Los Angeles via upstate New York songwriter and guitarist Meg Duffy has been involved in many great indie rock records of the past decade. She has recorded guitar and slide guitar on The War On Drugs’ A Deeper Understanding, William Tyler’s Goes West, Weyes Blood’s Front Row Seat to Earth, and their former touring mate Kevin Morby’s City Music. But with Duffy’s solo vessel Hand Habits, the virtuosic guitarist steps away from the sidelines for their best work yet. On the just-released Placeholder, Duffy’s second album under the moniker, the patiently composed songs are filled with sharp emotional acuity, like on the title track, which looks back on a dissolved relationship, or the intimate and vulnerable
Hand Habits is Meg Duffy’s solo project assisted by a “continuous amoeba” of friends when performing live. She has spent the last few years touring in both Mega Bog and The Kevin Morby Band, and created Hand Habits as an outlet for her own interests and self-exploration. The result is a collection of droney tunes that languidly lumber to their conclusion with Meg’s soft, reassuring voice and sparse, echoing instrumental work.
Band Members
Keven Lareau – Bass
John Andrews – Drums and Backup Vocals
Meg Duffy – Guitar and Vocals
Session Tracklist
1. Flower Glass
2. The Book On How To Change
3. Actress
4. All The While
For nearly ten years Restorations have been writing heavy-hitting, guttural rock with gargantuan riffs filtered through a thick, noisy wall of sound. They fearlessly examine the human condition through the lens of seasoned Philly punks.
Jen Cloher is a master storyteller. Her dissonant, rambling guitar work adds an explosive element to the vivid indie punk ballads she writes. The band’s newest, self-titled release showcases Cloher’s slow-burning, insightful lyrical style and limber song construction.
Band Members
Jen Cloher – Vocals and Guitar
Courtney Barnett – Vocals and Guitar
Andrew ‘Bones’ Sloane – Vocals and Bass
Jen ‘Sholaki’ Sholakis – Vocals and Drums
Omni is an indie post-punk trio who write coarse, angular tunes meant to be jammed at full volume. They embody simplicity at its finest with every tone, riff and beat precisely dialed in to satisfy its specific contribution to the whole.
With Philip Frobos’ partially monotone voice coupled with Frankie Broyles’ skilled, wiry guitar sounds the band create a pit of tension. The sound is hardly ever rounded out, but if you are familiar with Omni, you’re well aware that they aren’t necessarily looking to fall in line with popular music trends. The authenticity of the trio makes the punchy chords and anxiety ridden basslines all the more digestible. Frobos attributes their sound to that of the New Wave genre, and it’s undeniably true, especially up close and in person.
The Spook School is a queer and trans indie pop punk band from Glasgow who seek to inform and uplift others in their community. The quartet’s outspoken music and identities are deeply intertwined, so they use the platform to converse about non-binary sexual identity, harassment, and discrimination with an upbeat, plucky style. The Spook School is a welcome change in the sea of indie rock sameness; the kind of band that challenges convention by blending new lyrical topics with a nostalgic sonic palette.
Darlingside is a Massachusetts-based ensemble gearing up to release their sophomore album Extralife on February 23rd. In this group, there is no lead singer, but a complete blending of all four voices, sharing lyrics that were written as a “group stream of consciousness.” We can feel the collective heart of the group in this song as they reflect on the past, all while so gracefully moving forward.
Camp Cope is an alternative rock band from Melbourne. Lead singer Georgia McDonald’s seasoned, resilient vocal tone relays stories of regret, shame and embarrassment with deadpan humor and acute self awareness. Her deep natural twang adds a tier of passion to the simplest lines making Camp Cope the perfect companion for self-expression on even your worst days.
The debut LP from Boston indie rock band Palehound is inspired by leader Ellen Kempner’s breakup. But like her former camp counselor and roommate, Speedy Ortiz’s Sadie Dupuis, Kempner never lets a sad jam wallow. Her songs are full of odd little about-turns that elevate Dry Food above the usual plainspoken acoustic indie fare.
On 2013’s Bent Nail EP, Palehound’s Ellen Kempner sang about taking a carrot for a pet in order to stave off late-teen loneliness. She makes similarly childlike gestures on her debut album. “You made beauty a monster to me, so I’m kissing all the ugly things I see,” she seethes at an ex in a so there voice on Dry Food’s title track. It’s the most deliciously futile form of revenge and reclamation: doing the opposite.
Dry Food is partially a product of the 21-year-old Boston-dwelling songwriter’s first big breakup—the deeper kind of solitude of having known and lost someone. Its sound captures the Herculean efforts required to survive the ensuing slump: “All I need’s a little sleep and I’ll be good to clean and eat,” she sings in a medicated sigh on “Easy”, her acoustic guitar rising and dipping with the methodical pace of someone trying to make a new routine stick. But like her former camp counselor and roomate Speedy Ortiz’s Sadie Dupuis, Kempner never lets a sad jam wallow: she kicks the end of the song into shape with a zippy electric guitar motif and some awkward, itchy squall.
It’s followed by “Cinnamon”, which takes the opposite tack, hooked around the kind of amiable, waterlogged psych burble that Mac DeMarco noodles in his sleep. Kempner sings dreamily about her worst self-defeating impulses, but is stirred from her reverie by a divine revelation that her life is becoming “a pretty lie”. Frantic drums force the song somewhere agitated and ascendant, but instead of bursting into some bright new phrase, the furor falls away like a captivating slo-mo bellyflop.
Kempner has a knack for these odd little about-turns that elevate Dry Food above the usual plainspoken acoustic indie fare. And like her old roommate, she often obscures her intentions between appealingly twisty language. “Mouth ajar watching cuties hit the half pipe/ I only feel half ripe/ Around healthier folk,” she sings on “Healthier Folk”. She distils her disgust at her own post-breakup malaise with perfectly understated images: “The hair that’s in my shower drain/ Has been clogging up my home,” she sings on “Dixie”. “And I try to scoop it up, but I wretch until I’m stuck.” It’s maybe the most straightforward song here, just fingerpicked acoustic guitar, but she messes at it like a cat dragging a mouse into a dark nook.
Saddest of all is closer “Seakonk”, where Kempner protests that she’s not alone, actually; she’s home watching TV with her parents, sister and their dogs. There’s a blithe fairground pirate ship sway to the song, which she closes with a jaunty “doo doo doo” that could have come from the credits of one of the cartoons she’s watching—only she lets the final note deflate with a groan. It’s at this point that Dry Food confronts the point it’s been evading: kidding yourself is no way to recover, and comfort offers little impetus to move on. Palehound’s discomfiting, unflinching debut suggests she knew it all along.
This Audiotree Live session we recorded on 6/27/16 in Chicago, IL Full session video and audio can be purchased on itunes or bandcamp and streamed on spotify . I believe this to the most accurate portrayal of what our band does, currently. There’s a part where we discuss the concept of “weird” and whatever that is. It’s just a level of freedom achieved by being yourself and not caring if people like or dislike that, that’s pretty much the only thing I would encourage people to do and something I’m learning myself. Do it, as long as it is constructive and doesn’t harm another (unless it’s constructive). The “world” aka “america” is fucking psychotic, it isn’t real, make your own world and revel in it everyday then share it, let other people come in and say “what’s up? i like what you’ve done with the place.” Then pretty soon you are the president of your own universe that will go relatively untouched outside of the small things that keep you functioning in society. The whole world is inside you not the other way around. Anyway, thank you, keep on crushing it.
Ron Gallo performs on Audiotree Live, June 27th, 2016.
The Fat Angel Sings 