One For The Weekend: IDLES

Watch IDLES perform "Gift Horse" off their Nigel Godrich-produced TANGK album out today via Partisan Records. 

Here's the scoop on TANGK...

TANGK is the righteous and vibrant fifth album from madcap truth-seekers, IDLES. Pronounced “tank” with a whiff of the “g” - an onomatopoeic reference to the lashing way the band imagined their guitars sounding that has since grown into a sigil for living in love-the record is the band’s most ambitious and striking work yet. Where IDLES were once set on taking the world’s piss, squaring off with strong jaws against the perennially entitled, and exercising personal trauma in real time, they have arrived in this new act to offer the fruits of such perseverance: love, joy, and indeed gratitude for the mere opportunity of existence.

A radical sense of defiant empowerment radiates from TANGK, co-produced by Nigel Godrich, IDLES guitarist Mark Bowen, and Kenny Beats. Despite his reputation as an incendiary post-punk spark plug, frontman Joe Talbot sings almost all the feelings inside these 10 songs with hard-earned soul, offering each lusty vow or solidarity plea as a bona fide pop song—that is, a thing for everyone to pass around and share, communal anthems intended for overcoming our grievance. 

Lead single “Dancer” stands as the throbbing and scuzzy highlight at the album’scenter-rattling bass and ricocheting guitar giving Talbot space to talk about sweat and sex on the dancefloor. (You will spy LCD Soundsystem’s James Murphy and Nancy Whang here, too, singing.) It is lascivious and playful and positive, the ecstatic sound of at least a temporary fix. In the improvised hook, Talbot offers IDLES’ essential new mantra: “I give myself to you/As long as you move on the floor.” He is singing about the rapture of a new relationship, but he is also singing about the special dynamic between IDLES and their fans, or IDLES and the world at large.

This is a band’s vow to keep lifting and fighting for themselves and their listeners, to keep offering the grim persistence of joy and hope and love and wonder as long as that’s what anyone needs to survive. It is a love song the same way that TANGK is a love album—open to anyone who requires something to shout out loud in order to fend off any encroaching sense of the void, now or forever.

Get a copy of IDLES' album TANGK directly from Partisan Records right here.  IDLES play Toronto's Coca-Cola Coliseum (formerly 'CNE Coliseum' aka the Cow Palace) at Exhibition Place on Sept. 20th. Get tickets and check the rest of their tour dates right here. Watch IDLES perform "Gift Horse" on The Tonight Show below. 

 

J Mascis previews new album with celeb-stacked video for "Can't Believe We're Here"

The new J Mascis album What Do We Do Now is due in February from Sub Pop. Watch the clip with Fred Armisen, David Cross & Amber Tamblyn.

Here's the scoop...

What Do We Do Now is the fifth solo studio LP recorded by J Mascis since 1996. This is obviously not a very aggressive release schedule, but when you figure in the live albums, guest spots, and records done with his various other bands (Dinosaur Jr., The Fog, Heavy Blanket, Witch, Sweet Apple, and so on), well, to paraphrase Lou Reed, “J's week beats your year.” 

What Do We Do Now began to come together during the waning days of the Pandemic. Utilizing his own Bisquiteen Studio, J started working on writing a series of tunes on acoustic with a different dynamic than the stuff he creates for Dino. “When I'm writing for the band,” he says, “I'm always trying to think of doing things Lou and Murph would fit into. For myself, I'm thinking more about what I can do with just an acoustic guitar, even for the leads. Of course, this time, I added full drums and electric leads, although the rhythm parts are still all acoustic. Usually, I try to do the solo stuff more simply so I can play it by myself, but I really wanted to add the drums. Once that started, everything else just fell into place. So it ended up sounding a lot more like a band record. I dunno why I did that exactly, but it's just what happened.” 

Two guest musicians are playing this time out; Western Mass local Ken Mauri (of the B52s) plays piano on several tracks. Since J himself has some experience with keys, when asked why he needed a hired gun, he says, “Ken is great, and he plays all the keys. I tried playing some keyboards on the first Fog album, but I'm really only comfortable playing the white notes, so it's kind of limiting. [laughs] Nowadays, I could just turn the pitch on a mini Mellotron to play different sounds, but black keys just seem hard. For whatever reason, I just like banging on the white ones. Seems like it's harder to figure out how to stretch your fingers around the other ones.” 

Mauri has no such qualms and plays all the keys very damn well. He sounds especially great on “I Can't Find You,” where he is Jack Nitzsche to J's Neil Young, creating one of the album's loveliest tunes. The other guest musician, Matthew “Doc” Dunn, is also prominent on this track. Dunn's steel guitar manages to both widen and soften the musical edges of the music, giving it a full classicist profile. Dunn is an Ontario-based polymath who J met through Matt Valentine. After J played on Doc's great 2022 Sub Pop single, “Your Feel,” he figured it was time for payback. Both Dunn and Mauri add beautifully to the songs here, helping to transform them from acoustic sketches into full-blown post-core power ballads. 

What Do We Do Now is the finest set of solo tunes J has yet penned, and the way they're presented is just about perfect. Asked if he would be touring to support the album, J says he'll be doing some weekend dates, but he probably won't be putting a band together. And I'm sure these songs will sound great solo and acoustic, but the arrangements on this album are truly great and put a cool, different spin on Mascis' instantly recognizable approach to making music. 

Watch the video for "Can't Believe We're Here" followed by Matthew "Doc" Dunn's song "Your Feel" featuring J off Doc Dunn's widely slept-on Sub Pop single from last year and a Dinosaur Jr. performance with special guest Kevin Shields at the Garage in London. Pre-order a copy of J's forthcoming album What Do We Do Now on limited-run purple vinyl via Bandcamp right here.