Fresh Alasdair Roberts Track

arAlasdair Roberts has long been crafting folk tracks that tickle our fancy when it comes to traditional style tunes. “The Downward Road,” his latest single from his upcoming record, is no exception to this steady trend of beautiful music. As you’ll hear below, Roberts has packed just as much whimsy as serious craftsmanship into this tune–you’re greeted with a nice blend of fiddle, acoustic guitar and some wonky electric guitar. Of course you get Roberts’ gentle vocals as well, but then the chorus kicks it up a bit into a full on stomper of a track. Take a listen.

Pangswill be out February 24th via Drag City. Go preorder it here.

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Wand Moves To Drag City/ Shares New Track

wandFor what is going to be their third full length album in a little over a year, Wand has returned with a new single as well as news that 1000 Days will be released through Drag City. This single, “Stolen Footsteps” is an eerie psych track that hinges on a mellower sound than we’ve heard from the group, but one that definitely caught my attention. If you watch the video, you’ll hear the subtler sound, but then there’s Cory Hanson’s enticing vocals that hook you in while fuzzy synths ground the song. Get ready for another great release from these guys coming September 25th.

[youtube]https://youtu.be/V0MleuDItII[/youtube]

Peacers Bring The Funky Folk Psych

large_donovan_mikeYou may know Mike Donovan from his former band Sic Alps, but now he’s back with a new project called Peacers which includes a little help from Ty Segall. Though quite brief, this the track below is a funky mix of folk and psych music, with lo-fi production. The guitars twang and sprawl all over the place, but the vocals are quite subtle and soft. This debut, self titled, LP is out July 17th via Drag City Records, so be ready for that.

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Jessica Pratt – On Your Own Love Again

Jessica-Pratt_On-Your-Own-Love-Again-coverRating: ★★★☆☆

Jessica Pratt first hit the scene back in 2012 with her debut self-titled album that transfixed audiences with its folksy creations. Now she’s back with a soft sophomore effort, On Your Own Love Again, which hopes to double up on the success of the first album in the apparent age of the singer/songwriter.

While Jessica Pratt’s music is certainly folk, it goes deeper than this blanket genre term suggest. Pratt’s overall sound is a mix of cascading acoustic guitar that serves as both the melody and the rhythm accompanied by her whimsically airy vocals. These vocals are the main attraction, though, and through them she spins intricate tales and crafts wonderful imagery that your mind will linger on. The combination of her voice and the intricate plucking of acoustic guitar are vastly more complex than they might seem and Pratt weaves them together with ease and allure. The sound here is simple, yet elegantly crafted, ornate, yet easy.

The highlights of this album come all over—by no means is this a one sided collection of songs, and I feel that those that resonate with you the strongest depends on your personal taste, but those that struck me as the most enticing come from the second half of the album. I was drawn strongly to “Jacquelyn In the Background,” on which Pratt’s vocals are impossibly breathy and light and yet still weighty in their content. The twisting and turning acoustic guitar falls on itself, creating a constant state of motion over which the vocals are able to glide. At the end of this track, the production adds a twist to it, distorting the vocals and guitar as if the record is playing on the wrong setting, evoking a level of self-awareness in an unexpected twist. Another song that has really pulled me in is “Back, Baby,” which reminds me a bit of old Destroyer records—the melancholy guitar that cuts through the tongue-twisting vocals hits hard.

I enjoy the songs on On Your Own Love Again, but I wasn’t too floored by the overall construction of the album; it’s gentle and delicate all the way through. Whereas Pratt’s contemporaries seem to burst through with power guitar or electronic components, she holds firmly to the eclectic nature of her folk tunes, which leaves me a little longing for more. She’s captured my attention with the enticing and spell-bounding quality of the music, but doesn’t expound beyond this.

 

Another Track from Purling Hiss

pearlsPress. Play. Screech. Off into the wandering guitar solo that opens the song, met by another progression underneath it that slowly unwraps the song’s melody.  Enter vocals.  They’re laying somewhere in between the realms of T. Moore and J. Mascis, though that’s owed more to their delivery; they do have their own little touch that’s noticeable before the song’s return to instrumentation.  Listening back to a song like this, I wonder why there’s not a larger buzz for Purling Hiss.  Their album Weirdon will be released on September 23rd, and I’ll be one of those picking it up that very day.

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Guitar Rock from Dope Body

dopeStruggling a bit today, so I wanted to kick out something a little bit crunchy and loud.  This track from Dope Body popped up last week, and I love the sound of the distorted guitars ringing loudly, even the wild solos of noise.  It’s the sort of track that makes you want to go to a live show, jump around and sing with the band, or just watch your friends if you’re more the voyeur sort.  This new track comes from the band’s upcoming record, Lifer, their second album on Drag City Records; it’ll have a release date of October 21st.

