Frankie & The Witch Fingers

30 04 2022

Frankie & The Witch Fingers

(Los Angeles, USA /// Greenway Records)

Frankie and the Witch Fingers, have been mutating and perfecting their high-powered rock n’ roll sound. After savagely touring the USA and Europe, this four-headed beast has shown no signs of relenting—appearing like summoned daemons and dosing crowds with cerebral party fuel.

The main attraction of Frankie and the Witch Fingers is their explosive performance. With their rowdy and visceral approach to live shows, each member brings their own devilry to induce an experience of bacchanal proportions.
Using absurd lyrical imagery—soaked in hallucination, paranoia, and lust—the band’s M.O. strikes into dark yet playful territory. This sense of radical duality is astir at every turn, in every time signature change. Airy vocal harmonies over heavily serrated riffs. Low-key shamanic roots under vivid high-strangeness. Rambling stretches and punctuated licks. Cutting heads and kissing lips. All this revealing a stereophonic schizophrenia that has flowed throughout their body of work: an ebb & flow of flowery-poppy horror.

The band’s latest incarnation is primed to break new sonic ground, edging into the funky and preternatural. Just when you think the trip couldn’t get any weirder, Frankie and the Witch Fingers cranks up the dial, shatters the mundane, and summons new visions.

They have announced their last album, ZAM, out on March 2019 via New York City’s Greenway Records, they’ve also shared a new single, “Realization.”

“Realization” hardly even scratches the surface of what ZAM has to offer. The album leans on everything from krautrock, funk and psych to prog and garage rock, ensuring an adrenaline-pumping trip no matter what. According to a press release, “its 11 tracks unleash a versatile and tenacious weight, slithering between the sexy, the aggressive, the vivacious and the disorienting—until the living invasion is felt.”

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Silver Synthetic

17 03 2022

Silver Synthetic

(New Orleans, USA // Third Man Records)

In the midst of the thick New Orleans summer of 2017, Chris Lyons of garage punks Bottomfeeders found himself sitting on a small batch of songs that didn’t quite fit the fuzzed-out pileups of that band. The new songs were more chiming, driving but relaxed, full of little corners begging to be filled with classic pop harmonies and wayward country licks. He called in his trusted confidants: Bottomfeeders drummer and longtime musical partner Lucas Bogner—the two started playing music together at the tender age of 15—plus bassist Pete Campanelli, and Kunal Prakash (Jeff the Brotherhood) dug the songs and signed on, and the quartet started playing in earnest, hunkering down in the practice space.

By the time the band played its first gig in late 2018 at the opening of Nola’s ManRay Records, the songs had multiplied and the members of the newly christened Silver Synthetic had become genuine rock & roll craftsmen. In a world that doesn’t seem capable of swaying, Silver Synthetic’s self-titled debut shakes and boogies.

It makes sense that the band’s first gig was in a record shop ‘cause folks, this is record nerd-core in a major way, evocative of the LP’s first golden era, as the late sixties oozed into the strange 1970s, with the requisite T-Rex stomps, Britfolk twists and turns, and dueling Verlaine/Lloyd guitars. It’s about warmth, and you can practically smell the gently glowing amp tubes on “In the Beginning,” which wafts along on a gust borrowed from Lou Reed’s beatific Coney Island Baby breeziness. With “Chasm Killer,” the boys lean into jammy heartland rock, almost approaching Silver Bullet Band territory at one point! Even when the band kicks into charging lean rock-n-roller, like on the Kinksy “Around the Bend,” there’s a laid-backness that allows more room for the spirit. You could call Silver Synthetic rock & roll formalists, but the truth is they’re more like minimalists, stripping away tired clutter and unnecessary bloat and just zooming in on the essential.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aTAo2JZ0DCA&ab_channel=OfficialTMROfficialTMR

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King Khan & BBQ Show

29 01 2022

King Khan & BBQ Show

(Berlin / Montreal, DE / CAN // In The Red Recordings)

A Canadian garage rock duo tangentially based out of Montreal, Quebec, the King Khan & BBQ Show mix doo wop, punk, soul, and who knows what else into a loose, wild sound that is drenched in pure raw energy. The duo at the heart of things is Mark Sultan (BBQ) and Blacksnake (King Khan), both former bandmates in fellow Montreal band Spaceshits, which disbanded in 1999. Sultan started a new band (Les Sexareenos) before going solo in 2002, playing gigs as a one-man band under the name BBQ.

