ALTER.NATION #84
Car Seat Headrest, Happyness, Joan as Police Woman, Man Man, Ghostpoet, Damien Jurado, Johanna Warren, Caleb Landry Jones, Houses of Heaven, Ital Tek, Field Works
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Raw guitars meet lo-fi synths in this noisy but tuneful indie rock project from songwriter and musician Will Toledo.
Car Seat Headrest - Making a Door Less Open / Can't Cool Me Down
...and here the effectively sloppy indie rock of Teens of Denial gives way to a cleaner and more exacting soundscape dominated by keyboards and rhythm machines, with guitars still in the mix but not dominating as they once did... Making a Door Less Open lacks a narrative concept that links the songs; the tracks exist in a similar emotional space, but there's no through line to this album. If there is a theme to this set of songs, it's that success hasn't been everything Toledo was hoping for. While angst has played a big role in his songs from the start, the adolescent anxieties and confusion of Teens of Denial have been replaced by the uncomfortable emotions of adulthood and a severe wariness of his place in the larger world and the circle where he has placed himself...
London trio take inspiration from '90s indie acts Sparklehorse and Pavement, adding a wry British twist to the brooding melodies.
Happyness - Floatr / Ouch (Yup)
After releasing their second album, Write In, in 2017, London indie rockers Happyness went on a brief hiatus that involved co-leader Benji Compston parting ways with the group. With help from members of their touring band, including Yuck's Max Bloom, the remaining duo of Jonny Allan and Ash Kenazi re-emerge three years later with Floatr. Collecting songs that were largely affected by the existential dread shared by many in the wake of the 2016 elections, it's a slightly more downcast effort from a project usually always in a thoughtful headspace. While intimate and ruminative -- a mood only emphasized by Allan's Elliott Smith-reminiscent vocals -- they still deliver volatile, borderline dance-rock on tracks like "Ouch (Yup)." It mingles its yearning melodies and lush keyboard atmospheres with driving drums, crashing cymbals, and even an extended guitar solo...
Multi-instrumentalist and singer/songwriter who blends classic soul and experimental influences with vulnerability and sophistication.
Joan as Police Woman - Cover Two / Kiss (Prince cover)
As its title suggests, Cover Two is the second collection of covers from Joan as Police Woman's Joan Wasser (her first, 2009's Cover, was initially sold only at her shows and on her website). Considering how versatile and distinctive Wasser's own music is, it's not surprising that she's skilled at putting her own stamp on the work of widely different musicians. Even Cover Two's cover is a rendition of sorts, channeling Loverboy's Get Lucky and its iconic red leather jumpsuit. But what could be just a karaoke lark is much more in Wasser's hands: Cover Two is musically nimble and reflects a songwriter's appreciation of other songwriters. As on Cover, Wasser samples from an eclectic array of artists. She begins Cover Two with the challenge of reinterpreting Prince's "Kiss," transforming the original's sudden flirtation into sultry, slow-burning foreplay that turns the line "women, not girls, rule my world" into a mantra...
Indie quartet with an offbeat aesthetic that recalls the intelligent skronk of Tom Waits and Frank Zappa. Adventurous songwriting and atypical arrangements served as foundational elements when experimental indie band Man Man began crafting a sound that would set them apart from their peers. Centered around the boundary-pushing tendencies of bandleader and principle songwriter Honus Honus (real name Ryan Kattner,) Man Man matured from their wild and surrealistic early albums...
Man Man - Dream Hunting in the Valley of the In-Between / Cloud Nein / Unsweet Meat
It makes sense that Ryan Kattner of Man Man would release his best album to date during a pandemic. His band persona, Honus Honus, is perpetually down on his luck — bizarre and lovelorn, lonely and insane — haunted. In short, he’s all of us right now.
Dream Hunting in the Valley of the In-Between starts with a fake-out, a gorgeous instrumental called “Dreamers” that would fit perfectly in a Fifties Disney movie: a tune for Peter Pan to chase his shadow to. That segues into the cacophonous intro to “Cloud Nein” — reminiscent of Man Man’s early days of skronky snake charmer horns and brittle, Tom Waits piano. The intro is a fake-out, too, though — as “Cloud Nein” swaggers forth into a jazzy, theatrical pop song about the end of the world: “Nothing ever lasts/Haven’t you learned this by now?” Honus croons as if chiding us for attempting to pin him down. There’s only one thing for certain when it comes to the frontman/pianist: his ability to write a damn good pop song...
Categorization-defying artist whose recordings, highlighted by a pair of albums shortlisted for the Mercury Prize, brim with drowsy anxiety.
Ghostpoet - I Grow Tired But Dare Not Fall Asleep / Breaking Cover
London singer-songwriter Ghostpoet exudes a certain weariness on his latest album, ‘I Grow Tired But Dare Not Fall Asleep’. If his fatigue wasn’t evident in the album title, the weighted lyrics throughout – coupled with his listless drawl – are good indicators. Ghostpoet is his quintessential languid self here. The album is soulful, melancholic with bursts of urgent sonics – a suitable accompaniment to the sense of burden in the lyrics.
Since his 2011 debut album, ‘Peanut Butter Blues & Melancholy Jam,’ 37-year-old Obaro Ejimiwe has displayed a penchant for not only long album titles but also for creating music that deals with the inner recesses of himself. His work is generally cerebral, and ‘I Grow Tired…’ tackles a myriad of topics: the rise of the far right, passport politics, skin colour as currency and immigration to name a few. The lyrics depict Ghostpoet as fearful, panicking, encapsulating the mood of millions around the world in this current state of perpetual uncertainty.
Acclaimed indie singer/songwriter whose poignant folk songcraft has transcended detours into pop, roots rock, indie rock, and psychedelia.
