In 1954, 12 year old Jerry Williams, then performing under the name Little Jerry Williams, made his first recording for Mechanic Records, a blues stomp with a shockingly mature vocal performance. Through the 60’s Williams’ career developed with a number of successful singles, including “I’m the Lover Man” and “Baby You’re My Everything”, as well as writing and producing hits for Dee Dee Warwick, Doris Duke, and Patti LaBelle and the Blue Belles.
It was in 1970, however, that the full extent of Williams’ eccentric creative genius was unleashed on the world for the first time, with the birth of his musical alter-ego, Swamp Dogg. Created to “occupy the body while the search party was out looking for Jerry Williams, who was mentally missing in action due to certain pressures, mal-treatments and failure to get paid royalties on over fifty single records,” the SwampDogg alias, still in use today, allowed Williams to create music that was bolder, raunchier, and more honest to his creative instincts. The Dogg’s cult classic debut Total Destruction to Your Mind struck a powerful blend of Williams' classic soulful sensibilities and the blooming psychedelia of the time. Infused in the swirling brew is Swamp’s blink-and-you’ll-miss-it humor, a number of acid odes, and a heavy dose of sharp political insight. Though the psychedelic strangeness alienated R&B fans of the time, and the authentic R&B infrastructure prevented it from clicking with hippie audiences, it has retroactively received legendary status in cult music circles.
Polaroids by Matthew Dilmore
Swamp Dogg is at his most earnest on lead single “Soul to Blessed Soul” - out now across all streaming platforms. The song is a wholesome yet triumphant tune about the divine power of love. Paying tribute to the kind of connection that overcomes the deepest hardships and brings out the best in a person, SwampDogg can only think to thank God for his good fortune. Anchored on a head-nodding lick from Guitar Shorty, “Soul to Blessed Soul” is a slow-burning serenade that’s sweet, soulful, and at times, a little sexual.
At 78, SwampDogg is as sharp of a singer and songwriter as ever. His raunchy yet charismatic sense of humor takes a more forward role on I Need a Job… So I Can Buy More Autotune, with earnestly delivered lyrics about all day sex and an entire song dedicated to the perils of “Cheating in the Daylight.” Many of the record’s most charming moments emerge from the juxtaposition of Swamp’s left field humor with genuine messages of love, such as “She Got That Fire”, which weaves descriptions of imagined sex acts, including but not limited to an encounter involving edible underwear, in between relatively wholesome proclamations like “she must be an angel on earth,” and “when she looks at you, it’s like sunshine from her eyes.” I Need a Job... does more than prove that Swamp's still got it, it proves he’s still getting better.
I Need a Job… So I Can Buy More Autotunewill be released on February 25, 2022. It is available for pre-order now, along with an exclusive t-shirt designed by Perry Shall.
Excited to announce the debut album from Dead Best, the new band from longtime friends Adam Goren (Atom and His Package, Armalite, Fracture) and Brian Sokol (Am/Fm, Franklin)!
Living next to each other throughout the pandemic, Goren and Sokel's neighborly interactions led the two to try writing music together, just to see what it would sound like. One song quickly became three, and soon they were recording what would come to be the self titled debut release from Dead Best. Dead Best takes the raw pandemic expressions of two punk veterans and refines them into a ripping 13 tracks. Exhuming deep anxieties through pummeling guitars and frantic, distorted vocals, the LP is a brief but clear profile of Goren and Sokel’s combined creative voice
Sharing their first single, "Life Love and Liberty", Dead Best announced their debut self titled LP, out December 10th on Don Giovanni Records. Simple punchy drums cue in the LP's opening track, inciting a barrage of aggressive guitar work and heavily distorted vocals. Capturing the duo’s explosive sound in under a minute and a half, Life, Love and Liberty is an introduction to the fast paced world of Dead Best.
Portals is an ambience album at the intersection of blended sounds. Earth, native flute, guitars, bass, drums, and percussion were used to record the music on this album. Portal is a connection to the other side. A bridge you can cross only if you promise not to look down. Notes are shaped into waves, conjugations of sound. Cosmic music echos, coaxing pitch, dragging stars, rhythm of the angels. Take a ride while guitars cling to form. Songs of the moon relax your mind, soul journey through Belt of the Pleiades, portal of birth. What is the key of the waters, night creatures, spin of the Earth? What do the birds sing? Uncertainties certain to be known interspecies communication will teach us this knowledge. Through the portal of understanding is a rite of togetherness. I will hold what you give me in the highest honor; this is the meaning of thank you, miigwech
"Had MarissaPaternoster emerged in my era she would be a household name by now. Trouble is, the world is currently not very kind to guitar heroes. In favour instead are the ten a penny stage schooled pop stars. Nevertheless, Marissa’s talents are such that she endures and indeed continues to flourish despite our stubborn idiocracy. She is a true alt treasure. Ignore her at your peril." – Shirley Manson (Garbage)
After a handful of releases under the moniker Noun, Peace Meter is the first ever recording to be released under Paternoster's name, a deliberate choice making it stand on its own as a unique statement from the prolific guitarist.