Blacksnake, meanwhile, had formed King Khan & His Shrines, and the two former bandmates met up and began writing songs together at Blacksnake’s home in Germany, venturing out to play the occasional show in Germany and Spain, with Blacksnake now billed as King Khan. A debut album by the duo, The King Khan & BBQ Show, was released in the United States on Goner Records and in Europe by Hazelwood Records in 2004. An international tour followed, with a second album, What’s for Dinner?, appearing on In the Red Records in 2006. A third album, Invisible Girl, emerged three years later in 2009, also on In the Red. In 2010 the band was selected by Laurie Anderson and Lou Reed to play as part of their curated festival Vivid Live, taking place at the Sydney Opera House in Australia. Following the show, the band announced a break-up, but were working on music together again by 2011. A few scant releases and semi-regular touring made up the majority of the band’s activity until the release of their fourth album, Bad News Boys, in early 2015.

We had to wait until 2022 to discover brand new single « Going Down » out via In The Red Recordings, just before touring in 2023.

Chocolat Billy

16 09 2021

Chocolat Billy

(Bordeaux, FR // Les Potagers Natures)

Chocolat Billy played their first show opening for Eugene Chadbourne in 2002. After touring in multiple formations, the band took its final shape as a 4 piece; Ian Saboya and Mehdi Beneitez, Armelle Marcadé and Jonathan Burgun. The band sound is always exploring new boundaries; all instruments are shared, mistreated with howling distortion and caressed like a soft round bass. The result is the band’s very personal approach at the crossroads of many genres: rock, noise, experimental, pop, world music. Chocolat Billy’s songs are collectively written and leave open spaces for improvisation and elasticity, utterly present in their live shows (over 300 played so far). Their songs have been archived on three albums on their very own label Les Potagers Natures: « Mon père est ma mère » (2005), «Attraper N’anoun» (2007), «Jacques et ses diverses compagnes» (2012) and a live recording, «C’est quoi la première note ?» (2006). « Délicat Déni » is their fourth album and the first co-released with Kythibong Records.

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Reigning Sound

28 06 2021

Reigning Sound

(Memphis, USA // Merge Records)

The band’s principal songwriter/member is Greg Cartwright, who’s been leading the shifting cast of characters since 2001. You may be familiar with some of the band’s work, as this album is preceded by five studio efforts as well as numerous EPs and live records.

Or perhaps some of Greg’s other projects have been on your musical radar: The Oblivians, Parting Gifts, Compulsive Gamblers, 68 Comeback, Deadly Snakes, Detroit Cobras.

Regardless, as far as Reigning Sound is concerned, this is as good a place to start as any because through many line-up changes and mood swings, the central, constant feature is the way Greg writes songs.

This particular embodiment of the band includes longtime keyboardist Dave Amels, who joined the band twelve years ago when Reigning Sound recorded an album, consisting mostly of Cartwright’s songs, with former Shangri-Las lead singer Mary Weiss.

Dave proved to be key in putting together the current line-up as well. About three years ago, Greg was asked to make a promotional EP for Scion. Recordings were set to take place in Nashville where he had lined up two local friends to round out the band, but as fate would have it, both had to bow out at the last minute. Luckily, Mike Catanese, Benny Trokan, and Mikey Post—Dave Amels’ bandmates in Brooklyn soul group The Jay Vons—were up for the task. The four flew to Nashville, learned the songs, and recorded them with Greg in a couple of days. Thus was born the group that you hear on “Shattered.” They’ve been touring and playing together ever since, and Shattered proves that the musical union is both exciting and consistent for fans of Cartwright’s songwriting.

The album was recorded at Daptone’s Brooklyn studio (where drummer Mikey works in the office) and masterfully engineered by Wayne Gordon. The recordings are warm and punchy, a mixed bag of rockers, ballads, and something in between. There are only 11 songs on the album, but the band reckons it’s just right.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A9EMKjZ5h1Y&ab_channel=MergeRecordsonYoutube

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