[The Soup Nazi]

Out January 18: Steve Gunn, The Unseen In Between.

 

For over a decade, guitarist/vocalist Steve Gunn has been one of American music's most pivotal figures - conjuring immersive and psychedelic sonic landscapes both live and on record, releasing revered solo albums ranking high on in-the-know end of year lists, alongside exploratory collaborations with artists as diverse as Mike Cooper, Kurt Vile, and Michael Chapman (whose most recent studio album he produced). Gunn is known for telling other people's stories, but on his breakthrough fourth album, The Unseen In Between, he explores his own emotional landscapes with his most complex, fully realized songs to date. The lyrics evoke voyages, tempests (actual and emotional), and a rich cast of characters met along the way -- the work of an artist finding a place of calm in the midst of a storm. Produced by frequent collaborator James Elkington and engineered by Daniel Schlett, the immaculately recorded Unseen forces a reassessment of Gunn's standing in the pantheon of the era's great songwriters.

Getting to The Unseen In Between itself was not easy for Gunn. In the summer of 2016, Gunn released Eyes On The Lines, his winning and elliptical debut for Matador. It should have been a triumphant moment, but exactly two weeks later, Gunn's father and namesake died following a two-year struggle with cancer. During his sickness, he and his son had connected as never before, listening to one another's experiences and understanding one another's perspectives; they became not father and son but real friends.

This experience yielded the emotional centerpiece of the album. "Stonehurst Cowboy" is a duet for Gunn's raw acoustic guitar and spare basslines by Bob Dylan's musical director Tony Garnier, who is featured throughout the album. The song distills the lessons Gunn learned from his father and it is a solemn but tender remembrance, a tribute to his father's reputation as a tough, wise, and witty guy from far west Philadelphia.

A sense of musical renewal and emotional complexity fits the new songs perfectly; "Luciano" seems to be about the chemistry between a bodega owner and his cat, an unspoken romance of gentle obedience and quiet gestures. But Gunn peers below the relationship's surface and wonders about the owner's lonely future once the cat is gone, a devastating meditation wrapped in soft strings. And then there's "Vagabond," Gunn's graceful attempt to humanize a rich cast of characters whose lives have gone astray, wanderers who live outside of society's modern safety net, who pursue "a crooked dream" in spite of what the world expects. Supported by the perfect harmonies of Meg Baird, Gunn finds something lovely in the unloved.

Inspired by contemporary artist Walter De Maria's Dia Art Foundation-affiliated installation of 400 stainless steel poles atop the high desert of New Mexico, "Lightning Field" considers what we get out of art when it doesn't work, when lightning does not light up the night for visitors. Opener "New Moon" may begin in the mode of a deep track from Astral Weeks or Fred Neil, with its upright bass and sparse tremolo guitar. But during the song's final minutes, strings double the melody, and then the guitar rushes headlong, pulling ahead in a wave of ecstatic deliverance. It is a brief but liberating solo, an instant release of tension from the fraught scene Gunn has built, complemented by one of his most arresting vocal performances.

In a final contrast, "Morning is Mended" is an acoustic beauty so resplendent it ranks alongside Sandy Denny or Jackson C. Frank. Buoyed by a melody that sparkles like sunlight on still water, Gunn acknowledges the hardships around him, the feeling of being a "nothing sky," and then moves forward into the world, walking tall into the fresh morning. The song is an apt encapsulation of The Unseen In Between, a gorgeously empathetic record that attempts to recognize the worries of the world and offer some timely assurance. It is a revelatory and redemptive set, offering the balm of understanding at a time when that seems in very short supply.

https://matadorrecords.com/steve_gunn

https://stevegunn.bandcamp.com/album...een-in-between

[The Soup Nazi]

Out February 8: Bob Mould, Sunshine Rock.

 

Ever-evolving artist Bob Mould—whose face belongs on the Mount Rushmore of alternative music—decided to "write to the sunshine," as he describes it, not because he likes the current administration. It comes from a more personal place—a place found in Berlin, Germany, where he's spent the majority of the last three years. Here Mould would draw inspiration from the new environments.

