“When we made this album, we wanted a word to describe how we felt and what we were going through as individuals and a band,” Perry says, “so we made one up. ‘Divisionary’ signifies a group whose vision of ‘right’ is upsetting to the existing power structure. It includes a philosophical, spiritual, and physical ‘breaking off’ from the status quo. It also references the individual inner conflicts that arise as you struggle to make the right choices in life. Visionaries don’t always create conflict, but they challenge the establishment with new ideas and with the threat of change. Where there is change, there is usually resistance, controversy, division.

“The songs on our first album, Alright You Restless, described a group of people leaving a selfish, destructive society for a place safe from the madness. That was like starting a band, wanting to establish new rules and a language to put some distance between themselves and the noise outside. Those songs were optimistic, energetic and self-righteous because that’s how a group of people who broke off from society would feel. As the group faces the struggles of actually making their community work, reality sets in and things get more complicated. Divisionary details the second phase of the journey.”

Alright You Restless was made in eight days of feverish creativity. Divisionary evolved over months of experimentation at Portland’s Jackpot Studios with veteran producer Tony Lash (Elliott Smith, The Dandy Warhols, Eric Matthews), as well as the home studio of Ages bass player Rob Oberdorfer. During the process, the band suffered the loss of a number of close family members and dear friends, so the songs became a kind of road map for anyone attempting to avoid darkness, without becoming consumed by anger in the face of life’s difficulties. “There were also great things happening,” Perry adds. “One of us had a child, another got married. Life was tipping both ends of the scale; there were a lot of changes going on.”

Perry spent ten days on a silent meditation retreat, formulating the direction of Divisonary, and his calm, centered vision is at the core of the music. The intricate harmonies, celebratory choral vocals, churchical piano and organ, inventive counter melodies, bright acoustic guitars, and exciting, interlocking rhythms set off aural fireworks to frame the grounded emotions conveyed in the lyrics.

The title track, “Divisonary (Do The Right Thing),” is a secular gospel song with inspirational harmonies, sanctified piano and smooth violin adding muscle to a simple refrain: “Do the right thing, do the right thing….don’t you know you’re not the only one suffering.” A stomping, exuberant bass drum pushes the giddy pop vocals of “I See More,” as it reassures listeners that, “It’s all OK, I’ll be on your side.” The jaunty folk pop of “Big Idea” holds a flickering candle up to the darkness with intricate handclapping, gentle harmonies and the candid admission that, “All of my ins are on the outside. And I want you all to notice, cuz I have no will to hide.”

On “Over It,” acoustic guitars played in open tunings dance across a complex musical landscape to Eastern melodies and counter melodies, leading to the group declaring over a swaying 6/8, “I have no remorse for the way that I am anymore. No, I feel no shame.” The band’s funky hand clapping folk rock rhythms move “The Weight Below” as Perry and the band belt out a soaring chorus to release the feelings that cause stress and suffering. “And the weight that we left behind, we're all better off without it, and it ain’t even worth our time, so I ain’t gonna worry about it.” The complex structure of “Light Goes Out,” bounces along on a stomping bass line, bright, piano shenanigans and the band’s joyously dislocated vocals: “I kept up with the verses in my head, running right along beside 'em all day. At some point, well I found myself wondering if I was even running or just running away.”

The harmonies and intricate instrumental interplay on Divisionary are carefully crafted, but never sound forced, with complex arrangements that are naturalistic, invigorating and free. The clash between the band’s stirring folkadelic sounds and emotionally thorny subject matter makes for a bracing listen, “as if the internal conflict is happening in real time,” Perry says.

“We live in a country where a substantial amount of the population would rather discard science than admit climate change is happening. A culture which, more and more, considers higher education to be some kind of liberal indoctrination. A culture that does not value critical thinking and a power elite that perpetuates misinformation, apathy, and ignorance because it preserves the status quo. I don't blame people for feeling daunted, apathetic, powerless, and overwhelmed, but I believe that facing the darkness is a necessary step in overcoming it.”

“Ultimately I think the band all feels hopeful and blessed,” Perry concludes. “These songs reflect that optimism, but they don’t do so lightly or try to dodge the struggles we’re dealing with individually and as a band. It was an exceptionally long, hard road this time around but in the end, we’re all really proud and excited to share this record.”

Ages and Ages is:

Rob Oberdorfer - Bass, vocals

Tim Perry - guitar, vocals

John McDonald - guitar, vocals

Levi Cecil - drums, vocals

Becca Shultz - keys, vocals

Annie Bethancourt - percussion, vocals

Sarah Riddle - percussion, vocals

It seems vital then that the two monikers be male and female, and begin with the letters A and B - like two sides of a record, or the genders, they are unique, but find unison in one another. A truism that extends to Arthur Beatrice's two distinct, dual vocals.

Founding members Orlando Leopard (vocals/instruments) and Elliot Barnes (drums) discovered early in their school-formed friendship, and musical partnership, that their opposing views would take them in interesting and often unpredictable directions. The pair were looking to introduce a new dynamic to their songwriting when they met and enlisted Ella Girardot (vocals/keys), after hearing her perform All Saints’ Pure Shores in the school talent contest. Brother Hamish Barnes (vocals/bass/guitar) joined a little later, quickly providing another point of creative tension when he began contributing songs that soon became as vital as anything before.

