Darren Hayman & The Long Parliament, The Violence

Witches seem to have a hold on the imagination of many British artists at the moment, from dark ambient practitioners Demdike Stare (Demdike was the most famous of the Pendle witches) to The Eccentronic Research Council, the collective fronted by Maxine Peake of Shameless, who evoke the nefarious goings on of the 16th-century crones of Lancashire. Adding to the brew is Darren Hayman, formerly of Hefner, whose final album in a trilogy devoted to the county of Essex, The Violence, is about the witch trials of the 17th century. These 20 bold tracks take the familiar Hayman template of slightly ramshackle folk and build on it with pastoral instrumentation: banjo, clarinet and lilting guitar. But what makes this Hayman’s finest solo album yet is his knack for a tune. “Impossible Times” is a history lesson set to a jaunty ox-cart rattle, while the yearning “Vinegar Tom” is reminiscent of Mercury Rev in its otherworldly sparkle. “Elizabeth Clarke” is the stand-out track, its jolly trumpet at odds with the recording of a creaking hangman’s rope. And as lines in a love song go, “Who will tug on my ankles when I’m swinging?” (as was customary to ensure a quick death) takes some beating.

Lindstrøm, Smalhans

Hans-Peter Lindstrøm is the leader of a new generation of Norwegian producers that also includes Prins Thomas — with whom he has made a pair of albums — Todd Terje, who mixed this album, and a host of mainly Oslo-based DJ/producers, including the godfather of the scene, DJ Strangefruit. As one of the few non-DJs operating in house music, his music has a pleasing and glittery attack that is often more suited to the headphones than the dancefloor, and his fifth solo album, Smalhans, is no exception. With a running time of little over 30 minutes, there is no room for fat, as he leaps stylistically from the imaginary soundtrack of “Rá-Àkõ-St,” which comes on like the futuristic theme from The Persuaders, to “Vā-Flę-R,” which combines Giorgio Moroder’s motorik rhythms with the wild oscillations of Tangerine Dream. On “Lāmm-Ęl-Āār,” he even hits the button marked trance and zips off into the EDM ether (though with somewhat more taste than lesser lights on that scene). When anchored by a four-to-the-floor rhythm, he messes with form and function with some wonderfully disorienting melodies. Apparently, all the tracks are named after traditional Norwegian dishes. Can’t vouch for the food, but the musical accompaniment is suitably tasty.

New This Week: Cody ChesnuTT, Neurosis & More

So, as you may have heard, things are a little crazy in New York right now. So if this week’s New Arrivals post seems a bit punchier and more pun-filled this usual, it’s probably the result of extreme cabin fever.

We sincerely hope all of our eMusic members impacted by the storm are warm and safe and dry and doing well. We hope to be operating at full capacity here very soon. In the meantime, here’s a roundup of this week’s notable records to help get you through the next few days.

Neurosis, Honor Found in Decay: FINALLY. After an eternal-feeling four-year wait, Neurosis return with the same brand of lurching, 600-ton clobber-metal that have made them so justifiably beloved. The pace here is glacial, and we wouldn’t have it any other way — tense beginnings resolve into fully pummeling refrains. This one is Highly Recommended

Cody ChesnuTT, Landing on a Hundred: Ten years after his celebrated lo-fi debut The Headphone Masterpiece, Cody ChesnuTT returns with an album that is cleaner and sharper and more fully-realized. We interviewed ChesnuTT to find out what he’s been up to in the last decade. His album proves he’s lost none of his gentle tone or assured delivery, he’s just augmented it with fuller instrumentation.

The Coup, Sorry to Bother You: Just in time for the election, The Coup bring another batch of thumping hip-hop built on martial percussion and Boots Riley’s aggressive lyrics and delivery.

Tig Notaro, Live: Live set from justly-celebrated standup comic is alternately wrenching and hilarious. eMusic’s Anna Bond says:

As Notaro champion Louis C.K. has put it, Live is a rare reminder of what comedy can do at its most powerful. Live is the human condition, bone-weary and candid, placed before us without fanfare by one of our era’s most incisive and big-hearted wits; Live is the quietest triumph, a grief-borne obelisk displaying the strength of the human spirit better than any wilderness-survival memoir could hope to; Live is big-eyed, raw and grateful; Live is unbelievably funny.

Andrew Bird, Hands of Glory: New batch of Bird songs from the Break it Yourself sessions has the same loose, ambling feel as that record — lots of fog and moodiness, spare instrumentation and a ghostly mood overall.

OBN IIIs, s/t: I love these guys. Austin group specialize in marauding, super-melodic garage rock not entirely unlike The Saints or Radio Birdman. If you like big riffs and big hooks, this one’s for you. Recommended

Various Artists, Holidays Rule: It’s basically already the holidays, which means it’s basically already time for holiday music. Every year has one compilation that feels like The One To Get, and this one might fill that role for 2012. Heavy-hitters like fun., Rufus Wainwright, The Shins and Paul McCartney turn in their takes on holiday classics.

Cee-Lo Green, Cee-Lo’s Magic Moment: And if that’s not enough Christmas for you: Cee-Lo brings a record of throwback R&B-inspired takes on Christmas classics. This one is smooth and instantly-classic sounding, and Green’s smooth delivery is perfectly suited to these well-loved holiday chestnuts.

The Barbaras, 2006 – 2008: Great garage from Goner! One of our favorite labels has more revved-up trashy garage-pop to satisfy hungry souls. Giddy and goofy and irresistible, this full-length from the now-defunct group of Memphis goons has enough smarts and sass to make you wonder what might have been. Recommended

Sean Price, Mic Tyson: Let’s just take a moment to appreciate the fact that the new Sean Price record is called Mic Tyson, and to also marvel that somehow no one has ever named a record Mic Tyson before. Sean P! I loved the first few records Price made for DuckDown. This one sounds like it’s not a huge departure, but I can’t imagine anyone out there is hoping he suddenly reverses course and makes his crossover electro-rap record. So in short, you get menacing, claustrophobic production and P’s thick, gut-punching flow and lines about “Hanna-Barbera Barbarians.” This is real clobber ‘em style. I like it.

The Black Opera, Libretto: Of King Legend: The great Mello Music label continues their winning streak with the latest from The Black Opera. As you might guess, this one is a concept record, which may or may not tell the group’s origin story in oblique, metaphorical language. It also functions as a pretty riveting fantasy story, with rubbery synths and rat-a-tat drums. Pretty ambitious, and Recommended

LA Vampires & Maria Minerva, The Integration LP: More great, spooky weirdness from LA Vampires and Maria Minerva. This one is a bit dancier than either of their usual outings, but still has that free-floating, ghostlike quality both have become known for.

Soft Moon, Zeroes: Doomy, booming, Nitzer Ebb-recalling techno-dance from Soft Moon is a welcome flashback to the early days of industrial music. If you ever wore a cape to a goth club or owned a black velour shirt — and who among us hasn’t? — open your arms to a return to your teenage years. Super goth, super good. Recommended

The Velvet Underground & Nico, The Velvet Underground & Nico: Super Deluxe 45th Anniversary Edition: Whoah. Six (!) disc reissue of the VU’s seminal debut comes packed with an insane number of extras. You get the album, the mono mix of the album, Nico’s Chelsea Girls, and a live performance from Columbus, Ohio (naturally) in 1966. It is a huge holy mother of a deluxe reissue. Peel slowly and see. Recommended

HTRK, Part Time Punks Radio Sessions: Radio sessions from dreamy, mysterious band on Ghostly recalls early Wake, with drowsy vocals buried under milky seas of synth.

