ALTER.NATION #87
Alison Mosshart, Perfume Genius, Everything Everything, The Dears, Sparks, Sleaford Mods, Chemtrails, Hanni el Khatib, ARTHUR, Nick Hakim, Standing on the Corner, Alison Mosshart
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1 7 - 0 5 - 2 0 2 0"It Ain’t Water"
Alison Mosshart - It Ain’t Water
Alison Mosshart, of the Kills and the Dead Weather fame, today she’s sharing another new song, “It Ain’t Water,” which will be featured on a 7″ that’s coming out in the summer. Mosshart worked with producer Alain Johannes on the track. “Working with Alain on ‘It Ain’t Water’ was a blast. He’s such a talent and such a kind person. His mind is wide open,”
"He understands and sees the beauty in imperfection, magic moments, accidents- the soulful human stuff, and the spirited super-human hard to explain stuff that makes a song great. Working with him was an honor, and also, hot damn he can play any instrument like a champ… like he invented the instrument himself. Alain Johannes IS music."
Perfume Genius - Set My Heart on Fire, Immediately / Describe
On Perfume Genius' previous albums, Mike Hadreas revealed so much of himself that it's difficult to imagine he'd have more to uncover. With Set My Heart on Fire, Immediately, however, he goes beyond baring his soul to exploring the power and tenderness of the body. Before making this record, Hadreas collaborated with choreographer Kate Wallich and her dance company the YC, not just writing the music for her piece The Sun Still Burns Here but performing in it as well. This collaborative, body-oriented way of making art had a profound impact on his fifth album. Set My Heart on Fire, Immediately is more theatrical and more direct than much of Perfume Genius' earlier work, and revels in the physicality of his music in inspired ways. The album's textures are almost tangible, particularly on "Describe"'s thick distortion and flowing slide guitars...
Everything Everything - Arch Enemy
UK art-rock band Everything Everything have announced Re-Animator, their first new album since 2017’s A Fever Dream. Recorded over the course of two weeks with producer-to-the-indie-rock-stars John Congleton, Re-Animator was in part inspired by frontman Jonathan Higgs’ fascination with psychologist Julian Jaynes’ theory of the bicameral mind.
“This idea of the divided self captivated me,” Higgs explains in a statement. “Jaynes attributes this to the origin of gods, people ascribing deity status to this voice they could hear in their head. All this blew my mind, and I started thinking of ways I could make this a central concept It really touched me. So across the whole record there are millions or references to this theory — to having a split brain, two selves, hearing voices.”
The Dears - Lovers Rock / Instant Nightmare
One of the more compelling mysteries in indie rock is the relationship between Murray Lightburn and Natalia Yanchak of the Dears. Lightburn is the group's founder, leader, songwriter, guitarist, and vocalist, while Yanchak is their keyboard player. They've been working together since 1998 and have been married since 2005. The longevity would suggest they have a reasonably happy and functional relationship, but even the most cursory examination of the Dears' music makes it clear Lightburn takes an extremely dim view of romance and the world around him... At their best, the Dears make music so beautiful that you can sometimes forget how bitter and resigned they seem to be, and Lovers Rock works the "pretty music about ugly emotions" angle as effectively as anything they or their peers have done in ages.
Sparks - A Steady Drip, Drip, Drip / Left Out In The Cold
"Our inconsistency is our consistency/our insincerity is our sincerity," Russel Mael sings at one point on A Steady Drip, Drip, Drip. It's a sentiment that could pass for Sparks' manifesto: Over the years, fans have come to expect dizzyingly witty lyrics and dazzling, ever-changing sonics from the Mael brothers. Their 24th album offers plenty of both, as well as a more pointed outlook and a slightly more down-to-earth sound than the duo's last outing, 2017's Hippopotamus. Ron and Russel Mael give these songs about misfits, outliers, and disasters a driving urgency... the darkly cosmic "Nothing Travels Faster Than the Speed of Light," which provides a great showcase for Ron Mael's formidable keyboard skills...
Sleaford Mods - All That Glue / Tweet Tweet Tweet
Since their breakthrough in the mid-2010s, Sleaford Mods have remained as prolific as they are angry. Along with releasing a slew of albums, they issued enough singles, EPs, and rarities to fill out their own ample compilation. All That Glue, a roughly chronological set of album tracks, B-sides, and more that spans seven years of the Mods' career, isn't a greatest hits or odds 'n' sods collection in the strictest sense of either, but it does speak to the consistency of Jason Williamson and Andrew Fearn's music. The better-known tracks here still brim with the fury and humor that propelled the duo out of obscurity... "Tweet Tweet Tweet," taken from their other brilliant 2014 full-length Divide and Exit, remains one of the duo's most musical and relevant songs in its spooky evocation of social media paranoia and loathing...
