Holy crap, it’s June already? Man, this year is flying by. On the plus side, as we all know, June is full of good things — Pride Month, Fathers’ Day, Juneteenth, Flag Day, the summer solstice, Indigenous Peoples Day and more. This year, that list also includes new albums from Eels, Bonny Light Horseman, JD Pinkus, Atarashii Gakko! and plenty of others. Don’t let them fly by. Let’s get it started:
Atarashii Gakko!
AG! Calling
THE EDITED PRESS RELEASE: “AG! Calling is the group’s first full-length album in five years — since the release of Wakage Ga Itaru in 2019. AG! Calling will include Tokyo Calling, a song that wowed audiences at this year’s Coachella, as well as Fly High, the theme song for the upcoming Netflix film Hanma Baki VS Kengan Ashura. Whirlwind group Atarashii Gakko! represent a new generation of Japanese youth (seishun in their native language), one embracing personal expression and pushing against traditional boundaries a little at a time. The outlandish quartet — comprised of kawaii-but-fierce Mizyu, wildcard Suzuka, graceful Kanon and funky Rin — break genre walls to create music mixing elements of pop, jazz, hip-hop, rock, and more, delivered with punk energy and featuring frantic dance moves, choreographed by the four members themselves.”
Blair Gun
There Are No Rival Clones Here
THE EDITED PRESS RELEASE: “It’s a timeless slice of transgression, confession, self-reliance, and self-expression. It’s the perfect punk-power-pop-dance record to confront our peculiar moment. There Are No Rival Clones Here, the sophomore LP from San Diego’s Blair Gun, marks a multi-dimensional leap for the funny, focused, and fiercely intelligent group. There Are No Rival Clones Here packs enough hooks for a dozen typical punk albums, making it at times almost prog-adjacent. And yet, Blair Gun remain a punk band in some essential respects. Within a lean, mean running time, each song makes a distinct, unforgettable statement. You’ll hear strains of everything from The Germs and Minutemen to Richard Hell and Elvis Costello to Pixies and Pavement to hometown heroes Drive Like Jehu and Blink-182. They have influences, not idols. Rituals, not references. If nothing is new, Blair Gun prove that everything is therefore, in a sense, always new.”
Bonny Light Horseman
Keep Me On Your Mind / See You Free
THE EDITED PRESS RELEASE: “Bonny Light Horseman’s new album, Keep Me On Your Mind / See You Free, is an ode to the blessed mess of our humanity. Confident and generous, it is an unvarnished offering that puts every feeling and supposed flaw out in the open. The themes are stacked high and staked even higher: love and loss, hope and sorrow, community and family, change and time all permeate Bonny Light Horseman’s most vulnerable and bounteous offering to date. Yet for all of its humanistic touchpoints, Keep Me On Your Mind / See You Free was forged from a kind of unexplainable magic. Written over five months in 2023, this third album began when the band’s core trio — Anaïs Mitchell, Eric D. Johnson and Josh Kaufman — convened in an Irish pub alongside beloved collaborators JT Bates (drums), Cameron Ralston (bass), and recording engineer Bella Blasko. “There was this new level of letting it all hang out,” Mitchell said of the album’s making. In its evolution from recording to release, this meant compiling a double LP — 18 songs across two discs. It also meant two titles, if not precisely two distinct records. Keep Me On Your Mind / See You Free is sprawling and welcoming, and encompasses the group’s captivating artistic layers: its roots in the sounds and lyrical spirit of traditional folk music, its branches in a more experimental and emotionally raw version of the band.”
Toronzo Cannon
Shut Up And Play!
THE EDITED PRESS RELEASE: “I want my songs to be heard and experienced, not just listened to,” says cliché-defying, internationally beloved Chicago bluesman Toronzo Cannon. With his richly detailed, truth-telling original songs, blistering, inventive guitar work and impassioned vocals, Cannon is on the cutting edge of today’s contemporary blues scene and is known as one of the genre’s most creative artists. His sound is inspired by his heroes, including Hound Dog Taylor, Muddy Waters, Elmore James, Albert King, Son Seals and Jimi Hendrix. On his third Alligator Records album, Shut Up And Play!, Cannon blazes his own path with 11 emotionally-charged originals. From serious to humorous, his imaginative songs are fueled by his powerful, cathartic guitar solos and his soulfully authoritative voice. Shut Up And Play!, co-produced by Cannon and Alligator president Bruce Iglauer, finds Cannon, a former Chicago Transit Authority bus driver, delivering timeless stories of common experiences, often unfolding in uncommon ways. His passionate and focused guitar playing sets his lyrics ablaze. From the first radio single, the unassailable I Hate Love, to the gospel-inspired, autobiographical Had To Go Through It To Get To It, to the slow-burning, reflective Guilty, to the deeply personal Message To My Daughter, Shut Up And Play! tackles the gamut of human emotions. Song subjects range from the heartbreak of lost love, to the humor of daily life, to the pain of feeling invisible in today’s society, all as seen through Cannon’s wide-open eyes.”
Eels
Eels Time!
THE EDITED PRESS RELEASE: “I hope this past year hasn’t been too hard on you. It’s been a tough few years for so many people. I’ve learned a lot from people who have withstood great hardships and still managed to show me great compassion and kindness, and it’s these qualities that I’m always striving to show more of towards others. The past year hasn’t been all that tough for me compared to many people, but since you asked, it has not been uneventful. I had open heart surgery. They cut through my pecs, sawed through my breastbone and stopped my heart on the table. They put in a new aorta. Either I made it, or I really am in a parallel universe now. Either way, all good. I was in the hospital for a week with really wonderful people helping me through it all. And I’m fine now. So that was my year. Pretty good, I’d say. Oh and then there’s one other thing: there’s a new Eels album. That’s right. Now it’s Eels Time!”
Left Lane Cruiser
Bayport BBQ Blues
THE EDITED PRESS RELEASE: “Bayport BBQ Blues is the new studio album by Indiana’s favorite blues duo Left Lane Cruiser, featuring Freddy J IV on guitar and vocals, and Brenn “Sausage Paw” Beck on drums, washboard and trash kit. The album blends Freddy’s commanding, gritty vocal rasp and positively nasty hoodoo slide guitar work with Sausage Paw’s rhythmic stomp to make for a heady fire-starter for your next house party, backyard barbecue or juke joint get-down. Bayport BBQ Blues is dedicated to the memory of the late Chris Johnson, creator of the Deep Blues Festival.”
Man Man
Carrot On Strings
THE EDITED PRESS RELEASE: “When Man Man released its last album, frontman Honus Honus (né Ryan Kattner) was in a state of unrest, oscillating between hope and cynicism. Perhaps fittingly, the album ended up dropping during the pandemic. (We could all relate.) But much like that bizarre turn of global events, the ennui seems so distant now to Man Man’s creative force, whose revived sense of purpose washes through Carrot On Strings, his latest release, which radiates a mix of calm and confidence. Kattner always embodied a wild-man pied-piper vibe: his melodic, art-rock output just unhinged enough that it was at once intriguing and angsty. He was so alluringly creative that you went along with it, even if you were never sure where Man Man would take you. Carrot On Strings is no less inventive, but its ethos is radical in context of the band’s two-decade, idiosyncratic career.”
The Mendozaz
Loafers
THE EDITED PRESS RELEASE: “The Mendozaz have been described as the sound of a Fat Wreck comp smashing violently into a copy of Big Shiny Tunes. Armed with equal parts high-octane fury and more-addictive-than-crack sing-along choruses, they’ve been setting stages ablaze across Ontario and Quebec with festival appearances and shows sharing the stage with Dayglo Abortions, The Anti-Queens and many more. For fans of Green Day, The Offpsring, Descendents and Motörhead.”
JD Pinkus Blunderbuss
Grow A Pear
THE EDITED PRESS RELEASE: “It’s a Pear of albums on one vinyl LP: A combo of heavy psychedelia, drum and bass grooves, bouncy boogie, catchy tunes and sprinkles of tastee horns, keys and strings thrown in… kinda like a thumb over the genre-hose nozzle, something for everyone and nothing for someone… guaranteed! “Grow A Pear has been in the works for five years,” JD Pinkus says. “What started as my contributions for the ‘new’ Butthole Surfers’ album that was not to be… turned into a solo album I recorded with contributions from some of my favorite flavor players to create an album that most represents where I came from and bridges to where I’m at right now. My wishes for the future, is that everyone in the world will finally Grow A Pear.” The album features a veritable cornucopia of American Indie music radicals: Åsa Söderqvist and Lina Ericcson of Shitkid, Paul Leary of Butthole Surfers, Sam Coomes of Quasi and Jon Spencer’s Hit Makers, Mike Savino of Tall Tall Trees, Walter Daniels of Bigfoot Chester, Mike Alfred of Shed Alford, Jed Willis of Khandroma, Michael Brueggen of Honky and Syrup, Billy Sheeran and others. The album was written, recorded, and mixed by Pinkus himself at Plastic Cannon Studio in Asheville and was mastered by Kramer.”
Psychic Graveyard
Wilting
THE EDITED PRESS RELEASE: “Simply checking the pedigrees (ex-Arab On Radar, Chinese Stars, Some Girls, Doomsday Student and Hot Nerdz) will only get you so far with Psychic Graveyard. With a manic output of four albums — Loud As Laughter, A Bluebird Vacation, Veins Feel Strange and now the brilliant Wilting — in nearly as many years, Psychic Graveyard make consistently thrilling and unsettled sonic artifacts for a world emptied out and flattened by a joyless and sociopathic mediascape. But some things do stay consistent across their ruptured anti-aesthetic: Charles Ovett’s relentless workflow on the drums; the burbling sawtooth substructures, grimy lead synths, and deconstructed guitars supplied by Nathan Joyner and Paul Vieira; and, of course, vocalist Eric Paul’s many narrators and personas, who find form as ghosts howling from within the machine or as agitated surrealists living lives huddled in the grimmest of redoubts. On Wilting, once again a product of geographic dispersion (Providence and San Diego), the band invites the listener to peel back the pedigrees and fall headlong into their twitchy waking dream.”
Seasick Steve
A Trip A Stumble A Fall Down On Your Knees
THE EDITED PRESS RELEASE: “It’s been almost 20 years since Seasick Steve’s celebrated appearance on Jools Holland’s Hootenanny launched the unknown American singer-songwriter to worldwide fame, and his beat-up three-string Japanese guitar and old wooden stompbox made musical history. The overwhelming response surprised nobody more than Steve himself, and was like a lightning strike; the impact of which is still being felt close to two decades later, as he has gone onto play almost every major festival in the world, rack up over 2 million album sales, and release three UK Top 10 albums. His new record A Trip A Stumble A Fall Down On Your Knees is his favourite to date. Steve says: “This album was made by mistake, as the title suggests we just tripped and stumbled into it, and it became my favourite album ever and the piece of work I’m most proud of to date. There’s not a week goes by that I don’t thank my lucky stars for that night on the Hootenanny which has brought us here to this record.”
Swim Deep
There’s A Big Star Outside…
THE EDITED PRESS RELEASE: “If one thing is clear from the offset of revelatory fourth album There’s A Big Star Outside…, it’s that Swim Deep is no longer the same band you’ve always known. In some ways, Swim Deep’s fourth album — full of acoustic guitars and floral notes courtesy of a Mellotron keyboard (one of the finest musical exports from their native Birmingham) — has no business being as luscious and evolved as it is. But There’s A Big Star Outside… could only have surfaced as a result of such testing years. It takes the youthful dreaming of their debut, and the excitable experimentalism of its follow-ups, and leads it to a more assured space, aided hugely by the input of producer Bill Ryder-Jones, who became a mentor throughout the journey. “A lot of the album, Bill’s drawn out of me,” Austin Williams nods. “That sense of boldness and not hiding behind the music that he’s instilled in me has really made the album flourish, and be what I want it to be. It’s a cliché to say, but I feel I’ve been writing towards this record my whole life.”
Alfie Templeman
Radiosoul
THE EDITED PRESS RELEASE: “Radiosoul, Alfie Templeman’s second studio album, is an ambitious suite of tracks that showcase a bold new acid-pop direction for the Bedfordshire-born polymath. The record features production from Templeman as well as Nile Rodgers, Dan Carey, Karma Kid, Oscar Scheller, Will Bloomfield, Justin Young, Josh Scarbrow and Charlie J Perry. It is an album of self-discovery, one that zips between genres at whim and showcases a newfound incisiveness and acerbic humour to Templeman’s lyricism, whilst retaining the sense of joy that defined his previous releases. It is the work of a prodigiously talented songwriter truly coming into his own.”
