Bully’s “Hours and Hours” is the latest standout from SUGAREGG, her incredible new album out next month on Sub Pop.
Alicia Bognanno offers this about the song, “‘Hours and Hours’ is about my mother and I finally figuring out our relationship. She and I had a really hard time connecting growing up and at times felt like it would never happen. Over the past five years we have become best friends, she is now the very first person I call when I am at my absolute lowest and has saved my life. I realize now how similar we are and how that probably had everything to do with why we had a difficult time with each other growing up. I wish I knew sooner how much we could relate but am eternally grateful that we have figured it out now and I’m just so thankful to be on good terms, I love her dearly.”
Bully will release SUGAREGG on August 21st, 2020 worldwide through Sub Pop. LP preorders through megamart.subpop.com and select independent retailers in North America will receive the limited Loser edition on a translucent blue w/white “smoke” colored vinyl. Meanwhile, preorders in the U.K. and Europe through select independent retailers will receive the Loser edition on transparent red vinyl. There will also be a new t-shirt design available.
[US Loser Edition mock-up. Actual vinyl appearance may vary]
Late Show with Stephen Colbert Performance Online Now.
Washed Out’s “Paralyzed” is the third new single from his upcoming Mediterranean love letter Purple Noon, and arrives with a tastefully explicit music video from acclaimed fashion film director Caroline Koning. Shot in her native Holland, the clip shows real-life couple Shay and Dorien in an unguarded, intimate moment, set to a classically Washed Out ethereal pop track about the power of longing and lust.
Director Caroline Koning offered this on the video,“Human contact, and something as simple as a touch, has new meaning in the context of today. These special times make the viewing experience of physical togetherness a different one, and I wanted to tap into that sentiment in a pure way. The couple we follow in the film capture this simplicity beautifully, and what we see on screen all happened very organically. Encapsulating a perhaps general longing for closeness through a very unpretentious narrative gives this spot a natural honesty that I think visualizes the track in a strong manner.”
Washed Out has also announced Purple Noon Nights, a culmination of four months of new tracks and visuals leading up to the new album’s release over four nights this weekend. Beginning this Thursday, August 6th and ending on Sunday, August 9th at 8:30 pm ET/5:30 pm PT each night, Washed Out’s Ernest Greene will be hosting a different Purple Noon-related event each night:
Thursday, 8/6: Purple Noon listening party
Friday, 8/7: the Washed Out live band’s first live-streamed concert, performing selected tracks from Purple Noon along with highlights from his catalog
Saturday, 8/8: Q&A with fans via @realwashedout’s Instagram Live account
Sunday, 8/9: Greene will host the sixth in his popular Magic Hour Mix DJ sets, with this set focusing on the Washed Out catalog
The listening party, full band set, and Magic Hour DJ set will be broadcast live from Washed Out’s YouTube, Facebook, Instagram TV, and Twitch accounts.
He also appeared early last week with a solo, Ableton Push performance of “Too Late” on the Late Show with Stephen Colbert’s #PlayAtHome series.
Washed Out’s Purple Noon, his first full-length in three years will be available this Friday, August 7th on CD/LP/CS/DSPs worldwide through Sub Pop. The 10-track effort which features the lead single “Time to Walk Away,” along with standouts “Too Late,” and “Paralyzed,” was produced and recorded by Ernest Greene and mixed by Ben H. Allen in Atlanta, Georgia.
Loma (Emily Cross, Dan Duszynski, and Jonathan Meiburg) have returned withDon’t Shy Away, their incredibly absorbing new album and the follow-up to their acclaimed, self-titled debut, which will be available on CD/LP/CS/DL October 23rd, 2020 on Sub Pop. The eleven-track effort featuring the standouts “Ocotillo,” “Half Silences,” ”Elliptical Days,” and “Homing,” was produced and recorded by the band at Dandysounds in Dripping Strings, Texas—with the exception of “Homing,” which was produced by Brian Eno.
