | Bandcamp | Instagram | Twitter | Facebook | Spotify | YouTube
Sir Woman
Sir Woman is the new musical project from Wild Child/Glorietta singer Kelsey Wilson. Started in 2019 as a way for Wilson to write and record the styles of music that inspire her – Soul, Funk, RnB, Gospel – the project quickly garnered massive attention around their homebase of Austin, TX. In 2020, after just a handful of shows and single releases, Sir Woman was dubbed “Best New Act” at the Austin Music Awards.During the pandemic, Sir Woman released a five song EP (appropriately) titled Bitch. With the massive lead single “Highroad,” the collection has already passed 14.5 million streams on Spotify, and led to radio airplay across the U.S. Now that concerts have resumed, Sir Woman has also cemented their status as one of the funnest shows anywhere with sold out club dates and festival appearances around Austin as well as tour dates opening for Black Pumas and Shakey Graves.Now the band is ready to introduce the rest of the country to the party. The Sir Woman self-titled full-length was released in April 2022, and tour dates throughout the U.S. are planned for the next several months.Links: Website | Instagram | Facebook | Spotify | YouTube
Wyatt Easterling CD Release Show
Wyatt first came to Nashville as a folk singer on the verge of signing with CBS Records, but in true industry fashion, Sony acquired the label, and the deal fell through. Undeterred, he signed on as a writer with a new publishing company opened by former CBS label head Rick Blackburn.After a couple of years there, Blackburn brought him on as head of A&R at Atlantic Records where Wyatt signed some of country music’s biggest names including John Michael Montgomery, Tracy Lawrence, Michael Johnson and Neal McCoy. He also began working as a producer, guiding Montgomery’s debut album Life’s A Dance to an impressive three million copies sold. After Atlantic, Wyatt opened Bugle Publishing Group with partner Miles Copeland, where he signed a number of artists, most notably Keith Urban, Paul Jefferson and Paul Thorn. At Bugle, Wyatt also produced Thorn’s debut album Hammer and Nail and got the future superstar Urban his first record deal.During that period, Wyatt and Miles had the inventive idea to turn a chateau in the south of France into a writers’ den they called “The Castle” where they began pairing their Nashville songwriters with big name artists like Carole King, Cher, Peter Frampton and Olivia Newton John. In time, Wyatt was ready to move on from the publishing world, and he signed as a writer with DreamWorks Publishing, API and EMI where he had numerous songs recorded by the likes of Dierks Bentley and Joe Diffie, including the gorgeous title track from Bentley’s album Modern Day Drifter.After all of his time navigating the many facets of the music industry, it turns out his true destination was in fact to be a singer-songwriter. He started touring, including consecutive appearances as a finalist in the prestigious Kerrville New Folk contest, and he’s since recorded his two beautiful albums Where This River Goes and Goodbye, Hello. And now happily we have a third collection of songs by Wyatt Easterling in Divining Rod that we can all listen to it for years to come.Links: Website | Instagram | Twitter | Facebook | Spotify | YouTube
