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Sleaford Mods announce new single 'Shortcummings'
Sleaford Mods have today announced their politically-charged, no holds barred single ‘Shortcummings’ with a premiere on Apple 1 Music. The song is taken from the upcoming album Spare Ribs, out Jan 15th.
The band’s Jason Williamson says “I wrote the lyrics to Shortcummings in late 2019 after becoming annoyed by Dominic Cummings increased unelected presence. The arrogance of the privileged generally leads to short, short short, short, short cummings in a momentary centre stage at the cost of untold human misery and exploitation of public money. In the case of Cummings who exactly knows what he lost when he walked out of No10’s front door. It looked staged or given what I suspect is his sense of intellectual superiority, perhaps one last show of bizarre defiance. But there is no defiance when you come from privileged stock, just pistols at dawn. Posh hamsters going at each other. It’s just so fucking tiresome, as we lumpily coexist, us and the elite. The fortress of control is too strong and indeed there is no denying now, that there is powerlessness in the idea of revolt in this modern day daylight robbery.”
The polemical Williamson and dexterous producer Andrew Fearn kick against the pricks with unrivalled bite, railing against hypocrisy, inequality and apathy with their inimitable, scabrous sense of humour. And ‘Spare Ribs’, their astonishing 6th album, finds the duo charged with ire at the UK Government’s sense of entitlement, epitomised by its devil-may-care approach to the coronavirus crisis.
ANDREA VALLE SHARES ‘LOVERGIRL VIDEO’
Philadelphia Native, Andrea Vallé shares new video for her latest single ‘Lovergirl’
Fusing house drums and synths to accompany Vallé’s sultry vocals – Lovergirl is a stunning introduction to the artistic range of Andrea and the amazing journey ahead. This record comes just in time for holiday celebrations, with a bpm so smooth and melodic that its cadence seems to warm you up at the same time.
The video was shot in New York by Director Annie Bercy (one of the visual minds behind SZA’s ‘Hit Different’) showcases Black Girl Magic in full-effect, as these two ladies concepted the entire visual between the two of them.
Philadelphia soulster Andrea Vallé grew up in a church going household where she easily discovered her talent for singing. Her intoxicating musical waves and velvet soft, melodic vocals are mixed with raw-rhythmic beat selections that introduces her most vulnerable and honest state. Infused with elements of love, heartbreak, pain and redemption, her music is a blend of alternative R&B, House, Jazz and Neo-Soul.
Andrea is taking the forefront of the new generation of young artists. Not only does her voice captivates her listeners, it’s her songwriting abilities that truly grasp her audience attention. With high praise from i-D, Paper, Notion, Fader, and more, and a sound that melds neo-soul, R&B, and love for Erykah Badu and Ella Fitzgerald, Andrea Vallé serves up a masterclass on lovelorn lyrics on her seven-song EP Lovergirl.
WATCH KURT VILE PERFORM “SPEED OF THE SOUND OF LONELINESS” ON LATE NIGHT WITH SETH MEYERS
Last night Kurt Vile returned to Late Night With Seth Meyers to perform John Prine’s classic song, “Speed and the Sound of Loneliness.” Vile traveled to the studio last week to play the song – the opening track of his recent Speed, Sound, Lonely KV (ep) – solo on acoustic guitar with Meyers’ family in attendance.
Out now, Kurt Vile’s Speed, Sound, Lonely KV was recorded and mixed in sporadic sessions that spanned four years at The Butcher Shoppe studio in Nashville, TN. It includes five songs — covers of John Prine and “Cowboy” Jack Clement as well as two originals — and was recorded alongside a cast of local heavies like Bobby Wood, Dave Roe, and Kenny Malone with Dan Auerbach (The Black Keys) and Matt Sweeney (Chavez, Superwolf) tossed into the mix as well.
Most importantly, it features what KV has called “Probably the single most special musical moment in my life” – a duet with the late John Prine on the songwriter’s well-loved tune, How Lucky
“The truth is John was my hero for a long time when he came into The Butcher Shoppe to recut one of his deepest classics with me. And, man, I was floating and flying and I couldn’t hear anything he told me while he was there till after he was gone for the night,” notes Vile in a personal statement that accompanies the record.
Speed, Sound, Lonely KV (ep) is out now digitally. A physical edition will arrive early next year on pink-colored vinyl and CD.
Dry Cleaning Release New Single ‘Scratchcard Lanyard’
Today, Dry Cleaning share the song Scratchcard Lanyard, the group’s first release on 4AD.
