Listen: Landlady - "The Car Alarm"/"The Shaky Hand"

 

photo by Graham Tolbert

 

 

Landlady is back! The music project of singer/songwriter/saxophonist/jack of all tradesman Adam Schatz and his illustrious group of friends have announced their latest release, following up 2021's self-titled. A song cycle, according to Schatz, "The Car Alarm" and "The Shaky Hand", the lead singles from Landlady's forthcoming fifth full length album Make Up / Lost Time, hint at the seamlessness of the album. Growing around a simple minor arpeggio sequence, there's a sense of unease before Adam Schatz utters his first words: an equally unsettling repetitive series of "no's" before he tethers them into a narrative. "No cause for alarm, we bet the farm, we've phoned for a ride home". Schatz's songwriting has always flourished in the unexpected and "The Car Alarm" is no exception as a tale of getting lost on the road is elevated to a practically nail-biting experience. Musically, it oscillates between optimism and despair, hope and hopelessness, and crests with the sublime harmonies of Kristin Slipp and Star Busby. As "The Car Alarm" reaches a fever pitch with Schatz crooning "I don't fear the dark, I fear no one when you ride shotgun", the shuffle into "The Shaky Hand" could almost be missed. 

 

If "The Car Alarm" built on a growing sense of anxiety, "The Shaky Hand" is its inverse, briskly moving with unfettered jubilation as Schatz and company's "Cancel all your plans" repeats with string flourishes from Macie Stewart and Lia Kohl. Considering how fluidly the tracks blend together, it's unsurprising Landlady opted to released them together. While they can be enjoyed separately, they're enjoyed simultaneously as Schatz "Belt it into the mirror again" and "Going to beat the traffic again" later in the track have you wondering if "The Shaky Hand" takes place in the same car as "The Car Alarm". It's not until Schatz's repeats "Beat ourselves to the promise land" that really buttons the songs' interconnectedness. Schatz's lyricism often pairs humor and poignancy and "The Shaky Hand" illustrates why. A sort of introvert anthem, when Schatz sings "Winning bid to leave before the party dies, we'd be wise to leave before the party dies", it's not hard to imagine the song's character trying to leave a party early. Is it about knowing the right time to leave? Or leaving when you're ready to go? "The Shaky Hand" leaves it open especially with lyrics like "Call it ancient intuition or a consolation prize, we'd be wise to leave before the party dies". It might also be about leaving a party early enough to avoid getting stuck in traffic. The jury is still out. It's a dazzling taste of what the 17 track song cycle has to offer and in the hands of Schatz and his multitudes of collaborators, it's likely just the beginning.

 

 "The Car Alarm" and "The Shaky Hand" are the second and third tracks from Landlandy's upcoming album Make Up / Lost Time out June 6th. You can pre-order the album now on digital or tape/LP.

Listen: Adult Jazz - "Suffer One"

credit by Tash Cutts & Samuel Travis

 

At the tail end of January, British experimental quartet Adult Jazz emerged from a nearly decade long hiatus of sorts to release "Dusk Song". The first proper Adult Jazz release since their Earrings Off! EP released in 2016, "Dusk Song" with its constant swells struck me very much as an prelude not only of things to come but a potential album opener. With the release of "Suffer One" came the announcement Adult Jazz's incredibly patient fans have all been waiting for: Adult Jazz are releasing their follow up to their debut full length Gist Is their full length sophomore record So Sorry So Slow. Despite the lack of an official release for all this time, Adult Jazz have been incredibly forthcoming about all the work behind the scenes over the years writing, recording, and workshopping ideas for what eventually would become this record but also in the interim, members of Adult Jazz have landed on a multitude of different projects: "Other Life" with Makeness, "Cut Me" by Moses Sumney, as well as Offer, Harry Burgess' project with Jack Armitage aka Lil Data.

Enlisting Owen Pallett on string duties, "Suffer One" continues in Adult Jazz's growing trend of seeking collaboration outside of their typical foursome to dazzling effect that contrasts the horns of "Dusk Song". Both in his work in Adult Jazz and his other projects, Burgess' songwriting has gotten much more explicit, their various meanings much more overt on first listening and "Suffer One" relishes in that overt display of intimacy, of pointed, direct lyricism. Aided by Pallett's heart-fluttering violin flourishes, Burgess crafts a lovelorn ballad buoyed simultaneously with visceral elation and heady pensiveness. Burgess effortless balances the rush of thoughts that flood in when seeking/achieving connection with someone else, equally self-assured in the physical but gnawed by a pervasive sense of doubt in the cerebral. The tension of these two conflicting displays reaches a dizzying climax the group punctuates with processed vocals before returning once more to organic push and pull accompanying by Pallett's hard-hitting pizzicato. 

 

Adult Jazz much awaited sophomore album So Sorry So Slow is out April 26th on Spare Thought.

Listen: Tiny Ruins - "The Crab/Waterbaby"

 

One of the greatest strengths of New Zealand singer/songwriter Hollie Fullbrook is her ability to take tiny moments and elevate them into winsome narratives. Such is case of "The Crab/Waterbaby", the latest single from her project Tiny Ruins and her first single since 2019's Olympic Girls (and its acoustic companion Olympic Girls Solo). Fullbrook is able to weave an entrancing tale of finding a molting crab on the beach with such deft hand. It's delicately traversed - featuring Fullbrook's voice and guitar for much of its first verse, before the rest of Fullbrook's band glide in to accompany her. Simultaneously sparse with moments of rich textural strokes, "The Crab/Waterbaby" benefits not only from Fullbrook's succinct lyricism but by the band's ability to maneuver around her in a way that accents Fullbrook's vocals while providing these bursts of narrative embellishments. Fullbrook is given room to spin her yarn, gently unfurling her story while also being carried by the fortifying rush of the instrumentation. It's simple but effective - economical in its musical language without sacrificing any nuance and the results is something absolutely magical. 

Listen to "The Crab/Waterbaby" by Tiny Ruins out now:

Listen: Truth Club - "It's Time"

With the collapse of the time-space continuum that was the covid-19 pandemic, it's hard to imagine it's been almost 4 years since the release of Raleigh quartet Truth Club's debut album Not An Exit. Since discovering them at my first ever Hopscotch Music Festival back in 2017, a highlight of each return trip was the chance to see Truth Club since heretofore they hadn't really been a touring band. And yet, despite the fact that up until 2019, I'd have one or two performances a year to tide me over, there songs remained so distinctly memorable that I never really lost any enthusiasm for them. Going on tour with Wednesday last year, the band unveiled a series of new song clearly prepped for a follow up to their 2019 debut. "It's Time" is one such song and it's a scorcher - building a solid base of driving drums and angular guitars before Travis Harrington's vocals enter. 

One of Truth Club's many strengths is the interconnectedness of its members and the song spends a good portion of time setting that up before. While lyricism in Truth Club's songs are always at the forefront and certain phrases end up being incredibly memorable - I've personally found them both obfuscated and illuminating. It's an interesting dichotomy. Harrington's lyrically very open and yet, plays with cadence and vocabulary in a way that has you second guessing.

 "I watch this one last busy week crestfall and dissolve the intentions you set and I will watch it happen again" is a lyric that shouldn't have nearly enough interpretations as it could and yet, it reveals a surprising amount of information for an opening lyrics. Essentially describing detached inaction that Harrington elevates to a gripping level of drama. "It's Time" is a descent - or more accurately, an re-enactment of a descent - as Harrington details shifting feelings that gradually metamorphose into something seismic. "When alone I'm afraid I will never find a way to pry joy from strain, joy is strain, joy is strange" Harrington announces at the song's climax. It's a major pronouncement - the feeling when you're at a low point that you can't see the way back up. Thankfully, the song ends on a somewhat hopeful if not productive note: to just keep working at it.Truth Club lyrics have a tendency to be self-referential - either to their NC environs or the member themselves (see: "Not An Exit"/"Tethering") and Harrington does so here - "It's a show of faith, always running, but in Yve's groove, she moves, she dreams up new ways to exhaust herself", Harrington delivers amidst a wash of dissonance with a sort of optimistic uncertainty.

 

Truth Club's newest single "It's Time" is out now. 

PRO TEENS - Dentistry (2022)

 

In August 2020, Arizona rockers PRO TEENS called it quits. In their break-up announcement the band stressed the split was amicable but that they felt the band had run its course and while they had planned to release one more record, ultimately there would be no more new music. And then November of last year, the band uploaded an album pretty much without ceremony or explanation. "WE MADE AN ALBUM FROM BEYOND THE GRAVE AND IT'S THE BEST ONE YET" the band announced.

Dentistry, the band's posthumous release, might unsurprisingly be the best PRO TEENS album. One of the qualities that appealed to me most about PRO TEENS was their ability to exist in contrast. A sound that is equal parts retro and charmingly current, laid back and filled with blustering agita, Dentistry is a calmer follow up to their previously released Twos. Beginning with the aptly titled "(To The Tune Of An Electric) Toothbrush", which builds off the buzzing of an electric toothbrush before metamorphosing into a jangly pop rock jaunt, Dentistry is a veritable masterclass in guitar tone. Both front-person Andy Phipps' vocals and the band's guitars are incredibly versatile - offering a very dynamic sound that's an obvious peak for the band. Songs like "Mavs in 6" effortlessly switch to whole new sections without skipping a beat.

Album standout "Ode To Curse" shifts between lilting chamber pop and a barrelling rock scorcher. Dentistry feels the most narratively dense of all of PRO TEENS' oeuvre and "Ode To Curse" feels like a definitive songwriting flex for Phipps. Similarity to "Do Right Bayou" Phipps has an ability to sing about seemingly abstract concepts that suddenly coalesce into these moments of being known or yearning to be. "Overwrought with final thoughts, it's hard, sometimes we just need to fall apart but I can't help holding on" Phipps sings ahead of one of the track's big tempo shifts, plodding drums, glancing guitar strums, and an earthy bass clarinet underscore the moment. "Ode To Curse" is filled with these absolute gems of songwriting and composition eventually becoming an high speed locomotive as Phipps croons the song title over and over until everything comes to an exasperated fever pitch.

"Do Right Bayou" meanwhile is a slow burner, as Phipps realizes some wants and desires have no real grasp in reality. In a lot of ways Dentistry wrestles with twenty-something ennui but also realizes the role community/or anything external can have in defining the self. "Well I get caught up in what could've been, I'll spend a whole lifetime absolving sin, there's so many choices, what do you choose, if I could do one right I'd do right by you" Phipps concludes. In a song where Phipps ponders all the ways big and small that they could be different, in which their dreams align with actual reality, the main takeaway is that all that is ultimately needed is someone else.

A fan of PRO TEENS since fellow Arizona band AlhhlA recommended them to me around the release of their album Philistines, I am glad not only that PRO TEENS get to put a tidy bow on their time together but also that their final effort is such a perfect encapsulation of what makes them so worthwhile. If Dentistry truly is their final album, it sees PRO TEENS going out on an absolute high. Even more special because it's a record that wasn't supposed to even happen. Even if you've never heard PRO TEENS before, Dentistry is more than a nostalgia trip, it's a brilliant album in its own right.

Listen: Toebow - "Kitchen"

photo by Moriah Ziman

 

While my discovery of Brooklyn's Toebow was largely in part from being born out of the remnants of Bennington College formed experimental psych folk collective BOBBY, it didn't take very long for Toebow to win me over as very much their own thing as genre-eluding songcraft was pretty much all Toebow shares with their former member's band. Originally christening themselves as "cartoon rock", Toebow's evolution has been an exciting treat - and one that their recorded output only tells half the story. Initially seeing them for the first time at the record release show for their debut Spirit Mane EP and attending as many of their shows as I could since, I quickly realized the disconnect between their live and recorded out - as many crowd favorites have still yet to see the light of day even with the release of their debut full length Themes back in 2019. But as the quintet ready another album and the subsequent release of longtime favorite "Kitchen", Toebow's recorded output gets closer to resembling their absolutely dynamic live sets. 

Considering how frequently Toebow give access to their instrumentals, it's not hard to see that that's the facet that they're most proud of. And it's understandable why. From the skittering start-stop drum entrance and the ping-pong guitar lines, Toebow certainly know how to put their best foot forward. From the moment you hit play, "Kitchen" is a beguilingly lush textural tapestry. Toebow's lyricism is always delightfully vague - serving the purpose of the song but otherwise revealing no more of its secrets and that's very much the case here. Each instrument - from its two guitars, drums, synths, bass, and five-part vocal harmonies are effortlessly blended to create this absolutely resplendent kaleidoscope of sound.

Listen: Son Step - "Mutual Assurance"

 

When last we heard from Philadelphia experimental pop purveyors Son Step, they had offered up new ears, a 5 song collection of songs featuring collaborations from drummer Ben Sloan, and now they're releasing another collaboration with vocalist Sophie Coran in the form of "Mutual Assurance". Based on the idea of mutually assured destruction - the deterring strategy that the use of nuclear arms would result in the annihilation of all in an attack/counter-attack. Much like new ears "Hissing Sauna", "Mutual Assurance" plays on the anxiety of living in the modern era and turns it into a dance jam. Son Step write an apocalyptic dance track that stresses the interconnectedness of us all. "Your loss is my loss", Joel Sephy Gleiser sings amid a cushion of harmonies provided by bandmate Jon Coyle and Sophie Coran. It's a track that really puts the last two years into perspective - how heavily intertwined the lives of everyone is. How reliant on our neighbors we are for collective care. And so while Son Step are inspired by nuclear disaster and the last party on Earth - there's also a sense of fun - swirling synths and keyboard flourishes rise and fall along the processed beats. 

 

"Mutual Assurance" is out now and available for purchase on Son Step's Bandcamp.

Listen: Sondre Lerche - Summer In Reverse (ft CHAI)

photo by Tonje Thilesen

 

As the release of Norwegian singer/songwriter Sondre Lerche's first ever double album Avatars of Love approaches, the artist's tenth full length studio album, Lerche's choice of singles have revealed a rather eclectic album - from the feat of longform songwriting of "Dead of the Night", the art pop of "Cut", Lerche's latest, a collaboration with Japan's CHAI, finds Lerche returning to the summery Brazil-pop reminiscent stylings that he's most known for. Sonically recalling Pleasure standout "Serenading In The Trenches due in part to drummer Dave Heilman's start-stop snare, Lerche's latest single is a beguiling contender for a song of the summer even as Lerche name-drops each subsequent season - the track is playful both in its interplay between Lerche and Heilman, and Lerche's lightly self-effacing lyrics. Lerche's love songs tend to favor grandeur - easily feeling like they can anchor climatic scenes in a movie romance but here, Lerche's take is a tad-bit more grounded and slightly humorous as he details the mundane - snacking on leftovers from a party, sorting through your tax receipts, as a contrast to the incredibly vibrant feelings of love and infatuation. Those feelings are still very present, mind you, in the technicolor shades of Kato Ådland's programmed string flourishes. "Summer In Reverse" is essentially about expectation - Lerche pines for a love for all seasons not just the freshness of a new love. "We should get together every summer and make each other miserable all Fall, can you only love me in the Summer or never at all?" Lerche asks. And despite the quippy nature of it, it's a sincere ask - can you love me in harsher seasons than the bright, fun-filled summer? Than the first stage of enamoration? 

 

Sondre Lerche's tenth full length studio album, the double album Avatars of Love is out April 1st. You can pre-order the either physical or digital versions of the album now.

Listen/Watch: Night Moves - "Fallacy Actually"

 

Minneapolis' Night Moves may have three excellent albums under their belt but if there's one they know their way around, it's a single. Their ability to craft an absolutely infectious ear worm had me practically salivating for a track "Border On Border" nearly five years before they offered up a proper recording on sophomore record Pennied Days and with their latest album Can You Really Find Me in their rear view, the band has not only holed up to write/record, they've decided to release said songs in series - instead of holding onto them until an album manifests itself. That's good news for old fans and new fans alike because "Fallacy Actually" is a pitch perfect entry of the band's trademark pop psychedelia. From the moment it starts, with its incredibly ear-catching melody crafted on layered synths and piano - the band immediately hooked me. The arresting blend of harmonica, guitar, and flute, effortlessly soundtrack John Pelant's nostalgic reveries as he ponders the true end of things and what could've been. The songs titular fallacy places emotions against learned experience - Pelant's back and forth between if he could do things differently countered with the fact that the knowledge came from such a flawed experience: "Stopped trying to love you anyway I can because it's all lies" Pelant croons but quickly follows it with "If I could see you again, the hand that holds you, well it's all I talk about, I've known nothing new".  The track is positively decadent - luxuriating in its most winsome moments, building its layers and momentum, weaving in and out of lush arrangements and neatly tucking in a sumptuous guitar solo.

 The track is a dizzying rush of emotions - an ebb and flow of the head versus the heart, and the band's use of synthesizers and Pelant's eclectic of influences (Canned Heat, Motown, UFO abductions) evoke both the confusion and temptation of settling back into a relationship you've outgrown as well as solidify the band as more than your garden variety 70s psychedelic rock revivalists.  

Night Moves' "Fallacy Actually" is out now on Domino.

