Category: Albums

Jim White is known for his catalog of dark ruminations on all things Southern. His latest outing, Misfit’s Jubilee, out October 30, 2020 on Fluff & Gravy Records (North America) features a nonstop parade of manic, blue-collar conflagrations exploring realms dark and light, mystic and mundane, cynical and heartfelt; all presented within a buoyant, hook-laden sonic framework.

Misfit’s Jubilee draws from an array of original songs penned by White over the span of several decades — scattered among the recent compositions are songs back-burnered in previous epochs by White’s major label handlers, who’d deemed them too extreme for his “brand.” With no such middleman constraints this go-round, in Misfit’s Jubilee White has found the perfect vehicle to unleash his twisted take on Southern folk rock.  As White’s protagonist in the song “Wonders Never Cease” defiantly declares, “A motel’s as good a place as any to let your demons fly!”

Amen, Brother White. The Americana maverick has let his sonic demons fly herein, setting the skies fully ablaze, like some LSD fueled 4th of July fireworks spectacular.

The first single, “Sum of What We’ve Been” is available today on your favorite Digital Streaming Service.

Misfit’s Jubilee is available for pre-order in North America at Fluff and Gravy Records and Bandcamp in Limited Edition Psychedelic Marble Vinyl, Black vinyl, and digitally.

In Europe, please order directly from Loose Records

The Parson Red Heads are excited to announce the upcoming release of a brand new studio record, Lifetime of Comedy, due out November 13th on Fluff and Gravy Records (USA) / You Are The Cosmos Records (EUR). It’s their first release of new recordings since 2017s album Blurred Harmony. 

Written and arranged by the band in the first couple years after releasing and supporting Blurred Harmony, this collection of songs is the first the band has fully written, arranged, and recorded without founding guitarist and singer Sam Fowles, and the first to be produced and engineered entirely by long-time Parson member Raymond Richards (who has produced many records over the years, including some by favorites such as Local Natives, The Blank Tapes, and Blitzen Trapper).

An album full of dreams, self-reflection, and weary yearning, Lifetime of Comedy covers a lot of sonic ground. If you’re familiar with the Parsons work, you’ll hear some familiar touch-stones – beautiful vocal melodies and harmonies, sparkling pedal steel-driven cosmic Americana and folk rock, coupled with new elements to their sound, layered synths, organs and mellotrons, songs that build and drive to chaotically beautiful peaks.

Check out the first single, All I Wanted, on Bandcamp today!

Bart Budwig has a favor to ask. And YES, there’s something in it for you.

While the best way to support your favorite artists is still buying physical merch directly from them (or right here), an equally important part of the game today is Streaming.

Please take a minute to pre-save Bart’s forthcoming album, Another Burn on the Astroturf. The link works for both Spotify and Apple Music. And hey, while you’re at it, would you mind clicking this link to follow Bart on Spotify?

Pre-saving and following will get you EXCLUSIVE access to unreleased PHOTOS and a recording of the LIVE DEMO that would eventually evolve into the record.

Thanks for helping out, and we hope that you enjoy the demo tracks!

 

“Sometimes when Bart sings, I forget what we’re talking about. I’m sure he knows though. I trust him. He sounds like John Prine, plays like Hoyt Axton, and looks like well… Bart Budwig. He’s a cosmic country lawn gnome.”

– Sean Jewell, American Standard Time

We’ve been big fans of Bart Budwig for years, so it gives us great pleasure to announce that we’ll be working together. Finally! Sometimes when I hear Bart sing, I swear his voice fills up some hole in my heart that I didn’t even know I had. He knew it all along though.

Bart Budwig is a son of Idaho, a cosmic country crooner, a rousing trumpet player, and cryin’-style soul singer. His music is made up of seemingly incongruous parts; thrum & strum country rhythms, jazz guitar melodies, R&B vocals. When Bart sings he draws out words into meditative mantras, whole note neologisms that keep you hanging on until his raspy voice trails off in a ragged edge. His forthcoming album, Another Burn On The AstroTurf  was recorded over five days by a seven-piece band inside the OK Theater. It’s a melancholy rhapsody that recalls the uncorked rock n’ roll spirituality of king mystic Van Morrison, the gloomy nostalgia of dark prince Nick Drake and the songcraft sans self-seriousness of 70s Muscle Shoals.

Check out the first single, “Human Again”, a “spiritually charged nugget of country-folk”, which premiered today at Glide Magazine.

Another Burn on the AstroTurf will be released on January 24, but you can pre-order it HERE today on Limited Edition Clear Vinyl, Black Vinyl, Silver CD, or digitally.

What a day… Not only do we get to announce that we will be working with anti-folk hero David Dondero to release his upcoming  LP, The Filter Bubble Blues, (due January 17), we get to spring the first single on you today!

