Staggering from the mouth of the cave that has housed a delightful winter nap, we the people of Drag City open wide our maw and ROAR! A new season is upon us — and our brute strength is needed in a world that has already started slipping from its path in the brief time since last we released new musings.

...now, if you think we’ve really been hibernating, you’re a damn fool. Drag City never sleeps and we certainly couldn’t through the last holiday nightmare. We’re too busy packing boxes full of the likes of Bonnie ‘Prince’ Billy, White Magic, Bert Jansch and Joanna Newsom, to name but a few of our recent hits. And when the packing was done, then the excuse-making began...“no sirrah, we don’t have any more Bert Jansch LPs — public demand was too great, guv’nor!”

Twas a busy time, that’s for sure. And all the while this was going down, we were looking into the light of the new year. And 2007’s got a lot of leading lights marking our collective path into the future...

2007! We live again, to face another year — and fill it with our indispensable, semi-biodegradable offerings. More meat for the landfill, that’s our motto this time around — and such meat! How about a super-quick breakdown, starting...now!

January features the return of Ghost. Their first record in three years is called In Stormy Nights. We’ll give you more details in a minute — I mean, fuck — we’ve got a whole year to cover here! Also bowing in January is the all-new Alasdair Roberts album, The Amber Gatherers. Plus, Bonnie ‘Prince’ Billy’s latest offspring from The Letting Go, the three-song single “Lay & Love”.

February features another thrilling threesome! Debuting on Drag City is P.G. Six, with his new album Slightly Sorry, available on LP and CD. Also on LP and CD is a newbie from The High Llamas, entitled Can Cladders. And on the Blue Chopsticks label is the second collaboration between Susan Howe and David Grubbs, entitled Souls of the Labadie Tract.

March! Now here it gets a little hairy. We’ve got a number of titles scheduled for release in March, stick with me... On top of the list are a couple of voices from the annals (you read that right — never anals, perv!) of classic Drag City — speaking in a modern tongue, naturally. But it’s great to have them back. RTX deliver their second record of roaring rock, Western Xterminator, available in highly durable CD only. Also on CD only is King Kong, logging their first record in four years with Buncha Beans. And also on CD only is The Red Crayola, finally with the long-awaited reissue of Soldier Talk. And also also on CD only is a sneak-preview (plus non-LP track) single from the debut album by Bill Callahan! It’s called “Diamond Dancer.” Finally, a single, but this one on both vinyl and CD (at last!) is the fourth — and some think, final — clipping from The Letting Go, “Strange Form of Life.” The three songs and video enhancement on this release qualify it for EP status you heard it here first.

In April, we fulfil a promise we made in March — to release a full-length debut album by Bill Callahan, which is to be called Woke On A Whaleheart, if you haven’t heard (or even if you have). But there’s so much more to April than just Bill’s amazing new emancipatory statement! There’s also the return of The Fucking Champs, who follow their deathless, timeless album V with — what else? — VI.

May already; can you believe it? And we’re right there with you. Rainbow, the roiling, boiling collaboration between Michio Kurihara and Boris, is slated for American release in the middle of the month. Other sounds from around the world will be released at that time from the Yaala Yaala label, a new imprint we’re manufacturing, distributing and digging! Hand-made African field recordings; who wouldn’t dig ‘em?

June and the rest of the year — would you believe, it’s a secret? There are items of interest floating around out there — a new Galactic Zoo Dossier, a CD from The Fucking Champs alter-ego Concentrick, several projects involving The Red Krayola of the past, present and future (at least one of which features all three), and a Joanna Newsom EP, to name but a few. And shouldn’t there be a few more Howling Hex moments on the schedule? We’ll be checking into all this to give you a reason to check back into these updates as 2007 continues on the inexorable path to extinction!!! And 2008, natch.

