alice does computer music - Sandy Bailey - Grandaddy - Royal Castles - Denise La Grassa
alice does computer music - Coiled.
This week alice does computer music shared her new single "Coiled." The song is the second single from the cellist, songwriter, and producer's upcoming debut album, Shoegaze 5G, due out August 4th, 2023, via Jolt Music. The record was mixed by Mari Maurice (More Eaze) and mastered by Andrew Weathers.
In “Coiled,” alice does computer music entwines the fragments of her musical influences and memories in beautifully unmoored ways. Acoustic cello riffs are juxtaposed with bit-crushed drums that swirl into distorted, cavernous sound collage.
About the single, Gerlach says: "I keep accidentally pocket-dialing the SOS button on my iPhone’s lock screen. the pattern feels significant, like my subconscious is alerting me to an internal emergency. There’s a theory that there is no such thing as memory, only experience and its decay. With each occurrence I remember and forget the previous instances, lost in the uneasy stillness of being unmoored in time. coiled is a summoning of ghosts, a moment of panic as experience fragments into unawareness."
alice does computer music is an electronic project by cellist, songwriter, and producer Alice Gerlach. Conjuring a hazy space between pop and experimentalism, Gerlach’s work takes inspiration from an eclectic range of music such as ambient, avant-garde pop, breakcore, and noise. Her debut full-length, Shoegaze 5G, collects and exhibits the fragments of her wide-ranging influences, resulting in vivid, poetic electronic music.
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Today Massachusetts-based artist Sandy Bailey releases the gorgeous title track to her scorcher of an album, Daughter Of Abraham (out on August 18th via Red Parlor Records).
The house Sandy lives in in Massachusetts was built in 1765 and she was told the house was a sheltering stop on the Underground Railroad. Inspired, Sandy wanted to connect with and honor her ancestors, and imagined a story where they may have traveled that route to freedom, and sought refuge in her house. She imagined her ancestors seeing their descendants living in the house that once hid them. It's a tribute to the resilience of the human spirit, that it can prevail under the cruelest, most impossible conditions. Wrap your ears around it here:
The haunting track tells the story of Abraham, who set off on foot in 1859 from "Carolina to Massachusetts" with holes in his shoes and hunger in his belly, to find his way to freedom. "I am a daughter of Abraham...whenever I'm lost / Don't know where I'm goin' / I walk and I start singin'...Light of the day, my inner flame / I am weary, guide my way," she sings.
Sandy is a biracial single mom who left her Pentecostal upbringing to play rock n' roll. With elements of soul, blues, gospel, and classic Americana, Daughter Of Abraham tells Sandy's story - one of a working-class American woman, and explores themes of loneliness, survival, getting lost, and finding your way again.
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Modesto, CA’s influential indie-rock group Grandaddy have announced a special digital release of the Sumday: Excess Baggage, a thirteen-track collection of rarities and b-sides from the Sumday-era that unfolds like a lost Grandaddy album and is set for release on August 25 on Dangerbird Records. The band has also unveiled lead single “The Town where I’m Livin Now” alongside an official video, a spacy, wistful ode to the dissonant American landscape of California’s hardscrabble Central Valley.
Grandaddy leader Jason Lytle said, “I like making songs like this. Lots of bleak but sweet visuals. Everyday stuff available for everyone to see...but some of us just end up with the twisted work of documenting it.”
In May, Grandaddy announced Sumday Twunny, a limited edition 4-LP boxed set to be released on September 1 via Dangerbird Records. The collection includes the remastered original album as well as a complete 4-track demo version titled Sumday: The Cassette Demos, and Sumday: Excess Baggage. “After many years of hammering away at writing and recording as Grandaddy, Sumday seems to be the center of it and where it all peaked. To the journalists we were, ‘On the verge of greatness, underrated, overlooked, unsung.’ It was a tumultuous and exciting time for us for sure. Also very exhausting,” Lytle said.
“Revisiting this material and reflecting on those times has been a double edged sword. Bittersweet is an apt word, I suppose. Twenty years after the fact, I'm just grateful to be alive and kicking… celebrating that moment in time by re-releasing the original album, B sides and extras of that era, and even some raw cassette demos of the album itself a sort of sketchbook/rough draft of the LP in cassette form. So be it then. ‘On the verge of greatness, underrated, overlooked, unsung.’ This is what all of that sounds like. I'll take it.”
Grandaddy formed in 1992 and have released five official LPs, most recently 2017’s Last Place. Grandaddy members include Jason Lytle, Aaron Burtch, Jim Fairchild, Tim Dryden, and the late Kevin Garcia, who passed away in 2017.
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Royal Castles describe themselves as a contemporary garage-rock band from Guelph, Ontario. Going by "Bad Business Barbie" they are all of that and pack some style and attitude for good measure on this highly addictive track.
The band tell us "As a band, we've really hit our stride (we've got three albums now!) which is why we wanted to mix it up and keep things fresh. In a first for Royal Castles, our drummer Katrin Sawatzky took the lead on the songwriting direction and vocals.
"Bad Business Barbie" is a bold love letter to the women who are tamed by patriarchy – a rally cry, a confession about vulnerability, power, freedom and the secrets we keep. We celebrate women everyday in our lives, and this is one of the ways we want to show it."
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Chicago-based singer-songwriter Denise La Grassa continues her inspiring musical journey with the impending release of The Flame. This powerful collection of 10 songs is a testament to the strength and resilience of the human spirit - attributes that also embody her own 'North of 40' journey, itself ignited by the closing of Lincoln College in Central Illinois. “I was heading into my sixth year of transforming the former jazz studies program into one with more practical music production and business degrees," La Grassa says. "The closing was a shock to everyone as the college had been around for 157 years. It was then I decided to follow my own dream by focusing full-time on songwriting and performance.”
The Flame blends raw roots-rock and soulful blues with Americana as the musical bedrock for two profound ideas: the significance of inclusivity in a united nation and the transformative power of immigration, inspired by La Grassa's own family history.
The album encapsulates La Grassa’s advocacy for social change. The album's title pays homage to the inherent strength that lies within a nation when it looks out for all people, particularly those who have been marginalized. La Grassa's poignant lyrics and soulful melodies serve as a rallying cry for compassion, urging listeners to embrace unity and stand up against injustice. “I feel compelled to write music that reminds us as human beings why we’re here," La Grassa explains. "Jesus really had a simple message: ‘love one another and uplift the poor and marginalized.'"
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