The theme, the cathartic vocals, and the strings all amount to Mould's catchiest, grabbiest album since Copper Blue, the acclaimed 1992 debut of his trio Sugar. Back then, Mould's work in Hüsker Dü, as a solo artist, and in Sugar helped define the sound of guitar rock in the alternative age. Sunshine Rock finds him doing it again for an era that has ostensibly eschewed rock.

Sunshine Rock follows the 2016 release of Patch the Sky, which was hailed by Rolling Stone as "conjuring the ecstatic rage of his earlier bands for a grim new era" and as "tight, sharp musings on aging, fizzled relationships and death that are melodic enough to sound like songs of victory" by the New York Times. Patch the Sky completed a trilogy including its 2014 predecessor Beauty & Ruin and 2012's Silver Age.

https://www.mergerecords.com/sunshine-rock

https://bobmould.com/

https://bobmould.bandcamp.com/album/sunshine-rock

The title track has a beast of a hook! He should tour with Matthew Sweet, I say...

[The Soup Nazi]

Originally Posted by Moshe

Jenny Lewis - On The Line

 

^ "Jenny Lewis, whaddayawant?!"

[Moshe]

Originally Posted by Severian

You’re gonna get a lot of those wishes.
Let’s see...

Deerhunter - (This one’s happening, like, soon... I didn’t care much for the classic rock vibes on their last album... hoping for more noise and weirdness this time around, or an altogether new direction. Nothing against Tom Petty, but I didn’t fall for Deerhunter more than 10 years ago because they sounded like Tom Petty... fell in love because they sounded like the 10th circle of hell)
The Dead C - Rare Ravers ‎(oh snap!)
Flaming Lips - King’s Mouth (yo!)
Grimes - (pretty sure happening; probably not as good as “Visions” though)
Health - (this is happening)
MONO - (definitely happening)
Sade (I think this is happening)
Sharon Van Etten - (this one’s happening)

Zen Mother — MAN HOW DO YOU KNOW ZEN MOTHER?! I LOVE ZEN MOTHER! I have a friend who’s played with them; turned me onto them a couple years ago. Good fucking shit.

I believe all of them are happening + new Swans!


Zen Mother are amazing. their last (first?) album was so good!

[Severian]

Originally Posted by Moshe

I believe all of them are happening + new Swans!


Zen Mother are amazing. their last (first?) album was so good!

Fuck yeah.
I posted about them here when my friend turned me onto them, but I don’t think it got much traction.

[Skuj]

FUCK!!!

New Swans? And Lips?

I need to join this thread.

[Moshe]

Originally Posted by Skuj

FUCK!!!

New Swans? And Lips?

I need to join this thread.

https://www.decibelmagazine.com/2018...7spp-kMvgqqJRs

[Severian]

I didn’t know about any new Swans. I don’t think.

Damn dude.

[h8kurdt]

Eh. I feel like whatever Gira does with the new version of Swans it'll never be up there with the last three albums. They were all just incredible.

[Severian]

Originally Posted by h8kurdt

Eh. I feel like whatever Gira does with the new version of Swans it'll never be up there with the last three albums. They were all just incredible.

Yeah, but I actually think “My Father Guided me up a Rope to the Sky” and “The Seer” are better than “To Be Kind” and “The Glowing Man.”

So... last FOUR albums.

(Yeah, I’m more of a “blue-and-Black-hued” late-period Swans guy than an “orange-and-brown-hued” late-period Swans guy.)

[Skuj]

Originally Posted by h8kurdt

Eh. I feel like whatever Gira does with the new version of Swans it'll never be up there with the last three albums. They were all just incredible.

Maybe he'll surprise us.

I adore Seer and TBK. GM fell off a bit, I think. My Father Etc was a good "warmup".

[The Soup Nazi]

Swans is a band I've never been able to get into. Wasn't there a thread around here about "artists you should like but don't" or summat? Can't find it now. Hmmm...

