Some artists enjoy incredible lives. Others suffer unforgettable deaths. A few like Gram Parsons — who gave up the ghost 50 years ago today, on Sept. 19, 1973 — manage to tick both boxes in truly grand rock ’n’ roll style.
During his 26 brief years on the planet, the singer-songwriter turned The Byrds and The Rolling Stones on to country-rock, formed and fronted The Flying Burrito Brothers, kickstarted Emmylou Harris’s career, and left behind a slew of immortal songs. But after he died from a lethal combination of morphine ad booze in a Joshua Tree hotel room, well, that’s when things got really weird: Supposedly in accordance with Parsons’ wishes, his road manager Phil Kaufman and a friend stole the musicians’ body from LAX in a borrowed hearse, drove it back out to the desert, doused it in gasoline and tried to cremate it. Needless to say, the master criminals were caught and fined $750 — for stealing the coffin (apparently there was no law at the time against making off with and/or torching a corpse). If there’s a better rock ’n’ roll tale than that, I have yet to hear it. What does it have to do with the best new singles and videos of the day collected below? Well, a good story always bears repeating — as do these hot numbers. Light ’em up:
Talk Show | Closer
THE EDITED PRESS RELEASE: “London foursome Talk Show shared Closer, the first taste from their debut album due in 2024. Produced by Gorillaz’ Remi Kabaka Jr., the pulsing track envelopes the listener like a cocoon of vibrant energy, and provides an exhilarating showcase of the band’s evolution. Drawing on everything from The Chemical Brothers and The Prodigy to Nine Inch Nails and The KLF, the band lean into the raw, primal sound at the intersection of techno, electronic, industrial, and rock music that informed their 2022 EP Touch The Ground. Closer, which arrives with a video directed by Ashley Rommelrath, grew from visual cues of a club/warehouse space influenced by the intro to the movie Blade. “There’s so much tension and anticipation and intimidation in that scene,” says frontman Harrison Swann. “We wanted to create the kind of music we’d play if we were performing in that club, to put ourselves into that scene and see how far we could push it.”
Bar Italia | My Little Tony
THE EDITED PRESS RELEASE: “Bar Italia are the London trio of Nina Cristante, Jezmi Tarik Fehmi and Sam Fenton. They will release their second album of 2023, The Twits, on Nov. 3, less than six months after their acclaimed debut Tracey Denim. My Little Tony kicks off the album with swagger and wit, propelled by dueling vocals and angular guitars. The Twits was recorded by the trio over eight weeks from February in a makeshift home studio in Mallorca, and finds Bar Italia’s economical yet evocative songcraft taking raucous, mystic, unkempt, occasionally sinister, and wholly committed turns.”
Glen Hansard | There’s No Mountain
THE EDITED PRESS RELEASE: “Irish musician Glen Hansard is sharing the new song There’s No Mountain. The song points forward, to the virtue of simply pressing on, despite cataclysms global and personal that might challenge any stable orbit. It also calls to mind Bob Dylan’s Forever Young with the insightful line “when you go without, then you’ll go within,” and the power of positivity with the inspirational sentiment “there’s no mountain great or small that you can’t climb.” A song that will resonate with fans of Hansard’s earlier solo work, There’s No Mountain is featured on his new album All That Was East Is West of Me Now, coming out Oct. 20. Equal parts noisy and meditative as well as sprawling and hypnotic, the album was produced by longtime Hansard / Frames co-conspirator David Odlum at his home studio on the outskirts of Dublin.”
Komplizen Der Spielregeln | Ein Klassiker
THE EDITED PRESS RELEASE: “Ein Klassiker is the first advance single from Workout, the fifth album by Cologne indie / postpunk / avant-garde trio Komplizen Der Spielregeln. It celebrates the band’s musical roots: Brutal guitars and hypnotic UHHs / AAHs shimmer through the sound, carried by rolling drums that transport us straight to the dance floor. The song’s first lines hark back to the wish machine of rock ’n’ roll: “When I grow up, I’d like to be like you.” The wish is a dream, and all dreams must be lived.”
