Cat’s Cradle

This is a seated show. It’s hard to imagine a band just coming into their own after 20 years of success, but that’s exactly what makes a true anomaly. This multi-national, Celtic juggernaut grows stronger with each live performance, and as you can imagine, after two decades and over 2000 shows, it is a true force to be reckoned with. With their latest release, Go Climb a Tree, their music has never sounded more representative of themselves as musicians and as live performers. The band attributes their continued success to their fanatic audience, and it’s a well-diversified crowd for sure. The country-music folks adore the storytelling, the bluegrass-heads love the instrumentals, Celtic fans love their devotion to tradition, and the rockers simply relish the passion they play their instruments with. Each band member, in their own way, expresses a deep gratitude for their fans, but it’s best summed up in the words of Patrick Murphy: “The fans are the ones that have given us this life. We’re here for them.” On Go Climb a Tree, co-founders of Gaelic Storm, Steve Twigger and Patrick Murphy, along with longtime friend and co-writer Steve Wehmever, are again at the helm of song-writing duties. The album has everything-party drinking songs (“The Beer Song”), patriotic anthems (“Green, White and Orange”), beautiful folk songs (“Monday Morning Girl”), spritely instrumentals “”The Night of Tomfoolery”), perfectly poppy songs (“Shine On”), and even a raucous pirate song (“Shanghai Kelly”). When speaking of the overall concept of the album, Patrick Murphy gives some insight: “With all the craziness and division in the world, we wanted to make an album about ‘contemplative escapism.’ Go Climb a Tree certainly isn’t about dropping out of the conversation, it’s just about taking a short hiatus to recharge the batteries before you take on the world again.” Gaelic Storm takes a true blue-collar, hard-nose approach to touring, consistently traveling the US and internationally over 200 days a year, forging a unique path in the Celtic music world. “You have to see us live. We are the true working-mans’ band,” says Ryan Lacey, who joined the lineup in 2003. “We still, and most likely always will, tour most of the year, and that’s how we constantly hone our craft.” The dedication to live shows date all the way back to the mid-1990s, when Gaelic Storm kicked off its career as a pub band in Santa Monica, California. Due to their discovery at the pub, by the end of the decade, the musicians had appeared in the blockbuster film Titanic (where they performed “Irish Party in Third Class”). This laid the groundwork for a career that would eventually find them topping the Billboard World Chart six times, making appearances at mainstream music festivals, and regularly headlining the largest Irish Festivals across the country, all the while gaining a reputation as a genre-bending Irish rock band, whose songs mix Celtic traditions with something uniquely creative. Looking to the future, Gaelic Storm is excited about what lies ahead. They’ve added a new fiddle player, Katie Grennen, and she has affectionately become the “purple squirrel” of the band, meaning she is the perfect new addition. Pete Purvis who joined the band in 2005 said, “With the addition of Katie, the band has never sounded better, we’re gelling on a whole new level, and the idea of sharing these new songs with our fans is exciting!” Links: Website | Facebook | Twitter | Instagram | YouTube

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Turnover Links: Website | Facebook | Twitter | Instagram | Bandcamp | Spotify | Apple Music–> Men I Trust Links: Website | Facebook | Tumblr | Bandcamp | YouTube Renata Zeiguer Links: Facebook | Instagram | Bandcamp

