The Baseball Project "Grand Salami Time"
In 2008 they busted out of the box and easily reached first with their Frozen Ropes And Dying Quails. The Baseball Project was on base and immediately posed a threat to go further.In 2011, they moved on to second with some wildness aptly called High And Inside. They were halfway home.Three years later in 2014, the quintet of Big Stars moved on down the line to the aptly titled 3rd, an epic double dip delight of craftsmanship and savvy.And there they stayed. For nine long years at the hot corner, but we’re happy to say that The Baseball Project is finally coming home, scoring big and touching ’em all with their fourth album Grand Salami Time. The scoreboard is lighting up and the fireworks are illuminating the sky.Speaking of reaching home, this album is a homecoming of sorts, as the band recorded and produced the album with none other than the legendary Mitch Easter. BBP members Peter Buck and Mike Mills’ made their first albums with Mitch back in the early ’80s with a swingin’ little combo called R.E.M.Scott McCaughey and Steve Wynn kept busy themselves, busting out new tunes with the Minus 5/Young Fresh Fellows (Scott) and The Dream Syndicate (Steve), while stockpiling a passel of penned poetics about the national pastime, many co-written with Peter. Mike adds a new classic of his own about doctored baseballs called “Stuff.”Linda Pitmon, who along with Peter and Scott has been part of a steady rhythmic nucleus, bashing out epic rock platters with Filthy Friends, (Alejandro Escovedo, Luke Haines & Peter Buck), is back driving the ship from behind her mighty drum machine.All in all, a fancy pedigree but, as Wynn points out, “this is our only band that plays stadiums”—true story as The Baseball Project has performed full sets along with the National Anthem and “Take Me Out To The Ball Game” at major league parks in Boston, Chicago, Milwaukee, Denver, Minneapolis, Philadelphia and more minor league and spring training fields, as well as having thrown out some exceptional first pitches (nothing but strikes!) as well.It’s all part of an unusual arc and fun story of a band whose first gig was an appearance on Late Night With David Letterman followed by a festival in a medieval Spanish city. For a quintet that has seemingly done everything over the years with their other bands, The Baseball Project always offers new and uncharted experiences.The album was recorded at Mitch Easter’s fabled Fidelitorium Studios in Kernersville, North Carolina, with the entire band performing live together in the same room, a joyous experience that seemed impossible to imagine only one year before. Mitch adds guitar on a few tracks and the record also features appearances by Stephen McCarthy (The Long Ryders) and Steve Berlin (Los Lobos).In the meantime, the band will be out on the road throughout—when else?—the upcoming baseball season. And we all know they’ll find their way home. Get out the rye bread and mustard, Grandma, it’s Grand Salami Time!Available on CD, Digital, and as a double-LP (with an etched 4th side), Grand Salami Time is the home run music fans have been waiting for. Packaging features stories behind the songs from band members, and makes Grand Salami Time more than a game—it makes your season!
Frankie Tillo "These Songs Will Melt"
Cable Ties "All Her Plans"
The third album from Melbourne, Australia’s Cable Ties finds the trio of Jenny McKechnie, Shauna Boyle, and Nick Brown at their punchiest and most assured. The ferocious, kraut-influenced blend of post-punk and garage rock of Merge debut Far Enough remains, but McKechnie’s lyrics invite the listener closer than ever before.
The urgency and fury that have marked Cable Ties’ output thus far is more nuanced on All Her Plans. The unfettered rage of their calls to action remain—tackling subjects like broken mental healthcare systems and the burden of familial care that is largely placed on women—while holding space for gratitude, love, and acceptance.
All Her Plans is a breakthrough moment for Cable Ties. It is the sound of a group that is exhilarated to be making music together again, both a celebration of their resilience and a massive step forward into a future they can finally claim as their own.
Pardoner "Peace Loving People"
From Paste Magazine:
“Organized around skew-whiff pop hooks and hardcore-punk dynamism, Peace Loving People is a stream of Gen Z consciousness. It’s a therapy session in which many stones are overturned: relationships (romantic and canine); ambition and failure; drugs, lots and lots of drugs; the Second Amendment; big cities and small paychecks; the ever-shifting alternative landscape; the end of the world as we know it; whether we’ll be fine. Each topic is given equal attention and rubs up against the rest, just as in real life—just as in your Twitter feed.
Some of these subjects are tackled with the sardonic wit that characterized Came Down Different, such as when Freeland (co-guitarist/vocals) snarls, “You gotta change with the times / What else can you do? / Nice belief system, man / Did your mommy make it for you?” But others require a kind of melancholy reflection, an earnestness that we haven’t seen the group offer to this degree: “I got so much left to lose / Seems like I never learn a lesson / Unless the lesson leaves a bruise,” he sings on the crisp, poppy standout “Dreaming’s Free.” Striking a similar tone, “Rosemary’s Gone” may well be Breakup Song Of The Year, molding gnarled guitars and diaristic candor into an alluring, Wowee Zowee-esque puddle of pain (just like love..?).
Behind the pithy insights is pithy guitar music. Pardoner’s sound lives in the same world as peer bands Dumb, Dazy, 2nd Grade and Cheekface—those postmodern indie rockers whose love for acts like Lilys and Polvo lingers in their music in the way one’s accent reveals their origin but not their whole story. In other words, Peace Loving People is more than an amalgam of influences. Of course it is. Pardoner have been doing this a while now, and their confidence comes across in these more ambitious arrangements. Fast, loud and even obnoxious one minute; heartfelt and reposed the next.”