I’ll throw in the latest from Brisbane, Down-Undah’s The Goon Sax… We’re Not Talking!
It didn’t grab me right away but after three or four listens, totally hooked.
Nice add! I’ve also been listening to that a lot.
Also, I didn’t realize but Goon Sax frontman Louis Forster is the son of Go-Betweens’ Robert Forster. Those are some good edgy-pop bloodlines.
Really digging this album Pink from Japanese pop-rockers Chai. It’s from last year in Japan, but was just re-issued by Burger Records. Influences range all over the map, but I hear some Beck, some Go Team and they’re still pretty easily identified as cutesy J-pop. Good stuff and lots of fun.
Ooo, I didn’t know that either…definitely listening to that later.
Troubadour Dali was the best shoegaze band to ever come from my hometown of St. Charles, Missouri. They’ve called it quits, but one member of that band, Kevin Bachmann spent the last two years recording his idea of a psychedelic indie pop album with some local folks in St. Louis, including the studio and producer of retro-whatever Pokey LaFarge. His new nom de rock is Summer Magic. Friends in the STL assure me that they are the reigning best band in town. And those friends are in bands.
Anyway, it’s pretty great, with some overtones of XTC, Love, some Beach Boys, etc.
This is really good. Thanks, Banzie!
I knew that little factoid when their first album came out but I subsequently forgot, as is my middle-aged wont. But now I remember and, yes, it makes perfect genetic sense.
Italian post-punk band Havah bring us Contravveleno, a concept album about the anti-fascist resistance fighters during WWII Italy.
Nice pick, K. Sounds lovely.
I’ll throw in this bewitching album that I’ve been listening to on the train in my headphones all week…
Muunduja by Maarja Nuut & Ruum
Adding a recent album A To X from Aussie ramshackle indie pop band School Damage. Kiwi-pop meets Television Personalities, two of my favorite things.
@rrmorton Your thing didn’t make it to the playlist.
Oi! Fixed.
Like your pick so far.
I added an unheard, underrated classic: Garland Jeffreys’ “Ghost Writer”.
Jeffreys’ main sin back in 1977 when he put out this amazing record was that he simply refused to be categorized. “Rough And Ready” is almost Stonesy punk. “I May Not Be Your Kind” shifts effortlessly to reggae. “New York Skyline” is…country? He dips into R&B, Soul, and straight ahead blue-collar rock and roll.
And no one knew what the hell to make of Garland Jeffreys back then. And so the record kind of stiffed, other than the anthemic, absolutely perfect anthem to his native New York, “Wild In The Streets”.
Anyway, in the past few years, shows like “Vinyl”, “The Deuce”, and that Baz Luhrman thing have tried (and mostly failed) to capture the dangerous, electric energy of New York City back in the days of the Bronx Zoo and bankruptcy and Son of Sam and punk and disco and rap all rising up organically out of the scene. They miss out on the essential energy of it all.
“Ghost Writer” is the boiled-down essense of what they’re not capturing. It’s a record that’s somehow both timeless…but also so perfectly captures a time and place.
Thanks for last month; wonderful stuff. Particularly love that Garland Jeffreys record.
This month, I’m still deciding. I’ve put up a placeholder but it’s probably going to change for something a bit more wintry.
Just finishing up the albums on the last day. Liked everything, especially Maarja Nuut (which reminded me of DCD a bit). Garland Jeffreys, not really my thing, but that song New York Skyline is fantastic.
This month I’m adding Birds of America by Lake Ruth. Fans of Broadcast, Stereolab and Saint Etienne or labels like Ghost Box and Polytechnic Youth should approve.
Well, that sounds like a whole lot of something I’d like.
I’m throwing in Flowertruck’s debut LP Mostly Sunny. Bright and jangly indie rock from down undah. Good on ya.
I’m putting up Chris Watson’s (he of Cabaret Voltaire and Hafler Trio back in the 70s-90s, now sound documentarian for television and film) recording El Tren Fantasma. It’s uses his archive recordings he made for BBC’s Great Railways Journeys (great show, btw) while spending the last month on the so-called Ghost Train from Los Mochis to Veracruz in Mexico before the line closed down. It’s a pretty riveting sound document.
Sounds intriguing! And I dug your Lake Ruth pick last month.
I’m still making my way through the 4AD book called Facing the Other Way and I recently got the three This Mortal Coil albums on vinyl. And, since I’m in that kinda mood, I’m adding the second album by Penelope Trappes who is not on 4AD but sounds awfully 4AD-ish. Minimal soundscapes, ethereal feminine vocals, and don’t forget the nudity.
I added the 2018 record Loner from Caroline Rose. We talked about her a bit in the 2018 music thread, and dammit, that record just kept worming its way into my regular rotation, and finally I realized that it was gonna be my record of the year.
I mean, come to Loner for the pointedly funny social commentary of “Soul No. 5” and “Bikini”, but stay for songs like the shattering album closer, “Animal”:
