Chimurenga Renaissance

Under the waters, we’re waiting with paws each larger than the head of a lion, rows of teeth, and jaws stronger than a Megaladon. Together, we are the black leviathan, panther of the deep.Chimurenga Renaissance is Baba Maraire and Hussein Kalonji.Mixed by Erik Blood, riZe vadZimu riZe also features Palaceer Lazaro, Mall Saint, M1 of Dead Prez, and THEESatisfaction. Discover it.Links: Bandcamp | Facebook | Instagram | YouTube | Spotify

Family Vision, Blood, The Veldt

“Plastic Form”, the second full length from New York via North Carolina punk outfit Family Vision, dives headfirst into an unhinged burst of kinetic energy. Opener “Gaze/Game” gets straight to the point, packing years of pent-up stagnation and refinement of artistic process into a sub-minute barn burner. The track list wastes no time, moving steadily through powerfully crafted hooks, adorning Kabir Kumar-Hardy’s clear and plaintive lyrical gripes with mischievous and ingenious window dressings that lack no urgency for all their catchiness.Pulling values and structures from multiple corners of the east coast underground, Family Vision’s penchant for concise statements and bleating rhythms come directly from their roots in the hardcore-leaning house show circuits of the Southeast, but are crucially injected with the ambitious and restless sonic processes of the big city post- punk canon. Arrangement choices are lifted from the harmonic playbook of Pere Ubu, Wire and Orange Juice, but take timely departure to the chiming hooks and ennui ridden lyrical spunk of their generation’s indie rock.While their 2019 self-titled was firmly lo-fi by default and necessity, the recording of “Plastic Form” took a measured step towards control of the sonic elements, harnessing a scrappy and blown-out character when desired but able to achieve bitingly clear and lushly layered textural density. Here, control allows true freedom. The band was able to let loose, hit harder, and mold their impatient sentiments into an injection of momentum to the mental system. This is music that is tired of waiting, and is anxiously capable of carving out its own path. Kabir wants to light a fire under his feet, and we can feel it burning.Links: Bandcamp | Instagram | Facebook | Spotify | Soundcloud

Spiritualized Live

SPIRITUALIZED EVERYTHING WAS BEAUTIFUL While some people imploded in the lockdowns and isolation of the epidemic, others were thriving.“I felt like I’d been in training for this my whole life” said J Spaceman in a text conversation last June or so.He was referring to his fondness of isolation and when you reframe loneliness as “beautiful solitude” then it isn’t so bad.He would walk through an empty “Roman London” where “even the sirens had stopped singing” and where the world was “full of birdsong and strangeness and no con-trails.”He used the birdsong walks to listen and try and make sense of all the music playing in his head. The mixers and mixes of his new record, a ninth studio album, weren’t working out yet.Spaceman plays 16 different instruments on Everything Was Beautiful which was put down at 11 different studios, as well as at his home. Also he employed, more than 30 musicians and singers including his daughter Poppy, long-time collaborator and friend John Coxon, string and brass sections, choirs and finger bells and chimes from the Whitechapel Bell Foundry. So, there’s a lot going on.“There was so much information on it that the slightest move would unbalance it, but going around in circles is important to me. Not like you’re spiraling out of control but you’re going around and around and on each revolution you hold onto the good each time. Sure, you get mistakes as well, but you hold on to some of those too and that’s how you kind of… achieve. Well, you get there.”Eventually the mixes got there and Everything Was Beautiful was achieved.The result is some of the most “live” sounding recordings that Spiritualized have released since the Live At The Albert Hall record of 1998, around the time of Ladies & Gentlemen, We Are Floating In Space.The opening track “Always Together With You” is a reworking / supercharging of a track originally released in demo quality in 2014. This new version is a perfect Spiritualized song; a breathtaking, hard edged, psychedelic pop tune where themes of high romance and space travel collide. In one of the most sublime refrains of the band’s career, the backing singers call out “if you gotta lonely heart too”.And don’t we all? Sometimes?On “Best Thing You Never Had”, we meet characters who blew their mind but “never had a mind to blow” over backing instrumentation that sounds like a New Orleans funeral procession band who’ve been drinking thinners all night. It’s possible this Stones at Exile-era stomp is auto-biographical, but maybe not. It’s hard to remember.“Let It Bleed (For Iggy)’’ is heavy eye-lids and the romantic intricacies of emotional intimacies, a honeyed song that careers into choir-fueled intensity. A country number “Crazy” is even sweeter, a lorazepam Tammy Wynette ballad with backing vocals by Nikki Lane.Spaceman: “When we were mixing, I relied a little bit on what I knew of Ladies And Gentlemen…, that if you start throwing mixes together, it stops sounding like what you already know from the past. Andy Capper Sept 2021 Links: Website | Instagram | Twitter | Facebook | Spotify | YouTube | Soundcloud

mc chris

mc chris (always intentionally spelled lowercase) is having a moment. You’ve probably already heard of him or heard him; you just don’t know it. His voice is playing most nights on Adult Swim. Thanks to streaming, his shows (Sealab 2021, Aqua Teen Hunger Force, and many more) are finding their way to new audiences and die-hards alike. Thanks to Disney+’s The Book of Boba Fett, his lyrics have found their way into most articles about the show, into most YouTube reviews of the show, into most Fett oriented Twitch and TikTok videos. His lyrics are just part of language because he’s influenced a generation. Twitter personalities and huge companies are getting in on the act, even X-BOX was dropping some mc chris lines in recent tweets in response to Fortnite’s Boba Fett DLC. He has become an integral part of the zeitgeist. His fans call him legend, icon and king. He’s thought of as a game changer. His influence on comedy, animation and rap is unparalleled. It’s almost as if all red strings stem from the efforts of mc chris as he pioneered things like Adult Swim and Nerdcore. These days he’s a single dad coming out of Covid and divorce with a determination to do what’s best for his son who he cares for full time. For two long years he has not been able to tour, cutting short a successful and groundbreaking 15-year run, but now that Covid restrictions have eased, mc is going back out one more time. Join him and Maine based Crunk Witch as they make their way across the country for another go, bittersweet as it may be. He will be appearing in Adult Swim’s “Aquadonk Side Pieces,” later this year and his 19th release “King in Black” will be coming out in conjunction with his tour. Catch him while you can! Who knows when and if he will return.Links: Website | Bandcamp | Instagram | Twitter | Facebook | Spotify | YouTube

Carolina Waves Showcase & Open Mic

K97.5’s Mir.I.am hosts a special Carolina Waves Open Mic at Cat’s Cradle – Back Room! It’s our first live ticketed show at the Cradle since 2019! Come perform, network, build your buzz, participate in the live cypher and possibly get booked! All ages. Carolina Waves was named the Best Open Mic in the Triangle by Indy Week back to back years. Early arrival highly suggested. $10 entry all night. 1 song allowed. Must sign up at door. Free to perform. Free for all UNC students with Student ID. Singers/ rappers/ dancers, all talents welcome. Sounds: DJ Remedy Doors & Sign up at 7:30. Show 8! FLASH DRIVES ONLY! We are always scouting for upcoming Carolina Waves Shows and other opportunities. Bring your A game and your squad. Email [email protected] with questions