Chad Valley, Young Hunger: Shimmery and shiny electropop with guest appearances by Twin Shadow and El Perro Del Mar. This one recalls a milder Erasure — soulful vocals and cascading keyboards paired with sensuous vocal melodies.

MhZ, MhZ Legacy: This album finds the unlikely middle ground between future-shock synth-heavy production and old-school boom-bap. Nate Patrin says:

Columbus, Ohio’s Mhz made their name in the late ’90s with early singles on the legendary Fondle ‘Em Records…Fate, circumstances and tragedy have brought the remaining members of the crew back together for MHz Legacy, with the late Camu Tao’s spot filled by both a series of unreleased verses and a few guest spots by torch-carrying MCs (Slug, Danny Brown) who acknowledge the influence of his intense, emotional style. While RJD2′s vintage neo-Shadow production style only fills out a handful of tracks — including the tense, symphonic soul of “Out of Room,” the wobbly-kneed funk of “Satisfied,” and the heartstring-pulling Camu tribute “Tero Smith” — it’s as strong a reunion as you could hope for.

Punks on Mars, Bad Expectations: Pouty, new-wavey pop songs with razor-sharp guitars, fizzy melodies and plinking keyboards make this feel like a lost Bomp! magazine classic. Recommended

Saul Williams, Amethyst Rock Star: It’s been a long time since Williams’ celebrated Trent Reznor collabo Niggy Tardust, and the years sound like they’ve only made him more focused and determined. The mood here is grim: imagine dalek’s clanking and wheezing industrial hip-hop production and you’ve got an idea of what to expect here. Williams delivers his verse like he’s reading passages from a book — impassioned, direct and deliberate. Future shock starts here.

Photek, Kupalm: Latest from Photek is full of blinking synths and steady, thumping percussion is the perfect soundtrack for some kind of midnight dance club in a TRON film. Mild trip-hop elements interspersed with old-school electro make this one for the faithful.

R. Ring, “Fall Out & Fire”: R. Ring is Kelley Deal’s new project. This one sounds a little more straight-ahead than her previous work, but still has the gnarled guitar + sugary vocal combo we’ve come to love. Do you guys remember when she was in that band The Last Hard Men with Sebastian Bach from Skid Row? That was super weird.

Star Eyes, Lost Girls EP: Pretty excellent EP of shadowy dance music. Clipped vocals, wavy synths and stuttering drums make this kind of the perfect complement to that Soft Moon record mentioned above. It’s autumn, and the shadows are rolling in — this is another one for the graveyard dwellers.

Dave Sumner’s Jazz Picks
Huge drop this last week.So many to rec that a couple will probably bleed into next week’s column just to spread things out a bit.This week will be a bounty of selections for jazz fans whose tastes run toward the straight-ahead jazz variety, though there are a few selections that’ll appeal to those with more eccentric needs in their music.Let’s begin…

Chad McCullough & Bram Weijters Quartet, Urban Nightingale:Follow-up album to last year’s excellent Imaginary Sketches.McCullough’s trumpet and Weijters’ piano have a symbiosis that should be the envy of others.This is jazz for a rainy day, no matter if it’s the cabin-fever variety or the kick back and relax sort of thing.McCullough gets to soaring, but has weight on those wings, and Weijters has a nice way of balancing the piano’s melodic and rhythmic traits.For this album, Piet Verbist is added as the bass player, and he had an excellent album of his own this year (and Jazz Pick) titled Zygomatik..John Bishop on drums, and you can’t go wrong there.Pick of the Week.

Manu Katche, Manu Katche:Lovely album from drummer Katche.With Nils Petter Molvaer on trumpet and Tore Brunborg on sax, it’s got that atmospheric Nordic jazz ambiance, but between the compositions and Katche and Jim Watson on piano & keys, there’s plenty of earthy drive to the affair and preventing the album from ever being in danger of drifting off.Highly Recommended.

Bill McHenry, La Peur du Vide:Tenor saxophonist McHenry’s newest has some serious energy.Recorded live at the Village Vanguard, McHenry rounds out his saxophone quartet with pianist Orrin Evans, Eric Revis on bass, and drummer Andrew Cyrille.An album that fans of Coltrane’s transition period from hard bop to free will enjoy.And while burners like album opener “Siglo XX” give plenty of reason to be impressed, it’s when he applies a delicate touch (like on the title-track) that really displays the formidable talent that he is.Recommended.

Mick Coady’s Synergy, Nine Tales of the Pendulum:Nice modern jazz set with a nice line-up.Coady leads on bass, and backed by Dave Binney on alto, Michael Buckley on tenor, Ivo Neame on piano, and Sean Carpio on drums.Mostly high-energy, but songs like “Real Ballad” show that they know how to ease up on the gas pedal.

Stephane Kerecki Trio, Sound Architects:Really pretty album with Kerecki’s sax/bass/drum trio with guests Tony Malaby on sax and Bojan Z on piano.Definitely a modern flair for jazz comp, but there are moments of 60s spiritual jazz that give the music a spellbinding quality.Find of the Week.

Avishai Cohen, Triveni II:Follow-up album to previous release Triveni and recorded in the same days as the original.Nasheet Waits on drums and Omer Avital on bass join Cohen’s trumpet.This album is more song-oriented than the first, also more fluid with the interactions between trio members.Intimate feel to the music, and nice spontaneity to keep the listener guessing for what’s coming next.You can’t go wrong downloading this album.

Vinicius Cantuaria, Indio de Apartamento:Guitarist-vocalist Cantuaria returns with a very strong effort on his latest recording, bringing a new sonic effect to his signature mix of Brazilian music and modern jazz and folk.The different elements seem more evenly dispersed on his latest release, which really spotlights the dynamics of the interactions without sanitizing them of their best qualities.Plenty of guests, as per usual, including frequent collaborator Bill Frisell, and also Norah Jones and Ryuichi Sakamoto on piano.Beautiful, calming, sometimes eerie music.

Vincent Courtois, Mediums:Odd album, strangely mesmerizing.A trio, with Courtois on cello, Daniel Erdmann and Robin Finckner each on tenor sax.Courtois, whose range of experience takes him from classical across to free jazz, finds a meeting point between his cello and simultaneous tenor saxes.It’s an engaging album, also sounds sort of pretty at times.File under Something Different.

Antonio Ragosta, Il Mare e Lincanto a Roma Est:Debut album from the guitarist.Mostly a guitar trio, but adds in some cello and trombone to nice effect.Strong influence from his Italian home turf.Nice easy sway to most of the tunes, a couple groove along though to mix it up.

Nicola Sergio Trio, Illusions:Dynamic piano trio album.Nothing fancy, just solid play. More European than NYC style, but we’re only talking a matter of degrees here.Some very beautiful moments, and probably the kind of album that just gets better with repeated listening.

Meretrio, Meretrio:A trio that does a pretty nifty job of blending modern guitar jazz with Brazilian music.Dreamy ballads, swinging up-tempo pieces, lots of catchy melodies.This album came out in 2011, but I’m pretty sure it’s never been on eMusic before.It’s really a nice album.