“The Presidential Palace of Pornography” is the first single, and it pretty much sums up the whole record in a nutshell. It’s a doo wop parody of headlines since the 2016 election in America, a prozac infested fifties, sixties , and 70’s rock style classic. Check out this Intergalactic cross-genre hit single, on the new sensation, Spotify, today!#1 in Nashville, New York, LA, San Francisco, Portland, Atlanta and Chicago, and 82 countries. A real life international diamond lane smoker.

The album itself is a biting, wary, heartbroken and sometimes hilarious sendup of the dumpster fire that is modern American political theatre and identity politics. Songs of a place hellbent on robbing itself of the last vestiges of what once made it great–or could’ve made it great if there had ever been any truth in it.

Dondero challenged himself with the difficult task of writing thought provoking songs during volatile political times in which most people in America appear to be living in increased isolation, modern convenience, information overload, and entrenched political beliefs. The result is Dondero at his best, full of the brilliant wordplay and craft listeners have come to expect. His voice calmer and steadier, while still full of emotional intensity. On every track you feel like you are in the room with him and that we are in this together, even if seems we are wandering lost and self-sidelined at this point in history. What else is one of the “best living songwriters” to do in these times?

Available January 17 on Limited Edition “eyeball” or white vinyl, as well as classic black LP or silver CD. Pre-order here!

On February 22, Luther Russell with release a new solo LP,  Medium Cool. The record was recorded and mixed to tape in a short blast with the help of some old friends: Co-producer Jason Hiller (bass), Derek Brownof The Eels, (drums), Danny De La Matyr (harmonies) and Liam Hayes of Plush.

“With these songs, I thought I could maybe capture the essence of growing up in the San Fernando Valley during the heyday of rock ’n’ roll radio,” explains Russell. It’s unmistakably there in the drag strip reverie of “Corvette Summer,” in the kinetic multi-city shout-out “Have You Heard?” and the shredding solos of “Can’t Be Sad.” Along for the drive are echoes of the slightly off-kilter power pop that emerged from Memphis’ Ardent Studios in the 1970s. You can hear it in tracks such as the slamming opener “Deep Feelings,” the downcast jangler “Talkin’ to Myself” and a tube-frying plea to the downer of the party, “Sad Lady.” Makes sense, since Luther’s been working there regularly with Jody Stephens of Big Star in their duo Those Pretty Wrongs.

Medium Cool is heralded by a 7″ single — out November 16, 2018 on Fluff & Gravy —containing “The Sound of Rock & Roll” and the flip side, “Saturday’s Child,” which didn’t make the album, but for Luther, is a clue to the spirit of the record. “It’s about the power of youth and beauty. An ingenue hits the club scene. Everyone competes to light her cigarette. She’s a star.”

Pre-orders are available via https://fluffandgravy.com/store/luther-russell-medium-cool/

Medium Cool track listing:
Side 1:
Deep Feelings
Can’t Be Sad
The Sound of Rock & Roll
Corvette Summer
At Your Feet

Side 2:
Have You Heard?
Sad Lady
Talkin’ to Myself
Blue Balloon
Can’t Turn Away

7” Single:
A: The Sound of Rock & Roll
B: Saturday’s Child

On April 19, 2019, Anna Tivel will be releasing her 4th solo album with Fluff and Gravy Records, titled The Question. That’s a long way off, so we decided to release the first single, “Fenceline”, today, premiered by Folk Alley.

“Fenceline” focuses on the impulse humans have had across generations and societies, to build walls in an effort to keep unwanted people out. Tivel found herself wondering: What is at the core of this need to construct barriers between ourselves and others?

“I heard an interview awhile back with a border guard,” she says. “He was in charge of a two-mile stretch of old fence and every morning he would walk along the fence line and find wire cutters and holes. He talked about the people he met, the people he helped through and those he had to send back, what their lives were like, what they were hoping for, what they were scared of. It was right after the election and it felt so good to hear someone talk about how deeply complex borders issues are, how security is important but so is humanity.”

Contemplating walls, fences, and gates brought her to the story of St. Peter at Heaven’s gate, only letting the chosen through. “Some people believe that you arrive at the entrance to Heaven and have to prove that you belong there,” she says. “Even in death we’re drawn to the idea of some kind of great wall.”

Give the track a listen (below) and then pre-order the record here. You’ll get a download of “Fenceline” immediately.

“Hagler” is the first single from Hillstomp’s October 19 release, Monster Receiver, and it has been making the social media rounds this week.

Here’s what people are saying:

“Terrifyingly good” – American Standard Time

“‘Hagler’ which sounds like Lee Ranaldo getting loose in the Bayou before the song bursts into a glorious haze of momentary distortion.” – Post to Wire

“Full of piss, vinegar and whiskey” – Joy of Violent Movement

The song itself fell out of a new guitar – a used Gibson ES 135 that Henry Kammerer recently acquired. “New guitars tend to do that”, Kammerer explains. “The song sounds tough, and it needs to. Marvelous Marvin was the toughest guy from my childhood and he always stuck with me. He was just a bad ass. I’m so happy now I get to sing his name for the rest of my life.”

