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Drive-By Truckers announce 2nd Album of 2020, ‘The New OK’

September 30, 2020 – 2:52 pm

Drive-By Truckers have announced The New OK, their second full-length album of 2020. They kicked off the year with The Unraveling – not quite realizing just how prescient the title would be – and things sure did unravel from there.

After a spring and summer at home the band decided to gather together some leftovers from those sessions and pair them with songs written and recorded in lockdown, with each band member recording in their own corner of the country. It’s an album which Patterson Hood hopes, balances out the darkness of our current situation with a hope for better days and nights ahead.” I encourage you to read his full statement below.

The New OK will be out this Friday October 2 digitally and December 18 on CD and LP, order now.

Read album statement from Drive-By Truckers’ Patterson Hood below:

DBT released The Unraveling on Jan. 31st 2020 and set out for what was supposed to be a full year of touring. We completed the first leg of the tour at DC’s beloved 9:30 Club on Feb. 29th. We all went home for a brief break before resuming at Vogue in Indianapolis on March 12th. We were two songs into the soundcheck for that show when we were told that the entire tour was to be postponed indefinitely due to the Covid-19 pandemic. We packed up the trailer and headed home where we’ve pretty much been ever since.

To call these past few months trying would be a dramatic understatement. Our lives are intertwined with our work in ways that give us our best songs and performances. It is a life that has often rewarded us beyond our wildest dreams. Speaking for myself, I don’t have hobbies, I have this thing I do. To be sidelined with a brand new album and have to sit idly while so much that I love and hold dear falls apart before my very eyes has been intense, heartbreaking, anger provoking and very depressing. It has gone to the very heart of our livelihoods and threatened near everything that we have spent our lives trying to build.

I’m blessed to have a beautiful family. Everyone is healthy and so far we’re managing to survive all of this. Same time, I have spent much of these months ricocheting between deep depression and seething anger. I have not been a joy to be quarantined with (to put it mildly) and for that I am truly sorry to everyone that has had to be around me. I know I’m lucky and should be counting my blessings for so many have it far worse than me. For that I feel some degree of shame and guilt, which makes me angrier and more depressed.

Concerned people that I love frequently ask me how I’m doing. I would respond that “I’m OK…The New OK”.

The original idea for this album was to put out an EP utilizing some great tracks we had from the Memphis sessions that The Unraveling was culled from. We actually had a wealth of music recorded in those sessions. Not inferior outtakes, but songs we felt strongly about that didn’t further the narrative of the album we decided to release. We also wanted to include some new songs written during this endless summer of protests, riots, political shenanigans and pandemic horrors. We ended up with a full album that hopefully balances out the darkness of our current situation with a hope for better days and nights ahead.

I wrote Watching the Orange Clouds the weekend after George Floyd’s murder as I watched the whole country rise up in a chaotic firestorm of anger and calls for a righteous change. I wrote The New OK a couple of months later during the heat of the federal occupation in my adopted hometown of Portland, Oregon. We had to record them by sending each other tracks until we had all that we needed for David Barbe to mix the finished songs. The Distance is a song I wrote in 2011. We had an unfinished demo from early in the English Oceans sessions that we took and finished for this album. Again, it’s a song I’ve always loved but it didn’t fit in with the album we were working on at the time. I kinda consider it an epilogue for our early days of touring in our 1988 Ford Econoline. You could almost call it a sequel to “Let There Be Rock”.

Sea Island Lonely was written in the back of a car taking me to a super early flight after a show in Southern Georgia. It was one of my favorite takes from the Memphis sessions, a total accident that we completed with horns.

Tough To Let Go came to me in a dream. I woke up and immediately wrote it down. We also put horns on that sucker. When I dreamt it, Jason Isbell was singing it. I literally checked with him to make sure that I hadn’t actually stolen it from him. He said I hadn’t, but it was his favorite of my songs from the Memphis sessions.

Cooley wrote Sarah’s Flame in early 2019. I’ll let you guess yourself who this Sarah is whose metaphoric spark lit the tiki torches of Charlottesville. This national nightmare didn’t just happen overnight, that’s for sure.

