ALTER.NATION #47
Rosalie Cunningham, Sleep Party People, Violent Femmes feat.: Tom Verlaine, Mini Mansions feat.: Alison Mosshart, Spoon, B Boys, Rebecca Pidgeon, High Sunn, The Chats, De Lorians, Lisel
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"A Yarn from the Wheel"
ALTER.NATION #47 on DEEZER
Rosalie Cunningham - A Yarn from the Wheel from Rosalie Cunningham
The eponymous debut solo outing from the spell-casting English singer/songwriter and multi-instrumentalist Rosalie Cunningham dials back on some of the stoner rock aspects of her work with the now-defunct Purson, in favor of an approach that owes as much to early, prog-minded Queen as it does exploitation films and biker metal... Cunningham goes all-in on the nearly 14-minute closer "Yarn from the Wheel, a fantastical epic that's both a master class in psych-rock world building and a melodic showstopper.
Sleep Party People - The Mind Still Travels from Lingering Pt. II
Copenhagen musician Brian Batz put in time as a bandmember on the city's indie scene before developing a warped, alluring sound all his own. With more intimate lyrics in hand, Sleep Party People was born of simple experiments with his voice and an old piano in his apartment. By electronically altering his voice and eventually adding other acoustic and electronic instruments, he arrived at a hypnotic, spectral sound... After adding string voices and atmospheric synths and effects, it's contrasted by the driving drums and post-punk of "The Mind Still Travels," whose sweetly wistful melody still adheres to the album's persistent melancholia... "Lost in dreams containing a better life."
Famed for his trailblazing work as the singer and guitarist for the seminal New York punk band Television, Tom Verlaine also carved out an acclaimed and eclectic solo career
Violent Femmes feat.: Tom Verlaine - Hotel Last Resort from Hotel Last Resort
Alternative rock institution the Violent Femmes soldiered through the years as one of the more consistent bands of their genre. Their sound shifted from record to record, but the sharp and cynical folk-punk that put them on the map in the early '80s remained at the core of even their most slickly produced work. Tenth studio album Hotel Last Resort continues with aspects of their signature sound but also expands on it subtly... Things branch out into different territory on the surreal and moody title track. The song weaves a mysterious counterpoint between Gano's psychedelic lyrics and guest lead guitar work from Television's Tom Verlaine...
Mini Mansions feat.: Alison Mosshart - Hey Lover from Guy Walks into a Bar...
Mini Mansions hinted they were getting more serious -- or, at least, more confessional -- with the title track of their 2018 EP Works Every Time. As it turns out, that was just a glimpse of the musical and emotional territory they cover on Guy Walks into a Bar…. The band's third album presents singer/multi-instrumentalist Michael Shuman's ill-fated, whirlwind relationship with his ex-fiancée as a joke with a giddy setup -- and a painful punch line... They also flip the script with "Hey Lover," a duet that sounds like a soft-focus love song until the Kills' Alison Mosshart responds to Shuman with a tender "hey, f*cker" before the song builds to climactic harmonies...
Spoon - No Bullets Spent from Everything Hits at Once: The Best of Spoon
...The collection ends with a final nod to tradition: Like many of those old-school compilations, it includes a new track to make sure longtime fans pay attention. As on the songs that came before it, "No Bullets Spent" takes a handful of familiar puzzle pieces -- a bracing riff, a fierce guitar solo -- and assembles them into a new picture. It's another example of how Spoon reinvent rock traditions to suit themselves, as is Everything Hits at Once, which proves there are few bands more adept at giving the venerable best-of compilation a refresh.
B Boys - Asleep/Awake from Dudu
B Boys do a lot with two chords. Since the group's formation in 2014, a minimalist ethos has served as one of their guiding principles, and yet their spiny post-punk doesn't come across as simplistic. Pounding out compact arrangements with a kind of martial stringency, the New York trio has tempered their music with a sense of artful wit, helping to color their social commentaries with shades of absurdism... and the moody "Asleep/Awake" is a dark, plodding anthem with some surprising textural varnish. A worthy follow-up and tonal cousin to B Boys' strong debut, Dudu hits its mark.