“Masana” is a fictional word created by Kikagaku Moyo to express a Utopian feeling; an existence where everything can interact harmoniously and offer inspiration and understanding. Their fourth album Masana Temples radiates this vision, architecting a vibrating world that isn’t confined to the known limits of what came before it. Kikagaku Moyo progressed from early days in Tokyo’s experimental scene to traveling the world with their mind-bending sounds, exploring different facets of psychedelia on each new release and blowing minds with a live show that was just as searching as their records. The shifting dimensions of Masana Temples are informed by various experiences the band had with traveling through life together, ranging from the months spent on tour to making a pilgrimage to Lisbon to record the album with jazz musician Bruno Pernadas. The songs came together in the wake of the band breaking up the communal house most of them had shared in Tokyo, with some members relocating to Amsterdam, and others moving to different parts of Japan. Transitioning from being based in the scene they had roots in to scattering around various locales made for an even more enhanced understanding of how mystically connected the sum of their parts were when the band reunited to record new material. The music is the product of time spent in motion and all of the bending mindsets that come with it. The band sought out Pernadas both out of admiration for his music and in an intentional move to work with a producer who came from a wildly different background. With Masana Temples, the band wanted to challenge their own concepts of what psychedelic music could be. Elements of both the attentive folk and wild-eyed rocking sides of the band are still intact throughout Masana Temples, but they’re sharper and more defined. Without sacrificing any of their experimental impulses, songs are more composed and cohesive. Pernadas’ bright production meets with nearly telepathically locked-in performances, on both lazy cloud-like jaunts like “Nazo Nazo” or fuzzed-out expeditions like lead single “Gatherings”. Drummer/vocalist Go Kurosawa, guitarist/vocalist Tomo Katsurada, bassist Kotsuguy, sitar and keyboard player Ryu Kurosawa and guitarist Daoud Popal Akira act as a unit, with an intuitive attention to space and dynamics that could only come from years of playing together in every imaginable setting. More than the literal interpretation of being on a journey, the album’s always changing sonic panorama reflects the spiritual connection of the band moving through this all together. Life for a traveling band is a series of constant metamorphoses, with languages, cultures, climates and vibes changing with each new town. The only constant for Kikagaku Moyo throughout their travels were the five band members always together moving through it all, but each of them taking everything in from very different perspectives. Inspecting the harmonies and disparities between these perspectives, the group reflects the emotional impact of their nomadic paths. Coming together in a way more deliberate than the beautifully floating improvisations of their Stone Garden EP or the sometimes hushed dreamstate of 2016 album House In The Tall Grass, Masana Temples is focused and clear in its vision in a way that feels unlike any of Kikagaku Moyo’s earlier sounds. Links: Website | Facebook| Bandcamp

Andy Bell, Mark Gardener, Loz Colbert and Steve Queralt formed Ride in Oxford in 1988. A defining act of the shoegaze scene and signed to Creation Records in 1989, they went on to release four albums: ‘Nowhere,’ ‘Going Blank Again,’ ‘Carnival of Light’ and ‘Tarantula.’ After a lengthy hiatus, Ride reformed in 2014. Comprised of Andy Bell, Mark Gardener, Loz Colbert, and Steve Queralt, the band sold out headline tours around the world to a plethora of critical acclaim, as well as show stopping turns at festivals including Coachella, Primavera and Field Day. Produced by Erol Alkan, new album ‘Weather Diaries’ is packed with all the classic elements that made Ride one of the defining bands of the early ’90s. Trembling distortion, beautiful harmonies, pounding rhythms, shimmering soundscapes and great songwriting all combine to make an album that’s ambitious in scope, timeless and thoroughly addictive. The album is out now through Wichita Recordings and sees the band reunited with label co-founders Dick Green and Mark Bowen, who worked with Ride during the band’s early years on Creation Records. It also brings the band back together with mixer Alan Moulder (Arctic Monkeys, Smashing Pumpkins, The Killers) who mixed their seminal 1990 album ‘Nowhere’ and produced it’s follow up ‘Going Blank Again.’ Links: Website | Facebook | Twitter | Instagram | Spotify

Throughout history, unity starts on the dancefloor. From ancient tribal cultures to neon night clubs, beats bring bodies together. Once grinding and grooving in unison, the movement generates friction, sparks, and light. That might just be the purest form of energy on the planet. The Motet harness such energy on their ninth full-length, Death or Devotion. In fact, the Denver septet-Dave Watts , Joey Porter , Garrett Sayers , Ryan Jalbert , Lyle Divinsky , Drew Sayers , and Parris Fleming -encode a message in their energetic mélange of boisterous badass funk, swaggering soul, and thought-provoking pop. In the process, they challenge convention and arrive with a dynamic, diverse, and definitive statement. “The essence is always going to be the groove, but we wanted to expand the idea of what a funk album could be,” says Lyle. “Of course, you want a driving backbeat. However, with the division that’s going on in this country and the world, I think it’s every artist’s responsibility to create a conversation. That conversation doesn’t have to be political either. It can be about love or an introspective journey. I think the commentary should be on what it’s like to be alive today. By drawing on funk, we create a fun, palatable musical vehicle for the message to go down. Our goal is for you to recognize we’re all dancing on the same dance floor-even though our steps may look a little different.” Death or Devotion earmarks an important point in the band’s own journey. Since emerging in 1998, the boys have cooked up eight full-length albums and entranced countless crowds. 2016’s Totem saw them welcome Lyle behind the mic and Drew on sax. Shortly after, they kicked off what has become an annual tradition by selling out the legendary Red Rocks Amphitheater for the first time. “It was my six-month anniversary and first show for a hometown crowd,” recalls Lyle. “I’ve got 10,000 people looking at me like, ‘Who the hell is that?’,” he laughs. That night would be chronicled on the fan favorite Live at Red Rocks. In the meantime, the group maintained a prolific pace of 100 shows per year in support of Totem. Along the way, The Motet started recording Death or Devotion during intermittent sessions at Scanhope Sound in 2017. For the first time, Lyle, Drew, and Parris (who joined in 2018) worked on a Motet record together from start-to-finish. “On Totem, the train was already moving, and I was just a train hopper,” says Lyle. “Drew, Parris, and I came onboard within the same year. Now, we’re all bringing our pieces to the puzzle. For me, I brought that R&B style. Funk is the common ground, but the music is a result of different inspirations: namely Drew’s hip-hop and reggae knowledge, Ryan’s psychedelic jamming, Dave with the worldbeat, Joey with his encyclopedic understanding of punk, and Garrett being the best bass player to exist. We found a really cool balance between the funkiness and songs that challenge your emotional headspace more than typical pop.” The Motet Links: Website | Facebook | Twitter | Instagram | SoundCloud | Spotify | YouTube Mellow Swells Links: Website | Instagram