“When a person pulls one way, and another pulls in a completely different direction, it's possible to find something in the middle without compromising... something a lot more interesting,” is the way Orlando sees the process, and this core idea of creation from conflict is intrinsic to the band’s writing; each member bringing their own ideas to the rest to be shaped by their differing input. It's not a typical approach, with Elliot's words interpreted and made real in different voices, through Orlando and Ella, but it works, and while the drummer may write with individual intention, the actual words are deliberately open to interpretation by both singer and listener.

Ella refers to these lyrics as being "Ambiguous...", and they may seem as such, especially when twinned with seemingly unrelated titles. Each song name is in fact intended to encourage the listener to reconsider the words on realisation that the title words are always absent. “...It’s meant to be a ‘rupture’ of sorts - that thing that makes you realise that something isn’t quite right, and you have to look at the whole song again to work out why it has its name.”

Girardot’s vocals are unaffected by lyrics written largely by her male mates; while at times cold and disassociated, they are more often warm and always passionate, her voice leaning against Leopard’s reserved tones in a way that again forces the listener to ask questions of the songs’ motivations. While it's natural to assume a direct dialogue between the singers, it's quickly apparent this is not the sound of star-crossed lovers duetting. Instead, the occasional sharing of vocals only highlights further the different perspectives, aiming to push the pop-focussed songs into less familiar and comfortable territory. There are occasions and parts written from the male perspective and deliberately designed to be sung by Ella... Arthur Beatrice allows for different interpretations, throwing every songs presumed subject matter in to question.

A reluctance to release material before it's been worked, and then re-worked, to the point of obsession has led to little and infrequent output during their formative years, but it has granted the band a sense of calm awareness and careful consideration in everything they do: from a painstakingly pieced-together aesthetic through to the creation and curation of their own night, Open Assembly and further still, to self-releasing their only two previous singles 'Midland' and 'Charity' on Open Assembly off-shoot label, OAR.

For a band whose music is composed of such wildly differing elements, who’s writing comes from so many perspectives and musical influences, and in an age when so much is served up so soon, they've maintained a hold of the reigns and remain firmly in control. They don’t look to be loosening that grip any time soon.

Back in the summer of 2012, Danish polymath Tomas Barfod released his debut solo album, the sophisticated mesh of electronics that is Salton Sea. Lauded by the likes of Pitchfork, Dazed & Confused and Gorilla vs Bear, its success took Barfod slightly by surprise. Inspired by a move to LA and mainly written and recorded on the road, often in hotel rooms on his laptop, it was an album that was imbued with a sense of spontaneity and experimentation. Its success has paved the way for the forthcoming follow-up, Love Me, an album that continues this spirit of adventurousness but takes it to a whole new level.

His skills as a dj has taken him around the world, where he has played legendary venues like Fabric (London), Panorama Bar (Berlin), Bar 25 (Berlin), Goa (Rome), Social Club (Paris), Echoplex (LA). Latest addition is his live show featuring a 3-piece live band including Nina K.

The last couple of years Tomas has been sharing his time between Los Angeles and Copenhagen. In LA he works as a producer and have cuts on several international albums.

The title is taken from a lyric in “Blankets of Sorrow,” the elegiac, wistful ballad that closes the album and perfectly encapsulates the theme that runs through So that you might hear me: the need to be heard, acknowledged, understood. That brief, simple sentiment that underpins all of the songs on the album expresses a universal desire that so often goes unspoken, but runs deep within us all -- the primal, fundamental need for meaningful human connection.

“To me, it’s about trying to communicate with someone and feeling like you can’t reach them anymore” says Andrew. “That deeply resonated with me. Unwittingly, it became a theme of the album.”

So that you might hear me is the follow-up to Bear’s Den’s, UK silver-selling debut, Islands, which earned them an Ivor Novello nomination in the UK and a devoted following worldwide, and 2016’s more expansive Red Earth & Pouring Rain, which went Top 10 across Europe. 2017 saw the band cap four, non-stop years on the road with the largest headline shows to date, from sold-out tours of the States to a 7000-capacity arena in Belgium, and sold-out hometown shows at London’s iconic Brixton Academy and the Hammersmith Apollo.

The speed and scale of their success meant that Bear’s Den hadn’t taken a break since forming in 2012 – Red Earth & Pouring Rain was written in just three weeks squeezed in between tours and main stage festival slots at the likes of Pukkelpop and Lollapalooza Paris. Last year, finally, they took a step back to focus on their future.

For the first time, Andrew and multi-instrumentalist Kevin Jones had their own studio, a cubby called Josiah Booth Studios next to The Church Studios in north London, where they could leave their instruments plugged in and come and go as they pleased. Musically, there were no self-imposed constraints. Nor was there a time frame.

Both had a hankering to incorporate piano and more electronic instruments into their sound. Kev began playing with ideas on piano and drum machines while Andrew alone went to a cottage in a remote part of the English countryside with a guitar and started scribbling lyrics.

“In the past, I’ve always tried to understand what I’m writing about,” says Andrew. “This time, lyrics came from a more subconscious place. Like they were things I needed to say and I worked back from there. I’m inspired by people who wrote as though they were trying to figure out their own feelings as much as explain them to anyone else. The aim was to be more honest and instinctive, like when you blurt something out and can’t take it back, so you have to deal with it.”