Rebecca Pidgeon - Underwater Boys / The Little Death from Sudden Exposure to Light / Comfort
Sudden Exposure's noirish, jazzy, carnivalesque opener, "Underwater Boys," was inspired by Alfonso Cuarón's Y Tu Mamá También, a revelatory film about desire and intimacy as two young men sexually engage with an older woman and one another. Its sensual lyrics and humid mix acknowledge that these forces can (at least temporarily) erase even the most stringent societal boundaries, and more often than not, create irrevocable change: "...In the hotel we wrote our names/Nothing ever will be the same/Deeper than the things we know/On the road to a nowhere land...."
Comfort, by contrast, is more strident. Pidgeon's passion for the expressive power of indie rock is palpable... The slow, surf-like tremolo drift of "The Little Death" juxtaposes the colloquialism for an orgasm with the toxicity of an obsessive, unhealthy relationship. When Pidgeon sings "Loving you is suicide/There is no place left to hide/My desire/Where will you carry me," she reveals a Bataille-ian understanding of obsession as has having little to do with romance or affirmation.
High Sunn - Coffin Eyes from Coffin 3Y3S
A prolific D.I.Y. musician from the California Bay Area, Justin Cheromiah began uploading his explorations of various outsider rocks styles (garage rock, punk, shoegaze) under the moniker High Sunn in his mid-teens... With a couple of albums and EPs in between, a year later, High Sunn offers up its Cleopatra debut, COFFIN 3Y3S, which sees Cheromiah leaning more heavily into Cure-esque post-punk moods, synths, and guitar tones...
The Chats - How Many Do You Do from Get This in Ya!!
Australia's the Chats gained viral fame in 2017 with their cheeky slacker anthem "Smoko." A bit of a novel throwback to early-'80s-style punk, the song caught attention online buoyed largely by a humorously game, lo-fi video. Especially notable was ginger-mulleted lead singer/bassist Eamon Sandwith (backed here by bandmates Josh Price on guitar and Matt Boggis on drums)... You can tell just how closely the Chats have listened to their classic punk forebears in working to craft their own DIY sound, but thankfully, Get This in Ya!! never sounds anything but youthful, fun, and furiously delivered.
De Lorians - A Ship of Mental Health from De Lorians
De Lorians are a Tokyo-based quintet who play a freewheeling form of proggy, spiritual jazz-rock heavily influenced by Frank Zappa as well as the Canterbury scene... "A Ship of Mental Health" is unabashedly Zappa-fied, even suddenly breaking midway to splice in rapid-fire bits of conversation and snacking... At this fledgling stage in their career, De Lorians sound a little messy and scattered, but their energy is boundless, and the five of them seem to be a wellspring of ideas. Furthermore, it's quite refreshing to find a young group dedicated to this particular patch of the musical landscape -- their music is devoid of cynicism, and they seem thoroughly excited to be exploring the infinite possibilities of musical creation.
Lisel - Ciphers from Angels on the Slope
Before making her debut as Lisel in 2019, Eliza Bagg had already built an enviable music resumé, having collaborated with such highly regarded avant-garde artists as Meredith Monk, John Zorn, Daniel Wohl, and Julianna Barwick. In the indie world, she sang and engineered for San Fermin, played strings for Kevin Morby and Simon Raymonde's Lost Horizons, and co-led Brooklyn art-rock band Pavo Pavo. Familiar to fans of that group will be the soaring, wistful melodies of Bagg's elegant voice, whose ethereal quality is front and center with Lisel in layered, organic, and distorted forms. Its particular use of vocal samples is indicative of the overall experimental tendencies on the self-produced Angels on the Slope, a title that evokes its otherworldly and off-balance qualities, including dissonance, spacy timbres, and glints of subtle, sculpted noise. While sparse, opener "Ciphers" includes examples of all of the above, as does most of the album. Pulsing vocal samples are introduced in its first few seconds, cuing Bagg's delicate, live soprano, drum machine, and eventual dissonant flute and impromptu-sounding percussion...
Rosalie Cunningham, Sleep Party People, Violent Femmes feat.: Tom Verlaine, Mini Mansions feat.: Alison Mosshart, Spoon, B Boys, Rebecca Pidgeon, High Sunn, The Chats, De Lorians, Lisel
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