NEW.MUSIC.FRIDAY with so many releases for you - of all shapes and sizes
and lengths, and languages, and magnitudes, and origins, and styles, and genres, and ..
KRISTINA HOLGERSEN - Kapow Goodbye (tak og undskyld) [LP/CD](Stunt/Sundance Music Aps SWE)
On this astonishing debut, vocalist Holgersen collaborates with author Leonora Christina Skov on a set of songs that turn Skov's memories (via memoirs) into windows on the late-night ruminations we all engage in over relationships. Quietly recorded, "Kapow Goodbye" mixes the Avant-Garde with Pop as cellos bellow beside guitars and Holgersen's Nico-esque low moan haunts you. The wallop "Kapow Goodbye" offers an English verse, but Holgersen's raw emotion moving from distraction to desperation in these songs is the main attraction. "Kapow Goodbye" says so many things without crossing the language barrier. It is deeply moving music accompanied by a unique star-turn on vocals.
VACATION - Existential Risks and Returns [LP/CD](Salinas)
If Guided by Voices needs a "brother" band, Cincinnati's sizzling Vacation proves that they are up to the challenge on this burning hot slab of Rock N'Roll. While the band structures their songs around that familiar GbV pattern of massive hook/big chorus/knock-it-outta-the-park bridge, Vacation actually does the best job at calling back on the myriad of Rock influences (read: not the Prog) for GbV and their ilk. With keyboards, booming drums, and vocals that sound as amplified as the guitars - "Risks" goes for broke for all 12 songs. Every song is yowled at anthemic levels, but you never get tired because they are tossing out Power Pop at light speed." User Error" is blistering like a Wipers song, "Deaf Years" drives hard even as the intonation of the title sounds eerily Pollard-esque. When they do hit that midtempo speed, they just slam harder on "Liberty Tax Statue Man." However, it is "Quantum Cafe" that holds the real key for this band wailing out 1985-esque jangle (think The Long Ryders) handed down through those three-chord verses of Power Pop bands. Rest assured wherever they are loudest on the album, you will never find a better build than the swell on "Cafe" culminating in their best lyric of all: "Watch out for that black hole/They call it Rock N'Roll." Amen.
EVANS McRAE - Only Skin [LP/CD](E&M/Buzzard Tree/Redeye)
Fantastic Americana from a British duo. Paired together on a writing retreat, the emotional pull of the songs on “Only Skin” will leave you thinking that these two have been writing and singing together for years. Lowri Evans and Tom McRae have each made names for themselves with beautiful singing and sharp writing, but “Only Skin” works when they throw out the rule book. On first listen, the “happier” songs stand out and you find yourself gravitating toward the warmth of “Careful” and "the title cut. Evans has the ability to pull up from her wispy midrange to sneak in a high note, and McRae’s upper range really connects. However, back it up and listen to that opening track a few times. “Say What You Mean” needs a minute to breathe, but listening to them find their place is riveting. As the piano enters, Evans even throws in a small trill before disappearing in a whisper. However, when they arrive at the second verse and sing together - with McRae taking the low end - the impact stays with you for the rest of the day. “Only Skin” is full of well-written, highly melodic tracks that richly deserve to break through those U.S. Americana channels (“Only Skin”) and even AAA radio (“Sleep With One Eye Open.”) Oh, and they wrote one hell of a Christmas song (“Merry Christmas My Darling (Drink Up.)”)
LUCINDA CHUA - Antidotes [4AD/Beggars/Redeye)
London’s Chua is a new kind of torch singer. Her songs use chords like breath. They erupt and then slowly find their denouement. At the piano, she is gentle and deliberate about first finding the pace of a track (“An Avalanche”) then its melody usually rises from her breathy repetitions or one spellbinding note (“Before” where her whispered highs are phrased like a softer Nina Simone.) Trained on the cello, Chua knows how to feel the notes she holds. Also a photographer, “Antidotes” works best when it is developed like a photo in a lab. All timing, light, and vision must meet at just the right moment - so that the image can simply materialize.
MEDIA JEWELER - The Sublime Sculpture of Being Alive [LP/CD](Fire Talk/Redeye)
Los Angeles’ Media Jeweler has made a claustrophobic art-damaged almost-skronk album that provides you with drum parts and lyrics to dance around with while the other consistent instruments hold this mesmerizing freak fest aloft. “Heaven” is a furious and almost military song that keeps to listening for exactly when the band strays from the Black Midi-esque groove into weirdness. “Tightrope” toys with you thanks to female vocals but follows Beefheartian bellows and guitar bend and bounce. “Sublime” is far different than their previous album, more electric and hair-raising.
