"Hammer + Echo"
Getting their start in the early '80s, the Kilkenny Cats were one of the most fascinating bands at a time when there were a lot of fascinating bands around. Formed by the North Carolina born Tom Cheek, who had relocated to Athens, Georgia for college, the Kilkenny Cats played a dark and moody blend of post-punk and psychedelia that still, after all these years, feels decidedly timeless. Here's what I mean by that--sometimes when you listen to a band you can hear the years they existed. We won't name. names, but you know what I mean--however, when it comes to the Kilkenny Cats, their music was so singular, they elude the timeline. Although their fellow city dwelling comrades ranged from REM to Pylon to Love Tractor, they were their own thing. Alive with jangling guitars, prowling basslines, foreboding drums and sonorous vocals, the Kilkenny Cats' music was awash in mystery and maybe that's why all these years later, they still sound as pressingly relevant as ever. They were a beloved live act, they had a deal with Twin/Tone, played shows with REM and Husker Du and then? Well, then decades of silence. Why? Well, that's what we're here to figure out and Tom Cheek walks us through it all. Spoiler alert: The 'Cats are back and more music in addition to the wonderful expanded reissue of 1988's Hammer + Echo, will be coming. I'll let him explain.
www.propellorsoundrecordings.com
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Stereo Embers
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"Hammer + Echo"
Getting their start in the early '80s, the Kilkenny Cats were one of the most fascinating bands at a time when there were a lot of fascinating bands around. Formed by the North Carolina born Tom Cheek, who had relocated to Athens, Georgia for college, the Kilkenny Cats played a dark and moody blend of post-punk and psychedelia that still, after all these years, feels decidedly timeless. Here's what I mean by that--sometimes when you listen to a band you can hear the years they existed. We won't name. names, but you know what I mean--however, when it comes to the Kilkenny Cats, their music was so singular, they elude the timeline. Although their fellow city dwelling comrades ranged from REM to Pylon to Love Tractor, they were their own thing. Alive with jangling guitars, prowling basslines, foreboding drums and sonorous vocals, the Kilkenny Cats' music was awash in mystery and maybe that's why all these years later, they still sound as pressingly relevant as ever. They were a beloved live act, they had a deal with Twin/Tone, played shows with REM and Husker Du and then? Well, then decades of silence. Why? Well, that's what we're here to figure out and Tom Cheek walks us through it all. Spoiler alert: The 'Cats are back and more music in addition to the wonderful expanded reissue of 1988's Hammer + Echo, will be coming. I'll let him explain.
www.propellorsoundrecordings.com
www.bombshellradio.com (http://www.bombshellradio.com)
www.stereoembersmagazine.com
www.alexgreenbooks.com (http://www.alexgreenbooks.com)
Stereo Embers
IG + BLUESKY: @emberspodcast
Email: editor@stereoembersmagazine.com
Stereo Embers The Podcast 0453: Ryan Walsh (Hallelujah The Hills)
Stereo Embers: The Podcast
45 minutes 16 seconds
3 months ago
Stereo Embers The Podcast 0453: Ryan Walsh (Hallelujah The Hills)
"Deck"
Over the course of their nearly-fifteen album career, Hallelujah The Hills have established themselves as one of the most unpredictable, inventive and fascinating bands on the planet. Hard to pick favorites in their discography because every album is unbelievable--there's 2012's No One Knows What Happens Next or 2013's Portrait Of The Artist As A Young Trashcan or 2016's A Band Is Something To Figure Out--pick any one you like and you can't go wrong. Speaking of picking the Boston outfit's new effort Deck requires you to do just that. Or, asks you to do just that. Or, if you don't want to, you kind of are because not making a choice is a choice. A sprawling, thrilling and altogether deliciously ambitious project,
Deck is arranged into four loosely thematic elements that correspond to the suits of a deck of cards. Each suit has its own musical style; introspective spare numbers, orchestrally arranged compositions,
indie rock stomp and idiosyncratic tracks that wind and loop and twist and rattle and diverge tunefully away. Along the way you'll run into Craig Finn of the Hold Steady, Ezra Furman, Mission of Burma's Clint Conley and Will Dailey.
There's a song for every card in a deck and this fifty-two track effort is filled with surprises, detours, hard lefts into the darkness and jet-powered pulls into whipping storms and sunny wide open fields where a lone guitar angles under
the sunlight then bursts into flames. It's hard to explain but it's easy to experience so I urge you to pick up Deck and toss it into the air and follow it wherever it goes. Ryan Walsh is the band's braintrust and visionary and he's the perfect frontman and musical director--his compositions are literate and unexpected and his voice filled with presence and urgency. Walsh's book Astral Weeks: A Secret History of 1968 is genius by the way, so get that if you have a chance. But for now, let's let Mr. Walsh cut the deck and walk us through what's happening with his marvelous band.
www.hallelujahthehills.com
www.bombshellradio.com (http://www.bombshellradio.com)
www.stereoembersmagazine.com
www.alexgreenbooks.com (http://www.alexgreenbooks.com)
Stereo Embers:
BLUESKY + IG: @emberspodcast
Email: editor@stereoembersmagazine.com
Stereo Embers: The Podcast
"Hammer + Echo"
Getting their start in the early '80s, the Kilkenny Cats were one of the most fascinating bands at a time when there were a lot of fascinating bands around. Formed by the North Carolina born Tom Cheek, who had relocated to Athens, Georgia for college, the Kilkenny Cats played a dark and moody blend of post-punk and psychedelia that still, after all these years, feels decidedly timeless. Here's what I mean by that--sometimes when you listen to a band you can hear the years they existed. We won't name. names, but you know what I mean--however, when it comes to the Kilkenny Cats, their music was so singular, they elude the timeline. Although their fellow city dwelling comrades ranged from REM to Pylon to Love Tractor, they were their own thing. Alive with jangling guitars, prowling basslines, foreboding drums and sonorous vocals, the Kilkenny Cats' music was awash in mystery and maybe that's why all these years later, they still sound as pressingly relevant as ever. They were a beloved live act, they had a deal with Twin/Tone, played shows with REM and Husker Du and then? Well, then decades of silence. Why? Well, that's what we're here to figure out and Tom Cheek walks us through it all. Spoiler alert: The 'Cats are back and more music in addition to the wonderful expanded reissue of 1988's Hammer + Echo, will be coming. I'll let him explain.
www.propellorsoundrecordings.com
www.bombshellradio.com (http://www.bombshellradio.com)
www.stereoembersmagazine.com
www.alexgreenbooks.com (http://www.alexgreenbooks.com)
Stereo Embers
IG + BLUESKY: @emberspodcast
Email: editor@stereoembersmagazine.com
