Released in conjunction with the start of National Native American Heritage Month, you can listen to Ya Tseen ft Samantha Crain’s cover of the Little Wings song “Look At What The Light Did Now.” This cover was originally recorded for season 2 episode 4 of the critically acclaimed FX/Hulu television show, Reservation Dog and follows the group’s 2021 debut record, Indian Yard.
Frontman, Nicholas Galanin shares, “My friend Sterlin Harjo, the creator of the acclaimed FX series Reservation Dogs, invited Samantha and I to cover Little Wings classic song ‘Look at What The Light Did Now’ for an episode in season 2. This was a high honor to contribute to one of what I would consider the best episodes of streaming television being made today. It’s tough to capture love and Indigenous mourning, though I feel as if this episode did so in an elegant and powerful way.”
Starting today, Oct. 28th you can now listen to The Eleventh Hour: Songs for Climate Justice. This digital-only charity compilation features previously unreleased music from Moby, Fake Fruit, Frankie Cosmos, Sonny & The Sunsets, Cloud Nothings, Ya Tseen, and more (See below for a full track listing.) Funds collected from this compilation will directly benefit Climate Emergency Fund, a (501c:3) that supports nonviolent, disruptive climate activism.
The Eleventh Hour: Songs for Climate Justice was curated by filmmaker Adam McKay (Don’t Look Up, The Big Short, Vice) and podcaster/producer Matt Dwyer (Conversations with Dwyer & Painting With John ) Adam McKay shares about the project: “This is a frightening moment we’re living through. The climate is warming at an increasingly dangerous pace and Governments and Businesses seem hell-bent on ignoring the problem. And it’s at exactly moments like this when we need inspired artists to interpret, express and F.S.U. Add in the fact that all of the proceeds go to the Climate Emergency Fund and support international civil disobedience and this is one hell of a good trouble-making album.
Play it loud. Play it soft. Play it while occupying an oil CEO’s office. They won’t like this album and would rather you play Rod Stewart’s Christmas album. (God bless Rod Stewart) The climate activists thank you for lending your ears and any and all possible support.
1. Fake Fruit - Over Ice
2. Death Valley Girls - Black Is Red and Blue 3. Cloud Nothings - Friend Array 4. Kathleen - Going In Reverse 5. Ya Tseen - Gliding Through The Atmosphere 6. Deerhoof - Cigars All Around 7. Frankie Cosmos - Table 8. White Denim - Magic 9. Sonny & The Sunsets - Another Thing That Makes No Sense 10. Guerilla Toss - Heathen Money 11. Shannon Lay - Song of Morning 12. Little Wings - New Autumn Pillow 13. Mamalarky - Green Earth 14. Mudhoney - Black Wire 15. Moby - Luckiest
Weyes Blood’s Natalie Mering stars in a horrific love story in the official video for “Grapevine,” her epic new road ballad from And In The Darkness, Hearts Aglow. Beauty meets the beast in this visual tale which features a car crash, a humanoid with glowing red eyes, and a haunted grapevine graveyard. Who is this ominous figure, and what does it want with Natalie? Watch and find out in the “Grapevine” video, directed by Actual Objects.
Upon its release earlier this month, “Grapevine” earned praise from the likes of Stereogum, who called it, ‘“A lush, swirling folk-rock song — a slow build that sounds pretty majestic even as it begins its climb.” Brooklyn Vegan adds that “Grapevine” is “a gorgeous song cut from the same ’70s-meets-now cloth that Weyes Blood does so well.” Beats Per Minute offers this, “While listening to Mering sing in her unbelievably rich and dulcet voice over simple acoustic strums and subtly gorgeous synth and string augmentations, you can imagine her speeding away in a convertible, her hair billowing in the wind, a look of determination on her face.”
Weyes Blood’s “In Holy Flux Tour,” a headlining international touring run for late winter and Spring of 2023 in support of And In The Darkness, Hearts Aglow, begins on Saturday, January 28th in Berlin at Festsaal Kreuzberg and currently runs through Saturday, April 2nd in Tulsa at Cain’s Ballroom. Due to popular demand, Weyes Blood’s Tuesday, March 7th performance in Montreal has moved from the Corona Theatre to MTELUS. All previously purchased tickets will be honored at the new venue. For up-to-date information on tickets, please visit WeyesBlood.com/tour.
December 2022 Thu. Dec. 08 - Los Angeles, CA - The Theatre at Ace Hotel [SOLD OUT] Fri. Dec. 09 - Los Angeles, CA - The Theatre at Ace Hotel [SOLD OUT]
In Holy Flux Tour 2023 UK/Europe Sat.Jan. 28 - Berlin, DE - Festsaal Kreuzberg Mon. Jan. 30 - Stockholm, SE - Berns Tue. Jan. 31 - Oslo, NO - Rockefeller Wed. Feb. 01 - Copenhagen, DK - VEGA Fri. Feb. 03 - Cologne, DE - Kulturkirche Sat. Feb. 04 - Paris, FR - Le Trianon Sun. Feb. 05 - Brussels, BE - Botanique - Orangerie Mon. Feb. 06 - Amsterdam, NL - Paradiso Wed. Feb.08 - London, UK - Roundhouse Thu. Feb. 09 - Bristol, UK - SWX Fri. Feb. 10 - Glasgow, UK - QMU Sun. Feb. 12- Dublin, IE - Vicar Street Mon. Feb. 13 - Manchester, UK - O2 Ritz Tue. Feb. 14 - Brighton, UK - CHALK
North America Wed. Feb. 22 - Nashville, TN - Brooklyn Bowl Thu. Feb. 23 - Atlanta, GA - Variety Playhouse Fri. Feb. 24 - Asheville, NC - The Orange Peel Sat. Feb. 25 - Carrboro, NC - Cat’s Cradle [SOLD OUT] Mon. Feb. 27 - Washington, DC - 9:30 Club [SOLD OUT] Tue. Feb. 28 - Philadelphia, PA - Union Transfer Fri. Mar. 03 - Brooklyn, NY - Brooklyn Steel [SOLD OUT] Sat. Mar. 04 - Brooklyn, NY - Brooklyn Steel [SOLD OUT] Sun. Mar. 05 - Boston, MA - Roadrunner Tue. Mar. 07 - Montreal, QC - MTELUS Wed. Mar. 08 - Toronto, ON - The Danforth Music Hall Thu. Mar. 09 - Toronto, ON - The Danforth Music Hall Fri. Mar. 10 - Detroit, MI - El Club [SOLD OUT] Sat. Mar. 11 - Chicago, IL - Riviera Theatre Mon. Mar. 13 - Milwaukee, WI - The Pabst Theater Tue. Mar. 14 - Minneapolis, MN - First Avenue Wed. Mar. 15 - Des Moines, IA - Wooly’s Fri. Mar. 17 - Englewood, CO - Gothic Theatre Sat. Mar. 18 - Salt Lake City, UT - The Depot Sun. Mar. 19 - Boise, ID - Knitting Factory Concert House Tue. Mar. 21 - Vancouver, BC - Commodore Ballroom Wed. Mar. 22 - Seattle, WA - The Showbox at The Market [SOLD OUT] Thu. Mar. 23 - Portland, OR - McMenamins Crystal Ballroom Sat. Mar. 25 - San Francisco, CA - The Regency Ballroom [SOLD OUT] Sun. Mar. 26 - San Francisco, CA - The Regency Ballroom Tue. Mar. 28 - Phoenix, AZ - The Van Buren Wed. Mar. 29 - Santa Fe, NM - Meow Wolf Fri. Mar. 31 - Austin, TX - Stubb’s Waller Creek Amphitheater Sat. Apr. 01 - Dallas, TX - Studio at The Factory Sun. Apr. 02 - Tulsa, OK - Cain’s Ballroom
Weyes Blood’s And In The Darkness, Hearts Aglow, her astonishing new album, will be available on CD/LP/CS/DSPs Friday, November 18th, 2022. and can be preordered now from Sub Pop. The album’s ten tracks were written by Weyes Blood’s Natalie Mering, with album production from Mering along with Jonathan Rado on all songs except for “A Given Thing,” produced by Mering and Rodaidh McDonald. And In The Darkness, Hearts Aglow was mixed by Kenny Gilmore at 101 Studio, mastered by Emily Lazar and Chris Allgood at The Lodge, and features guest appearances from Meg Duffy, Daniel Lopatin, and Mary Lattimore.
Weyes Blood’s And In The Darkness, Hearts Aglow, her astonishing new album, will be available on CD/LP/CS/DSPs Friday, November 18th, 2022. and can be preordered now from Sub Pop. The album’s ten tracks were written by Weyes Blood’s Natalie Mering, with album production from Mering along with Jonathan Rado on all songs except for “A Given Thing,” produced by Mering and Rodaidh McDonald. And In The Darkness, Hearts Aglow was mixed by Kenny Gilmore at 101 Studio, and mastered by Emily Lazar and Chris Allgood at The Lodge, and features guest appearances from Meg Duffy, Daniel Lopatin, and Mary Lattimore.
The album is her follow-up to the acclaimed Titanic Rising, the first album of three in a special trilogy. Where Titanic was an observation of doom to come, And In The Darkness, Hearts Aglow is about being in the thick of it: a search for an escape hatch to liberate us from algorithms and ideological chaos (spoiler alert: the next one will be about “hope”).
Weyes Blood And In The Darkness, Hearts Aglow
Tracklist 1. It’s Not Just Me, It’s Everybody 2. Children of the Empire 3. Grapevine 4. God Turn Me Into a Flower 5. Hearts Aglow 6. And in the Darkness 7. Twin Flame 8. In Holy Flux 9. The Worst Is Done 10. A Given Thing
King Tuff, the project of Kyle Thomas, announces his long-awaited new album Smalltown Stardust, with a video for its lead single and title track “Smalltown Stardust.” The album is available for pre-order now and due January 27th via Sub Pop.
Smalltown Stardust, which was co-produced and largely co-written with SASAMI, is “an album about love and nature and youth,” Thomas explains. Much like its lead single, the album is an ode to the cherished moments of inspiration and the small towns in which they are formed. Thomas pulled from his nostalgia for where he grew up, where he first nurtured his songwriting impulses, bouncing ideas off other like-minded artists. It’s a spiritual, tender and ultimately joyous record that might come as a shock to those with only a passing knowledge of the artist’s back catalog.
“The truth is I never really wanted to leave my little town in Vermont. I knew it was something I had to do in order to actually pursue a career as a musician, but I loved my life there, and I cried and cried the day I left on a Greyhound bus for LA in 2011,” says Thomas. “In some alternate dimension there’s a version of me still living there, still hanging on the stoop, drawing pictures in the coffeeshop, walking the railroad tracks that run along the river… but alas, in this here dimension, I’m nothing but a townie without a town! ‘Smalltown Stardust’ is a song about keeping that little place and all its strange magic with me wherever I go. It’s a portal that I can access when I need inspiration, or when the city feels too big and hot and I need to mentally escape into some dark woods. It’s a place I found myself going to often in the last few years while I was writing this record, stuck in scorched and crispy ol’ Los Angeles, so it felt fitting as an album title as well as the first song to release into the world. Enjoy!”
At its core, Smalltown Stardust showcases Thomas’s desire to commune with nature on a spiritual level. Images of the natural world, from blizzards to green mountains to cloudy days, fill the songs and create a setting unmistakably far away from Los Angeles, where Thomas resides with SASAMI and Hand Habits’ Meg Duffy. “I consider nature to be my religion,” he expounds, and Smalltown Stardust is nothing if not a spiritual exploration. If the first King Tuff record was content to merely state Thomas was no longer dead, Smalltown Stardust is a paean to what that life means. A statement of belief and a hymnal to the magic still to behold all around us.
Additionally King Tuff has announced a 2023 North American tour that kicks off March 1st in San Diego, CA and wraps April 7th at Joshua Tree, CA with a show at Pappy and Harriets. Tour highlights include shows in Los Angeles, CA, Brooklyn, NY and Chicago, IL. Tickets will be available on Friday October 28th at 10 am local time. All dates below.
March 15 Houston, TX @ White Oak Music Hall Upstairs
March 17 Nashville, TN @ The Basement East
March 18 Atlanta, GA @ The Earl
March 19 Durham, NC @ The Pinhook
March 21 Washington, DC @ DC9
March 22 Philadelphia, PA @ Johnny Brenda’s
March 23 Boston, MA @ The Sinclair
March 24 Brooklyn, NY @ Elsewhere Hall
March 25 Brattleboro, VT @ The Stone Church
March 28 Montreal, QC @ Bar Le Ritz PDB
March 29 Toronto, ON @ Horseshoe Tavern
March 31 Chicago, IL @ The Empty Bottle
April 1 Minneapolis, MN @ The Turf Club
April 3 Kansas City, MO0 @ The Record Bar
April 5 Santa Fe, NM @ Meow Wolf
April 6 Phoenix, AZC @ The Rebel Lounge
April 7 Pioneertown, CA @ Pappy and Harriet’s
There are times in our life when we feel magic in the air. When new love arrives, or we find ourselves lost in a moment of creation with others who share our vision. A sense that: this is who I want to be. This is what I want to share.
It’s a fleeting feeling and one that Kyle Thomas, the singer-songwriter who records and performs as King Tuff, found himself longing for in the spring of 2020.
But knowing he couldn’t simply recreate this time in his life at will, Thomas—who hails from Brattleboro, Vermont—set out to write a love letter to those cherished moments of inspiration and to the small town that formed him. The one where he first nurtured his songwriting impulses, bouncing ideas off other like-minded artists. The kind of place where the changing of the seasons always delivered a sense of perspective and fresh artistic inspiration. Where he felt a deeper connection with nature and sense of community that had once been so close at hand.
“I wanted to make an album to remind myself that life is magical,” he reflects.
While so much of Smalltown Stardust invokes idealized traces and places of Thomas’s past, the album’s recording process made his communal vision a reality. Thomas’s Los Angeles home in 2020 formed a micro-scene of sorts, with housemates Meg Duffy (Hand Habits) and Sasami Ashworth recording their own heralded albums (2021’s Fun House and 2022’s Squeeze, respectively) at the same time. A shared spirit dominated an era spent largely on the premises, with Thomas serving as engineer and contributor to both records, and Ashworth working as co-producer on Smalltown Stardust. Thomas describes the time with a fitting metaphor: “I’ve always thrived around other people making things. You want to bloom with each other.” Ashworth’s contributions are vital to the album: she co-wrote a majority of the record and contributed vocals, arrangements, and instrumentation to each song. As Thomas notes, “I tried to follow her vision a lot. It helps to open your world to collaborators. You always get something completely different than you would have expected.”
Quasi (aka Sam Coomes and Janet Weiss) will release Breaking the Balls of History, their awesome new Sub Pop debut and frontrunner for our favorite album title ever, worldwide on February 10th, 2023. The twelve-track effort was produced by the duo and John Goodmanson (Sleater-Kinney, Bikini Kill, Unwound, Treepeople, Team Dresch) at Rob Lang Studios in Seattle, engineered and mixed by Goodmanson, and mastered by Bill Skibbe at Third Man Mastering.
Quasi’s Breaking the Balls of History features the highlights “Doomscrollers,” “Nowheresville,” “Gravity,” and “Queen of Ears,” the album’s first single and official video, directed by Patrick Stanton.
Quasi’s Breaking the Balls of History will be available on CD/LP/CS/DSPs and can be preordered now from Sub Pop. LP preorders from megamart.subpop.com and select independent retailers in North America, the UK, and Europe will receive the limited Loser edition on pink vinyl.
Quasi is also announcing a headlining U.S. tour to support Breaking the Balls of History which begins Friday, February 10th in Boise, ID at Neurolux and currently ends Tuesday, March 28th in Pittsburgh, PA at Club Cafe. Tickets for these shows go on sale Friday, October 28th. Preceding these dates, Quasi will headline a show in London, UK on December 7th, 2022 at The Victoria. Please find a complete list of dates below.
Wed. Dec. 07 - London, UK - The Victoria Fri. Feb. 10 - Boise, ID - Neurolux Sat. Feb. 11 - Salt Lake City, UT - Kilby Court Mon. Feb. 13 - Albuquerque, NM - Sister Wed. Feb. 15 - San Antonio, TX - Paper Tiger Thu. Feb. 16 - Houston, TX - White Oak Music Hall Fri. Feb. 17 - Austin, TX - The Parish Sat. Feb. 18 - Dallas, TX - Club Dada Mon. Feb. 20 - El Paso, TX - Lowbrow Palace Wed. Feb. 22 - Phoenix, AZ - Rebel Lounge Thu. Feb. 23 - Pioneertown, CA - Pappy and Harriet’s Fri. Feb. 24 - Los Angeles, CA - Zebulon Sat. Feb. 25 - Oakland, CA - Starline Social Club Sun. Feb. 26 - Sacramento, CA - Starlet Room Thu. Mar. 02 - Vancouver, BC - Fox Cabaret Fri. Mar. 03 - Seattle, WA - Tractor Tavern Sat. Mar. 04 - Portland, OR - Doug Fir Lounge Tue. Mar. 14 -Boston, MA - The Sinclair Wed. Mar. 15 - Kingston, NY - Tubby’s Thu. Mar. 16 - Ridgewood, NY - TV Eye Fri. Mar. 17 - Philadelphia, PA - Johnny Brenda’s Sun. Mar. 19 - Durham, NC - The Pinhook Tue. Mar. 21 - Atlanta, GA - 529 Wed. Mar. 22 - Birmingham, AL - Saturn Thu. Mar. 23 - Nashville, TN - Blue Room at Third Man Records Fri. Mar. 24 - St. Louis, MO - Off-Broadway Sat. Mar. 25 - Chicago, IL - Empty Bottle Sun. Mar. 26 - Columbus, OH - Ace of Cups Mon. Mar. 27 - Detroit, MI - Third Man Records Tue. Mar. 28 - Pittsburgh, PA - Club Cafe
Breaking the Balls of History is Quasi’s tenth record, landing ten years after their last record, on February tenth. Three tens, which aligns with the thirty years they’ve played together. Sam Coomes and Janet Weiss have become Pacific Northwest icons, and Quasi has always felt so steadfast— their enduring friendship so generative, their energy infinite, each album more raucous and catchy and ferocious and funny than the last. But we were wrong to ever take Quasi for granted. For a while, they thought 2013’s intricate Mole City might be their last record. They’d go out on a great one and move on.
