I was recently introduced to fantastic weirdo label EM Records out of Japan, who have been releasing and reissuing truly unique and singular records for at least 20 years now. I’ll hopefully be posting about my introductory release, Takao’s Stealth, sometime soon.
For now, let’s bask in that #FridayFeeling with 7FO’s “竜のぬけがら Ryu no Nukegara” (translates to Dragon’s Husk), the title-track closer from the project’s last record. It shimmers, it bubbles, it clatters, it chimes, it lights up, it shimmies, it rumbles, it shakes, it slides, it sways. It does it all. Laying in a hammock stretch between two palm trees, a slight breeze, playing Gameboy with the sound off. Specifically Link’s Awakening. The waves slowly washing in behind you. There are a few clouds, but nothing to take away from the rejuvenating sunlight.
Been rightly obsessed with Varg over the past few weeks, especially his new album Evanescence (A Love Letter). Shout out to the Niche. This track on there as FLORA, his collab with singer AnnaMelina, is a fantastic swarm of sound to get lost in.
One of the best songs of 2019 is also one of, if not THE horniest, and I am all for it. The natural swag of DAWN oozes freely on this track, but with co-production helmed by certified “my guys” Cole M.G.N. and Hudson Mohawke, this track is an endless replay.
Realized I hadn’t posted directly about one of my favorite shoegaze / noise pop tracks of the decade. Wildhoney is a rippin’ noise pop band from Baltimore that I’ve been a fan of since the release of their Seventeen Forever EP back in 2014. I had the opportunity to interview them for my radio station, which was really sweet. Definitely fanboy’ed for a bit. Beautiful, overdriven fuzz.
We haven’t heard from the band in a while, but I just saw that they released a new single, “Naive Castle” at the end of last year. Check it out below! Hopefully they have a new record or EP on the horizon soon.
This month’s edition of Recommended Albums features darkwave synth, Japanese ambient, a dub ambient collab, an official DJ mix, and some of the best singer-songwriters on the planet.
Boy Harsher – Careful [Nude Club]
A dramatic, black-lit car chase sequence between a non-binary, goth dominatrix vampire and the gargoyle raver computer nerd tasked with killing them.
Jessica Pratt – Quiet Signs [Mexican Summer]
Sitting in a corner booth of a 24-hour diner watching waitresses and clientele mingle at 2am, steam rising out of the kitchen window, woman smoking on the curb outside.
Julia Jacklin – Crushing [Polyvinyl]
Walking past a display of flowers and immediately thinking of the people you’d give flowers to, if you had the chance.
log(m) & Laraaji – The Onrush of Eternity [Invisible, Inc.]
Doing a cannonball into a natural hot spring, feeling the bubbles trace your body and watching as they rush up to the surface.
Mikron – Severance [CPU Records]
A camera set up to monitor deep-sea creatures is absorbed by a current-riding, gelatinous being, showing the scientists unseen worlds, normally unreachable by humankind.
Nivhek – After its own death / Walking in a spiral towards the house [Self-Released]
A rogue, blinking stimulus tries to resuscitate you from a numb, comfortable stupor.
Powder – Powder In Space (Mix) [Beats In Space]
Getting every musical toy in a store to sync up perfectly, creating a small club in aisle 5.
SPELLLING – Mazy Fly [Sacred Bones]
A bubbling, smoking cauldron is host to a myriad of destructive, devious spells.
Tiny Ruins – Olympic Girls [Ba Da Bing]
Finding a bottle with an ambiguous, inspiring and oddly specific message written inside makes you think it was made just for you, giving you a romantic hope for the future.
Various Artists – Kankyo Ongaku: Japanese Ambient, Environmental & New Age Music 1980-1990 [Light in the Attic]
Deriving all pleasure gained through life from watching nature interact and change around you.
Big Thief, one of the best bands of this decade, is releasing their third album U.F.O.F. (and their first for indie rock big boys 4AD!) on May 3.
U.F.O.F. stands for Unidentified Flying Object Friend, which I think is such a sweet album name. I love thinking of cute little UFOs. The album also contains two songs that also made an appearance on Lenker’s solo album from last year, released on Saddle Creek.
