Latest news with #Jagjaguwar
Scoop
4 days ago
- Entertainment
- Scoop
Unknown Mortal Orchestra Announce New EP ‘Curse'
Unknown Mortal Orchestra announces a new EP CURSE, which is set for release on Wednesday, June 18th via Jagjaguwar. The announcement comes alongside the release of a new single and music video 'BOYS WITH THE CHARACTERISTICS OF WOLVES.' The single encompasses so much of what has made Unknown Mortal Orchestra a source of intrigue since the project's enigmatic debut in 2011 - from spectral, experimental jamming to its metal-indebted earworm of a chorus. The song arrives with a Ruban Nielson -directed music video. CURSE reflects these cursed times we find ourselves in. Taking inspiration from Italian horror films of the 1970s and 1980s, the six songs on the release are as cathartic a listen as the band has ever recorded. Featuring both abrasive riffs reminiscent of Black Sabbath on 'BOYS WITH THE CHARACTERISTICS OF WOLVES' as well as the laid back, intricate guitar playing UMO is maybe most famous for on 'DEATH COMES FROM THE SKY', the CURSE EP is the perfect soundtrack to your next confrontation with the void. In defining what CURSE contends with thematically, Nielson shares: "In the hearts of men there are sometimes goodnesses hidden but substantial, which would be the difference in times of woe between finding oneself at the mercy of a monster or a more heroic creature. For the sake of sanity we can fool ourselves into believing these silver slivers of morality are visible from the outside, even when we know they aren't. And anyway, so much of what we believe we can see from the outside is a mirage, especially these days. In the clownish, happy-go-lucky soil of lies and chaos, a silly kind of music can grow; a senseless laughter, and we can amuse ourselves with it, however darkly. We can dance with lost minds and howl in valiant hysteria as the stormtroopers of death, confused and incredulous, pile us or those we love into their meat wagons." The EP closely follows Unknown Mortal Orchestra's IC-02 Bogotá, which was just released this past March.
Scoop
13-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Scoop
Folk Bitch Trio Announce Debut Album, Now Would Be A Good Time, Out July 25th Via Jagjaguwar
Folk Bitch Trio — the Melbourne/Naarm-based band of Gracie Sinclair (she/her), Jeanie Pilkington (she/her) and Heide Peverelle (they/them) — announce their debut album, Now Would Be A Good Time, out July 25th via Jagjaguwar, and release the single/video, ' Cathode Ray.' Now Would Be A Good Time tells vivid, visceral stories. Their music sounds familiar, built on a foundation of the music they've loved throughout their lives–gnarled Americana, classic rock, piquant, and clear-eyed balladry. Yet the songs are modern and youthful, with the trio singing acutely through dissociative daydreams, galling breakups, sexual fantasies and media overload— all the petty resentments and minor humiliations of being in your early twenties in the 2020s. Listening to Folk Bitch Trio, it's clear this is a band of three distinct points of view. Pilkington grew up with two musician parents and brings formative memories of watching them perform, of listening to Gillian Welch and Lucinda Williams, and of her own imagined path as a career musician. Peverelle spends their spare time making art and furniture; those hobbies, as well as their love of pop music old and new, articulate a love for the tactile, the home-grown and the hand-made. Sinclair is the self-proclaimed jester of the group, but her taste skews dark, gothic, baroque and dramatic, expressed as a love of opera and ballet as well as musicians as wide-ranging as Patti Smith, Nirvana and Tchaikovsky. They've known each other since high school, and as soon as they started singing together five years ago, 'the chemistry of being inspired by each other was evident from the get-go,' says Sinclair. Following the 'acidic and gorgeous' (Beats Per Minute) lead single The Actor, dubbed a 'Song You Need to Know' by Rolling Stone, today's single, Cathode Ray, opens with caution, its first harmonies arriving in big, looping sighs. It's vulnerable but a little menacing, with a wide open chorus and a spacious, airy beat anchoring everything. Lyrically, the song is about bodily, deeply human anxieties. 'It expresses a feeling of being trapped in myself, and wanting to break out of that so violently that I'm literally talking about opening up a body viscerally,' Sinclair explains. 'It's about frustration, and knowing there's no cheap thrill that's going to fix that.' The songs on Now Would Be A Good Time were workshopped on tour and written specifically with their shared connection in mind. Recording in Auckland with Tom Healy (Tiny Ruins, Marlon Williams) during winter 2024, the band built out these songs with minimalist, idiosyncratic arrangements, and, with voices and guitar taking center stage, recorded to tape as the final missing thread in bringing the album to life. The strongest link between the trio, aside from friendship, is music. 