The Districts Announce New LP 'Great American Painting', Stream "I Want to Feel It All"

Philly-based indie rock band The Districts have announced the release of their fifth studio album 'Great American Painting'. 

The follow-up to last year's You Know I’m Not Going Anywhere, was produced by Joe Chiccarelli (Spoon, The Strokes, Broken Social Scene) and will be out on February 4, 2022 via Fat Possum Records . Pre-order your copy here.

Great American Painting is the rare album that shines a bright light on all that’s wrong in the world but somehow still channels a galvanizing sense of hope. With equal parts nuanced observation and raw outpouring of feeling, the band confront a constellation of problems eroding the American ideal (gentrification, gun violence, the crushing weight of late capitalism), ornamenting every track with their explosive yet elegant breed of indie-rock/post-punk. Threading that commentary with intense self-reflection, Great American Painting ultimately fulfills a mission The Districts first embraced upon forming as teenagers in small-town Pennsylvania: an urge to create undeniably cathartic music that obliterates hopelessness and invites their audience along in dreaming up a far better future.  

Great American Painting was deeply informed by the two months that Grote spent living in a cabin in Washington state at the height of the pandemic. “While we were there I spent some time driving near all these crazy rivers and the Gifford Pinchot National Forest, and I was mesmerized by how those unspoiled landscapes really capture a timeless idea of what America is,” says Grote. “I’d just come from taking part in the protests in Philly and getting tear-gassed, and it felt so strange to go between those two extremes. In a way this album is asking, ‘What is the great American painting? Is it police brutality, or is it this beautiful landscape?’ And the truth is it’s all of that.”

In the making of Great American Painting, The Districts found their sense of connection exponentially intensified. “It just felt so nice to spend time with the people I care about, to have fun and try to make something good for the world,” Grote says. That feeling of kinship and solidarity is something the band hopes to extend with the album’s release. “The thing I value most in music is when an album expresses some sort of pain or frustration or hope that I also feel,” he explains. “I hope this album makes people feel like something within themselves is reflected in the wider world, and I hope that makes them feel less alone.”

Check out the album's tracklist and watch the video for their new single "I Want to Feel It All", below.

Great American Painting Tracklist:

01. Revival Psalm

02. No Blood

03. Do It Over

04. White Devil

05. Long End

06. Outlaw Love

07. Hover

08. I Want To Feel It All

09. On Our Parting My Beloved

(facebook.com/thedistrictsband)

Tags: The Districts

Watch: Hooveriii Release New Single/Video "Lazy Susan"

Los Angeles psychedelic/space rock band Hooveriii have released the video for their new single "Lazy Susan".

The song is taken from their new 7" release 'Lazy Suzan B​/​W Rules' out on October 8 via Levitation. Get it here.

From the band: "We wanted something to balance out how heavy 'Water For The Frogs' (their sophomore album released in April this year) was. The single is light, fun and a good exercise in songwriting. Both “Lazy Susan” and “Rules” serve as a sort of sonic court jester to warm you up for what we have coming next…"

Watch/listen below.

(facebook.com/hooveriii)

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The KVB Announce New LP 'Unity', Stream "Unité"

UK psychedelic/shoegaze/dark wave duo The KVB have announced the release of their new studio album 'Unity'.

The follow up to their 2018's album Only Now Forever, was produced and mixed by Andy Savours (Black Country New Road, My Bloody Valentine, The Horrors) and represents an exciting development in the band’s sonic journey. It will be out on November 26 via Invada Records. Pre-order your copy here.

Across the album's ten songs, The KVB masterfully pull together their trademark components; radiant guitars, textural synths and an ear for a moody, brooding melody all presented here with with a renewed dynamism.

The initial writing sessions for the album took place in Spain in early 2019, where the duo found influence from “half built luxury villas, still unfinished from the crash in 2008. There was something eerie and beautiful about the desolate landscapes and concrete in the sunshine.” There has always been an element of dystopia through their sound, but now there is also more of a rapturous release.

Throughout the album lyrical themes combine double meanings and a sleight of hand is present; Le Corbousier’s brutalist ‘Unité d’habitation’ informs the title track and via the French-to-English translation ‘Unité' becomes ‘Unity’ - a rallying cry to totality on the dancefloor. ‘Unbound’ is informed by the classic shoegaze stylings of Slowdive and Ride but also late-modern poet Keston Sutherland and the idea of recreating a special moment lost to the past . Beginning with a blast of electronic drums, lead single ‘World on Fire’ instantly kicks in with a euphoric blend of guitars and synths beneath Nicholas Wood’s and Kat Day’s breathy-yet-powerful vocal duet. Second single ‘Unité’ is built around a pulsing synth arpeggio that wouldn’t sound out of place on Trans Europe Express, but is augmented by detached, deadpan vocals and dream-pop sonics.

Check out the album's tracklist and watch the video for their new single "Unité", below.

