ALTER.NATION #105
Garcia Peoples,The Budos Band,Ron Miles, Machinedrum, Drew Citron, Slow Pulp, Supercrush, Andy Bell,Mary Lattimore
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"Gliding Through"
...The group took cues from the open-ended improvisation of classic jam band acts like Phish and the Grateful Dead, but also incorporated dual-guitar wizardry on par with Television or, in their more Southern-fried moments, the Allmann Brothers. For their 2019 album One Step Behind, the band expanded to a six-piece lineup and added avant-jazz touches to the equation as they stretched out over the course of a half-hour-long title track. With Nightcap at Wits' End, Garcia Peoples shift gears yet again, with a set of neatly composed and relatively concise tunes that distill their wandering impulses into easily digestible forms. This can take the form of rowdy prog-lite tunes like album opener "Gliding Through"...
Staten Island's Budos Band celebrate their 15th anniversary with the release of Long in the Tooth, their sixth long-player. While the tongue-in-cheek title refers to the band's longevity, it also references the music on offer here. They shifted aesthetic gears with 2014's Burnt Offering, adding a heady, heavy mix of riff-centric rock and psychedelia to their swaggering meld of R&B, jump blues, and Afro-funk, and placed the guitars, organ, and drums right up front. This set references the band's earliest records with horns as front-line instruments framed by inventive beats and infectious riffs. This isn't an exercise in nostalgia...
A highly regarded Denver-based trumpeter, composer, and educator with a lyrical, harmonically nuanced approach to modern creative jazz.
Rainbow Sign is trumpeter/composer Ron Miles' debut recording for Blue Note. He re-enlists the same intuitive quintet who played on 2017's I Am a Man. It features guitarist Bill Frisell, pianist Jason Moran, bassist Thomas Morgan, and drummer Brian Blade. Written during the summer of 2018 while caring for his dying father, these nine compositions were intended to provide empathy, peace, love, and reassurance to his transitioning parent and his family. Clocking in at over 71 minutes, Rainbow Sign bridges polytonal modal music, blues, gospel, post-bop, and pop... "The Rumor" is infused with a drifting Americana melody from the guitarist. In a stately 4/4, Moran embellishes and extrapolates the harmony while Blade's dialogues with him intimately before Miles opens the circle thematically with muted blues lines and phrases before delivering an artfully rendered solo...
Travis Stewart's music moved in a futuristic pop direction throughout much of the 2010s, particularly with his production work for Dawn Richard and Azealia Banks as well as his ongoing collaboration with Jimmy Edgar, JETS. His first full-length as Machinedrum since 2016's Human Energy is less hyperkinetic or sugary than that album, but just as inventive, and ultimately a bit stronger overall. While Stewart's music always fuses elements of multiple genres and regional dance music scenes, drum'n'bass and hip-hop seem to be the most prominent guiding forces of the album, partially returning to the producer's roots, but still creating something new.. "Sleepy Pietro" is more experimental, with Armenian pianist Tigran Hamasyan providing sparkling melodies over a beat that morphs from a 4/4 house thump to more agitated drum'n'bass skittering...
A onetime core member of noise pop group Beverly, singer/guitarist Drew Citron was active with post-punk descendants Public Practice when she presented her full-length solo debut, Free Now.
An established member of the Brooklyn indie scene by 2020, best known for her time in the bands Avan Lava and Beverly, Drew Citron steps forward with her own material on Free Now, a long-intended solo debut. At the time of its release, her band Public Practice had just released their own debut album... The resulting set is both impulsive and solidly constructed, with catchy, yearning melodies, moments of grungy distortion, and flashes of brightness. An example of the latter is notable harmony vocals that appear midway through third track "Dead on Arrival."...
Chicago-based indie band originally from Madison, Wisconsin, with shoegaze tendencies. The dreamy songs of Midwest indie rock outfit Slow Pulp draw on moody shoegaze, hooky grunge, and intimate lo-fi fare. The band made their full-length debut with Moveys in 2020.
The full-length debut of a band from Chicago by way of Madison, Wisconsin, Moveys follows a series of EPs that documented a major transformation for the group. Founded by childhood friends Henry Stoehr (guitar), Alexander Leeds (bass), and Theodore Mathews (drums), Slow Pulp made Emily Massey their lead singer only after she contributed guitar and backing vocals to their second EP, 2017s EP2...
Power pop that owes a huge debt to the post-grunge '90s. Supercrush's power pop sound harkens back to the days when guitar bands like Teenage Fanclub and Weezer walked the line between melody and noise like long-haired aerial artists.
...The chiming guitars, shimmering background vocals, and crystal-clear melodies are on loan from power pop; the booming bass, heartily bashed drums, and crunching rhythm guitars are taken from grunge. Add in some J. Mascis-y guitar leads that careen across a few of the songs, and the occasional bits of Matthew Sweet-styled balladry that come complete with pedal steel, and Supercrush score an early-'90s bingo. To make it even more authentic, Palm's lead vocals alternate between shoegaze breathiness and pop-punk brattiness, and most of the songs sound like they would have been standouts on the Clueless or Empire Records soundtracks...
A mainstay of U.K. rock music since the early 1990s, Welshman Andy Bell is the founding guitarist and co-leader of shoegaze legends Ride, the founder and chief songwriter for alt-rock combo Hurricane #1, and also served as the second bassist for Brit-pop icons Oasis.
The euphoric rush of "Love Comes in Waves" sounds every bit like what fans might expect from Andy Bell's first proper solo release. As co-leader of shoegaze legends Ride and a latter-day member of Oasis -- not to mention the post-Oasis project Beady Eye -- the Welshman has remained a steady fixture of the U.K. rock scene since the 1990s, collaborating with numerous different artists, though never striking out on his own until now. A pleasing amalgam of propulsive uptempo shoegaze, misty psych-pop, and layered acoustic songwriting...
Based out of Toronto, Canadian noise punk trio METZ formed in 2007, taking equal inspiration from the battered rock trappings of '90s grunge and the noisier side of shoegaze's textural guitars.
The strength and severity of their instrumental attack has been METZ's most impressive quality since they issued their debut album in 2012. By the time they brought out 2017's Strange Peace, it seemed all but impossible that the trio of Alex Edkins (guitar and vocals), Chris Slorach (bass), and Hayden Menzies (drums) could get any tighter, or play with greater physical impact. In the truest sense, that notion is confirmed on their fourth full-length effort, 2020's Atlas Vending; having achieved a nearly miraculous level of technical skill, METZ have opted to refine their songwriting and arrangements rather than fuss about their chops, which are still on a par with most veteran prog rock bands, though applied in a very different way... Produced and recorded with a skill that's all the more effective for its unwillingness to intrude on the band, Atlas Vending is a dazzling display of form and content that shows listeners how math rock can be effectively weaponized.
Harp player who writes lush, ethereal solo compositions in addition to working with countless indie and experimental musicians.
Harpist Mary Lattimore's albums under her own name have often continued the spirit of collaboration she developed while working for years as a guest on other artists' albums. Though her songs often evoke a feeling of solitary contemplation, many of her pieces are born from the spark of playing off the creative energy of a peer. With Silver Ladders, Lattimore worked with Slowdive's Neil Halstead on a collection of solo compositions and joint improvisations that funnel into an album of reflective, autumnal bittersweetness...
Garcia Peoples,The Budos Band,Ron Miles, Machinedrum, Drew Citron, Slow Pulp, Supercrush, Andy Bell, Mary Lattimore