The Unraveling was a song I wrote several years ago and had always wanted to record but just couldn’t make it work with my singing voice. At some point during the Memphis sessions, I asked Bobby Matt if he would give it a try and he knocked it out of the park. At some point, when we decided to call the last album by that title, we thought it would be cool if we saved the actual title cut for a future record (shades of Led Zeppelin’s “Houses of the Holy”). As we were finishing in Memphis, Barbe told us to go back in and track our cover of The Ramones’ classic The KKK Took My Baby Away. He said we’d be glad we did. That’s yet another reason why he’s been our producer for two decades now.

Finally, in putting it all together, in keeping with the timing of its creation and release, we decided to include The Perilous Night which I began writing on the day the Electoral College voted Trump into office and completed the week after the Charlottesville murder of Heather Heyer on the day that the sitting President said that there was blame on both sides. This is a radically different mix from the mix of the single we released in 2017.

Here’s to the hope that we can make 2021 a better year than this one has been. In the meantime, here’s to The New OK!

See you at The Rock Show.

Patterson Hood

The DBT’s – September, 2020

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Black Pumas Perform “Colors” With Jack Johnson on Good Morning America

September 25, 2020 – 10:50 am

Black Pumas, the Grammy-nominated duo of frontman/songwriter Eric Burton and producer/guitarist Adrian Quesada, appeared on Good Morning America today, performing a special collaborative version of their hit single “Colors” with Jack Johnson. The performance is a preview of Black Pumas and Jack Johnson’s appearance at this Saturday, September 26’s Farm Aid 2020 virtual festival alongside Willie Nelson and The Boys, Neil Young, John Mellencamp, Dave Matthews, Bonnie Raitt and Boz Scaggs, Brandi Carlile, Chris Stapleton, and more.

Good Morning America is the latest in a string of television performances from Black Pumas in the past months, including recent renditions of “Colors” on Full Frontal with Samantha Bee and The Kelly Clarkson Show. In June, the band premiered their cover of Tracy Chapman’s “Fast Car” on The Late Show with Stephen Colbert were also recently featured on Rolling Stone’s In My Room sessions with a stripped-down set.

The deluxe reissue of Black Pumas’ self-titled debut album, which includes a set of bonus tracks, including “Fast Car” and new single “I’m Ready” is out now digitally and will be released physically as a double LP featuring new artwork and a gatefold with unpublished in-studio and live photographs on October 9. You can grab a copy of the vinyl here in the ATO shop.

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Brittany Howard Releases EARTHGANG And Bon Iver Remixes Of ‘Jaime’ Songs

September 17, 2020 – 11:54 am

Listen To “Goat Head” (EARTHGANG Remix) HERE

Stream “Short and Sweet” (Bon Iver Remix) HERE

 

Today, Brittany Howard released a pair of remixes of songs from her acclaimed debut solo album, Jaime. Atlanta-based hip hop duo EARTHGANG reimagines “Goat Head” and Bon Iver brings fresh textures to “Short and Sweet.” The tracks are the first to be revealed from an upcoming collection of remixes from Jaime. Since its release last September, the album has won widespread praise from critics, fans and fellow artists.

With the addition of two new verses, EARTHGANG take “Goat Head” – Howard’s highly personal account of growing up  as a mixed-race child in a small Southern town at the turn of the 21st century – and turn it into a bold anthem for 2020’s social justice movement.

EARTHGANG explains, “We’ve been big fans of Brittany and Alabama Shakes so this is a dream come true. Songs like these help us make sense of all the craziness in the world at times. Her song ‘Goat Head,’ dealing with her black experience in America and The World, resonated the loudest at this time. Just thankful to be able to give the world our medicine and heal the people.”

LISTEN TO BRITTANY HOWARD’S “GOAT HEAD” (EARTHGANG REMIX) BELOW

 

 

Bon Iver adds rich layers to “Short and Sweet” – a song celebrating a nascent romance that Howard originally recorded alone, accompanying herself on acoustic guitar – and imbues it with a twinkling, ethereal vibe that both complements and contrasts its old-time warmth.

