Jphono1 “Rectify Mercy” Album Release Show

“Rectify Mercy” Album Release ShowJohn Harrison has been in something of a sustained period of creative and eclectic output via his shape-shifting outfit, Jphono1. This time John Harrison has rejoined with his current rhythmic collaborators, John Crouch (Caltrop, Solar Halos, Kerbloki) and Jimmy Thompson (Randall Brice Bickford, North Elementary), for his fourth record in the span of two years and first of 2022 “Rectify Mercy”.“Rectify Mercy” is the spiritual successor to 2021’s “Parliament”. In moments, however, it incorporates some of the textures of the “You Are Here To Be Around” volume 1 & 2 albums. These sounds are more often created through unique effect manipulations, however, than synth explorations. Album opener “Let Us Let Go” features a riff and solo section with a guitar all but transmuted into a harmonica, and other moments of the album explore how far you can morph a six-string while still finding anchors in classic psych-rock stylingsWhile many of the song’s structures lean towards turn of the century jam and their tie-dyed forebears, there are other influences not so far below the surface. “That Ghost is Best” twists a Youngish intro and bridge around a dream pop verse, and then bends into an Elephant 6 outro bolstered strongly by Brett Harris’s guest harmony. “Good Run Roscoe” begins in media res propelled by a motorik pattern destined to send this liquid light show down a winding road into the setting sun. There are moments where you can almost hear motorcycles zooming past you on 54 west of Chapel Hill, NC.At under 33 minutes across seven tracks Rectify Mercy is a relatively compact collection, and many of the songs are “short” by Jphono1 standards. Despite almost half clocking in under 4 minutes, however, John and company have a hypnotic way of stretching time. This temporal sorcery combined with genre bending and mindful sonic exploration make “Rectify Mercy” a record ready to stand up to repeated listens this season.Check out the video for the single “You Are A Kingdom” off the new album.Links: Website | Instagram | Twitter | Facebook | YouTube

The Dip

Hailing from Seattle, The Dip is an electrifying seven-piece ensemble that melds vintage rhythm and blues with classic pop storytelling. Acclaimed by KEXP as “one of the most exciting and joyous acts to emerge in recent years,” the band features frontman Tom Eddy’s compelling vocals over an effortlessly deep pocket and energetic melodies from the three-piece Honeynut Horns. Hard-hitting but sensitive, The Dip draws inspiration from the musical roots of decades prior while sounding undeniably relevant today. Following the organic buzz of the 2015 debut, the band arrived on the international stage with their 2019 sophomore full-length, The Dip Delivers. Buoyed by the hit single “Sure Don’t Miss You,” the album was entirely recorded and mixed by the band in their own studio and dishes out a nourishing dose of stylistic and sonic variety. Following an ambitious 2019 that took the band throughout North America, Europe, and Japan, The Dip will captivate audiences with brand new music to complement their vibrant live shows and solidify their reputation as one of the most engaging acts on the road today.Links: Website | Instagram | Twitter | Facebook

Moonchild

‘Starfruit’ is the fifth album from LA-trio Moonchild (Amber Navran, Andris Mattson, and Max Bryk). The result of ten years spent working and growing together, ‘Starfruit’ showcases the respect, musical understanding, and love the trio have, both for each other and for the noteworthy list of collaborators featured on the album. Bringing a host of beautiful melodies and personal lyrics, ‘Starfruit’ beholds offerings from Lalah Hathaway, Alex Isley, Tank and The Bangas, Rapsody, Ill Camille, Mumu Fresh, Chantae Cann and Josh Johnson. “This is our 5th album, which felt like a big milestone to us. They all added their magic touch to the songs and really brought the music to a new and special place,” Amber muses.Links: Website | Bandcamp | Instagram | Twitter | Facebook | Spotify | YouTube

Glove

Rod Wendt, Brie Deux and Michelle Primiani began playing music together in Tampa, FL in 2017 and shortly thereafter found their missing piece, Justin Burns, to form the modern dystopian bliss that is Glove. The stylish and magnetic 4-piece group underscores the best of the 1980’s synthetic new wave sound with a contemporary rock n’ roll edge that is sure to propel the band to the forefront of the alternative rock genre. After self-booking DIY shows for two years, the band supported indie rock darlings The Nude Party and Broncho on a string of east coast shows, honing their infectious live performances fueled by 70’s inspired dance rhythms and buzzing cosmic guitar melodies. In April of 2021, Glove released the first single from their forthcoming album Boom Nights titled “Glass”, landing their first Spotify editorial playlist on “New Noise” as well as festival slots at Lollapalooza, Shaky Knees, and Levitation. The band will hit the road with alt rock band, White Reaper, following the release of their second single “Behaviour” on July 21, 2021. “Behaviour” is a radiating track that speaks to the static reaction to operate and perform as you’re told – a chain reaction of words and expressions, a sentiment that the song’s vocalist Rod Wendt charmingly teases throughout this ear-worm. Glove will release Boom Nights in the fall of 2021 to coincide with a handful of headlining dates, doubling down on their place in contemporary music.Links: Website | Instagram | Twitter | Facebook | YouTube

We Are Scientists

Machine Girl

Equally apocalyptic and ecstatic, the music produced by Brooklyn’s Machine Girl (Matt Stephenson) is an explosive, cathartic blend of footwork, jungle, digital hardcore, and rave. The project debuted in 2013 with self-released EPs 13th Hour and Electronic Gimp Music, followed by several releases on London-based , including the 2014 full-length WLFGRL. The album’s remix EPs featured mixes by a variety of footwork, jungle, and breakcore producers, ranging from of Chicago’s collective to Detroit’s . Second full-length Gemini was released by in 2015, receiving much acclaim from several music websites. Machine Girl toured across the United States extensively, often with drummer Sean Kelly. A split cassette with Detroit-based rhythmic noise artist Five Star Hotel appeared on Visual Disturbances/Emergency Tapes in 2016, as the two acts toured together. Machine Girl returned to with 2017’s …Because I’m Young Arrogant and Hate Everything You Stand For, the project’s most vocal-heavy, punk-influenced release to date. Follow-up The Ugly Art appeared on Kitty on Fire Records in 2018. MG Demo Disc and U-Void Synthesizer both appeared in 2020. ~ Paul Simpson, RoviLinks: Bandcamp | Instagram | Twitter | Facebook | Spotify | YouTube | Soundcloud

Low Cut Connie

Low Cut Connie released Private Lives last year to rave reviews, ultimately earning its place at #34 on Rolling Stone’s “50 best Albums of 2020” list, #4 on Fresh Air’s Ken Tucker’s ten best albums of the year, and #1 on PopMatters’ “25 Best Americana Albums of 2020” list. Capping off the year, The New Yorker dubbed Adam Weiner “Pandemic Person of the Year.” The album’s last single, the title track “Private Lives,” was also one of “Public Radio’s Most Popular Songs Of 2020.” With 6 albums released to date, select highlights from the band’s impressive career include endorsements from Barack Obama and Elton John, a performance on Late Night with Seth Meyers, and a spot on Rolling Stone’s Top 100 Albums of the Decade list for their album Call Me Sylvia. “Like Bruce Springsteen after he discovered literature, Weiner started bending classic rock to meet his ever more complex emotionalism. The result is that this new 17 track collection Private Lives is Adam Weiner’s version of Born to Run, filled with songs about losers and lovers and beautiful dreamers.” – Ken Tucker, NPR’s Fresh Air “Pandemic Person of the Year” – The New Yorker Links: Website | Instagram | Twitter | Facebook | Spotify | YouTube

Sun June

The five members of Sun June spent their early years spread out across the United States, from the boonies of the Hudson Valley to the sprawling outskirts of LA. Having spent their college years within the gloomy, cold winters of the North East, Laura Colwell and Stephen Salisbury found themselves in the vibrant melting-pot of inspiration that is Austin, Texas. Meeting each other while working on Terrence Malick’s ‘Song to Song’, the pair were immediately taken by the city’s bustling small clubs and honky-tonk scene, and the fact that there was always an instrument within reach, always someone to play alongside. Coming alive in this newly discovered landscape, Colwell and Salisbury formed Sun June alongside Michael Bain on lead guitar, Sarah Schultz on drums, and Justin Harris on bass and recorded their debut album live to tape, releasing it via the city’s esteemed Keeled Scales label in 2018. The band coined the term ‘regret pop’ to describe the music they made on the ‘Years’ LP. Though somewhat tongue in cheek, it made perfect sense ~ the gentle sway of their country leaning pop songs seeped in melancholy, as if each subtle turn of phrase was always grasping for something just out of reach. Sun June returns with ‘Somewhere’, a brand new album, out February 2021. It’s a record that feels distinctly more present than its predecessor. In the time since, Colwell and Salisbury have become a couple, and it’s had a profound effect on their work; if Years was about how loss evolves, Somewhere is about how love evolves. “We explore a lot of the same themes across it,” Colwell says, “but I think there’s a lot more love here.” Somewhere is Sun June at their most decadent, a richly diverse album which sees them exploring bright new corners with full hearts and wide eyes. Embracing a more pop-oriented sound the album consists of eleven beautiful new songs and is deliberately more collaborative and fully arranged: Laura played guitar for the first time; band members swapped instruments, and producer Danny Reisch helped flesh out layers of synth and percussion that provides a sweeping undercurrent to the whole thing. Throughout Somewhere you can hear Sun June blossom into a living-and-breathing five-piece, the album formed from an exploratory track building process which results in a more formidable version of the band we once knew. ’Real Thing’ is most indicative of this, a fully collaborative effort which encompasses all of the nuances that come to define the album. “Are you the real thing?” Laura Colwell questions in the song’s repeated refrain. “Honey I’m the real thing,” she answers back.They’ve called this one their ‘prom’ record; a sincere, alive-in-the-moment snapshot of the heady rush of love. “The prom idea started as a mood for us to arrange and shape the music to, which we hadn’t done before,” the band explains. “ Prom isn’t all rosy and perfect. The songs show you the crying in the bathroom,, the fear of dancing, the joy of a kiss – all the highs and all the lows.” Links: Website | Bandcamp | Instagram | Twitter | Facebook | Spotify | Soundcloud

