Tue, 04/11/2017 - 6:55 am

BMG is pleased to announce the new release from Mike + The MechanicsLet Me Fly, scheduled for release in the U.S. on April 7th. It’s been 32 years and eight albums since Mike Rutherford formed Mike + The Mechanics, to complement, rather than replace, Genesis.

“In 1985 we were having the best time in Genesis,” he remembers. “But after 28 years, myself Phil and Tony wanted variety, so we ran our band and our solo careers side by side happily for many years. To be honest, it saved Genesis.  The fact I’m still doing it with the Mechanics just makes me smile.”

Mike Rutherford has much to smile about right now, and Let Me Fly distils everything that’s right about Mike + The Mechanics: the songwriting, the life-affirming uplift and the undercurrent of quirk.

Let Me Fly began to take off as the band toured 2011’s The Road, the first album featuring the current line-up: Rutherford himself (guitar/bass), Luke Juby (keyboards), Gary Wallis (drums), Anthony Drennan (guitar), plus vocalists Andrew Roachford and Tim Howar.

Says Rutherford, “I’ve never had a long-term plan, even with Genesis. I’ll put Let My Fly out and I’ll see where it goes. What happens this year will tell me what to do next. I like that!”

We like it too! And we're confident with this new album that Mike + The Mechanics are certainly continuing their upward journey. Let Me Fly is now available for pre-order, with the first single coming February 28. In support of the release, the band will be touring Europe throughout February and March, and will take to the stage at BST Hyde Park with Phil Collins and Blondie on June 30. Click here for tour dates and ticket links.

Official Tracklist

01. Let Me Fly
02. Are You Ready?
03. Wonder
04. The Best Is Yet To Come
05. Save The World
06. High Life
07. Don’t Know What Came Over Me 
08. The Letter
09. Not Out Of Love
10. Love Left Over
11. I’ll Be There For You
12. Save My Soul
Tue, 04/18/2017 - 6:41 am

LA-based indie rockers King Washington have just released "Superman," the second single from their upcoming album Potential, due out May 19 on digital, CD, and vinyl. "Superman" is now available for download & streaming, with the album pre-order also launching today! CLICK HERE to reserve your physical copy!

Fresh off their 3 official SXSW performances, King Washington will be hitting the road in support of the Potential release. New York City dates are enclosed, with more East Coast/U.S. dates to be announced soon!

Drawing from diverse influences such as Grizzly Bear, The Crash Kings, The Talking Heads, The Beatles and Crosby, Stills & Nash, Los Angeles’ own King Washington are in the midst of creating the New California sound. By fusing classic vocal harmonies and lyrical melodies with a contemporary approach to songwriting, the band has created a unique sound that is as creative as it is familiar.

This album sees members Tyson Kelly (guitar, keys, vocals), George Krikes (lead guitar, vocals), and Billy Lee (bass, vocals) joined by David Contreras on drums. With two albums behind them, and a tour history that includes playing over 150 shows across the US since 2014 (sharing the stage with the likes of The Artic Monkeys, Collective Soul, and Ambrosia), King Washington plans on continuing the trend of blowing audiences away across the nation... as one of LA Weekly's top live shows in Los Angeles.

Tour dates:
5/03 - Rockwood Music Hall; New York, NY
5/10 - Cape House; Brooklyn, NY 
5/17 - Rockwood Music Hall; New York, NY 
5/31 - Rockwood Music Hall; New York, NY

Tracklist:
01. My Reflection 
02. Superman 
03. Interval
04. Evelyn
05. Love Be Gone
06. Hey Boy
07. Nowhere's Hard To Find
08. I Wouldn't Laugh About It
09. The Other Side
10. Be Where You Belong
11. The Great Disguise
12. Interlude
13. New Meaning
14. Climb Out The Valley

Sat, 04/22/2017 - 1:47 pm
The Cranberries are set to release Something Else, a new album featuring re-worked renditions of their major hits, as well as brand new material. The album is due out April 28 via BMG on digital and CD formats, and includes seminal Cranberries songs like "Linger," "Zombie," "Dreams," and "Ode To My Family"... re-recorded in orchestral and acoustic arrangements.Something Else celebrates the 25th anniversary of the band.
 
Their first major U.S. hit "Linger" has been re-done acoustically, and just premiered on Rolling Stone! On the album concept and choice of "Linger" as the first single, The Cranberries' singer-songwriter Dolores O’Riordan explains"'Linger' was the first song The Cranberries ever wrote together. I was 17, and the youngest member of the band was 15 at the time. We never imagined it'd be such a big hit, but soon us teenagers found ourselves on our first flight to the United States to shoot the video in Downtown LA. That video would introduce us to American households, in the good old days of MTV!
 
The bittersweet love song still holds all that sentimentality for us personally, which is why we had to include it on this project. Universally, I think its message remains timeless and relevant, never going out of fashion, yet never quite in fashion. It's amazing to have a song hold up 25 years later, and I hope this acoustic version allows our fans to hear a Cranberries classic in a new way."
 
"Linger " is available now for download and streaming. The full album is available for pre-order on digital and CD formats
 
Last year, over two weeks in the University of Limerick, at the home of the Irish Chamber Orchestra, the band revisited old times; Dolores laid down vocals as small booths were created to record the instruments as if live. She was no longer a child, singing her amazing, mature songs from an inexperienced vantage point but a woman now, with the capacity to throw her life at the music, the benefit of hindsight. "I prefer them like this," she says of the new recordings of old songs, "with a little bit more experience behind them, with a new lease of life. They sound fresh again."
 
As the record began to take full shape, three new songs were added, to stop it just being a Proustian rush of memories lost and found. The first was The Glory, which Dolores explains she wrote in The Irish Chamber Orchestra’s rehearsal rooms at the University of Limerick. She then brought out two songs she had been keeping in her personal stash, until she could place them in the right home: "Rupture" ("about depression, about being in that black hole and finding it hard to get out of it") and the forthcoming single "Why?" ("written just after my father passed, the hardest time").

It’s testament to Dolores and Noel’s song-writing prowess that the new additions to the Cranberries cannon sit seamlessly next to the old. When they began finalising details for the record, they decided on Something Else, a nod to the first record Everybody Else Is Doing It, So Why Can’t We?, a title neither riven with the promise of future endeavours or locked into the past.

The official album artwork was shot by Andy Earl, the photographer for The Cranberries' Everybody Else Is Doing It, So Why Can’t We? cover

Official Tracklisting

01. Linger 
02. The Glory
03. Dreams
04. When You’re Gone
05. Zombie
06. Ridiculous Thoughts
07. Rupture
08. Ode To My Family
09. Free To Decide
10. Just My Imagination
11. Animal Instinct
12. You & Me
13. Why?