You can pre-order the record now – available here as a Limited Edition “Sky Blue” LP (limited to 100), Black LP, CD, or digitally. Record will ship third week of October, along with digital files

If by some chance you’ve been asleep for the past 17 years, let me introduce you to Hillstomp. They’re a 2-man band based out of Portland, OR, comprised of Henry Hill Kammerer and John Johnson. Henry plays guitar and banjo like a hurricane, and if you close your eyes you’d swear he’s playing 2 parts at once. John Johnson beats mercilessly on his drum kit (which often contains a bucket, brake drum and broiler pan) with the fury of a demon loose from hell. But once you get past the pure ferocity of his playing, you notice that the parts are intricately crafted patterns that provide the framework for Kammerer’s guitar and banjo sorcery. Save for a couple of outlier tracks, there’s just no room for bass guitar, and no-one misses it enough to ask for it. This is folk music in its purest form – from loud and gritty, to intricate and poignant, and most importantly, always heartfelt and true.

We are proud to announce that on October 19, we’ll be releasing a brand new full-length, Monster Receiver. Recorded over the spring of 2018, the album finds the band challenging the stereotypes once again. Producer, John Shepski, and mixing engineer, John Askew (Richmond Fontaine, Laura Gibson, Wild Flag) teamed up to drive the Hillstomp sound into more experimental territory. The drums and guitar are pushed to the limit on screamers like “Hagler” and “Snake Eagle Blues”, while the gentler sounds in “I’ll Be Around” and “Dayton, Ohio” seem to stop time for a few minutes. Featuring guest appearances by Anna Tivel on violin, Erik Clampitt  (Hook & Anchor)on pedal steel, and David Lipkind (I Can Lick Any Son of a Bitch in the House) on harmonica, the record flows seamlessly between grungy folk, garage rock, and tender ballads.

You can pre-order the record now – available here as a Limited Edition “Sky Blue” LP (limited to 100), Black LP, CD, or digitally. Record will ship third week of October, along with digital files.

Ann Powers includes Anna Tivel’s “Small Believer” on her annual Top 10 Unheard Albums list for NPR’s The Record. The single, “Alleyway”, clocked in at #67 on NPR’s Best 100 songs of 2017 list. Powers opines that the album “repeatedly achieves this exquisite balance of the quotidian and the sublime with imagery that’s deeply poetic without being fussy, in musical arrangements that form like intuition around Tivel’s insights.

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Anna Tivel’s fourth studio album ‘Small Believer’ is a collection of patchwork stories drawn from conversations with strangers, on the road, in restaurants, bars, and rest stops. Produced by guitar mastermind Austin Nevins (Josh Ritter, Anais Mitchell), the songs float on a raft of electric guitar, pump organ, and sparse bass and drums.

‘Small Believer’ is spacious and honest, a lyric-driven exploration of the things that move within us. Tivel takes great care with every syllable and every story, chipping away until what remains is blindingly true and deeply affecting.

The record is available now on lp, cd and digital formats, as well as at Spotify, iTunes and Amazon.

Limited edition gold vinyl, hand-numbered to 125 is in short supply.

Anna Tivel’s “Alleyway” clock in at #67 on NPR’s Best 100 songs of 2017 list. Jacob Ganz writes “Anna Tivel has one of those voices that shivers with intimacy, so even when she’s singing about cars and the weather, you lean in to hear how she puts the words together.”

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Anna Tivel’s fourth studio album ‘Small Believer’ is a collection of patchwork stories drawn from conversations with strangers, on the road, in restaurants, bars, and rest stops. Produced by guitar mastermind Austin Nevins (Josh Ritter, Anais Mitchell), the songs float on a raft of electric guitar, pump organ, and sparse bass and drums.

‘Small Believer’ is spacious and honest, a lyric-driven exploration of the things that move within us. Tivel takes great care with every syllable and every story, chipping away until what remains is blindingly true and deeply affecting.

The record is available now on lp, cd and digital formats, as well as at Spotify, iTunes and Amazon.

Limited edition gold vinyl, hand-numbered to 125 is in short supply.

This morning (11/17/17), The Parson Red Heads are releasing a new single, “TV Surprise”, recorded during their Blurred Harmony sessions. Accompanying this single is an announcement that the album will be released in a digital Expanded Edition on 12/8 via Fluff and Gravy Records, featuring 2 bonus tracks – “TV Surprise” and “It’s Hard For Me To Say”.