Stereolab

Remo Drive

A slice of tremolo-heavy classic rock filtered through the lens of the gunslinging American West, REMO DRIVE’s third LP, A PORTRAIT OF AN UGLY MAN, is in many ways a return to form for the Minnesota-based indie-rock duo. The album, with its acrobatic guitar work, deeply self-referential lyrics and off-the-walls energy, calls back to the dextrous, eccentric sound that helped the band – brothers Erik (vocals, guitar) and Stephen (bass) Paulson – explode into the underground with their debut album, 2017’s Greatest Hits. And, like the band’s earliest material, it took shape in an equally unassuming place: their parents’ basement.When the Paulsons stumbled across a Tascam recording desk on Facebook Marketplace in 2019, they thought it might make a nice starting point to demo songs for their then-forthcoming third LP. But $250 and a few weeks later, they found themselves fully entrenched in making the actual album itself. Not only that, but the safety and security of their parents’ home provided a welcome respite for the brothers, who have learned they’re most creative without a ticking clock and prying eyes peeking over their shoulders.“Our workflow is naturally different from what most producers and studios like to do,” Erik explains. “We take things in our own weird approach and order. There’s a sense of privacy working at home. It doesn’t feel like you’re working with the door open during the incubation process.”The resulting album, due out June 26 on Epitaph, finds the band truly in their element – both physically and sonically. Whereas the Paulsons filtered their buoyant songwriting through the concise lens of storytellers like Bruce Springsteen and The Killers on Natural, Everyday Degradation, A Portrait of an Ugly Man is more spontaneous, bolstered by the same charm and levity that made Greatest Hits such an underground favorite.“I wanted to get back to playing guitar the way I used to, and then throw songwriting on top of that,” Erik says. “On the last album, I approached playing guitar in a more songwriter-y way. I had really scaled it back so it wouldn’t be as hard for me to sing and play simultaneously, but the guitar is way more forward again now.” Self-produced and mixed by the duo, A Portrait of an Ugly Man feels all at once familiar and fresh: The basement breathed a looseness into songs like “If I’ve Ever Looked Too Deep In Thought” and “Ode to Joy,” while the freedom of the sessions left the band able to explore the next evolution of their sound.As such, the 10-song set tips its hat to both the classic rock the brothers grew up on as well as previously untapped influences: Erik namechecks desert-rock artists like Queens of the Stone Age while admitting The Good, The Bad and The Ugly soundtrack and his binge-watching of old Westerns contributed to the album’s tumbleweed pastiche. But this time around, the guiding hands of their musical influences is less overt, a conscious decision the band address on album standout “Star Worship,” which preaches the need to eschew reverence for others and instead trust in yourself.Links: Website | Bandcamp | Facebook | Instagram | Twitter | YouTube

Steve Von Till

Steve Von Till has made a life’s work out of seeking the elemental. With a solo discography that stretches back more than two decades, he has toiled in a shadow realm, peeling back layers of reality in a never-ending search for true meaning and raw emotion. A Deep Voiceless Wilderness strips back the veil even further. An achingly beautiful ambient work with neo-classical leanings, the album is a hallucinatory and elegant rumination on our disconnect from the natural world, each other, and ultimately ourselves.For some listeners, the album may recall the work of modern composers like Jóhann Jóhannsson, Brian Eno or Gavin Bryars. For Von Till, it’s about surrendering to the spirit of place—and to the original intent behind his 2020 solo album, No Wilderness Deep Enough. That album marked a significant first for Von Till: It was his first solo record without a guitar in hand. Instead, Von Till intoned powerful and thought-provoking lyrics over piano, cello, mellotron and analog synthesizers. A Deep Voiceless Wilderness is that same album without Von Till’s words.“This is how I originally heard this piece of music,” he says. “Without the voice as an anchor or earthbound narrative, these pieces have a broader wingspan. They become something else entirely and unfold in a more expansive way. The depth of the synths, juxtaposed with the strings and French horn, have space to develop and allow the listener to imagine their own story.”Also a first for Von Till was Harvestman: 23 Untitled Poems and Collected Lyrics, his first book of poetry. Published by the University of South Dakota’s Astrophil Press, the book established Von Till as a formidable and thoughtful author of verse—a fact that Neurosis fans knew all along, but the wider world was only just becoming aware of. “There is a depth of hope, acceptance and loss that permeates these poems,” Joseph Haeger said in his review for The Inlander. “Like any great piece of art, Harvestman contains multitudes, and that’s exactly what I was hoping for when I cracked it open. Von Till has already established himself as a great musician, and he’s about to put his stake into the ground proving himself to be a damn good writer.”Links: Website | Instagram | Twitter | Facebook | SpotifyAlison Chesley, who performs under the name Helen Money, is a Chicago based cellist who has become known for her adventurous sound, bold compositions, and compelling stage performance. On her newest and fifth album, Atomic (Thrill Jockey Records), she continues to push the sonic boundaries of the instrument while also delving deeper into its more intimate, acoustic side. Chesley has released five solo records, as well as appearing on hundreds of albums with artists such as MONO, Anthrax, Russian Circles. Bob Mould, Chris Connelly and Jarboe and has toured with Shellac, Neurosis, Sleep, Earth and Bob Mould among others.“Helen Money has created a direct and emotionally stunning album which can flip between tenderness and fear, rage and serenity. A perfect example of a universal story being told by a master of their craft” – Louder Than War on AtomicLinks: Website | Facebook | Instagram