Listen: Sondre Lerche - "Dead of The Night"

photo by Tonje Thilesen

 

Around the time of his 2014 album Please, Norwegian singer/songwriter Sondre Lerche essentially abandoned his established songwriting formula - writing about 20 songs between records before narrowing them down in pursuit of somewhat continuous form of songwriting that where each album kind of feed into each other. The result was Please, Pleasure, and Patience, a series of records that form a sort of loose trilogy but feature songs that were all developed sometime in the seven years between Lerche's self-titled sixth album and the end of the last year's Patience. While covid lockdowns forced many bands/artists to essentially buckle down and explore new methods of music making and music sharing, Lerche was fortunate enough to be able to return to his native Norway where he was able to both tour rather extensively as well as work on new music with his regular collaborators. "Dead of the Night", the first single from what fans can all assume is a forthcoming album, is a taste of Lerche's Norwegian return. Clocking in at 10 mins long, it eclipses the album ender "Things You Call Fate" from his debut Faces Down as his longest track, while also continuing an ongoing trend of Lerche taking his pop sensibilities and using them to explore long form songwriting. 

 

"Dead of Night" slowly unfurls, Lerche taking listeners on a detailed tour of feelings felt and experiences experienced in the late night hours. Much like "Why Would I Let You Go", Lerche's aim is largely narrative, not necessarily in hooks or choruses and "Dead of the Night" is a smörgåsbord of verses - though not without its share of quasi-hooks. It's a song that nods to the themes of Please, Pleasure, and Patience without really indulging in them itself; for every mention of the body, of pleasures sought, rejected, or indulged, there's a forward momentum that carries you through - they're merely landmarks on scenic ride Lerche's embarking on. Lerche essentially takes his greatest strengths - his ability to craft incredibly relatable songs and his succinctness while doing so and flips them on their head - it's Lerche at his most narratively exploratory and his least committed to traditional song structures - instead offering up a lyrical fantasia that still taps into the visceral. "We're living in the dead of night in the hope that we might inspire another ending", Lerche croons, and even among its expansive sprawl, among its numerous twists and bends, still manages a concise encapsulation of the song's true takeaway.

Sondre Lerche's latest single "Dead of The Night" is out now.

Listen: Son Step - "Hissing Sauna"

 

 

Considering the range of sounds on Philly experimental pop trio Son Step's last album Fossilillies, I should hardly be surprised at the difference between "New Ears" and new track "Hissing Sauna" and yet, considering how mellow their previous single was, I certainly didn't expect such a dance-floor ready track to come from the same EP. As emotive a set piece as "New Ears" was, Son Step operates best when everyone is given their time to shine and everyone certain does here - especially guest drummer Ben Sloan. Where keyboardist Jon Coyle took the lead on "New Ears", this time Joel Sephy Gleiser takes the reins - though their trademark harmonies and layered vocals are still very much present. Inspired by Unknown Mortal Orchestra's "I Can't Keep Checking My Phone" as well as the multitude of dystopian tales of Black Mirror, Gleiser weighs the consequences of the constant state of connectedness our phones give us. It's a crisis numerous artists have tackled as the digital landscape continually introduces new way to keep people engaged and Gleiser wonders if it's all worth it. "All that I can be is in this thing concealed, all that I can be can never be revealed, when the feeling of an image disappears what does it mean to feel", Gleiser croons at arguably the most toe-tappingly energetic moment of the song - as Gleiser essentially asks if our reliance on technology is desensitizing at the same moment the song compels you to dance. There's simultaneously a "pay no attention the man behind the curtain" feeling to the track's embrace of outright pop at it's most climactic moments and a "spoonful of sugar makes the medicine go down" approach. 

Son Step's New Ears EP is out October 8th. You can pre-order it now.

Listen: Kristine Leschper - "Something Like An Exit"/"Figure & I"

 

Originally starting as a solo artist in Athens, Georgia before adopting the moniker Mothers, it seems as though singer/songwriter Kristine Leschpher is returning to creating music under her own name. While last year Leschper realized track "Something Like An Exit" as part of a pretty expansive 30 song covid-19 fundraiser for Kasra Kurt and Ada Babar's Nino Tomorrow label, Leschper has also announced new single "Figure & I". 

