ALTER.NATION #69
The Growlers, Rose City Band, Facs, Aoife Nessa Frances, Holy Fuck, Marcus King, Courteeners, Pearl Jam, Cursive, Mr. Elevator. Deserta, Laume
Self-described "Beach Goth" outfit specializes in surfy, California indie rock. Based out of Los Angeles, California, indie rockers the Growlers emerged in the early part of the 2010s, employing an atmospheric blend of reverb-laden surf rock, country-folk, and classic rock.
The Growlers - Natural Affair / Die and Live Forever
...On Natural Affair, The Growlers (led by singer Brooks Nielsen and music director/guitarist Matt Taylor) advance their swampy DIY aesthetic into a sturdier, synthier, dancier sound, bolstered by Nielsen’s finest lyrics to date: social commentary, rhymes, and ruminations on the pleasures (and perils) of modern love. Self-producing the album, they worked with Topanga Canyon friend Kyle Mullarky (Allah-Las, Little Wings) to craft early versions of the songs, then with engineer Ivan Wayman (Father John Misty, The War on Drugs) and mixer Dave Cerminara (HEALTH, Weyes Blood) to bring a new level of polish and continuity...
Mellow and textural cosmic country jam band led by Moon Duo member Ripley Johnson.
Rose City Band - Rose City Band / Fog of Love
Mysterious and calm, the debut album from Rose City Band rolls in slowly like the morning fog. Produced by Moon Duo/Wooden Shjips member Ripley Johnson, the project filters the softer side of the Grateful Dead's jammy explorations through a gentle, spaced-out haze. Where other late-2010s disciples of Garcia and Weir sometimes reworked the Dead's amped-up boogie rock tendencies, Rose City Band's self-titled debut leans more into the moments of soft, cosmic elegance that sometimes arrived deep into lengthy space jams...
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| Ripley Johnson |
Dark, propulsive post-punk trio formed from the ashes of Chicago's Disappears.
FACS -
Teenage Hive
Chicago noise-rock experimentalists FACS continue to churn out stunning new albums at a prolific clip. Last year, they one-upped their 2018 debut Negative Houses with the tense, pulverizing Lifelike. In 2020 they’ll be back again with LP3. Titled Void Moments... FACS are especially skilled at creating a sense of building pressure within their songs via dynamic, pummeling rhythms and layers of droning noise. It allows them to sound ominously loud in a unique way, violent but without the release that comes from cathartic riffs or breakdowns. They just get you swept up in the claustrophobia until you can hardly breathe... According to the band’s Brian Case, the song “is about not defining yourself so that other people can understand you. The evolved consciousness I’ve seen with my son and his generation/peer group regarding gender, identity, and human rights is the only hope for the future and informs all of Void Moments, which is ultimately an album about facing who we are.”
Dublin-based singer/songwriter who blends elegantly rendered folk with light psych flourishes. Aoife Nessa Frances is an Irish singer/songwriter based in North Dublin whose haunting and sometimes experimental blend of indie folk and lightly psychedelic pop is dramatically conveyed by her lush, dark-toned vocals and elegant arrangements
Aoife Nessa Frances - Land of No Junction / Heartbreak
A pastoral, dark-hued collection of gently psychedelic folk-based songs, Land of No Junction is the debut album from Irish singer/songwriter, Aoife Nessa Frances. Based in North Dublin, Frances cut her teeth in the mid-2010s as one-half of the shoegaze duo Princess before setting off on a more organic solo path a few years later. Beginning with an almost freeform approach, she slowly began honing a group of songs that intertwined abstract imagery, personal introspections, and subtle evocations of the natural world. Teaming up with collaborator and co-producer Cian Nugent, she formed a nimble and musically sympathetic ensemble which began refining and recording the material at Dublin's Oxford Lane Music Society studio over a period of a year-and-a-half...
Toronto-based electro-rock ensemble who perform using vintage synthesizers and unconventional instruments.
Holy Fuck - Deleter / Luxe
Toronto electro-rock group Holy Fuck have managed to hone their junk shop aesthetic into a surprisingly coherent form of warped pop music. Following the excellent 2016 full-length Congrats and the more dance-oriented companion EP Bird Brains, the band sharpen their focus even further on 2020's Deleter. Like their previous albums, this one was born from impromptu jams and sketches at rehearsals and soundchecks. At this point in their career, the group's chemistry is so strong that the music seems to naturally flow from them, and they've never sounded this tight before...
Ace guitarist who won a following with blues and jam band fans before honing his talents as a vocalist on his first solo album.
Marcus King - El Dorado / The Well
... Because together Auerbach and King make an impressive team. Auerbach is a prolific producer (I’m officially worried he’s not getting enough sleep), with a distinct perspective. While some producers melt into the background of their artists’ work, Auerbach takes a more collaborative approach, sharing some of himself in the tracks. That works well for King, giving him strong songs on which to focus his considerable vocal energies. The end-product is tunes that often sound like Turn Blue-era Black Keys with a better vocalist...
