Post-Punk
IDLES Offer Up “A Hymn” of Shame and Love: Stream
Ultra Mono is the third album from post-punk group IDLES, due out this fall through Partisan Records. The effort, which comes two years after Joy As An Act of Resistance, is being previewed today with “A Hymn”. While previous singles “Mr. Motivator” and “Grounds” the Bristol natives ferocious and snarling as always, their newest offering opts for an entirely different mood. “A Hymn” rolls out slowly and steadily, almost in a drone-like fashion. “I want to be loved, everybody does/ I find shame in the crack-like corpse un-cadaver reign… I find shame gripped tight like your withering fame,” sings frontman Joe Talbot, with an equally monotone cadence. The fixed churn of it all echoes the backstory for “A Hymn”, which according to a tweet from the band ” rejoices in the sinister flesh-eating v...
Savages’ Jehnny Beth Shares Crushing Debut Solo Album To Live is to Love: Stream
Jehnny Beth, of post-punk band Savages, has released her debut solo album, To Live is to Love, via Caroline Records. Stream it in its entirety below via Apple Music or Spotify. For the new LP, the Savages rocker enlisted the talents of The xx’s Romy Madley Croft and Joe Talbot of IDLES. Actor Cillian Murphy also makes an appearance on “A Place Above,” as well as in the very intense music video for “I’m The Man”. Beth’s solo music still follows the same disjointed, anxious vein as Savages, with her own unique poetic lyrics placed front and center. Speaking to the New York Times, Beth said that she was inspired by Christopher Nolan’s Dunkirk and David Bowie’s final record, Blackstar. “…An album can be a testament, an imprint of your vision of the world, and it will last longer than you ...
black midi Read Classic Short Stories on New Album Tales of Suspense and Revenge: Stream
Today marks June’s Bandcamp Day, when the service gives over 100% of sales to artists and labels to support those hurting during the pandemic. A number of musicians have dropped special releases to mark the occasion, and that includes black midi. The experimental noise rock outfit has shared The Black Midi Anthology Vol. 1: Tales of Suspense and Revenge, and you can stream it below. Tales of Suspense and Revenge finds the London four-piece reading classic short stories over original instrumental “jams.” Guitarist/vocalist Geordie Greep reads “A Woman’s Confession” by Guy de Maupassant and Edgar Allan Poe’s “Hop Frog”, drummer Morgan Simpson reads Ernest Hemingway’s “Out of Season”, and bassist Cameron Picton reads an excerpt from Robert Tressell’s The Ragged Trousered Philanthropist&n...
Protomartyr Share New Single “Michigan Hammers”: Stream
Protomartyr were meant to release their new album, Ultimate Success Today, tomorrow. However, due to the coronavirus crisis, the band has now pushed the album’s release date to July 17th. To tide fans over until then, they’ve shared a new single in “Michigan Hammers”. For all its kineticism, “Michigan Hammers” feels extremely coalesced. Shots of staccato guitar are glued together with relentless but measured drums and the coaxing of horns. It’s like rubble being carefully reconstructed into art, which is fitting considering the track’s themes: “What’s been torn down can be rebuilt/ What has been rebuilt can be destroyed,” sings frontman Joe Casey. The song comes with a video made using only stock footage due to, as Casey puts it, the current “miasma.” “This video is a retelling of a well-k...
Gang of Four Announce New Anti Hero EP, Share Posthumous Andy Gill Song “Forever Starts Now”: Stream
Earlier this year, Gang of Four co-founder and guitarist Andy Gill passed away at the age of 64. Now, the band’s remaining members are prepping to release a new EP called Anti Hero, featuring a song co-written by Gill prior to his death. The track in question is called “Forever Starts Now” and was penned while Gang of Four were working on their 2019 album, Happy Now. “We’d always seen something great in the track, been excited by it, and would bring up the fact we needed to finish it after a glass of wine or midway through a game of pool on tour,” frontman John Sterry told Rolling Stone. “Life kept intervening like that and then, of course, the opposite of life, so we never did get to the final mix.” According to Sterry, the single is about a character who uses love “to exert control ...
Squid Unravel on New Single “Broadcaster”: Stream
Back in March, Brighton post-punk band Squid announced their signing to Warp Records by releasing a new single called “Sludge”. Today, they’re sharing its follow-up, a marvelously unraveling tune called “Broadcaster”. Beginning with a synth loop that recalls Stereolab or Kraftwerk, the song gradually expands as vocalist/drummer Ollie Judge’s grumbly delivery gets louder and more eccentric. As the song reaches its climax, the synth line boils over and Judge holds a sustained yell that’s positively captivating. Hear it for yourself below. According to Judge, the track’s lyrics were inspired by the visual artist Naim June Paik and his TV Garden installation, which juxtaposes living plants with video monitors. “I thought it blurred the lines between a dystopian and utopian vision,” he explaine...