Glorious opener “Hiding Bottles” builds in to their rockiest song to date, but is also doused in electronics. The idea for the song began with a synth pad and the lyric “Hiding bottles in the cold blue light.” Like several of the songs, it turned out to be about Andrew’s relationship with a close family member with an alcohol addiction and his attempts to address it.

“It was a situation that I could file away while we were on tour,” says Andrew, “but back home, I had to confront. The lyrics recall real conversations, trying to reach and help someone. It’s also about recognising what you can and can’t change, however hard you try.”

The first single “Fuel On The Fire” blossoms from the throb of drum machine beats in to an orchestral beauty. “Laurel Wreath” is a majestic track built on piano with electric guitars and synths that shimmer like strings. Both the haunting “Fossils” and the deeply moving “Crow” fuse acoustic instruments and electronics so organically it seems daft to distinguish between them.

“I love how the boundaries between genres have gone in the age of streaming,” says Andrew. “No one listens to music in boxes anymore, so why make it like that? Our songs incorporate all sorts of sounds, but not in a pre-ordained way. We could start with a weird pocket synth sound or Kev playing a creaky old upright piano. We just tried to follow our collaborative intuition and go where each song suggested.”

The result is a record that is both bold and exposed, at once intimate and widescreen. While the music leads the listener down different paths, the lyrics unfold as though revealing secrets, each line littered with clues.

Lyrically, “Crow” was inspired by Max Porter’s award-winning, 2016 novel Grief Is The Thing With Feathers while “Not Every River,” the album’s short, self-produced shimmering centrepiece, is about acceptance – or as Andrew puts it, “being okay with what’s not okay”.

Bewitching album closer “Blankets Of Sorrow” turns to nature to explore familial love and ends with Andrew sighing that tweaked album title over acoustic guitar.

“We decided pretty early that the title should be: So that you might hear me” he explains. “We changed the ‘will’ in the title for ‘might’ to acknowledge a sense of hope. The implication being that situations can change, particularly if you talk about them.”

So that you might hear me was demoed at Josiah Booth Studios and recorded at several studios in Seattle over the course of seven weeks with the producer Phil Ek (The Shins, Fleet Foxes, Father John Misty).

“Kev and I are both huge fans of The Shins – their early records helped teach us how to write songs,” says Andrew. “We’d never met Phil, but it was our dream to work with him so we sent him our demos and, luckily, he loved them. Working with him in Seattle was a deeply rewarding and massively educational experience.”

Bear’s Den’s four-man touring band also appear on the album, joining them in Seattle throughout the recording to beef up the songs with brass, drums, electric guitar and more electronics.

“The album has grown and evolved from all of the processes we went through. Every step of the way, it has been instinctive, collaborative and pushed us both lyrically and musically. From writing the songs to Kev and I working on the songs together in the church, working through them as a band together with Phil in Seattle and even ultimately mixing with Craig Silvey (Arcade Fire, The National) in London. Each separate process shaped and informed the album enormously.”

“The album started out as an attempt at trying to communicate with someone honestly. Our thoughts are not all rational, not all considered or tied up with ribbons and bows. This album is an attempt to reveal the honest and difficult challenge of communicating with anyone that you really care about.

“We’re immensely proud of it and hugely excited to share it with people.”

The duo met while pursuing music business degrees at Middle Tennessee State, a large public university just outside of Nashville. Prior to meeting up at a dorm party, the two were figuring out how to become their own local legends.

Huber was fronting a psychedelic folk-rock band, whereas Kelley was something of a mainstay in the Nashville hip-hop scene. Well, sort of. “I was making beats for this hip-hop duo and we got to open for GZA, but I didn’t know how to DJ my own stuff.” After meeting Huber, “I just asked ‘can you turn my beats into a live show?’” Soon thereafter, Kelley sent Huber his self-composed Man of the Hour EP and the two realized the potential in their partnership. Cherub began in earnest, with Huber’s live production embellishing Kelley’s clever songcraft.

Above all else, Cherub are men of the people, dudes of the dancefloor, aficionados of the after hours. From the countless house parties they’ve played in Tennessee to their Age of Reason tour with Gramatik to their prestigious Red Rocks Amphitheater gig with STS9, they’ve always made it a point to engage with their fans. “People always think it’s weird when we ask during the show if there’s an after party,” Kelley says with a laugh. Antipasto starts the party, what happens from there on out is anyone’s guess.

Apar is Delorean’s follow up to 2010’s Subiza which brought the band world-wide critical acclaim.  The New York Times said, “Delorean traffics in airy atmospherics and enveloping rhythm:  ideally, music for a dance floor in the hours preceding dawn” and Filter described the debut as “a compelling balance between Spanish discotheque, indie rock knowhow, and sparkling synth arrangements…eight tracks of blissful synth-pop about the emotional extremes of love.”

Delorean started the band as teenagers in the Basque Country town of Zarautz, informed by a love of hi-hat-frenzied dance music, then moved to Barcelona, where they fully embraced carefree Mediterranean club music on their celebrated 2010 LP, Subiza. After touring heavily in support of Subiza the band returned home and began work on Apar. Delorean strove to embrace a more sophisticated relationship to sound recording and songwriting in order to push the stories and dynamics of this album to a deeper more complex place.  Leaving behind the ornate and layered production of Subiza, the chopped up female vocal samples have been replaced by actual singers and the bare minimum of instrumentation is all that remains to support them.  Lead singer, lyricist and bassist Ekhi Lopetegi calls Apar simply their "big production album." But through his articulate lens, the record’s emotional undercurrent, and the band's mastery of luxurious, coast-of-Spain beats, Apar is something altogether more illuminating. 