VIAL - Loudmouth [CD](Get Better/Redeye)
Punk rock does not get more clever than this. Like this year’s other standout Punk band Fake Fruit, Minneapolis’ Vial finds every way to fit their amphetamine-speed music into the normal tenets (the passive-aggressive speed up-slow down on “Mr. F*** You”) and then - with their spare energy they write songs that could qualify as Pop (“Something More,”) Sixties Rock (“Violet” and its garage-meets-surf twist,) or Nineties Alt. Pop (the strummy fun of “Thumb.”) With all that potential, Vial still wail like Babes in Toyland or 7 Year Bitch (the revenge anthem “Roadkill” is savage) - while also singing quite well. “Loudmouth” is both a slamming debut and an album that shows real potential.
CANAAN BALSAM - Cruise Utopia [CS](Passat Continu ESP)
Languid textures and weirdly selected vocal passages make "Cruise" quite the trip. Edinburgh-based Balsam conjures up a lot of the still-motion movement of Eno ("a nation of rats, ruled by wolves, owned by pigs") and the freeing synth waves of Terry Riley or Klaus Schulze. When things get dark, "Utopia" becomes genuinely frightening (the industrial clang and shrieking noise of "one rat short of a plague.") "Utopia Cruise" with its mix of samples and synths is ideally a little bit of heaven and a little taste of the netherworld.
SALLY DECKER - In The Tender Dream [CD](NNA Tapes/Redeye)
These minimal electronic pieces have such an impact. While I do not really know if it is Decker’s excellent compositional sense (the title track manipulates tape buzz, oscillators, and other noises like instruments) or just her rawest emotion giving rise to these cuts - that are truly slicing through you as you listen (the vocal delay/looping on bleak “The Loss.”) Going with both, there is nothing tender about this one. Decker could easily collaborate with Trent Reznor next or score any A24 film.
ROY MONTGOMERY - That Best Forgotten Work [LP/CD](Grapefruit)
New Zealand composer Montgomery has been making (mostly) instrumental for the last 40 years. His compositions carry a haunting quality of strumming (effected) guitar whose chords evoke feelings in you. One cannot say his works are lonely per see because Montgomery really composes with the space around what he is doing. Melodies join together and then twist around each other signaling that Montgomery is about to switch things up or bring more into the mix. “That Best Forgotten Work” is one of four albums released this year to commemorate his anniversary. Like most New Zealand Indie Rock, “Work” always sounds very different but very warm. “Work” moves from the general to the specific as Montgomery spins his songs to compress a lot of emotion. His own songs like “Fluked,” “Pranged” and “Pretty” feel dreamlike and then he covers “Superstar” (written by Leon Russell - with Bonnie Bramlett, made famous by The Carpenters) and your jaw hits the ground. Unforgettable.
POPP - Devi [LP](Squama GER)
As a follower of the fantastic avant-garde label Squama in Munich, it is easy to listen to their music and openly embrace it for merely being different. Having reviewed quite a few Squama albums (and releases with percussionist Simon Popp,) the most interesting factor continues to be how Popp (and the other musicians) can continue to compose this minimal music (despite having only a few moving parts) that is always so entrancing and mind-opening. “Devi” turns its grooves on like a light and then Popp quietly paints around them. “Gundel” is like a mysterious Raga with the ring of Tibetan bells. Then he finds this cool polyrhythm (working with even the drum ringing out) and layers bells and more to build up to this Runden-like groove on “Mina.” “Jilu” and “Xolotl” are more drum-heavy than the others, but Popp works the latter in reverse - starting with more powerful drums and then easing off. Like his work with Fazer Drums (reviewed here 10.16.20,) “Devi” is mostly percussion-based, however, as a whole, it was completely meditative and always enticing rhythmically.
INFINITY BROKE - Your Dream My Jail [LP](Come To The Dark Side Luke AUS)
This noisy crew from Australia brings to mind the shambolic sway of Jonathan Fire*Eater and shuddering predecessors like The Birthday Party. Jamie Hutchings has a furious voice to put ahead of these angry sounds. The epic "Moonmouth" is loud and bustling with percussion and pounding (but non-distorted) guitars. Hutchings hangs over it warbling, crying, moaning, and singing in his desperate quaver like someone is about to unplug his mic. The mixture of industrial-sounding drums and slide guitar is well-accented by their choice of big, live atmospheric production. "Your Dream My Jail" is barbed-wire wrapped Post-Punk that takes it back to its howling beginnings.
