A box of Billy, a batch of Bruce, a collection of Courettes, a double dose of Dropkicks, a romp with Ron and more. These are your plays of the week:
The Buff Medways
A Box of Buffs
THE EDITED PRESS RELEASE: “Three brilliant albums by the Buff Medways, neatly contained in one box, complete with booklet! The albums are Steady The Buffs, 1914, and Medway Wheelers. Buffs leader Billy Childish kindly answered a few questions about the band:
The Buff Medways were formed quickly after Thee Headcoats split. What was it like working with a new rhythm section?
We were in the studio recording the last Headcoats pieces then swapped rhythm section halfway through and the Buffs recorded their first 45. So, a very quick change over, five minutes.
What bands were the biggest influence on the Buffs’ sound?
The rhythm section really, wolf and Johnny (Barker) liked The Who, so I tried to write to suit them. (They had played in The Daggermen, and I produced their first 45 along with Big Russ, so I’d been a fan of The Daggermen, who were fans of The Milkshakes. Johnny and Wolf are good few years younger than me.)
Were The Buff Medways the greatest group ever to be named after a breed of chicken?
According to all accounts indeed they were.”
Bruce Cockburn
O Sun O Moon
THE EDITED PRESS RELEASE: “Time takes its toll,” sings the 77-year-old Bruce Cockburn on the opening song, On A Roll, from his 35th album O Sun O Moon, out on May 12. “But in my soul / I’m on a roll.” O Sun O Moon is his first vocal album since 2017’s Bone On Bone. It’s also only the third album Cockburn has released since writing his memoirs (2013’s widely acclaimed Rumours Of Glory), after which he felt creatively spent. He doesn’t feel that way now. A lot has happened in the zeitgeist in the last six years, and the renowned singer-songwriter has plenty to talk about. While he addresses political calamity on Orders, and climate change on To Keep the World We Know (featuring popular Indigenous Canadian artist Susan Aglukark singing in Inuktitut), Cockburn largely focuses on spiritual connections, forgiveness, and love — in ways that perhaps only a performer of his experience can do. Except that Cockburn has always done that, from his 1970 debut onwards.”
The Courettes
Boom! Dynamite (An Introduction To The Fabulous Courettes)
THE EDITED PRESS RELEASE: “The Courettes (lead guitarist/singer Flavia Couri and drummer Martin Couri) are an explosive (husband and wife) rock duo from Denmark and Brazil who have been touring nonstop throughout Europe since 2015, bringing their perfect blend of garage-rock, ’60s girl groups, Phil Spector‘s Wall of Sound, surf music and doo-wop to the delight of any audience even remotely interested in rock ’n’ roll. To coincide with their first U.S. shows, and as an introduction to the band they are releasing the compilation Boom! Dynamite (An Introduction To The Fabulous Courettes), which guides you through their albums from the very beginning, from the early raw-power garage-rock onto their present sound, made using complex recording techniques at StarrSound Studios in Denmark with top producer Søren Christensen and mixing genius Seiki Sato from Japan.”
Dropkick Murphys
Okemah Rising
THE EDITED PRESS RELEASE: “Dropkick Murphys’ history with Woody Guthrie dates back decades, from covering Gonna Be A Blackout Tonight on their 2003 album Blackout, to using some of Guthrie’s writing about Boston in their immortal hit I’m Shipping Up To Boston. On their recent 2022 album, This Machine Still Kills Fascists, Dropkick Murphys crafted an entire record around the seminal American folk icon, bringing Guthrie’s perennial jabs at life-many of which are from the 1940s and ’50s-into the present, with the resulting music eerily relevant to today’s world. Okemah Rising is second and final installment of this collaboration, and the band bring it home with a bang. Whereas the goal of This Machine Still Kills Fascists was to raise consciousness, Okemah Rising intends to raise the roof. It may have one or two tender moments, but all in all it’s much more of a party.”
Ron Hawkins
Trash Talkin’ At The Speed Of Sound EP
THE EDITED PRESS RELEASE: “Long-revered as one of Canada’s great contemporary singer-songwriters, singer, songwriter and multi-instrumentalist Ron Hawkins is probably best known for his work as principal songwriter and lead vocalist for legendary Canadian band Lowest of the Low. His upcoming six-song solo EP showcases the widest sonic array of anything in the singer, multi-instrumentalist, and accomplished visual artist’s back catalogue, seamlessly incorporating electronic elements like vintage synths and drum machines with an ambitious production style. While it’s technically a solo release, the EP features “production” from the multi-talented Devon Lougheed (Skye Wallace, Hey Ocean!), the quotations owing to the blurred lines between creator and curator as they navigated through the record-making process.”
Moby
Resound NYC
THE EDITED PRESS RELEASE: “I gave myself the broad but specific criteria that the music had to have either been written or recorded in New York,” says the artist about his second dive into the orchestral world. By reimagining hits first heard between 1994 and 2010, he reflects not only an era in his life, but also his birthplace, one of the world’s most iconic cities. Each of the legendary tracks on the album — including In My Heart, South Side, Perfect Life, Slipping Away and When It’s Cold I’d Like to Die — has its own instrumental formation, with analogue synths and Mellotron used alongside more traditional strings and brass. Joining Moby on Resound NYC are a chamber ensemble and a line-up of guest artists as eclectic as it is stellar, including Nicole Scherzinger, Gregory Porter, Ricky Wilson, Margo Timmins and Amythyst Kiah.”
Sexmob
The Hard Way
THE EDITED PRESS RELEASE: “For over a quarter-century, the visionary quartet Sexmob have exploded all preconceived notions of what an instrumental jazz band canbe. In many cases — on the albums Dime Grind Palace, Din of Inequity, Solid Sender and Sex Mob Does Bond — they’ve done so with producer Scotty Hard at the board. On The Hard Way, Sexmob’s remarkable new recording for 2023, the music skews decisively electronic, as Hard’s beats and soundscapes provide slide trumpeter and founder Steven Bernstein, saxophonist Briggan Krauss, bassist Tony Scherr and acoustic/electric drummer Kenny Wollesen all the stimulus they need for further composition and fearless reinvention.”
