ALTER.NATION #50
Jay Som, Seratones, Ceremony, Joyero, Lina Tullgren, Modern Nature, Alexander Tucker, Lala Lala, Lunch Lady, Oh Rose, Queen of Jeans, Haim
Jay Som, Seratones, Ceremony, Joyero, Lina Tullgren, Modern Nature, Alexander Tucker, Lala Lala, Lunch Lady, Oh Rose, Queen of Jeans, Haim
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" C r o w n "
ALTER.NATION #50 on DEEZER
Jay Som - Crown from Anak Ko
Most of Melina Duterte’s second album was written in a week-long trip to Joshua Tree - a National Park outside of Los Angeles famed for its out-of-this-world scenery and propensity for artistic inspiration... Jangling guitar strums are Jay Som’s sonic signature, but with Beatles bass lines, dreamy synth pads and lo-fi micro-beats providing surprises at every corner, she’s impossible to pin down. Call it chill wave, call it dream pop, call her a bedroom producer - this album’s full of enough variety and adventure to make such generalisations moot. A real triumph.
Seratones - Power from Power
...On Power Haynes uses the bands new slick, more commercial style to tackle many political issues via passionate, personal songs. The title track is a female empowerment anthem with a tick-tock Motown backbeat and what sounds like sweeping synth strings. It is full of bluster and attitude, but like a lot of songs on this album I find the lyrics not quite up to the job of creating empathy or understanding of the issue addressed – although ‘Power’ is helped by a stirring music video that helps put it all in context...
Ceremony - Years of Love from In the Spirit World Now
...sixth album In the Spirit World Now finds Ceremony reinventing their sound yet again, with ambitious arrangements and dense upbeat rock songs that lean more towards synths and sleaze than anything the band has done before... They fare better as a dancey new wave party band than they did emulating Joy Division on their album before this, but for all its energy and drive, Spirit World is light on truly striking songs.
Joyero - Steepest Stairs from Release the Dogs
...Written and recorded primarily in Marfa, Texas, during a transitional moment between records, cities, and relationships, Release the Dogs occupies its own liminal space between the natural and the man-made, between the structures we create to keep ourselves safe and the terrifying enormity that exists beyond thbe em. Throughout the record, organic and electronic elements are seamlessly woven together into a single fabric that can be both intimate and explosive. As with Wye Oak’s best records, Release the Dogs finds its own unique voice by holding opposing ideas and aesthetics in tension with each other, and inviting the listener to find their own answer.
Lina Tullgren - Golden Babyland from Free Cell
Like the version of solitaire after which it is named, Lina Tullgren's Free Cell is characterized by solvable puzzles and moving from disarray into organization. The New England native used FreeCell almost as a sort of meditation while touring in support of their 2017 debut and found a kind of solace and clarity in the game's processes. Writing songs alone while staying at their parents' house between tours, Tullgren willingly engaged with their sense of isolation and alienation, finding something new within themselves as the material developed...
Modern Nature - Footsteps from How to Live
A woven basket of bucolic British folk, woolly free jazz, and pulsing organic trance, Modern Nature burrow themselves into an unusual niche. A project of former Ultimate Painting chief Jack Cooper's and Moon Gangs' Will Young's, the duo inhabit a murky space where punchy mod drums, burbling analog synths, and unwieldy saxophones dance with grassy field recordings, fingerpicked guitar, and secretive vocals suggesting ancient rites in natural spaces. Delivered by Bella Union, How to Live is the group's first full-length release and improves upon the four-song Nature EP which they released earlier in 2019...
Alexander Tucker - Montag from Guild of the Asbestos Weaver
Swiftly following his best release to date, 2018's excellent Don't Look Away, Alexander Tucker made the expansive, hypnotic Guild of the Asbestos Weaver. The remarkably focused album is easily one of his most consistent efforts, achieving a potent electro-acoustic fusion sound and balancing drones with instantly familiar-sounding hooks. Most of the instruments he's credited with playing are various synths, drum machines, and effects, but apart from the electronic beats, his bass and cello are the most prominent elements, and he transforms them into a rich, fuzzy haze which befits his elegant vocals. The album's title is a reference to Fahrenheit 451, and while the lyrics are inspired by Tucker's love of science fiction and horror, tying into his work as a visual artist, it doesn't sound nearly as dark or dystopian...
Lala Lala - Fuck With Your Friends from Sleepyhead
Chicago band Lala Lala is centered around the dark-yet-vulnerable songwriting of Lillie West. West's songs reached a wider audience with her 2018 album The Lamb, a collection of straightforward and intuitive indie rock songs about sobriety, trauma, and recovery... Sleepyhead's blown-out drums, growling bass lines, and walls of layered vocals all look to '90s grunge... Listeners intrigued by riskier production and the happy accidents of lo-fi recording might even prefer the scattered and sometimes unhinged sounds.
Lunch Lady - Deeper from Angel
When friends Rachel Birke and Juan Velasquez came together in 2017 to form their new band Lunch Lady, they took with them only the best parts of their former respective D.I.Y. punk bands Heller Keller and Abe Vigoda. With their new project, they translated the youthful energy shared by both of their earlier acts into something more dreamy than spiky, relying on lyrical power rather than speedy tempos and the force of sheer volume. Lunch Lady's debut album, Angel, is inarguably punk, but the songwriting duo softens every edge with nostalgia and a haze of mystery. The album opens with its titular track, composed of a chorus-drenched bass line, jagged guitar lines, and jittery post-punk rhythms...
Oh, Rose - Politics from While My Father Sleeps
While My Father Sleeps, the full-length debut by Oh, Rose, serves the double purpose of introducing a fiery indie rock combo and delivering the poignant backstory of its leader and namesake Olivia Rose Huebner. The Olympia-based quartet formed in 2014, establishing themselves around the Pacific Northwest with a well-received EP and subsequent mini-album before landing a deal with Park the Van Records in hopes of finding a wider audience. As a songwriter, Huebner has flashed shades of personal catharsis since the beginning, weaving themes of struggle, defiance, and renewal into elastic lo-fi missives full of explosive peaks and valleys...
Queen of Jeans - I Am in Love With Your Mind from If You're Not Afraid, I'm Not Afraid
After releasing a dreamy, catchy debut EP steeped in retro influences like surf and psych-rock as well as later dream pop, Queen of Jeans refined their sound without significantly changing their style on their first album, 2018's Dig Yourself. A year later, they take another step toward more streamlined structures on the still hooky and sweetly trippy If You're Not Afraid, I'm Not Afraid. It represents a first-time collaboration with producer Will Yip (the Menzingers, Mannequin Pussy, Petal). Filled with yearning lyrics that veer between discontented, hopeful, and resigned, all delivered by main songwriter Miriam Devora's lucid, classic pop vocals, it's a mostly lively, churning set with echoing guitar progressions and full rock drums...
Haim - Summer Gir
Early on in the making of Haim’s 2017 album Something to Tell You, the band’s producer (and Danielle Haim’s romantic partner) Ariel Rechtshaid learned that he had been diagnosed with testicular cancer. Though he’s since recovered, Haim’s new song “Summer Girl” was born at a time when his prognosis was still uncertain. “I was on tour and felt like I was trying to send positive energy his way almost telepathically,” Danielle wrote in a statement about the track. “... Taking heavy inspiration from Lou Reed’s “Walk on the Wild Side,” the song features a jazzier palette than Haim’s usual guitar-forward funk-pop. All throughout, an upright bass cycles through a handful of notes while Danielle’s soft coos of “doot-doo” mirror the tension. It’s a phrase that usually surfaces in lighthearted background vocals, or when humming along to a song you don’t know the words to, but Danielle’s vowels are tinged with sadness and hesitation, as if she’s holding back tears...
Jay Som, Seratones, Ceremony, Joyero, Lina Tullgren, Modern Nature, Alexander Tucker, Lala Lala, Lunch Lady, Oh Rose, Queen of Jeans, Haim
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