KAPUTT - Movement Now/Another War Talk [7”](Upset The Rhythm UK)
MITCHUM YACOUB - Cumbia Divina [7”](All-Town Sound)
Glasgewian sextet Kaputt has always sounded edgy, but their blinding new 7” single points them in a bracing new direction. “Movement Now” brilliantly opens before literally pounding itself into a trio of new Post-Punk grooves lit by saxophone, female vocals, and a distant synth. Before they even arrive at the propulsive chorus, the singers fire off “la-la-la’s” like bullets until it all disappears. “Another War Talk” has a tougher Delta 5-ish sound and neatly showcases the dual vocals on the verses. A dynamic single.
Egyptian-American DJ Yacoub had me at “Cumbia.” When that rhythm is done right - it is intoxicating. Yacoub clearly studied not only his South American rhythms but also the African patterns that make great polyrhythms. The brass charts here are airtight and the vocals of Divina Jasso (mixed a little airier than usual) have a great presence. Yet again, that push-and-pull of “Cumbia” is everything.
BEAT HAPPENING - Crashing Through [2 x 7"](Optic Nerve)
The mystique of Olympia's Beat Happening continues to permeate Indie Rock on both sides of the Atlantic. Anytime any vocalist takes off singing in front of, faster than or any defiance of meter - they owe a debt of gratitude to the Lee Hazlewood-esque low moan of Calvin Johnson. Johnson with Heather Lewis and Bret Lunsford put Indie Rock on the map well before anyone would think about the naivete of DIY Pop (except maybe The Shaggs.)
This 1988 single was issued in the UK and returns to our shores doubled up with tracks that make you immediately want more Beat Happening. "Crashing Through" and "The This Many Boyfriends Club" (in alternate squealing form) are both excised from the excellent "Jamboree" (which features the immortal "Indian Summer.") The 1984 single "Look Around" and "That Girl" join this package that is as illuminating about their history as you can get. (BONUS: For a great history on Beat Happening find a copy of Jim DeRogatis' "Milk It.")
Various Artists - TAKING SOME TIME ON: THE UNDERGROUND SOUNDS OF 1970 [4CD](Esoteric/Cherry Red)
Times change. If you told someone you were going to listen to the radio for five hours today - their eyes would roll right out of their head. However, in the days when you listened to the radio as a mixture of the familiar and the unknown - a lengthy, late-night jag could unearth some real treasure. As shows like John Peel’s “Perfumed Garden” moved on the national airwaves, a new outlaw emerged on land-based pirate radio stations where “deep cuts” would not land you in deep trouble. So much like KSAN in San Francisco who made nightly shows into a voyage, Underground Radio in England set out on the same course.
The point of “Taking Some Time On” is to break the rigidity of commercial radio with songs of all lengths. In addition, they stretch the boundaries to include the known (Fleetwood Mac’s “Green Manalishi,” Procol Harum’s “Whaling Stories” and Yes’ “No Opportunity Necessary, No Experience Needed”) with the unknown (Egg rips through a cut whose title takes a paragraph here, the underrated McDonald & Giles post-Crimson wind it out and High Tide’s Hawkwind-ish “Blankman Cries Again” strangely balances both Heavy music and Folk music.
Those extremes generally illuminate the standouts on these clamshell prizes. With Folk going either very traditional (the opening and central melody of East of Eden “Jig-A-Jig”) or almost pastoral (a psychedelic Al Stewart and the underrated blues of Michael Chapman,) general radio could only afford space for singer/songwriters of this ilk. On the far side, the new Hard/Acid Rock bands springing from the implosion of the British Blues Boom also were allowed a place (the proto-metal of Stray on the awesome “All In Your Mind,” to the highest chart single Edgar Broughton Band ever had with the primordial mash-up “Apache Dropout.”) Not to mention the Jazzy Prog strains of bands like Affinity (full disclosure: their Cherry Red set is coming 9.24.21.)
However, the real fun of “Taking Some Time On” (kudos for the Barclay James Harvest opener and the lovely Procol-ish Prog/Pop of “The Sun Will Never Shine.”) is the placement of staples. You’ve probably listened to Hawkwind all night long on plunge down the Space Rock black hole. Carefully placed in between Atomic Rooster and Jethro Tull (as well as ELP and Clear Blue Sky,) it brings back all the excitement of actually hearing one of your deepest catalog artists on the radio. A thrill we should all experience as much as humanly (no machine programming) possible.
Well, another week, another list of several different styles and pursuits in music for you. Enjoy. Listen again. Share as you wish.
NEW RELEASES lovingly compiled for you from this very week!
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