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Fresh Music from Laetitia Sadler

laetitiaI’m really enjoying the newest single from Laetitia Sadler; there’s something in the inflection as she sings that really grabs me.  There’s a bit of oddity to it, though it’s able to grab hold of melody at the same time.  It reminds me of the much misses Deep Time, though the music has more of a singer-songwriter aspiration, albeit one that’s maximized by strings and horns.  This song will feature on her new record, Something Shines, which is slated for release on September 23rd via Drag City Records.  It also doesn’t hurt that she was a big part of Stereolab either, does it?

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Elegant Sad Bastard Tune from New Bums

newbumsIf you need something down-trodden, yet holding onto a simplistic sense of beauty. You’d probably expect something of the sort considering the works of Ben Chasny and Donovan Quinn prior to their union as New Bums, but I can’t tell you how floored I am by how superb the below track truly is.  From the light strumming to the tinkering piano in the faint distance, it all fits into a song that will probably haunt me for some time…such is the power of a great ballad. The two will put out Voices in a Rented Room on February 18th via Drag City.

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Ty Segall – Goodbye Bread

Rating: ★★★☆☆

Admittedly, I was worried when I first heard that Ty Segall was going to take his ramshackle approach to California garage-pop and slow it down a notch or two.  Now that I’ve given Goodbye Bread a thorough fifty times over, I’m still a bit at odds with his new approach, though there are gems thrown about that really get to me.  In the end, I like this record, and only months of non-consecutive playing will truly indicate my feelings as to the longevity of his newest record for Drag City.

“Goodbye Bread” is actually a solid opening track, and one that immediately states the purpose of the album.  You’ll get Segall’s hazy croon, accompanied by minimal guitar for the most part, but it does pick up a bit, which makes this effort pretty solid, though longtime fans will surely wish more time was spent on carrying out the latter half of the track itself.  Like the opener, the lead single from Goodbye Bread, “You Make the Sun Fry” has this slow burning quality that definitely will appeal to fans of a grittier guitar sound, but perhaps this is where the execution of the record seems to sort of fall off for Ty, as the heavier moments seem sort of like after thoughts for him, especially when you look back over the course of his work.

There are songs on the record that illustrate a different approach for Ty Segall, and one that sounds remarkably refreshing.  If you take a listen to “I Can’t Feel It,” you can hear a more pristine guitar sound lurking in the background.  Pacing on this track doesn’t really fall off, or fly into the typical Segall approach.  It’s a wonder why he didn’t just completely go off course and write more songs like this, as it’s definitely a gem of a track.  It’s weird, but the noisier tracks on Goodbye Bread, such as the monotonous stomping of “California Commercial” don’t seem nearly as strong as the finer tracks on Melted, but the one-two punch at the end of the album makes everything worth it, and should restore every listener’s faith in Segall as a writer.

“I Am With You” begins the closing statement here, and it should be noted that it’s probably the most interesting, in regards to Ty’s approach on writing this bunch of tunes, as there’s switches in pacing, almost hurrying at times; there are also various changes in the overall dynamic of the song, even as he goes off into his ghoulish howl near the end. And, then you have the album closer, “Fine,” which serves as almost a infomercial on the ability of Segall to actually sing; he does a fairly decent job, at least to my ears.  Perhaps it kind of struggles to end, but in the end, I think its going to be one of those songs I’ll come back to time and time again.

Depending upon your interest in Ty Segall, you’ll probably land in various places with your own final consensus.  At times, it seems like he’s stuck in the middle of the road, unable to commit one way or the other to a certain style.  But, as the album draws to a close, you can see him hitting that proverbial stride, and those songs definitely benefit.  Goodbye Bread makes for an enjoyable listen through and through, just not sure where it fits in Ty’s catalogue, or where he’ll go from here. Until then.

[audio:https://austintownhall.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/05/Ty-Segall-You-Make-the-Sun-Fry.mp3]

Download: Ty Segall – You Make the Sun Fry [MP3]

New Music from Bill Callahan

Long have I followed the career of Smog, or Bill Callahan, as we know him now, so when he became one of the many musicians to move to Austin, I was hopping with joy, hoping we’d get to see more of him around town.  We have been so lucky, as he popped up on numerous occasions, not to mention random talks, such as his upcoming appearance at Book People on April 10th.  But, more important is his music, and P4k premiered a new song yesterday from the gent in preparation for his new record, Apocalypse, which comes out April 19th on Drag City.  If we’re going off this track, it’s going to be your usual fair, with trickling guitar work and Bill’s soft and smoky voice.  Yeah, that’s right, it’s going to be goo.

[audio:https://austintownhall.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/03/Bill-Callahan-Babys-Breath.mp3]

Download: Bill Callahan – Baby’s Breath [MP3]