Matador Rock & Indie 145 Items

Haley Fohr, besser bekannt unter ihrem Künstlernamen Circuit des Yeux, gehört sicherlich zu den spannendsten und schillerndsten Künstlerinnen der amerikanischen Avantgarde-Musikszene. Sie lebt in Chicago, einer Stadt mit besonders fruchtbarem Boden für eigenwillige Sounds mit Ecken und Kanten. Ihr neues heißt Album „-io“ und erscheint bei Matador Records. Noch bevor die Pandemie ihren seltsamen und düsteren Schleier über die Welt legte, fing Fohr an, Songs für ihr sechstes Album zu schreiben. Zu dieser Zeit verarbeitete sie einen persönlichen Verlust, der sie aus der Bahn warf und die Arbeit am neuen Album fast unmöglich machte. Sie litt unter einer akuten Schreibblockade - und dann kam die Pandemie, die alles noch viel schwerer machen sollte. Viele Songs auf „-io“ handeln vom Zerfall der Welt, die unter der Klimakatastrophe zu zerbrechen droht. Dazu passt die klaustrophobische wie dramatische Grundstimmung des Albums. Grollende Klaviersounds treffen hier auf apokalyptisch klingende Streicherarrangements – das letzte Gefecht. Sämtliche Songs entstanden bei ihr zuhause am Computer, was ein hohes Abstraktionsvermögen von der Künstlerin verlangte, schließlich hatte sie diese für ein 23-köpfiges Orchester geschrieben. „-io“ ist die aufwändigste und komplexeste Produktion von Circuit Des Yeux bis dato, die am Ende fast an der Umsetzung zu scheitern drohte. Aufgrund von COVID-Beschränkungen konnte Fohr nur mit sechs anderen Musikern gleichzeitig im Studio aufnehmen. Sie und ihre Mitstreiter, 13 renommierte Musiker aus Chicagos Jazz-, Klassik- und Experimental-Szene, mussten „-io“ schließlich Schicht für Schicht aufbauen. Die ganze Arbeit und der Kampf gegen die inneren Dämonen hat sich gelohnt: das neue Circuit De Yeux Werk fühlt sich wie ein künstlerischer Neustart an. „-io“ ist ein Album, das nicht nur von der großen und markerschütternden Stimme der Künstlerin lebt, sondern auch von den fantastischen Arrangements und den raumfüllenden Songs. Haley Fohr beweist sich und der Welt, wie in den dunkelsten Stunden strahlende Kunst entstehen kann.

Julien Baker hat mit ihren beiden bisherigen Alben und der Supergroup boygenius die Herzen von Fans und Kritikern weltweit erobert. Nun startet die US-amerikanische Songwriterin mit ihrem neuen Album „Little Oblivions“, das am 26. Februar 2021 auf Matador Records erscheinen wird, eine neue Phase ihres Schaffens. Waren die ersten beiden Alben zum Teil eher spärlich instrumentierter Indie-Kammerpop, so überwältigt „Little Oblivions“ mit einem vollen und breitwandigen Band-Sound. Wie gut sich das anhört, kann man auf der ersten Single „Faith Healer“ hören! “I think that "Faith Healer" is a song about vices, both the obvious and the more insidious ways that they show up in the human experience”, sagt Baker darüber. “I started writing this song 2 years ago and it began as a very literal examination of addiction. For a while, I only had the first verse, which is just a really candid confrontation of the cognitive dissonance a person who struggles with substance abuse can feel-- the overwhelming evidence that this substance is harming you, and the counterintuitive but very real craving for the relief it provides. When I revisited the song I started thinking about the parallels between the escapism of substance abuse and the other various means of escapism that had occupied a similar, if less easily identifiable, space in my psyche. There are so many channels and behaviors that we use to placate discomfort unhealthily which exist outside the formal definition of addiction. I (and so many other people) are willing to believe whomever-- a political pundit, a preacher, a drug dealer, an energy heale - when they promise healing, and how that willingness, however genuine, might actually impede healing.” “Little Oblivions” wurde in Julien Bakers Heimatstadt Memphis, Tennessee, mit dem Tontechniker Calvin Lauber aufgenommen und von Craig Silvey (The National, Florence & the Machine, Arcade Fire) abgemischt. Nachdem Baker bisher hauptsächlich an der Gitarre und dem Klavier zu hören war, fügte sie dieses Mal noch Bass, Drums, Synthesizer, Banjo und Mandoline ihrem Soundkosmos hinzu und spielte den Großteil davon selbst ein. Wie von Julien Baker gewohnt sind ihre Lyrics hochpersönlich und zeugen von der außergewöhnlichen Beobachtungsgabe der Songwriterin. Mit ihren beiden bisherigen Alben landete sie auf einer Vielzahl von Jahresbestenlisten. Die New York Times beschrieb „Turn Out The Lights“ wie folgt: “The work of a songwriter who has resonated with an international audience (…), the rare second album that, despite new self-consciousness, stretches beyond an unspoiled debut to reach for even bigger things, with all its passion intact”