'We all talked about loving music when we were growing up, and knowing we wanted music to be a big part of our lives,' says Pilkington. 'But for me at least, when I looked into the future, it was this relatively mysterious thing.' Joining forces as a group demystified that future. That feeling—of music as an innate calling, as opposed to hobby or folly—was justified. Folk Bitch Trio have already toured across Australia, Europe and the US, supporting bands as disparate as King Gizzard, Alex G and Julia Jacklin. They've signed with Jagjaguwar, a home for singular icons and iconoclasts, and found their first fans with their dazzling harmonies and acerbic lyricism that transcend genre expectations and audience lines. Folk Bitch Trio announce their debut album release tour of New Zealand, playing headline shows in Auckland, Wellington & Christchurch. Tickets available from Moshtix from Friday, May 16.
Scoop
13-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Scoop
Folk Bitch Trio Announce Debut Album, Now Would Be A Good Time, Out July 25th Via Jagjaguwar
Folk Bitch Trio — the Melbourne/Naarm-based band of Gracie Sinclair (she/her), Jeanie Pilkington (she/her) and Heide Peverelle (they/them) — announce their debut album, Now Would Be A Good Time, out July 25th via Jagjaguwar, and release the single/video, ' Cathode Ray.' Now Would Be A Good Time tells vivid, visceral stories. Their music sounds familiar, built on a foundation of the music they've loved throughout their lives–gnarled Americana, classic rock, piquant, and clear-eyed balladry. Yet the songs are modern and youthful, with the trio singing acutely through dissociative daydreams, galling breakups, sexual fantasies and media overload— all the petty resentments and minor humiliations of being in your early twenties in the 2020s. Listening to Folk Bitch Trio, it's clear this is a band of three distinct points of view. Pilkington grew up with two musician parents and brings formative memories of watching them perform, of listening to Gillian Welch and Lucinda Williams, and of her own imagined path as a career musician. Peverelle spends their spare time making art and furniture; those hobbies, as well as their love of pop music old and new, articulate a love for the tactile, the home-grown and the hand-made. Sinclair is the self-proclaimed jester of the group, but her taste skews dark, gothic, baroque and dramatic, expressed as a love of opera and ballet as well as musicians as wide-ranging as Patti Smith, Nirvana and Tchaikovsky. They've known each other since high school, and as soon as they started singing together five years ago, 'the chemistry of being inspired by each other was evident from the get-go,' says Sinclair. Following the 'acidic and gorgeous' (Beats Per Minute) lead single The Actor, dubbed a 'Song You Need to Know' by Rolling Stone, today's single, Cathode Ray, opens with caution, its first harmonies arriving in big, looping sighs. It's vulnerable but a little menacing, with a wide open chorus and a spacious, airy beat anchoring everything. Lyrically, the song is about bodily, deeply human anxieties. 'It expresses a feeling of being trapped in myself, and wanting to break out of that so violently that I'm literally talking about opening up a body viscerally,' Sinclair explains. 'It's about frustration, and knowing there's no cheap thrill that's going to fix that.' The songs on Now Would Be A Good Time were workshopped on tour and written specifically with their shared connection in mind. Recording in Auckland with Tom Healy (Tiny Ruins, Marlon Williams) during winter 2024, the band built out these songs with minimalist, idiosyncratic arrangements, and, with voices and guitar taking center stage, recorded to tape as the final missing thread in bringing the album to life. The strongest link between the trio, aside from friendship, is music. 'We all talked about loving music when we were growing up, and knowing we wanted music to be a big part of our lives,' says Pilkington. 'But for me at least, when I looked into the future, it was this relatively mysterious thing.' Joining forces as a group demystified that future. That feeling—of music as an innate calling, as opposed to hobby or folly—was justified. Folk Bitch Trio have already toured across Australia, Europe and the US, supporting bands as disparate as King Gizzard, Alex G and Julia Jacklin. They've signed with Jagjaguwar, a home for singular icons and iconoclasts, and found their first fans with their dazzling harmonies and acerbic lyricism that transcend genre expectations and audience lines. Folk Bitch Trio announce their debut album release tour of New Zealand, playing headline shows in Auckland, Wellington & Christchurch. Tickets available from Moshtix from Friday, May 16.
