Indie rock musician Jane Frank is ending 2018 on a particularly high note, with the release of her stunning, layered new track “Fight or Flight”. Soft – like the caress of your fingertips on your forearm – her voice carries lightly over the instrumentals, creating a certain magical feeling that is absolutely perfect this time of year. The most interesting part? The song’s meaning isn’t as pleasant as the soundscape would insist.
“‘Fight or Flight’ is about how we’re all scared, admits Frank. “And how, after several failed relationships, we start to close up. Everybody is thinking about what they gave, or what they didn’t get.”
Hailing from Oakland, indie rock/experimental pop project We Is Shore Dedicated – the brainchild of Sam Tsitrin – has a bit of new magic to share with us this holiday season. New album No Ski Here Ogi Sap is here, boasting 9 instrumentally mellifluous tracks that will keep you dancing gracefully around your home all day. Though the lyrical edge to the album – politically and emotionally-driven – can be found outstandingly in tracks like “Sorok Sapogov”, it’s still a bit of a masterpiece, to be shared regardless of background or belief. Check it out in its entirety below!
Jealous of The Birds doesn’t actually fit into one box, if you’re looking for an honest answer. A bag of tricks, you can hear hints of 60s punk and indie rock and roll in her work, vocals deep and emotionally evocative. The new music video for “Marrow” follows suit, a visual dream basked in a glow that warms you while the artist galavants around in a garden. Demonstrating theatrics and a sound that The Beatles would be proud of, you’re in for a visual treat with this one. Peep it below!
With baited breath we’ve awaited the arrival of indie rock collective Daisybones‘ 10-track album Gold. The Boston quartet has really provided us with the energy shot we’ve been needing, from the very first chords of the title track, through slightly slower – but just as otherworldly rock as its predecessor – “Choke”, and into “Drag”, which slows down exponentially but doesn’t quite drag, if you as us. (We’re full of jokes today.)
Daisybones performs with a hint of 60s British punk woven into lead singer Dillon Bailey’s vocals. This is especially evident in “Bang”, though “Crush” follows suit perfectly. “Beautymark” might be our favorite of the collection, the tempo changes alluring and the crashing cymbals providing a soundscape that we can both veg out AND dance our asses off to. Many fans might like “Daiquiri” for its tropical vibe, providing us an escape from our (now) snowy landscapes.
“Score” is the obvious head-bopper, frantic and staccato in its existence. If you’re looking for a slower rock track to nerd out over, “Heave” is your particular brand of ear candy, though last track “Lemondrop” might sound as such. “Lemondrop” is actually the perfect way to end the album, slowing everything down exponentially and providing an almost rock ballad-like atmosphere that will lord over you for the rest of the day.
Indie rock trio Vern Matz – comprised of Danny Belgrad, Michael Lituchy, Noah Silvestry – may hail from New Haven, Connecticut, but their songwriting hits you at your core no matter where you spent your formative years. Explains the band of the track:
“Systematically Gone” was recorded in a small town in Connecticut, where we lived off of vegetarian chili for a few days. It was produced and mixed by Peter Katis, a longtime collaborator with The National and dedicated soup consumer. In “Systematically Gone”, our character has reached a breaking point, and it’s unclear what the next step forward is. It’s like being in an ice cream shop where all the flavors are sherbet and you hate sherbet and your relationship is falling apart.
If you’ve ever questioned a decision or two in life – and I know we all have – this song will be something you hold close. It’s meandering, mellifluous soundscape will keep you feeling safe and warm in the autumn months, as you seek to clear up whatever road blocks you may be experiencing. Check it here, first, below!
London-based experimental artist Lua Sonique is bringing the 80’s vibes with new track “Leave”. With twinkling synth sounds layered in to an indie rock facade, we’re catching bites of energy that would be easily placed in a John Hughes film. So don’t “Leave” quite yet, just play the track and get dancing with your high tops and a fun, carefree fall feeling!
We’ve had a blissful courtship with indie rock/folk duo Seasaw since before Imperfect Fifth ever existed. Having had the opportunity to review an album of theirs at a previous publication, my mailbox experienced an unexpected and happy surprise when they shipped me a vinyl copy of said album with a personalized thank you note. The music industry is incredibly rewarding in most ways, but to get a hand written note is rather rare anymore. That particular memory stayed with me, and then when I got a chance to peep the material for their new album Big Dogs, I was floored.
Lucky for me, I got the unique opportunity to meet up with Meg and Eve on a balmy September day in Kansas City while they were on tour. We sat down while they tried some tacos from Mission Taco, and chatted a bit about that new album and their progression as artists. Check out the words below!
What’s the first song or record you remember hearing, and does it have any bearing on who you are as a performer today?
Eve: The first thing I probably listened to would be the Beach Boys because my dad is a huge Beach Boys fan. He would make me mix tapes of the Beach Boys that I would play on my tiny kid cassette tape player. He made me lots and lots of music like that. And we would listen to it all the time in the car too when I would drive around with my dad. I don’t know that anyone could live up to the amazing harmonies and chord progression that the Beach Boys produced, but of course it’s always in the back of my mind to choose something even a fraction of the beauty that they were able to create sonically. They did such cool things in the studio too as their albums progressed.
