Tag: alt country

TRACK | No Lonesome – Good Hurt

5/5 golden merles

No Lonesome’s “Good Hurt” offers a nice, vibrant stain derived from the guttural undercurrent-slurry of Americana, freak-folk and anti-folk. There’s a rich hybridization fermented in its depths, at least a bit of alt country, psych and pop rock in there as well. The tune provides so much joy and triumphant careening for something seemingly repelled and defined by its antitheses.

But as well it should be. “The ultimate hidden truth of the world,” as Graeber wrote, “is that it is something that we make, and could just as easily make differently.”

It is again the care in the compiling that appeals to me most. There’s a lot to admire in the accumulated decision making, investing the piece with details, small phases arranged and melding the rougher edges: the spoken background chatter around the one and two minute marks, the gently mangled vocoder chorus of backing vocals rising in support, its plumed horns and alternating drum lanes that reinforce from differing angular plots upon the soundscape. It all invests the structure with greater meaning and acts in the service of the feeling which is evoked.

“This time / it’s a good hurt… / I’ll love you all I can.”

Friends of Goon / Women / Nerve City / Casual Technicians will likely find some camaraderie in its viscid texture, winding melodic sensibilities, and earnest, heartache-hemorrhaged proclamations.

The four track digital album “Am I What I’m Not?” is available now for $5 on the bandcamp.

TRACK | Casual Technicians – Dark Matter Falling

5/5 golden merles

America’s heart is effectively vestigial, the body running on delusion alone. But every now and again it beats, startling and amusing us.

Folk rock, alt country, freak folk, anti-folk; whatever dendritic subgenre Casual Technician’s “Dark Matter Falling” roughly fits into beyond Rock, these are things that exist in a state of defiance to the grotesque bulk of another definition. Please remember that the heart is also an outlier in relation to the other organs and would be considered an outcast among them.

We don’t need to retread that in the general appraisal Folk lacks self awareness and Country‘s sick bravado and sweetness makes me want to peacefully disassociate into an eternal coma, god willing, at the expense of my demonic private insurers.

But on the periphery and in the shadowy wasteland of upstate New York there exists at least one aggregated cabal of Portlanders intent on redeeming noise and structuring it in a manner that makes people feel whole and not diminished. If you’re familiar with Townes, Csehak, Von Schleicher, and Van Gaalen (North American, at least), it’s a bit like these things.

A large part of it’s glory is the celebration of real collaboration, unions of narration and melodic intentions merging. The contrasts and collisions are all of similar quality and keep it from congealing.

Otherwise it’s just experiment and invention informed by history but not beholden to it, offered up thoughtfully without conceding an opulent melodic core, conducted with utmost conviction and replete with distinct language. Maybe it seems easy when put like that, but it isn’t.

There are two super strong singles already up. Cassette via Repeating Cloud on 11/15/24. Digital on the bandcamp for $7.