Unity tracklist

01. Sunrise Over Concrete

02. Unité

03. Unbound

04. Future

05. Blind

06. Ideal Living

07. World On Fire

08. Structural Index

09. Lumens

10. Omni

(facebook.com/thekvbmusic)

Tags: The KVB

Watch: Rodney Cromwell Airs New Single/Video "Memory Box"

British indietronica/synthpop/robotpop artist Rodney Cromwell (aka Adam Cresswell) has aired the video for his brand new single "Memory Box", his first since 2018.

The song serves as the title track of the forthcoming album 'Memory Box', a mixture of electronic hauntological excursions, dreampop and European coldwave that is scheduled for release in early 2022.  Using analogue synths, drum machines with parts played almost entirely live (with minimal computer sequencing) and vocals recorded without autotune, this record conjures up an organic, albeit dream-like, world that is inspired as much by Alice in Wonderland, Franz Kafka and Anna Kavan as it is by its sonic influences such as Kraftwerk, The Cure and Stereolab. The sonic pallet of 'Memory Box' is both reassuringly familiar and completely distinctive.scheduled for release in early 2022. Get it here.

'Memory Box' is a song about perceptions of reality and the certainty of our memories. How do we believe anything in a world where truth and honesty are of so little worth?  

Speaking about it, Cromwell says: “I wanted the song to have the feel of a marching clockwork toy, so the beat is really simple and metronomic with the synths doing the talking by enveloping the song. At the time I was still disorientated from illness. I turned on the TV and there was Boris Johnson’s lackey, Dominic Cummings, spinning some yarn. In my post-fever state he came across like Wormtongue from Tolkein, talking about riverbanks, woods and castles while literally sat in a perfumed rose garden like in Alice in Wonderland. I wouldn’t say that influenced me directly, but certainly my own state of brain-fog sent my writing off in a more heady and fantastical direction.”

Watch/listen below.

(facebook.com/rodneycromwellartist)

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Silverbacks Announce Debut LP 'Archive Material', Stream Title Track

Dublin indie punk/alt rock band Silverbacks have announced the release of their sophomore full-length album 'Archive Material'.

The follow-up to their 2020's debut Fad, was recorded at Dublin’s Sonic Studios in November 2020, with Girl Band bassist Daniel Fox undertaking production duties once more, and will be out on Jan 21st 2022 on Full Time Hobby. Pre-order your copy here.

In years from now, anyone seeking to make sense of what life was like during a global pandemic should extend their research beyond the newspaper clippings and dive into the art produced during the period. Archive Material - the aptly-titled second album by Dublin-based art-rock quintet Silverbacks - will make for a particularly illuminating listen on the subject. Capturing the absurd mixture of monotony and creeping disquiet experienced by many of us this past 18 months, it’s simultaneously sobering and wickedly droll.

Archive Material only cements Silverbacks’ status as one of Ireland’s most fascinating bands. It finds the band leaning into their early influences, delivering idiosyncratic indie-rock packed with intricate, Tom Verlaine-esque “guitarmony”. Other reference points for the record included Neil Young, Weyes Blood and - on ‘Wear My Medals’ in particular - Bradford Cox and Cate Le Bon’s collaborative record Myths 004.

Where Fad found Silverbacks focused on recapturing the live experience rather than reveling in studio experimentation, Archive Material skillfully traverses the line between the two. As a unit, they replicate that irrepressible live energy via complex arrangements incorporating everything from wistful Rhodes (‘Carshade’) to congas and Gang Of Four-style bass (‘Different Kind Of Holiday’)

Keenly observed and vividly rendered, Archive Material is an eye-witness account of human resilience as much as it is a compelling indie-rock record. Future historians take note.

Check out the album's tracklist and the video for "Archive Material" below.

Archive Material tracklisting:
01. Archive Material

02. A Job Worth Something

03. Wear My Medals

04. They Were Never Our People

05. Rolodex City

06. Different Kind Of Holiday

07. Carshade

08. Central Tones

09. Recycle Culture

10. Econymo

11. Nothing To Write Home About

12. I’m Wild

(facebook.com/Silverbacks)

Tags: Silverbacks

Watch: The Kundalini Genie Reveal "Half In, Half Out" Music Video

Scottish psychedelic rock’n’roll outfit The Kundalini Genie have revealed the video for their newest single "Half In, Half Out".

The song is part of our current playlist and is taken from their forthcoming fifth studio album 'Half In, Half Out', which will be available on November 12 through Space Ranch Records (Europe) and Little Cloud Records (USA). Pre-order your copy here.

Speaking about it, frontman Robbie Wilson says: "This song is about assholes, really.  People who aren’t nice.  People who think they’re better than you, or too cool for you, or higher and mightier than you, it’s also about when those people inevitably fall short of their own high opinion of themselves and make themselves look a fool, in a nutshell."

Watch the clip below.

(facebook.com/TheKundaliniGenie)

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Watch: Priestgate Return With New Single/Video "Bedtime Story"

East Yorkshire dream-punk quintet Priestgate have returned with their brand new single "Bedtime Story", alongside an accompanying music video.

The song was produced by Nick Hodgson and engineered by Matt Peel, and is out today (October 5) via Lucky Number & Mirror Music Group. Grab it here

Watch/listen below.

(facebook.com/priestgate)

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