Stereo Embers: The Podcast

Stereo Embers The Podcast: Steve Louw (All Night Radio, Big Sky) by Alex Green Online

"Dreamweaver" With just under ten albums under their musical belts, the Danish darkwave outfit Trentemøller are one of the most inventive bands around. Led by the Grammy-nominated braintrust Anders Trentemøller, their music is a thoughtful blend of swirling electronica, lashing techno, sweeping synthpop and cinematic ambient soundscapes. Albums like The Last Resort and Obverse were instant classics and their new one Dreamweaver might be their best one yet. The ethereal vocals on this record bring to mind everyone from Mazzy Starr to the Cocteau Twins and the accompanying arrangements are moody, thoughtful, dramatic and arresting. Anders is one of alternative music's great sonic architects, and he's remixed so many people's music, we'd be here all day if I named them all, so keep in mind this is a partial list: Pet Shop Boys, Robyn, Franz Ferdinand and Depeche Mode. Not only is he the High King of Darkwave, he's a super nice guy and this is a fabulous chat! www.trentemoller.com www.stereoembersmagazine.com (

"The Quiver" A poet, a radio host on WPKN and a memoirist, the New Haven based psychotherapist Binnie Klein is also a Lecturer in the Department of Psychiatry at Yale. Her 2010 memoir, by the way, Blows To The Head, How Boxing Changed My Mind, is a revelation, But let's get back to the poetry. Klein started the indie music collective In These Trees back in 2019 and her friendship with Australian singer/songwriter Tartie that resulted in an exchange of poetry, augmented that collective's strength with a ten-song album of heart-stopping beauty that is some of the most compelling and sonorous music of the year. Stereo Embers' Dave Cantrell describes the album as burning with aching, perseverant grace and goes on to say that when hearing it, he collapse every time, dropping into that kind of breath-caught, near-tears surrender that amounts to what I can only think to call ‘the innate emotional wow of recognition. Yes, he likes it. And I do too. A lot. www.inthesetrees.bandcamp.com (http://www.inthesetrees.ban

"All You Need To Know" The Vancouver outfit Mossy Ledge got started in the early '90s and by 2001 they had put in the reps, touring across Canada and putting out two excellent albums and two fabulous EPs. With seven years or so under their rock and roll belts, the band was poised to take the next step in their career. Their sonorous blast of soaring indie pop brought to mind a perfect blend of The Watchmen and Catherine Wheel and with a solid live following and hooks galore, that next step seemed decidedly inevitable. So inevitable, in fact, they decided not to take it. The story of Mossy Ledge is the story of a band whose story should be more familiar, but at the height of their powers, the Canadian outfit opted for curtain number two, which sits in close proximity to curtain number one. The latter is the tantalizing and promising rock and roll dream, while behind the former is the logical and sensible domestic life that holds just as much promise. Behind both curtains are two different kinds of riches and

"Hang In There With Me" If you're an artist, you either move West or you move East. In the case of the Pennsylvania-born Amy Rigby, she went east. Landing in New York in the late seventies, Rigby absorbed the music of the city and took assiduous notes about punk rock, indie scenesters and the rhythms of the age. I'm zipping through time here, but if you want to know about Rigby's New York years, read her fabulous memoir Girl To City, which I think is one of the best books about music ever written. She later married Will Rigby of The DB's and played in bands like The Shams and Last Roundup, but it wasn't until the mid-'90s with her solo debut Diary Of A Mod Housewife that she began to flex her songwriting muscle. Hilarious, heartfelt and in many ways conversational, Rigby's work is intimate and familiar and over the course of her winning discography which includes albums like The Sugar Tree, Little Fugitive and her brilliant new one Hang In There With Me, Rigby has proven herself to be one of the most tuneful

"Once Was Gleaming" The California-born Tanner Porter is a composer, arranger, performer, vocalist and songwriter. Her voice is otherwordly and wonderful, and set against her complex orchestral arrangements, it evokes everyone from Kate Bush to Tori Amos. Her debut album The Summer Sinks was a stone cold stunner and her new album Once Was Gleaming picks up where Summer left off, offering a stirring and moving song-cycle that's filled with breathtaking musical finesse, and almost cinematic compositional scope. Tanner’s orchestral music has been commissioned by the Louisville Orchestra, Albany Symphony Orchestra, the New York Youth Symphony, and Nu Deco Ensemble, among others. She's collaborated on ballets that were premiered by the Boston Ballet and the San Francisco Ballet, had short operas commisioned by Barnard College and Columbia University’s New Opera Workshop and she's been busy on Broadway in ILLINOISE, with music by Sufjan Stevens as a vocal/guitar understudy for two roles. Tanner has been a composer

