In somewhat keeping with the aside, this is an instrumental track on an album that otherwise features exceptional vocal production and performances.
And within that context, after the also superb track Burned Body, Gentle Movement toward Sensual Liberation lands with the most wobbled grace and poise.
An enclave of singing synths deliver a kind of orchestral chamber pop, built around two well textured, extra-strength melodies.
Here is a slight departure from the guitar-driven lo-fi, but the hiss of the tape remains, the synth-organ still chirps it’s guttural encouragements, and the hooks are everywhere present.
Akale Wube is an all time great track, for me, not only of Ethiopia, and not only of the saxophone, both of which I am not very familiar. But of the thing called music, generally. It wails.
Generally in art I am wary of outright abstraction, and view it with suspicion, as a salve to established, unjust hierarchies, and through it’s broad interpretation offering undue comfort to the enemy.
But not in this instance. At least for four minutes and eleven seconds I take Getatchew’s (lack of) word for it.
Stamp is one of them joyous garage rock lamentations, end to end.
Everything down to the outro refrain and terminal exclamation are so well balanced and calibrated, it almost defies belief. The fuzz and fade are most agreeably punctuated by the lead guitars tremolo.
Disgust and disillusionment never sounded so kindly, even merry. Tom Waits enjoys “Beautiful melodies telling (him) terrible things,” and so do I.
It is Good.
Noun Verb Adjective has some wonderfully crafted lo-fi bedroom pop rock.
If you would believe it, Boys in the Sand does have some Beach Boys stylistic parallels. The hooks and layers of vocals carom over one another and the tambourine/snare provides a warm and welcoming hive to orbit.
A superb owl on the cover guides you home. It’s a good, small marvel.
Sickly strummed guitars and cooing, warbled vocals are good. This song has both. It also has the most minimalistic drum track you may have ever heard in which one remains technically present.
The sum of it’s parts are quietly a spectacle that is worth taking in.
It has all the energy and promise of that first demo draft of a melody and rough lyric, a stab taken on tape, to play back later to build upon, before the verses are nailed down and the chorus repeats, burdensomely, to warrant having taught it to the band in the first place.
At 74 seconds, It’s a non-invasive surgery. What do you have to lose.
A great, soundly built garage rock track, strumming and bashing about over the tapes sturdy hiss. When the organ arrives to accompany the chorus you know you’re in good hands for the remainder.
The vocal and audio peaking is skillfully used for intensity, never overstepping into painful or distracting but instead gracefully bracing itself off of this ceiling.
If I had five golden merles to give I would give it five golden merles.
Cindy Lee’s Heavy Metal is an exemplary track for conveying that lo-fi does not have to mean anti-lush or lacking in vibrancy.
There is great richness and subtle hooks everywhere here, built into the vocal melody and the winding bass. The drum fills and phasing between segments are pristine and luxurious set pieces.
It’s all pretty captivating and contorts the space of any room into which it is freed.
Find further spectral ache and alchemy at the bandcamp.
Amy Annelle is a national treasure, albeit a Texas-based one so it’s a bit of a gray area.
In the alternate timeline in which Bernard Sanders has become the president, I imagine she is universally well regarded and heaped+drowning in praise.
But here we are in this rendition. The good still draws to it the good, but with slightly less gravity.
Regardless, The Cimarron Banks is a great album. The opening title track, the hellhound’s address, wounded man, forever in-between, and Miss it more than you know how, here featured, are all noteworthy achievements in songwriting and performance.
Annelle offers first-rate lyrical content interwoven with enduring melodies and an extremely technically accomplished delivery that is not stripped of character and nuance but rather plastered in them. It is difficult to ask for more than this.
Well, well is a stunning track and, good news, the whole album is built like this. Maybe a full, proper review to come when things settle down a bit.
But Black Bug’s s/t is a well contained rampage of burning saw patterns, choral uproar and properly clobbered digi drums.
15 tracks and no song is longer than 2:08.
Female/Male tradeoff the purging, vocal utterances and I don’t know if any album is as much fun as this is fun.
Name your price.
San Diego’s Teenage Burritos 2016 s/t has much good within it.
The standout tracks for me are Prom Song and the one rated here/posted below, Kamikaze. But the whole thing is so fluent in building convincing garage rock fragments that it appears effortless.
A real compelling alchemy of elements, dodging and compiling. I prefer this version featuring Andreas from Holograms to the other two listed on their bandcamp:
Plainly & Painfully 