LEAP DAY MiX 075 ALTER.NATION weekly favtraX 29-02-2020

ALTER.NATION #75

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The Proper Ornaments, Waco Brothers, Real Estate, Soccer Mommy, The Secret Sisters, Pictish Trail, Cold Beat, Caribou, Wrangler, Tycho, Sunny Jain, Mhysa

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L E A P - D A Y "Music of the Traffic"

Quietly jangly indie pop from a London duo that includes a member of Veronica Falls. London-based indie pop group the Proper Ornaments formed as a byproduct of the friendship between musicians James Hoare and Max Oscarnold. Their love of classic psychedelia and West Coast folk-rock led them to craft their own home-cooked version, starting with a batch of singles in the early 2010s. 
The Proper Ornaments - Mission Bells / Music of the Traffic
Released less than a year after their 2019 album 6 Lenins, Mission Bells finds the Proper Ornaments in the middle of a creative burst. Most of the songs came together during soundchecks while the band was touring Europe. Once back in James Hoare's home studio, the quartet set to work getting the songs on tape quickly, without a lot of fuss or overdubbing. It makes for an immediate, intimate sound that creeps and crawls like a melancholy spider...

Fun and furious leftist alt-country band, primarily comprising U.K. expatriates led by Jon Langford of the Mekons.
Waco Brothers - Resist / I Fought the Law
On Resist!, Chicago's original punk cowboys The Waco Brothers play protest songs about the folks getting shoved down and songs about the system that's doing the shoving. They can be political, they can be personal, and sometimes there is no difference. Their shout-along manifestos and strident tomfoolery make for a potent elixir in times when reason and humour are at odds. With a hardy cackle and righteous rant, they're down for the siege, as long as there's enough beer to make it to last call. Includes all the songs that have never been available on vinyl in the US before.

New Jersey band whose hazy style of indie rock mixes relaxed grooves and breezy melodies with psychedelic influences.
Real Estate - The Main Thing / Also a But
With their 2017 album In Mind, New Jersey indie drifters Real Estate began a very slow evolutionary process, changing up their time-honored formula of laid-back, jangly pop by gently introducing new sounds and ideas. A change in their long-running membership brought in new guitarist Julian Lynch, who carried over some of the world music-influenced sensibilities that marked his excellent solo work and his new gig. Fifth album The Main Thing continues the band's one-step-at-a-time stylistic development while underpinning their ever sunny tunes with unlikely themes of anxiety for future generations and apocalyptic dread... Particularly toward the end of "Also a But," the band breaks their warm, tuneful sound down with some ungrounded jamming that sounds like an excerpt from a particularly spacy Dead set circa 1974...

Hooky, angular indie rock with the personal lyrics and vulnerable vocals of singer/songwriter Sophie Allison.
Soccer Mommy - color theory / crawling in my skin
Though Soccer Mommy's Sophie Allison generated buzz as early as 2015 with her introspective, then-self-recorded tracks, the project made its official debut three years later with Clean, a critically lauded set of hooky, heartbroken songs with lyrics that were notably vulnerable and relatable. That more hi-fi release was produced by Gabe Wax, known for his work in the studio with acts like the War on Drugs, Cass McCombs, and Frankie Cosmos. The pair reunited for the follow-up, color theory, Soccer Mommy's Loma Vista debut. The title comes with a thematic key code; the album is divided into three sections represented by blue, yellow, and gray, each with its own associated topics and emotions (sadness, mental and physical sickness, and darkness)...

A Muscle Shoals, Alabama-based country-folk duo featuring the talents of siblings Lydia and Laura Rogers, The Secret Sisters emerged in 2010 with a sound that combines effortless harmonies, sharp songwriting, and a shared love of country music's rich history.
The Secret Sisters - Saturn Return / Water Witch
The Secret Sisters Find Their Voice on ‘Saturn Return’
The fourth album from Alabama sibling duo the Secret Sisters is the stunning country-soul opus their talent has always promised. Laura and Lydia Rogers have been at it since 2010, making solid LPs with high-profile producers (T Bone Burnett, Dave Cobb) while lending their Southern church harmonies to legends like Willie Nelson and Elvis Costello. In 2017, the pair enlisted singer-songwriter Brandi -Carlile to co-produce their third LP, You Don’t Own Me Anymore, helping them up their game in a set of songs about piloting life’s hardships, delivered with tender -intimacy. Carlile is back for Saturn Return, a spare, -gorgeous, relatably realistic set...