If you’re on the fence about the band, like you enjoy their music to some degree but aren’t completely sold on the group as a whole, I implore you to see them live. They work as a well-oiled machine in the live setting, operating in a deep pocket. Adrianne Lenker is also an immediately likable front person, ripe with polite anecdotes and traditional wisdom for stage banter. If you’re in NYC, prepare your wallets for tickets to their upcoming album release show at Elsewhere on May 5. Tickets HERE.
It took me long enough, but I’m finally getting around to posting the new Aldous Harding song, “The Barrel”, complete with disconcerting video. Her new album Designer is out April 26 via 4AD.
Harding was the creator of my favorite album of 2017, Party, and tied for first in artists I saw live the most times that same year. To say I’m a fan would be a bit of an understatement. The adjective I used earlier, disconcerting, can be easily blanketed upon most of her creations, music and videos, but there’s obviously more to it than that. There is an underlying current of despair within the seemingly airy and tranquil folk melodies. So many things breaking her apart from other similar artists in the fold right now.
ODESZA is still riding the high from their 2017 sophomore record, having released a myriad of remix comps for nearly every song on the record throughout 2018, and now have plowed their first stake into 2019 with another collection. This release features newcomer Mild Minds, who totally ripped apart the rather vanilla track that “Just A Memory” previously was and turned it into a spine-tingling, satisfying, and haunting electronic jam.
The three winning factors here that make this track so addictive are as follows: the rumbling, sinister bass they throw on in the chorus; the ghostly, detached, vaguely human vocals they’ve pitched down; and the itchy, two-step-esque shuffle they deploy at times. It’s hard to decipher what the lyrics are in some points, further emphasizing the inhuman, “beyond-the-physical-realm” quality of the track. Dislodged yearning floating in the ether.
It’s an overwhelmingly satisfying song, one that surprised me upon my first listen. “Am I really going to LOVE an ODESZA song this much in 2019?” The answer is definitively yes. I’m not trying to say that the duo’s original music is bad. Not in the slightest, in fact. It’s just my taste has changed and I don’t find myself deriving as much pleasure as I once did with their chill brand of vibe-setting electronic on their debut record. This remix on the other hand, is extremely compelling and something I’ll be revisiting throughout the year.
I’ve been combing through some old radio playlists in hopes to eventually migrate them over to Spotify (where I listen at work / can easily share with others) and came across Yeasayer’s “Tightrope”, a personal highlight from the Dark Was The Night compilation from 2009. The album’s 10-year anniversary was last week, thus marking 10 or so years of me being a fan of “indie rock”. This is the album that was a big watershed moment for me, introducing artists like The Books, Beirut, Yo La Tengo, Sharon Jones, Gillian Welch, Cat Power, and more. I had already been a fan of Dirty Projectors, Grizzly Bear and Arcade Fire, but this was like a door had swung open. I’d imagine that was the case with many other people as well.
“Tightrope” is potentially a perfect song for a high school-aged teenager to get acquainted with this type of music. Ripples of dreamy guitar cascade over clacking percussion, avian audio samples and the infectious vocal melody from Chris Keating. They took some of the best qualities of an early Animal Collective song and made it totally accessible for a wider audience. From here, you can more easily dive into the neo-psychedelia that was happening at the time. Who knows where you could go from there? I’m going to try and revisit the whole Dark Was The Night record some time this week to see how I feel about it, along with the full Yeasayer discography. Needs another once-through, don’t you think?
Very late on this, but hey! Lots of things to get through already if you can believe it. Some big, established indie names on here (Sharon Van Etten, Deerhunter), but also some real cool weirdos like Original Past Life and Sarah Louise. The records from Kiran Leonard and Pablo’s Eye are technically reissues/comps, but if anything you should use this mention of them to listen to their previous material. Mad good! I’m knee deep in February music and it’s shaping up to be a doozy. Looking forward to sharing it all with you.
Angelo de Augustine – Tomb [Asthmatic Kitty]
A flower on your favorite pastoral hill dances gently in a light, summer breeze as you sigh in the big city.
DAWN – new breed [Local Action]
The flashiest and most fabulous bird of paradise mating dance known to the nature world.
Deerhunter – Why Hasn’t Everything Already Disappeared? [4AD]
A wandering medieval minstrel gets lost in a dense forest, then put through various trials by a rogue devil set in the year 2019.
Kiran Leonard – Adolescence of Prog [self-released]
On a cloudy day, dry pine needles and compacted, dirty snow are collected in the corners of a garage door opening.
Original Past Life – Inference/Interference [Tone List]
A math rock band gets lost over a bridge cloaked in Silent Hill fog.
Pablo’s Eye – Dark Matter [STROOM]
A botanical garden full of flowers made of black lace and piano strings.
Sarah Louise – Nighttime Birds and Morning Stars [Thrill Jockey]
A video where it zooms out from atoms and bacteria to the outer reaches of the galaxy.
Sharon Van Etten – Remind Me Tomorrow [Jagjaguwar]
From the smoke and flames comes a smoldering, righteous hero.
Steve Gunn – The Unseen In Between [Matador]
A cowboy emerges from the Earth at the crack of dawn to ramble about, then lays himself down in a patch of reeds and mud to bury himself again at sunset.
Two People – First Body [Liberation / Terrible]
The feeling of falling water naturally tracing the outline of your body.
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 Elori Saxl & Henry Solomon – Seeing Is Forgetting 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 Resavoir – Themes For Dreams Scout Gillett – Tough Touch Shabaka – Of The Earth Tomu DJ – Antagonist waterbaby – Memory Be a Blade
March 13: Alexis Taylor – Paris In The Spring Bill Orcutt – Music In Continuous Motion Crack Cloud – Peace and Purpose Cut Worms – Transmitter ELUCID – I Guess U Had To Be There James Blake – Trying Times Johnny Blue Skies & The Dark Clouds – Mutiny After Midnight Kim Gordon – PLAY ME The Notwist – News From Planet Zombie Ora Cogan – Hard Hearted Woman Tinariwen – Hoggar
March 20: Avalon Emerson & The Charm – Written Into Changes Chalk – Crystalpunk Colleen – Libres antes del final Grace Ives – Girlfriend Green-House – Hinterlands Whitney Johnson, Lia Kohl & Macie Stewart – BODY SOUND
March 27: ADULT. – Kissing Luck Goodbye
Buzzy Lee – Shoulder to Shoulder
Fcukers – Ö Holy Fuck – Event Beat Irreversible Entanglements – Future Present Past José González – Against the Dying of the Light King Tuff – MOO Konradsen – Hunt, Gather Lauren Auder – Whole World As Vigil Lone – Hyperphantasia The New Pornographers – The Former Site Of Pan•American – Fly The Ocean In A Silver Plane Robyn – Sexistential Shinchi Atobe – Silent Way Snail Mail – Ricochet Tom Misch – Full Circle
April 3: Arlo Parks – Ambiguous Desire John Andrews & The Yawns – Streetsweeper Makthaverskan – Glass and Bones A Place To Bury Strangers – Rare and Deadly Sunn O))) – sunn O))) Thundercat – Distracted Wendy Eisenberg – Wendy Eisenberg
April 10: Alex Zhang Hungtai – Dras Cactus Lee – Lee’s Dream Flore Laurentienne – Volume III Jessie Ware – Superbloom My New Band Believe – My New Band Believe Squarepusher – Kammerkonzert WU LYF – A Wave That Will Never Break
April 17: Hollie Cook – Shy Girl In Dub!
Tiga – Hotlife Yaya Bey – Fidelity
April 24: Angelo De Augustine – Angel In Plainclothes Friko – Something Worth Waiting For Gia Margaret – Singing Hrishikesh Hirway – In The Last Hour of Light Miss Grit – Under My Umbrella Quiet Light – Blue Angel Sparkling Silver White Denim – 13 White Fence – Orange
May 1: Ana Roxanne – Poem 1 Hiss Golden Messenger – I’m People Lip Critic – Theft World
May 8: Broken Social Scene – Remember the Humans Chinese American Bear – Dim Sum & Then Some Cola – Cost of Living Adjustment Lykke Li – The Afterparty
May 15: Kevin Morby – Little Wide Open Telehealth – Green World Image
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