Then in August 2019 a car smashed into Janet’s and broke both legs and her collarbone. Then a deadly virus collided with all of us, and no one knew when or if live music as we knew it—the touring, the communal crowds, the sonic church of the dark club—would ever happen again. “There’s no investing in the future anymore,” Janet realized. “The future is now. Do it now if you want to do it. Don’t put it off. All those things you only realize when it’s almost too late. It could be gone in a second.”
Under lockdown, Portland’s streets fell still, airplanes vanished, wildlife emerged. And with the obliterated normal came an unexpected gift: uninterrupted time, hours every day, to make art. Quasi couldn’t go on the road, so they got an idea: they would act as if they were on tour and play together every single day. Each afternoon, Sam and Janet bunkered down in their tiny practice space and channeled the bewilderment and absurdity of this alien new world into songs. Janet’s strength returned and rose to athlete-level stamina. “When you’re younger and in a band, you make records because that’s what you do,” Sam said. “But this time, the whole thing felt purposeful in a way that was unique to the circumstances.” They knew they would keep it to just the two of them playing together in a room. They knew they’d record the songs live and together, to capture a moment.
The incredible result of those sessions is Breaking the Balls of History, recorded in five days and produced by John Goodmanson at the legendary Robert Lang Studios in Shoreline, WA. Here are two artists at their prime, each a human library of musical knowledge and experience, entirely distinctive in their songcraft and sound. In Quasi-form, the band becomes alchemically even greater than the sum of its parts: Janet’s galloping drums and Sam’s punk-symphonic Rocksichord and their intertwining vocals make something gigantic, anthemic. In the thick of a cataclysmic social and political moment, they’ve crafted exquisitely melodic songs that glitter with rage and wild humor and intelligence, driven by a big bruised pounding heart.
“A last long laugh at the edge of death” sings Sam at the album’s outset, and that gleeful defiance—which might as well be the logline of our present moment—sets the table for the songs to come. In “Gravity,” Quasi’s predilection for the absurd now tips into unnerving realism; in the post-facts era, the very thing that tethers us all to the earth is rendered meaningless (“you can walk on water if you so choose in your made-in-USA concrete shoes.”) Punchy warning verses about death and disarray swoon into the blissed-out, checked-out chorus of “Queen of Ears” (“But I, I float above it all, wizard of idleness, mistress of killing time.”) Janet’s voice floats sweet and eerie through the atmospheric suspended reality of “Inbetweenness.” Etch “Doomscrollers” onto the golden record and launch it into space as a precise time capsule of the incomprehensible present. “The Losers Win” is a tart arsenic nightcap to close out the record, and hell, the nation.
It sounds dark, and because it’s rising to the moment, it is. But this is also a record surging with energy and pleasure and joy. “It felt so life-affirming. I can hear in the music how happy I am to be there and to be playing at that level again,” Janet said. “I get to exist.”
I’ve been listening to this record for a few months now, and I can’t stop thinking about how as the world started to end, and then kept on ending in all kinds of surprising new ways, Sam and Janet returned to their practice space every day and made songs. Face to face, instrument to instrument, they decided to build something new. They did the work. They made their art. They’ve lived through enough to understand that nothing is permanent, and that when your faith in humanity sinks, you turn to the life force of what you can rely on: the people you trust, the community that claims you, and what you can create. You can’t control the time. But you can make a record of a time. And luckily for us, Quasi has again.
Quasi Breaking the Balls of History
Tracklisting: 1. Last Long Laugh 2. Back in Your Tree 3. Queen of Ears 4. Gravity 5. Shitty Is Pretty 6. Riots & Jokes 7. Breaking the Balls of History 8. Doomscrollers 9. Inbetweenness 10. Nowheresville 11. Rotten Wrock 12. The Losers Win