The shape-shifting, psychedelic lo-fi project of Johnny Lynch, founder of Lost Map Records.
Pictish Trail - Thumb World / Double Sided
Named with both a defining characteristic of homo sapiens and the proliferation of handheld devices in mind, Thumb World is the fourth officially sanctioned album from Johnny Lynch's long-running solo project, Pictish Trail. The founder and operator of Lost Map Records (Rozi Plain, Seamus Fogarty, Tuff Love), Lynch offers his usual eclectic blend of psychedelic folk, fuzz, electronic whimsy, and contemplative and clever singer/songwriter fare here, though the recording quality and performance takes have gradually improved with each release, making the lo-fi label apply more in spirit than sound. Issued on Fire Records, Thumb World was produced and mixed by prior collaborator Rob Jones...

The darkly poppy, post-punk-inspired solo project of Grass Widow bassist Hannah Lew. Named for a song by the Sound, Cold Beat is the post-punk-inspired project of Hannah Lew, also the bassist for San Francisco's acclaimed trio Grass Widow.
Cold Beat - Mother  / Double Sided Mirror
San Francisco band Cold Beat make their DFA debut with Mother, a collection of ten pop transmissions from Earth, 2020.
Wound tight with an energy that ricochets from one song into the next, Mother was made while frontperson Hannah Lew (formerly of indie trio Grass Widow) was pregnant and considering the chaotic conditions of the world she was bringing a new human into. If we consider Mother an artistic style guide through space and time, the framework Cold Beat provide is overcast by design but focused in execution; locked-in drums and synths with choir-like melodies high above it all.

Canadian musician's one-man project (originally called Manitoba) that seamlessly blends electronic production with psychedelic pop pastiche.
Caribou - Suddenly / Like I Loved You
Over a long career arc, electronic producer Dan Snaith took his Caribou project from sunny sample-core to more organic, psyche-tinged creations and beyond. His 2010 album Swim filtered his unique musical perspectives through a fascination with deep house music, and four years later Our Love delivered some of his more intimate and minimal sounds. Sixth studio album Suddenly picks up threads from both of these, pushing the dancefloor-ready style of Swim as well as Snaith's more softly drawn songwriting into colorful and fun new places...

Electro supergroup whose members have played with Cabaret Voltaire, Tunng, and John Foxx. Armed with an assortment of analog synthesizers and digital sequencers, electro trio Wrangler are named due to their stated goal of wrangling new music from vintage gear. The group is a collaboration between Ben Edwards (Benge), Phill Winter (Tunng), and Stephen Mallinder (Cabaret Voltaire), and their music is a loose, improvisational blend of synth pop, techno, machine funk, and EBM.
Wrangler - A Situation / How to Start a Revolution
Electro trio Wrangler, consisting of Stephen Mallinder (Cabaret Voltaire), Ben Edwards (Benge), and Phil Winter (Tunng), harness old technology in order to create futuristic music, playing vintage synths and sequencers in a loose, improvisational way. A Situation, the group's third album, sounds similar to the first two, except this time there's a greater presence of lyrics, and the songs sound more urgent... While it's hard to even process everything that's going on, let alone attempt to find a solution, Mallinder at least encourages listeners to take action and make a difference, particularly on the commanding "How to Start a Revolution." Even though the underlying message of the album is quite serious, the music itself is playful rather than bleak or cathartic... The situation of the world might be increasingly dire, but Wrangler aren't entering panic mode just yet. They still feel that something can be done about all of this, and being able to have fun, dance, and create music helps immensely.

San Francisco-based group founded by Scott Hansen, whose productions play out like complete electronic dream pop songs.
Tycho - Simulcast / Weather
Weather was Tycho's first album to be centered around lyrics, with guest vocalist Hannah Cottrell (Saint Sinner) adding a more relatable touch to the group's already accessible brand of atmospheric electronic pop. Simulcast takes the same material and makes it more open to interpretation, removing the lead vocals and expanding on the instrumental ideas of the album. Three of the songs on Weather were already instrumentals (with just a few vocal traces by Cottrell), and they reappear on Simulcast without alteration... Simulcast could be thought of as the more "background music" version of Weather, but even without lyrics, it's still meant to put your mind in motion. Both versions are equally worth the roughly half-hour it takes to listen to each.

