Much has been written about Young Marble Giants' small, perfect catalogue, which contained roughly two-dozen songs, nearly each one a perfect gem. Less is known about his long wilderness years after the break-up of his first professional band.

His next project, The Gist, chopped YMG's minimalism into a new sound. This Is Love, Public Girls and Fool For A Valentine showed his songs to be razor-sharp, but the album's fragmented pieces were a step too far for some, though even the strangest, Carnival Headache, when cast in sunlight by Alison Statton's combo Weekend, was as fine a song as any he'd written - and Love At First Sight became a million-seller when covered by Etienne Daho. Then Stuart disappeared.

A mid-90s resurgence led to fine albums done on low budgets, before more silence followed. The Gist's 2018's release Holding Pattern - unexpected and then quickly followed by YMG singer Alison Statton's first new album with her accompanist Spike in two decades, adding fuel to public interest. The Devil Laughs, recorded a few years back, is a compelling addition to the canon of the 21st century songwriting. Stuart's generally unadorned musical presentation does not hinder his appreciation for the skills of Louis Philippe, whose iconic arrangements across an array of Él label albums inspire the fierce devotion of aficionados around the world. Nor does the unvarnished solidity of Stuart's arrangements deter Louis from hearing possibilities for their presentation in styles which take inspiration from the perfection of 1960's studio technology that led to the rise of Brian Wilson, Burt Bacharach, along with less-recognised names such as Bones Howe and Roy Halee. Tidy Away is Young Marble Giants redux, though the backing vocals hint at maturity which band didn't live to see. Fighting To Lose, written with producer Ken Brake, would pass as a worthy b-side to Bridge Over Troubled Water, and although the songs are otherwise Stuart's, Louis fans will delight at several, like Love Hangover and Sky Over Water, which display his style and production genius as succinctly as anything on his own albums. The Devil Laughs is as out of its time as Colossal Youth was - its subtle but immediate beauty, devoid of "rock", is a recording best understood in the light of those obscure groundbreakers who inspired it - the faux barbershop vocals of Smile-era Beach Boys, the studio lustre of Tom Wilson's work with Simon & Garfunkel, a dash of The Swingle Sisters and French chanson - along with enough hints of Young Marble Giant's modernist folk abstraction to satisfy longtime fans. The Devil Laughs is a small masterpiece of pure expression.

Experimentelle Genies

Nur ein Jahr nach ihrem letzten Album »King’s Mouth« kehren The Flaming Lips 2020 bereits mit einer neuen Platte zurück aus dem Studio. »American Head« heißt Album Nummer 16.

Insgesamt 13 neue Tracks nahm die Band dafür auf. Unterstützung bekam sie von Countrysängerin Kacey Musgraves, die in drei Songs als Background-Sängerin zu hören ist.

Dazu gehört auch die Single »Flowers Of Neptune 6«, die The Flaming Lips neben dem Stück »My Religion Is You« als erste Vorabeindrücke präsentierten.

Beide zeigen: Zwischen Art-Rock, Neo-Psychedelia, Indie-Rock und mehr entpuppen sich The Flaming Lips 2020 erneut als experimentelle Genies ...

On American Head, the Flaming Lips use their storytelling skills to their fullest, combining some of their purest moods and most beautiful melodies with some of their most overtly autobiographical songwriting. Drawn from Wayne Coyne's memories of growing up in early '70s Oklahoma with his freewheeling brothers and their biker friends -- as well as his imagined version of Mudcrutch, the precursor to Tom Petty & the Heartbreakers that honed their chops in Tulsa around that time -- the album's concept is one of the band's richest in some time. At the time of American Head's release, the band compared it to Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots and The Soft Bulletin, and it's true that the album's scope and depth of feeling put it on that level. However, American Head still bears the scars of albums like The Terror, which brought a weight to the Flaming Lips' music that works especially well on these meditations on the loss of innocence. The band couples the album's frank emotions with frank depictions of drugs. Though their music has evoked altered states since the beginning, they've rarely mentioned drugs directly. They're portrayed as powerful agents of escape and change, particularly on American Head's pair of songs about LSD. "Flowers of Neptune 6" sets a moment of pure epiphany to a lush swath of trumpets, tympani, strings, and the sugared twang of Kacey Musgraves' backing vocals (one of several appearances the country star makes on the album) that calls to mind early '70s AM pop. On "Mother, I've Taken LSD," the dawning awareness of life's beauty and pain, and their intrinsic connections, feels like crossing a threshold from which there is no return. The Lips give equal time to drugs' transcendent and destructive qualities on "At the Movies on Quaaludes" and the hallucinatory "You n Me Sellin' Weed," and moments like these are grounded in just enough realism to make American Head's music that much more transporting. Cocooned in harmonies, "Will You Return/When You Come Down" begins the album with a fragile reflection on the loneliness of surviving that's a perfect example of the Lips' inimitable ability to sound massive and close-up at the same time. Later, the cascading psych-pop epic "Assassins of Youth" serves as a reminder that they're as good at distilling disillusionment as they are at capturing joy. Even American Head's brightest moments are shadowed with sorrow, whether it's the knowledge that the untainted childhood wonder of "Dinosaurs on the Mountain'' is fleeting, or that by the album's end, there's just enough hope left to love someone unquestioningly on "My Religion Is You." Far from a rehash of the band's previous glories, American Head feels transformational; at once magical and down-to-earth, it's the album the Flaming Lips needed to make and fans needed to hear at this point in their career.

(by Heather Pharesg, All Music Guide)

John Howards Songs sind klasse, genau wie seine stilvolle Interpretation von Roddy Frames Hit ›Small World‹. Und selbst die Produktion ist durchweg passend, schlüssig und gelungen. Eine wunderbare Überraschung – aus dem Nichts.

(Audio, Dezember 2015)

A veteran of the post-Bowie, post-McCartney British pop of the mid-'70s, John Howard received an unexpected comeback in the new millennium once his Kid in a Big World saw reissue on RPM Records in 2003. Soon, his vaults not only were cleared -- first came Technicolour Biography, a collection of demos, then Can You Hear Me OK?, which gathered remainders -- but he returned to active duty, issuing sharply crafted collections of exquisitely sculpted pop over the next decade. All of these are worthwhile but 2015's John Howard & the Night Mail, his first effort with a backing band -- he's joined by guitarist Robert Rotifer, bassist Andy Lewis, and drummer Ian Button -- is something special, a robust pop album that recalls the feel of the '70s without seeming like a throwback. To an extent, Howard always operates in this mode -- he seems habitually unable to avoid melodies that soar -- but pairing with the Night Mail turns his gorgeous songs into full-blooded, majestic drama, music that envelops through its movement. As sweeping as John Howard & the Night Mail is, one of the keys to its resonance is how Howard retains an eye for telling detail. It's not an accident that he covers Aztec Camera's "Small World": he's fond of such intricate, delicate vignettes and, beneath those honeyed melodies, he shows a similar flair in his original material. This knack has been displayed time and time again on his new millennial records but what makes this 2015 album pop is the addition of the Night Mail, a sympathetic trio that helps his songs pop, whether it's the stop-start soft psychedelia of "Intact & Smiling," the circling triplicates of "London's After-Work Drinking Culture," or the deft piano boogie of "Control Freak." Here and elsewhere on this tight 11-track album, Howard makes beautiful pop that rocks and that combination of momentum and craft turns John Howard & the Night Mail into one of his very best albums.

(by Stephen Thomas Erlewine, All Music Guide)

Tompkins Square is the early label home of such talents as William Tyler, Ryley Walker, Hiss Golden Messenger, Brigid Mae Power, Gwenifer Raymond and many more. Joining the stable is Sam Burton, from Salt Lake City, now based in Los Angeles. After several years circulating homemade cassettes on labels like Chthonic and embraced by blogs like Cassette Gods, Sam has recorded his first proper debut album with producer Jarvis Taveniere (Purple Mountains, Woods). The LP was preceded by two limited edition 45s, and Sam's music has appeared on a MOJO CD sampler, on the BBC, and is now being discovered the world over.

Nach wie vor

Nachdem Mary Chapin Carpenter vor zwei Jahren mit »Sometimes Just The Sky« ein persönliches Best-of mit ihren Lieblingssongs veröffentlichte, kommt 2020 ein neues Album der US-amerikanischen Singer-Songwriterin und fünffachen Grammy-Gewinnerin.

»The Dirt And The Stars« heißt ihre mittlerweile 16. Studioplatte.

Insgesamt elf Songs schrieb Mary Chapin Carpenter dafür in ihrem ländlichen Bauernhaus in Virginia. Für die Aufnahme von »The Dirt And The Stars« ging es in Peter Gabriels Real World Studios in Bath, im Südwesten Englands, wo sie alle Stücke komplett live einspielte. Um die Produktion kümmerte sich Ethan Johns (Ray LaMontagne, Paul McCartney, Kings of Leon).

Mit der Single »Between The Dirt And The Stars« gab es bereits einen ersten souligen Vorgeschmack auf das neue Album.

Und der zeigt: Country und Folk, große Melodien und starke, tiefgründige Texte: Mary Chapin Carpenter gehört nach wie vor zu den besten Künstlerinnen ihres Genres. Wer sich selbst überzeugen will, kann »The Dirt And The Stars« jetzt einfach online bestellen.

Elf Songs drängen mit Energie und einer starken Stimme in unsere Aufmerksamkeit.

(Audio, September 2020)

»By The Fire« ist Thurston Moores siebtes Studioalbum, das auf seinem eigenen Label Daydream Library Series erscheint. Auf dem neuen Album ist der ehemalige Sonic Youth-Gitarrist gemeinsam mit Deb Googe (My Bloody Valentine), Jon Leidecker - aka Wobbly - (Negativland), James Sedwards, Steve Shelley (Sonic Youth) und Hem Doulton zu hören.