My dad also made me a mix tape that had The Kinks and included “Lola”, which is one of my all-time favorite songs. As you know, it’s a song that has a very adult theme. But I brought it in for show and tell in 2nd grade and I think the teacher called my parents and was like, “Did you know that Eve** brought ‘Lola’ in?” Of course they loved it. It’s an amazing song.
Meg: I remember listening to Billy Joel’s The Stranger a lot with my dad and dancing around the living room to that. My mom would always play Carole King’s Tapestry. I was a dancer when I was little, so I would put those two songs on and kind of go for it. I don’t think they shaped anything besides the fact that I still listen to those records today.
My parents didn’t listen to a lot of music. Eve went to a lot of concerts growing up, but I didn’t really. I think the first concert I went to was when I was in high school with my brother. Music was there. I played instruments and stuff and I sang here and there. But I really remember Billy Joel and I still listen to it all the time. I have my dad’s copy of The Stranger vinyl. They would all write their social security numbers on their records so they were safe, but that was when social security numbers weren’t as protected so now it’s blacked out on the copy of the vinyl. In hindsight, a pretty poor choice but kind of cool.
The inspiration behind the title track from Big Dogs – and much of the album – was brought on when the duo played a festival slot recently. A band member from the act playing after them jumped on stage while they were wrapping up their equipment and harassed them about moving too slowly. “If you want to play with the big dogs, you need to get the fuck off the stage,” he yelled at them. This caused a verbal altercation, and the ladies didn’t have security or stagehands to help them out. The power imbalance was notable, and bred some of their most alluring new work.
So from the last album to this one, there is a little more edge, and that’s for a variety of reasons including subject matter. When the – actually heartbreaking – event happened that inspired “Big Dogs”, did you dive in and write a song, or did it take a second before you were able to process and create material around it?
Meg: It was mostly me that the interaction happened with, but Eve came to bat for me and we both had an interaction with the person. So we had talked about it together and had brainstormed a list of all of the things that were funny because we wanted to be able to process it somehow. So we wrote some of the funny things that were said — some of the words in the song are actual direct quotes. Then I would say it was maybe a month later that I sat down and hammered it out and wrote “Big Dogs”.
Some songs take me a long time to write, but that one kind of just poured out really fast. It was done within an hour or two and then Eve helped me make some revisions. It was pretty quick that it happened after the event.
Eve: So we were going to name the album Big Dogs before the song and then Meg wrote the song so we were like, “Oh, great. That’s even better.”
So when the theme of the music video for that song came up, how did you guys decide to go tongue-in-cheek?
Eve: I came up with the idea just after hearing what Meg had written. The image of a dog is kind of tricky in a song because of the language involved and we think the phrase is funny. So, we were trying to figure out a delicate way to be kind of cutting with the idea of what a big dog is. Because it is someone who is kind of a sad person who doesn’t have self confidence and is a bully and has to call themselves that to feel important. So we wanted to portray that in a more artistic and creative way so there wasn’t just dogs on everything.
It came about after trying to be very thoughtful about how to portray that idea. And then I came up with the invisible dog and it fits. We a kind of tongue-in-cheek and sarcastic with everything we do, and I like how it makes you have to think about it a little harder so it’s not as obvious. Even the front cover to the back cover forces the listener to wonder who the Big Dogs are. Is it the women on the cover or the image of the dog on the back? I like how it makes people try to figure it out and dig a little deeper to understand the meaning. That’s wha we did with the video too.
How did your recording process differ this time than with the last album?
Eve: There’s definitely a big difference. With the last album we did everything ourselves. I engineered everything so I couldn’t put my whole mind into the playing piece of it because there was still that hindrance of about 10% brain energy. This time we had a friend engineer the whole thing for us so we really got to go all-in. We also spent a lot of time demoing the songs. It was probably about a month before we started recording so we were able to go through many iterations of the pieces to get them to a more full state. We didn’t have as much time to do that with the last record. I think that really helped inspired a lot of the full and different sounds you hear. We were able to have fun with it.
As for your live performance, you guys do such a wonderful job. Was that something that just came naturally to you? How did your performance style come to be?
Eve: Well, we’ve been working on our presentation for as long as we’ve been recording. We’d start sitting on two chairs and Meg would play the bongos and I would quietly cower near the guitar. So we just had to grow into the confidence to do things that are more thoughtfully laid out for the audience’s sake and for the flow of the music that we’re performing. So there is a lot of thought that goes behind the flow of what we’re doing. We’re constantly tweaking things and trying to make it better because it’s just the two of us in the moment so anything can go right or wrong and throw something off. So there’s a lot of energy in our performances because we can only rely on each other to make the music. So I think that pressure gives us the reason to act the way we do.
There’s a lot of thought that goes into our social media and the esthetic on our stage and the esthetic in our album and the fact that it’s blue. Every little piece has been made cohesive to grow into this more thought out and developed product that you’re going to hear on this album, all the way from the recorded version to the final piece to the performance.
