Really dug everything from last month. People round here have great taste.
This month I’m adding local SF “darkwave” scenesters Ssleeping Desiress 2015 self-titled album. Pretty sure darkwave is what the kids call new bands that sound like Joy Division or the Banshees or Cabaret Voltaire. Maybe it’s called Coldwave. Never been too clear on the difference. Anyway, this is a pretty good example of the format. They have a newer one that I like too, but it’s not on Spotify for some reason.
That album cover looks like many a poster I had on my dorm room walls. IN!
For my very first Bitches Brew ingredient of the new year, I’m pouring in a heaping tablespoonful of Close Eyes to Exit by Klangstof.
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Kind of Radiohead-ish, Sigur-Ros-ian, Notwist-y… This was one of many albums I discovered while working on my favorite songs of 2016 Spotify playlist-- AVAILABLE NOW TO MUSIC LOVERS EVERYWHERE AT THIS LINK!!!
Excellent!
Last month, a quiet month. Yes, very quiet. Here.
This month, the psychedelic metal-krautrock squeal of Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs pigs pigs pgs ps s s s …
Making my return with the latest BJM (although another is coming out in February) Third World Pyramid.
This is not a “return to form”, but an incredibly beautiful new thing – partaking of Newcombe’s new-found maturity and musical patience. Indeed, sober Anton is producing some great music lately, including the previous EP Mini Album Thingy (or something). Imo, the best music of his late career.
One of Anton’s great musical strengths is arrangement, which reaches new heights here. I highly recommend a quiet environment for listening, be that headphones or a closed room, so all the details of the lush layerings can emerge.
I’m rather enjoying the recent release from Menace Beach, Lemon Memory: 90s-style indierock, with some psych and kraut overtones, but mostly it’s the 90’s thing.
Now playing on Spotify, one of my favorite albums from last year, a reissue/singles comp. called Watch Out by a 70s rock band from Zimbabwe called Wells Fargo. Loads of standout tracks but my favorite is The Crowd.
I added the album and ep from The Mice, the legendary Cleveland band from the mid-1980s that influenced so much of '90’s indie rock, Superchunk and Guided By Voices especially. What’s really sort of personally embarrassing is that The Mice and their leader, Bill Fox, both got their records reissued on a friend’s label this last decade, and I always meant to investigate but never did. Doesn’t help that in my head I mixed up “Bill Fox” (whom I like) with Bill Callahan (who is dandy as well, but not my cup of tea at all.)
So anyway, yeah. The Mice were great, but Bill Fox seems like one of those artists unique to that era in music who were unable to grasp the concept of uncoupling artistic merit from commercial success. Like Alex Chilton or Scott Miller, Fox’s working assumption through much of his life seems to be “If my music was any good, it would sell more.” And so you can understand how, after writing a song like “Little Rage”, a song that is absolutely perfect in every way, and seeing it go ignored why he abruptly quit The Mice and walked away from music for a decade.
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FYI, there’s a couple of really terrible bands called “The Mice” who have come around since the 1980s and have records up on various streaming sites. Don’t be fooled. (Also, there’s a jazz musician named Bill Fox who has his records co-mingled with Bill Fox by both AllMusic and Spotify, likely annoying fans of both guys. There was a second Mice album in the works when Fox quit the group. On the first pressing of the reissue of For Almost Ever Scooter, Scat records included a CD-R of that lost album, called Canterbury Bells. You can find it around the internet if you look for a bit.
It’s not much more than shoegazer lite, true, but I’m enjoying the new album by the awkwardly-monikered Froth, Outside (Briefly). Yeah sure, there’s a million shoegaze revivalists these days, but I still can’t help but appreciate blurry guitars and catchy melodies mixed together. I was at a very impressionable age when Chelsea Girl came out.
Happy March, y’all!
I’m adding the 2012 debut album from Philly indie-punks Hop Along called Get Disowned. It’s a scrappy assortment of songs anchored by Frances Quinlan’s fierce and idiosyncratic vocal style. She’s riveting even when the songs are sometimes little more than sketches, especially compared to 2015’s Painted Shut. Can’t wait to hear what they do next.
You haven’t cleared out the old stuff yet have you?
Just checking last month out now, Robocobra Quartet have to be inspired by Morphine huh?
I took a few months off from bombarding your ears with music from Boston, but Pile just dropped a new album and I just saw them for the first time last night, and well the album doesn’t do them justice compared to their live show/sound. Still, it’s pretty good. Pile are pretty well known in the local Boston scene, and semi-famously fellow local band Krill wrote a song about hearing them for the first time.
Apparently not! All Them Witches was this month; I confess to not knowing Morphine, but it’s entirely possible.
I posted them a few months back, you should absolutely check them out, they leaned heavily on the sax as well. Google tells me I’m not the first person to see the influence.
I do love Robocobra Quartet and I do now remember Morphine. I’ll go listen to some right now. Right now.
Nothing was really moving me to post this month, but then I noticed that wonderful Danish jangle/psych-pop band Halasan Bazar had a new album, and it turns out to be a lovely piece of work.
That sure looks interesting! (Did you add it? I don’t see it in there yet.)
I’m throwing in Strike a Match by Sacred Paws because it’s pretty good!
Is it not there for you? It’s showing up in the playlist on my end…
Had to restart Spotify but I see it now! Apologies for besmirching your good name, sir.
I’ve been having that problem lately with shared playlists.