Innovative drummer and dhol percussionist, who combines jazz and psych-rock with North Indian musical traditions.
Sunny Jain - Wild Wild East / Immigrant Warrior
An explosive jazz drummer and master of the Indian double-sided drum the dhol, Sunny Jain is known for mixing post-bop jazz, psych-rock, and funk with the vibrant Indian musical traditions he grew up with as the child of Punjabi immigrants. He brings all of these influences to bear on his fourth solo album, 2020's potently realized Wild Wild East. Drawing inspiration from Bollywood and Spaghetti Western soundtracks, surf rock, hip-hop, and avant-garde improvisation, Jain paints a vivid, cross-cultural musical portrait. It's a sound that has specific roots in '70s Bollywood "curry westerns" like Sholay and Khote-Sikkay, where directors brought American cowboy archetypes and themes to stories set in India...

Atmospheric ballads and discordant jams from multidisciplinary artist E. Jane, who has recorded for NON, Halcyon Veil, and Hyperdub.
Mhysa - Nevaeh / when the saints (reprise)
The New York City-based conceptual and visual artist’s experimental club tracks channel the legacies of black women icons into visions of utopias... When it comes to reinterpreting songs, how you sing matters just as much as what you’re singing. Louis Armstrong turned an apocalyptic dirge into a celebration of new life and a New Orleans jazz funeral standard with his recording of “When the Saints Go Marching In.” Whitney Houston transformed a limping nationalist anthem into a tear-jerking ballad of resilience with her 1991 performance of “The Star-Spangled Banner” at that year’s Super Bowl. Excavating new meanings from old work and stirring new emotions: This is the talent electronic artist Mhysa brings to her latest album, Nevaeh, as she plants seeds of R&B, pop, and spiritual hits and allows them to bloom over crashing beats, twinkling chimes, and playful synths.

The Proper Ornaments, Waco Brothers, Real Estate, Soccer Mommy, The Secret Sisters, Pictish Trail, Cold Beat, Caribou, Wrangler, Tycho, Sunny Jain, Mhysa

045 ALTER.NATION weekly favtraX 14-07-2019

ALTER.NATION #45

Pere Ubu, Purple Mountains, Africa Express, Gauche, METZ, Tycho, Insane Clown Posse, Stereo Total, Khruangbin, K.Flay, Kyle Craft, Bleached, Penelope Isles

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"What I Heard on the Pop Radio"

ALTER.NATION #45 on DEEZER


Influential art punk band whose experimental sound harnessed self-destructing melodies, scattershot rhythms, and industrial-strength dissonance. 

Pere Ubu - What I Heard on the Pop Radio from Long Goodbye
Ever since "30 Seconds Over Tokyo," Pere Ubu have been portending the end, either with their apocalyptic sounds or the numerous times they've threatened to call it quits. This time, they may actually mean it. The band's mastermind David Thomas described The Long Goodbye as their "definitive destination," and if it is their final statement, they're not making any concessions. Unlike 20 Years in a Montana Missile Silo, where they framed the complexity of their music in relatively short, simple outbursts, this time they lead with the avant side of their avant-garage, letting it sprawl and tangle in fascinating and unsettling ways. For the band's final chapter, Thomas was inspired by an unlikely pair of influences: commercial pop music and Raymond Chandler's classic 1953 noir novel The Long Goodbye (which, not coincidentally, was the author's final book and the culmination of the Philip Marlowe series).

In addition to the six full length albums that Berman has written and recorded with the Silver Jews, he has also released two books: Actual Air (1999) and The Portable February (2009). In early 2019, Berman returned to music under the new band name Purple Mountains, releasing an eponymous debut album in July 2019.
Purple Mountains - Darkness and Cold from Purple Mountains
After the Silver Jews ended in 2009, David Berman's retreat from music seemed so final that the mere existence of Purple Mountains is somewhat miraculous -- and even more so because it's one of his finest collections of songs. For this go-round, Berman chose a brilliant band name: Purple Mountains is traditional but not obvious, familiar but with more than a hint of eternal mystery. While he's always been an eloquent songwriter, now he's also a direct one -- it's as if these songs are making up for lost time even as they let listeners know what's been on his mind during the years he was gone...
David Berman’s first new music in over a decade is a marvelous collection of heartbreak, grief, and bitterness. His careful writing has never sounded so exacting or direct.

Africa Express is a UK based non-profit organization which facilitates cross-cultural collaborations between musicians in African, Middle Eastern, and Western countries. It seeks to help African musicians break beyond the stigmas and prejudices of the term 'world music', while presenting a positive impression of Africa to counter against common media images of war, famine, and disease...
Africa Express - Become The Tiger (feat. Sibot, Damon Albarn, Mr Jukes) from Egoli
...Hailed as the most revolutionary force in popular music for two  decades, Africa Express was founded in 2006 and brings together musicians from different cultures, genres and generations to break  boundaries and offer a new perspective on Africa and its music...