"Top Of The World" The Emmy Award-nominated Mark Bacino is more than just a craftsman of pure pop magic--he's a producer, composer, educator and journalist. I first got on board with Mark's music in 2003 for his brilliant album Million Dollar Milkshake, which was the follow-up to his equally brilliant debut, Pop Job. Since then, he's put out Queens English in 2010 and fifteen years later he's backed that up with his brand new album Top Of The World. A sterling ten-song set, Top Of The World is filled with hooks galore, but it's also Bacino's most observational and philosophical work yet. Filled with tracks like the thrilling percussive stomp of Not That Guy to the horny swagger of Flop Of The World, Bacino has never sounded more assured. Falling somewhere between Marshall Crenshaw and Mike Viola, Bacino's music is a refreshing and charming streetsmart pop. I call him the Cole Porter of Queens because his lyrics are clever, his timing impeccable and his humor and wisdom always on full display. Bacino is the o

"Reverb & Seduction" The Portland outfit Federale have been one of the most fascinating and inventive bands of the last twenty years. Led by Collin Hegna, Federale have put out a handful of albums whose affecting instrumental cinemascapes, dark country ballads and psych rock excursions bring to mind a version of and the Dirty Three had they hailed from the verdant and moody Pacific Northwest. The band's new album and sixth overall, Reverb & Seduction is an ambitious and wicked blend of dusty pedal steel, high desert reverb and ominous strings that all add up to a deliciously dark and foreboding feeling that something's going to happen and not only is not going to be good, there's nothing you can do to stop it. With a lineup that boasts members of The Shivas, Roselit Bone, Dandy Warhols, and Rogue Wave, plus a guest appearance by Alex Maas of The Black Angels, Reverb & Seduction is one of the year's very best. As for Hegna, he's a busy fellow--not only does he front Federale, he's been in the Brian Jonestown

"Everlasting Love" Plenty of people have gone it alone in music--blues and folk musicians are well-acquainted with being on stage with just a handful of songs and acoustic guitar. But for a new wave artist back in the early '80s, it wasn't a common thing to be a one man band. And Howard Jones was exactly that. In an age where multiple-membered outfits like Duran Duran and Depeche Mode graced the stage, Jones took the old blues and folk formula and gave it a synthy twist. It was a huge gamble and it paid off rather well. Over the course of his winning career, the Southampton-born Jones has stacked his CV with highlight after highlight: from '83-'92 he crushed it, with 15 top 40 singles around the world. He's put out nearly twenty albums that have sold close to ten million copies, he played Live Aid, Amnesty International's Festival of Youth, and The Grammys. What else did Howard Jones do? Tons: he's played with Mark Knopfler, Mark King of Level 42, Phil Collins, Stevie Wonder and Herbie Hancock, toured as a m

"One Hand Up" Karen Haglof has had many lives--and she's lived them with creative poise and artistic grace. The Minnesota-born musician put herself on the musical map with Steve Almaas in the band The Crackers before joining the indie rock orchestra Rhys Chatham’s Ensemble. From there, and by the way, this is a clumsy expurgate list of Hagloff's accomplishments, she joined the Band of Susans with some of the Chatham’s crew. After that, she became chef of the East Village's beloved The Great Jones Cafe' where she created their famous brunch menu and then she went to medical school, knocked out her medical degree and then joined the hematology / oncology department of New York University Hospital from which she retired in May 2023. If this is making you feel like an underachiever, I get it. We're all feeling that way. The fact is, Karen Hagloff is extraordinary. Her fourth solo album One Hand Up is the winning continuation of a music career she put on hold until 2014. Along with guitarist Mario Vi

