Saturn Return 87 The Secret Sisters

Much like a frantic movie about “unfinished business” or “the one that got away,” Secret Machines spent the past few years finally putting the finishing touches on what should have been their fourth LP. Long regarded as a lost album, The Moth, The Lizard and the Secret Machines was actually put on pause in 2010 and massaged in the aftermath of 2020’s return-to-form record Awake in the Brain Chamber.

LAMB have announced details of their seventh studio album, THE SECRET OF LETTING GO, due for release on Cooking Vinyl on April 26, 2019. The Secret of Letting Go is all about the space between sounds. From album opener "Phosphorus'" minimalist harmonics to the dying choral embers of "One Hand Clapping"; through the snaking sub-bass drops that drive the title track and "Moonshine" and into the whirl and spin of "Deep Delirium" and the simple piano loops that help "Imperial Measures" float above you, there's space everywhere. Sometimes it's evocative of sun-drenched horizons, at others it is contemplative, reflective; occasionally the space is itchy and anticipatory, pointing towards moments of ecstatic abandon. Throughout the record though, it's the space that allows Lou Rhodes' superlunary voice to glide and soar gloriously to bridge the silences in-between. It's all of this together that makes The Secret of Letting Go such an utterly compelling return to form.

The Pointer Sisters are an American R&B singing group from Oakland, California that achieved mainstream success during the 1970s and 1980s. Spanning over four decades, their repertoire has included such diverse genres as pop, disco, jazz, electronic music, bebop, blues, soul, funk, dance, country and rock. The Pointer Sisters have won three Grammy Awards and received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame in 1994. The group had 13 US top 20 hits between 1973 and 1985.

The Andrews Sisters were an American close harmony singing group of the swing and boogie-woogie eras. The group consisted of three sisters: contralto LaVerne Sophia, soprano Maxene Anglyn, and mezzo-soprano Patricia Marie "Patty". The sisters have sold an estimated 90 million records. Their 1941 hit "Boogie Woogie Bugle Boy" can be considered an early example of rhythm and blues or jump blues. Other songs closely associated with the Andrews Sisters include their first major hit, "Bei Mir Bist Du Schön (Means That You're Grand)" (1937), "Beer Barrel Polka (Roll Out the Barrel)" (1939), "Beat Me Daddy, Eight to the Bar" (1940), "Don't Sit Under the Apple Tree (With Anyone Else but Me)" (1942), and "Rum and Coca Cola" (1945), which helped introduce American audiences to calypso.

Modernizing the harmony vocal pop of '30s and '40s groups like the Andrews Sisters, London's Puppini Sisters took the name of Marcella Puppini, who founded the act after being inspired by the music in the film The Triplets of Belleville. Puppini, a native of Bologna, Italy, moved to London in 1990 to study fashion and quickly became immersed in the city's music scene. Though she had a career at Vivienne Westwood's design studio, she left to focus on music, and in 2003 earned a music degree at Trinity College of Music. Jazz was her passion, and Puppini spent time as the musical director and orchestra conductor for the Whoopee Club, as well as leading her own quartet.