Pharez Whitted, For the People:Nice straight-ahead hard bop session with a solid line-up of musicians:Whitted on trumpet, Eddie Bayard on tenor & soprano sax, Bobby Broom on guitar, Ron Perrillo on piano, Dennis Carroll on bass, and Greg Artry on drums.Whitted knows how to bring the fire without allowing it to become an uncontrolled conflagration.Bayard takes an excellent turn on soprano sax, and Broom and Perillo juggle notes with a nifty precision.An album that’s fun and easy to bounce along with.

Sean Wayland, Click Track Jazz: Slave to the Machine Vol. 1:Interesting new release from pianist Wayland, who seems to shift his sound with each subsequent album.On this current release, he’s on keys and synths more than piano, and delves into jazz-funk and fusion sounds.His natural spryness on piano creates a ice contrast with the funk and fusion elements (which can get sort of sluggish).He retains his core of Matt Penman and Jochen Rueckert, and adds a bunch of guests, including Donny McCaslin, Mark Guiliana, and Wayne Krantz.

Winther-Storm, Spinnaker:Quartet of guitar, bass, sax, and drums.Nordic sound, straight-ahead modern, though seem to feel the occasional pull toward a more free sound.Nothing earth-shattering here, but the album holds up fine after a couple listens and seemed worth getting a mention.

Tom Matta Big Band, Components:Debut album, straight-ahead big band sound.17-piece ensemble of musicians from the Chicago scene.Good music for fighting back the chill of autumn turning to winter.

Noordpool Orchestra, Radiohead: A Jazz Symphony:42-piece big band with strings covers the Radiohead songbook.Some uneven moments, and I’m really not sure if this album is gonna have staying power in the long run, but it’s a nifty idea and I appreciate the attempt, and it woudn’t surprise me to discover that some listeners come to adore this album.

Neurosis, Honor Found in Decay

Like the band’s last album, 2007′s Given to the Rising, Neurosis’s 10th studio album in 27 years, Honor Found in Decay, is a cinematic, multi-dimensional exploration of texture and emotion that weaves togetherdoom-metal, atmospheric rock, dark psychedelia, tribal metal and proto-industrial. But the experimental post-metal pioneers also delve deep into the apocalyptic folk that frontmen Scott Kelly and Steve Von Till have explored on their recent solo albums. “At the Well” starts with slow, reverberant guitar strums and cryptic existential musings: “The blaze of a Helios sky/ Rage will blossom into iron/Blind as a worm in the earth.” And “Casting of the Ages” opens with dual acoustic guitars and deep, rattling vocals atop a lolling bass line and a lazy accordion before sparking into a thudding, trudging doom trek.

Honor Found in Decay is hardly uplifting; here’s the opening line from the propulsive opening track”We All Rage in Gold”: “I walk into the water to wash the blood from my feet.” Yet the bands presentation is so artful and symphonic it reveals sheer beauty in lyrical hopelessness and inspiration in rhythmic ugliness. Unlike many post-metal albums that seesaw between reflective calm and turbulent chaos, Neurosis’s dualism is more subtle and natural, and at times almost spiritual in its nihilism.

Tig Notaro, Live

2012 has been Tig Notaro’s year; 2012 has not been Tig Notaro’s year. Stricken by a bout of pneumonia that spiraled into a life-threatening bacterial infection, Notaro suffered the accidental death of her mother and a wrenching breakup before being diagnosed with stage 2 invasive cancer in both breasts — all within four months. But just as these tragedies piled up, so did her successes, as Notaro’s career began to ascend a steep trajectory.

Live — the title is the imperative verb, not the adjective — captures the now-legendary standup set Notaro performed at Los Angeles’s Largo only a few days after her diagnosis. “Hello. Good evening, hello. I have cancer. How are you?” The half-hour Notaro introduces thus is generous and revelatory, brilliantly counterpoising our human focus on the absurdly trivial with a laid-bare understanding of life’s potential for pitch-black irony.

But this set is so much more. As Notaro champion Louis C.K. has put it, Live is a rare reminder of what comedy can do at its most powerful. Live is the human condition, bone-weary and candid, placed before us without fanfare by one of our era’s most incisive and big-hearted wits; Live is the quietest triumph, a grief-borne obelisk displaying the strength of the human spirit better than any wilderness-survival memoir could hope to; Live is big-eyed, raw and grateful; Live is unbelievably funny.

MHz, MHz Legacy

Columbus, Ohio’s Mhz made their name in the late ’90s with early singles on the legendary Fondle ‘Em Records such as “World Premier” and “Rocket Science,” and then gained broader exposure with 2001′s Table Scraps. But by the mid ’00s the underground crew was better known for the careers they’d spawned: producer RJD2 and MCs Copywrite and Camu Tao were all on their way to solo breakouts and high-profile collaborations by 2002, while remaining members Tage Proto and Jakki da Motamouth made lower-profile waves on their own. Fate, circumstances and tragedy have brought the remaining members of the crew back together for MHz Legacy, with the late Camu Tao’s spot filled by both a series of unreleased verses and a few guest spots by torch-carrying MCs (Slug, Danny Brown) who acknowledge the influence of his intense, emotional style. While RJD2′s vintage neo-Shadow production style only fills out a handful of tracks — including the tense, symphonic soul of “Out of Room,” the wobbly-kneed funk of “Satisfied,” and the heartstring-pulling Camu tribute “Tero Smith” — it’s as strong a reunion as you could hope for, with no beats missed when it comes to the hyperbolic punchline rap and unfiltered smack-talk that still stands as their stock in trade.

New This Week: Tracey Thorn, Cody ChesnuTT, Photek & More

Tracey Thorn, Tinsel and Lights Thorn’s music has always been in good taste and this Christmas album is no exception, conjuring up images of artfully-arranged bare branches and expensive candles, rather than plastic baubles and spray-snow. Stripped-back covers of The White Stripes’ “In The Cold Cold Night” and “Taking Down The Tree” from Low’s 1999 EP Christmas are joined by two blazing originals, without a sleighbell in sight. Victoria Segal reviews:

“It’s the kind of miracle that makes you think of James Stewart and reindeer hooves on the roof… Everything But the Girl’s Tracey Thorn has judged her entry into the seasonal market to perfection.”

Cody ChesnuTT, Landing on a Hundred Chesnutt’s follow-up to his aptly-named 2002 debut The Headphone Masterpiece is an uplifting set of brass-blasted, socially-conscious R&B and retro soul cast in the mould of Marvin Gaye, Curtis Mayfield and Al Green. Sharon O’Connell speaks to Chesnutt about what he’s been up to for the past decade here.

Photek, Ku:Palm Photek’s first album in ten years sees the towering figure from the early drum and bass and jungle scenes unite his love of house music with his experience writing cinematic scores to create a sonic experience for headphone nodders, as well as dancefloor hip-shakers.

DJ-Kicks, Hercules and Love Affair Andy Butler’s entry into !K7’s DJ-Kicks series mixes up primitive house (Rhythm Mode:D’s “Can You Feel It”) with classic garage (Klubb Kidz’s “Don’t Want to Hurt You”) to soundtrack the New York loft party in your head.

Of Montreal, Daughter of Cloud Rarities and b-sides album full of mouthful song titles (“Hindlopp Stat”, “Partizan Terminus”) from the experimental freak-popper. Ryan Reed reviews:

“Obviousatonicnuncio” is the musical equivalent of an ice-cream headache, cramming an entire career worth of outlandish ideas (nails-on-chalkboard spoken-word bits, chirpy vocal operatics) into a three-minute span that feels like two hours. But elsewhere, Daughter of Cloud is often thrilling… [of Montreal’s] most coherent collection of music in many years.”