"Whitelined" Formed in Barnum, Colorado in the early oughts by pals Ryan Policky and Erik Jeffries, A Shoreline Dream wasted no time in establishing themselves as a band to be reckoned with. No scruffy apprentice years here--albums like Avoiding The Consequences and Losing Them All To This Time were fully formed blasts of bruising guitars drenched in pure sonic muscle. Not only that, but lurking behind the sheets of fuzz was an undeniable pop center that, nearly twenty years later has never sounded more assured. The follow-up to their brilliant 2022 Loveblind album is called Whitelined and not only is it a masterpiece of musical architecture, and swerving beauty, it's got a little backstory. The fellas in A Shoreline Dream happened to meet Ride's Mark Gardener at a Denver gig and a friendship turned into a working relationship as well and the ideas started whipping back and forth and this album is a perfect blend of their musical union. A Shoreline Dream have opened for Chapterhouse, played South By Southwes

"The Morrison Project" The London-born guitarist and singer/songwriter Billy Morrison has two main components to his life and for the purposes of this introduction, I'm going to tell you about the musical one. The other one I'll let him tell you about because he'll tell it far better than I can. So: the musical one. After playing in bands like Into A Circle and Stimulator, Morrison was recruited to play bass with The Cult for their opening slot with Aerosmith in the U.S., Japan and Europe. After his stint with The Cult, Morrison formed Camp Freddy with Dave Navarro, Donovan Leitch, Scott Ford and The Cult's Matt Sorum. You'll find the through-line in Morrison's life has a lot to do with The Cult. In 2006 Morrison teamed up with Fuel's Brett Scallions, Ricky Warwick of The Almighty, Slunt's Charles Ruggiero, Korn's Rob Patterson and, you guessed it, The Cult's Billy Duffy for the band Circus Diablo. In 2010 he joined Billy Idol's band and he's been with him ever since, playing stadium shows across the world.

“4th of July Special: What's The Point Of A Strawberry?” Well, not counting the fact that they lower your blood pressure, are high in fiber, rich in antioxidants and guard you from cancer, strawberries are pretty much useless. In this wildly discursive 4th of July chat with singer-songwriter Shannon McArdle, the Brooklyn musician talks to Alex about why she’s not into strawberries (or fruit for that matter), why she got on a subway in the middle of a pandemic and how she lost the tip of her finger. Look, this is our perennial and evergreen 4th of July Shannon Spectacular and this conversation not only covers all the bases, it will make you forget that there’s no (legal) firework celebrations this year. This chat covers the genius of the new Dylan album, the durability of Soda Stream machines and the 20th anniversary reissue of Shannon’s old band The Mendoza Line’s We’re All In This Alone. Oh, and Alex worries Shannon might get scurvy. And Shannon doesn’t seem worried about this at all. An hour and a half of

"Fantastic Day" Formed in 1980 in London, the new wave funk outfit Haircut 100 are one of those bands that tore right out of the gates. A top four single Favourite Shirts (Boy Meets Girl) before even having a record out was a pretty propelling start. That record came in the form of 1982's platinum seller Pelican West, which not only went to #2 on the UK albums chart, it spawned more Top 10 singles like Love Plus One, Fantastic Day and Nobody's Fool. Singer Nick Heyward, left the band after their debut and embarked on a brilliant solo career, which yielded hit singles like Whistle Down The Wind and Blue Hat For A Blue Day, along with flawless albums like North Of A Miracle, From Monday To Sunday and The Apple Bed. And now Haircut 100 are back, playing shows across the U.K. including Glastonbury and North America in August and you should see them if you can because they've never sounded better. And I believe new music is on the way, which is very exciting. For my money, Nick Heyward is one of the most brillian

"A Master Class In Songwriting" Jad Fair is probably best known as one half of Half Japanese. Formed with his brother David in 1974, the Maryland by way of Michigan outift remain one of the more curious entires into the pantheon of rock and roll. Their songs are jagged and battered mini-anthems about broken hearts, monsters and...broken hearts and monsters. As Jad Fair once said, their songs are either love songs or monster songs. And there are a lot of songs. For example: the band's sophomore effort was a triple album, some records have 45 songs all under two minutes. Some of the tracks are barely one...Half Japanese have quite a discography, including classics like Music To Strip By, Charmed Life and The Band Who Would Be King. Over the course of their idiosyncratic, non-traditional career, they've counted the Velvet Underground's Moe Tucker as a member, put out albums on Penn Jillette's record label, opened for NIrvana, and collaborated with Daniel Johnston, Kramer, Steve Fisk, Thurston Moore, Fred Frith