The album’s poignant cover art unites the universal breakup story of Apar—the title, a Basque term referring to froth—and the album's refined analog production. Inspired by graveyard crosses built by the Basque artist Jorge Oteiza, it depicts two wooden crosses, connected together as if grasping arms in an unconditional embrace, that have been thrown into the sea of Cap the Creus, a Northern Spanish region known for its hard wind and dangerous crags. Yet the crosses—though their very form symbolizes death—hold on to each other.  “Death shall have no dominion,” as Lopetegi sings on "Dominion," quoting the poet Dylan Thomas. They're afloat for now, connected now, real, ever on the move. Amid turbulence that is reflected in the band's lyrics, ranging from heartbreak to Spain's ongoing financial crisis, Delorean has bonded tight too, and with Apar the band has made the most powerful, dynamic, and moving album of its career.

To give you an idea of Dinosaur Pile-Up’s definition of ‘hard and fast’ just glance at what they achieved on the live circuit last year alone. The States three times, Japan twice, Europe, India and their native UK. That’s a hell of an itinerary for a live show as notoriously savage as theirs.

And now it’s time to add the heavy. Wielding their third album, ELEVEN ELEVEN, Dinosaur Pile-Up are reborn – ravenous for bigger crowds, broader stages and the fresh blood of fans’ ears.

Sculpted by the expert hands of producer Tom Dalgety (Royal Blood) the crushing, jagged riffs of this third monster are the meat on the Dinosaur’s bones. If their career was a B-movie, then they just hit the scene where everyone starts running scared. Cities from here to the States are about to take a proper kicking.

Parking the monster metaphors for a moment, though – it’s striking that ELEVEN ELEVEN is the first album to be recorded by more members than just Matt. From day one the band has been Matt’s vision, leading him to fill the roles of songwriter, guitarist, singer, bassist and drummer singlehandedly. But now, in this new era of Dinosaur Pile-Up, he’s handed drum duty over to Mike (a member since 2010) and bass over to Jim (who joined in 2014), allowing Matt to focus on crafting bigger, more brutish hooks than their previous two outings.

In case you were sleeping, debut album Growing Pains (2010) rudely introduced a vivid and chaotic band, built on a turbo-charged bedrock of Foo Fighters, Weezer and Nirvana. Second outing Nature Nurture (2013) saw the band’s sound develop a near-split personality, with calmer surf-rock riffs lulling listeners into a safe place before revving their menacing motor back up and ramming audiences straight back into the pit.

Now though, with their third album heralding darker, more intense vibes – as well as invoking comparisons to Deftones, Smashing Pumpkins and Nirvana – there’ll be no more sleeping for you. That’s a threat and a promise. Dinosaur Pile-Up are a band – and they’re about to go harder, faster and terrifyingly heavier than ever before.

Today he shares a preview of this new sound on the track 'Fear Less', an electrifying mix of past and new influences.

Nick Murphy is set to perform a dynamic new show, pulling from his existing catalogue and showcasing new material at his forthcoming Pitchfork Festival Paris performance on 27th October and at his London Brixton Academy show on 9th November.

Murphy's achievements as Chet Faker are great and varied. His critically acclaimed debut album 'Built On Glass' was a commercial success upon its release in spring 2014, reaching platinum sales status. BBC Radio 1 have consistently supported both his solo releases and his recent collabs with Marcus Marr. He's a serious player internationally, selling out headline tours and playing major festivals throughout Europe, Asia and North America including main sets at Glastonbury, Primavera Sound, Coachella and more.

A duo that succeeds in taming the silence and dreaming dreams until everything turns out all right just once more. Rozanne Descheemaekers' voice guides you straight through the freezing tracks, but afterwards quietly snuggles up to the hoarse vocals of Ruben Lefever.

Float Fall's songs make you move into another world, one lacking any final description, but a good place to be nonetheless. A place where the dull rustle of the past gets its second chance. Right up to the moment that dream and reality collide.

— Disco Naïveté — The lovely Someday sees Rozanne and Ruben combine a subtle electronic production with guitar strips, whilst they sing back and forth about love in a The xx-like way.

— Indie Shuffle — As soon as you get about one minute into the song, the two vocalists key in layers of beats that play off of their whimsy, creating this outer layer of atmospherics that intertwine quite gorgeously into one another. It’s clear that Float Fall has a bright future ahead and I for one am excited to see what’s next from these two.

— The Line Of Best — Plinking piano notes, teasing electronic flourishes and gentle whispers introduce us to Float Falls world of secretive dream-pop. Minimalist clandestine duets have become synonymous with Romy and Oliver; though competition at the top just got that little bit healthier.

The band's debut album We Will Reign, produced by Brendan O'Brien, was released in 2014 on Epic Records. The band immediately hit the road and began building a steadily growing fanbase worldwide.

