ALTER.NATION #90
Thomas Dutronc, Iggy Pop, Diana Krall, Vinyl Williams, James Alexander Bright, Drab City, Ohmme, Melenas, Hinds, Lithics, No Age, Run the Jewels, Mavis Staples, Josh Homme, MUZZ, Rolling Blackouts Coastal Fever
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A charting French jazz guitarist, singer, songwriter, producer, and the son of Francoise Hardy and Jacques Dutronc. A lifelong passion for the guitar playing of Django Reinhardt and Gypsy jazz helped to propel guitarist, songwriter, singer, and producer Thomas Dutronc to a career in music, but even more central influences and inspirations were his parents, French musical and cultural icons Jacques Dutronc and Françoise Hardy.
Thomas Dutronc - Frenchy / C'est Si Bon feat.
Iggy Pop, Diana Krall
The great guitar enthusiast and humble disciple of Django Reinhardt, Thomas Dutronc returns with the project he has always dreamed of: "Frenchy". After four albums and hundreds of concerts in France, Thomas returns with a "French themed" album addressing the greatest classics of the French musical heritage. Dutronc honors the work of the great French songwriters whose melodies have toured the world.
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| Thomas Dutronc, Diana Krall, Iggy Pop |
Lionel Williams, grandson of film composer John Williams, records cinematic chillwave and relaxed shoegaze. The psychedelic pop explorer Vinyl Williams has a wide range of interests outside of music -- Egyptian BioGeometry and Russellian science, to name two -- that inform his dream-like, happily woozy songs and quietly epic albums.
Vinyl Williams - Azure / LA Egypt
Over the course of the 2010s, Vinyl Williams established himself as a prime purveyor of soft-shelled psychedelic pop that's wrapped in gauzy chillwave textures and painted in bright shades of melody. His 2020 album Azure keeps the streak of blurry pop goodness intact while being a slightly less immersive sonic experience than some of his previous albums were. This time, instead of letting listeners sink into the songs like they were settling into worn-in couches, he's not afraid to give them a little bit of a goose from time to time... Of course, there are still plenty of songs like "Machu Picchu" and "LA Egypt" where the reverb-drowned guitars, willowy synths, and Williams' somnambulant vocals combine to create the perfect environment for a soft massage, but even those are more immediate this time out, and in the case of the latter are just as likely to head into a complicated prog-inspired section as they are to fade into the clouds....It shows off his growth as a songwriter and refines his already enormous skills as a crafter of musical worlds, while also delivering a batch of quality psychedelic pop tunes that are unrivaled by most of his peers.
Analog-digital home recordist whose dreamy, skittering songs combine psychedelic pop and smooth soul. James Alexander Bright's home-recorded indie electronic productions blend dreamy, lo-fi psychedelic pop and smooth soul grooves. Textured percussion and fragmented electronic and tape effects help define the multi-instrumentalist's distinct sound.
James Alexander Bright - Headroom / 6am
James Alexander Bright's music is as visual a voyage as it is a sonic one; a kaleidoscope of colours that swirl, swoon, soar and sing. Stepping into his musical world is a multi-sensory experience, one where smooth grooves, wonky rhythms, dreamy melodies and immersive atmospheres coalesce to form their own sphere. “Sound as vision,” says Bright of the audio aesthetic he relates to and aims for. “Music you can bite into.” Based in the Hampshire countryside and an illustrator by day, Bright’s world is often a dual one but one where elements overlap and inform one another. “I spend a lot of my day creating things visually and everyday life can be an assault on the senses,” says Bright. “Evening is my quiet time; time for my ears. Invariably I’m inspired by the things that people and creatures do in the dark.”
A heady air of dislocation envelops Drab City’s debut album, where songs of innocence and experience merge with dub, hip-hop, dream-pop and jazzy soundtrack vibes to intoxicating effect. Drab City are fixated on social alienation, violent revenge, and (perhaps) romantic love as salvation; topics not new in music, but listening to Drab City in 2020, one is struck by how uncommon they’ve become.
Drab City - Good Songs for Bad People / Devil Doll
What a great album - imagine Julee Cruise doing the soundtrack to Killing Eve? Or Mazzy Star miraculously transported back to ye-ye France. A heady air of dislocation envelops Drab City’s debut album, where songs of innocence and experience merge with dub, hip-hop, dream-pop and jazzy soundtrack vibes to intoxicating effect. Drab City are fixated on social alienation, violent revenge, and (perhaps) romantic love as salvation; topics not new in music, but listening to Drab City in 2020, one is struck by how uncommon they’ve become. Lyrically, these songs often project punkish angst and resentment... Dreamy and ethereal, a foundation of flute, vibraphone, and jazzy guitar chord melody can switch to drum machines or funk-inflected girl-group pop at a moment’s notice. It’s a flurry of 20th century references, combining and recombining at such a schizophrenic pace, the overall effect is something that could only be conjured in our frenzied present....