MHz, MHz Legacy The Columbus, Ohio crew, who made their name in the late ’90s, reunite for their first album in more than a decade with the late Camu Tao’s spot filled by torch-carrying MCs including Slug and Danny Brown. Nate Patrin writes:

“It’s as strong a reunion as you could hope for, with no beats missed when it comes to the hyperbolic punchline rap and unfiltered smack-talk that still stands as their stock in trade.”

Tig Notaro, Live Notaro is a comedian championed by Louis C.K. and this album captures a now legendary stand-up set in Los Angeles only a few days after she was diagnosed with stage-2 breast cancer. Anna Bond writes:

“Notaro is generous and revelatory, brilliantly counterpoising our human focus on the absurdly trivial with a laid-bare understanding of life’s potential for pitch-black irony. Live is a rare reminder of what comedy can do at its most powerful.”

Skye, Back To Now Skye of Morcheeba’s third solo album showcases her velvety vocals alongside dark atmospherics that create moods, rather than stand-out moments.

Huey and the New Yorkers, Say It To My Face Fun Lovin’ Criminal and presenter Huey Morgan probably isn’t reading this, so we feel comfortable describing his solo album as lightweight funk. But you can’t deny his charisma on tracks like “Stick It To The Man”.

Who Are…Parquet Courts

One of the most thrilling debuts of the year, Parquet Courts’ Light Up Gold goes back to the first principles of punk that get forgotten every so often: speed, precision, brains and attitude. The group is a very simple quartet — two guitars, bass, drums, and a pair of yelpers who take turns one-upping each other — and they knocked out the album in a three-day weekend (after a year of woodshedding and live shows). But it’s as bracing and funny as NYC rock gets, packed end-to-end with crisp little hooks, and populated by songs that get straight to the point and get out. (Seven out of 15 are less than two minutes long; the only one that sticks around for more than five minutes is the two-chord wonder “Stoned and Starving.”)

The group’s de facto frontman Andrew Savage — who’s also played in Fergus & Geronimo and Teenage Cool Kids, among other bands — met his fellow singer/guitarist Austin Brown in college in Texas. Along with Savage’s brother Max and former Bostonian bassist Sean Yeaton, they moved to New York City and started Parquet Courts, armed with some very strong opinions about what punk culture needs to do.

As the band set up for one of their many gigs, eMusic’s Douglas Wolk talked with them about their place in the New York scene, the inspirations behind their sound and graphics, and their feelings about what’s missing in music right now.

On how Parquet Courts developed their sound:

Andrew Savage: It was fairly premeditated. One of the first things we did was release a mix tape of influences for the band — we had an idea of what we wanted to do. We all, for the most part, like a lot of the same music. And we all really like writing; everyone’s a writer, in the band, in some capacity. That’s one common ground that we all have.

Austin Brown: We were writing together and playing together for over a year before we recorded Light Up Gold.

Sean Yeaton: A lot of the songs are riffs that we really had fun playing. Most of the songs only have one or two parts — we decided we didn’t really need anything else, because we were fine with what we had.

On the difference between being a Texas band and being a New York band:

Savage: The scene we came out of, those of us who are from Texas, is, I think, a little more sincere than a lot of stuff that’s been coming out of New York for the last decade. It comes from a more punk background. There are a lot of bands that have been coming out of where I’m from, Denton, doing interesting stuff. There’s always music going on in New York, but as far as the kind of music we do, the scene we exist in is kind of going through a change right now. There’s a shift in underground guitar-based music — things are going away from the indie-rock side, and swinging back over to the punk side. Or so I would like to think.

On the distinction between “indie rock” and “punk”:

Savage: Words like “indie” and “counter-culture” and “alternative” have become meaningless terms, but you gotta remember that when those terms came about, some things were counter to the main culture. A lot of indie rock is just a scaled-down version of pop culture. But there are still people like us who want to present an aesthetic alternative: something that’s different from pop music. We’re not the only ones doing it; there are bands like the Men and PC Worship that are coming out of New York. What it comes down to is an attitude and sincerity. One thing that lacks in the stuff they call indie rock is emotional honesty.

On Light Up Gold‘s snarling opener, “Master of My Craft”:

Brown: “Master of My Craft” is a third-person perspective from someone who…possibly would be like an established person from the New York scene, telling another person that they kind of know everything. It’s more of a dialogue than a story.

On the album’s impassioned closer, “Picture of Health”:

Savage: It’s a song about someone I know — something I wanted to say to someone who, at the time, I couldn’t necessarily say it to. I really thought about cutting that song from Light Up Gold, and still, when I listen to the record myself, that song I don’t listen to. It’s just different; it comes out with a Guided By Voices kind of sound, which I would say otherwise isn’t really on the record.

On the visual presentation of Parquet Courts:

Savage: I do most of the art. The style that I’ve been working on for a while has became associated with Dull Tools, the label that me and my friend Chris Pickering do. When you see a Black Flag record and see the Raymond Pettibon art, you think “man, that’s gotta be pretty cool” — and then you hear the band and it kind of all makes sense. There aren’t too many bands who care about that any more, which is maybe another distinguishing factor between really good music and stuff that’s really blasé.

Tracey Thorn, Tinsel and Lights

More treacherous than black ice on the doorstep, trickier than timing a turkey, the Christmas album is a dangerous temptation for musicians. Too many bells, appalling knitwear on the sleeve, a gravy boat of sentimentality: The perils are terrifying. When an artist manages to get it right, however, it’s the kind of miracle that makes you think of James Stewart and reindeer hooves on the roof. With Tinsel and Lights, Everything But The Girl’s Tracey Thorn has judged her entry into the seasonal market to perfection, combining judiciously chosen cold-themed covers with two blazingly emotional originals. “You loved it as kid/ And now you need it more than you ever did,” she sings on “Joy,” a testament to warding off the darkness of adult life, while the title track pushes at the thin membrane between happiness and poignancy to eye-prickling effect. The gifts keep coming: beautifully judged versions of Joni Mitchell’s “River” and Sufjan Steven’s “Sister Winter,” Thorne’s elegant vocals on “Hard Candy Christmas,” and best of all, a duet with Scritti Politti’s Green on “Taking Down The Tree,” a song originally from Low’s magical festive album. Have yourself a slightly melancholy but rather lovely little Christmas.

Andrew Bird, Hands of Glory

Andrew Bird’s folky, jazzy brand of indie-rock is highly sophisticated — few artists have as much fun toying with song construction, and Bird’s lyrics have always been impossibly literate, reading like tongue-tied mazes of metaphor and sarcasm. But even at his most complex, this whistling violin virtuoso’s tunes have always felt a bit old-fashioned, out-of-step with those of his peers.

On Hands of Glory, a companion EP to this year’s Break it Yourself, Bird embraces this role and steps into a sonic time machine. Inspired by the intimate “old-timey” acoustic performances of his recent shows, he recorded these reverent and quietly pretty eight tracks (a mix of gospel/bluegrass covers and re-interpreted originals) in a barn, with his band huddled around a solitary microphone. The results can be awfully sleepy: This new version of Townes Zan Zandt’s “If I Needed You” simmers in its barnyard reverb but never takes flight. Still, it’s a delight to hear Bird embrace his capital-R roots. He’s never sounded as loose as he does on the bouncy churn of “Railroad Bill,” where his instrument shifts from violin to fiddle in real-time. Instrumental coda “Beyond the Valley of the Three White Horses” ends the album with a blissful drone, violins and glockenspiels twinkling into the big-country twilight. Hands of Glory isn’t Bird’s most exciting album, but it’s certainly his easiest to love.