TLI has toured with acts such as Robert Plant, Neil Young, The Who, Kings of Leon, Slash, Scott Weiland, Weezer, OneRepublic, Tom Morello, Lenny Kravitz, Incubus, Royal Blood, and many more. They also played the festival circuits in Europe, North America, and South America as well as apparel on night shows like David Letterman.

In 2015, TLI released a live cover of Mahalia Jackson's "I'm Gonna Live the Life I Sing About in My Song" on Tom Morello's record label, Firebrand Records. The song immediately went to #1 on the iTunes blues charts in the UK.

The Last Internationale recently finished writing and recording their anticipated second album, titled “Soul on Fire”. On this record the band boldly embraces and evolves the musical style and rebellious poetry that has come to characterize and set them apart from contemporary rock bands. Although TLI has forged a sound that is their own and modern, their music and anti-establishment attitude are more in the tradition of Patti Smith and Gil Scott Heron than anything you hear on the radio today. The new album is scheduled for release in early 2018.

"The Last Internationale are one of my favorites in the next wave of rebel rockers. They're raw and real and mix East Village rock sensibilities with Battleship Potemkin firepower." - Tom Morello (Rage Against the Machine, Prophets of Rage)

The resulting record, Cruel Runnings, is something halfway between nostalgia and the ecstatic now, an album that yearns for the recent past while staring open-hearted at what the present dares to bring. Songs about swimming pools remembered on sticky summer nights, lovers meeting at discotheques, streets where you used to live. Let’s just try to be as much of us as possible, Brand decided during the recording process. In that, Miniature Tigers have written a record that’s eminently relatable, passionate but not without a healthy sense of perspective. Recorded in Jamaica with producer Chris Zane (The Walkmen, Passion Pit) the album sounds as freeing as the process felt. “There was just a different energy there, a different energy in such a relaxing environment,” he says. “Everything came very naturally.” That’s fitting of a record where Brand wanted to capture the way a relationship—and through that, life—really felt. “Not necessarily something that was good and got bad,” he says, “but the ups and downs of it.”

Morrissey grew up just off the Portobello Road in London, the second-oldest of nine children. If it was an unusual upbringing it was nonetheless one that has given her both the grounding and the confidence to plough her own particular furrow. It was Morrissey’s father who introduced her to artists such as Devendra Banhart and Antony and the Johnsons, and her older brother who led her to Jeff and Tim Buckley. “And I always knew Bob Dylan,” she says “When I was maybe eight years old I did a talent show and sang Maggie’s Farm, in a cowboy hat and cowboy boots.” What she admires most in music — and hopes might be found in her own songs, is for there to be “something childlike in the best way possible, something almost vulnerable about the music, for there not to be a barrier.”

At 14 Morrissey began learning guitar. She still remembers the thrill when, only a couple of weeks into lessons, she played a song for her best friend “making it up as I went along,” she smiles. “I got really excited by the idea — I remember going back home and recording it on garage band.”

Soon she was replacing the recordings on her MySpace — youthful renditions of Lord Bless You and Keep You and My Fair Lady covers with her first original song.

Morrissey left school at 17, abandoning A Levels in Music and French to pursue her songwriting career. “It was a big decision,” she admits. “But I’d always been set on not going to university because I knew that music was what I wanted to do. Her parents, she insists, were entirely supportive. “But because I’d been making music since I was 14 and putting it online, and the power of the internet had helped pave my way to meeting my manager and meeting my label, they supported the decision.”

When she was 15, Morrissey had written a song called Show Me — a stunning and arresting song that sounded world-worn and emboldened, showcasing the height and depth, the twist and turn of her exceptional voice. She began saving up for a Super 8 camera to make the song a video she would post to Vimeo.

In a roundabout way it was this video that brought Morrissey to the attention of Elliot Roberts, manager of Devendra Banhart and Neil Young, and then on to Daniel Glass of Glassnote Records (home to Phoenix, Mumford & Sons and Daughter, among many) a label she chose because “Nearly everything I do now has to be centred around a sense of family and community and being around nice people.”

It is Show Me that forms the cornerstone of her debut album, a collection of songs written over the past 5 years of her life.

Morrissey recorded the album with producer Noah Georgeson (Devendra Banhart, Joanna Newsom, Cate Le Bon), spending two and a half months in Los Angeles.

Having played only a handful of live shows – including much-lauded performances at Green Man and Wilderness, last autumn Morrissey suddenly found herself on stage at the Casino de Paris, playing two songs to 2000 people as a sort of amuse bouche before headliner Damon Albarn.

She remembers, she says, how warm the audience was, “And seeing a girl smiling in the crowd. And I was trying to smile and think that this is just a song, just go for it. Because sometimes you just have to laugh, don’t you, at the silliness of this whole thing?”

RAMS' started life as a drummer, in bands and orchestras before beginning to write his own music. With wide ranging and ever changing influences, from Radiohead, Beethoven, to brutalist architecture - It's pop, but deconstructed a little.

Hailed as grunge innovators, Soundgarden redefined rock music for a generation. In the 80s and 90s, the band’s mesmerising soundscapes and compelling lyrics seduced audiences hungry for originality. It was a sound rooted deeply within the wild landscape of the Pacific North West – an atmosphere which still resonates strongly for Cornell. “The band is dripping with it”, he says. “that indescribable longing. It’s not about the society, it’s not about the people, it’s not about the city. It’s some other thing.”

