Landlady - Landlady (2021)

 

When I was introduced to Brooklyn's Landlady during a Hometapes showcase at SXSW back in 2014, there was certainly a lot that would appeal to me - a stage full of members including two drummers, a style of music that deftly evades categorization but feels strikingly familiar but if I'm being completely honest the thing that sold me was the sincerity of frontman Adam Schatz. In a crowded bar in Austin, Texas during a festival where each band's goal is make the most of the brief amount of time allotted to make a lasting first impression on showgoers with tenuous attention spans, Schatz asked the crowd to engage. Not just with him but each other, with people who weren't in the room whether miles, ages, or lifetimes away in a sing-a-long on "Above My Ground". It was bold. It was unexpected. But most importantly, it was incredibly sincere. It was the kind of thing that made me immediately take notice and pursue every opportunity I could to see them again and again from small intimate sets in the back of Greenpoint's now defunct Manhattan Inn and Half Moon in Hudson, it was Schatz's initial openness that led me to discover through obsessive listens that Landlady were a damn good band. Over the years and through the albums, the lineup has changed but a few things have remained the same - the band is tight-knit and perform with an awing juxtaposition of playfulness and precision, Schatz's narrative subjects take the road less traveled but still achieve a beguiling universality, and Schatz is still disarmingly sincere. Even following their career for years, Schatz still manages to surprise with an ability root his songs in an inextinguishable honesty. "Why did my friend have to die?" Schatz asks on "Supernova", the first single for their fourth and self-titled album, and with such a succinct statement I knew the new record would be unlike any other. 

With lyrics that hit you like a mack truck, "Supernova" still plays into Schatz's sense of connection. Personal loss and failures coalesce with a collective understanding: "At least I know everyone's having a harder day today". It's a statement he first delivers fully and clearly with it's resurgence broken up - into four part vocals harmonies, adlibs "At least I know I'm not okay", Schatz sings, and instrumental flourishes, Schatz lands on a feeling of interconnectedness despite his individual sadness. The fact that it's followed by "Sunshine" is a masterful display of tracklisting. "Hold your breath, hold mine instead for now" Schatz opens and despite the fact that he's played it live several times, it takes on new life here. It's almost uncharacteristically sparse - featuring Schatz on keys for much of it. It's tender, as close as Landlady could arguably come to a ballad as Schatz makes a declaration of mutual support - take care of me and I'll take care of you. It's a love song but one with much broader applications than typical romance. Along with "The Meteor", "Take The Hint", and "Supernova", "Sunshine" follows themes of the heat burning up or burning out, "Sunshine" is the only one which doesn't treat it as an inevitability. "Careful with the sunshine, I won't let it burn you up" Schatz delivers less like a warning and more an expression of care and protection. 

Songs like "Sunshine" and "Nowhere To Hide", which have been played live by the band or Schatz at his solo sets for years find new life and meaning on an album that seems exceptionally timely. The core of Landlady's truths are about resilience and drawing comfort in little insular moments. Whether that be loudly singing along to "God Only Knows" on "Molly Pitcher", a game of Hearts on "Tooth and Nail", Landlady is about turning to each other in good times and bad and they tackle the subject with characteristic aplomb. Schatz doesn't claim to have all the answers as "Nowhere To Hide" attests but Landlady seems to posit that many of life's solutions lie in caring about others.

The most appealing thing about Landlady is that instead of songs on an album - it functions largely as a series of conversations both between narrative subjects and the songs themselves. There's references and callbacks - reoccurring themes and images but also solitary moments, self-contained episodes. Landlady coalesced into the version of the band they wanted to be on their second album Upright Behavior and yet each subsequent effort has expanded what the band is in a way that's been enjoyable to experience. A self-titled album tends to function as a reintroduction, signaling some sort of seismic shift in sound or mythology but Landlady doesn't need anything of the sort. There's no band that sounds like Landlady and each album has solidified that. There's a distinct sound that carries through without retracing its steps. Landlady is a band that makes music that's meant to entertain and challenge themselves and then invites listeners into that space and the result are songs and albums that are celebration of music and musicianship. Landlady arrives a little more than 4 years after the band's previous full length effort The World Is A Loud Place and wastes no time in drawing you into its embrace like an old friend. There's less guests and collaborators this time around but there's no shortage of dynamic musical ideas as Schatz has a wealth of new stories and witticisms to share. 

Landlady, the fourth album from Landlady is out now and available to purchase from the band's Bandcamp with $5 of all proceeds going to The Okra Project.

Listen - Holland Andrews - "Gloss"

 

My introduction to Holland Andrews happened in the form of experimental Portland duo AU's album 2012 Both Lights. Previously a duo, multi-instrumentalist Luke Wyland and percussionist Dana Valatka invited Andrews to essentially become a full-fledged member of the band and their presence was immediate felt - their powerhouse vocals a ballast for the propulsive cacophonous maelstrom of "Solid Gold". Previously issuing music under the moniker Like A Villain, their new EP Wordless, will however be their first under their own name. 

 

"Gloss", the first track from their upcoming EP, is an expansive synth-led reverie that dedicates much of its duration towards establishing a sense of meditative calm as its glittering arpeggios recall a glass harmonica and effortlessly pushing the track forward. And as easy as it would be for Andrews to turn "Gloss" into a time-suspending ambient drone, about halfway through, Andrews pursues another compositional lead - employing both dynamic and tempo changes to introduce vocals. What Andrews is singing is less important than the emotions the vocals invoke - words occasionally veering into view through its assemblage of layers as "Gloss" pulses with radiant calm and quiet comfort. 

 

Wordless, Holland Andrews new EP, will be out February 12th. You can pre-order the 4 track EP now.

Pitstop: Wednesday

My introduction to Asheville's Wednesday actually happened from an inside joke a friend of mine made on social media. I didn't get the joke but knew that a band was being mentioned and when I saw they were slated to play Hopscotch Music Festival, I made a mental note to try and see them. When a schedule conflict and my own unpreparedness made me miss their Hopscotch set I kept the name in my mind. Then as Wednesday set about to tour behind their recently released sophomore full length I Was Trying to Describe You to Someone, I noticed they were touring alongside a bunch of new friends I had met at Hopscotch last year. That practically sealed the deal and I finally dove into their music.

The first thing I was struck by was the incredibly insistent nature of Wednesday's songs. The album's opening track "Fate Is..." begins like a thundercrack, a lion's roar. It's heavy, clamorous intro perfectly suited for singer/guitarist Karly Hartzman's seismic, emotive vocals which soon follow it. It's a track that begins at a gallop and doesn't ever really let up while still balancing its boisterous instrumentals with Hartzman's narrative persistence. It's the album's shortest track but also its most succinct. The polar opposite of a tracks like "Love Has No Pride (Condemned)" which takes its time with its build up; shifting gears a number of times between vignette like verses.

As the album progresses, its songs get longer, Hartzman's vocals more langorous but similarly capable of dispatching the emotive truth of a lived experience with an impressive brevity. Hartzman's hardly curt but has a knack for employing descriptive storytelling with an anecdotal ease. The quintet are properly dialed in, turning in properly cacophonus dips into darkly tinged shoegaze fuzz without obscuring Hartzman's narratives in the slightest. 

Wednesday's sophomore record I Was Trying to Describe You to Someone is out now on Orindal Records. You can stream/buy it here. 

Listen: Matt Evans - "Cold Moon"

photo by Gregory Wikstrom

My introduction to percussionist Matt Evans happened essentially by chance after attending a show featuring Ben Seretan and Boio. I hadn't seen either project in quite some time and was thrilled to see what both were up to but Matt Evans' immersive soundscapes were easily my favorite part of a night filled with four incredibly engaging sets. Part of Evans appeal lies in his ability to shift through tools and sounds in a "everything but the kitchen sink" approach without losing anything resembling clarity of tone or ideas. Even watching him make the sounds, the precision and playfulness was entrancing, the effortless blend of organic, man-made sounds created in the moment and electronic sounds previously constructed, created an elevated moment of absolute wonder.

"Cold Moon", the first taste of Matt Evans forthcoming full length record of experimental percussion New Topographics, is a slice of temporal displacing ambience. Awash in a digital sea of sound, Evans creates a lush tapestry of seemingly miniscule little moments that almost immediately slip you into a moment of zen. It's surprisingly busy, Evans swapping out soft brush strokes for chimes and bells, all against a backdrop of a lulling electronic hum and subtle drip. It's oddly meditative despite the fact that Evans is constantly in motion.

Matt Evans' New Topographics is out April 17th on Whatever's Clever. You can pre-order the record on vinyl, cassette, and digital. 

Lou Rogai - Cathedral (2019)

Last year, Lou Rogai of Lewis & Clarke unveiled Implications in D major, Adagio for Chamber Strings, the first of a series of chamber music compositions Rogai wrote while also crafting a follow up to his last Lewis & Clarke album Triumvirate.

While Lewis & Clarke has often invoked the intimacy of chamber music both in its recorded output and its live shows, with Implications and now Cathedral, Rogai filters his slow building chamber folk into a classical idiom. 

A composition in three movements, Cathedral isn't your standard classical composition - from its use of field recordings, guitar, and synth, Rogai provides an interesting stamp on chamber music in a way wholly unlike his straight forward, elegaic Implications. Beginning with church , "Arrival", the first movement of Cathedral is an ambient wave slowly manuvering away from the shore - it's not until 2 and a half minutes with the entrance of the guitar that Rogai embarks on a direct presentation of a melody. Where each member of Rogai's ensemble flittered by in rapid blur or peeked from a haze before, they're all accounted for at this point, flute, double bass, clarinet, classical guitar, and strings weaving together in Rogai's characteristic slow build. 

"Acceptance", the piece's second movement is essential a marriage of Rogai as a composer and a songwriter (much like Lewis & Clarke), Rogai lends his vocals to the piece, at first vocalizing in response to the string and brass before he begins singing actual words. Much like "Arrival", "Acceptance" engages in about two minutes of musical world building - creating a hazy ambience meant to disorient and which makes the sudden clarity of Rogai's vocals all the more potent. 

"Ascent", the final movement of Cathedral, finds Rogai playing off of his field recordings of chimes as he creates a theme that seeks to replicate them. It's slow at first, gradually building and almost improvisatory as Rogai recalls the casual brush of the chimes and eventually eeks out a beautiful, furtive melody elevated to masterful grandeur by a lush string accompaniment. 

Cathedral isn't your standard classical composition. It isn't even your standard experimental classical composition. It exists as a mix of experimental composition and songcraft - similar but not entirely reminiscent of his work as Lewis & Clarke. Rogai has always crafted music that rewards the patient listener and Cathedral is no different - an exploration of theme and place where the place in question might not actually exist.

Cathedral is meant to resonate deep inside the listener like the church bells Rogai uses to signal the start of the piece and the shift between its movements. It's a beautiful and meditative piece of art that surprises and delights by virtue of its embrace and suspension of traditional form and its avant garde approach toward both the classical and singer/songwriter realms. 

Lou Rogai's Cathedral is out now on Veritidas Recordings. Both LP and CD orders come with bonus tracks of Rogai's Essere Amato film score. You can order it now. 

Listen: Diamanda La Berge Dramm - "Amazon"

photo by Juri Hiensch

My introduction to Dutch violinist Diamanda La Berge Dramm came curiously enough when I was scrolling through Instagram. As I was mindless swiping through the stories of my friends and casual acquaintances, the sounds of her siren-recalling glissandos coupled by her featherweight vocals immediately made me pause. A whole host of questions immediately rose in my brain: who is this? Who posted this? Where can I hear more? Those questions were immediately answered as the poster was none other than Peter McLaughlin, founder of the Pretty Purgatory label, announcing a new single of Dramm's from the collaborative record from Dramm and English poet SJ Fowler Beastings.

Before even looking up Dramm's biography, I could tell Dramm had a reputation that far proceeded her simply after listening to more than the 14 second sound bite McLaughlin has unknowingly gifted me with. Dramm started violin at the age of four, studied at the New England Conservatory, Royal Conservatory of Music at the Hague, and has devoted much of her professional career towards the presentation of new music, founding Splendor, an artist collective and arts space in Amsterdam that regularly puts on concerts. 

"Amazon", the second single from Dramm's forthcoming album Beastings, immediately hooked me with is juxtaposition of opposites - Dramm's vocals are light and airy against at first an effect not unlike a sliding trombone, and then a mounting cacophony of  Dramm caresses Fowler's texts holding them firmly aloft above them to set the mood but also to leap out among the fray of otherworldly sounds Dramm is somehow able to weave from her violin. Fowler's texts are elusive, weaving paths of serpentine grace as Dranm's accompaniment blooms forth, both occasionally dealing glancing blows at they intersect at just the right moments. "To be inside a background noise of a thing I don't possess" Dramm sings, accented by a rumbling low end. 

"Amazon" is an excellent piece of songcraft - multitudinous in sound and meaning, a luxurious unfurling reverie that's both delightful simple and awe-inspiringly complex. It's a testament to Dramm's compositional prowess that she's able to craft such a lush backdrop of infinitely rewarding instrumental flourishes that doesn't distract from the simplistic but elusive beauty of Fowler's text. 

Diamanda La Berge Dramm's Beastings is out November 22nd on Pretty Purgatory. It's available as a digital download, a rose colored cassette or as a CD with a chapbook featuring lyrics and expanded poens from SJ Fowler. 

Listen: Lake Mary & The Ranch Family Band - "Sun Dogs"

My introduction to Lake Mary, the Missouri based ambient folk project helmed by experimental guitarist Chaz Prymek happened, as all of my favorite discoveries tend to, by chance. I attended a house show to see proven favorites Ben Seretan and Cassandra Jenkins and was rewarded with the enchanting instrumental rambles of Prymek who was joined by Nevada Greene guitarist and Dismal Niche co-founder M. Crook as well as Ben Seretan on harmonium. The result was an absolutely spellbinding set of patiently plotted tracks that blurred the line between improvisatory ruminations and methodical compositions that kept the entire room in an awed hush. I was so won over by the set that when they mentioned they had another gig in town before heading back to Missouri, I immediately made plans to go and later, dug into the Lake Mary catalog. As a fan of long form compositions, Lake Mary's catalog was an embarrassment of riches full of solo works as well as incredibly fruitful collaborations recorded virtually all over the country which explains in some measure the expansive, windswept nature of some of Prymek's work.

"Sun Dogs", the title track from Lake Mary's forthcoming album out November 15th on, is an unofficial follow up to last year's River Ceremony and finds Prymek "getting the band back together" so to speak as Prymek enlists The Ranch Family Band again on this record with a few helpful additions (like Ben Seretan). While I associate Prymek's compositions as more of a slow burning amble, "Sun Dogs" is more brisk: a windows down drive instead of a exploratory stroll but the view is no less scenic, effortless conjuring images of sun drenched vistas and the wide open plain.

While "Sun Dogs" moves at swifter pace than most of Lake Mary's oevre, Prymek spins compositional gold out of repetitive themes, elevating them with virtuosic slide guitar, and employs dazzling builds that gives each instrument its time to shine and interact with its central themes. "Sun Dogs" is essentially through composed - shifting from one theme to the next without an attempt to double back. The bright frolick of Prymek's initial theme gives way to a looser, more spacious melodically suspended interlude with pulsating synths before shifting to a rollicking theme that expands on itself with graceful solos and a conversational interplay between its multitude of instruments.

Sun Dogs is out November 15th on Whited Sepulchre and Full Spectrum Records. Pre-order is available now.