Country Westerns Share the Origins of New Single “I’m Not Ready”: Stream
In our new music feature Origins, bands give their listeners some insight into the inspirations behind their latest track. Today, Country Westerns explain why “I’m Not Ready”. For a full year, few had heard the music of Country Westerns besides the late David Berman. After all, Silver Jews drummer Brian Kotzur had started the project with The Weight/Gentleman Jesse’s Joey Plunkett as a way to play music pressure-free; performing for the indie icon was enough of an outlet. They’d tested the waters of Nashville’s DIY party scene, but otherwise kept things close to the garage. Once State Champion’s Sabrina Rush picked up bass for the first time and started playing with Country Westerns, however, it was Berman who encouraged them to take their sound wider. So off the trio went to New York, spe...
IDLES Return With Rallying New Song “Mr. Motivator”: Stream
IDLES’ “Mr. Motivator” video Just when we could all use a boost, IDLES are back with a rallying new song called “Mr. Motivator”. It serves as the first official preview of their new album. With their signature breed of stomping punk instrumentation and frontman Joe Talbot’s wily vocals, the Bristol natives crank through a whole batch of self-admitted cliches in the name of inspiration. “Like Conor McGregor with a samurai sword on roller blades/ Like Vasyl Lomachenko after four pints of Gatorade”, hacks Talbot during the track’s first verse. “Let’s seize the day/ All hold hands/ Chase the pricks away”, he chants throughout its cheery refrain. “Mr. Motivator” falls in line with the style of rough-and-tough positivity that IDLES became known for on their 2018 record, Joy As ...
The Complicated Legacy of Joy Division’s Ian Curtis
As we think back on 40 years without Ian Curtis, Dan Weiss examines the sad nature of the young frontman and Joy Division’s music, especially as we collectively experience these strange times of isolation in quarantine. “Surrendered to self-preservation/ From others who care for themselves” — Joy Division, “Isolation” I know I’m beholden to the perpetual motion machine of anniversary cycles because I’m the press, but what’s your excuse? Yes, it’s the 40th anniversary of a day that was particularly grim long before there was any pandemic. On May 17, 1980, Ian Curtis died by suicide, possibly the most “famous” hanging in rock history, a morbid martyrdom that secured his legacy as the accidental inventor of just about anything goth. But that doesn’t mean you have to do something stupid like l...
Peter Hook & The Light’s Performance of Every Joy Division Song Now Streaming: Watch
The surviving members of Joy Division are commemorating the 40th anniversaries of both the band’s final album, Closer, and the death of late frontman Ian Curtis in a number of ways. Today, Peter Hook & The Light get things started with the streaming release of a never-before-seen concert film capturing their performance of Joy Division’s entire catalog. Dubbed So This Is Permanent, the film was recorded during Hook & The Light’s special 2015 performance at the 500-capacity Christ Church in Macclesfield, England, Curtis’ hometown. The gig was celebrating what was then Joy Division’s 35th anniversary, and saw the band play every single song by the iconic post-punk outfit. Speaking to Consequence of Sound for a recent interview, Hook recalled the momentous show. “We pla...
Ranking: Every Joy Division Song In Honor of Ian Curtis
Joy Division never wrote a bad song; there just wasn’t any time. In the four years the Manchester outfit existed, Ian Curtis, Bernard Sumner, Peter Hook, and Stephen Morris were a force of creativity — pure and unadulterated. They weren’t just talented, they were in sync, and their tragic gasp of a timeline has nurtured an enduring legacy. “I’ve never been in a group as solid as Joy Division,” Hook recently told Consequence of Sound. “The four members were so balanced and so equal, and their inputs and their creativity were so important to the group as a whole. There were no passengers in Joy Division. It was absolutely perfectly balanced. We never got to appreciate ‘It’ because ‘It’ was overshadowed by Ian’s death.” Editors’ Picks “We didn’t want to become famous and sell millions o...
Paul Banks on Muzz, Mental Health, and More Interpol
Kyle Meredith With… Paul Banks Listen via Apple Podcasts | Spotify | Google Play | Stitcher | Radio Public | RSS Paul Banks calls up Kyle Meredith about his latest collaborative project Muzz. The Interpol frontman takes us through his history with his new bandmates and explains why trios seem to be his sweet spot these days. Of the lyrical content, we’re told many of the songs deal with mental health and its relationship with art, and were inspired by Leonard Cohen, Bob Dylan, and Neil Young. Finally, Banks says he wants to make another record with RZA and confirms more Interpol records in the future. Kyle Meredith With… is an interview series in which WFPK’s Kyle Meredith speaks to a wide breadth of musicians. Every Monday,...
