MELOMANIA here with releases you just gotta hear

Holy Homonyms! Small releases that can knock out those larger ones! (with your help.)

EDICT OF NANTES

We do not want to put down those releases that have so much more fuel in their engines (and honestly - much larger engines and multiple engines at that.) However, while we champion great music - much of it is from small releases that are harder to find. Please understand this does not mean they are not favored above them. We simply try to put them on the same playing field.

Yes. We go willfully obscure at times. Perhaps it is a release you may only weather once in your lifetime. However, we still proudly maintain that one’s ears and mind can be altered enough after a single listen to the most challenging music - while gaining an understanding that the musical experience is sometimes just as valuable as the music itself playing in repetition over time.

Finally, will we be writing brief introductions like this every time? Honestly, we hope not. However, we also hope that the wave of small, independent-from-influence music writers and bloggers can be heard because the weekly “rush to judgment” cycle seems more designed to aggregate a lot of reviews of major and heavily promoted releases than actually champion great music.

SAY SHE SHE - “Trouble/In My Head”[7”](Karma Chief/Secretly/AMPED)

The new burst of throwback Soul needs a healthy dose of this female vocal trio. Three talented singers (Piya Malik, Nya Gazelle Brown, and Sabrina Mileo Cunningham) who almost sing better together than on their own. Like Charlie’s Angels of Modern Soul, Say She She follows their stellar and multifaceted debut “Prism” (reviewed here 10.7.22) with a pair of gems. “Trouble” is a slow burner with searing minor verses for the singers to show their grit, before smoothing out the chorus. “In My Head” is a Stax-ian midtempo love song with fatback beat and groovy organ. Most of all, it is most fun to hear each of the three use their classical-trained voices to get higher in range than the other one. Another dizzying spin.

PALE BLUE EYES - Souvenirs [LP](Full Time Hobby UK)

It puzzles us how this tight new SynthPop/Post-Punk trio from Totnes still has not found its way to US shores. The synth sweeps on “Globe” punctuated by the Go! Team-ish exclamation of “You got this!,” the tension of “TV Flicker” with its driving beat cast again chiming guitar, and the late 80’s Dream Academy-esque tug of “Star Vehicle” are stellar. And that is just what could be singles. When the band goes their own way later in the album on the glazed shoegaze/Britpop of “Sing Like We Used To” and the motorik “Under Northern Sky,” they sound less like a band trying to show off their wares and more like one who would not mind the comparison to Kitchens of Distinction. While the songs themselves are spritely and simple, Pale Blue Eyes has more of an ear for developing hooks than the others who actively try to push their admiration of this fertile period toward emulation (and avoid imitation.)

IBEX CLONE - All Channels Clear [LP](Goner/The Orchard)

From the rarefied air of Memphis, these former NOTS, Ex-Cult, and Hash Redactor members give Power Pop a kick of angular XTC and bratty GbV. George Williford’s inventive wash of guitars throws back to Eighties jangle/Psych with a hint of Bob Mould. Bassist Alec McIntyre and drummer Meredith Lones gel behind him like a Flying Nun-style rhythm section. The songs of “All Channels Clear” are written around Williford’s chime and drone, so each track needs to feel like it will never let up. “Black Hole Blues” is a brilliant example of just how much Ibex Clone can squeeze out of a pattern as Williford unveils all his tricks until a saxophone creeps in. The mystery of the mid-tempo whack of "Nothing Ever Changes” and the title cut is why Ibex Clone is so much fun to listen to. Songs are all about dynamic tension but rarely actually tense. When Lones jumps the beat on “Sound of the Skyline,” she opens up space for a Yo La Tengo-ish jam with Eastern undertones. When they finally toy with dynamics on “Hollow Tubes From Heaven, ” they double vocals and build up a real head of steam. Ibex Clone is awash in great original ideas that lead to dreamy abstract new guitar Rock.

