Montreal based garage rockers Taxi Girls look back on a Summer fling with their new single Secret Handshake, the kind of love affair that ends when of the involved parties has to go back to the grind of every day life. All that's left is a bit of muscle memory and bittersweet thoughts of what could have been, knowing full that it was not supposed to last.
Music is everything and nothing. It is useless and no limit can be set on its use. Music takes me to places of illimitable sensual and insensate joy, accessing points of ecstasy that no angelic lover could ever locate, or plunging me into gibbering weeping hells of pain that no torturer could devise. Music makes me write this sort of maundering adolescent nonsense without embarrassment. Music is in fact the dog's bollocks. Nothing else comes close.
Stephen Fry
Dutch '80s rock inspired quintet Morgendust are painting with broad strokes on their new single High Horse, an in-your-face anthem that is part satire and part serious about the worldwide rise of right-wing idiots who only care about themselves while getting filthy rich. To them it is all a game, but the odds are rigged in their favour. It is quite fitting they promote the song with a shiny, gold-plated AI-generated video, creating a fake reality that quite a few people will think is real (seriously).
After a serious bike accident Brooklyn based guitarist and composer Xander Naylor had to basically learn to play his instrument again. It was a long and cumbersome process, but his hands are once more able again to do what his brain wants them to do. His new album is Children of Sound is the result of many years of study of North Indian Hindustani classical music with tabla maestro Samir Chatterjee and mixing it with his contemporary jazz skills, something he had been wanted to record for quite some time. A grant from the Vermont Arts Council was very welcome and made it possible to set up in the Bunker Studio in order to capture the conversation between two musical worlds.
When different approaches to music meet, listening to each other is key. Naylor may be the composer, but each of the musicians is equally important and without their contributions the album wouldn't have the depth of exploration and rich textures that make it so much more than the sum of its parts. He takes turns with sax player Birsa Chatterjee and pianist Utsav Lal to provide the melody - the latter's knack for raga enables him to work a double shift if the track needs it with the percussionists Samir Chatterjee and Raphaël Pannier. It is a true collaborative effort and hopefully there is more to come from this ensemble. There are no boundaries in art. Borders and walls are ignored as they should be.
New Wave band Fischer-Z have launched a podcast to tie in with their 50th anniversary. In Episode 11 John Watts looks back on the recording of the This is My Universe and Building Bridges albums. Special attention for the World Go Round and Damascus Disco songs. And he discusses the new album X-Ray Serenade once again, which is due for release on September 4th 2026.