The story behind Ghost’s incredible new opus, In Stormy Nights is a simple one. From where they sit in their native Japan, Ghost make music to move an international audience. Theirs is a music rooted in their favorite sounds — but rather than just stare inwardly at their own internal mirror, Ghost choose to reach out with their music to those who choose to listen. This makes In Stormy Nights, and all Ghost albums, records for the people. Now, anyone who knows Ghost knows that this is giving “the people” a ton of credit — because Ghost records are generally densely layered soundscapes, surveying the eons of our planet’s musical development and choosing discrete passages from along the eternal path. But that's how open the collective mind of Ghost is, allowing that "the people" might just be able to take such sophistications — and the way Ghost plays it out, the people do it every time! Combining pan-Asian traditional music with British hard rock and American psychedelia is just one of the many tricks up Ghost’s sleeve — but all gestures are equally heart-felt and wouldn’t be played if they didn’t represent something true and real to the group. Likewise, Ghost leader and lead singer Masaki Batoh combines his native tongue with English in an eccentric manner that is in fact the only way that the lyrics could be expressed. The result, played by a sextet of Ghosts led by firebrand guitarist Michio Kurihara and multi-instrumentalist Giant, is an eruption of sounds, coalescing into pop and folk structures and then flying apart into jams, improvisations and extended-form workouts. This is the sound of Ghost — though the generally pastoral textures of their acclaimed last album Hypnotic Underworld have been displaced by a darker, electric texture on In Stormy Nights, underscored with the militant roar of tympani drums. The picture is at times, a bleak one — but with the ethereal book-end pieces, “Motherly Bluster” and “Grisalle,” Ghost strike the hopeful chord for us all. In Stormy Nights is a record for today as well as a record for all the stormy nights this world has known.

The fourth Alasdair Roberts record may be his best; we’re not sure, we always think that every time we hear a new Alasdair Roberts record. Ali always knocks us out with his ever-deepening sense of his self in song and with the wit and imagination in the arrangements of his songs. Young but daily growing Alasdair is still; he started early with Appendix Out and is still just getting started, in so many ways. Over the course of his four albums, he has worked increasingly with the traditional songs that preceded the music of recent generations; whether playing in a straightforward solo performance, interpolating traditional and original music with a group or going for broke with fresh arrangements for ancient death ballads, he has reached increasingly deeper within himself and the music. On The Amber Gatherers, Alasdair is writing original material again. After the hair-raising cover versions comprising the all death-ballad album No Earthly Man, his new songs feel light and airy — just the way a body does when finally unwrapping the locked hands of the corpse locked around his or her neck. Of course, these new songs and stories aren’t all sunshine and smiles, but when juxtaposed with the live sound of Ali and his band, the effect is effervescent. Moving from plaintive ballads like “Waxwing” to sly humor in “I Had a Kiss of the King’s Hand,” Alasdair gets it all in on The Amber Gatherers, a beautiful record of contemporary pop-folk music unlike what anybody else is offering. Have a listen!

What’s going on here? Every time you turn around, there’s another Bonnie ‘Prince’ Billy 12” and CD single on the shelves, each one with a little sliver from The Letting Go among other, non-LP tunes. It’s enough to drive a devoted fan to even greater devotion — and away from chronic, awkward masturbation! But as we all well know, The Letting Go is just that fine, meriting a whole line of singles and videos for the songs and extra songs to go on the singles. As a matter of fact, the last of the singles is so fine, we’re calling it an EP instead of a single. That’s not this “Lay & Love” item you’re currently seeing on the shelves of your fine local establishment — no, we’re talking about March’s offering, the “Strange Form of Life” EP. It’s got a few songs recorded last summer that... well, let’s not get ahead of ourselves. It’s great, but so is “Lay & Love,” which has a hilariously perverse (or is it perversely hilarious?) video written, directed and edited by the Wonder Showzen team — in addition to two Bob Dylan shanties which Bonny covers with shape-shifting aplomb. You’ll dig ‘em!

The High Llamas are back after three years in the wilderness. In late 2003, Beet, Maize & Corn rewrote the book on the High Llamas sound, and after a tour of the US and a few scattered dates, the Llamas faded back into the ornate woodwork. Sean O'Hagan busied himself with lots of collaborative projects, including a new musical painting — but now thankfully, he's back with the group. On the new album, Can Cladders, the rhythms that had been purposefully omitted from Beet, Maize & Corn have been reinstated, leading Sean and the orchestra back back to the bounce that typified so many great High Llamas recordings of yore. Not that they’ve turned their backs on the lush, widespread acoustics of their last album — instead, they’ve combined beats with an added acoustic depth (aided by the presence of a team of female backup singers providing extra texture, not to mention harmonies). As always, Sean brings a literate sense and unexpected turns of pathos to the tunes and lyrics, which tend ring in the inner ear long after the disc has stopped spinning. Ah well — it’s been a sober couple years — time to get High again! As only The Llamas can.

The last couple years, six has become our lucky number. Ask any freak-fucker and you’ll get an earful about the evils of Six Organs of Admittance and how the world’s a better place with them/him around. And they’re right of course, but — yeuchh! Anyway, as long as somebody keeps buying School of the Flower and The Sun Awakens (not to mention August Born), we’re still feeling lucky — especially now that we have another six up our sleeve! This time, we’re talking about P.G. Six — what you might regard as the puritanical alter-ego of Six Organs of Admittance! These two Sixes are of no relation and in fact, they hail from opposite coasts of our US of A, but a few similarities are just too delicious to pass up. For instance, two ostensible “groups” formed around one singly charismatic personality. And two musical acts based on exceptional guitar-picking skills. There’s that lucky number six, as well. It’s just too much! But that’s where it ends — for the style of Pat “P.G. Six” Gubler is a thing all of its own.

And so — look you to February! This is when the singular attraction of P.G. Six strikes, with the ominously-named Slightly Sorry LP. Many of you sharp-eared types out there (and no, we don’t mean hobbits...shite!) have been waiting around since the good old days of P.G.’s first album, Parlor Tricks and Porch Favorites, way back in good old 2001 for more of his enigmatic sound. And you’ve been satiated along the way with The Well of Memory and Music for the Sherman Box Series, both of which follow the P.G. Six path to darkened, hitherto unexplored ends. Slightly Sorry does the same thing — only different! After all, you can only do one album of harp-drone expositions before you get called back to songs and singing...

Anyway, the bottom line is that the new P.G. Six album Slightly Sorry is a really incredible listen. The organic constructions of P.G. and his crew of great musicians makes for an all-new excursion into the kinds of traditional folk, psychedelic and pop music that he combines with an experimental flair. There’s a preview up on the website right now, so see/hear for yourself. Trust me, you'll want to get Six.

As mentioned above, March is a tangle of incredible releases including new albums from RTX and King Kong, a classic reissue from The Red Crayola (Soldier-Talk!) an EP from Bonnie ‘Prince’ Billy and a single from the forthcoming Bill Callahan album (to be released in April). It’s an exciting bunch of stuff, running the gamut from heavy rock with RTX — in fact, the heaviest rock ever released on Drag City — and funky rock with King Kong to the semi-gentle acoustic stylings of Bonny Billy and those of Bill Callahan. In between is the brutal sound of The Red Crayola in 1979, a punkish scree crossed with edgy new wave rhythms. It’s going to be a boxing for the ears come March.

An assault to your ears and your very sensibilities themselves is coming in the April, courtesy of the men called Champs and a man we used to call Smog. Check it out — having reconfigured themselves as The Fucking Am for an album collaborating with Trans Am (2005's Gold), The Fucking Champs return to the killing floor with Phil Manley in tow, having replaced long-time stalwart Josh Smith. The new sound of The Fucking Champs is kinder and gentler — the way that machetes are kinder and gentler than axes! Don't worry, The Fucking Champs still bring the hammer on VI, but they do so in a fashion that causes the gleaming hues of some lesser-known colors of the rainbow to shine, shine shine. Your rock can certainly stand that, can't it?

Then there's Bill Callahan, the man once known as Smog. Over the years, he's done a lot of thrilling acrobatics under the name of Smog, so we'll forgive you if you shed a tear at the retirement of this moniker — it's a shock to us all. But what about Bill? He's never been better. Utilizing a new move, he slips out of the Smog straitjacket and makes an album called Woke On A Whaleheart at the same time — smooth move, right? For his solo debut, he enjoined Neil Michael Hagerty to write arrangements and co-produce the session. Then Bill showed up with Thor, from the A River Ain't Too Much to Love session. The inevitable clash of titans resulted, leaving Bill with a record unlike anything he'd done before. Why, we can only guess — but we've got no time for guessing as we groove to the roots-inflected tunes of one Bill Callahan, our (and your) favorite new artist of 2007!

...no, it's not that time of the month — it's Joanna Newsom with a full freakin' orchestra! The greatest assemblage of strings at a Drag City concert event ever can be seen in part here:

The hottest ticket in Britain isn't coming to US shores anytime soon, so you longhair types can sit back down. But Joanna's got gigs with a mini-orchestra (aka, her band) in Australia, Japan and continental Europe coming up in the next several months — just a few time zones away from you, no matter where you are.

If you’re in the Northern Hemisphere the last week of the month, be sure to stop by The Hideout in Chicago (on Wabansia Street), where the last Tuesday of every month features The People Under the Stares, a comedy revue to end all comedy revues! Seriously, if this keeps up, there might be no more comedy revues ever! The lineup includes three or four nationally-known comedians (or at the very least, locally known) and a house band keeping everyone awake in between sets. The February shows features Los Angeles comedian Morgan Murphy, Chicago comedian (and People Under the Stares veteran) Hannibal, as well as locals Mike Bridenstine and Fay Canale. Chestnut Station will be handling the house band duties in the absence of AZITA and Her Mean Mistreatas (she’s on the road with the Bonnie ‘Prince’).

If you can’t be there, at least smile as you pass by... or away — whatever floats your boat!

Rian Murphy
Chief of Staph
Drag City Inc.