Interview: Colorama

[As part of Edwyn Collins's takeover of eMusic, we asked him to choose two of his favourite artists for us to interview. He chose Linden and Colorama, below — Ed.]

“It turns out I’m pretty good at writing songs,” grins Carwyn Ellis, though he swiftly appends a bashful “he said, conceitedly,” in case anyone takes this rare blush of immodesty at face value. But he’s not wrong. The 39-year-old singer/songwriter/multi-instrumentalist spent a fair few years in the trenches earlier in his career, a musical gun-for-hire who balanced stints in Proud Mary and North Mississippi Allstars with guest slots playing for UNKLE, Shane MacGowan and, yes, Edwyn Collins. As leader of Colorama since 2008, however, Ellis has taken the spotlight himself, singing and penning classic pop — Good Music, to quote the title of the band’s fifth and latest album, a tune-studded set, produced by Collins, that warmly embraces harmony-saturated choruses and timeless songwriting.

Stevie Chick spoke with Carwyn Ellis about getting past his hang-ups and why Edwyn is “The Dude.”

You started your career working on other people’s projects, playing other people’s songs, so I’m guessing Colorama began as a vehicle to make your own music.

Exactly. I’m quite prolific, which is partly because I was a late starter. But I really enjoy writing songs, and singing them, and so I do it a lot. I came to singing quite late. I thought I couldn’t do it; I was disgusted by the sound of my own voice. I’d gotten used to being quite good at playing music, so if I wasn’t good at something new pretty quickly, I’d jack it in. It takes a lot of practice and discipline, learning to sing, and finding the balls to sing out in front of people, to get beyond your hang-ups. But I love it now.

Talk us through some of the highlights of your richly storied CV.

I started out in a band called Southern Fly, after I left college, but we didn’t get anywhere. We kept signing to labels that would almost immediately shut down. And it was a bit of a “drug band.” After that, I played in Proud Mary for some time, and then started playing with North Mississippi Allstars. We made an album at Ardent Studios in Memphis, which was an amazing experience.

Did you get to meet the legendary Jim Dickinson, the Memphis music legend who produced The Rolling Stones and Big Star, and was late father of North Mississippi Allstars’ Luther and Cody?

Oh yes. I was a bit scared of him at first; he was a very imposing man, with the weight of history behind him. You’d see him squinting at you through his glasses, like a disapproving teacher. But he was a great man and I love his boys very much. We have a group together too, called London/Mississippi, and we’ll have an album out next year, which Edwyn produced.

Tell us about your relationship with Edwyn.

It started nine years ago, when Edwyn started thinking about playing some full-band shows, after a few years of playing solo acoustic gigs. His guitarist Andy Hackett is a friend of mine, and suggested me to play bass and keyboards. I’ve been working with him ever since. Edwyn is The Dude. I’ve learned so much from him, about momentum and spontaneity, capturing performances and not dwelling too much on the finer points. There’s a fun, a gleefulness, to the way he works, which you should never lose. That’s the reason why you do it in the first place. After he got sick, it was pretty tricky there, but we’re all dead proud of him, of how he’s recovered since then. He was being written off at every stage, him and Grace [Edwyn's wife], but they’ve shown everyone. They’re quite amazing, those two.

Parliament, Rhenium

Who knows why the CD-era compilers of this compendium chose to monkey with the running order of Parliament’s first proper album, 1970′s Osmium? Maybe to justify the new title: After all, osmium is the heaviest metal—hint, hint—while rhenium is almost as dense but not quite, similar to the effect of aerating Osmium‘s tracks with selections from contemporary 7-inches, such as the new opener, “Breakdown.” Still, that decent-enough funk track is an expert set-up for the fire-powered blues-rock of “I Call My Baby Pussycat,” so score one for rethinking things.

Because George Clinton’s Parliafunkadelicment Thang was hardly an idea yet in 1970, Osmium undoubtedly seemed like a scrappier psychedelic-era Temptations with a heavy guitar bent. The weird hoedowns (“Little Ole Country Boy,” expertly sampled on De La Soul’s “Potholes in My Lawn”) and hippie-gospel harpsichord jams (“Oh Lord, Why Lord/Prayer Medley”) give it the feeling of a tour through the era’s fads, though it’s clear that Clinton and friends’ real expertise is in the six-string grind of “Red Hot Mama.” Nevertheless, it would be a terrific curio even if it weren’t the first shot in the most labyrinthian and deeply rewarding catalog of the ’70s.

Lou Reed, Walking On The Wild Side

The only thing to dislike about this 1972 live recording is its unimaginative title—and even that is an improvement from its previous moniker, American Poet. Whatever you call it, and it’s no doubt had many other handles in its life as a long-sought-after bootleg, it stands as Lou Reed’s most engaging, crowd-pleasing concert recording. Taped at a New York radio performance shortly after cutting his glam-rock statement Transformer with David Bowie and Mick Ronson, the famously cranky, recently dyed-blonde Reed is almost genial here, perhaps due to the obvious excellence of his then-new material: “Vicious,” “Satellite Of Love” and “Walk On The Wild Side.” Even the Velvet Underground songs, including a slowhanded “I’m Waiting For The Man” and eight minutes of “Heroin,” bristle with energy. Walking On The Wild Side is more controlled, nuanced and nicer than either Rock ‘n’ Roll Animal (Reed’s forcible arena-rock live album) or Live: Take No Prisoners (often called Reed’s comedy album due to his drunken, angry monologues). During a mid-album interview segment, however, even a cheerful and well-adjusted Lou Reed can’t pass up the interviewer’s softball question: “Where’s Doug Yule?” Reed: “Dead, I hope.” Maybe blondes really do have more fun.

Vic Godard, The End of the Surrey People

In 1976, Vic Godard was the leader of one of the first British punk rock bands, Subway Sect. Over the next few years, though, he drifted away from punk and developed a taste for American soul and Cole Porter, then quit music in the mid-’80s. He returned to songwriting and recording with this album, released in 1993 (and recorded by his old scenemate Edwyn Collins, on an eight-track machine in his bedroom). It’s a look back at punk as a music of misfits, from a musician who didn’t even fit in with that scene. Godard never really had a shouter’s voice, and several decades on it’s become a reedy, conversational, distinctly un-punk tenor, nicely accompanied here with sinuous lead guitar and a crisp rhythm section: this is the sound of someone who’s seen a lot and has had some time to reflect on it. It’s an impressively varied, thoughtful set–over the course of the album, Godard resurrects an old Subway Sect instrumental (“Imbalance”), eulogizes the New York Dolls’ Johnny Thunders, and imagines the crumbling of Yugoslavia transplanted to England (on the title track). Best of all is “Won’t Turn Back,” a tribute to Northern soul that Collins later covered himself.

Interview: Edwyn Collins

[This year's AIM Award for Outstanding Contribution To Music, sponsored by eMusic, was won Edwyn Collins, who has written, recorded and produced some of the most influential music of the past three decades. To celebrate, we're delighted to announce that Edwyn will be sitting in the editor's chair at eMusic all this week. He selected the artists we've interviewed this week: Colorama and Linden. You can read his candid interview with Andrew Perry below; Edwyn cherrypicks his favourite albums from eMusic's catalogue here; and check back daily for his hand-selected Reviews of the Day — Ed.].