MarissaPaternoster began writing Peace Meter immediately after arriving home from a west coast tour cut short due to COVID. Alone in her deceased grandmother's empty home, Paternoster sent the skeleton of a song to Andy Gibbs from the metal band THOU with the hopes that he might be able to extrapolate on the original idea. Andy sent his accompaniment back, and that process continued for the bulk of the first wave of quarantine.
As the songs developed, Paternoster decided to include two other musicians whom she admired: long time friend Shanna Polley of the NYC-based band Snakeskin on backup vocals, and the cellist Kate Wakefield from the Cincinnati-based band Lung. All parties recorded their parts within their respective homes. Once the songs seemed fully realized, they were mixed by Eric Bennett, one of Marissa's oldest friends and closest collaborators, who was also quarantined at home alongside his mixing studio.
This LP is the final project of that collaboration, between four US states, a year of isolation, panic, and uncertainty - all the while never writing together in the flesh.
Album opener "White Dove" - streaming now across all digital platforms - is a very simple song, both in structure and content, about observing something or someone you love endure pain and trauma. The entire song is basically two major chords, played over and over, a tonal mantra. Sonically, dynamics guide this song through its high peaks and low valleys, hauling the listener up to the summit within the refrain of the last chorus.
The two musicians mutually agree to disappear the false boundary between producer and speaker.
– Pitchfork
A messy and unblinking improvisational blurt that quickly becomes dense and confusing, even though reality itself is often incredibly confusing and overwhelmingly dense, and perhaps that’s the fundamental idea radiating from every spontaneous noise-blot ever made by this District duo.
– The Washington Post
Together, they’ve created an unselfish world where each member has room to breathe within their far-out experiments in liberated sound, vision, and performance.
– Bandcamp
Excited to announce a new album from model home, both feet en th infinite. The Washington, D.C. duo’s work employs a freewheelin’ and improvisational approach to communicate their ideas. Their single-take gonzo mind-melds currently span 19 Bandcamp-only transmissions, a compilation album, one full-length LP, and numerous mixtapes. both feet en th infinite will be released on November 5, 2021.
both feet en th infinite sees the duo under the microscope of a professional studio (Tonal Park), a process that allows them an opportunity to enhance fine details that might slide out of view amid blown-out basement recordings. Clarity has not made them any less weird. The takes are alive with a new meditative focus, while not losing the mutant decadence of previous efforts. The sound is akin to David Tudor meeting African Head Charge with an 808 and a rapper, spilling groove over industrial experimentalism.
On these sessions model home’s core duo – Nappy Nappa (voice) and p cain (electronics) – are augmented by producer and Future Times label-founder, Andrew Field-Pickering (Dolo Percussion, Max D), whose obliquely funky rhythm tracks set a solid foundation for the group to spill alien logic. The 7 songs presented here were captured with the goal of creating a record that could be replicated on stage, they reflect this with live and direct frankness. A communal energy permeates the release with gatefold art work by Maya Miller (Double Leopards), cover art and design by Meghan Raham (woozy) and sonic contributions from a who’s who of contemporary DMV heads – dreamcastmoe, Awad Bilal (Too Free), Luke Stewart (Irreversible Entanglements), Bubbie, and Rob Stokes. The album was recorded and engineered with Mike Petillo (U-Udios, Geo Rip) at the controls routing the fray onto the mixing board.
Album opener “Night Break” - streaming now across all digital platforms - slots into a hypnotic mindset. Funkadelic-esque in its unhinged wildness, but newly and uniquely hectic. A party banger conjured from the true outer limits.
modelhome create and document their music at an intimidating pace. Amid that flood of noise and energy there are moments that have marked a refinement of technique or a shift in currents. Last year’s album SE was one, as was the compilation One Year. both feet en th infinite is another. Its newfound stillness and gridded percussion are an extension of Cain, Nappa, and Field-Pickering's previous work and also an evolution in vision, expanding the possibilities of communication in the moment. It’s a set that pulls double duty as a brain-breaking koan and an outer-limits party record.