"Softcore" With over ten albums under his musical belt, Logan Lynn has firmly established himself as a singular and dynamic talent. First of all, Lynn is a musician, writer, producer, filmmaker, television personality, mental health advocate, and LGBT activist. He's worked with everyone from the Get-Up Kids to Portugal the Man to the comic Jay Mohr and his writing has appeared in the Huffington Post and the Portland Mercury,among others. He's done commercial spots, acted in shows like The Last Meal Series and the Library and in 2017 the National Council gave Lynn the Award of Excellence for Artistic Expression. His new album Softcore is a buoyant blast of blissful synth pop and indie rock stomp. It's a celebration of love and, as Lynn puts it: "the absolute wildness that happens between two people who are desperately in love with each other." Filled with catchy grooves and horny swagger, Softcore is not only pure sonic joy it's the perfect album to soundtrack your summer with. www.loganlynnmusic.com www.ste

"Planet Girls" Sponge's new album Planet Girls is a thrilling listen. But here's the thing: it isn't new. Recorded back in 1999, when the band turned the record in to the company, the folks in charge didn't think the material would connect with the current cultural zeitgeist. So what did they do? They shelved it. Big mistake. A dynamic blast of hook-laden power and melodic muscle, Planet Girls brings to mind a scruffy blend of Cheap Trick and Stone Temple Pilots. And here's the funny thing: the album can't be placed on any timeline--it sounds as fresh and as vital as ever. Over the course of their multi-decade long career, Sponge have done it all: played Lollapalooza, appeared on Letterman, toured the world, opened for Kiss at Tiger Stadium and had hit records like Rotting Pinata and Wax Ecstatic. Singer Vin Dombroski is one of the most charismatic frontmen in recent memory and also a thoughtful and engaging conversationalist. www.spongetheband.com www.bombshellradio.com www.stereoembersmagazine.com www.al

"A Few Good Moments" So: how much of a legend is the Winnipeg-born Burton Cummings? Well, let's just start with these few facts and we'll work our way backwards. He's been inducted into both the Canadian Music Industry Hall of Fame and the Canadian Songwriters Hall of Fame. He's been named as an officer of the Order of Canada and both the Burton Cummings Theatre and the Burton Cummings Community Centre in Winnipeg are named after him. I mean, should we even keep going? We will, but there's no need. Legend status full cemented. But here's more: Cummings joined The Guess Who as a young lad of 18 and within a few years the band was an international sensation. They're the first Canadian act to land an American Number One with American Woman, and they had a wildly successful run of albums including Wheatfield Soul and Share The Land. After the band dissolved in 1975, Cummings launched a solo career that was decidedly huge. His first effort yielded the massive single Stand Tall, which sold over a million copies i

"Detroit Soul" The six-time Grammy-Award winning Don Was' resume has more highlights than a Steph Curry career retrospective. It's just three pointer after three pointer with this guy. The Detroit-born musician, producer, film composer, documentarian and record executive got his start in the high school outfit The Saturns, but his band Was (Not Was) is the one that put him on the musical map. A kind of New Wave soul outfit, Was (Not Was) put out a handful of fabulous albums, and had a few hits before calling it a day. From there he became the music director and consultant for movies like Thelma and Louise, Toy Story, Honeymoon in Vegas and The Paper. He produced albums by the B-52's, Iggy Pop, Bonnie Raitt, The Rolling Stones, Kris Kristofferson, and Bob Dylan, directed the Brian Wilson documentary I Just Wasn't Made For These Times, and snagged an Emmy for his work on the CBS special "The Beatles: The Night That Changed America." Remember, this is just a partial list. He's hosted a show on Sirius XM, been i

"Bloodbrothers" The Bronx-born Richard Blum took his love of wrestling and Catskill Mountains humor and created Handsome Dick Manitoba, the wildly charismatic frontman of the legendary proto-punk outfit The Dictators. Along with his childhood best friend Scott Kempner, Andy Shernoff, Ross Friedman and Stu Boy King, The Dictators tore out of the gate with all the fuel-injected energy of the MC5, and absolutely demolished the stage with high octane live shows that were nothing short of legendary. Although not huge commercial successes, albums like Go Girl Crazy! and Manifest Destiny were instant classics and still sound as urgent and alive as they did over 40 years ago. So why weren't they commercial successes? I don't know. The Ramones had their leather jackets, and The New York Dolls had their sleazy glamour, but hook of The Dictators was a mystery? I mean, come on--a fevered cultural cauldron of cars, girls, television, and raging weekends, The Dictators' hook was simple: it was an adrenalized and fevered v