When the Association of Independent Music recently chose to bestow their second-ever Outstanding Contribution award to Edwyn Collins, there can have been no more deserving candidate. Collins started his career immediately post-punk in Orange Juice on the pioneering Glasgow indie label, Postcard Records. Since going solo in 1985, has stayed true to the spirit of independence, releasing albums through Demon, Setanta and Heavenly, and in latter years has become renowned as a nurturing producer for the up-and-coming bands on his own label, AED.

When he suffered two devastating cerebral hemorrhages in February 2005, most very reasonably deemed his career to be over. Yet, through a grueling period of recovery, his commitment to music has proved to be undimmed — indeed, music has been a driving force in that recovery. When eMusic spoke with him in 2011, he was basking in positive feedback for Losing Sleep, the brilliantly uplifting collaborative album he’d written and recorded, post-illness.

Today, as he holds court at his West Heath Studios in North West London, it is a joy to report that Collins has gone from strength to strength. In defiance of paralysis down his left side, he now scuttles around on his silver-headed walking stick at a fair clip, proudly showing off studio equipment, crudely defaced gold discs and a dancing James Brown figurine. His speech, initially somewhat monosyllabic, has acquired greater flow, with occasional prompts from Grace Maxwell, his wife and manager, with whom he shares a remarkable, if amusingly sparring relationship.

And he has been busy, having almost completed a new solo record, and numerous other productions. Andrew Perry caught up on his latest news, and then asked him to reveal his favourite albums from eMusic’s catalogue — among them, friends young and old, and heroes of soul, ’60s beat-pop and ’70s art-rock.

After all you’ve been through, your career seems to be on the up-and-up.

Edwyn Collins: Before my strokes, Doctor Syntax [2002 album] was full of medium and slow [songs], and one track, “Adidas World,” was fast. I had terrible headaches, before the strokes. I wanted Losing Sleep to be a fast record. I wanted to be vibrant again, and exciting.

Grace: That’s been such a great record in your life, it did very well. It’s also given us the chance to think in general about your work, hasn’t it?

Has that success given you the confidence of knowing people still want to hear your music?

Edwyn: Yes. I’m finishing a new album at the moment. Eleven songs are done, one song to go. And, what can I say? It’s Northern Soul again, and funk, and a variety of things.

Grace: But there are no collaborators on this one, it’s just you.

Edwyn: Grace decided, what about going alone?

Grace: Don’t give the impression I’m some horrible Svengali behind you!

Edwyn: But you are, Grace! Only kidding. On my new stuff, the guitar — I did it myself, on one song. [Paralysis in his fret hand had hitherto prevented Edwyn from playing guitar — Ed.] I just used an amplifier, and some simple Memphis chords.

Grace: You sort of hammer onto the strings with your fingers, and through a special setting, you can get a sound.

Edwyn: It’s called Memphis guitar, and it’s perfect. Simple — so what? I like it!

So much that you’re doing now must’ve been inconceivable seven years ago…

Edwyn: After six months in hospital, I wasn’t sure [about ever making music again].

Grace: Maybe it was coming out of your fear. He couldn’t think, couldn’t concentrate. Edwyn would say, maybe retire. He was pretty monosyllabic at that time. You couldn’t even remember the studio, you didn’t know where it was. Could you picture it in your head?

Edwyn: Yes, I knew my studio, but I couldn’t picture the house.

Grace: Your memories are great of childhood, and records. Weirdly, the details of how his career panned out, the business side, are little bit sketchy — the stuff he wasn’t ever interested in! Could you remember how to work all the gear in the studio, and what it all did?

Edwyn: No, impossible! So yes, I’ve had to re-learn, with Seb [Edwyn's in-house engineer] — he showed me the way. Seb and I work fast — before my stroke, after my stroke, always. [In a sappy voice] “Right now, let’s ponder a minute, hmmm, my muse” — and all that. “No! Straight to the point! Next! Get on with things!” I’m like that, Seb too.

You’ve even started your own label, AED.

Grace: We like making records for people struggling to make records, so we thought the sensible thing to do was have a label. It’s called Analogue Enhanced Digital, which was a name Edwyn came up with ages ago. It’s actually a very small model at the moment. We don’t really need to go to a backer for the money to record. When you get into the guts of how to manufacture and release stuff, it’s very interesting, and you start to formulate your own opinions about how you go about that, and your ethos.

We keep telling ourselves, don’t put a lot of pressure on with deadlines, just get it right. Things are not so chart-driven anymore. You put a piece of work perfectly into people’s lives now, and the records may even have a longer life. There was a time when you had to have all your ducks in a row for the week of release.

Edwyn: Especially in the ’80s and ’90s. Even early 2000s, [with evident relish] but now it’s gone!

Grace: We’ve got a new shop for our website, so we can serve people a little bit better, and give them what they want — big files if they want, or vinyl. It’s a cottage industry. Edwyn has all his own rights, so we’re going do a box-set of all his solo catalogue, and loads of 7″ vinyl.

Are you able to cope with the pace of writing, recording, producing, touring and running a record company?

Edwyn: I keep kind of busy.

Grace: You’re very busy at times, then you have a little respite, then you have very busy times again. Edwyn has a perfect life! He doesn’t trouble his mind with anything he doesn’t fancy troubling his mind with. He keeps his head clear for all the nice things — seeing his friends, working with musicians and with his studio, writing songs, producing, and now playing…Or pottering about the house, collecting rubbish, going to charity shops…

Edwyn: Rubbish? My albums — rubbish?!

Grace: What about that ceramic-y stuff — that weird Portuguese stuff with lizards all over it. [They smile at each other.] Anyway, Edwyn lets other people do the worrying for him. It’s not a bad approach to life, is it?

Interview: Linden

[As part of Edwyn Collins's takeover of eMusic, we asked him to choose two of his favourite artists for us to interview. He chose Colorama and Linden, below — Ed.].

When Joe McAlinden was a teenager, he and his friend Norman Blake would sit in their bedrooms obsessing over records. “We wanted to be Orange Juice,” he laughs. “Coming from Glasgow, it was all about the Postcard thing…”

Thirty-odd years later, Postcard Records might be gone, but Norman has achieved a legendary status of his own with Teenage Fanclub while Joe has — under the name Linden — just made an album of glorious sun-kissed guitar anthems with his “total hero,” Orange Juice main man Edwyn Collins.

Bleached Highlights — produced by Collins and Seb Lewsley and released on AED, Collins’s label with former Rough Trade A&R James Endeacott — is studded with blissfully immediate pop songs, from “Brown Bird Singing” with its chiming guitars and soaring vocals, to the fuzzy ’60s grooves of “Something Wonderful.” It marks Joe’s return to music after a 10-year hiatus. Prior to that, he was frontman for the ’90s Creation-signed band Superstar, whose string of brilliant indie-pop singles saw them perpetually on the brink of living up to their name.

Mark Sutherland spoke with McAlinden about falling in love with music again and working with his idol.

Your old band Superstar broke up in 2000. What have you been doing for a decade?

My dad died and I just shut the door. I wasn’t really aware that I was doing it, but I not only stopped playing music, I stopped listening to it. In one room of the house was all the studio stuff and in the sitting room all the hi-fi and records, but you’d never hear a note of music.

What brought you back to music?