Groove-centric punk band that shares members with Priests and Downtown Boys. 
Gauche - Dirty Jacket from A People's History of Gauche
Come the revolution, will the rebels man the barricades with skinny ties? The members of Gauche just might. A proudly leftist band whose songs demand justice for all in all forms -- social, racial, economic, feminist, LGTBQ+ -- Gauche also happen to deliver a joyously angular update of late-'70s/early-'80s new wave sounds, as if the Waitresses, the B-52s, X-Ray Spex, and Lene Lovich got together to stage a revved-up throwdown in support of a campus progressive organization... They also crank up some very satisfying pogo-friendly music, and in this case it's not simply a spoonful of crazy-colored sugar that helps the medicine go down. Gauche use the power and energy of their music to complement and reinforce their message, not dilute it. The tunes are full of hooks and grooves that will get the party started, and the melodies are sharp and fiery -- fun but a long way from empty-headed...

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.
METZ - Dry Up from Automat
...Drummer Hayden Menzies and bassist Chris Slorach are an intimidatingly good rhythm section, providing foundation and framework for songs that are rock-solid despite the outward chaos, and guitarist Alex Edkins suspends a riot of sounds over it, full of slashing chords, bursts of feedback, sheets of atmospheric distortions, and clouds of carefully sculpted effects-box cacophony drifting across the horizon. The precision of these performances sounds like math rock, the bulldozer impact is borrowed from metal, and the overall clamor would get them filed under noise rock, but as much as their debt to their influences can be worked out, the final product feels unique, and the sheer passion they pour into their work is matched by very few of their contemporaries...

San Francisco-based group founded by Scott Hansen, whose productions play out like complete electronic dream pop songs. 
Tycho - Easy from Weather
Since evolving from a Boards of Canada-inspired solo project to a full-fledged touring band around 2010, Tycho has perfected an instantly recognizable form of instrumental electronic pop music with strong beats, ringing guitars, and stirring melodies. With fifth album Weather, Scott Hansen distills the signature Tycho sound into the most accessible it's ever been, keeping all the songs around three or four minutes each and adding lyrics for the first time...

An unlikely institution, this Michigan horrorcore rap duo grew a devoted following that became a subculture unto itself. 
Insane Clown Posse - Clown Show from Hell's Cellar
...Interestingly, the project is more or less a Violent J solo effort, with no verses from his counterpart Shaggy 2 Dope on any of the songs. The material is also decidedly less commercial, even by ICP standards, sounding more like artistic experiments with dark beats and horrific lyricism than the usual over-the-top choruses and sophomoric shock humor the duo excelled at. Perhaps that more inspired creation is what kept this collection in the vaults...

Witty French-German duo incorporates punk, new wave, disco, '60s pop, and more into its globally minded indie pop. 
Stereo Total - Die Dachkatze from Ah! Quel Cinema!
...Musically, this Stereo Total disc, their twelfth, cannot be readily aligned with anything at all. If earlier albums resonated with influences from chanson, trash or disco to punk, rock’n’roll and NDW (German New Wave), Stereo Total have now arrived in their very own musical universe which pays no heed to stylistic devices, reminiscent of “rien de tout”. What we can say: Françoise Cactus excels in the art of 8-track cassette recording, thus creating an extraordinary sonic experience. Brezel Göring draws on his favoured array of instruments more likely to be found in the hands of children in households where a musical education is not on the agenda: plastic baby organ and dreadful mouse piano, accompanied by home-made guitars glued together by less than gifted artisans...

Khruangbin (Thai for airplane, or literally "engine fly") are a jet-setting trio from Texas whose smooth, mainly instrumental music is heavily inspired by Thai rock and funk from the '60s and '70s, as well as a multitude of other influences ranging from surf rock to dub to Iranian pop. 
Khruangbin - Sunny's Vision from Hasta el Cielo
Khruangbin's second album, 2018's Con Todo el Mundo, was the Texas trio's breakout; their relaxed blend of dub, funk, soul, and psych from around the world struck a chord with loads of people looking for something different. Hasta el Cielo is a dub reworking of that album that leans heavily on the rubbery bass playing of Laura Lee and steady drumming of Donald "DJ" Johnson, while sidelining Mark Speer's guitar playing for the most part. His distinctive lines dart in and out of the mix, sometimes subsumed by echo and other times beaming into the mix in gleaming shards. It's an interesting choice since his guitar lines were often what made Con Todo el Mundo as distinctive as it was. When they're subtracted and replaced by echo and other effects, the result is that the music slides seamlessly into the background and it's easier than the band likely hoped to zone out as the songs drift past...

American songwriter, vocalist, and multi-instrumentalist with a hard-to-define sound influenced by hip-hop, indie rock, and electronic music. 
K.Flay -This Baby Don't Cry from Solutions
Two years after her Grammy-nominated sophomore breakthrough, genre-spanning singer/songwriter Kristine Flaherty, aka K.Flay, dialed back the menace on Solutions, delivering a buoyant, beat-driven collection of synth-leaning pop with a '90s rock edge. Bright and full of life, the ten-song set continues to toy with the idea of genre, pulling in multiple styles and influences that veers in her most accessible direction to date. In terms of vocal delivery, she's spitting less bars than before, but the hip-hop cadence is still there. Instead of leaning on that early style, she's experimenting with fresh ideas, not only concentrating on more dance-centric energy, but also stretching her voice... The funky throbber "This Baby Don't Cry" -- co-written with Dan Reynolds (Imagine Dragons) -- adopts a garage rock vibe, complete with elastic bass and handclaps reminiscent of late 2000s indie-pop duo the Ting Tings...

K.Flay and Miya Folick: One Year Together and Counting
A conversation with the musicians about coming out, finding love, and writing songs about each other.

Singer/songwriter with a robust, full-throated wail and knack for pairing Stones-ian hooks and Dylan-esque wordplay with glam-kissed pop swagger. 
Kyle Craft - Broken Mirror Pose from Showboat Honey
Following a self-recorded debut and full-band follow-up that was tracked live in a studio under the guidance of Chris Funk (the Decemberists), '70s rock disciple Kyle Craft returns with Showboat Honey, his third Sub Pop release. Still fusing American Southern rock, British glam, and the songwriter's own knack for colorful characters and phraseology, Showboat Honey was not only produced by Craft with two members of his band (keyboardist Kevin Clark and bassist Billy Slater), but named for his backing five-piece. The track list opens with the collaborative "Broken Mirror Pose," an under-three-minute, saxophone-aided barroom jam. ..

The bouncy, heartfelt punk-pop project of sisters Jennifer and Jessie Clavin, formerly of Mika Miko. 
Bleached - Rebound City from Don't You Think You've Had Enough?
On the surface, the straightforward rock rhythms are crisply played with an honest raw energy and tight chord progressions. But a deeper dive reveals a slightly more complex sound with bouncy counter-rhythms, playful beats, and surging guitar riffs. Topped off with a glossy vocal punch, the sound could be likened to a cross between Blondie and the Talking Heads.
Like most good records, Don't You Think You Have Enough? requires a few good spins before the goodness sinks in. Most tracks are uncluttered with sharp driving rhythms that are catchy and upbeat.

Taking influence from alt-rock and lo-fi acts including Pavement, Radiohead, and Deerhunter, Brighton, U.K.'s Penelope Isles make lush, harmonic noise pop that's often as catchy as it is exploratory. The four-piece released their debut album, Until the Tide Creeps In, in 2019.

Penelope Isles - Gnarbone from Until the Tide Creeps In
Raised on the Isle of Man, English siblings Jack and Lily Wolter both started writing songs and playing in bands during their teens, but with a six-year age difference, more often separately than together. After Lily graduated from music school in Brighton, her older brother joined her there, and they formed Penelope Isles, eventually expanding the duo to a four-piece. Drawing on '90s and 2000s influences spanning lo-fi, jagged alt-rock, and dream pop, including experimental acts like Radiohead and Deerhunter, they fashioned an intriguing guitar-based song palette... Much of the album is catchy without detracting from their careful attention to texture, a combination that's best illustrated on the seven-minute centerpiece, "Gnarbone." While there's a mercurial effect to Until the Tide Creeps In at least partly due to its songwriters writing separately, common tendencies, artful execution, and a melancholy dreaminess tie it all together, like a novel that's consistently compelling as it moves through multiple perspectives.

 Pere Ubu, Purple Mountains, Africa Express, Gauche, METZ, Tycho, Insane Clown Posse, Stereo Total, Khruangbin, K.Flay, Kyle Craft, Bleached, Penelope Isles