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£9.99
Release Date: 18/10/2024
'Lost' third album from enigmatic Americana songbirds
"One day, people will wake up to the Hank Dogs, a gem from the heyday of my Hannibal Records label. It's so great that they're back!” Joe Boyd
Hank Dogs – Andy Allan, his partner Piano and Lily, Andy’s daughter from a previous relationship - started out at folk clubs in London in the early 1990s before going worldwide in 1998 when legendary producer and late 60s Folk Rock guru, Joe Boyd declared them the first British act he'd loved in 30 years.
Their debut album ‘Bareback’ saw them touring the US with Joan Baez and winning fans with their quiet, haunting sound featuring ethereal vocal harmonies, strong traces of blues and Celtic music and Allan’s fluid acoustic finger-picking recalling UK folk guitarists such as John Renbourn.
Another part of their appeal, particularly in the States, was their ‘Carter Family’ image but then, when Andy and Piano split-up in real life, so did the band. A follow up album ‘Half Smile’ appeared in 2002 but this turned out to be their swansong.
However, the story was not quite over yet.. a third unreleased album ‘Fiveways’ had been recorded before they went their separate ways and now it’s finally seeing the light of day on South London label Scratchy Records, plus the band are re-uniting for some long overdue gigs to celebrate the release.
‘Fiveways’ contains much of the Hank Dogs’ trademark English folk/US country-straddling sound. Piano’s voice bounces between early Suzanne Vega, Tracey Thorn and Mary Margaret O’Hara with occasional hints of Dolores Cranberry and Bridget St. John, while underneath the acoustic guitars run freeform tangled and Lily’s backing vocals add sky.
Stand out track ‘Logic’ with it’s pensive lyrics and haunting guitar line recalls the way Suzanne Vega (her again) could sometimes make songs stand still in their tracks but it’s the dreamy ‘Nut’ that really captures the mood “You had me when I was sweet as a nut.. Not sweet enough” sings Piano. This is the sound of two ex-lovers still able to work together but unable to hide the odd dig here and there.. like a follow up album a couple of years later on from ‘Blood On The Tracks’.
Andy sings a few songs too including the raggedy, shwashbuckling ‘Gazetteer’ revolving around a ‘Pre-CBS Maple neck Sunburst bought off The Pretty Things’ and hinting at a whole lifetime of music biz escapades from watching his dad Elkan Allan produce 60s TV show ‘Ready Steady Go’ to a stint on bass in The Professionals along with Steve Jones and Paul Cook.
Next year the story carries on with his long-running South East London ‘Easycome’ club night featuring in US TV queen Lena Dunham’s new Netflix series ‘Too Much’. Towards the end of the album an angelic setting of Dylan Thomas’s ‘Do Not Go Gentle Into That Good Night’ in the song ‘Nod’ recalls Christmas TOTP number ones from days gone by and captures Hank Dogs ability to transport the listener. This album is definitely one for the dreamers.
FFO Pentangle, The Innocence Mission and William Blake.
Tracklisting:
1. Arrows
2. Logic
3. Fiveways
4. Luki Icin
5. Nut
6. Dipper
7. Margaret Finch
8. Good Bits
9. Gazetteer
10. Well
11. Nod
12. Daddy
13. Buttered
14. Rosebush
Release Date: 27/09/2024
On September 27, UK-based noise rock outfit Schande will share their debut LP Once Around, via The Daydream Library Series, the house record label of Ecstatic Peace Library operated by Thurston & Eva Moore.
Throughout the past several months, the band, fronted by Thurston Moore Guitar Ensemble member Jen Chochinov, has shared a trio of singles showcasing the band’s melodically angular approach to songwriting — searing and calm in equal measures, reminiscent yet distinctive.
The most recent outing was the hard-charging “We’re Not Twins,” which acts as a bridge between the poignant and restrained guitar ambience of “Relevant Campaigns,” and its cascading, fuzzed out foil “52 hz.” Inspired by the works of writers such as Hannah Arendt and Adriana Cavarero, Once Around focuses on notions of personal existence and subjectivity.
As Chochinov puts it, the record consists of “contemplations on the ways in which we do and do not disclose ourselves to each other, our responsibilities towards ourselves and others, and the ways we do or do not acknowledge the experiences of others.” Mirrored by the band’s collaborative musical process (Chochinov writes the lyrics to instrumentals formed out of jams and group revision), the album aims to explore the ways in which even the most personal journeys depend on others, something the band of expats — Chochinov is from the US, drummer Ryan Grieve hails from Canada, and bassist Gio Villaraut is from Italy — navigate daily as they establish and reinvent themselves in their adoptive home of the UK. Schande’s current sound was shaped by Chochinov’s stint playing in the Thurston Moore Guitar Ensemble.
On the heels of playing with the group, Chochinov started experimenting with alternative tunings, including those she learned from Thurston himself.
The freedom offered by new tunings gave the band a chance to approach songs and song writing in a new way. “It was like being given free reign in a science lab where nothing was off limits. At worst you create an awful sound and at best you get the chance to surprise yourself and land on something exciting.”
The California-born Chochinov has been crafting catchy, propulsive rock in DIY circles since the early 1990s. Solo and full band adventures throughout the years have included a split 7” with The Cribs and James Murphy’s pre-LCD Soundsystem group Speedking, playing the legendary Indie Tracks festival (UK), and playing Happy Happy Birthday to Me's Athens Pop Festival (US). Since relocating to London in 2013, she has continued playing shows throughout the UK and US both solo and with her full band.
In 2018 and 2019, she was a touring member of Thurston Moore’s Guitar Ensemble and played shows throughout the UK and Europe alongside James Sedwards (Nøught, Thurston Moore Group), Deb Googe (My Bloody Valentine, Thurston Moore Group), Steve Shelley (Sonic Youth), Jem Doulton (Thurston Moore Group, The Oscillation), and Jonathan Leideker (Wobbly).
The Daydream Library Series independent record label just celebrated five years in operation. Thurston & Eva founded the label in 2018 to release the debut album Sistahs by London’s black, feminist, punk band Big Joanie and have since released recordings by Xopher Davidson, Seafoam Walls, Devon Ross, Katherina Bornefeld, Las Nubes and others.
Tracklisting:
1. Derek
2. Palimpsest
3. Apogee
4. Gregor MacGregor
5. Relevant Campaigns
6. Double Hackner
7. We’re Not Twins
8. 52 hz
9. Last Horse
£12.99
Constellation
GODSPEED YOU! BLACK EMPEROR 'NO TITLE AS OF 13 FEBRUARY 2024 28,340 DEAD' PRE-ORDER
£33.99
Release Date: 04/10/2024
THE PLAIN TRUTH==
we drifted through it, arguing.
every day a new war crime, every day a flower bloom.
we sat down together and wrote it in one room,
and then sat down in a different room, recording.
NO TITLE= what gestures make sense while tiny bodies fall? what context? what broken melody?
and then a tally and a date to mark a point on the line, the negative process, the growing pile.
the sun setting above beds of ash
while we sat together, arguing.
the old world order barely pretended to care.
this new century will be crueler still.
war is coming.
don’t give up.
pick a side.
hang on.
love.
Tracklisting: (NB: ALL CAPS is intentional punctuation for all. Duration: 54:09.)
1. SUN IS A HOLE SUN IS VAPORS
2. BABYS IN A THUNDERCLOUD
3. RAINDROPS CAST IN LEAD
4. BROKEN SPIRES AT DEAD KAPITAL
5. PALE SPECTATOR TAKES PHOTOGRAPHS
6. GREY RUBBLE – GREEN SHOOTS