black_country_new_road raze after hearing pieces of this english septet's first album "for the first time", i was expecting their new single "concorde" to be more of the same — dark, wiry post-punk with free jazz elements. instead, i got a bruised bit of gorgeousness that kneed my heart right in the cojones. random thing: i like how singer isaac wood kind of sounds like a disintegrating jarvis cocker. also, best incorporation of grainy old public domain footage in a music video ever? it's gotta be in the running. a preview from the forthcoming album "ants from up there": https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yjC4qXiBRu4 220110 ... raze to hell with it. here's "bread song" too, because this song fucking gutted me last night. "furnished your suffering you played a good organ the world gathered singing good words that you'd stolen and every phone died then and no one had wifi inside your apartment so we knelt at your altar okay, well i just woke up and you already don't care that i tried my best to hold you through the headset that you wear and as tight as i might hold it over where the signal's good there's no way to save your evening now and i'm ready for us to be understood" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v6-QjzzEUZo 220110 ... raze days ago, isaac made an announcement that he's leaving the band as an album that's got his soul smudged all over it goes out into the world. "i have bad news," he wrote, "which is that i have been feeling sad and afraid too. and i have tried to make this not true, but it is the kind of sad and afraid feeling that makes it hard to play guitar and sing at the same time. to be clear: this is completely in spite of six of the greatest people i know, who were and are wonderful in a sparkling way. if you are reading this, maybe you would have seen some of that. it has been a great pleasure, and i would like to say the words 'thank_you' to everyone." that's ... maybe the most nakedly honest and heartfelt single-paragraph press release i've ever read. i hope he finds the peace he needs, and i hope we get to hear his voice again. 220206 what's it to you? who go blather from