That elusive ‘other thing’ pervades Soundgarden’s new album ‘King Animal’, recorded close to their roots in Seattle and released November 13 2012. Over a year in the making, it promises to continue the musical evolution we anticipate from one of the world’s most groundbreaking bands. One song, the yearning ‘Taree’, is a hymn to the wilderness – “my love song to the natural side of the north west where I grew up,” as Cornell explains. “It was easy to feel like we were growing up in this strange, mystical place.” By contrast, riotous album opener ‘Been Away Too Long’ is a doubled-edged blast of homecoming celebration and urban angst.

Soundgarden had been away since 1997, when its four members amicably agreed to put the band to rest while they pursued other projects. But by 2009 they’d decided to work together again. Rehearsals for a world tour swiftly turned into songwriting sessions. "It isn’t really a matter of reinventing ourselves for a new chapter,” says Cornell. “There’s quite a bit of natural progression in just living life for 15 years....our lives progressed as they would have done if we’d still been together. We were just catching up.”

The band’s unique alchemy reasserted itself and ideas flowed freely, with some songs still under construction while others were already being mixed. “There’s a certain amount of trust...that things are going to work out, and that songs are going to appear out of nowhere. The first day we started, everybody just would play a part or an idea or a song arrangement that they had, and it started going from there,” recalls Cornell. “We had a studio engineer recording all our rehearsals and a few songs actually came out of that. The song ‘Rowing’ - Ben [Shepherd] played this incredible bass ad-lib part and because it was recorded, I went home and looped it and wrote a whole song to it. I’ve learned over the years that following Ben -- or Matt, or Kim – down these moments of creative brilliance is always a good idea.”

‘King Animal’ can be explosive, as in ‘Blood On The Valley Floor’ (“the quintessential, perfect, heavy Soundgarden song”), nightmarish (‘Worse Dreams’) or wistful (‘Halfway There’), leading us through changing sonic landscapes that can embrace both the jazz inflections of ‘Black Saturday’ and the driving simplicity of feral rocker ‘Attrition’. The subject matter is broad - Kim Thayil’s lyrics for ‘Non-State Actor’ are an incisive and cynical take on the powers behind political thrones, while Cornell’s bruised and introspective ‘Bones of Birds’ explores the terrors and vulnerabilities of parenthood. “Having children forces you to look past your own mortality,” says Cornell. “How loss is going to affect them, even long after I’m gone.”

Soundgarden remain a truly ‘alternative’ band in an age when the word has been devalued to just another genre label. Though firmly rooted in their shared sense of place, they continue to be instinctive pathfinders. “I don’t think we’ve ever had to find a compass and redirect ourselves to the north,” says Cornell. "That’s never happened to us, and it certainly didn’t happen to us this time.”

One look at his long, curly blond hair and thick-rimmed glasses brings home the first part of that equation—and perhaps leaves one unprepared for the raw, soulful power unleashed when Stone opens his mouth to sing.

Like many soul singers, Stone got his start in church. He was a preacher's kid, so whipping crowds into a call-and-response frenzy as he performs "Say So" is second nature. Steeped in gospel music and shielded from secular songs, Allen didn't discover soul music until he was a teenager and started collecting classic albums from the 60's and 70's.

"Soul music from that time wasn't just about bumpin' and grindin' at the club—it was a huge part of a cultural movement. That's where my inspiration comes from," says Stone, who was also schooled by folk records of the period.

On his new album, Stone shines a light into some of the darker corners of his own era. "Contact High" is a striking commentary on the toll technology has taken on relationships and the sensuous sounding "Unaware" is a sly examination of the current economic crisis. This is the kind of stuff that keeps Stone up at night and keeps him on the road, as he sings in the single "Sleep": "Spend my night shootin' at the stars/Trying to change the world with this guitar/I know it's a long shot/But it's working out so far"

While he is in awe of music's power to ignite change, Stone is equally enraptured by its ability to simply make people feel good—as evidenced by songs like "Celebrate Tonight" and "Say So" and the dance-offs that are de rigueur at his shows.

Stone has spent the past four years honing his unique style the old-fashioned way: crisscrossing the country in a van with his ace band and playing any small club that would have him. Since the digital release of his self-titled album via his own stickystones label in October 2011, Stone's shows have been selling out from coast to coast. The album jumped into the Top 10 of Billboard's Heatseekers chart and entered the Top 5 of iTunes' R&B/Soul charts. His first national television appearance—on "Conan"—came after the music booker saw a YouTube video of Allen performing "Unaware" in his mother's living room. Performances on "Jimmy Kimmel Live", "Last Call with Carson Daly" and "Live from Daryl's House" followed and Esquire, CNN and Billboard named Stone as an artist to watch—all before he had the support of a record label. Stone has since signed to ATO Records, which is bringing the album into wide release.

Having already been shortlisted for the Welsh Music Prize in 2011 for his third album ‘I’m A Dancer/Songs About Sleeping’, Black’s evolution as a songwriter and musician is still very much in motion with the new Album ‘Ships’, a concept album about the sea - and a marked step up from his earlier material that reveals his true talent is only beginning to be revealed.

Influenced by the likes of The Beach Boys, Daniel Johnston and Gorky’s Zygotic Mynci, Black indulges his love of brass heavy pop on ‘Ships’ which is released in April 2013 on Moshi Moshi Records.