DWAAL TROUPE - Lucky Dog [LP](Ally)

Chicago’s Dwall Troupe conjoins their chunky Beatles-meets-GbV riffage around a winding Nineties lo-fi/Alt-Rock sensibility. “Lucky Dog” has the same immediate warmth as a found four-track tape. The “kitchen sink” approach to homemade Indie Rock is the band’s best feature. “Start A House Fire” starts with a simple mono synth octave drone and quickly builds into pristine Pop cut to cotton-fiber tape. As the singer’s voice disappears into the random squelch of guitars and noise, they BJM it with “My Head” which sounds like someone recorded their Folk/Blues jam in your living room. However, that is what is so great about the homegrown “strike-while-the-tape recorder-is-nearby” motivation. “Shakes The Walls At Night” is a Pavement-meets-Flaming Lips wonder where the longing (and that dropped low note) make this Elliott Smith-ish fear feel like classic Big Star. “Pressure Points” cranks up the Pollard-esque hometown shine and delivers what they call “electric whisperings.”

REBECCA NASH - Redefining Element 78 [LP/CD](Whirlwind UK)

Pianists as bandleaders often give the other players so much more space. Nash is an extremely talented modern composer whose songs depend upon hints of melody and almost classical motifs. “Platinum” is a beautiful, sweeping opener that functions as an overture only in establishing the band’s exploratory tone. “Osmium” takes off in Seventies Jazz directions of dissonance but is always reined back in by Nash’s moving chords. “Rhodium” hits hardest with its Zappa-ian horn charts, stops, and swoops. One of its highlights is Nash soloing along with the electronic squiggles with subtlety, and the blaring horns literally surprise you. Her players do not exactly solo, but split into duos playing in tandem and then opposition. They are not necessarily pushing each other but pushing the energy level to match when the whole band returns. “Ruthenium” veers closely into improvisation, but Nash’s fleet melody and block chording function as its nucleus. Finally, it is a fitting conclusion that Nash closes with her most meditative and melodic piece “Palladium - Noble Heart” where all the instruments get to insert a heart-zinging melodic phrase.

PARSON SOUND [LP](Subliminal Sounds SWE/Redeye)

There were probably dozens of bands who sounded like this in 1967. With mind’s eye-opening psychedelics in heavy rotation and musicians enamored by minimalists, you and your friends could find a groove and just drift. Swedish druggy astronauts Parson Sound find that aperture in your mind that opens to either meditational heaven or metallic hell and simply send you soaring, floating, and nosediving between them. “Tio Minuter” is like pre-Hawkwind Space Rock with John Cale droning on the cello. Even when they do not make the changes together, they find inner harmonies unheard. “One Quiet Afternoon (In The King’s Garden)” is a noisy, violent eruption of sound that swallows its song ideas to the point where you hear flutes in the maelstrom. Twenty-eight minutes of “Skrubba” might actually be what the MC5 had in mind when they covered Sun Ra’s “Starship” (or a Blue Cheer rehearsal tape.) In its midsection as its pounds away, the bassist finds an almost McCartney-esque melodic phrase that keeps you focused as nearly every other instrument starts playing parts of scales and drone-y licks. Notice when he briefly loses (or changes) it how Parson Sound’s overall sound goes awry. However, the most haunting piece “A Glimpse Inside The Glyptotec-66” is a primordial vocal loop that in harmony sounds like a swarm of bees. As the track plays on, the different intervals used against the drone might convince you that when Parson Sound just disappeared in 1968 - it was inside Stanley Kubrick’s monolith.

There is a method to the madness we promise. To us, the best playlisting songs come two ways:

1. When you are just skimming an older playlist/segment - see a track - and it starts playing in your head.

2. When a cut surprises you. When you are listening to the random array run together and that song plays that makes you race over to find out what it is.

So thank you for reading, listening, subscribing, and supporting the artists we introduce via this online platform.

T-BONES Records and Cafe is a full-service fast-casual restaurant and record store in Hattiesburg, MS. We are a Coalition of Independent Music Stores member. We are the longest-running record store in the state of Mississippi. If you have questions - we have answers … and probably a lot more information just waiting for you at:

tbone@tbonescafe.com

Visit our website for more information and shop in our ONLINE store if you wish.

T-BONES ships the best music all over the United States daily. We also specialize in Special Orders. Let us know what you are looking for - we are thrilled to help.