From the earliest days of Mothers, Leschpher has returned to the body as a songwriting subject and both "Something Like An Exit" and "Figure & I" share that focus in different ways. In "Something Like An Exit", accompanied by a soft bed of synths, Leschper sings about catching her own reflection. Mirrors and other reflective surfaces - in this case a window, are treated as portals outside of the self even as you use them to view the self. The song buoys between whether that's necessarily a good or bad thing - "whats the point? Building yourself a beautiful box with no entrance". Whether you're preening yourself in a mirror or fully accepting how you look in it, there no escaping your own body. Where that was used for drama in Mothers' "Beauty Routine", here it's delivered as a soothing admission.

 "Figure & I" is perhaps the most succinct Leschper's been with her words. "Figure and I, it's not always hard to find time to be alive" are the track's lyrics and she delivers them in different inflections, with clapping and vibraphone providing percussion. It's brief, it's vague, but transfixing - there's no answers to the question the lyrics raise - even as Lescpher, with the aid of Sammy Weissberg and Garrett Blake craft a multi-layered dream-pop tapestry.

"Something Like An Exit" and "Figure & I" are out now.

Listen: Son Step - "New Ears"

photo by Gab Bonghi

When I was introduced to Philly based experimental pop outfit Son Step, I was taken by the rush of sound Jon Coyle and Joel Sephy Gleiser could create. I had first seen them live as a duo in a period of transition but you absolutely couldn't tell. Armed with a series of synthesizers and their interwoven vocals, they filled the room but their sound was also distinct - kaleidoscopic layers and life-affirming lyricism, Son Step effortlessly craft fantastical reveries that transport and uplift. Now, two years after the release of their brilliant album Fossilillies, return once more with New Ears. Enlisting Ben Sloane in place of long time percussionist Matt Scarano and written by guitarist Chris Coyle, "New Ears" the eponymous track from their upcoming EP, is a gentle lilting lullaby that explores a softer, more mellifluous style of their vibrant, percussion laden dream pop. Articulated through Jon Coyle and Gleiser's vocals, Chris Coyle lyrics channels Son Step's characteristic exuberance towards a sense of familiarity and comfort that both acknowledges a sort of futility in trading in definites and relief in knowing that things change. "Step into my garden, it's bare but it has started, hey I'm growing now" Coyle and Gleiser assure and reassure. Maybe it's the strip backed arrangement, while still engaging in some intriguing textural layering that's soothing enough to quiet the most racing thoughts. 

Listen to "New Ears" from Son Step's forthcoming EP of the same name out October 8th.

 

Listen: Nat Baldwin - "All We Want Is Everything"

photo by Elisabeth Fuschia

 

While most people are probably familiar with Portland, Maine based singer/songwriter Nat Baldwin as a member of Dirty Projectors, it actually wasn't until I had heard "Weights" and sought out his album People Changes that I realized that was the case. And in actually, it was Lands & Peoples and the fact that they had played a show with Baldwin that brought him to my attention. And through the years, Nat Baldwin has continued to deliver after that initial surprise. Though he's released more traditional singer/songwriter records, Baldwin is also a gifted improviser and last year he released a trilogy of records entitled Autonomia wherein he explores more experimental forms of music making. And as if that wasn't enough for Baldwin, this year he announced the release of another collection of songs in the form of the Common Currents EP. 

Nearly eight years after In The Hollows, Baldwin's last songwriting effort, "All We Want Is Everything", the album opener and opening track arrives with something to say as Baldwin transmutes his politics into song. Despite the solitude of recording solo bass in the empty Apohadion Theater in Portland, there is a warmth in Baldwin's delivery that manages to subsume the sparseness of its creation. As Baldwin sings of communal action transforming the present, his mellifluous vocals coax visions of bright futures and slain masters. It's equal parts abstract work-song and protest music: a call to action to both envision the future of your dreams and mold it into being. While not everyone has Baldwin's vocal prowess, it's easily a song you can hum or whistle as you go door to door informing neighbors of the latest propositions in your local elections and I can envision Baldwin doing just that. 

Nat Baldwin's tenth solo album Common Currents is out July 9th on Dear Life Records, you can pre-order the record now. 

Listen: Wednesday - "Handsome Man"

 

Last year Asheville rockers Wednesday had the exceptionally good fortune to release their brilliant album I Was Trying to Describe You to Someone right before the pandemic hit and everything closed down. While they weren't totally immune to the devastating effects of the pandemic on their album release cycle (in this case, they couldn't really tour behind it), it at the very least was an album that got to be released into the world when people had more time to sit and reflect. 