‘Scratchcard Lanyard’ is a treatise on the joy of life’s little pleasures, where air fresheners become mighty oaks and Instagram filters are glamourous holiday destinations. The South London band explain further – “In the search for your true calling in life, it’s easy to try so many things that you end up confused. It can lead to an enormous build-up of frustration. You may fantasise about exacting revenge upon your real or imagined enemies. Ephemeral things and small-scale escapist experiences can provide some relief!”
The companion video for ‘Scratchcard Lanyard’ is the directorial debut of artist duo Rottingdean Bazaar, whose concept and set design – riffing on the song’s celebration of the humdrum – inserts vocalist Florence Shaw into her own miniature night club. Rottingdean Bazaar are artists James Theseus Buck and Luke Brooks. Their work includes design, creative direction and fine art practices, and the duo live and work in Rottingdean, East Sussex in the UK.
Dry Cleaning is Nick Buxton (drums), Tom Dowse (guitar), Lewis Maynard (bass) and Florence Shaw (vocals). Firm friends for years, they only started making music after a karaoke party in 2017 inspired a collaboration. They wrote instrumentally to begin with and six months later Shaw, a university lecturer and picture researcher by day, joined on vocals with no prior musical experience.
Dry Cleaning’s music is simple – direct and uncomplicated. The Feelies, the Necessaries, the B52s and Pylon all served as inspirations when the band first came together. The small and intimate garage / rehearsal space had a huge influence on the sound; both of last year’s EPs Boundary Road Snacks and Drinks and Sweet Princess were written here. The quartet have finished work on their debut album, with details to follow soon.
Sleaford Mods announce new album plus new single
Poised to blow the cobwebs off life and unleash some much-needed wit and charm upon us, Sleaford Mods today announce the release of their astonishing 6th studio album, entitled Spare Ribs, out via Rough Trade on January 15th 2021.
New single, Mork n Mindy featuring Billy Nomates is out today. The official video, which was directed by Ben Wheatley (whose latest body of work, Rebecca, is currently showing on Netflix and features a prominent cameo from frontman Jason Williamson) was filmed on location in Nottingham and in a replica of the house that Jason grew up. The band performed the track on Seth Meyers recorded from the band’s 100 Club show in London earlier in September.
Jason says on the new track, “Mork n Mindy is the sound of the central heating and the dying smells of Sunday dinner in a house on an estate in 1982. Concrete, dinted garages, nicotine. Where beauty mainly exists in small cracks on the shell of your imagination. Captured perfectly in Ben Wheatley’s video for the song.”
The polemical Jason Williamson and dexterous producer Andrew Fearn kick against the pricks with unrivalled bite, railing against hypocrisy, inequality and apathy with their inimitable, scabrous sense of humour. And ‘Spare Ribs’, their astonishing 6th album, featuring Amy Taylor of Melbourne punks Amyl and the Sniffers and the British newcomer Billy Nomates, finds the duo charged with ire at the UK Government’s sense of entitlement, epitomized by its devil-may-care approach to the coronavirus crisis.
Recorded in lockdown in a furious three-week studio blitz at JT Soar in July; the album kicks off with their first-ever ‘intro’ track, the experimental ‘A New Brick’, which sees Jason adopt the persona of, as he describes it, a “circus master”, acknowledging with ironic jolliness, “We’re all so Tory tired / And beaten by minds small.” There is, he insists, no reason to feign optimism about 10 years of the Tories: “The only way you can wage war against them by explaining it in an intelligent manner, and not feeling intimidated at coming across as being negative.”
Commenting on the new album Jason says, “‘Our lives are expendable under most governments, secondary under a system of monetary rule. We are stock if you like, parts on a shelf for the purposes of profit, discarded at any moment if fabricated or non-fabricated crisis threatens productivity. This is constant, obviously and notably in the current pandemic. The masses cannot be present in the minds of ill-fitting leaders, surely? Or else the realisation of their catastrophic management would cripple their minds. Much like the human body can still survive without a full set of ribs we are all ‘spare ribs’, preservation for capitalism, through ignorance and remote rule, available for parts.”
‘Spare Ribs’ is the sound of a band so sure of their own sonic terrain that they can now explore its outer regions. The album’s title, Jason says, emerged from “the idea of the amount of people that died from the first wave of coronavirus; human lives are always expendable to the elites… We’re in a constant state of being spare ribs.” Yet Sleaford Mods are an essential part of Britain’s musical anatomy.
