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Talkhouse

Kath Bloom is a Connecticut-based folk songwriter. Her latest album, Bye Bye These Are The Days, is out now via Dear Life Records.

Kath Bloom

Music

Kath Bloom and Josephine Foster on Playing Music on Their Own Terms

Cults were deep into recording their new album, Host, when singer/multi-instrumentalist Madeline Follin let a secret slip.
“In the past, I’d never brought my own music to the table because I was just too shy,” says Follin, “but at some point during the sessions, I mentioned that I’d been writing some songs on the side, and our producer, Shane Stoneback, asked me to share them.”
“When Shane and I heard what Madeline had written, we couldn’t believe it,” says multi-instrumentalist Brian Oblivion. “The music just floored us.”
What followed was a reimagining of their sound and dynamic. Written collaboratively and recorded with live instruments, the collection marks the start of a bold new chapter. The songs are deceptively charming, with lush, airy arrangements that belie their dark, weighty lyrics, with rich multifaceted production to match, blending retro &amp; futuristic palettes into a spellbinding swirl of high-def indie rock &amp; lo-fi bedroom pop.
Host is an exploration of the sinister dynamics at play in a parasitic relationship and charting a cathartic journey towards freedom and self-reliance, reveling in the power that comes from standing your ground and declaring independence in the face of exploitation and manipulation.
“Each song on this album feels like it represents a different step in the process of breaking free from whatever’s draining you,” says Follin. “Only once you’ve done that are you really in a position to accept something new and healthy into your life.
(Photo Credit: Maxwell Kamins)

Cults

The Way Forward: Cults

Barry Johnson is the lead vocalist and guitarist of Joyce Manor.
(Photo Credit: Allie Hanlon)

Barry Johnson

Barry Johnson (Joyce Manor) and Katy Davidson (Dear Nora) Talk Music, Quarantine, and Long Beach

Blissfulness is at the core of Wiseacre, the strikingly purifying sophomore record from Eric Slick. Wiseacre is a location, literally. It’s the place he married the light in his life, Natalie Prass, and titling the record after it is an attempt at bottling the euphoria of his wedding day. The record isn’t just about the joy that comes from a loving existence blossoming out of a new relationship, it’s also about the hard work that it takes to get to that place. The majority of his time has been behind a drum set, spending the last decade rounding out the industrious outfit Dr. Dog, and as of late, touring as a newlywed alongside his wife.
(Photo credit: Shervin Lainez)

Eric Slick

The Way Forward: Eric Slick

Dream Nails are a punk force to be reckoned with. The hotly-tipped band was founded by feminist activists in 2015, mixing unapologetically political content with pop punk joy. The female fourpiece have built a reputation across the UK, Europe and Scandinavia for their riotously feel good live shows.

Dream Nails

Punk Rock’s Gonna Be Fine

Hannah Georgas began creating the album All That Emotion about a year after the release of her celebrated 2016 album For Evelyn — starting with an intensive process of writing and demoing songs in her Toronto apartment, and finishing with a month long retreat in Los Angeles. She began the record making process in the middle of 2018 when she traveled to Long Pond, the upstate New York studio &amp; home of producer Aaron Dessner of The National.
The writing of the album found Hannah creating her most personal album to date. “All That Emotion’s album cover is an old family photo,” says Hannah. “I love the image because it captures this calm confidence. It looks like people are watching a performance and it seems like he’s diving in without a second thought. Similarly, I find that it parallels the approach needed within art. The calm confidence of expressing yourself without the thought of consequence, regardless of anyone watching.&#8221;
On the album, you’ll hear about bad habits and prayerful families — right and wrong love — mistakes and moving on — casual cruelty and most of all, change. Plotting the boundaries of where to place this music it’s emotionally fraught but warm &amp; fuzzy. “An indie-minded avant-pop artist” was the Boston Globe’s formulation for her charms. Think of Fleetwood Mac meets The National; Kate Bush-sized passion with the earthiness of Cat Power or Aimee Mann. The album grows inside you and sticks to your insides. The songs are big tent anthems, rough at the edges but relatable.
(Photo Credit: Vanessa Heins)

Hannah Georgas

Catching Up with Hannah Georgas and This Is the Kit

Loren DiBlasi is a writer and musician from New York. She is the bassist of post-punk band <a href="https://patio-bandcamp.bandcamp.com/" target="_blank" rel="noopener" data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=https://patio-bandcamp.bandcamp.com/&amp;source=gmail&amp;ust=1558011684779000&amp;usg=AFQjCNFJ9loT6K1Ygxmofcf9l1xKipQRiQ">Patio</a>. Her writing has appeared in MTV News, Vulture, and NPR Music.