Black's productivity is all the more remarkable given his extra-curricular activities which have seen him working with an ever-growing array of musicians including Cate Le Bon, Slow Club and H. Hawkline. He has also performed with and produced Euros Childs, The Pictish Trail, The Voluntary Butler Scheme and Islet and collaborated with Gruff Rhys.

New song Together finds Tourist at his most dance orientated, an approach he hinted at on his work earlier in the year. Opting to work with sampled vocals, the balance struck between the soulful vocal contributions of his collaborators exemplify his work as a forward thinking producer alongside many of his contemporaries.

‘Lay It On Me’ received its worldwide premiere this morning via triple j’s breakfast team, and is the first taste of new music from Vance Joy since 2014’s hugely successful, ARIA #1 debut album, Dream Your Life Away. The album is certified platinum in Australia with 115,000 sales and includes the singles ‘Riptide’ (8x platinum) ‘Fire and the Flood’ (3x platinum), Georgia (2x platinum) and Mess Is Mine (2x platinum).

I had this guitar riff I had been playing for ages but had never found a home for. When it was glued together with a lyric I had in my phone, "everything starts at your skin", the song started to make sense. – Vance Joy

The stunning, cinematic video, directed by acclaimed US director Mimi Cave, sees Vance Joy performing alongside US actress Angela Sarafyan of the HBO series ‘Westworld’.

The homecoming shows, presented by Frontier Touring, will take place at The Forum Theatre in Melbourne on November 22 and the Enmore Theatre in Sydney on November 23 and mark his first headline performances in Australia since last April’s sold-out ‘Fire and the Flood’ Tour. Joining Vance Joy will be Gretta Ray who burst onto the scene last year after winning triple j’s Unearthed High competition with her single ‘Drive’. She has followed up with the gorgeous track ‘Towers’.

In addition to the Melbourne and Sydney dates, Vance Joy is also set to perform at this year’s Splendour in the Grass Festival in Byron Bay and Spilt Milk in Canberra. Fans can expect to hear favourites from Dream Your Life Away, in addition to a handful of new songs.

In between the Australian touring, Vance Joy will resume his globe-trotting ways, with a bunch of major festival dates already confirmed for the US and Canada including New York City’s Panorama, Chicago’s Lollapalooza, San Francisco’s Outside Lands, Austin’s City Limits Music Festival and Montreal’s Osheaga Festival.

The success of Dream Your Life Away has been global. The album has now sold over 1.7 million copies worldwide including over a million in the US alone. In addition to its platinum status in Australia, the album is 4x platinum in Sweden, 3x platinum in Ireland, 2x in Colombia, Italy and the Netherlands and platinum in France, Norway and Switzerland. Single sales in the US now exceed 6 million, with global Spotify streams totalling more than a whopping, one billion. To add to 2013’s Hottest 100 crown, ‘Riptide’ was also awarded 2014’s APRA Song of the Year and this year’s Most Played Australian Work Overseas. Globally, Vance Joy was named the recipient of the International Songwriting Competition’s Grand Prize with perfect scores (2014) and ASCAP’s ‘Pop Work of the Year’ (2016) also for ‘Riptide’ and the #1 Most Played Artist at Alternative radio in the US for 2015 The very same year, he served as direct support on Taylor Swift’s ‘1989 World Tour’ and scooped an ARIA Award for Best Male Artist. His headline ‘Fire and the Flood’ tour saw him sell more than 170,000 tickets worldwide.

Singer Ty Taylor, guitarist Nalle Colt, bassist Rick Barrio Dill, and drummer Richard Danielson have successfully channeled the vitality of their live show into a fresh and urgent take on Primitive Soul, a groove-fueled sound that Yahoo! once painted as “James Brown singing lead for Led Zeppelin” and “blending blues, soul, and riff-heavy rock & roll with joyfully gritty abandon.”

Longtime devotees of incendiary artists like Ike & Tina Turner, Little Richard, and

Chuck Berry, Vintage Trouble possesses sharply honed instincts for rhythm and groove and unabashed showmanship. Now based in L.A.’s musically famed Laurel Canyon, the band first played together in 2010 and soon brought their high-energy brand of soul to weekly residencies at local venues like the Edison and Harvelle’s Blues Club. As they steadily amassed a following, Vintage Trouble eventually drew the attention of Doc McGhee (a legendary music manager best known for working with KISS, Bon Jovi, and Mötley Crüe). Once under McGhee’s wing, the band set their sights overseas and — by 2011 — had taken the stage at Britain’s influential TV show Later...with Jools Holland, delivering powerful performances of “Blues Hand Me Down” and “Nancy Lee” (a stirring serenade to Taylor’s mother, penned from his father’s perspective).

After joining Queen guitarist Brian May on tour in May 2011 and Bon Jovi on tour that June, Vintage Trouble put out their debut album The Bomb Shelter Sessions and quickly saw the album hit the UK Top 40. Also charting as the No. 1 R&B album and No. 2 rock album on Amazon UK, The Bomb Shelter Sessions had its U.S. release in April 2012 and fast earned acclaim from such outlets as NPR, The Wall Street Journal and Billboard. By the end of the year, in the pages of the New York Times, critic Val Haller had hailed Vintage Trouble as a modern-day answer to Otis Redding (“Like Otis Redding,” Haller remarked, “Vintage Trouble makes music that is a little bit of everything”).

Along with appearing on Late Show with David Letterman, The Tonight Show with Jay Leno (four times!), The View, Conan, and Jimmy Kimmel Live!, as well as at major festivals like Bonnaroo, Coachella, and Glastonbury, Vintage Trouble continued to keep up a grueling touring schedule in support of The Bomb Shelter Sessions. The band spent a large part of this time opening for such artists as The Who, The Rolling Stones, AC/DC, Lenny Kravitz, Paloma Faith, Joss Stone and Willie Nelson.

At a hometown gig at the El Rey Theatre in summer 2013, Don Was (a three-time Grammy Award-winner known for his work with the Rolling Stones, Bob Dylan, Al Green, and Iggy Pop) caught the band live for the first time and found him floored by their explosive performance. “Half of the songs were brand new and totally unfamiliar to the audience…yet the place was rocking from the first notes straight through to the final encore,” recalls Was. “Do you know how hard it is for a new band to pull that off? It requires tremendous charisma, thundering power, incredible grooves, and top-notch songwriting.”

In the spring of 2015, Vintage Trouble inked a deal with Blue Note Records, and set to work on their major label debut 1 Hopeful Rd. Recorded at L.A.’s East West Studios and mixed by Tom Elmhirst (Mark Ronson, U2, The Black Keys), 1 Hopeful Rd. borrows its title from the album’s opening number and lead single “Run Like the River.” With its foot-stomping rhythm and gospel harmonies, “Run Like the River” embodies the infectiously irrepressible mood that runs throughout 1 Hopeful Rd. and gives even the album’s most pained moments an electrifying edge. The follow-up to Vintage Trouble’s debut album The Bomb Shelter Sessions — a self-released effort praised by Paste magazine as “the stuff the best soul’n’roll is made of” — 1 Hopeful Rd. matches that emotional intensity with a raw yet sophisticated musicianship that’s prompted BBC Radio 6 to crown the band “the heirs of rhythm and blues.”

With Vintage Trouble fiercely dedicated to constantly playing and creating new music — including a 2014 fan-only EP called The Swing House Acoustic Sessions – music legends such Prince (who name-checked Vintage Trouble in an early-2014 interview with MOJO) and Lenny Kravitz (who noted that the Vintage Trouble live experience bears the same feeling as “being at the Monterey Pop Festival of 1967”) were struck by the band’s passion and musical prowess. When describing their own sound, Vintage Trouble use the term “formatted recklessness”: a fantastically paradoxical phrase that captures the spirit of a band whose music is wildly unhinged but rooted in real musicality, gut-punching but thought-provoking, steeped in the heritage of old-school soul but utterly and irresistibly timeless.

In January 2017, John Varvatos tapped the band to appear in his much-celebrated music campaign series, bringing their foot-stomping rhythm and irrepressible spirit to electrify his new Spring / Summer 2017 Campaign. Throughout 2017, Vintage Trouble will release a handful of new songs starting with the blistering new track “Knock Me Out,” released on February 15th.

Vintage Trouble shows no signs of slowing down. Stay tuned for a lot more exciting music.

It received The Line of Best Fits debut Album of the Yearr and Drowned in Sounds 'Neptune Album Prize 2014. The band are currently touring and writing their second album.

Kerrang (KKKK)

Wounds have delivered one of the most intense debut albums of the year. This sounds like your heart bursting.

Terrorizer (4/5)

This is the soundtrack to the most apocalyptic party known to man, played with the energy of the Stooges, the danger of the Murder Junkies and interlaced with the slick gothic swagger of the Sisters Of Mercy: Wounds are a real force to be reckoned with.

Big Cheese (4/5)

There is a grievous heart pumping adrenalin around the ten tracks here and ultimately aids Wounds to being so much more than just anger, it's channelled with a purpose and finesse that makes for captivating listening.

Hit The Floor (9/10)

It’s safe to say that Wounds are almost certainly better than your band, your friends band and the majority of the other bands that you will undoubtedly claim to be a fan of.

Ourzone Magazine (9/10)

Hooked even from the first song, Wounds have set the standards high with a belter of an album. Die Young is a fantastic debut full-length and it’ll be a crime if Wounds don’t get recognised for their incredibly admirable talents.

Punktastic (4/5)

Die Young’ has all the balls you’d ever want from a rising band, and everything here screams hunger and passion. Wounds have a bright future, and despite a few minor flaws, ‘Die Young’ sets them on a fine path.

State (4/5)

Wounds have finally arrived at their debut album and are raging. At what is unclear but you suspect it’s pretty much anything that we’ve got. Die Young is a record seething with anger and resentment and, if it’s not particularly original, is still an enthralling racket.

Powerplay Magazine (9/10)

An acute, diligent and earnest debut from a band that may be set to self-destruct, Wounds offer one of the most honest sounds running the hardcore circuit.

Planetmosh (9/10)

As with their explosive live shows, the resulting album is a testimony to a band hungry and determined to live life to the fullest, with an in-your-face punk’n’roll hardcore sound is honest and refreshing, and references everything from the classic garage sound of The Stooges through to the modern fuck-you attitude of the likes of Cancer Bats.