Matador Records release a three-song shaped picture disc commemorating the 25th anniversary of Pavement’s 1995 album Wowee Zowee. The special disc, cut in the shape of the speech bubble found on the cover of Wowee Zowee, features the tracks Sensitive Euro Man and Brink of the Clouds / Candylad that first debuted on Wowee Zowee: Sordid Sentinels, the expanded edition that was released on CD in 2006, and will be available on vinyl for the first time via Matador Records globally. Limited to a one-time press of 3,000 copies.

Now a four-piece, with the addition of Bloc Party’s Matt Tong on drums, the Atlanta-London-NYC band this time is produced by Adrian Utley (Portishead) and Ali Chant, mixed by Randall Dunn (Sunn O)))), with post-production by Ben Greenberg (Uniform, Hubble), ‘The Underside Of Power’ zooms across a musical landscape including but not limited to Southern rap to British grime to horror movie soundtracks to late-70s English industrial to Northern Soul. In the wake of our current political climate, Algiers cast a withering gaze on subject matter ranging from oppression, whiteness, police brutality, dystopia, and hegemonic power structures.

Now a four-piece, with the addition of Bloc Party’s Matt Tong on drums, the Atlanta-London-NYC band.

’Hot Thoughts’’ is the bravest, most sonically inventive work of Spoon’s career. With all due respect to earlier efforts that have made the quintet both critically acclaimed and a commercial contender, preconceptions about this band are about to be obliterated. That’s not to say ‘Hot Thoughts’ doesn’t have a requisite supply of infectious earworms but there’s a lyrical bent that’s as carnal as it’s crafty, and a newfound sense of sonic exploration that results in the genresmasher Spoon have flirted with in the past but not fully consummated.
Co-produced by Spoon and Dave Fridmann and reunited with Matador (third time’s the charm), let's acknowledge that Britt Daniel’s spot in the pantheon of rock’s genius songwriters was well established a ways back, but with the crackling, incandescent, multi-dimensional backdrop conjured on ‘Hot Thoughts’, the lines between accessible and experimental become non-factors for once and all. It’s pop as high art, delivered with total confidence and focus.

It’s about change and the power to change. It’s about metamorphosis and evolution. It’s about sticking to your guns and toughing it out. It’s about now, not tomorrow. It’s about recognizing your potential. It’s about self-doubt and inaction. It’s about you. It’s about me. It’s about you and me and the others. It’s about the choices we make. It’s about finding the poetry and avoiding the cliché. It’s about being the solution, not the problem. It’s about showing weakness to be strong. It’s about digging through your dirt to look for diamonds. It's about claiming your right to think unacceptable thoughts. It’s about boredom and the things we do to drive it away. It’s about being on your own so you can be with people. It’s about knowing what it means to be human and what it might mean one day. It’s about the parts and the sum of the parts. It's about the music and the message: together, one and the same. It’s about bass, guitars, drums, and vocals. It’s about opening-out and never, ever dying. But most of all it’s about love, every kind of love. Love is the answer.

The 14th album by Indierock legends Yo La Tengo including cover versions, new versions of their own songs and brand new material.

Kurt Vile’s Speed, Sound, Lonely KV (ep) 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, Kenny Malone and Matt Sweeney (Chavez, Superwolf).

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.”

“A master of dreamy, off-kilter rock.” - NYTimes

“One of indie rock’s most affable champions, an honest-to-god guitar hero and a disarmingly funny lyricist.” -Rolling Stone

If fate didn’t quite ordain the circumstances for Interpol’s seventh album, it was at least fortunate that the band had happily concluded their Marauder cycle on stage in front of 30 thousand-odd Peruvian fans. Rather than be sent scrambling like so many other musicians on tour or promoting new music, when lockdown clamped in March 2020, Interpol quickly got into a productive mood. Coming from a group whose early work was characterised by Polish knife-wielders and incarcerated serial killers, you might expect Interpol’s pandemic record to be an emotional tar pit — doubly so, given the presence of towering producer-engineer duo Flood and Moulder on the boards. But Banks felt the call to push in a “counterbalancing” direction, with paeans to mental resilience and the quiet power of going easy. “The nobility of the human spirit is to recover and rebound,” he says. “Yeah, I could focus on how fucked everything is, but I feel now is the time when being hopeful is necessary, and a still-believable emotion within what makes Interpol Interpol.”

Brand new euphoric indie rock from Snail Mail.