Damien Jurado - What's New, Tomboy? / When You Were Few
A sequel of sorts to its immediate predecessors, The Horizon Just Laughed and In the Shape of the Storm, What’s New, Tomboy? is Damien Jurado's third straight self-production following 20 years of working with outside help... A legtöbb házának (több gitárral együtt) házának takarításával inspirált dal, a "Amikor kevés voltál" trippír ehelyett kiemelkedő basszusgitár, elektromos gitár, orgona és dob teljes választékát kínálja, de annyira hatékony, hogy csak úgy lesz, mint egy teljes értékű psycho-rock bejegyzés a többi dal összefüggésében...
Indie folk musician who brings a lilting voice, melancholic demeanor, and spiritual bent to her songwriting.
Johanna Warren - Chaotic Good / Part of It
...Warren decided to produce the album on her own, borrowing recording equipment from a friend to do much of the preliminary tracking alone in a garage. She enlisted a few key collaborators to fully enliven her vision, most notably former Sticklips bandmates Chris St. Hilaire and Jim Bertini. On the raucously resilient “Part of It,” Warren is joined by her musical brethren as she addresses a noncommittal narcissist and—a trademark of Warren’s work—the narrator’s complicity in her own suffering: “Don’t look at me like I’m the one holding you back/and I won’t look at you like you have something I lack.”...
Texas-born musician and actor known for his experimental psychedelic rock. After making his name as a film actor in the latter half of the 2010s, Texas native Caleb Landry Jones launched his music career in 2020 with the experimental, neo-psychedelic album The Mother Stone.
Caleb Landry Jones - The Mother Stone / You're So Wonderfull
Actor and musician Caleb Landry Jones makes his recording debut with The Mother Stone, a 15-song psychedelic rock opus of sprawling complexity, abrupt tonal shifts, and dark-hued pop arrangements. Dating back to the late 2000s, the Texas native has built up an impressive resume of film and television credits, from Breaking Bad and X-Men to Get Out and Twin Peaks. It turns out he has also been making music since a young age and boasts a deep back catalog of material, much of it inspired by the Beatles' more exploratory moments and the ramshackle psych of Syd Barrett's thrilling post-Pink Floyd burnout. While filming the zombie art-comedy The Dead Don't Die, Jones played some of his demos for director Jim Jarmusch, who recommended him to experimental enthusiasts Sacred Bones Records, the same label that has released some of Jarmusch's own recordings. Teaming up with producer Nic Jodoin (Black Lips), Jones unleashed what sounds like a lifetime's worth of ideas and pent-up weirdness, constructing a wild suite of interconnected songs, replete with lurching orchestral sections and harsh fuzzy textures and sung in a variety of different voices and timbres like a character actor gone off the rails...
Oakland-based trio Houses of Heaven play an intense, percussive blend of post-punk, darkwave, and industrial dance, filled with driving rhythms, hazy guitars, and shadowy vocals. The group's debut full-length, Silent Places, appeared in 2020.
Houses of Heaven - Silent Places / Sleep
Oakland trio Houses of Heaven is made up of former members of the Metropolis-signed band Vaniish, which included members of an earlier group called Veil Veil Vanish, who also released music on the same label. Both of those acts played dark, driving post-punk with shoegaze elements, sometimes resembling a more muscular version of the Cure. Houses of Heaven retains those influences but takes them in a much different direction. Synths and electronic beats play a much larger role here, edging the music closer to industrial and synth pop. The album was produced by Matia Simovich of Dark Entries-affiliated minimal wave group Inhalt, engineered by previous collaborator Monte Vallier and Tortoise's John McEntire, and mastered by ambient artist Rafael Anton Irisarri. All of the above help shape the sound of the album, which is densely layered and filled with hazy textures and dubby effects...
Brighton, U.K.-based electronic producer influenced by dubstep, garage, IDM, jungle, and footwork.
Ital Tek - Outland / Chamber Music
Having moved beyond the colorful hybrids of dubstep, juke, and jungle that made up his discography until 2015, Alan Myson's work as Ital Tek since 2016's Hollowed has been much darker and more isolated, filled with cinematic suspense and immaculate sound design. 2020 full-length Outland is yet more reflective than the producer's previous two albums, composed after the birth of his first child, as well as his relocation from the city of Brighton, England, to a more secluded locale. He hasn't returned to making club music, but Outland is a bit more rhythmic and bass-heavy than his previous two albums. There's a much sharper bite to the way he uses distortion here, and the tracks with beats sound monstrous...
Collaborative project helmed by interdisciplinary artist Stuart Hyatt, producing ambient and experimental music using field recordings.
Field Works Ultrasonic /
Silver Secrets feat. Mary Lattimore
...Ultrasonic is the project's eighth album, and the focus is on the federally endangered species of bats in Indiana. All of the compositions are based on the echolocations of bats, incorporating the winged mammals' chirping, fluttering, and clicking sounds into abstract textures and pretty, plaintive melodies. The source material ends up being a gold mine for the producers and musicians, who twist the sounds of wings flapping into crunchy rhythms and make extensive usage out of the natural cave echo... On "Silver Secrets," Mary Lattimore builds a rhythm out of a sequence of sampled bat calls, then adds her graceful harp playing, and as the rhythm comes close to dissolving, the bats fly all around her. Even though bats are commonly associate with vampires, witchcraft, Halloween, and all things macabre, very few of the pieces seem overtly dark or haunting...
Car Seat Headrest, Happyness, Joan as Police Woman, Man Man, Ghostpoet, Damien Jurado, Johanna Warren, Caleb Landry Jones, Houses of Heaven, Ital Tek, Field Works, Mary Lattimore