Vor der Isolation während der COVID-Pandemie arbeitete Thurston Moore bis zur dritten Märzwoche 2020 in Aufnahmestudios im Norden Londons, um das Album zum geplanten Release fertigzustellen, denn obwohl die Musiker nicht sofort auf Tour gehen werden, bestand er darauf, »By The Fire« noch im Jahr 2020 zu veröffentlichen. 2020 ist die Zeit des radikalen Wandels und des kollektiven Bewusstseins.

Thurston Moore schrieb passend dazu neun Songs der Erleuchtung. In Anlehnung an Albert Aylers »music is the healing force of the universe« verstehen sich die Aufnahmen als Liebeslieder in einer Zeit, in der Kreativität unsere Würde darstellt und die Demonstration gegen die Kräfte der Unterdrückung ist.

»By The Fire« ist eine Friedens-Party - mit Liedern aus der Hitze des Gefechts. Entstanden in Zusammenarbeit mit dem in London lebenden Künstler Radieux Radio, der das Cover entwarf und obendrein einige Texte schrieb.

Es könnte durchaus eine Sonic-Youth-Platte aus der damaligen Zeit sein, wenngleich die Songs heute deutlich länger sind (allein vier über zehn Minuten). (...) By The Fire ist Balsam für alle jene, die gerne an Zeiten von Daydream Nation (1988), Goo (1990) oder Dirty (1992) zurückdenken.

(Good Times, Oktober / November 2020)

One of the things that made Sonic Youth such a powerful entity was the supernatural chemistry of the bandmembers. At various peaks of their collective powers, each player brought a distinctive voice that rose to an even more elevated form when combined with the others. Extracted from that chemistry, Thurston Moore's solo material gives a better view of his conflicting tendencies, with seventh proper solo album By the Fire embracing both noisy, chaotic tangents and the blurry impressionistic poetry that has long been the core of his songs. The record begins with the kind of layered, intricate guitar figures and steady rock rhythms that have been Moore's calling card since the early '90s. Album opener "Hashish" is a moody, driving tune with a vocal melody that revisits "Sunday" from Sonic Youth's 1998 album A Thousand Leaves. The ham-fisted grunge rock of "Cantaloupe" and fuzzy, churning push of "Breath" are also well-covered ground, sounding like they could fit in nicely in different parts of Moore's back catalog. Instead of presenting "Breath" as a compact rock song, however, he stretches it out into a sprawling, multi-part epic. The track turns dynamically as it moves from a lengthy gentle intro through to passionate verses, explosive instrumental sections, and breakdowns into formless squalls of feedback. This kind of dense song construction becomes the factor that sets By the Fire apart from the rest of Moore's solo efforts. "Siren" follows the same approach, building over the course of a 12-minute run time from long, lazy stretches of chiming guitars to rolling waves of rhythmless sound. The vocals begin at just about nine minutes into the song after the completion of a full cycle of tension and release. Songs like "Locomotives" and "Venus" are similarly built, each burning on for well over ten minutes as they rise and fall through various movements. These intense full-band extrapolations are broken up by more subdued moments like "Dreamers Work," which find Moore alone with a guitar, rambling through cloudy autumnal reflections. The album is one of the more intentional chapters of Moore's solo work, melding his long-studied Branca-esque walls of guitar and mystical lyrical viewpoints with a new, patient approach to composition. By the Fire isn't a drastic shift, but as Moore goes deeper into the sounds he's been exploring for decades, he uncovers new magic.

(by Fred Thomas, All Music Guide)

Endlich physisch

Bereits im September 2020 überraschten Fleet Foxes die Musikwelt mit ihrem brandneuen Album »Shore«, das es zunächst allerdings nur in digitaler Form gab.

2021 kommen endlich auch die physischen Veröffentlichungen auf CD und Doppel-LP.

»Shore« ist das mittlerweile vierte Album der Band aus Seattle, der Nachfolger von »Crack-Up« aus dem Jahr 2017, das sowohl in den USA als auch im UK die Top 10 der Charts erreichte.

Insgesamt 15 Songs haben Fleet Foxes aufgenommen, die ihrem unverwechselbaren atmosphärischen Mix aus Indierock, Folk und Pop treu bleiben. Inspiration fand Sänger Robin Pecknold beim Songwriting bei Künstlern wie Arthur Russell, Nina Simone, Sam Cooke und Emahoy Tsegué-Maryam Guèbrou.

2021 endlich auch auf CD und Vinyl: »Shore«, das neue Album von Fleet Foxes.

PS: Begleitend zum Album erschien bereits ein rund einstündiger 16-mm-Film von Kersti Jan Werdal mit eindrucksvollen Landschaftsbildern.