Hank, Pattie & the Current Album Release Show

Two of North Carolina’s veteran bluegrass musicians– Hank Smith on Banjo and Pattie Hopkins Kinlaw on fiddle– join forces with some of the most versatile musicians in the Carolinas to create modern, American, acoustic music featuring the full range of their talents as composers and arrangers. The band is on tour regionally and nationally in support of their new album, RISE ABOVE on Robust Records. The band makes use of traditional bluegrass instrumentation in a nontraditional way to present original music to the listener that goes beyond the limits of the idiom. The arrangements take on a new level of maturation that follows in the footsteps of Bela Fleck, Mark O’Connor, Chris Thile, Sam Bush, Edgar Meyer, and Tony Rice. Hank, Pattie & The Current want to pick up where seminal crossover groups like The Punch Brothers, Strength In Numbers and the ever-changing Bluegrass Allstars call home. The music is vocal and instrumental, allowing the band to experiment with arrangements and tailor the compositions to become vehicles for exploration. Hank Smith plays banjo, Pattie Hopkins Kinlaw plays fiddle and is lead vocalist. The Current includes Billie Feather on guitar and Stevie Martinez on bass.Links: Website | Twitter | Instagram | Spotify | Apple Music

Diane Coffee

The ever-evolving spectacle that is Diane Coffee — the gender and genre-bending alter ego of Shaun Fleming — returns with Internet Arms, a swan dive into a lush, digital glam wonderland.Fleming’s path to stardom can be traced all the way back to his childhood days as a Disney voice actor, but for the past six years he’s explored the depths of his identity and channeled it outward in the form of the enigmatic and exuberant Diane Coffee.In 2018, after performing as King Herod in the Lyric Opera’s critically-acclaimed run of Jesus Christ Superstar, Fleming emerged from the recording studio with Internet Arms. Born from the fear and uncertainty of a future in which humankind is both dependent on and poisoned by technology, the album finds Diane Coffee trapped in a digital world, enslaved by AI.“Did you know the technology exists to take a photo of anyone you know and use it to create… well, let’s call it, ‘adult entertainment’?” Fleming asks. “And did you know that an estimated 70% of all online activity isn’t human? Where does that leave us? We don’t interact with each other anymore because we’re always online. Not to mention we can manifest any version of ourselves at the push of a button when we’re logged in, so when we encounter humans they’re not even real.”Facing this existential crisis, Fleming’s anxieties became his muse as his writing explored the scenarios of this dystopian future: “It’s a personal study on how I feel about living with constant blurred lines of the self and the projected self.” This notion shaped the sound of Internet Arms as well, compelling Fleming to gravitate toward synths, electronic drums, and other futuristic sounds from the past and present to create his version of a digital landscape, as well as a digital version of himself.“The songs are what have always dictated the sound. Working in the realm of clean, modern pop production has been an exhilarating change of pace. Diane Coffee now sounds like a digitization of its former self because I also feel trapped in this digital world,” Fleming explains.This newly cybernated Diane Coffee is masterfully unveiled on album standouts “Not Ready to Go” and “Like a Child Does,” with both songs serving as vulnerable reflections on power and abuse. But whereas the former positions its chorus to soar high above a cityscape constructed of conduits and transistors, the driving pulse of the latter propels forward like a high-speed race through the surface streets of said city. Elsewhere, Diane Coffee’s sonic boundaries are pushed the furthest on “Lights Off,” a massive contemporary pop song that impressively showcases Fleming’s extraordinary vocal range.As a whole, Internet Arms marks a significant new phase for Fleming, a testimony to the idea that Diane Coffee will endure as a fluid form of expression that continues to defy expectations of sound and genre.Links: Website | Instagram | Twitter | Facebook

Genre: Miscellaneous