Here’s how Evan Way describes the new single…

“TV Surprise” is a song that’s been around for probably 10 years at least, maybe more. It’s got a real Felt / Feelies vibe to it that I really like – those are two bands that we were just starting to get into around the time I wrote the song, so it’s no surprise that was coming through. The abstract feel of the lyrics is the thing that ended up making it not a perfect fit for inclusion on the Blurred Harmony album sequence, but Danny (O’Hanlon, who mixed the record), did a really great job creatively mixing the song – he added a lot of the textures that make this recording of the song have such a cool atmosphere and mood.

Fun fact – the ambient sound drone that opens the song is a combination of a Casio Keyboard, vacuum cleaner, bass guitar, and Evan’s 5 year old son George recorded into my Tascam 4-tracker and slowed down.

In Today’s installment of NPR’s Songs We Love, Anna Powers highlights Anna Tivel’s “Illinois”, from her most recent LP, Small Believer.  “A compassionate chronicler of those lives often overlooked, Tivel is simultaneously clear-eyed and open to dreaming”, Powers suggest. We couldn’t think of a more fitting description.

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Anna Tivel’s fourth studio album ‘Small Believer’ is a collection of patchwork stories drawn from conversations with strangers, on the road, in restaurants, bars, and rest stops. Produced by guitar mastermind Austin Nevins (Josh Ritter, Anais Mitchell), the songs float on a raft of electric guitar, pump organ, and sparse bass and drums.

‘Small Believer’ is spacious and honest, a lyric-driven exploration of the things that move within us. Tivel takes great care with every syllable and every story, chipping away until what remains is blindingly true and deeply affecting.

The record is available now on lp, cd and digital formats, as well as at Spotify, iTunes and Amazon.

Limited edition gold vinyl, hand-numbered to 125 is in short supply.

“If you’re looking for elegant sorrow, for compelling and gracious misery, for poetic sadness, then Jeffrey Martin is the musician you need.” So says the today’s review at Folk Alley.  It’s not an uplifting album, at least on the surface. The songs are “dark and sad and real. And that – that realness – that’s what’ll make you want to listen to the next story. And the next. And the next.”

After Jeffrey Martin released 2014’s Dogs In The Daylight, the Portland Mercury posited that he “might be the best songwriter in Portland.” No Depression called the record “as close to a masterpiece as a folk album from an emerging singer-songwriter can get.” One Go Around is the long-awaited follow-up to that record.

There’s a quiet dignity to the 12 new tracks on One Go Around, but a kind of quiet desperation as well. With subjects ranging from the shocking story of William Burroughs’ casual murder of his wife during a drunken party, to themes of love found and lost, the stories hit hard, because we know we may not be far off from them ourselves in this time of uncertainty.

The record is available now on LP, CD and digital formats, at the Fluff and Gravy Store, Bandcamp, Spotify, iTunes and Amazon.

In addition to black vinyl there is a Limited Edition run on Red vinyl, hand-numbered to 123.

The headline at Impose Magazine today sums up Jeffrey Martin’s latest in just three words… “Very Powerful Music”.  The review goes on to go through a few tracks a bit more in depth, including “What We’re Marching Toward”, which is referred to as Martin’s “Pete Seeger moment”.

Check it out in full here.

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After Jeffrey Martin released 2014’s Dogs In The Daylight, the Portland Mercury posited that he “might be the best songwriter in Portland.” No Depression called the record “as close to a masterpiece as a folk album from an emerging singer-songwriter can get.” One Go Around is the long-awaited follow-up to that record.

There’s a quiet dignity to the 12 new tracks on One Go Around, but a kind of quiet desperation as well. With subjects ranging from the shocking story of William Burroughs’ casual murder of his wife during a drunken party, to themes of love found and lost, the stories hit hard, because we know we may not be far off from them ourselves in this time of uncertainty.

The record is available now on LP, CD and digital formats, at the Fluff and Gravy Store, Bandcamp, Spotify, iTunes and Amazon.

In addition to black vinyl there is a Limited Edition run on Red vinyl, hand-numbered to 123.

Today, we are proud to announce the release of Jeffrey Martin’s One Go Around.

After Jeffrey Martin released 2014’s Dogs In The Daylight, the Portland Mercury posited that he “might be the best songwriter in Portland.” No Depression called the record “as close to a masterpiece as a folk album from an emerging singer-songwriter can get.” One Go Around is the long-awaited follow-up to that record.

There’s a quiet dignity to the 12 new tracks on One Go Around, but a kind of quiet desperation as well. With subjects ranging from the shocking story of William Burroughs’ casual murder of his wife during a drunken party, to themes of love found and lost, the stories hit hard, because we know we may not be far off from them ourselves in this time of uncertainty.

The record is available now on LP, CD and digital formats, at the Fluff and Gravy Store, Bandcamp, Spotify, iTunes and Amazon.

In addition to black vinyl there is a Limited Edition run on Red vinyl, hand-numbered to 123.