“Brittany is a truly singular artist; so much power and musicality. This album speaks to so many people, including us,” says Justin Vernon, of the band Bon Iver. “To have a chance to recreate ‘Short and Sweet’ in our own image with long-time collaborators Jenn Wassner and CJ Camerieri, was both an honor and almost too much of a privilege.”

 

 

Putting “Short and Sweet” on the playlist she created for GQ, Phoebe Bridgers said, “[Howard’s] solo record is beyond what I thought was even possible.” Conor Oberst recently told The New York Times, “I’ve also been listening to a lot of the Brittany Howard ‘Jaime’ record. I’ve always thought highly of Alabama Shakes, but it wasn’t until I heard this record that I realized she’s a national treasure.”

Check out Brittany’s Remixes now, available to stream on all platforms here.

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Okkervil River to Release “A Dream In The Dark” 4xLP on October 30th, Digital Album Out This Friday

September 15, 2020 – 6:45 am

ATO Records is pleased to announce: ‘A Dream In The Dark: Two Decades of Okkervil River Live’ 4xLP

This 4xLP set distills the very best of the subscription-only digital album series A Dream in the Dark into an epic chronological live compilation that doubles as an Okkervil River songbook, presenting the greatest hits of Will Sheff’s celebrated band in live, alternate, expanded and re-imagined versions, as captured in sweaty dive bars, lavish concert halls, and festival stages across the world. Packaged in a gorgeous quadruple-sleeved hardback booklet. Vinyl pre-orders will receive a full album download on September 18th.

The set is strictly limited to 2,000 copies. Pre-order yours now in the ATO shop!

 

 

To commemorate the boxset, Will Sheff will be reviving his fan-favorite Rarities & Requests show as a livestream on October 29 at 9pm EST. “I’ve had some of my most fun onstage experiences of the past few years doing the ‘Rarities & Requests’ touring format, but because of logistics we’ve often had to restrict these shows to larger markets,” he says. “Under the current quarantine situation, I thought it would be really cool to play a streaming ‘Rarities & Requests’ show where we could open the request pool to anybody all over the world. This will be the first Okkervil streaming show we’ve done this his year, and I’m super excited about it.” Tickets are available HERE.

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Temples Share New Song “Paraphernalia” Produced By Sean Ono Lennon

September 2, 2020 – 8:29 am

In October of 2019, British psych-rockers Temples, touring in support of their recently released third album Hot Motion, made a serendipitous connection at the Desert Daze festival in Lake Perris, California. Following their own performance, Temples caught their labelmates’ The Claypool Lennon Delirium’s set and afterwards found themselves talking about music with the band’s frontman Sean Ono Lennon.

“I’d always been a fan of the band. Had seen them play some pretty great shows over the years,” says Lennon. Months later, when the label asked Temples about releasing an unreleased track from Hot Motion as a single, the band immediately thought of Lennon and asked him to produce the track. “We couldn’t think of any greater mind than his to create with on this track,” says bassist Tom Walmsley.

“When I first heard the demo for ‘Paraphernalia’ I knew they had a great tune,” says Lennon. Temples lead singer/guitarist James Bagshaw wrote the song about the disconnect between reality and the online world – “In an age of constant distraction, we all strive to find focus and a sense of calm. ’Paraphernalia’ questions the depth of ‘real’ connections in a digital world” – and the track is appropriately swirling and kaleidoscopic, incorporating the elements of neo-psych and disco-pop that are signature to both Temples’ and Lennon’s songwriting.

LISTEN TO “PARAPHERNALIA” (OFFICIAL AUDIO) BELOW

“Paraphernalia” will be available as a 7-inch later this year. Pre-orders are available HERE.

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Black Pumas Release Deluxe Edition Album Out Now

August 28, 2020 – 12:09 pm

Black Pumas, the Austin duo of frontman/songwriter Eric Burton and producer/guitarist Adrian Quesada, release the deluxe reissue of their self-titled debut album digitally today. The deluxe reissue includes a set of bonus tracks – three new unreleased originals (“I’m Ready,” “Red Rover,” “Black Cat,” the band’s first new songs since the album’s release last summer); three live in-studio versions(“Colors,” “Oct 33,” “Confines”); a live version of “Know You Better” recorded at C-Boys Heart & Soul, the Austin club where the band first made a name for itself; and covers of the Beatles’ “Eleanor Rigby,” Death’s “Politicians in My Eyes,” Bobby “Blue” Bland’s “Ain’t No Love in the Heart of the City,” and Tracy Chapman’s “Fast Car.”

 

The physical edition of the record, which comes as 2 LPs featuring new artwork and a gatefold with unpublished in-studio and live photographs and 7 inch, is out October 9.

 

ORDER BLACK PUMAS (DELUXE EDITION) HERE

 

WATCH “I’M READY” LIVE VIDEO BELOW

 

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Emily King Releases New Song “See Me”

August 26, 2020 – 12:51 pm
Grammy-nominated singer-songwriter Emily King releases “See Me” today, the moving song she wrote in response to this year’s Black Lives Matter protests. The  track finds King voicing her grief and attempting to connect with others over the tragedy of racial injustice – “Can you hear me now? / Can you see me now? / If I cry out loud / Will you believe me now?”. “Feeling so moved by this powerful time,” King told Rolling Stone about the song’s inception. “Every day watching the world demand justice. I wake up with sadness but also hope. Like people are starting to finally notice how deeply broken things are. Can you hear me now? Can you see me now? I started singing the words and they wouldn’t leave my head.” “See Me” originally appeared on the ATO Records’ Black Live Matter benefit compilation Silence Is Not An Option (turn this up).

 
 

LISTEN TO OFFICIAL AUDIO FOR “SEE ME” BELOW

 
 

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Old 97’s New Album ‘Twelfth’ Out Today

August 21, 2020 – 10:25 am

Old 97’s release their new album Twelfth today. Twelfth is a recounting and a celebration of the beloved outfit’s 27 years as a band with all of its original members – frontman Rhett Miller, guitarist Ken Bethea, bassist Murry Hammond, and drummer Philip Peeples. Miller’s childhood hero, the legendary Dallas Cowboys quarterback Roger Staubach, appears on the album’s cover as a nod to the band’s own journey to achieving their dreams through decades of hard work and hard living. “It’s been a really sweet, beautiful ride, and I’m pretty lucky,” Miller told NPR’s Here & Now in a recent interview. “Not many bands stay together for 27 years, and I’m not exactly sure how we did it. But knock wood, thank goodness we have.”

 

ORDER OLD 97’S ‘TWELFTH’ HERE

 

“We experienced some close calls over the last few years,” says Miller, “and I think that led us to this dawning realization of the fragility of it all. At the same time, it also led us to this increased gratitude for the music and the brotherhood we’ve been so lucky to share. I think all of that combined to make recording this album one of the most intensely joyful experiences we’ve ever had as a band.”

 

WATCH OFFICIAL VIDEO FOR “TURN OF THE TV” BELOW

 

 

Working out of Sputnik Sound in Nashville, Miller and his longtime bandmates—bassist Murry Hammond, guitarist Ken Bethea, and drummer Philip Peeples—teamed up once again with GRAMMY-winning producer Vance Powell (Chris Stapleton, Jack White), and while the resulting album boasts all the hallmarks of a classic Old 97’s record (sex and booze, laughter and tears, poetry and blasphemy), it also showcases a newfound perspective in its writing and craftsmanship, a maturity and appreciation that can only come with age and experience. Perhaps the band is growing up; maybe they’re just getting started. Either way, Old 97’s have never been happier to be alive.

 

“You have to take pride in the unlikeliness of it all,” says Miller. “It’s mind boggling to think that we’ve been able to last this long, that we’ve been able to support ourselves and our families on our own terms for almost thirty years. Twelve is a lot of records … Back when we were in our 20’s, we put ourselves through these terrible trials because we thought we could survive anything,” says Miller. “But over the last few years, it started becoming clear that we’re human.” Old 97’s may be human, but somehow what they’ve got never breaks down.

 

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Leo Kottke & Mike Gordon Return With ‘Noon’

August 19, 2020 – 4:06 pm

Acoustic guitar pioneer Leo Kottke and Phish bassist Mike Gordon have announced the release of their first new album together in 15 years. NOON arrives digitally August 28; the album’s physical release is set for Friday, November 20 on Red/Gold wax.

 

PRE-ORDER NOON NOW

 

WATCH “ANTS” VIDEO BELOW

 

 

WATCH “I AM RANDOM”  VIDEO BELOW

 

 

 

The album showcases 11  new tracks and marks Kottke’s first studio record since his previous collaboration with Gordon, 2005’s 66 STEPS. It was recorded in New Orleans and Vermont, with music exchanged between the two artists by file, tape-sealed boombox, sheet music, and face-to-face. Working with longtime Gordon collaborator, producer/engineer Jared Slomoff, Kottke and Gordon have crafted a singular collection of improvisational mood music, including a stripped-back version of Gordon’s classic “Peel” and Kottke’s stark rethinking of the Byrds’ “Eight Miles High.” NOON further includes a bopping cover of Prince’s “Alphabet St.” featuring Phish drummer Jon Fishman, who also joins Kottke and Gordon on four additional tracks. In addition, the LP includes nearly ambient appearances by pedal steel player Brett Lanier (The Barr Brothers) and cellist Zoë Keating (Imogen Heap, Amanda Palmer, Tears For Fears).

 

“The vibe is very different from the other two albums,” says Gordon. “I was hearing a darkness in the material Leo was bringing, and some of the material that I wanted to bring, that I thought just reflected going through 10 more years of life. There are overdubs, but it’s still more like you’re in a cafe or a living room with these two guys. And even when we had drums, we wanted to maintain that feeling.”

 

“I just knew there was a shape and that we were following it,” says Kottke. “We were trying to get to that place that we get to in a little room, just chasing each other. We’ve found that at soundchecks, and at my place, or his place, or some motel room. We wanted to get that late night feel. It’s a more intimate record than the others are, I think there are depths to it.”

 

 

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Vusi Mahlasela’s Live Album ‘Shebeen Queen’ Out Today

August 14, 2020 – 9:17 am

 

South Africa’s Vusi Mahlasela releases his jubilant new live album Shebeen Queen, a collection of 10 traditional folk songs from his home township of Mamelodi, today. Mahlasela, one of his country’s most revered singer-songwriters, named the record after his late grandmother Ida, who earned the nickname “Shebeen Queen” after her shebeen (speakeasy) became known for its festive impromptu musical gatherings. Mahlasela and his band shut down the street in front of Ida’s former shebeen to throw a neighborhood party and perform the songs that make up Shebeen Queen, which the New York Times has already called “pure upbeat three-chord euphoria; the rhythm guitars are having a party of their own.” Today, alongside the album’s release, Mahlasela also releases a short film that shows the concert as well as his personal memories and connections to the neighborhood.

 

Watch the film below and order Shebeen Queen Here

 

Mahlasela’s late grandmother Ida (whom he calls Magogo), raised him in the township of Mamelodi (meaning “mother of melody”), where he still lives today. Following her husband’s murder in 1961, Ida opened a shebeen (speakeasy) and began selling homebrewed beer (umqombothi) to make her living. Her space became known for its lively musical gatherings at night, where the townspeople would use buckets, tins, and plastic drums as instruments, and Ingoma’buksu -music rooted in Mbube culture, meaning “Songs of the Night” – would be celebrated with everyone singing together in full voices. Ida became known as the “Shebeen Queen.” As a boy, Mahlasela saw a man playing a guitar at one of these gatherings and was inspired to build his first guitar from fishing line and a cooking oil can.

 

Shebeen Queen is a celebration of the vibrant musical culture of his hometown, first encountered at Ida’s shebeen. “Ida was a strong woman and was respected by all in our community,” he says. “In 1976, when I witnessed the Soweto Uprising, my political education began and I realized how important music was. I began writing songs of justice, of freedom, of revolution, of love, of peace and of life. For these songs, I was arrested and thrown into solitary confinement. Magogo was always there for me –she fought for me, protected me and stood up for what was right. She was and still is my greatest hero. I decided I wanted to record some of these great Township songs in an effort to preserve this important music, so critical to our community and to our history. I wanted to honour this music and my grandmother by recording a live show, right here in Mamelodi at Magogo’s house.”

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