Amateur Best is the alias of Birmingham-based “personal pop” musician, songwriter, and producer Joe Flory.
After releasing debut album No Thrills via Double Denim Records (Empress Of, Tei Shi, Kero Kero Bonito) in 2013, Amateur Best returns with The Gleaners, his second full-length, due on October 2nd via Brille Records (The Knife, Gwilym Gold, John Wizards).
Flory has come a long way since his beginnings making major label pop music as Primary 1. Following the release of No Thrills and tours of Europe playing drums with Chilly Gonzales & the Kaiser Quartett, Flory made a move from the bustle of London to his current home in Birmingham in order to hone his songwriting and production talents, perfecting a melodic, crystal clear style of vocal pop. It’s a style that draws on the electronica of Cassius’s Au Reve, the soundtrack work of Michael Nyman, the intricate layering of The Avalanches, and the experimental pop of David Sylvian and Ryuchi Sakamoto while sounding like no one else but Amateur Best.
The result of three years writing and recording, the 10 tracks that make up The Gleaners straddle the fine line between outright ecstasy and muted melancholy. Initially envisioned as a concept album about a charity shop-bought doll’s house, it mutated into a full-on dance record. “In the end, I realised that I just wanted to write songs about my own life set to the most exciting music and production I could come up with,” Flory says.
Where No Thrills drew its influences from the warm, pastoral techno of artists like James Holden and his Border Community label, The Gleaners feels like more of a step into the unknown. Produced and mixed entirely by Flory, the album uses a huge array of instrumentation and hardware to arrive at its unique and varied sound. Flory would buy old drum machines and synthesizers, make a song, and then sell it to buy the next piece of kit. “Mixing it myself made me slightly crazy, but I love the sound of something that has been entirely directed by one person.”
Like all the most personal albums, The Gleaners is a record that reveals itself to the deeper listener. Urgent and immediate moments like ‘Marzipan’ contrast with the luscious, slower grooves of ‘No Sleep’, while pristine electronic pop belters like ‘They Know’ sit alongside rawer songs like album opener ‘Rely’ (which was recorded completely live, with keyboards from Spencer Zahn and strings from the Kaiser Quartett). Additionally, Chilly Gonzales – who guested on No Thrills – returns for more on The Gleaners and laid down the piano on ‘19’.
“There are moments on this album where I feel like the music, lyrics, and production just gel completely,” Flory says, “With the way I make music - which is to do everything at the same time, and everything alone - getting that moment of total clarity in lyrics, melody, and production is quite a unique feeling, and probably the reason I enjoy making music so much. I called it The Gleaners because it's my way of taking little snippets of all the stuff I like and reinterpreting it.”
The Gleaners is testament both to Flory’s commitment to making music on his own terms, and to the sheer joys of making music full stop.
Tracklisting:
1. Rely, 2. 19, 3. The Double, 4. Marzipan, 5. They Know, 6. Part Timer, 7. Hey Darin’, 8. Night Shifter, 9. Leviathan, 10. No Sleep
Here is the brand new clip of Solar Fake, read the interview here!
Lush have announced details of their first live show in almost twenty years, playing London’s prestigious Roundhouse venue on Friday 6th May 2016.
Tickets for the show go on sale on Wednesday 30th September 2015 at 9am via www.alt-tickets.co.uk/lush-tickets and are priced at £27.50.
Further worldwide shows will be announced shortly.
Lush played their last show in Tokyo in September 1996.
“The opportunities and practicalities of reforming Lush meant that for 20 years it was an impossible undertaking,” explained band member Miki Berenyi. “But we all loved what we did, and the time is finally right for us to do it again.”
Formed in London in 1988 by childhood friends Emma Anderson and Miki Berenyi, Lush also included Chris Acland on drums and Phil King on bass (originally Steve Rippon, who left in 1990), and were widely acknowledged as one of the pioneers of a sound that was to be christened ‘shoegaze’.
Signed to 4AD in 1989, over the course of 3 full-length albums, an early mini-album and a number of EPs and singles, they went on to sharpen their pop sound, outliving and outgrowing the ‘scene’ with which they were initially associated.
4AD are also releasing a vinyl reissue of Lush’s ‘best of’ compilation Ciao! in November, followed by a limited edition box set titled Chorus at the beginning of December.
The box is a five-disc set, comprising the early compilation Gala (1990), the three studio albums Spooky (1992), Split (1994) and Lovelife (1996) and the B-sides collection Topolino (the Canadian version, also 1996), plus all manner of rarities (B-sides, radio sessions, remixes and demo, some previously unreleased). The artwork is by Chris Bigg, who, alongside design chief Vaughan Oliver, was responsible for the iconic 4AD covers in the Nineties.
Justin Welch, formerly of Elastica, will be playing drums for the live performances.
One of the best electro export products from Holland, Schwarzblut, have just released a new video which goes hand in hand with today's release of their 10-track single "Judas".
It's the 2nd EP taken from their 3rd full-length album "Gebeyn Aller Verdammten" which was released a few months ago. For those who already have that album, it was written in the stars that "Judas" would get a proper EP release as it mixes all the best ingredients which Schwarzblut has on offer: bombastic orchestral arrangements, a pumping bass sound and harsh male and subtle female vocals.
The specially low priced 10-track single features a selection of interpretations of the band’s music by acts from all around the globe: Hell:Sector, Cardinal Noire and Pre:Emptive Strike 0.1. Next to that you can also expect remixes by Binary Division and Noise Junk who both won a Schwarzblut remix contest.
Today HUNTRESS have released their third studio album STATIC via Napalm Records. The highly-anticipated record was produced by Paul Fig (Grammy nominated engineer, Alice in Chains, Deftones, Trivium, Ghost BC) and Jim Rota (Fireball Ministry, Emmy winning Executive Producer of the Sonic Highways series, Producer Sound City Movie), Engineered and Mixed by Paul Fig.
Coinciding with the release of STATIC is the world premiere of the band’s new video for the song “Sorrow” on Loudwire. The video was written and directed by Phil Mucci (Disturbed, Stone Sour, High on Fire), produced by Phil Mucci and Ian Mackay of Diabolik.
HUNTRESS storms the high seas September 28th – October 2nd as part of the Mötorboat Cruise. The band will appear alongside heavyweights Mötorhead, Slayer, and Anthrax just to name a few. Expect high-energy sets from HUNTRESS featuring favorites off the first two albums and new head bangers from STATIC.
In addition to the Mötorboat Cruise HUNTRESS have announced that they will be providing direct support for Black Label Society as they go “doomtrooping” into 2016. This run of dates kicks off December 26th in Phoenix, AZ and runs through New Year’s Eve in Marksville, LA.
HUNTRESS:
Jill Janus – Vocals
Blake Meahl – Guitars
Eli Santana – Guitars (appears courtesy of Prosthetic Records)
Tyler Meahl – Drums (appears courtesy of Prosthetic Records)
Spencer Jacob Grau – Bass
HUNTRESS was spawned from the preternatural union of Jill Janus with underground metal band Professor. The band thrives on thundering drums, heavy riffs, spectral solos and catchy choruses that come from the band’s musical concoction of melodic songwriting, occult science and bong rips. HUNTRESS delivers a modern sonic attack while staying true to the roots of heavy metal, with a penchant for thrash, death and black metal.