In September 2009, Edwyn was doing a show in Glasgow with Teenage Fanclub as his backing band. It was a phenomenal night, I met Edwyn and we got on really well. Afterward, we went back to Norman’s flat and listened to You Can’t Hide Your Love Forever [Orange Juice's debut album] about 10 times on the trot. We were like wee kids again. I came back home thinking, “I’ve really missed all this…”

A song like “If I Had Wings” from Bleached Highlights is really uplifting; you could almost imagine it featuring on The X Factor.

[Laughs.] Yeah, I can hear [other] people singing it. Bring it on! The last time I wrote a song that quickly it was a song called “Superstar,” which was covered by Rod Stewart and all that kind of nonsense. The album’s actually a really “up”-sounding record. I know why it’s upbeat, because I think if I had to really delve into how losing my dad affected me, the record would be a total dirge. I wanted to make a beautiful piece of music. My life’s changed massively in the past few years; I moved to the middle of nowhere in Argyll (western Scotland) with my studio and my dog and now I’ve got a wife and family up here. So the record’s like a balance between losing my dad and what I have now. But I don’t want people to think of the record as a downer, because it’s not.

What did Edwyn Collins bring to the creative process?

He’s very instinctive. I came down to his studio in London with a bunch of songs and a bass guitar. I hadn’t even decided who was going to play on the record. The first day Edwyn said, “Oh, we’ve got Paul Cook [Sex Pistols drummer] coming in to play drums.” I was like, “Ok, the Paul Cook?” First day, Paul Cook’s sitting behind the drums, Edwyn’s shouting through from the control room and I was like, “This is fucking mental.” If I’d made a bad record in that environment, I should have been shot!

How did it compare to being in Superstar?

I had great times with Superstar, but at the end I didn’t like the band environment, I felt I was compromising myself too much. This time, it was just me who decided whether something was good or shit and, if it was shit, Edwyn would tell me! Once, Edwyn said, “What are we going to do next?” I said, “How about this song?” “No, I don’t like it. Why don’t you go home and write another one?” I was bruised for 10 minutes and then thought, every decision he’s made has been the right one, so that’s obviously right too. So I went back up the road and wrote “Bleached Highlights.” I would’ve told him all the Orange Juice tracks I didn’t like much…but actually I don’t think there are any!

J.R. Moehringer, Sutton

Wake up in Attica, go to bed at the Plaza. Fuckin’ America. Such was the life of bank robber Willie “The Actor” Sutton, an Irish kid from Brooklyn who came up during Prohibition and stole an estimated $2 million during his career. The con was released from Attica Correctional Facility on Christmas Eve 1969 to the acclaim and notoriety that a nickname like “The Actor” might have earned earned him — or so Moehringer would have us believe. Sutton (who died in 1980) granted a single post-prison interview, though the resulting article, Moehringer writes, contained several errors and “few real revelations.” To, in effect, give a fascinating subject the profile he deserves, the Pulitzer-winning journalist and memoirist (The Tender Bar) has imagined Sutton’s first day of freedom, being followed around New York City by an unnamed reporter and photographer.

Flashing between Sutton’s Christmas ’69 and his Prohibition-era bank schemes, Sutton is a witty, whiskey-soaked romp through a Gotham populated by Chesterfield-smoking hustlers and surly newsmen. Sutton is undeniably the story’s moral center, less a thuggish Dillinger clone than a romantic and intellectual who reads Cicero behind bars. Leading a tour from the Brooklyn waterfront to Times Square, Sutton is struck by the vanished landmarks of his criminal career and haunted by memories of his former love, Bess Endner. The wealthy daughter of a shipping magnate and the poor Irish son meet as kids at Coney Island, but her family disapproved and Bess disappeared around the time Willie entered the racket. He muses: “Money. Love. There’s not a problem that isn’t caused by one or the other. And there’s not a problem that can’t be solved by one or the other.”

Narrated by actor Dylan Baker, Sutton shines a light on the class divide while affectionately adding to the legacy of a famous antihero.

Junot Díaz, This Is How You Lose Her

Some books, like some songs and movies, can be so achingly sad they’re pleasurable, and that’s the perfect balance Junot Díaz’s strikes with This Is How You Lose Her. The melancholy and pain of the displacement, romantic breakups and losses of loved ones in Díaz’s collection of loosely connected short love stories is balanced out perfectly by the writing’s snappy dialogue, dark wit and frank sexuality.

Diaz fans will recognize Yunior, the subject of several of the stories, from Díaz’s first collection, Drown, as well as from parts of his Pulitzer Prize-winning novel, The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao. Díaz reads his own work in the audiobook, lending an even more distinctive tone to some already memorable narrative voices. Latin idioms are sprinkled throughout the stories with only context in the way of explanation, making the listener feel as though he or she is eavesdropping on a hyper-intelligent, vulgar person telling a really good story — to interrupt for clarification would throw things off entirely.

This Is How You Lose Her will make listeners appreciate the simple joys of friends, lovers, work and the home, as well as the poetry that can be found when any of those can fall into discord.

Who Are…U.S. Girls

That Meghan Remy’s retro solo project is called U.S. Girls is perhaps the first indication of the duality lurking in her music. “I knew I was going to be only one person making music, but I thought the plural was funny,” she explains over the phone from her Toronto home. Her playfulness might seem unexpected given the gravity of topics she writes about — abortion, depression, suicide, lost love and loneliness — but there’s a tug-of-war that takes place throughout her four-year career. That especially comes across on her most recent full-length, GEM. On it, Remy graphically catalogues a variety of women’s issues while remaining squarely within the realm of pop, pairing devastating lyrics with light-hearted melodies.

eMusic’s Marissa G. Muller spoke with Remy about marrying feminism with pop, her riot grrrl beginnings, and working with her husband and co-producer Slim Twig.

On starting a riot grrrl club in Joliet, Illinois:

My first ever boyfriend, in junior high, was really into punk and hardcore music so he gave me Bikini Kill’s Pussy Whipped and I got into that scene. I tried to start a riot grrrl chapter in my town and put up flyers for the first meeting but only one person came, and she became my friend. As I entered high school, I met a few more people through shows, but I didn’t have many friends who shared my interest. When you’re forced to be alone, you get really good at entertaining yourself. Music was my outlet throughout school and got me excited about life.

On making pop music from a distinctly female perspective:

Everyone’s experiences are unique, but I would like to live in a place where, if I had to be a teenager again, I could read and listen to things that somewhat prepared me for the future — like women openly speaking about their bodies and periods and not attempting to present a facade that’s so put together and beautiful all of the time. It’s not my goal to be a spokesperson or anything like that — I’m making music for myself — but I’m hoping to reach other women in an attempt to get them to express themselves as well or to let them know that they’re not alone in their feelings.

I’m attempting to meld together emotional realism with pop music — which are two things that I really love — but pop can be so plastic and uniform, so it’s a tough thing to blend. It can be hard when someone is talking about something real and it can kind of make you cringe, but it takes more work than putting together some words that rhyme well. “Slim Baby” was such an over-the-top pop song that I was nervous about doing it, because I had never done something so poppy. I felt very exposed, so I needed to double-track my vocals.

The informative works of literature that she encountered early on:

I read The Diary of Anne Frank when I was in school and remember reading about when she got her period and her inner thoughts about being a girl. She was talking about real stuff and what she knows while being in a really stressful situation. That had a big influence on me. Then, when I got older, I started looking to ‘zines and riot grrrl literature and Lisa Carver’s writings.