New York Times
27-02-2025
- Entertainment
- New York Times
Sharon Van Etten Finds Her Way Home
Backstage at the Stone Pony in Asbury Park, N.J., on a bitterly cold February night, the singer and songwriter Sharon Van Etten drank tea and hung out with family members. At her show earlier that evening — her first appearance at the legendary venue and her third show on tour in support of her seventh album, 'Sharon Van Etten & The Attachment Theory' — she joked that the gig was booked in response to demand by her own family, and likely she was related in some way to approximately 10 percent of the audience. 'You guys sound great!' shouted an older man in a blue National and War on Drugs T-shirt. 'Awww thanks,' Ms. Van Etten said, before turning to the crowd and announcing, 'that wasn't even my dad!' Her dad, Steve Van Etten, was there, in fact, hanging out afterward in the green room with her mom, Janice Van Etten, and older sister, Jessica Van Etten, an elementary school teacher in Monmouth County, N.J., along with other relatives and friends. Ms. Van Etten is most associated with the Brooklyn music scene of the 2010s. Her third album, 2012's 'Tramp,' was produced by the National's Aaron Dessner, released on the indie label Jagjaguwar and featured guest spots by Beirut's Zach Condon and the Walkmen's Matt Barrick, among others. It established Ms. Van Etten as a distinct new voice, an artist with a unique ability to make rage and self-doubt sound pretty. In the years since, Ms. Van Etten has never made the same album twice. She's chameleonic, generating a striking number of notably different sounding tracks that become widely adored soundtrack-of-your-life instant nostalgia bombs, the kind of songs that go on mixtapes for new crushes and early midlife crisis road trip playlists. See: 2014's lilting, haunted 'Every Time the Sun Comes Up'; 2019's 'Seventeen,' which packs the gut-wrenching sweetness of an entire coming-of-age novella in one four-plus minute slice of folk-rock; and, her latest contribution to this collection, the sparkly dirge 'Afterlife' off her latest album. Unsurprisingly, given the cinematic moodiness of her work, Ms. Van Etten has also explored film and TV work, from acting in a recurring role in Netflix's 'The OA,' to scoring and composing. 'Sharon is more than a collaborator. She is a partner-in-crime who is thinking deeply about the entire project and not just her part in it, no matter big or small,' said filmmaker Celine Song, for whom Ms. Van Etten (with Zach Dawes) wrote 'Quiet Eyes' for Ms. Song's Oscar-nominated film 'Past Lives.' 'She's a complete artist.' But the Hollywood log line version of Ms. Van Etten's life story — Jersey girl with cool hair moves to the big city and finds her creative community, her voice, fame and fortune — comes many, many chapters into a more complex, circuitous and wrenching tale. First, there was the failed attempt at college in Murfreesboro, Tenn., a place she'd barely heard of much less been when she moved there at 18 to attend the music recording program at Middle Tennessee State. There was an emotionally abusive, undermining boyfriend, the mental breakdown and attempts to restart her life, taking jobs at IHOP and McDonald's and the overnight shift at the Donut Hole. There were addiction issues, a multi-year estrangement from her family, and eventually, four years after leaving home, the escape from Tennessee orchestrated by Ms. Van Etten's kid sister and the dramatic return to her parents home on Thanksgiving Day in 2003 'with my tail between my legs.' Before that there was the Jersey girl high school experience, spent lusting not after the promise of the glittering skyline across the river but 'driving around in cars, smoking cigarettes, listening to music and going to record stores and sometimes to the beach or driving to Philly just to get a cheesesteak.' And before all of that, there was the joyfully chaotic suburban childhood spent as the middle child of five in a ramshackle old Victorian in Nutley, N.J., with a wrap-around porch where her father first taught her to ride a bike. No Longer Solo 'Sharon Van Etten & The Attachment Theory' may be the singer's seventh album but it's her first collaborating in full with her band. Ms. Van Etten has been working with most of her bandmates for years — they are 'like family' — but even until recently she's held on to this nagging fear of letting go of the solo title. But it's never been about ego. 'It takes patience and courage and openness to make things happen together,' said Angel Olsen, a friend and collaborator. 'Doing it all under your own name is very very different.' For Ms. Van Etten, trusting her music could be safely shared with other people is a lesson she is still learning. 'Because of my ex, I had to write in hiding — he didn't like my music and he didn't like me writing,' she said. 