"Handsome Man", the first single from Wednesday's forthcoming album Twin Plagues, might not arrive as hot on the heels of their sophomore record as you'd expect - instead following a record Karly Hartzmann  and bandmate and longtime collaborator MJ Lenderman released earlier this year but it arrives like no time has been lost - echoing a similar sense of immediacy that made album standout "Fate Is..." an instant favorite. Hartzmann's anecdotal narrative style returns with a bit of a twist - Hartzmann's delivery revels a bit more in delayed gratification, allowing her lyrics to conjure up visuals before providing you with the easier associations. The pauses aren't long enough to draw too much attention to them but with enough space to function as a kind of word association. Hartzmann's deceptively descriptive - providing just the right amount of detail that you can effortlessly imagine the scenes she recalls but very much providing you with secondhand experience of the accounts. They're stories you're hearing while still remaining very much her own.  There's no why's or how's in Hartzmann's storytelling style but she's still beguilingly engaging. "Handsome Man" clocks in at just under two and a half minutes and there's certainly no time wasted as Hartzmann effortlessly conjures up a handful of various mental pictures and leaves you with the slightest hint of an existentialism: "Where do we go when the glow goes home" she ponders before immediately giving you something more tangible to latch on to and experience. 

While "Handsome Man" might be a considerably short song, Hartzmann has already proved that not only can she can create emotionally resonant pieces in the space of these songs but that's she's fully capable of writing longer songs which just as much impact. I Was Trying to Describe You to Someone was an incredibly strong effort and "Handsome Man" gives every indication that Hartzmann and Wednesday have plenty more where that came from and I couldn't be more excited. 

 

Twin Plagues, the third album from Wednesday is out August 13th on Orindal Records. The record is available limited edition Tiffany Blue, standard black vinyl, lime green cassette, and of course digitally. You can pre-order the record now.

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.

Listen: Sur Back - "Nostalgia in Motion"

After the release of her follow up to her debut EP Kitsch last year, the appropriately titled Kitsch II, singer/songwriter Caroline Sans notably marked almost half a decade of intensive creative labor with a surprising amount to show of it. Several of the EPs songs had existed for several years since the very formation of her project Sur Back, surviving delays, setbacks and reworkings, and though Sans has been offering work at somewhat more consistent speed than before, hers is delicate work that benefits from the passage of time.

Like much of Sans' oevre, "Nostalgia In Motion" has been a work in progress several years in the making, meticulously thought artfully sculpted over a period of about three years while Sans was still based in Florida. From its fluttering start, "Nostalgia In Motion" is bright and expansive with elements of Sur Back's darker baroque pop turns - enriching it into a multifaceted piece of layered electronic pop.

With "Nostalgia In Motion", Sans continues her winning streak, crafting a song of arresting beauty that conveys meaning less through lyrical content and more through its production. Sans vocals are as richly colored as her brass riffs, her stutter-stop drums. "And I keep calling you back to show I'm not your nostalgia in motion" Sans coos and though the lyrics read as a sort of kiss off, Sans delivers them with a gentle caress, like sun steaming into a bedroom window. It's not meant to be a harsh wake up, but a soft rousing to exist in the present.

The lyrics all seem to build to this titular moment, the production following suit, and it's evident the idea means a lot to Sans; of not merely functioning as a walking, talking embodiment of good times past but wanting to be an active participant in life for better or worse. To weather whatever storms live may bring despite uncertain or a lack of control. "I can't hold on like I'm used to" Sans sings with an aching tenderness before "I'm not your nostalgia" hits like an ocean wave.

Sur Back's new single "Nostalgia in Motion" is out now. Sans is playing a single release show with Den-Mate, NOIEA, and Rare DM at Alphaville in Brooklyn on July 18th. Tickets and details available here.

Listen: Harry Burgess - "Disarm"

One of the pitfalls of creating such a cerebral, fully realized project as art pop quartet Adult Jazz is the fact that there's a lot of time and energy put into seemingly every aspect of creating. Since the release of their debut album Gist Is in 2014, Adult Jazz has spent a lot of time facilitating not only their own creations but those of the constellation of their collaborators. They've subsequently released a follow up EP Earrings Off!, two years after their full length debut and while their next release seems to be forthcoming, they've eased the wait by engaging with other projects.