ETA: I also can't find the thread titled something (vaguely) like "most brutal song you've ever heard"... I had one to add there. Oh well.

[The Soup Nazi]

Originally Posted by _tunic_

4. Neil Young will probably release some more treasures from his archives

Can't access Neil's site now, so I'm gonna quote Uncut:

Neil Young to reissue Ragged Glory with bonus album of unreleased cuts

A new post on Neil Young Archives reveals that Neil Young & Crazy Horse's 1990 album Ragged Glory is poised for reissue with a whole bonus album of unreleased material from the same sessions.

The post declares that the unheard songs are "equal to anything on the existing record, maybe better".

Explaining how Ragged Glory was recorded, the NYA poster writes: "Those sessions were unique because the band played a set of songs twice a day at Plywood Analog for a couple of weeks, then went back, listened and chose best tracks after the two weeks were up. The Ragged Glory album was picked from those tracks. The same tracks were never repeated in a recording set, played only once as set... and the band moved right on to the next song. No repeats. This approach took 'analysis' out of the game during the sessions, allowing the Horse to not think; thinking is deadly for the Horse.

"After the songs were played enough so that the band was sure they must have the takes, the Horse, having a great time, kept playing other songs... Five songs, with two versions of one, and one long extended take of another, yielded another 38 minutes of Crazy Horse classics, mostly undiscovered and unheard before."

Ragged Glory II will be released as a double LP in vinyl, CD and digital formats "probably" in 2019 and "possibly delaying release of other announced projects" – which could mean another delay for the long-mooted Archives Vol 2 box set.

"PROBABLY"? Bring it now!

[The Soup Nazi]

Out March 1: Robert Forster, Inferno.

 

From Uncut:

Inferno was recorded in Berlin in summer 2018 with producer/engineer Victor Van Vugt, who previously engineered Forster's debut solo album Danger In The Past. As with Forster's previous album Songs To Play, it features Brisbane-based multi-instrumentalists Scott Bromley and Karin Bãumler, while new recruits are drummer Earl Havin (Tindersticks, Mary J. Blige) and keyboardist Michael Muhlhaus (Blumfeld, Kante).

Says Forster: "I had nine songs I believed in, and I wanted to take them out of hometown Brisbane and record them somewhere else. Somewhere exotic. And producer/engineer Victor Van Vugt had a studio in Berlin. Perfect. The album title relates to Brisbane, as the summers are getting brutal hot. Inferno fits that and the fevered mood of the LP..."

https://shop.tapeterecords.com/rober...r-inferno.html

[Severian]

New ROYAL TRUX studio album, morherfuckerzzzz

https://www.stereogum.com/2027574/ro...ff/music?amp=1

[Skuj]

Originally Posted by !@#$%!

is there a thread for the disappointments?

I am disappointed that MBV will not release anything in 2019.

[choc e-Claire]

Originally Posted by Skuj

I am disappointed that MBV will not release anything in 2019.

...or 2020, or 2021, or 2022...

Originally Posted by Kevin Shields, 1997

The truth is you can't expect anything but, I really am dead if I don't get my record out this year Nobody's threatening me, BTW I just have to.

[Severian]

Dudes!!

Soup Nazi!

Whoever the fuck else!!

New Sleater-Kinney album produced by St. Vincent confirmed for this year

[Kuhb]

It's gonna be a good year!

Originally Posted by Severian

Dudes!!

Soup Nazi!

Whoever the fuck else!!

New Sleater-Kinney album produced by St. Vincent confirmed for this year

[The Soup Nazi]

Originally Posted by Severian

Dudes!!

Soup Nazi!

Whoever the fuck else!!

New Sleater-Kinney album produced by St. Vincent confirmed for this year

HOLY MOLLY PARKER POSEY I THINK I'M NOT GONNA KILL MYSELF THIS YEAR AFTER ALL well not yet anyway CHRIST ON A STICK!