In these 8 years that we’ve been together, we’ve been stepping towards something we can stand behind. Each piece is more 100% than we could in the past because we just didn’t have the experience at that time.
When you were here in June, did you get a chance to experience KC at all? I know it was a pretty quick trip.
Eve: No, and there’s a lot to see. It looks beautiful and we need a tour guide to show us the inside scoop. (wink)
Is there anything specific that you have planned for the rest of this tour for your off time?
Meg: We only have like one off day but it will be in D.C. so we’re hoping to hit some art museums. We’re meeting some friends in Baltimore so that’s what we will be doing as well. I think we are going to the restaurant at the top of The Revival there too. This tour is going to be a lot of fun.
Alternative indie rock music project The March Divide – from brainchild Jared Putnam – has a million tour dates ahead of him, but that didn’t stop him from releasing the brand new animated music video for the single “To All My Friends”. The song itself feels like a feel-good 90s indie pop track-meets-alt-rock/pop track from the oughts, and the visuals are brilliant and eye opening, to say the least. Explains Jared of the work:
I reached out to director and animator, Harold Loeffler-Bell, to do some videos for songs from my new album ‘Anticipation Pops.’ Harry really has a way of communicating the songs, in a simple and completely accurate way. Being shielded, while everything is falling down around you, perfectly explains the attitude and emotion of the trilogy of animated videos he created for the songs ‘I Don’t Care,’‘Overexposure,’ and now, ‘To All My Friends.’ Sometimes we need some help from our friends, to make it through.
We are lucky enough to be hosting the exclusive premiere of the video, so get your peepers on the work below!
Tour Dates:
09/26/2018: St. Louis, MO @ Heavy Anchor
09/27/2018: Kansas City, MO @ Davey’s Uptown
10/05/2018: San Antonio, TX @ Fralo’s
10/06/2018: Houston, TX @ House Show (w/Brightwire)
10/15/2018: Norman, OK @ Red Brick Bar
10/16/2018: Tulsa, OK @ The Hunt Club
10/17/2018: Oklahoma City, OK @ The Root
10/18/2018: Wichita, KS @ Kirby’s Beer Store
10/19/2018: Colorado Springs, CO @ TBA
10/20/2018: Denver, CO @ Monkey Barrel
10/21/2018: Boulder, CO @ Laughing Goat
10/23/2018: Taos, NM @ Adobe Bar
10/24/2018: Albuquerque, NM @ Red Door Brewing Company
10/25/2018: Montrose, CO @ Intrinzik
10/26/2018: Steamboat Springs, CO @ Auram
10/27/2018: Fallon, NV @ Telegraph
10/28/2018: Reno, NV @ Foxy Olive
10/29/2018: Sedona, AZ @ Vino Di Sedona
10/30/2018: Bisbee, AZ @ The Quarry
10/31/2018: El Paso, TX @ House Show (w/Sleepspent)
11/01/2018: Santa Fe, NM @ Tumbleroot
11/02/2018: Amarillo, TX @ The 806
11/03/2018: Wichita Falls, TX @ Gypsy Uncorked
11/08/2018: San Antonio, TX @ Limelight (Full Band)
11/09/2018: Lubbock, TX @ Downtown Social Club (Full Band)
11/15/2018: San Antonio, TX @ Joe Blues
11/16/2018: San Antonio, TX @ Southtown 101
11/17/2018: San Antonio, TX @ The Point
12/02/2018: San Antonio, TX @ Fralo’s
12/07/2018: Ocean Springs, MS @ Greenhouse on Porter
12/06/2018: Butte La Rose, LA @ Willow Atchafalaya
12/13/2018: Ashville, NC @ French Broad Brewing
12/15/2018: Kansas City, MO @ The KC House
12/16/2018: Oklahoma City, OK @ Sauced
12/18/2018: Tulsa, OK @ The Hunt Club
12/19/2018: Oklahoma City, OK @ The Root
12/20/2018: Dallas, TX @ Adair’s Saloon
12/21/2018: Norman, OK @ Red Brick Bar
12/22/2018: Wichita Falls, TX @ Gypsy Uncorked
12/29/2018: San Antonio, TX @ Fralo’s
Nashville-based indie rock outfit Jon Reynolds & The Aches releases a new track this week called “Tomorrow’s News”, and we’ve got your exclusive premiere. The second single in their three track lead up to their EP in early 2019, “Tomorrow’s News” exists at a moderate clip, really drawing the listener in to its country vibes. At first listen, hints of The Eagles are palpable. Admits Reynolds of the meaning behind the track:
After the November 2016 elections wrapped up, I felt a deep need and responsibility to contribute what I could to what I can only describe as a cultural civil war. On an even more personal level, I promised myself 4 years ago, when I first moved to Nashville, that I would make music I believed in: music that I was passionate about personally. There are few things more motivating than seeing a man who openly discussed sexual assault get elected president of the United States. I wake up feeling very anxious about the next nonsensical statement or action I’m going to read in my morning news- I put that feeling into this song.
Allow yourself to get enveloped in a beautiful expression of frustration with our current world. This song is a beautiful conversation starter, and the exact sound you need on an early autumn evening.
