O'Brother will release their follow-up, "Endless Light," via Triple Crown Records/Favorite Gentlemen. It could be their most haunting yet, from the build up of opening track "Slow Sin" to the quiet interlude (relatively speaking) of "Burn," through the choral pastures of the title track to the final fade of "Realm of the Physical."

Detroit artist JMSN new album

Los Angeles-based sister duo Jennifer and Jessie Clavin knew that things were going to be different for their band Bleached sophomore LP W elcome The Worms. Not only had they managed to charm world renowned producer and engineer, Joe Chiccarelli (Morrissey, The Strokes, Elton John) to join the sisters and their bassist Micayla Grace in the studio, but Jen and Jessie had been crawling out of their own personal dramas. Jessie was evicted from her house and scrambling, while Jen ended a torrid, unhealthy romance. While emotionally spinning, she dove head first into music. She struggled and escaped the pressures with drinking and partying, sometimes to excess, feeling like she was losing herself altogether.
"I was a loose canon," the commanding front woman says. "I was losing serious control of my personal and creative life. I was falling apart, trying to escape. I felt like Bleached was the only thing I actually cared about."
The 10-song LP was born out of triple the amount of demos. Sometimes the three girls spent time writing at a remote house in Joshua Tree away from the seemingly destructive city (a first since bassist Micayla had never contributed to songwriting on previous releases). Other times Jen and Jessie worked alone, just like when they were teenaged punk brats playing in their parent's San Fernando Valley garage imitating their heroes The Slits, Black Flag and Minor Threat.
In the studio, Chiccarelli and co-producer Carlos de la Garza (Paramore, YACHT) helped the band perfect their fervent songs into fearlessly big pop melodies. They drew inspiration from the iconic hits of everyone from Fleetwood Mac to Heart to Roy Ayers. They focused on pre-production and challenged the songs. Jessie took her usual approach to guitar overdubs and leads (her favorite duty in a recording session). "I just let my fingers play and kind of surprise me," she smirks. Still remaining to keep the band's origin of cheeky, California-punk in the forefront, Welcome The Worms became a smarter, heavier, emotionally deeper Bleached.
"Before we even knew we were working together, I remember Joe saying, you can't lose these melodies, no matter how raw the music gets," Jen explains. She penned demos on an acoustic guitar and focused. "If I was happy [with the songs] in [their] rawest form, then I knew it would be even better after going through production."
"I've become a more confident musician," adds Jessie. "I wanted to be open-minded to this record and try new things we hadn't done before. I felt such a great amount of respect working with the people we did on this record, feeling really free to do what I wanted to do, and making it a Bleached world."
Welcome The Worms is an ambitious rock record with a new found pop refinement that somehow still feels like the Shangri-Las on speed, driven forward in a wind of pot and petals, a wall of guitars in the back seat. "Keep on Keepin' On" is a hypnotic opening anthem that spins like a kaleidoscope, while "Sleepwalking" and "Trying To Lose Myself Again" invoke the struggle of floating through life on autopilot. The drums are instinctual, while the bass bounces like a rubber ball over the lyrics on a karaoke screen. "Sour Candy" is a stand-out hit so effortless and catchy it sticks in your head for days. Synth is only brought in as a thickening agent, just like the harmonies. "Chemical Air" and "I'm All Over The Place (Mystic Mama)" toy with pop sensibilities, while "Desolate Town" shows Jen getting weird on the verses before a Cobain-like chorus.
Throughout the record, Bleached paints a frivolous picture of Los Angeles: the life of eye-rolling caused by dating men in bands, dirty Sunset Boulevard and futile drunken nights in a starstruck hole that made everyone from Charles Manson to Darby Crash to Marilyn Monroe stare up at the Hollywood sign for direction. Although a typical theme of ruined romance floats through the album, the real power is in Jen figuring out herself through lyrics so straight, identifiable and honest. This was a first for the girl who safely hid behind a cheeky misdemeanor. She did a lot of messing up and even more digging into herself.
"Sometimes [writing this album] made me hate myself and sometimes it made me love myself," she admits. "But being aware of how I felt is what I wanted." It became clear that Jen had to embrace the good with the horrible and learn to overcome it all through music.
One evening, high on psychedelics and up all night, Jen and a friend passed a freaky couple at Echo Park Lake peddling homemade religious pamphlets. "One page was a bunch of cut and paste sentences with images. I'm always really intrigued by those crazy DIY religious books. It all was so perfect at that moment [because] it was about embracing the dark side of life instead of pretending it isn't there because it's all beautiful and I wouldn't give any of it up for anything." Welcome The Worms was sprawled across the tripped out pamphlet. The phrase stuck.
"We don't want perfection because it's boring," she continues. "We want to make music that's as real as life."
-Mish Way

The debut EP from Lawrence, Kansas' Taryn Blake Miller, better known by her affable alias Your Friend, offers up a shadowy mix of spectral, lo-fi dream pop and Spector-ish, guitar-driven indie rock that falls somewhere in between the echo chamber and the open road. "Bangs" sets the tone with its languid, two-chord build that hints at Beach House by way of Sharon Van Etten, and then explodes into the kind of percussive and anthemic, midnight house-show theatrics that bring to mind Bon Iver mastermind Justin Vernon's Volcano Choir project. The rest of the collection follows suit, with highlights arriving via the bucolic title track and the cavernous "Tame One," but the majority of the six-song set sounds like it's happening a room or two away, resulting in the same sense one gets when daydreaming through a particularly ephemeral section of a book and having to go back a page or two to try piecing together the narrative. Miller's voice tiptoes around extremes, sometimes bold and sometimes fragile, suggesting that a better indication of her prowess would be sussed out via a sweaty, hometown show packed with enthralled brethren, but the aptly titled Jekyll/Hyde provides enough spark to keep the home fires burning, thanks in part to co-producer and Hospital Ships frontman Jordan Geiger's willingness to go big in all of the right places.

The Dandy Warhols spent 2015 writing new music and the band closed out the year with a packed-to-capacity tour of the U.S. West Coast and South including a three-night stint at Los Angeles’ Teregram Ballroom. Signing to Dine Alone was another highlight of the year, not only for the band, but for label owner/founder, Joel Carriere. “”My first introduction to The Dandy Warhols goes back to when I was 21, and working at a record store. Good Will Hunting blew up and we were selling a ton of copies of the soundtrack. Not having a full appreciation for Elliott Smith yet, I didn’t bother putting the soundtrack on when at work. When I saw the movie in the theatre, I had to know what song was playing in the background during the legendary scene when Will helps Chuckie with an arrogant MIT student.
Since we didn’t have access to the Internet, let alone Shazam back then, I had to wait to scan the tracklist.
Boom! It was The Dandy Warhols and the song also happened to be on their LP The Dandy Warhols Come Down. I couldn’t be more thrilled that this record store clerk is now working with a band that had such an impact.

With their Billboard radio chart debut, Family Of The Year saw "Hero" reach #1 on the Triple A Top 30 Radio Chart, sitting Top 5 for a record-breaking four months. “Hero” also landed Top 10 at Alternative Radio. With the release of Loma Vista, Family Of The Year performed “Hero” on The Tonight Show With Jay Leno, Jimmy Kimmel Live!, CONAN and Last Call With Carson Daly. Also, MTV2 added Family Of The Year to “Artist To Watch” and USA Today featured the band in their “On The Verge” column. All this follows other emerging artist features with Entertainment Weekly, Billboard, Amazon, Interview Magazine, Paste, SonicBids and more. "Hero" was featured in the Oscar-nominated, Golden Globe winning film Boyhood, the film trailer and official soundtrack and has gained over 90 million YouTube & Spotify streams. This Summer, the band will release their highly-anticipated follow-up album, featuring lead single "Make You Mine." Formed in 2009, Family Of The Year is Joe Keefe (lead vocals, guitars), Sebastian Keefe (drums, vocals), James Buckey (guitars, vocals) and Christina Schroeter (keyboards, vocals).

Until There's Nothing Left Of Us, featuring the single "Lips Like Morphine", is the latest offering from the Chicago based quintet. Kill Hannah's sexy songs and style to match have helped establish them in the arty alternative scene. Tirelessly touring, the band has a cult-like status to their die-hard army of fans--many inked with the band's distinctive heart in crosshairs logo.

This playlist contains 7 tracks, total time: 26:56

With their mind-melting eighth epos, Cult Of Luna & Julie Christmas brings you to the outer rim of the ever expanding boundaries of the cosmos, where the rules of man is not applicable and the cold, dark nothing envelops the harsh realities of the universe.
Since their beginnings in 1998, Cult Of Luna has released seven albums, been awarded the top rock/metal award at the Swedish National Radio Awards and cemented their status as one of the true progressors of the metal genre, known to most metal aficionados. In 2013, the Swedes teamed up with Indie Recordings for the release of perhaps their most successful work to date in the shape of “Vertikal I” and "Vertikal II". These cohesive pieces of work received worldwide appraisal and only pillared Cult Of Luna to even greater heights.
For their eight effort, the post-metal pioneers join forces with the talented Julie Christmas from Brooklyn, whom bring an even larger depth to Cult Of Lunas sound. Her haunting voice has fronted vital bands such as Made Out of Babies and Battle of Mice, and is one of significance in the underground sludge and post-metal scene. Furthermore, she has released two solo albums and features on tracks by bands like Mouth of the Architect and String of Consciousness. Her prowess as a vocalist is powerfully on display on “Mariner”.
«At the end of Vertikal, we stood in the cold harshness of the mechanical city and looked up onto the stars. We lost ourselves in the awe of their grace and thought that “maybe the answer is to be found above". The ship was leaking and by to look of it, our home was dying. No room for fear when a greater call demands your full attention. So, we left... Onward, forward. Like the old seafarers, we explored the vastness of space. Not bound by physical laws we pass the speed of light and chase the expansion of space until we reach its limit. And then, we continued on and disappeared. This is our story. » - Cult Of Luna

Long lost folk legend who counts Devendra Banhart among her fans (yes, another one) has her sophomore album, originally released in 1971, reissued by Light in the Attic.

Composed By [Composer], Oboe [Renaissance Oboe], Audio Generator [Custom Sinewave Generators], Electronics [Live Electronics] – Catherine C. Hennix*
Oboe [Renaissance Oboe] – Peter Hennix
Sheng – Hans Isgren
Recorded at Moderna Museet, Stockholm
March 1976
Packaged in a deluxe oversized letterpressed card sleeve. First edition of 1000.
Incidental info: This previously unheard piece was taken from an eight day festival organized in the Spring of 1976 at the Museum of Modern Art in Stockholm.