Oh my goodness. Ocala Wick is an intimate insight into love and the city. Emma does such an amazing job telling stories and crafting sounds– polished bedroom pop for bedridden romantics
Gobbinjr is among an elite group of pop songwriters, the type that create songs that wiggle their way into your head, forever and unshakably engrained there for the rest of time. While Emma Witmer’s songs often revolve around anxiety, falling apart, and everyday tragedies, their music is always radiant and clever. Their new album Ocala Wick came out on Topshelf Records, in all its hooky glory. It’s somber yet uplifting, infectious and well-constructed… and dammit, these songs are all on a scale of incredible to flat out amazing. It’s the most fun you’re ever going to have from what is essentially a set of sad songs.
There’s also been something just a bit more snide about noise rock in the UK that has spoken to my sensibilities. In an era where it seems many are content to pull from the Mclusky playbook (and aspects of The Fall’s impeccable catalog), there’s a new crop of bands making artistic weirdness and spewing their own venomous political sarcasm. Enter LICE, the first band signed to Idles’ record label, Balley Records, a band that incorporate a sinister twang into their unhinged freaked out cowboy punk. The band released two companion EPs, It All Worked Out Great Vol. 1 and 2, both scratchy and scathing, taking a bluesy saunter and dementing it into their own slurred punk chaos. It’s brash, noisy, and full of that maniac charm Falco perfected so many years ago. The next generation is arriving, and LICE is one of the better starting points.
Band Members
Alastair – Incoherent ranting
Silas – Legend
Gareth – Likes to play bass topless on his knees, eyes closed, sweat tenderly dripping off his forehead and nestling amongst the moist bristles of his moustache, his long curls delicately poised upon his shoulder blades. As the song finishes he opens his eyes and sends a gentle wink your way. Wow, what a man.
Bruce – Eye-Candy & purveyor of double kick pedals
Los Angeles‘ Momma is the project of two life-long friends, navigating their way through high school (yep, they are that young) in exceptionally surreal vignettes on their debut album, Interloper. Songs like “Caterpillar” take a sparse melody and use it to imagine life as a confident bug with no vertebrae, while the relatively grungy warble of “Belong On The Bed” is built on self empowerment and washing machine metaphors. The entire album highlights the duo’s songwriting with bare compositions that rip just a little too much to call bedroom pop, and for that we’re thankful. Their songs are full of harmony (“Sidewalk”), bent pop (“Pipe Thing”), and dreamy indie rock (“Work”), making Interloper a truly impressive debut from a young band we hope to be hearing about for years to come.
It makes all the sense in the world that Gregory Alan Isakov owns and tends a farm on Boulder, Colorado’s outskirts when he’s not touring. He’s a man who appreciates the peace of mind one finds only in nature; “Nature is a reference point for sanity, I draw a lot from it, just like every other living thing,” he mentioned in an interview back in 2016. You get the sense of his ideology listening Evening Machines, his latest album, a piece of work written in the language of the natural world. Isakov strikes as too humble to claim fluency in that language, but he’s well versed enough. Environmental imagery peppers the album, from the earth beneath us all the way up to the galaxy. “Those bright crooked stars, man they’re howlin’ out,” he muses on the record’s closing track, “Wings in All Black.”
The sky is a recurring image throughout Evening Machines, as seen in the title of “Wings in All Black,” the lyrics of “Caves” (“I used to love caves / Stumble out into that pink sky”), or the lyrics of “Dark, Dark, Dark,” where he sings about Maria, who’s “got wings, she’s got legs for the sea.” Maybe Isakov has destinations in mind other than the open plain; maybe he’s a drifter, or a bit of a loner. The album cover hints at the truth, depicting Isakov keeping vigil among fields of grass, staring ahead at a gathering storm, but even so he remains an elusive, almost capricious figure. He likes his quiet, and he’s clearly prone to reflection, but in Evening Machines he finds himself at home, contemplating his past and present in modest spirit. It’s an album of small intentions with a grand sweep, intimate and boundless at the same time.
Courtney Barnett started Milk! Records in 2012 to release her first EP I’ve Got A Friend Called Emily Ferris. Soon aftercame the second EP How To Carve A Carrot Into A Rose. She took her band overseas with a condensed back catalogue called The Double EP: A Sea Of Split Peas. In 2015 Barnett released album Sometimes I Sit And Think, And Sometimes I Just Sit to worldwide critical acclaim.
“Small Talk,” is an outtake from Courtney Barnett’s 2018 album Tell Me How You Really Feel sounds a lot like most songs on the LP: an expansive, vamp-based affair with sunny choruses. Barnett’s hook-writing has only gotten sharper as time goes on. Where her early work would have been satisfied to let the interlocking organ/bass line groove ride for the entire runtime, here she injects an immediately felt, warmly rendered chorus of group singalongs. Her lyrics are, as always, sharp as a tack.
