ALTER.NATION #42
Gauche, Black Midi, Psychedelic Porn Crumpets, Dungen, Mattiel, Dressy Bessy, Julia Shapiro, Los Coast, B Boys, The Hold Steady, Daughter Of Swords, Noël Wells
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Gauche - Flash
We’re a little less than a month out from the release of Gauche’s debut album, A People’s History Of Gauche...they’re sharing another one, “Flash,” the album’s opening track and its longest, a jam about reflections and refractions. “A flash collapses the depth of field/ A flash collapses all that we feel,” goes the hook. Daniele Yandel about the track:
"The flash of a camera flattens a scene. It makes the colors pop, but it also makes reality 2D. To see true depth, you have to wait for your eyes to adjust to the darkness. You can’t cheat time. That’s what a flash is: a way of cheating time and vision, and like all attempts to cheat, it cheapens the experience. It distorts the depth and detail of the scene captured. To truly take it in, you have to wade into the darkness and wait. Slowly, the scene lightens of its own accord, and the shadows appear. Shadows reveal truth. Shadows are how you see when you’re really in it..."
Black Midi - Talking Heads
Things seem to be changing for Black Midi. The UK band generated a whole lot of buzz in spite of but also partly because of having so little music available; word of mouth drove their rise, spreading news of their incendiary and shape-shifting live shows. Naturally, that kind of thing probably has to remain a specific chapter in a band’s career if they’re going anywhere, and Black Midi definitely seem to be going someplace... they’re back with another new track called “Talking Heads.”... “Talking Heads” opens with the kind of perfectly tense rhythm that openly nods to Black Midi’s forebears: constricted but hyperactive drums and bright, sputtering guitars. But if anything is clear about Black Midi so far, it’s that you never know exactly where their songs might venture. “Talking Heads” soon departs from whatever template it seemed to exist within, becoming looser and buggier as it continues, Greep going into that wide-eyed yelp mode as the instrumentation intensifies along the way...
Psychedelic Porn Crumpets - Native Tongue from And Now for the Whatchamacallit
Go ahead and read that name… Psychedelic Porn Crumpets. Respond as needed, then set it to the side for about 33 minutes. Do likewise with And Now for the Whatchamacallit, a blandly ambiguous title likely stemming from some inside joke shared by its four creators. Behind this veil of overt psych nuttiness lies a rather impressive album made with plenty of craft and attention to detail. On their first two releases, the Australian combo developed a riffy 21st century take on guitar-based psych rock, filtering the progressive elements of forebears like Pink Floyd and Soft Machine through more contemporary heroes like Tame Impala and adding a dose of garage grit... and the labyrinthine layers of "Native Tongue" also offer plenty in terms of their musicality...
Dungen - Var Har Du Varit from Self-Discovery for Social Survival
Self-Discovery for Social Survival is a documentary film in three parts, following 16 surfers in three very different countries. Exploring hazy adventures in surfing cultures in Mexico, the remote Maldives Islands, and Iceland, the film's soundtrack is an integral part of the package, as the musicians worked closely with the producers of the documentary to create original music that not only scored the visual elements but acted as an emotional counterpart to the experiences of the surfers. For this project, the bands and artists were handpicked for their place in the somewhat psychedelic nature of surf culture and philosophy... Swedish acid rock powerhouse Dungen..
Mattiel - Je Ne Me Connais Pas from Satis Factory
The second album by Atlanta-based retro-contemporary singer Mattiel (Mattiel Brown), Satis Factory returns collaborators Randy Michael and Jonah Swilley from her 2017 self-titled debut. The pair are not trivial contributors to her work to this point; while Mattiel writes the lyrics and melodies for her songs, between them, Michael and Swilley have written, recorded, produced, mixed, and played multiple instruments for her releases. It's a symbiotic arrangement that began when they met in 2014 and bonded over similar tastes in music. Satis Factory delves into a further-expanded stylistic selection, representing not only the debut's blues-rock-injected '60s garage and R&B inspirations, but interests spanning proto-punk and classic Nashville country-pop... She extends her melodic range on the yelping, delay-spattered "Je Ne Me Connais Pas," a track highlighted by a cracker-jack retro garage rock guitar solo by Randy Michael...
Dressy Bessy - Mon Chéri from Fast Faster Disaster
Over the years, indie fixture Dressy Bessy's records moved from fun and fizzy pop into scrappier, attitude-heavy sounds. As early as 2005's Electrified, bandleader Tammy Ealom began injecting her good-natured melodies with a more sinister, punky flavor. From there the band just continued to turn up the volume. Fast Faster Disaster marks not just the Denver group's seventh studio album, but 20 years since their 1999 debut... heartfelt pleading on the low-lit slide-guitar slowdown "Mon Cheri"...
Julia Shapiro - Harder To Do from Perfect Version
Julia Shapiro has firmly established herself as Seattle's leading oracle of witty feminist snark through her work with Chastity Belt and Childbirth, two bands whose songs about women's lives in contemporary America are both perceptive and hilarious. But Shapiro suggested there were other sides to her musical personality on Chastity Belt's 2017 release I Used to Spend So Much Time Alone, where her songwriting became more personal and introspective, and she bravely wades deep into these waters on her first solo album, 2019's Perfect Version... The punky buzz of Shapiro's earlier work is pushed to the margins, and instead she summons clouds of languid guitar tones, suggesting a more intimate variation on shoegaze, alongside minimal bass and drum patterns, though she switches to a massive, roaring guitar tone for "Harder to Do." (Shapiro also handled all the instruments and vocals on Perfect Version, as well as recording and mixing it mostly by herself.)
Los Coast - Shadow Work from Samsara
The debut long-player from the eclectic Austin-based combo, Samsara delivers a rich and hip-shaking amalgam of pop, soul, R&B, funk, gospel, and psychedelic rock. An assured effort, especially for an inaugural release, the 13-track set bristles with intent, yet plays with its quarry like a bored house cat...
B Boys - Pressure Inside
Brooklyn rockers B Boys released the ridiculously fun Dada back in 2017, following their 2016 debut EP No Worry No Mind. Next month, the band will share their next album, Dudu... “Pressure Inside” boasts the raucous, in-your-face energy of an angsty Parquet Courts cut. Over a tight, jittery guitar, they shout, “I’m always busy in my mind / Can’t think things through / It’s getting harder to breathe.”
The Hold Steady - Denver Haircut
Five years ago, the Hold Steady released Teeth Dreams, their last album. That was the last time they functioned like a regular band. Since then, the great word-spewing Brooklyn rockers have switched things up... Along with the announcement, they’ve shared a new song, the album opener “Denver Haircut.” If you love the Hold Steady, a song like this will sound familiar. It’s a charged-up, inspirational rocker about people living on the edges of society, and it’s got some classic Craig Finn lyrics: “In five hours on the carpet, he visits six different planets / On a spaceship shaped like a Gibson Marauder / The pilot kinda looked like Kirk Hammett.”...
Daughter Of Swords - Fields Of Gold
Daughter Of Swords is the solo project from Alexandra Sauser-Monnig of Mountain Man. Last year, Mountain Man returned with their first album in eight years, titled Magic Ship. Daughter Of Swords is announcing the release her debut album, Dawnbreaker, which was co-produced by Sylvan Esso’s Nick Sanborn. The album is expected next week, and today, we get to hear a new single, “Fields Of Gold.” The track feels instrumentally country, delivered through a folk melody. Twangy guitar plunks get lost in the reverb of shakers and taps. A steely guitar solo grounds the track in a Nashville swing. The ghostly, yet warm layer of additional vocals opens up for a blooming cymbal section on the downbeat of the chorus. It shimmers and shines like a ray of light, a true field of gold if you will.
You may already know actress, comedian, and filmmaker Noël Wells from Saturday Night Live, or Master Of None, or her own movie Mr. Roosevelt. But soon, you might know her for her music too... along with the album announcement, Wells is sharing another new song, “Sad Girl Blues,” a self-aware folk-rocker that gradually builds from its lo-fi intro to a fiery conclusion: “I’ve played this song for the last time/ Wanna take what’s mine.” The song is “an anthem I hope everyone can sing,” Wells says. “At the core it’s a song about a woman divided against herself, trying to reclaim the disowned aspects of her psyche, knowing none of us can do it alone.”
Gauche, Black Midi, Psychedelic Porn Crumpets, Dungen, Mattiel, Dressy Bessy, Julia Shapiro, Los Coast, B Boys, The Hold Steady, Daughter Of Swords, Noël Wells
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