Have you ever thought “where oh where has all the good rock gone?” And when you say “good rock”, you specifically mean the darkness-flecked, math rock-shrapneled, post-hardcore-in-recovery rock that was booming in the mid 10s and mid 00s? Dang, you’re very specific, but I think I have what you’re looking for. This new song “Catch A Good Worm” from Chicago quartet Floatie is off their debut record from Exploding In Sound and if I’m not being cliche, I think this sound works perfectly for the label and instantly brings me back to college when I was listening to all of EIS’ records on repeat.
There’s a heavy emphasis on the agile repetitive rhythm of hard, dissonant guitars on this track. Compared to a lot of modern “post punk” with huge, hulking chunky guitars and screaming lyrics, Floatie opts to work on an agility build, steadily darting between enemy attacks and lunging at the perfect moments. Can’t wait to hear the rest of this LP!
Floatie’s debut LP Voyage Out is out March 26th via Exploding In Sound – pre-order HERE.
Friend of the blog JJ Posway is about to release his first album as Sloping, Completed Songs, on February 26 via sound as language. You may be familiar with Posway’s work from ATL band Scooterbabe – if not, get familiar! I’ve heard a few songs off of this new record already with “Raft” and “Fitting Room”, but the most recent single “Trail” is really where I’m really feeling it. It’s just shy of two minutes, but Posway crafts a underhandedly smoldering rock cut on par with the slowcore + dream folk savants of the late 90s, complete with a great build from steady acoustic guitar to destructive electric guitar swaths to paint the backgrounds. There’s even some lovely banjo plinks near the end. Giving me big, glorious ennui-embracing vibes. Perfect! Can’t wait to dig into the whole album next Friday!
Completed Songs is out via sound as language on February 26 – pre-order HERE.
Leon Vynehall is ready to submerge us in his lofty, cloud-built heavens on his upcoming album Rare, Forever coming April 30 on Ninja Tune. He dropped two new songs “Mothra” and this one, “Ecce! Ego!” and man I am so excited for this. Vynehall’s last album Nothing Is Still was one of my favorites of that year and his accompanying live show was just incredible. These new songs really point in a similar direction as the live show – so I’m stoked. Less straight up house/dance, more soundscapes of textured electronics. So sick.
Bummed out because you found out Ariel Pink was a fucking disgrace idiot? Well you’re in luck, because I finally started listening to The Cleaners From Venus, a killer band that Pink clearly took a lot of inspiration from. If you’re looking for the effortlessly hooky jangle rock with a dark side, this has it all. I’ve listened to two of their records so far: Midnight Cleaners and On Any Given Monday and I was blown away by both. Not only so many incredible songs, but so many cool ideas being brought to rock + guitar pop music. Can’t recommend it enough.
Perennial fav of the blog, Spirit of the Beehive, is releasing their new album ENTERTAINMENT, DEATH via new label home Saddle Creek on April 9. I’ve had the chance to listen to it early and holy smokes, I cannot wait for everyone else to hear it too. The band is known for their sound collage-like sound structures, blurring genre and songwriting tropes to create a hazy web of a “rock-like” substance. This new single is pretty emblematic of the album, although it’s hard to chalk the whole sound of the record up in just one song. It goes places. There are no other entities making music like Spirit of the Beehive. Thank you for existing.
Recommended Albums is in its sixth year of operation, which frankly is absurd to me. This started as a way for me to get more involved in my blog as I’d been slacking on it going into 2016. Kind of like a New Year’s resolution or something. Maybe I’d continue it for a few months and then get tired of it. Welp, 72 months later I’m still at it – picking 10 or so records from each month to highlight. Hope some people find this helpful in seeking out releases they may have missed, or maybe even seeing which ones to check out first to begin with. 2021 has started off well music-wise, although to be perfectly honest it’s been hard to concentrate on just the music. Despite this, I’ve collected a pretty cool group of records, from airy ambient, to confessional singer/songwriter, to dirty laundry R&B, to calming, virtuosic guitar. Hope you enjoy.
Abul Mogard – In Immobile Air [Ecstatic] Hanging upside-down off the front of an arctic freight ship, watching an inverted view of the ship plow through sheets of ice over black water.
Anna B Savage – A Common Turn [City Slang] Having recurring nightmares about being closed in pages of your diary (a giant dream version) like pressed flowers.
Buke & Gase / So Percussion – A Record Of [Brassland] A port town at danger of being swallowed by the rising sea enlists inventors to excavate the town with steam-powered diggers and fly it into the sky in one big chunk.
Carmen Villain – Sketch for Winter IX: Perlita [Geographic North] Steam rising from a hot spring catches sunlight reflected off a frozen waterfall.
Fievel Is Glauque – God’s Trashmen Sent To Right The Mess [la Loi] Dystopian hackers reprogram Hit Clips to play bootleg recordings of Brazilian jazz radio broadcasts.
Insides – Soft Bonds [Self-Released] Feeling steadily more detached from reality until a familiar, unseen hand covers yours.
Jazmine Sullivan – Heaux Tales [RCA] A convincing stump speech alleging being horny on main will bring world peace.
Madlib – Sound Ancestors [Madlib Invazion] Drawing soul records from memory in a journal while out to eat (sitting at the bar with a direct view to the kitchen, secondhand steam and kinetic energy filling your spirit).
Rhye – Home [Loma Vista] Slow dancing at 2am in your dark living room, with only the moon and the red coils of a space heater providing any form of light.
Yasmin Williams – Urban Driftwood [Spinster] A picturesque view of a mountain range next to a gentle stream for a daytime picnic.
I’ve also started my Best of 2021 playlist – it’s pretty short, but it’s going! Check it out –> HERE.
GR8 SONGS OF JANUARY 2021::
I’d say out of all these songs, Smerz’s “Believer” is probably the best thing I’ve heard all year. The bass gives me goosebumps.
Abul Mogard – “Sand”
Anna B Savage – “Baby Grand”
Arlo Parks – “For Violet”
Bicep – “Sundial”
Buke & Gase / So Percussion – “Over The Hill”
Cassandra Jenkins – “Hard Drive”
Fievel Is Glauque – “Simple Affairs”
Insides – “Undressing”
Jazmine Sullivan – “The Other Side”
Kalbells – “Purplepink”
Logic1000 – “Like My Way”
Matthew E. White & Lonnie Holley – “This Here Jungle Of Moderness-Composition 14”
Rhye – “Come In Closer”
Sara Bug – “Rosebank”
Smerz – “Believer”
SOPHIE – “UNISIL”
Yasmin Williams – “Urban Driftwood (feat. Amadou Kouyate)”
Been all over this Yasmin Williams album that came out today (Jan 29) via Spinster Sounds. Williams is a Virginia native and guitar virtuoso that makes some of the most unique instrumental acoustic guitar music out there. Williams brings a tap/percussive element to the instrument, while also adding kora and kalimba to the equation to vary the timbre and weight of the notes. Not to be outdone, she also adds tap shoes into the equation, like a Cape Breton fiddler. North American percussive guitar stylings and traces of West African plucked wizardry? That’s a recipe for an earthy, hearty and fulfilling album, which this is. I only had to hear a few tracks before I ordered the vinyl. Some sounds here I want filling my home for sure.
The album only came out today – I’m excited to see how these tracks continue to morph in fancy as I sit with them longer.
You’ve probably already seen this song posted everywhere this year already, but this Cassandra Jenkins song “Hard Drive” is so great. Slowly building poetic narrative with some slick saxophone jazzing up the background. It’s vast and seemingly limitless. Can’t wait to hear what her upcoming LP, An Overview On Phenomenal Nature, coming February 19 via Ba Da Bing.
Wanted to share a new song from a relatively new artist, Nashville’s Sara Bug, who just signed to Egghunt Records. The song in question is “Rosebank”, a song dedicated to taking therapeutic motorcycle rides – a concept I’m very familiar with if you swap out motorcycles for NYC public transit, or windows-down drives to the beach in the winter. The thrill of movement, wind pushing through every pore (ok maybe not deep underground on a subway, but you get it) acting as a cleansing salve for built-up tension.
The song itself does a great job at harnessing this feeling of movement, with heavy guitar lines chugging at a steady pace, while ebbing and flowing within the chorus. Vocals are solid too, giving me Big Thief and Jessica Lea Mayfield vibes. This is a promising first taste of hopefully more to come – keep your eyes and ears here if you’re into it.
Stop what you’re doing and listen to Anna B Savage, a London-based singer/songwriter poised for a meteoric rise in 2021 with her upcoming debut album, A Common Turn, coming via City Slang January 29. Her vocals are deep and intense, a full-body experience, and joins the likes of Aldous Harding and Haley Fohr in my mind. Her voice and the music surrounding it has a naturally devastating affect, I don’t even know how to articulate it. It sweeps and bows like a ship in a storm, but remains steadfast in getting to its destination. Frankly, it’s just special.
Pre-order Anna B Savage’s A Common Turn via Bandcamp HERE.
A stream of consciousness music blog, active since 2010. Established in Ann Arbor, MI, currently in NYC.
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Upcoming Releases:
January 9: Dry Cleaning – Secret Love SAULT – Chapter 1 Winged Wheel – Desert So Green
January 16: A$AP Rocky – Don’t Be Dumb Jana Horn – Jana Horn Julianna Barwick & Mary Lattimore – Tragic Magic SASSY 009 – Dreamer+
February 6: Beverly Glenn-Copeland – Laughter in Summer Daphni – Butterfly Fabiano do Nascimento – Aquáticos Joshua Chuquimia-Crampton – Anata Mandy, Indiana – URGH Puma Blue – Croak Dream Ratboys – Singin’ To An Empty Chair
February 13: Charli XCX – Wuthering Heights Colin Stetson – Nethering Danny L Harle – Cerulean KMRU – Kin The Olympians – In Search of A Revival
February 20: Altin Gün – Garip Apparat – A Hum of Maybe
February 27: Buck Meek – The Mirror Fabiano do Nascimento – Vila GENA – The Pleasure Is Yours Gorillaz – The Mountain Gus Englehorn – The Broken Balladeer Heavenly – Highway to Heavenly LB aka LABAT – Feel So Good Around U Maria BC – Marathon Mitski – Nothings About to Happen to Me Nothing – a short history of decay Shane Parish – Autechre Guitar
March 6: Hater – Mosquito Natalie Jane Hill – Hopeful Woman Scout Gillett – Tough Touch Shabaka – Of The Earth waterbaby – Memory Be a Blade
March 13: Alexis Taylor – Paris In The Spring Colleen – Libres antes del final Crack Cloud – Peace and Purpose Cut Worms – Transmitter Kim Gordon – PLAY ME The Notwist – News From Planet Zombie Ora Cogan – Hard Hearted Woman
March 27: Fcukers – Ö Holy Fuck – Event Beat José González – Against the Dying of the Light Robyn – Sexistential
April 3: Arlo Parks – Ambiguous Desire Makthaverskan – Glass and Bones Sunn O))) – sunn O)))
Warm Visions 