Soft Loft | Rose Coloured
THE EDITED PRESS RELEASE: “What if there was a place where all worries and heaviness vanished into thin air? Just like that. A place that makes you dance and you don’t even notice it at first. What if this place was a pink house? With Rose Colored, the first single from their upcoming debut album The Party And The Mess, Soft Loft deliver a tingling rendition of joyful carefree-ness. The song is a hooky, feather-light upbeat tune — a portal to a feel-good place. “I was on my way home from holiday with a group of friends and we stopped off in Lyon for the night,” says Jorina Stamm. “I don’t know what it was, but when we arrived in Lyon, everything suddenly felt wrong. We spent hours looking for a parking space, the traffic and people in cars were stressed, there was swearing and they honked at us and each other. In keeping with the scenario, it was raining non-stop. A friend from our group also fell ill and everyone was tired and down. But instead of sinking into that state, we started doing lots of little things that put you in a good mood. It was as if we saw everything through rose-coloured glasses. In the song I describe that feeling as a pink house.”
Lydia Loveless | Poor Boy
THE EDITED PRESS RELEASE: “Nothing’s Gonna Stand in My Way Again continues the evolution of Lyia Loveless. The artist who once sang that she would rather stay home and drink gallons of wine is now on the other end of the bottle, where a bit of resignation resides. Though a melancholic weight rests on the record — as it was written after a breakup with her longtime boyfriend and following a period of isolation and depression during the pandemic — it also feels like a triumphant moment from an artist continuing her stride. Loveless has always been a brutally honest songwriter, one whose articulation of love, heartbreak and bad habits is wrapped not only in catchy melodies but also her finesse with words. Poor Boy recalls the excitement, energy and rebellion of bands like The Replacements, but Loveless makes the mood her own with a subtle twang and a lot of vulnerability: “I need to clean up my mess and leave the poor boy alone.”
Scream | DC Special Sha La La
THE EDITED PRESS RELEASE: “Scream invited their extensive music community to help create a unique project that weaves the history of music in D.C. into the story of the band. Recorded by Don Zientara just weeks before his studio was evicted from its longtime location, the record is rich with both the sounds of Inner Ear and those of friends and musicians who influenced Scream and shaped D.C. music over six decades. DC Special embodies the same sense of community and politics that inspired Scream from the start and is a truly special collection of new music that speaks to the present and also tells the story of D.C. music, Scream, and the influences that shaped them.”
Michele Stodart | Push & Pull
THE EDITED PRESS RELEASE: “Michele Stodart is an award-winning solo artist, singer-songwriter, and multi-instrumentalist in London. Born in Trinidad, she spent her early years surrounded by Caribbean music and culture, until she and her family moved to New York, where she spent a large part of her childhood. Michele is best known as bassist, vocalist and co-songwriter of Mercury-nominated, platinum-selling band The Magic Numbers, who have released five critically acclaimed studio albums with Top 10 singles. Her third solo studio album Invitation is out now. Push & Pull is a play on words — there is always a rhythmical push (ahead of the beat) and pull (slightly behind), when playing music. On an emotional level (inside of one’s body) the push and pull is a feeling of being torn, pulled in many different directions. This part of the album touches on motherhood, the responsibilities and sometimes guilt that comes with and around being a single mum.”
Ritual / Habit / Ceremony | Ruth’s Mouth (ft. Albert Wolski)
THE EDITED PRESS RELEASE: “John Dwyer (synths), Tom Dolas (synths), Kyp Malone (synths), Heather Lockie (strings), Brad Caulins (sax), Ciriza (vocals and lyrics), Andres Renteria (hand drums) and Archis Carey (bassoon) have banded together to form a brand new powergroup, with their debut LP out Oct. 13. Today they return with the second single Ruth’s Mouth, which features EXEK’s Albert Wolski. Dwyer wrote the following synopsis:
“An experiment in symphonic improvisation paired with synthesizer-scapes. Strings, reeds, synths & hand percussion all blend sweetly into an odd landscape indeed. The final touch was to bring aboard some singers I have loved over the years. I’m so pleased they were all willing to participate and I’m very tickled by the plane we navigate.”
The Blips | She Still Shouts
THE EDITED PRESS RELEASE: “Back in 2019, Taylor Hollingsworth, Wes McDonald, Will Stewart, Eric Wallace and Chris McCauley collided in Birmingham’s Ol’ Elegante recording studio and wrote an album in three sessions. Their self-titled debut struck lightning. And here we are with The Blips’ Again. Back with more boogie, beast and beauty. This band swaggers like The Rolling Stones, haggards like Merle, and snots like Mike Ness. Again carries you on a not-too-long trip through a varied landscape of far-out, well-made and dusty rock songs that stick to your black boots and go with you when you go. While there are four different lead singers and writers throughout this album, it is apparent Again is executed by a band, rather than disparate musicians playing along on a track in a cold studio. A band that sweats.”