Most recently, Harry Burgess, Adult Jazz's frontman and member of experimental electronic duo Offer, played a solo set late last year, recorded it, and is releasing the results as Live Scraps/Fall of Troy, a cassette release bundled with an essay Burgess wrote about the death of his family dog who inspired the Adult Jazz track "Bonedigger". Unlike Adult Jazz's meticulously layered production or Offer's digital pyrotechnics, Live Scraps offers Burgess in an oft seen light: bare bones and simply offered. One of my favorite qualities of his growing number of projects has always been Harry Burgess' voice so it is essentially a treat to get to witness it this way, unadorned and unmanipulated.

But even as Burgess peels back the layers, his experimentalism still shines though. "Disarm", the first taste of his three song release, might just be Burgess' voice and guitar but it's not your standard fare. Burgess approaches his playing from a place of minimalism, focusing on repetitive two note chords and weaving vocal melodies around the sparse accompaniment. It's a transfixing work of art, utterly engaging in its simplicity and a testament to the strength of Burgess' vocal prowess.

Live Scraps/Fall of Troy is out July 12th on London based label Don't Delay. You can pre-order the digital album or the cassette/essay bundle now.

Listen: Wilder Maker - "Love So Well"

Photo by Annie Del Hierro

Though Brooklyn based indie rockers Wilder Maker released their album Zion last year, ahead of a tour they're releasing a couple holdover tracks from their Zion sessions.

With rambling love song "Love So Well", it's not hard to see why the band held it back. Zion was one of those marvelous albums that managed to create narratives out of the band's New York City experience - and "Love So Well" is a decided break from the fivesome's attempts to navigate city life both real and imagined in favor of the open road. It's beguilingly tender even as it's essentially about that epiphanic moment right before you break up with someone. For Wilder Maker, that moment just so happens to coincide with life on the road. Hardly surprising considering hours behinds the wheel or as a passenger are bound to lead to some introspection. And yet, the most surprising thing about "Love So Well" is how gentle and loving it all is. "I love so well when I am leaving" Katie von Schleicher sings as the song opens but the various ways that a lover's face or laugh are recalled is positively drenched in love.
Wilder Maker are masters of subverted expectactions and their epiphany is lovelorn but resolute and layered in its spectrum of emotion. They may be steadfast in their decision to break uo but that doesn't mean they're not effected by it or seek to strip the love out of it. Wilder Maker toe the line exceptionally well and embrace the complicatedness of the emotion experience with a deft hand and an impressive softness.

"Love So Well" and b-side"Rose Room" are out now. Make sure to catch Wilder Maker out on tour. 

Listen: Toebow - "Bed In Breakfast"

Photo by Dave Herr

Last year the release of their debut Spirit Mane EP saw Brooklyn based quintet Toebow offering their self described brand of "cartoon rock" to more than those lucky enough to see them play one of their spirited live shows in their adopted hometown and now almost a year later the band are releasing their debut full length album Themes.

Since my discovery of them through word of mouth, their from-the-ashes association with the Vermont psych pop collective BOBBY, and as many live shows as I could possibly manage in the year between their EP and eventual album release, I have come to know Toebow as an incredibly reliable band with a unique vision. Part of the fuel for that lies in their collaborative nature and ability to follow almost every musical idea that comes their way to some sort of conclusion. This method of collaborative composition has led to guitarists and vocalists Martin Zimmermann and Nate Ulsh joking referring to themselves as an idea band.

Though she has since moved on, both to form her own project Uni Ika Ai as well as becoming a member of The Dirty Projectors, Maia Friedman is featured the first single as well as elsewhere on Themes. Considering how heavily group harmonies and intricate instrumental interplay factor into the band's core dynamic, "Bed In Breakfast" is a bit of a curveball; a mellow sunrise greeting number. Yawny and languid without remaining utterly static.

While "Bed In Breakfast" is a bit surprising in its restrained energy, some of the elements I've come to know from the band's live set are present: the harmonies, the vocal hand-offs, and the springy twang of Zimmermann's guitar occur in the subtler slow jam.

"Bed In Breakfast" much like the songs on Spirit Mane exists in a world of the band's own creation. The lyrics are presented without much exposition or extrapolation. With songs like "Starfucker" or "I'll Be Gone", Toebow is building its own mythology and the references don't receive much in the way of explanation. To Toebow's credit, they don't really need them. Much of Toebow's brand of playful, vibrant colored psych rock is about capturing a particular mood than narrative fortrightness and "Bed In Breakfast", with its bedhead lethargy feels like a downright lucid dream.

Toebow's debut full length Themes is out May 24th on Imaginator Records. You can pre-order it now.