On her sonic influences:

Patti Smith was a huge influence on me. I saw a movie with the song “Horses” in it when I was in high school and I went to buy the album at Reckless in Chicago. I got into her the moment I heard her voice. What I always missed from Bob Dylan — and I love Bob Dylan — is that I wished he was a woman. That’s what you get with Patti Smith.

On working with Slim Twig, aka Max Turnbull:

I write a lot about love and being in a partnership and the ups and downs of that, and deciding to meld your life into someone else’s and get through it together. I think because what I’m talking about a lot of the time is so personal, it’s good to bring other people into it and help the idea grow. Max and I wanted to make the best record that we could and that meant bouncing ideas off him and seeing how he interpreted topics and melodies. It forced me to learn how to take criticism and not give up. I learned so much and I don’t know if I’ll go back to working alone anytime soon.

On sharing a house with Slim’s family:

We live in an artist space that’s rent-geared-to-income which is really nice because Toronto is expensive. It saved my life. We all collaborate. Max’s parents are filmmakers and his sister lives here as well and she’s an artist and actress. They help out with the videos I make and the cover of GEM is a picture I took of Max’s sister Lulu. It’s difficult in terms of space — sometimes you need your own space and there’s not very much— but we all have a goal in life which is to be creative people and good human beings. It’s a nice setup.

Who Is…King Dude

Once the frontman for hardcore and black metal bands Teen Cthulhu and Book of Black Earth, TJ Cowgill started writing raw, stripped-down folk songs under the name King Dude (borrowed from metal hero King Diamond) in 2005. The project started just for kicks one drunken night. Even his stage name came on a whim. “My roommate and I were bored, so I picked up an acoustic guitar and started writing these songs as a joke, and he recorded them on his computer,” Cowgill recalls. “At the end of the night he had to name it something just so he could find it later on his computer, and I said, ‘Call it King Dude.’”

The next day, Cowgill listened back to what they had recorded, expecting a good laugh from some awful music. Instead, he heard a batch of dark, brooding demos that cross-pollinated the earthiness of his favorite country artists with the spine-tingling acoustics of martial folk.

“I realized this has potential and I started taking it more seriously,” Cowgill says. In my metal bands I was used to growling, and when I listened back to one of my takes I went, ‘Holy shit, that’s my real voice.’”

Six years later, King Dude has released three full-length acoustic-based neo-folk albums, including 2011′s critically acclaimed Love, a record of slow, simple jangly acoustic songs. This year sees the release of King Dude’s most expansive release, Burning Daylight, which combines Cowgill’s love for Johnny Cash and Death in June with elements of rockabilly, goth, folk, and even doo-wop.

“It’s a lot darker than Love was, Cowgill says.” I wanted to write a record about murder and desperation at a time in early American history.”

On a rainy Seattle afternoon, Cowgill took some time away from designing shirts for his clothing company Actual Pain, and talked about his new album, his upbringing, Satanism and the current neo-folk scene.

On how Burning Daylight seeped into his life:

A lot of the characters in the songs have a death wish, and when I was getting in those head spaces I started taking some of that home with me. I was getting in trouble with cops and getting in random fistfights — stuff that’s not in my nature at all. But the weight of the songs sent me to a place that’s much darker.

On his ugliest confrontations with an audience:

The last time I played Portland, I said to a bunch of drunken assholes, “Hey, can you please be quiet.” They were like, “Fuck you.” So I put down my guitar and threatened to beat the shit out of them. They all took off before I could get to them, but it ruined the whole show. Then in New York, there was a noisy crowd again, so I waited until the show was over and then I hit one guy and choked his buddy. Clearly, there’s something about this music that was making me really angry, but I feel better now that I’m done with the record.

On his bizarre religious upbringing:

My dad was Christian, and my mom was a Pagan-style witch. They were divorced, and when I was at my dad’s house in a small town in Eastern Oregon I’d have to go to this born-again-Christian church three times a week where everybody spoke in tongues. That’s pretty freaky for a seven-year-old. My mom was really into power crystals and meditation and my dad and stepmom tried to convince me that my mother was practicing Satanism. The people at their church tried really hard to get me to say Jesus was my savior and his blood washed over me, but I just couldn’t do that. It just felt wrong. I felt more at home with my mom.

On Satanism:

I used to consider myself a philosophical Satanist. I believed in survival of the strong. I didn’t literally practice magic, but the law of nature was very intriguing. But it carries such a stigma. The thing is, Western religions believe you’re born with original sin and you’re attempting to cleanse yourself of it by abstaining from everything in the physical world. And Eastern philosophy requires you to meditate on all the darkness to understand it. Either way, it’s an understanding of sin and corruption and evil. I think you can understand it without abstaining or diving too deeply into it. There’s gotta be a middle road. That’s something I practice, and if it’s considered sinful to the church or not Satanic enough by Satanists, I don’t really care either way.

On confronting death in King Dude:

It’s important for people to think about death all the time, and come to terms with it like they do in Eastern cultures. We’re all going to die. You can choose to ignore that and wait for it to happen, but if you do that, when it does come, you’re not mentally or physically prepared for it. If you can condition yourself to get ready to die, that leads to living a more fulfilling life. It’s not like I walk around with a death wish, but if you’re not as afraid of dying, it makes you not afraid to live — to quit that job you hate, ask a girl out or tell your parents to fuck off — whatever it is you have to do. Fear of death and fear of authority are the two greatest threats to our wellbeing.

On his cult hit “Lucifer is the Light of the World”:

Lucifer has traditional been hailed as a villain by Catholics and Christians, but that wasn’t until Dante’s Inferno was written. The word Lucifer itself means “the light bringer” or “bearer of wisdom” and that’s been corrupted by Western religion. “Lucifer is the Light of the World” is a response to the Son House song “John The Revelator,” and it’s written in the same style. But “John the Revelator” comes from a very Christian point of view and “Lucifer is the Light of the World” is inspired by the French Cathars’ version of the story. They practiced a type of Christianity known as Medieval Dualism, in which they believed in a good God and an evil God. The evil God created man and woman and everything in the world. The good God created the evil God and gave us the Garden of Eden, but denied us wisdom and knowledge. So Lucifer, the true God of light took up the body of a serpent to sneak into our world to tell us to eat from the Tree of Knowledge. So it completely flips the Biblical story on its head. The good god is jealous and petty, and doesn’t want man to be knowledgeable. And the serpent isn’t evil. It’s a prettier way to look at the story, I think.

On apocalyptic folk:

I don’t love a lot of new stuff. Owen are really good and I like Cult of Youth. But I still like the older stuff better, like Death in June, Current 93 and Of the Wand & the Moon. Some of those bands have used controversial imagery and lyrics, but the sketchiness of it is part of the appeal.It’s in my personality to be obsessed with gloomy and dark music. It doesn’t make me depressed at all, it cheers me up. But to me, King Dude is all about love and light so we have less in common [with other neo-folk artists] than it seems.

On his Actual Pain clothing Line:

I did T-shirt designs for bands and for myself in 2006. I was doing some freelance work for this other small streetwear company. I didn’t even know you could sell shirts that weren’t band shirts for money. Once I realized I could, and my designs started doing pretty well I started my own company. I’ve been doing it for a couple years now with my wife and it keeps us from having to have regular jobs and allows me to play music, which often isn’t very profitable.