Whitney make casually melancholic music that combines the wounded drawl of Townes Van Zandt, the rambunctious energy of Jim Ford, the stoned affability of Bobby Charles, the American otherworldliness of The Band, and the slack groove of early Pavement. Their debut, Light Upon the Lake, is due in June on Secretly Canadian, and it marks the culmination of a short, but incredibly intense, creative period for the band. To say that Whitney is more than the sum of its parts would be a criminal understatement. Formed from the core of guitarist Max Kakacek and singing drummer Julien Ehrlich, the band itself is something bigger, something visionary, something neither of them could have accomplished alone. The band itself is something bigger, something visionary, something neither of them could have accomplished alone. Ehrlich had been a member of Unknown Mortal Orchestra, but left to play drums for the Smith Westerns, where he met guitarist Kakacek. That group burned brightly but briefly, disbanding in 2014 and leaving its members adrift. Brief solo careers and side-projects abounded, but nothing clicked. Making everything seem all the more fraught: both of them were going through especially painful breakups almost simultaneously, the kind that inspire a million songs, and they emerged emotionally bruised and lonelier than ever. Whitney was born from a series of laidback early-morning songwriting sessions during one of the harshest winters in Chicago history, after Ehrlich and Kakacek reconnected – first as roommates splitting rent in a small Chicago apartment and later as musical collaborators passing the guitar and the lyrics sheet back and forth. “We approached it as just a fun thing to do. We never wanted to force ourselves to write a song. It just happened very organically. And we were smiling the whole time, even though some of the songs are pretty sad.” The duo wrote frankly about the break-ups they were enduring and the breakdowns they were trying to avoid. Each served as the other’s most brutal critic and most sympathetic confessor, a sounding board for the hard truths that were finding their way into new songs like “No Woman” and “Follow,” a eulogy for Ehrlich’s grandfather. In exorcising their demons they conjured something else, something much more benign-a third presence, another personality in the music, which they gave the name Whitney. They left it singular to emphasize its isolation and loneliness. Says Kakacek, “We were both writing as this one character, and whenever we were stuck, we’d ask, ‘What would Whitney do in this situation?’ We personified the band name into this person, and that helped a lot. We wrote the record as though one person were playing everything. We purposefully didn’t add a lot of parts and didn’t bother making everything perfect, because the character we had in mind wouldn’t do that.” In those imperfections lies the music’s humanity. Whilst they demoed and toured the new songs, they became more aware of the perfect imperfections of the songs, and needing to strike the right balance, they eventually made the trek out to California, where they recorded with Foxygen frontman and longtime friend, Jonathan Rado. They slept in tents in Rado’s backyard, ate the same breakfast every morning at the same diner in the remote, desolate and completely un-rock n roll San Fernando Valley, whilst they dreamt of Laurel Canyon, or maybe The Band’s hideout in Malibu, or Neil Young’s ranch in Topanga Canyon. Links: Facebook | Twitter | Instagram

Beatles tribute featuring: The Backbeat, Sam Frazier. Rebecca Newton, Nancy Middleton, Jefferson Hart, Barry Gray, Glenn Jones, Lance White, Steve Eisenstadt, Jim Roberts, Tim Smith, Armand Lenchek, Mike Nicholson, Rob Sharer, Mike Babyak, Tom Collins-Meltzer, Charles Latham, Danny Gotham & many more.