'Music turned into this place that was just for me, very private. When I finally left and I started playing out for real I had this guard up.' The songwriter Doug Keith was the first musician to ever try to put a band together for Ms. Van Etten, back in 2010, five years after she first moved to New York, when she was still playing gigs completely on her own. 'I just kept putting him off,' she recalled. 'My ex was always just like, any dude that wants to play with you, just wants to get in your pants.' Mr. Keith eventually had to explicitly say to Ms. Van Etten, 'I'm happily married, I love your music, and I really just want to help you with your show.' In a way, every album Ms. Van Etten has made since her 2009 debut solo release, 'Because I Was in Love,' has been part of a process of adjusting to the idea that isolation breeds confinement not security. With her latest album, the singer is leaving her instinct to stay solo out of self-protection behind once and for all, in her creative life. And on the day after the Stone Pony show, as we drove around New Jersey revisiting some of the key sights of her youth, she's thinking about how her tendency to seek freedom through separation has influenced her personal life as well. Earlier in the day there was a visit to the Princeton Record Exchange where Ms. Van Etten signed copies of the new album and giddily flipped through the bargain bins, as she's been doing for a couple decades now, forever in search of that next record she's never heard of that might wind up changing her life. There were tuna melts at Holsten's ice cream parlor in Bloomfield, where the Van Etten family used to go after ice skating (and where David Chase shot the last scene of 'The Sopranos'). And there was talk of stopping at the singer's cousin's hair salon to experience 'full-on Jerz,' as Ms. Van Etten's husband and manager, Zeke Hutchins called it. But the singer had to get to a pre-arranged tour of the rambling Victorian Ms. Van Etten lived in during elementary school, which is still owned by the people her family sold it to over 30 years ago. 'I will probably cry,' she warned. 'We really did have a nice childhood,' Ms. Van Etten said during a moment of quiet in the car. 'I left for Tennessee to rebel against the sweetest people's world. They didn't understand me, maybe, but …' Was the conflict mostly within herself and not them? 'Exactly,' she said. When Ms. Van Etten was the most lost back in Tennessee, the singer's then boyfriend tried to convince her that no one in her family could be trusted. 'Family is just blood, they don't care about you, they don't get you, you don't owe them anything,' she recalled him saying. But it never fully stuck. (She used to call her little sister from a series of burner phones. 'I wasn't a drug dealer, I was just trying to talk to my family.') It wasn't easy coming back home. 'It's not like it went back and everything was fine. We had to repair wounds and have some difficult conversations, and some conversations we still cannot have, but I knew that everyone wanted me to be okay. I feel so grateful.' The House on Prospect Back at the Stone Pony, with assorted members of the Van Etten family all together, the subject of the house on Prospect came up a lot. Ms. Van Etten's cousin Jackie was texting, wanting to know when the singer was going to actually see it. Janice Van Etten said she still dreams about the house, and wondered if her husband remembered what he said about the staircase when they first saw it. 'You said, the girls will get married here, remember?' The family's youngest, Peter Van Etten (aka 'Sweetie Petie') was born in the house. And Ms. Van Etten remembered how her dad and one of his brothers, Uncle John, would come over on the weekends, get a six pack and work on the house. 'Uncle John had the best laugh,' Ms. Van Etten recalled, later noting that three of her father's brothers, including John, died prematurely. On the day the family moved in, Ms. Van Etten, who was around 4 at the time, got lost in the shuffle. She was eventually found hiding under a grand piano the previous owners had left behind. 'I found shelter,' she said. 'That piano became my best friend.' When the singer was in sixth grade, her mom, who stayed at home for 15 years raising the five kids while Steve Van Etten worked, finished her teaching degree at Montclair State, got a job, and the family moved to Clinton, N.J. But the house on Prospect became a symbol of a particularly happy period in the Van Etten family, and, over time, a representation of the determined love that binds them. 'I guess this sounds really corny,' Janice Van Etten said back at the Stone Pony, 'but when we lived in the house on Prospect, nothing had gone wrong.' 'There it is,' Ms. Van Etten exclaimed, smiling, her eyes filling with the predicted tears, as the house came into view at the top of a small hill.
