Today Kevin Patrick Sullivan, the highly prolific LA-based songwriter known as Field Medic has released plunge deep golden knife, a new six-song EP available now from Run For Cover Records. The EP is a lo-fi counterpart to Sullivan’s latest album Floral Prince(which earned praise from the likes of Pitchfork, The FADER, NPR, Nylon, Paste Magazine, FLOOD Magazine, American Songwriter, and more) and another example of the unbridled creativity that makes Sullivan such a compelling songwriter.
plunge deep golden knife's raw recordings harken back to the early days of Field Medic, with Sullivan using his trusty four-track or tabletop cassette player to capture moments of inspiration at their most uninhibited. It's a creative drive that can't always be contained to an album format, as Sullivan explains: “I’d been trying to make higher fidelity songs for the album (Floral Prince) but was hitting a wall, so I pulled out the four-track and wrote and recorded a handful of songs in a few days. It was an exercise but I also wanted to get back to making songs for fun, and in that period of the album making process, recording was beginning to feel bleak. I like to be sort of recklessly creative and I think EPs are good for that."
That spontaneity is palpable on plunge deep golden knife where the tape hiss and sparse arrangements compliment Sullivan's warm voice and the diary-like nature of his lyrics. Songs like the title track or the plain-spoken "i get drunk everyday cuz i'm bored & i'm lonely" candidly unpack struggles with alcohol through achingly beautiful melodies and conversational words; while elsewhere "rosacea bluez" and "...do you want me" highlight the way Sullivan's affinity for unvarnished recordings only amplifies the intimacy and effectiveness of his writing. This slice-of-life feeling brings an uncommon cohesion to Field Medic's extensive catalog, and the songs on plunge deep golden knife serve as another window into Sullivan's world. "I've always been really drawn to artists who are super prolific," he says. "You get these moments or lyrics that are so unexpected. When you release a lot of songs you wind up saying things that you maybe wouldn't have said if you sat on every song for a long time. But the bottom line is I just can't stop making songs."
Toledo-based rock powerhouse Citizen have released their fourth full-length Life In Your Glass World. Out today, the album is another giant step forward for a band that have spent over a decade challenging expectations and refusing to be easily defined. Every aspect of recording Life In Your Glass World was done completely on the band's own terms, with vocalist Mat Kerekes built a studio in his garage where Citizen tracked the entire album themselves. From the aggressive-yet-danceable opening jolt of "Death Dance Approximately" to the sweeping conclusion of "Edge of The World," this is a set of lean, raw songs that represent the most unfiltered version of the band's daring vision to date.
"Citizen have spent the last few years evolving and redefining themselves... Life In Your Glass World, feels like a culmination point for this evolution." - Uproxx
"...an undeniable banger." - Entertainment Weekly
"...it's some of their best music yet." - BrooklynVegan
'Throne of Ivory (Singles & B-sides)' is a collection of singles written over the last year + b-sides from past and future proper full length albums from The Berries. You can listen to "Priceless" above, and pre-order the cassette here.
Fiddlehead—the punk powerhouse featuring members of Have Heart, Basement, and more—have returned today with the announcement of their upcoming sophomore full-length. Due out May 21st, Between The Richness finds Fiddlehead expanding on their dynamic blend of hardcore energy and undeniable melody, crafting their most immediate set of songs to date.
Between The Richness follows 2018's Springtime & Blind, a gut-punch of an album that followed Flynn coming to grips with the passing of his father. Now Between The Richness explores the ever-presence of grief but with Flynn writing from a drastically different place. "These massive things happened in my life between the first record and this record," he says. "It just so happened that I ended up getting married, I had a child, and it was around the 10-year anniversary of my father's passing." Flynn brings these experiences to Between The Richness, diving headfirst into the paradoxes of life, death, joy, and pain—all with stunning humanity and honesty. "The name of the record is called Between The Richness because it’s important to me to explore the weird feeling of happiness and sadness, because that’s just where I am right now,” says Flynn. “My son’s name is Richard and my father’s name is Richard, so it’s literally between the two of them, but it’s the richness of life and the richness of death."
"Black and Red" follows previous single "Blue Sunday" and the contrasts between the two songs exemplify the many moods found on Life In Your Glass World. Where "Blue Sunday" shows the album's dreamy and atmospheric explorations, "Black and Red" represents the other side of the coin: a towering rock song that captures the band's focus on blending propulsive rhythms with the muscular bass lines and anthemic hooks. Kerekes discussed the track saying, "The song is about someone who leeches off of your efforts and turns out to be a bad friend on top of that, Nick wrote the guitar line late in the writing process, but we had to use it and ended up being the last song we wrote for the record."
Today Kevin Patrick Sullivan, the highly prolific LA-based songwriter known as Field Medic has released plunge deep golden knife, a new six-song EP available now from Run For Cover Records. The EP is a lo-fi counterpart to Sullivan’s latest album Floral Prince (which earned praise from the likes of Pitchfork, The FADER, NPR, Nylon, Paste Magazine, FLOOD Magazine, American Songwriter, and more) and another example of the unbridled creativity that makes Sullivan such a compelling songwriter.