Loren DiBlasi

Knot Hasn’t Figured Out What Knot Is Yet

Meredith Hobbs Coons (she/her) is a writer, musician, and trained speech therapist who makes her home on the Central Coast of California. She writes and performs companionate, lyrical folk songs as Lamb&#8217;s Ear and in blue ghosts ⏤ her website is <a href="http://www.meredithhobbscoons.com/" target="_blank" rel="noopener" data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=http://www.meredithhobbscoons.com&amp;source=gmail&amp;ust=1598538090383000&amp;usg=AFQjCNG35tFoj84uERZCZphIPwCdVHiH3w">here</a>.

Meredith Hobbs Coons

Sue Tweedy Talks The Tweedy Show, Lounge Ax, and the Stuff in Her House

Adam Schatz has recently released the improvised album Civil Engineering Vol. 1 and the Landlady album Make Up / Lost Time. See him on tour this summer, tickets and info at <a href="http://linktr.ee/landladyland" target="_blank" rel="noopener" data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=http://linktr.ee/landladyland&amp;source=gmail&amp;ust=1780425624327000&amp;usg=AOvVaw3vXy-qQUGj-lKK5bDfgzP-">linktr.ee/landladyland</a>.
(Photo Credit: Sasha Arutyunova.)

Adam Schatz

Dear Dave, Morale is Low

The early days of writing All the Time, Jessy Lanza&#8216;s first album since 2016&#8217;s Oh No, marked a sea change for Jessy and her creative partner Jeremy Greenspan. After Oh No, Jessy left her hometown of Hamilton to go and live in New York. Written long distance for the first time, across Jessy’s new set up in New York to Jeremy’s home studio in Hamilton, and finishing in the recording studio Jeremy had been working on during this period.
Even though the move to New York and the change in remote working was tough, All the Time has turned out to be the most pure set of pop songs the duo has recorded; reflective and finessed over the time and distance they allowed it. Innovative juxtapositions sound natural, such as rigid 808’s rubbing against delicate chords in &#8220;Anyone Around,&#8221; unusual underwater rushes underpin &#8220;Baby Love.&#8221; Jessy’s voice is treated, re-pitched and edited on songs like Ice creamy and gestural sounds seem to respond to her lyrics in songs such as &#8220;Like Fire.&#8221;
As the final elements of the album were being put in place, everything changed overnight. Her European tour was cut short and she flew back to New York quickly, plans for the foreseeable future dissolved. Whatsmore her lease was up on her apartment and she couldn’t find another in New York due to quarantine restrictions, so she packed what she could into her van and drove to San Francisco to be near her family, stopping on the way in increasingly empty motels as she journeyed from coast to coast.

Jessy Lanza

Jessy Lanza and Kara-Lis Coverdale Talk Mariah, Monica, and Music Theory

Alicia Gaines is a songwriter, multiinstrumentalist, singer, and Graphis-awarded art director from Washington State. As part of Ganser, she has released two albums and multiple EPs serving as co-songwriter, co-producer, video co-director, and editor. After their critically acclaimed debut album, Odd Talk, Ganser&#8217;s Just Look at That Sky met 2020 with year end nods from The Quietus, Rolling Stone, Vice, Paste, Uproxx, Bandcamp, and more. “Favorite albums of 2020. They can rant and croon, elevating this thorny, driving music out of the muck and toward something resembling transcendence.” &#8211; <a href="https://uproxx.com/indie/steven-hyden-favorite-albums-of-2020/" target="_blank" rel="noopener" data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=https://uproxx.com/indie/steven-hyden-favorite-albums-of-2020/&amp;source=gmail&amp;ust=1645708607087000&amp;usg=AOvVaw1Yl7tKrkBcvt_zBdVnUGfg">Steven Hyden’s Favorite Albums Of 2020</a>
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Alicia Gaines

Alicia Gaines and Al Greenwood Bond Over Mutual Isolation

A lot has changed since Jess Cornelius began writing the songs that would comprise Distance.
For starters, she moved halfway around the world from Melbourne, Australia to Los Angeles. At the time, Cornelius — who was born and raised in New Zealand — had a few new songs and the idea of finally making a record of her own, excited to start fresh after several years as the primary songwriter in the Melbourne-based outfit Teeth and Tongue.
But the distance that Cornelius addresses over the course of these ten songs is hardly a geographical one. Instead, the album — her solo debut on Loantaka Records — finds a deft songwriter analyzing the space between society’s expectations for her and her own dreams; between the illusion of love and the reality of disappointment; between a past she is ready to let go of and a future she could have hardly imagined.
The album features contributions by Stella Mozgawa (Warpaint), harpist Mary Lattimore, Emily Elhaj (Angel Olsen), Stephanie Drootin (Bright Eyes), Jesse Quebbeman-Turley (Hand Habits), whistler Molly Lewis and special appearances by Justin Sullivan (Night Shop, Kevin Morby) and Laura Jean Anderson.
(Photo Credit: Rachael Pony Cassells)

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