http://www.portlucian.com

Z Tapes • Friends Covering Friends Vol. I • 2020

Friends Covering Friends Vol. I. 

A compilation to celebrate friendship. Friends covering friends' music.

American Analog Set • Aaron & Maria • 2009

http://www.amanset.com

Aaron and Maria ran

From the Northwest coast to the city and

Now they reside out in Brooklyn Heights

Where the rich kids hide and the years go by

Aaron writes but they both survive

'Cause Maria waits on library lines

And Aaron sighs, "If the TV's right

You put your hat on tight or catch a death outside"

We're living off some modest trust

From daddy 'fore his oil went bust

And loving you is just enough

'Cause no one gives a fuck about us

Save Stereogum: An ‘00s Covers Comp • 2020

Save Stereogum: An ‘00s Covers Comp is an exclusive new compilation we produced just for an Indiegogo crowdfunding campaign launching today. We asked over 40 of our favorite artists to record brand new, never-before-heard covers of songs from 2000-2009. (Aughts nostalgia … it’s time!) Donors will receive a .zip download of the compilation — including MP3s, artwork, and liner notes — and will be the envy of their friends because it will never be released again! We won’t be streaming Save Stereogum anywhere and will never reissue it. It’s only available to supporters of this campaign. StereoGUM

Anna McClellan • I saw first light by • 2020

The record is McClellan’s third full-length to date and second for Father/Daughter Records following her 2018 album Yes and No. Early on in her career, the Nebraska-born singer-songwriter was cosigned by Frankie Cosmos, which gave her profile a boost and placed her in a league of comparable contemporaries. Like Cosmos and others such as Florist and Dear Nora, McClellan makes soft, relatively lo-fi twee pop with intimate subject matter and clever lyrics. CoS

Unlike those other acts, though, McClellan’s songs have a woozy and whimsical swing to them that’s distinctly her own. “Desperate” and “Pace of the Universe” are great introductions to both this LP and her as an artist. The former is a humorously self-effacing song about being, well, incredibly desperate for validation, while the latter is about throwing social norms to the wind and embracing vulnerability during catastrophic times (it’s quite relevant).

The Barr Brothers • Saint Cecilia • 2020

http://thebarrbrothers.com

(Ooh-ah ooh-ah, ooh-ah ooh-ah ooh-ah,

Ooh-ah ooh-ah, ooh-ah ooh-ah ooh-ah)

Here in my jungle, I'm the fire chief

I'm up all night 'cause I can't no relief

I've come 600 miles

I've got 600 miles to go

'Cause see, Saint Cecilia, I think of anyone, she oughta know

I've been to New York, I've been to Amsterdam

Boats on the water, joints in my hand

I've been set up and broke down

I've been suspicious too

But if she says she's gonna do it,

Saint Cecilia, that's what she's gonna do

I know you're a martyr, as all of us are

I know where the cross is, and you keep it in your car

That's a sad but prideful state of affairs

Gonna tell Saint Cecilia that she's the only one who really cares

Maybe it's only as a carry on

On the mistletoe

And it's tryies and verses at the risk of the mournin'

Into the wild, into the dark

I've seen your bite and it's worser than your bark

I've got burns on my fingers and scars all over my soul

But when you see Saint Cecilia, she's gonna get it under control

You know you can't stay here, but you can't let me go

You got information that others wanna know

There's a high price flying over your head

When you see Saint Cecilia, you'll either be free or you'll be dead

Maybe it's only as a carry on

On a mistletoe

And as tries and verses at the risk of a mournin'

Go and tell Saint Cecilia, I think of anyone she'll understand

(Ooh-ah ooh-ah, ooh-ah ooh-ah ooh-ah)

DJ Spinna and BBE Soundsystem • Best of Perception & Today Records and 7'' Sampler • 2012

Perception Productions, a New York based label that ran from the late 60s through until 1974, was a strangely eclectic affair. Its roster stretched from a radical Afro-American poet through to the pop band King Harvest whose hit ‘Dancing In The Moonlight’ became a massive hit for the UK band Toploader a couple of decades later. The inbetween points covered jazz, funk, vocal harmony soul and proto-disco. In fact distilled down into this compilation the label provides us a view of Manhattan’s black music scene of the period, from the established greats to the fresh young things who would make their mark in the coming years. 

Airlines • Copenhagen • 2020

We want people to hear the beauty of love and of Copenhagen itself reflected in the music, and then to contrast that with the melancholic nature of the lyrics. The entire track is a ying-yang of happiness, pain, longing, love, and acceptance.

The magic of hopping on a plane and heading across the world to see someone you love conflicts with against the pain of sending someone you love on a plane across the world, never knowing if you'll ever see them again.

Airliners · Copenhagen

wiaiwya • Singularity • 2020

wiaiwya.com

TV People • Nothing More • 2020

"Underlined with thrashing drums and layered with driving guitar riffs, [Time Eats Up] explores the intensity of solitude and isolation, a theme that couldn’t resonate more at this current time." - ABBEY ROAD STUDIOS

"The sprawling atmosphere conjured up in singles Kitchen Sinking and Time Eats Up evoke the early genius of post-punk revivalists Interpol." - THE DAILY STAR

"TV People execute punk's confrontational nature with aplomb, and in an incredible manner to boot." - EARMILK

"Just adding to the pedigree of great bands coming from Ireland at the moment." - FRANKIE FRANCIS, AMAZING RADIO

Versus • Blue Thunder (Galaxie 500) • 2020

Versus [New York]: "Fontaine and I [Richard] opened for Galaxie 500 in the summer of 1990, at Woody's in the East Village. (I don't remember it being a particularly hot day, and the internet concurs... 86 degrees. Anyhoo...) We had just met and started playing together, and though we weren't called Versus yet, we were playing songs that Versus eventually recorded. Galaxie of course stood out in contrast to the NY scuzz-rock era, but really prefigured the coming of 'indie-rock.' A timeless band."

Josephine Foster • No Harm Done • 2020

Eight new slow-burning songs branch forth from idiosyncratic country folk blues, sung with sibylline wit and a hint of the absurd, awash in sensually anachronic lyricism.