She takes the title seriously, regaling us with the shaggiest of shaggy-dog stories about whatever seems to float into her mind. “I’ve got a brother, Blake / he’s four years older than me / and I guess he always will be,” she sings, somehow managing to be both hilarious and weirdly philosophical. If she never got into business as a musician, Barnett could roundly kick all of our asses at this writing thing.
‘Charity’ is taken from Courtney Barnett’s album ‘Tell Me How You Really Feel’
Black Dresses is the collaborative effort of the artists known as Dei Genetrix (formerly Girls Rituals) and Rook, and we named their debut album Waste Isolation one of the best albums of 2018 so far. Not long after that, BlackDresses put out the Hell Is Real EP. The duo’s noisy dark-pop is as ferocious as it is fun, even when they’re singing about traumatic experiences. Catharsis is this band’s driving force; if you don’t have anything to scream about, they’ll give you something to scream about.
This is like lesbian Death Grips…. On second thought, these women make Death Grips look like Bryan Adams. Synths that can abrade away cities and lyrics that will send violent shivers down everyone’s spines. It’s painfully honest, horrifically brutal, and definitely one of the best things I heard this year!
Iowa’sGiving Up (with members in both Minnesota and Kentucky) like to play it loose. It’s kind of their gift. On the band’s sophomore album, Garner Cardinals, the band’s ramshackle punk is, intentionally, coming apart at the seems, and it’s exactly what makes them a great band. Developing their sound over the past decade, it’s tightly wound slop-perfection, an intimate look into trash-pop that wriggles with a twitchy disposition and enough charm to choke us all. It’s not always pleasant, but it’s essential for flavor. The more you listen, the better it gets. Led by Mikie Poland and Jenny Rose, the band’s harmonies tighten around simple progressions, expanding what often seems askew into something poetic
It’s strange to believe that Giving Up’s latest and greatest effort Garner Cardinals is only their third official full-length since forming over a decade ago in the unfinished basement bedrooms of rural Iowa. For a band that’s toured no less than semi-actively around the calendar and self-released no fewer than too-many-to-count cassette and CD-R transmissions throughout the course of some Bush Deuce, double Obamas, and whatever the fuck is happening now…one would be misled in thinking the scarcity of their studio output would imply any lack in overall drive.
Like their label co-conspirators and spiritual siblings State Champion, Giving Up is a geographically challenged unit. With membership ranging from Minnesota to Kentucky plus a couple places in between, a bulk of the creative grunt is handled by head songwriter / visual artist Mikie Poland and his key collaborator / key boarder Jenny Rose (w/ additional contributions by Sean Roth, Aaron Osbourne, Dusty Van Ness) – trading ideas over the years by phone, mail, smoke signal, psychic will, home recordings, home visits and the like.
But very much un-like their earlier outings in the LP format – the charming yet head-scratchingly produced debut Gthrowing Up (2009) and better but nearly aborted follow-up [peace sign / frown face] (2012), both cursed with more coincidental oddities and studio mishaps than a tragi-comedy classic rock mockumentary – Garner Cardinals is a statement made on the band’s own desired terms. Engineered by their touring drummer Dusty Van Ness in the comfort of his Minneapolis home, the record is a best-of-both whirlwind delivering DIY bedroom grunge aesthetics with a self-puffed studio sheen. Serving not only as a natural stepping stone from the dumpster-fi fog of a Jad Fair-fronted Screeching Weasel tape boiled to perfection in a roadside hotel tub exhibited on recent tour trinkets, but also as a “coming of age” mark for Poland’s idiosyncratic song-kraft.
From the album opener “My Body” a gate-blast of jangled energy lighting the stage for skeptically optimistic dandelion punk to follow – through the motoric schoolyard kraut-pop of “April Showers” to the memorably off-kilter closer “People’s Records,” rounding out the album in a sizzling glory of rambling narrative poetics, the band’s bar is undoubtedly raised over the course of these ten tracks. And if you ask me, we’re all better for it.
Garner Cardinals is both littered with and colored by images of Giving Up’s own little America – an unknowingly large yet strangely intimate midwestern wasteland layered with spray-painted alters, misoriented gravestones, natural beauty, body dysmorphia, hamburger sunsets, small-town bad news, battery-operated memories, haunted mansions, shameless fantasies, forever-friendships, and an ultimate sacrifice of going deaf for what they love. By the time we’re flipping it over for a second listen, the Cardinals‘ song is already wormed deeply into our ears en route to our skeptically optimistic dandelion hearts, if not a larger collective midwestern sub-conscious awaiting. Rural Iowan rock music in the almost-2020s. What the fuck could it even sound like? Is it good? Well, I’ll tell you. It’s a familiar song – catchy, sweet, abstract, loud…”pretty bird, pretty bird…”
Christina Schneider returns with a new album and yet another new moniker as Locate S,1, the latest iteration of her perfect avant-pop constructions. Healing Contest‘s discordant washes of guitar and fuzzy production hint at psych and surf pop, blurring the two with Schneider’s jubilant rhythmic funk, forming new shapes and patterns. Recorded with Of Montreal’s Kevin Barnes, Healing Contest is one of Schneider’s most hi-fi records, adding a layer of glistening sheen to her infectious vocal melodies as they pop from the many layers of good vibes. Dance along with the record, you just may have a great time.
Christina Schneider is back with a futuristic palette of electronic drums, funky bass lines, and quietly hyperactive chord progressions that are sure to impress even the most learned musical millennial. Locate S,1 is the result of a seasoned songwriter cum lo-fi home-recorder delving into the world of mid-fi pop, with results that are pleasantly difficult to define. U.S. Maple / Dead Rider’s Todd Rittman could only describe her songs as having “too many chords to be pop, too catchy to be anything else.” Behind Christina’s deceptively soft vocals, Schneider’s lyrics seem to always circle back to an examination of the disparity between her own will and what people expect of her ultimately unveiling a hidden well of self-confidence and power. As the final track puts it, “it’s better if they don’t believe in you / then you can show them what you can do.” Be warned, Schneider and her band can do a lot: in fact, Locate S,1 is a technical tour-de-force that extrapolates high-brow jazz harmonics and prog-rock time signatures into a whole menagerie of new forms—all while still passing as pop. During a tour together last autumn, Deerhoof’s John Dieterich wrote, “Such incredible musicians, and the songs are these perfectly constructed little jewels that feel like they’ve been around for thousands of years.” (Tidal) Recorded in Athens, GA with the production and accessory input of Kevin Barnes (Of Montreal), plus a wrecking crew of some of the Georgia’s most practiced, each song on Locate S,1 really is a gem, layered with facet after facet of shimmering ear candy. A polished statement from a songwriter who is truly in a class of her own.
Having spent the past five years releasing increasingly great albums, perfecting their vision of tattered indie rock with sharp stabs of post-punk, psych, twangy hardcore, and their own unique go at jangly art pop, Over Everything, is a sweeping collision of opposing forces, a menacing blend of explosive dynamics and infectious melodies. Opening with the blur of “On Dogs,” the picture slowly comes into focus, disorienting your senses before exploding into a sugary sweet melody on top of increasingly shaky ground. Superteenprove once again to expect the unexpected. There’s a disarming sense of calm when their songs are slow to unravel, but they do so with a majestic fury. Stinging guitars and stuttering polyrhythms crash around the doubled vocals of Sam Robinson and Meryl Schultz, their voices working together in ragged harmony and spastic abandon. From there, the carnage ensues, a sound that Superteen do better than most – like a tornado running through a small town and everyone just shouting rather than taking cover.
This is without question the best Superteen record so far. Each of their previous releases have been at least partial departures from the sound of the last one. “Over Everything” feels like an amalgamation of all of the best moments on prior releases, and yet is wholly unique and full of surprises. I seriously cannot recommend this album (and band) enough.
Superteen is:
Patrick Dunning – Bass
Chris Faria – Percussion
Jackson Martel – Guitar
Sam Robinson – Vocals
Meryl Schultz – Vocals
Additional vocals in Leaks and Sweet Tooth Part Two provided by Henry Maclean and Tyler Zizzo
Additional vocals in On Dogs and Tasteless Universe provided by Katie Dube
Additional guitar in Peace Line provided by Cory Best
Methyl Ethel share ‘Scream Whole’; the first new music from the Perth act since their second record Everything Is Forgotten was released in March 2017.
Premiered yesterday on Australia radio station triple j’s Drive with Veronica & Lewis show, ‘Scream Whole’ is a nimble art-rock cut which Jake Webb describes as, “That cold sweat. That swollen throat. That sick feeling bubbling up from your guts. When midday moves dredge suppressed memories that scream for closure. What to do?”
The video was premiered via Consequence Of Sound – ““What’s the point/ Undo, undo again,” Webb wails against crystalline synths that electrify the senses and, upon disappearing, conjure a sense of chilly, awestruck isolation. Each word feels careful and deliberate, emerging with a concentrated effort from Webb’s mouth, which, fittingly, serves as the centerpiece of “Scream Whole‘s accompanying video. By the time the song descends into its woozy, drunken bridge, it’s stained in dirt and restrained with rope.”
Methyl Ethel is the musical project of Jake Webb with a five-piece live band that includes Thom Stewart, Chris Wright, Lyndon Blue and Jacob Diamond. Methyl Ethel has enjoyed phenomenal success in its native Australia in recent years. ‘Ubu’ along with fellow Everything Is Forgotten single ‘Drink Wine’. Methyl Ethel also won in the Best Album and Best Pop Act categories in 2017
‘Scream Whole’ is the new single from Methyl Ethel. Out now on 4AD Records:
