NEWS

Photo by Jimmy Limit.

Jennifer Castle’s “Blowing Kisses” (as heard in FX’s The Bear)

On the ravishing country-soul ballad “Blowing Kisses,” her first new song in three and a half years, the celebrated Canadian songwriter Jennifer Castle contemplates time and presence, love and prayer—and how songwriting and poetry both manifest and limit all four dimensions: “No words to fumble with/I’m not a beggar to language any longer.” Featuring a sweeping string arrangement by Owen Pallett, performed by Estonia’s FAMES Skopje Studio Orchestra, “Blowing Kisses” can be heard in its entirety during the pivotal scene of the penultimate episode of the third season of FX’s The Bear. 

Nap Eyes: Second Transmission from the Neon Gate

Following their first new music in three years (“remarkable lyric writing” –FADER; “quietly devastating” –Exclaim), Nap Eyes presents a languorous adaptation of a phantasmagorical poem by Russian Romantic Alexander Pushkin (1799–1837). “Demons” depicts a perilous nocturnal journey by carriage, beset by eerie apparitions of uncanny but uncertain spectral nature. The band unravels the knotty verse into a fluid melody, gliding adeptly through the snow, observing the eldritch scene.

Nap Eyes: First Transmission from the Neon Gate

The first Nap Eyes song in exactly three years, the astonishing “Feline Wave Race,” which transports the listener from “outer space” to a “13th-century castle” and into the 1996 Nintendo game Wave Race 64, piloted by synths and drum programming, is more discursive and deconstructed, more abstract and nonlinear than anything they’ve attempted to date. “Ice Grass Underpass,” which singer, principal songwriter, and guitarist Nigel Chapman wrote in 2009, predates the band’s existence entirely but prefigures the sonic signature of Nap Eyes’s foundational first two albums.

James Elkington and Nathan Salsburg Release “Death Wishes to Kill”

James Elkington and Nathan Salsburg release “Death Wishes to Kill,” the second single off their forthcoming and third album of guitar duets, All Gist, out April 12th via Paradise of Bachelors. “Death Wishes to Kill” follows the release of the duo’s acoustic version of Neneh Cherry’s “Buffalo Stance,” which “cleverly builds on the guitar licks that propel the original, and trades Cherry’s dance floor rhythm for a toe-tapping country swing” (WNYC’s New Sounds).

Truckload of Art: The Life and Work of Terry Allen Publication Day.

Today is the day—Truckload of Art publication day and, aptly, also the first day of spring. You can find the hardcover—which is stunning, with both b&w and color image inserts—as well as the ebook and audiobook (author Brendan Greaves reads four chapters, with Jason Culp adeptly handling the rest) at your favorite booksellers. Join Brendan and friends—including the Allens in Austin—at upcoming book events. 

Boogie: Six New Terry Allen Songs + Truckload of Art Book Tour Events.

Truckload of Art: The Life and Work of Terry Allen, the authorized (and the first-ever) biography of the internationally acclaimed visual artist and iconoclastic musician by Brendan Greaves of Paradise of Bachelors, is out via Hachette Books in just four days, on March 19. On the occasion of its imminent publication, we have released two archival Terry Allen EPs of rare and unheard early recordings. Both Gonna California and Cowboy and the Stranger are now streaming worldwide. Read on to listen, to purchase the book or one of the few remaining copies of the special limited-edition 7″, to read some recent press, and to RSVP for free book tour events in NC, DC, PA, NY, and TX, including a special Austin library concert.

James Elkington and Nathan Salsburg’s All Gist

The duo’s album of instrumental guitar recordings pushes their sinuous compositions into labyrinthine new shapes, interlocking and interlocutory, supported by a cast of stellar collaborators. Interwoven among the dazzling original pieces is a fascinating array of covers, ranging from traditional Breton dance tunes to a deconstruction of Neneh Cherry’s monumental “Buffalo Stance,” which you can hear today.