Carla Bozulich is a prolific art-punk provocateur, with one of the most unique voices in any genre. Her work is brutally raw and weirdly visionary.
 

Born in New York City, she grew up a tomboy and girl protector in San Pedro, California. Carla’s first appearance on record is Gary Kail’s album from 1982 called Zurich 1916, on which she does dada-inspired worldplay, “you know, telephone and vacuum cleaner stuff”. She sang in a couple of groups – the Neon Veins and Invisible Chains, the latter of which recorded an album for The Minutemen’s New Alliance label when Carla was 18 years old.
 
Carla disappeared from daylight for a few years, re-emerged, and was soon causing traffic jams as the gamine howler in the confrontational sex/sound assault outfit Ethyl Meatplow. In 1993, before Ethyl’s last gasp, Carla founded Geraldine Fibbers, going on to record and tour incessantly with that band until 1998. Scarnella followed, a duo formed with Nels Cline, and a decidedly non-commercial, open, experimental project.
 
In 2001 she scored a Los Angeles production of Jean Genet’s The Maids and the award-winning feature film By Hook Or By Crook, which she also scored and for which she compiled the soundtrack, went to Sundance in 2003. That same year saw the release of Carla’s new rendition of Willie Nelson’s Red Headed Stranger — with Willie Nelson as a special guest. She has also explored mixed media and performance art, including a commission for The Getty Museum in Los Angeles.
 
In 2005 Carla rekindled a decade-old connection with Montreal-based musicians affiliated with the Constellation label, leading to a recording at that city’s legendary Hotel2Tango studio, and the release of her Evangelista album on Constellation. Received with high critical praise, the record would find its way onto many year-end best lists, and lead to extensive touring around Europe and North America, including performances at the Festival International de Musique Actuelle de Victoriaville (Canada) and Bad Bonn Kilbi (Switzerland) among others.
 
In 2007, Evangelista became the official band name of Carla’s project, and her follow-up record for Constellation was once again recorded at the Hotel2Tango in Montreal, with core co-conspirators Tara Barnes and Shahzad Ismaily, and contributions from a large cast of Montreal-based musicians. The first record bearing Evangelista as a band name was called Hello, Voyager and came out in February 2008.
 
Subsequently, Evangelista landed on the cover of UK music magazine The Wire in June 2008, and Hello Voyager also made that and several other mags’ year-end lists. Bozulich/Evangelista continued to tour tirelessly in Europe and North America after the Hello Voyager release, including appearances at Le Weekend in Scotland and the Ruhrtriennale in Germany (with Carla in collaborative performance with Marianne Faithful and Marc Ribot).
 
Since 2008, Evangelista has coalesced around a core trio, with Bozulich and bassist Tara Barnes now joined by keyboardist/sound artist Dominic Cramp. Montreal sound-artist Lisa Gamble is also a regular contributor to Evangelista’s writing and recording, and has occasionally joined the band on the road.
 
The spring of 2009 found Carla, Tara and Dominic in Montreal, once again recording at the Hotel2Tango studio where the previous two albums were made. Prince Of Truth was released in October 2009 and includes a wide cast of friends and guests, including Shahzad Ismaily, Ches Smith, Jessica Catron, Nels Cline, Devin Hoff and Montrealers Thierry Amar (Silver Mt. Zion) and Nadia Moss and Jonah Fortune (Witchies). Evangelista’s latest album, In Animal Tongue, was released 20 September 2011.
 
More recently, Carla has temporarily stepped away from Evangelista to develop more primarily solo work, though regularly accompanied by multi-intrumentalist John Eichenseer (JHNO). Her most recent release, her self-described “pop” album Boy, was released to widespread critical acclaim in March 2014.
 
photo credit: Jennifer Kitner

William Tyler Goes West on new studio album due January 25, shares “Fail Safe”

On January 25, William Tyler returns with Goes West, his follow-up to 2016’s Modern Country. Listen to first single “Fail Safe” now, and pre-order Goes West on CD, LP, and limited-edition translucent green Peak Vinyl, the latter of which includes a 24” × 36” full-color foldout poster of the Robert Beatty cover art. All pre-orders will receive Dispatches from Echo Magic, an 8-song bonus CD available only in the Merge store or with the purchase of Goes West at your local independent record store, while supplies last. Recorded with Scott Hirsch at Echo Magic West in Ojai, CA, the CD features early versions of five songs from Goes West plus three other tracks from the session that are only available here.

Listen to & share William Tyler’s “Fail Safe” now

An excerpt from the M.C. Taylor-penned bio:

William and I bonded early in our relationship over Barry Hannah, a hellraising writer from Mississippi who practically reinvented the way that words could be assembled on a page. Like Hannah, William Tyler knows the South—as a crucible of American histories and cultures, an entity capable of expansive beauty and incomprehensible violence, often in the same beat—as his native place, the place that holds him and that he runs from. In the music of William Tyler, the South is not apart from America; the South is America condensed. And like Hannah—and this part is important—William moved to California, where Goes West was written. We don’t know how long William will stay—Hannah lasted just a couple of years, writing in the employ of director Robert Altman—but the change of scenery seems to suit him.

Goes West marks a sort of narrowing of focus for William’s music; it sounds as though he found a way to point himself directly towards the rich and bittersweet emotional center of his music without being distracted by side trips. Perhaps this is down to the fact that William only plays acoustic guitar on the album, a clear and conscious decision considering that he is one of Nashville’s great electric guitarists. The band that performs Goes West alongside William—including guitarists Meg Duffy and Bill Frisell, bassist and producer Brad Cook, keyboardist James Wallace, drummer Griffin Goldsmith, and engineer Tucker Martine—is the best and most sympathetic group of players that William could have assembled to play these songs.

William Tyler is currently performing solo sets on tour with Ty Segall. Stay tuned for more Goes West news by following Tyler on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram.