#Alexis Taylor

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Happy Alexis Peanuts Obsession Day to those who celebrate.

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Alexis Taylor

[dustedmagazine]

Weak Signal — Fine (12XU)

Weak Signal has been my pick for “best rock band you never heard of” for a few years now, and this fourth full-length only strengthens the argument. It pulls their clanking, grinding VU-ish drone in new and intriguing directions—an acoustic blues folk a la Aquarian Blood, a guitar-heavy clangor akin to Crazy Horse—without sacrificing any core competencies. It adds some guests, including Hot Chip’s Alexis Taylor, Doug Shaw of Gang Gang Dance and Cass McCombs, without diluting the locked in synchrony of its three founding members.

To review, Weak Signal is a three-piece led by Mike Bones who is linked to some cool NYC noises via an association with Endless Boogie and a stint with Soldiers of Fortune (Kid Millions is also a member). Sasha Vine plays mostly bass, but also a little violin and sings. Tran, the drummer, also sings. They’ve been a band for about seven years, and Dusted has favorably reviewed two of the three previous albums, 2021’s Bianca and 2022’s War on War.  

Fine is an advance for Weak Signal but not a shock. Though most of its songs sound very much in line with previous albums, it diverges in some fruitful ways. Both “Out on a Wire,” and “Baby” begin in a frenzy of feedback and improvisation, beginning side one and side two of the vinyl edition in exhilarating freefall.

“Out on a Wire” coalesces eventually into Weak Signal’s trademark vamp, a dissolute cousin to “Peter Gunn” that slinks and struts and smirks and all but has a lit cigarette dangling from the corner of its mouth. And yet, it’s pure rock and roll, this cadence, full of menace but also vibrating with heart and vulnerability, talk-sung with bracing cynicism but sweetened by boy-girl harmonies.

“Baby” is more of a surprise, because once the din lets up, a softer aesthetic emerges in jangling folk acoustic chords and soft lyricism. It’s an appealing shift, and it continues through “Terá Tera,” a fragile, pretty but deeply felt cut that puts me in mind of other unplugged psychedelic garage rockers: Aquarian Blood, The Duchess and the Duke and the Gris Gris’ Greg Ashley’s solo work.

The best cut, though, is “Wannabe,” a blown-out guitar-psych tune with shades of ragged glory. That’s the one where Cass McCombs guests, and if it’s him letting the long notes fly at the beginning, they should consider offering him a full-time gig. If Weak Signal’s songs have had a flaw up to now, it’s been a certain dank claustrophobia. This cut blows the doors down and lets some light in.

Weak Signal entertainingly imagines life as a Brian Jones-style figure in “Rich Junkie,” tapping into a pre-digital fantasy of rock ‘n roll excess (and financial rewards). Though spiritually part of a strung-out but brilliant lineage, Fine will likely never buy a mountain villa for anyone involved. It’s just another good one from a band you ought to know but probably don’t. Why not fix that right now? You owe it to yourself.

Jennifer Kelly

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Alexis Taylor at Simkhai, Spring 2023

[spilladabalia]

Sleaford Mods & Hot Chip - Nom Nom Nom (Official Audio)

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Biggest Mood Ever [Edit] (2022)

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Pet Shop Boys Box Set Review: Smash: The Singles 1985-2020

(Parlophone)

BY JORDAN MAINZER

“It’s in the music / It’s in the song,” sings Neil Tennant on Pet Shop Boys’ “Vocal”, a 2010s club banger about the power of a communal groove. It’s a simple, but appropriate summation of their new box set Smash: The Singles 1985-2020. A collection of 55 remastered tracks, from the band’s “Imperial Phase” to their surprising late-career critical success, Smash makes the case for the London synth pop duo as some of the most concisely affecting pop songwriters of all time. Though each track sounds crisp and timeless, the set’s improved audio quality is secondary to the strength of the collection as a whole, one that puts the the band’s idiosyncratic, lesser-known songs on the same pedestal as their massive hits. 

The casual music fan and non-PSB-diehard is likely familiar with, at the very least, the ever-relevant “West End Girls”. A perfect slice of deadpanned, Thatcher-era pop, it’s a predecessor to Pulp’s “Common People”, a satire of our penchant to fetishize those of a different socioeconomic status. That the band’s tone isn’t obvious is perhaps their greatest trick--from the get-go, they fully embraced commercialism while singing about the suburban hellscapes brought upon by capitalism (“Suburbia”) and society’s swindlers (“Opportunities (Let’s Make Lots of Money)”. To Tennant and Chris Lowe, though, this wasn’t hypocrisy: It was the perfect melding of the minds, the former’s pop songwriting chops with the latter’s artistic, experimental edge. Take “Love Comes Quickly”, which wouldn’t hit as hard without its Reichian choral background, panning synths, and Tennant’s croon-to-falsetto from which you can trace a direct line to the likes of Hot Chip’s Alexis Taylor. Ditto the band’s inspired disco-ifed covers of songs from other genres: Brenda Lee’s “Always On My Mind”, the whistling synths emulating pedal steel guitar, or U2 and Boys Town Gang mashup “Where The Streets Have No Name/I Can’t Take My Eyes Off You”.

What you perhaps come to appreciate most about Pet Shop Boys from Smash is how many of their club-conquering songs take place in intimate settings. For every horn-inflected, Latin pop jam like “Domino Dancing”, there’s the unspoken infidelity of “So Hard” or the paranoid obsession of “Jealousy”, lovers waiting for the other to come home from being out. On the surface, “Se a Vida É (That’s the Way Life Is)” sounds basic, but it’s a thoughtful reflection on the complications of life and how they change as you age, all atop a brass section, strummed guitars, and percussive drums from SheBoom. And even on a certain dance song like “I Wouldn’t Normally Do This Kind of Thing”, the narrator spends most of the time in their own head, thinking about their journey from getting out of their comfort zone to letting loose on the floor.

Of course, at the heart of the band’s introspection is an unavoidable societal context. Pet Shop Boys came to fruition in an age of state-sanctioned homophobia, governmental response to AIDS met with, at best, a shrug, and at worst, demonization. Tennant came out as gay in a 1994 interview in Attitude magazine, and before that, his references to his sexual orientation in song were somewhat veiled. On early religious satire “It’s a Sin”, Tennant laments being blamed “for everything I long to do / No matter when or where or who”. The stunning, whispered eulogy “Being Boring” is about a friend of his who died from AIDS; sullen, he sings, “All the people I was kissing / Some are here and some are missing.” You can hear the difference in songs with similar themes after Tennant came out; on “I Don’t Know What You Want But I Can’t Give It Anymore”, he theatrically leans into the jealousy, chanting over wailing backing vocals, “Is he better than me? Was it your place or his? Who was there?” And while the famously understated Lowe has never publicly come out, it’s long been speculated that his added verse on “Paninaro ‘95″ refers to an ex lover who passed from AIDS. The band’s inclusion of this version over the original on Smash speaks volumes, given the disgusting rise of anti-LGBTQ+ legislation today.

Ultimately, what allowed Pet Shop Boys to continue succeeding, as society’s attitudes and tastes changed, is their adaptation. A diss track like “Yesterday, When I Was Mad” represents Tennant at his most bitter, chiding critics. “You have a certain quality, which really is unique / Expressionless, such irony, although your voice is weak,” he sings, putting himself in the mindset of a stuffy journalist unamused by a track like, say, “Left to My Own Devices”. Over two decades later, on “The Pop Kids”, Tennant adopts a different mindset rife with humility thinking about the band’s early days: “We were young but imagined we were so sophisticated / Telling everyone we know that rock was overrated.” It’s those very rock-oriented elements that, ironically, comprised their best later-career tunes. Ali McLeod’s guitar and BJ Cole’s pedal steel stand out on “You Only Tell Me You Love Me When You’re Drunk”, a moment inspiring to polymaths like Death Cab For Cutie guitarist Dave Depper. The Smiths’ Johnny Marr provides guitar on “Home And Dry”, whose additional snares and seaside synths fit alongside Tennant’s autotuned vocals on the band’s most wistful track. And acoustic guitar from Tennant himself buoys “I Get Along” and the Xenomania-produced “Did You See Me Coming?” They’re the type of songs that make you think were age truly nothing but a number, you’d be looking at a second collection of eternal songs in another 35 years.

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Étienne de Crécy — World Away feat Alexis Taylor

[hometown-unicorn]

“Alexis is a diminutive young man who tends to make his presence felt by wearing clothing in loud colours.” From Fantastic Man n° 11 — 2010

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Alexis Taylor presents: Seeing Ghosts

Radio hit ! Natalie Imbruglia vibes !

Award winning Canadian country singer/songwriter Alexis Taylor has always had a passion for music.

Her style combines edgy, catchy melodies with powerhouse vocals and heartfelt lyrics. Between recording and songwriting in Nashville, Tennessee, Alexis has had the opportunity to open up for artists such as The Marshall Tucker Band, Love and Theft, Meghan Patrick and Doug Seegers. After her first release in 2018, Alexis has appeared live on numerous radio stations and tv stations throughout North America. She has been a part of events such as Canadian Music Week in Toronto, CMA Fest in Nashville, and has performed at the USO Northwest Gala in both 2018 and 2019. The release of her first single also lead to Alexis winning “Female Vocalist of the Year” at the 2018 Tennessee Music Awards. After releasing an acoustic version of "Let Me Leave" earlier in 2023, Alexis’ newest release of the year will be “Room Service” - an uptempo, catchy song that is sure to have every one singing along.

“I had to opportunity to write with with Dave Audé and Jeffrey James a few months back and they really made the song what it is," Alexis exclaims, "Dave did such a spectacular job on the production too, and I'm so proud of how the song turned out!"

Listen the new single Seeing Ghosts in Spotify:

[dustedmagazine]

Joe Goddard — Harmonics (Domino)

Photo by Louise Mason

Hot Chip’s Joe Goddard enlarges a euphoric, body-moving electronic aesthetic on this third solo album by inviting in collaborators, and though results vary, the best of these partnerships are extraordinary.

Some of these meetups are not surprising, as when Alexis Taylor and Al Doyle turn up for “Mountains.” Here a plurality of Hot Chip join in a blippy, boppy, spirit quest that asks existential questions amid rave-y bursts of synth and drum machine. Wild Beasts’ Hayden Thorpe, too, seems like a natural choice in “Summons,” executing wild operatic arcs of melody atop grumbling synth bass and pounding keyboards. But a couple of tracks featuring Goddard discovery Findia fall flat; they’re not terrible but feel a bit like by-the-numbers dance pop.

In fact, the further Goddard gets away from what you might expect, the better these cuts work. It’s the oddball entries that catch your ear.  Tom McFarland, of the UK dance-pop ensemble Jungle, flutters soulfully over eerie, trebly keyboard auras in “Ghosts,” stretching words into fluid glissandos. McFarland, perhaps reflecting the title, is a spare, spectral presence, but the chorus kicks in with a gospel weight and certainty, a triumph over frailty and doubt. The jazz saxophone player and pop collage-ist Alexander DePlume is another unexpected choice, blowing in over the glitchy flicker of “Revery” with slow, vibrato-laced tones, a florid, faintly old fashioned sound in an electronic forest. But the best of all is “Miles Away,” an unearthly mesh of the Guinean singer Falle Nioke’s resonating tones and the chiming of mbira. If there were a whole album of just this, I’d be all in, 100%.

Goddard sometimes tinged his old band’s tunes with melancholy taking the vocals, for instance, on the moody, soulful “Hungry Children,” but Harmonics reaches for positive affirmation. “Progress,” aided by Ibibio Sound System’s Eno Williams, percolates with good feelings. Its heavily effected vocals soaring over pulsing, tonally intricate Konono 1-style percussion and swinging brass. It lifts off effortlessly and takes you with it.

In the end, it feels wrong to call this album a solo record, since it is defined and elevated by the people Goddard works with. He’s been adventurous in seeking out partners, choosing some familiar ones and some that no one would have predicted, and the risks, especially, have paid off.  

Jennifer Kelly

[spilladabalia]

Hot Chip - Flutes

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♫ Hot Chip x "Tiny Desk Concert" x NPR Music.

Setlist: "Over And Over," "Boy from School," "Look at Where We Are," and "Ready for the Floor" [Apr. 29, 2024]

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One of my favourite bondage models,Alexis Taylor