More on Loma’s Don’t Shy Away: On December 26th, 2018, Emily Cross received an excited email from a friend: Brian Eno was talking about her band on BBC radio. “At first I didn’t think it was real,” she admits. But then she heard a recording: Eno was praising “Black Willow” from Loma’s self-titled debut, a song whose minimal groove and hypnotic refrain seem as much farewell as a manifesto: I make my bed beside the road / I carry a diamond blade / I will not serve you. He said he’d had it on repeat.
At the time, a second Loma album seemed unlikely. The band began as a serendipitous collaboration between Cross, the multi-talented musician and recording engineer Dan Duszynski, and Shearwater frontman Jonathan Meiburg, who wanted to play a supporting role after years at the microphone. They’d capped a grueling tour with a standout performance on a packed beach at Sub Pop’s SPF 30 festival, in which Cross leapt into the crowd, and then into the sea, while the band carried on from the stage—an emotional peak that also felt like a natural ending. “It was the biggest audience we’d ever had,” she says. “We thought, why not stop here?”
[Photo Credit: Bryan C. Parker]
Following the tour, Cross went to rural Mexico to work on visual art and a solo record, while Meiburg began a new Shearwater effort. But after a few months apart (and Eno’s encouraging words), the trio changed their minds and reconvened at Duszynski’s home in rural Texas, where they began to develop songs that would become Don’t Shy Away. Loma writes by consensus, and though Cross is always the singer, she, Duszynski and Meiburg often trade instruments. Meiburg compares their process to using a ouija board, and says the songs revealed themselves slowly, over many months. “Each of us is a very strong flavor,” he says, “but in Loma, nobody wears the crown, so we have to trust each other—and we end up in places none of us would have gone on our own. I think we all wanted to experience that again.” The album that emerged is gently spectacular—a vivid work whose light touch belies its timely themes of solitude, impermanence, and finding light in deep darkness. Stuck / beneath / a rock, Cross begins, as if noticing her predicament for the first time. Then she adds: I begin to see / the beauty in it.
It’s a couplet that evokes the album in miniature. Don’t Shy Away is shot through with revelations, both joyful (“Given a Sign”) and sober (the clear-eyed title track), and winds from moment to moment with confidence and humor. Like Loma’s first effort, there’s a tangible and sensuous feeling of place; insects sing in the trees, an ill-fitting door creaks in the wind. But there’s also a daring and hard-won wisdom, underlined by Cross’s benevolent clarinet, which often sounds like an extension of her singing voice. “Ocotillo”’s desert landscape unreels into a blazing sun; “Elliptical Days” seems to ascend endlessly like Escher’s circling monks; the jubilant “Breaking Waves Like a Stone” appears out of a haze of synthesizers that pulse like fireflies. A series of guests wander through these absorbing soundscapes, including touring members Emily Lee (piano, violin) and Matt Schuessler (bass), Flock of Dimes/Wye Oak’s Jenn Wasner, and a surprisingly bass-heavy horn section.
And then there’s Brian Eno. Loma invited him to participate in the mantra-like “Homing,” which concludes the album, and sent him stems to interact with in any way he liked. He never spoke directly with the band, but his completed mix arrived via e-mail late one night, without warning, and they gathered to listen in the converted bedroom Duszynski uses as a control room. “I was a little worried,” says Cross. “What if we didn’t like it?” But it was all they’d hoped for: minimal but enveloping, friendly but enigmatic, as much Loma as Eno—a perfect ending to an album about finding a new home inside an old one. I am somewhere that you know, Cross sings, above a chorus of her bandmates’ blended voices. I am right behind your eyes.
Watch Washed Out’s performance of “Too Late,” one of the highlights from Purple Noon, his forthcoming album, for the Late Show with Stephen Colbert’s #PlayAtHome series. See here, then watch/stream the album version here.
Ernest Greene offers this of his performance, “The Ableton Push was created to add a hardware style interface that could give the Ableton Live software more of a tactile experience. While it’s great for aiding the recording workflow within Ableton; the lack of heavy customization really holds back the performance potential in my humble opinion. However, there is a user-mode where you can basically “hack” the interface and completely reprogram the look and feel of the controller. In my mind, this represents the musical instrument of the future - where not only can one musician replicate an entire band - but with clever color coding and animation it can really make each instrumental part come to life.