Chemtrails - The Peculiar Smell of the Inevitable / Suck My Mind
Bandleader Mia Lust and co-singer/guitarist Laura Orlova are back with a new keyboardist and rhythm section for Chemtrails' second album, The Peculiar Smell of the Inevitable. It turns out not to be a cause of concern for fans, as the refreshed lineup continues to funnel the group's boisterous blend of vintage surf, garage rock, and proto-punk influences into compellingly glittery noise pop. Even more newsworthy than changes in membership is that over the course of the three EPs and the full-length that preceded it, the duo's songwriting has only gotten catchier. At the same time, Lust's snarling mix of complaints and shrug-emoji endurance of subjects both personal and societal bring just the right amount (a lot) of outsider attitude to their poppy tunes...
Hanni el Khatib - Flight / Peace
Hanni El Khatib hit a career high in terms of unfiltered creative expression with 2017's Savage Times, a sprawling set of disparate but highly entertaining cuts that when bundled together represented the final fruit of an experimental multi-volume EP project from the previous year. The Los Angeles-based singer, songwriter, and multi-instrumentalist has come a long way from the raunchy guitar-and-drums rock & roll of his 2011 debut, branching out over subsequent years into veins of icy synth-rock, hip-hop, folk, post-punk, and whatever else seemed to catch his interest at the time... Loaded with brief tracks under the two-minute mark, Flight scoots along at a breezy and entertaining pace, with El Khatib sounding confident and spunky in his role as captain/emcee. Comparisons to Beck and the Beastie Boys are apt, but El Khatib -- a lifetime skate rat and designer with his own skateboard line -- brings his own personal West Coast stamp, and the traces of his more straightforward blues-stomp rock still rear their head now and again...
ARTHUR - Hair of the Dog / Biz
Philly-based solo artist ARTHUR's fragmented pop visions were formed in part by constant exposure to video games and their 8-bit soundtracks while he was growing up. His 2018 debut album, Woof Woof, was a collection of short songs that flew by like succinct theme songs for imaginary late-night TV shows. Second album Hair of the Dog continues ARTHUR's proclivity for miniature pop composition, growing more demented, giddy, and cartoonish with each track. Even in its more reserved moments, Hair of the Dog is crowded with melodies and aggressive full-color arrangements. "Biz" ornaments its would-be mellow groove with blasts of pitch-shifted vocals, outbursts of distorted synths, and liquid vocal harmonies...
Nick Hakim - Will This Make Me Good / Gods Dirty Work
...Hakim’s music occupies a realm between R&B and jam-band-adjacent rock — while he’s not big on long solos or other trademarks/stereotypes of the latter genre, there’s definitely an affinity in vibe. It’s often hazy, soft-lit and atmospheric, with slowed-down Parliament-Funkadelic-esque melodies, D’Angelo-ish multi-tracked vocals and flashes of Shuggie Otis. And he’s doubled down on the production, wafting even further out with woozy tempos, deep echo and effects that often evoke classic reggae dub music from the ‘70s and ‘80s...
Standing on the Corner - Angel
Standing on the Corner are fastidious collagists at heart; the Brooklyn experimental ensemble stitches together far-flung samples, jazz instrumentation, and hip-hop beats into warped freeform suites. “Angel,” a punch-drunk interplanetary transmission anchored by a swooning, dazed vocal performance from the group’s architect Gio Escobar, is their first new single since 2017’s Red Burns. Over hollowed-out drum fills, scratchy, exuberant fanfare, and gently strummed electric guitar, the group tease out new vocal and brass tones and imbue them with dreamy lovesickness. The video elevates this astral-mindedness even further, casting musician and blaxploitation legend Melvin Van Peebles as an astronaut cruising through the cosmos. As he nears the darkness of the unknown at the end, Escobar’s vocals slow to a crawl and become increasingly mournful, pleading to “fly, fly, fly.” It’s an evocative low-lit ballad that induces a potent wave of melancholy and nostalgia.
Alison Mosshart - Rise
In all her years howling out front of such esteemed rock ‘n’ roll bands as the Kills and the Dead Weather, Alison Mosshart has never released music under her own name. That changes with today’s release of Mosshart’s debut solo single, “Rise.”
Mosshart began sketching out the idea for “Rise” back in 2013: “I didn’t ever forget it,” she says. “I remember right where I was when I wrote it, sitting at my desk in London, missing someone badly.” She didn’t finish the song until much more recently, when she was approached to contribute music to Sacred Lies: The Singing Bones, a TV show on FacebookWatch starring Juliette Lewis. The slow-burn blues-rock track is featured throughout the series; Jordan Alexander’s character Elsie sang it in Episode One, and the song prominently features in today’s season finale.
Alison Mosshart, Perfume Genius, Everything Everything, The Dears, Sparks, Sleaford Mods, Chemtrails, Hanni el Khatib, ARTHUR, Nick Hakim, Standing on the Corner, Alison Mosshart