Adventurous and accomplished guitar-and-vocals experimentalists featuring Sima Cunningham and Macie Stewart. Sima Cunningham and Macie Stewart, a pair of multi-talented musicians from Chicago, are Ohmme, an experimental indie pop band who use their striking vocal harmonies and lean, angular guitar patterns to create songs that are spare but full-bodied, making clever use of dynamics to generate a rich sound out of a small number of elements.
Ohmme - Fantasize Your Ghost / Ghost
...Spending several months wandering the nation's highways through one unfamiliar town after another isn't an experience that agrees with everyone, and though Ohmme's second LP, 2020's Fantasize Your Ghost, doesn't directly concern itself with life on the road, the rootlessness, anxiety, and uncertainty that come with it hovers in the background of this music. As on Parts, the blend of Sima Cunningham and Macie Stewart's voices and guitars is beautiful even as it reveals a very real emotional grit... the rancorous division of "Ghost" ring loud and clear, all emotions common to people living on a margin of too much stress and too little reward. And percussionist Matt Carroll's instincts in how to add to the mood and framework of these songs are impressive throughout...
Indie pop quartet Melenas hail from Pamplona, Spain, a picturesque region nestled just south of the Pyrenees. Such beauty can't help but inform the band's songwriting, but Melenas aren't content to just sit placidly & take in the scenery.
Melenas - Dias Raros / Primer tiempo
Dias Raros hums right from the get-go, peppering their garage-pop punch with elements of lysergic dream pop, melancholic indie rock and strident guitar jangle. The album title translates to "Strange Days" an acknowledgement - according to the band - of "...those days where you spend more time inside than outside. Inside your own self, inside your bedroom and your own universe thinking about your wishes, dreams, memories, obsessions or fears."... Opener "Primer tiempo" buzzes with an urgent organ drone, unfolding into a yearning ballad of modern guitar-pop bolstered by the group's lush harmonies & sets the tone for the rest of Dias Raros... Its dreamy sway alluding to classic Brill Building songwriting; dusted with melancholy, but lifted by cascading voices, and organ and guitar waves and guitars that twinkle and shimmer over a cracking backbeat. Dias Raros is the perfect introduction to a band bursting with promise, confidently inhabiting their own space built upon the foundation of their influences both geographically and culturally, as well as musically.
Noisy Spanish garage pop quartet based in Madrid. Spain in the 2010s was a hotbed for garage rock bands, mostly fronted and populated by men. The four women of Hinds broke the mold and in the process became the most successful of them all.
Hinds - The Prettiest Curse / Burn
On their third album, The Prettiest Curse, Spanish quartet Hinds decide to try something a little different. With producer Jenn Decilveo's help, the band leave behind the ramshackle garage pop of their first two releases in favor of a slicker, bigger, and more emphatically poppy sound. The rhythm section has more thump and power, the guitars are less jagged, and there is more care overall put into the arrangements... Where a track like "Burn" might have been a rambling, loose-limbed jaunt before, with their new approach it's a tightly wound rocker that blasts out of the speakers like a jolt of electricity... The one thing that hasn't changed here is the impressively unhinged vocal style both Carlotta Cosials and Ana Perrote employ. They come across even more confident than before and the way the vocals are mixed at times makes them sound like a hurricane of zealous enthusiasm...
Post-punk Portland quartet known for their angular rhythms and deadpan vocals. Cranking the maximum amount of tension out of their minimalist post-punk, Portland, Oregon's Lithics give a 21st century jolt to the sounds of forebears like Bush Tetras, Pylon, and Captain Beefheart.
Lithics - Tower of Age / Hands
On 2016's Borrowed Floors, Lithics' bracing post-punk arrived fully formed: Bob Desaulniers' bass carried most of the music's melody as well as its rhythm, while Mason Crumley and Aubrey Hornor's stabbing, scrabbling guitars and Wiley Hickson's elastic drumming provided the perfect foil for Hornor's hypnotically detached vocals. Since then, they've brought that sound into starker focus with each album... On the standout "Hands," guitars tingle with anxiety -- or anticipation -- at the mere suggestion of physical contact before exploding in klaxon-like outbursts... Lithics' studies in contrast are more fascinating and masterful than ever on Tower of Age, and prove once again that they're experts at minimalist music with maximum impact.
Experimental L.A. punk duo of guitar, drums, and vocals held together by noisy, textural samples. Los Angeles duo No Age updated the spirit of early independent punk and hardcore by covering their spiky, uptempo songs with washes of textural ambient noise.
No Age - Goons Be Gone / Turned to String
Since beginning in late 2005, albums from L.A. duo No Age have been defined by where they fell in the balance between the group's straightforward hooky punk and their more experimental tendencies. When guitarist Randy Randall and drummer/vocalist Dean Spunt find the sweet spot between blurry ambient abstraction and spartan songwriting, it generally results in No Age's most captivating material... Fifth album Goons Be Gone continues the maturation that began on Snares Like a Haircut, but this time around Randall and Spunt draw clearer lines between their various approaches... "Turned to String" coasts along like a punked-up Neu, monotonous drums and minimal chord changes gelling into a fast-but-hypnotic repetition... Goons Be Gone isn't the perfect synthesis of chaos and control that No Age have been searching for their entire career, but it finds some of their best songs and most fruitful experiments presented in a style that's never sounded more singularly their own.
Rappers El-P and Killer Mike are the members of this side project that evolved into a group. What started as a one-off project that quickly evolved into a Grammy-nominated hip-hop super duo, Run the Jewels features the talents of Brooklyn rapper/producer El-P and Atlanta emcee Killer Mike. Atop hard-hitting beats and ominous production, the pair trade aggressive and often wryly comical rhymes, touching upon social issues, life and death, and a heavy dose of chest-thumping bragging.
Run the Jewels - RTJ4 / Pulling the Pin feat. Mavis Staples & Josh Homme
Arriving earlier than expected as both a global pandemic and a nationwide movement against police brutality gripped the United States, RTJ4 distills the anger and frustration of the people through Run the Jewels' hard-hitting, no-nonsense revolution anthems... Rousing and lyrically dexterous, Killer Mike and El-P deliver their densest collection yet, balancing clever bon mots with tongue-twisting screeds decrying police brutality, systemic racism, class injustice, and a litany of other ills plaguing the nation... Meanwhile, an unlikely pair join forces on the swirling "Pulling the Pin," with Josh Homme's ghostly wails and Mavis Staples' pained cries creating an RTJ-meets-...Like Clockwork doomscape that pushes back against a power structure that allows for "filthy criminals...at the pinnacle."...
Paul Banks, Matt Barrick, and Josh Kaufman had all been friends that had been involved in the New York City post-punk revival scene of the early 2000s. The three began playing together in early 2015 which lead to the first demos of Muzz. In 2020, the band began recording studio material in anticipation of their self-titled debut album. This album was released on June 5, 2020.
Muzz - Muzz / Evergreen
Whenever established musicians form a new group, it's tempting to trace where the different elements of the project's music came from. In the case of Muzz, the trio of Interpol's Paul Banks, producer/multi-instrumentalist and Bonny Light Horseman member Josh Kaufman, and former Walkmen drummer Matt Barrick, the band's self-titled debut alludes to its members' other projects and the greats that inspired them (which include Bob Dylan, Neil Young, and Leonard Cohen) in elliptical ways... Kaufman's detailed, expansive style is just as distinctive, particularly on "Evergreen," a mellow yet kinetic track driven by a rolling bass and embellished with gliding pedal steel and flutes... A testament to longtime friends coming together to make music and gently challenge expectations along the way, Muzz's easygoing grace grows more compelling each time it's heard.
Sunny-sounding Australian band specializes in "soft punk/hard pop" with a smart and jangly approach. Playing bright, energetic indie rock with lively guitar lines, sharp hooks, and dry wit, the Australian quintet Rolling Blackouts Coastal Fever turn the clock back to the glory days of '80s jangle pop.
Rolling Blackouts Coastal Fever - Sideways to New Italy / Cars in Space
After a couple of EPs where they worked on finding their feet as a band, the Australian quintet Rolling Blackouts Coastal Fever nailed it on their first album, 2018's Hope Downs. Their three-guitar attack was honed to a fine point, the songwriting suddenly popped like formerly plugged-up ears in a descending aircraft... The band must have realized they had hit on something extraordinary because on 2020's Sideways to New Italy, they don't change the formula much. The songs on the record are all just as memorable and sneakily moving as those on Hope Downs, again led by the jangling, biting, telepathically intertwined guitars and driven by the agile and rock-solid backline... "Cars in Space" sports lovely vocal harmonies, proggy guitar lines, and a little saxophone buried in the mix...
Thomas Dutronc, Iggy Pop, Diana Krall, Vinyl Williams, James Alexander Bright, Drab City, Ohmme, Melenas, Hinds, Lithics, No Age, Run the Jewels, Mavis Staples, Josh Homme, MUZZ, Rolling Blackouts Coastal Fever