“I recorded this version of “Too Late” in the early stages of the pandemic - where the other guys in the band weren’t available to jam in person. Much of Washed Out’s sound relates to the detailed audio production - so this is the closest thing I could get to a solo WO performance (All audio, color and animation are programmed using built-in midi-based tools in Ableton Live).”
Purple Noon, his first full-length in three years, will be available on CD/LP/CS/DSPs on August 7th, 2020 worldwide through Sub Pop. The 10-track effort which features the lead single “Time to Walk Away,” along with standouts “Too Late,” and “Paralyzed,” was produced and recorded by Ernest Greene and mixed by Ben H. Allen in Atlanta, Georgia.
Preorders of Purple Noon are now available from Sub Pop. LP preorders through megamart.subpop.com, Washed Out’s official website, and select independent retailers in North America will receive the limited Loser edition on clear vinyl. Meanwhile, preorders in the U.K. and Europe through select independent retailers will receive the Loser edition on purple vinyl. There will also be new t-shirt designs available.
Jon Benjamin - Jazz Daredevil’s The Soundtrack Collection, the follow up to the visionary’s jazz-piano masterpiece Well, I Should Have…Learned How to Play Piano, is out today Friday, July 24th and available throughout the known universe from Sub Pop.
The Soundtrack Collection finds Benjamin striding boldly into the rarefied worlds of classic film music, and the Moog synthesizer. The album was performed by Benjamin and The Budapest Scoring Orchestra, and produced by Zachary Seman, and Roger Kleinman. Watch the album’s trailer here now, and also here now. You can (and should also) stream the album here.
The Soundtrack Collection which is available from megamart.subpop.com, and select independent retailers in North America, the UK, and Europe is available in a limited edition Clear with Orange swirl vinyl. A new “Sci-Fi Sound” patch will also be available with Megamart and select independent retail purchases (while supplies last).
Jon Benjamin - Jazz Daredevil The Soundtrack Collection Tracklisting: 1. Danger Zone (Theme from Top Gun) 2. Also Sprach Zarathustra (Theme from 2001: A Space Odyssey) 3. Chariots of Fire (Theme from Chariots of Fire) 4. Axel F (Theme to Beverly Hills Cop) 5. In the Moog 6. Love Story (Theme from Love Story) 7. Theme from Halloween 8. Theme from Miami Vice 9. Duelin’ Moogs
More on Jon Benjamin - Jazz Daredevil’s The Soundtrack Collection: “WHY ANOTHER ALBUM? The question must be screaming in your mind. In 2015, I started my jazz journey. Even I thought it would end, but the spirits of sound, they keep pulling at me. At times, I’ve danced with the demons of malaise and grappled with the warlocks of uncertainty. This collection represents a rebirth/afterbirth. A reforming of what I have done and what has been done before me. A voyage into a more futuristic soundscape, like a drunk (very drunk), crazed cosmonaut’s first spacewalk. A burnt offering to the Gods of Providence—Gods that take from us mercilessly the corpuscular light of what we give, fractured through our prism of inability. My work may be an affront, but is our collective affront. My sins are unwavering but my jazz is my confession; each note a cleansing; the sound of the squeezing of an overripe peach and the juice putrid. These songs, like spumes of spite, are sufferings, profane grumbles, and they weave their thread into your soul like falcon’s talons into the belly of a bunny. Every compression is an impression (not sure what this means) but I think I’m talking about compressing the keys on the keyboard. But in them all are ‘sharts of hope’. I crash expectations. I throw poo in the face of my oppressors. I scream like a baby bird to the legions. I, by my own hand, mock the clouds for forming, cry ecstatic till temples crumble. I, by my own hands, shake the world. I am, like William Morris once wrote, ‘the haystack in the floods.’ I am, for all time, the Jazz Daredevil.”