Manchester indie rockers with an alternately jangly and bombastic sound. Hailing from Manchester, indie rock quartet Courteeners received regular comparisons in the U.K. press to the leading lights of three previous waves of Mancunian Brit-pop: the Smiths, the Stone Roses, and Oasis.
Courteeners - More. Again. Forever. / Heart Attack
Emerging from a dark and uncertain period following their 2016 effort, Mapping the Rendezvous, Manchester favorites Courteeners returned triumphant with their sleek, boundary-pushing sixth set, More. Again. Forever... At a tight ten songs, More. Again. Forever. is near perfect and not a song is wasted. Yet, rising above the pack, a pair of highlights demand special note... For a band that is beloved on home soil but often gets lost in the crop of late-2000s U.K. exports, this catalog highlight is ample evidence of artistic greatness and proves that, even after the darkest of days, beauty and light are on the horizon.
The prototypical Seattle grunge band, with a driving sound and a long run as one of the most principled and hard-working groups in rock.
Pearl Jam -
Dance Of The Clairvoyants
Pearl Jam took their sweet time making Gigaton, their first album in almost seven years, and they’re taking their sweet time rolling it out too...
Now they’ve finally delivered the lead single, “Dance Of The Clairvoyants.” On Twitter, Jeff Ament writes, “‘Dance’ was a perfect storm of experimentation and real collaboration… We’ve opened some new doors creatively and that’s exciting.”
Challenging indie rock outfit with literate lyrics and an angular post-rock sound. Growing from emo beginnings into a far more refined and intricate beast, Cursive's oeuvre expanded over more than 20 years of constant development. Formed in Omaha, Nebraska in the mid-'90s as an unambitious project between friends,
Cursive - Get Fixed / Horror is a Human Being
In fact, some of the songs on Get Fixed were born out of the Vitriola sessions. Since forming in 1995, the Nebraska rock outfit has found frontman Tim Kasher performing with a rotating cast of bandmates. When he reunited with the project’s founding drummer, Clint Schnase, it sparked a bout of creativity that led to last year’s effort and a number of unused songs... “Also, sure, the absolutely fucking bonkers fist fuck this world has been getting with its pathetic, greedy rise of nationalism; yeah, that’s been driving me to put pen to paper as well. You feel like you’re getting pushed around, you want to push back. Not that we’re driven solely by political frustrations, not in the least. But as to the excess of songs as of late? Current events have certainly left their grimy fingerprints on some of the music we’ve written these last few years.”
Organ-led psych-pop outfit from Los Angeles with a trippy, lo-fi sound. From their beginnings as Mr. Elevator and the Brain Hotel (a Donovan reference,) the guitar-less California band later known by just Mr. Elevator delved deeply into the sounds of psychedelia from the strutting punk of the Doors to the dreamy haze of Pink Floyd to the sunny trippiness of a thousand paisley clad unknowns.
Mr. Elevator - Goodbye Blue Sky / Love Again
After two albums of keyboard-driven psych rock that shone like the flash of a paisley scarf on an overcast day, Mr. Elevator's third album Goodbye, Blue Sky is a much gloomier listening experience dominated by washes of synths, Tomas Dolas' downcast vocals, and melodies that don't just pluck at the heartstrings, but give them a big twang instead. It's a big change from the group's previous work, but Dolas guides things with the same questing, inspired (and guitar-free) approach as before and the results are as thrilling as a record that sounds too sad to get out of bed can be...
The project of singer/songwriter/multi-instrumentalist Matthew Doty finds the sweet spot between synth pop and shoegaze.
Deserta - Black Aura My Sun / Be So Blue
With Black Aura My Sun, Deserta's Matthew Doty shows off his knowledge of several decades' worth of shoegaze and synth pop as well as his skill at reinterpreting those styles in ways that are familiar, but never boring. Much like Lust for Youth, Deserta excels at creating almost uncannily perfect recombinations of iconic sounds... As epic as the album gets, it's never heavy handed or obvious, and its breeziness makes it easier for Doty's listeners to get swept away with him. Black Aura My Sun is a promising debut, and anyone with a fondness for this kind of dreamy sound should find a lot to enjoy here.
The stage name of New Zealand electro-pop singer/songwriter Kim Pflaum. New Zealand's Kim Pflaum, aka Laumė, makes evocative, '80s-influenced electronic pop that combines lyrical hooks with arty atmosphere.
Laume - Waterbirth / Spells (Oedipusi)
The full-length debut album from Kim Pflaum, aka Laumė, 2020's Waterbirth, finds the New Zealand-born songwriter embracing a thoughtfully blissed-out mix of early-'80s-influenced soul, house music, and synth-based pop. It's a sound she first explored under the name Madeira on her 2016 EP Bad Humors, and to some degree before that as a founding member of the indie pop outfit Yumi Zouma. She has also collaborated on similar electronic-oriented projects with artists like Boycrush, Swimgood, Zimmer, and others, all of which worked to inform and broaden the scope of her own music...
The Growlers, Rose City Band, Facs, Aoife Nessa Frances, Holy Fuck, Marcus King, Courteeners, Pearl Jam, Cursive, Mr. Elevator. Deserta, Laume