John Moreland

This is a seated show. Over the last half a dozen years or so, John Moreland’s honesty has stunned us––and stung. As he put hurts we didn’t even realize we had or shared into his songs, we sang along. And we felt better. But there has always been far more to Moreland than sad songs. Today, his earthbound poetry remains potent, but in addition to his world-weary candor, Moreland’s music smolders with gentle wisdom, flashes of wit and joy, and compassion. And once again, as we listen, we feel better. “I can’t dress myself up and be some folk singer character that I’m not really,” Moreland says. “I figured, I can’t dress up these songs and try to sell them that way. All I can do is be me.” Out February 2020, his latest album LP5 proves John Moreland has gotten really good at being John Moreland––thank God. A masterful display of songwriting by one of today’s best young practitioners of the art form, LP5 is Moreland’s finest record to date. The album’s experimentations with instrumentation and sounds capture an artist whose confidence has grown, all without abandoning the hardy roots rock bed and the lyrics-first approach Moreland’s work demands. “I feel like just this year, in the past few months, I’ve reached a point where I feel like I know what I’m doing here now,” he says. “And I feel comfortable with it.” There was a time when Moreland thought LP5 may not happen. Wary of expectations and his cemented status as a writer’s writer and critical darling, the Tulsa, Oklahoma-based Moreland found writing difficult at best––and completely undesirable at worst. “I’m hesitant to talk about it because I know people don’t want to hear some dude complaining that his dream of being a successful musician came true, but there are things about it that you don’t expect that can mess you up,” Moreland says. “One of the results of that was I really didn’t want to write songs for a couple of years.” He pauses and sighs. “One of the ways I got back into liking music again was to let go of the idea that every time I’d go mess around with an instrument, I’d have to be writing a really good song. I just gave myself the freedom to go into my little music room every day and mess around with different instruments and different sounds. It doesn’t have to be anything. It doesn’t have to result in anything.” Moreland points to that liberating rediscovery as a major influence on the sonic choices that shape LP5. There is no grand or alarming stylistic departure here––just different textures and background layers that add muscly new dimensions to Moreland’s heretofore instrumentally sparse recordings. The record also marks Moreland’s first time working with a producer. He chose Matt Pence. “I wouldn’t say that he pushed me into trying anything that I didn’t already want to do, but I think I came in with a lot of ideas that I found interesting but didn’t know how to execute. Matt was great at expanding on those things,” Moreland says. For Moreland, falling back in love with music also coincided with an even more personal change. “This past year, I’ve been getting into mindfulness and being kinder to myself,” he says. “I was really on that wave when I started writing these songs. I guess it shows.”Links: Website | Facebook | Twitter

JoJo

JoJo [born Joanna Levesque] is a chart-topping, award-winning singer, songwriter, and actress who, at just 30 years old, is already a veteran of the music industry. 17 years into her career, JoJo made a “triumphant return” [Uproxx] last year with her fourth studio album good to know, debuting at #1 on the Billboard R&B Albums Chart and earning widespread global acclaim from Vulture, TIME, Variety, NYLON, NPR, The FADER, and more, with Associated Press proclaiming “good to know is more than good. It’s grand.” At just 13, JoJo burst onto the scene with her self-title debut album, whose breakout smash “Leave (Get Out)” made her the youngest-ever solo artist to have a debut #1 single in the U.S. JoJo went on to sell over four million copies and became the singer’s first Platinum record, which she followed with a string of additional hits, including the Top 3 single “Too Little Too Late.” In 2016, following 10 years of legal battles with her former label that prevented her from releasing new music, JoJo returned with Mad Love., which debuted in the Top 10 on the Billboard Top 200. In 2018, JoJo re-recorded and re-released her first two albums (JoJo and The High Road) under her own label Clover Music, so her fans could finally get the nostalgia they had been missing for so many years. She has also pushed herself outside the confines of genre, collaborating with artists ranging from PJ Morton [on the GRAMMY Award-winning R&B hit “Say So”] to Jacob Collier [lending her vocal stylings to the jazzy “It Don’t Matter”]. On October 1, 2021, JoJo released Trying Not To Think About It. The capsule project is a musical expression of her continued honesty, vulnerability, and transparency around mental health, tackling the different shades of it – including anxiety, depression, negative thoughts, relationship self-sabotage, and emotional immaturity. Following its release, JoJo embarked on a sold out run of six live performance dates across the United States in Boston, New York City, Philadelphia, Atlanta, Nashville, and Los Angeles.Links: Website | Facebook | Twitter | Instagram | Spotify | YouTube | Apple Music

Genre: Miscellaneous