Yahoo
08-02-2025
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
On my radar: Sharon Van Etten's cultural highlights
Born in New Jersey in 1981, singer-songwriter Sharon Van Etten has released seven studio albums, including 2019's acclaimed Remind Me Tomorrow. In the mid-2010s she took some time away from music, studying to become a mental health therapist and starring in film and TV roles including The OA and Twin Peaks: The Return. She lives in Los Angeles with her husband, musician Zeke Hutchins, and their son. Her latest album, Sharon Van Etten & the Attachment Theory, named after her new band, is out now on Jagjaguwar; they tour the UK in March. The Cure at the Hollywood Bowl My band and I got to see the Cure when we were in the writing process of this new record. They were obviously a huge influence on us when we were kids and through our creative lives. Watching Robert Smith on stage, you can just tell he still loves performing so much – it's a high bar he has set for us as artists. They did Plainsong, which was the song I walked down the aisle to, and being able to sing classic songs like Friday I'm in Love with my bandmates – there's a magic in that kind of performance. (dir Marielle Heller) As an actor, Amy Adams is so relatable and vulnerable, and really believable in every role I've seen her in. Here she plays a mother who, by 'choice', gives up her creative career to stay home with her child after daycare proves too expensive and unmanageable. It brings up conversations that I think couples have when they have a kid, how it changes the dynamic, even if you have a healthy relationship – sometimes you have to make hard choices. I feel lucky I'm in a relationship where my husband doesn't want me to give up that part of myself. , Disney+ I think anyone that has been a creative has worked in the service industry, to some degree – I was more of a barista. This show really captures the family dynamic that exists in any working environment, and the stress that comes with opening a restaurant and keeping it afloat. They brought in chefs and people that have worked in the industry to make it feel sometimes stressfully relatable. Jamie Lee Curtis, who plays Jeremy Allen White's mother, isn't a regular character but she just commands the screen when she's on – especially in the episode Fishes, where they have a family husband and son are huge basketball fans, and we went on a family trip to the Final Four tournament in Phoenix, which we combined with a visit to Sedona. We went mountain biking, off-roading in a Jeep, and went to see Taliesin West, Frank Lloyd Wright's winter home and studio. There's a 'Sedona vortex', they call it: some kind of unique geological and energetic phenomenon which is believed to have an effect on physical and spiritual insight. I don't know if I had enough time to experience that myself, but our mountain bike guide swore it changed her life. Little Ripper, LA When I first moved to LA from New York, one of the things we talked about was that I needed a place to be able to walk to. LA is very spread out, so this was a haven for us. The couple [who run it] are from Australia, and they're really sweet. They employ a lot of musicians, and a coffee shop naturally brings together so many people – it's a neighbourhood hub. They bring so much to our little part of town. The Beauty of What Remains by Steve Leder A Jewish friend of mine recommended this book, written by a rabbi who goes to people's bedsides to be with them in their last days, and he finds words of peace for them and their family. My husband's father died this past year, and we'd been preparing for a long time, because he had dementia, but no matter how much you think you're prepared, you're not – it's not like there's a 'how to grieve' process. It's a really beautiful, uplifting book. I handed it directly to my partner after I read it, and he's reading it now.
