Tag: Rock

TRACK | Good Flying Birds – Wallace

5/5 golden merles

Indianapolis-based indie garage-poppers Good Flying Birds‘ have released the newly compiled talulah’s tape (21-24). Some sweet and intricate rock music, “Wallace” is my favorite of that set. Just when you thought the world’s desiccated husk couldn’t get any less appealing: whammo, some real fun and charming gas exits from an unknown reservoir. Arriving just in time for whatever horrors lurk just outside our temporal periphery, it’s a great relief to me personally.

A blended approximation of influence might include bits of Kevin Barnes, Alex Giannascoli, Lewis Allan Reed, and the three individuals within the great Grass Widow assemblage. Or just go see what they say for themselves. In either case take it from me, someone dumb and desperate enough to play the lottery: we’re lucky to have these songs.

Wondering through what’s left of the wasteland, it’s my favorite thing out of Indiana since at least The Cowboys. The sequences are arranged as though a human has carefully considered them and intricately compiled their subsections, culminating with delicate intention, maybe bordering on mathrock in some of its steeper niches. It’s careful, thoughtful work. I truly wish them well with whatever happens next after one emerges, budding gently out of the earth. I guess either promptly being stomped to death or maybe something good might happen.

There’s a run of 100 tapes on Rotten Apple, $8. They’ll be gone soon. Please also see the tracks on the Inscrutable Records comp with Answering Machines and Soup Activists.

TRACK | variety – Plover

5/5 golden merles

Variety’s “Plover” is Texan avantpop rock composed of compelling narrative subversion, sticky melody and tone. The hook is a compacted material derived from descriptions of naturalistic imagery, the conflict of the domesticated and undomesticated in comparison to the authors interpersonal dilemmas. It’s thoughtful and pretty dang fun.

I need my streams and mountains tempered by the grim specter of death. Gluck and Johnson, Bly and Ruefle. Some human fingerprints on the felled log, beach towels on the bog, a figure ever-present on the vista to trample and insist.

Whereas at the end of “Lying in a Hammock at William Duffy’s Farm in Pine Island, Minnesota” Wright pulls it all back home, a new frame, fitted, variety’s entry point with “Plover” is immediate. But it functions in a similar way. The relationship is described then promptly the tangent turns away, meanders off skyward, the footnote consuming the page. And then another. Relative to the original focus, the elaborated metaphor informs the initial concern, compounding all the more weight.

Two of the greatest modern scouts of imaginative rock have already signed off on the making, Groschi and Doyle. If you’re not already following them, what are you doing here?

The singles are combining into an album to be released in November: bandcamp / name your price.

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.

TRACK | BLOUS3 – Goo Goo

5/5 golden merles

“Goo Goo” is Sacramento-based noise punk with cutting phrasing and instrumental hooks concerning the crimes of Johnson & Johnson. How can a culture appropriately reply to grievous wrongdoing committed that effectively goes unpunished? In spitting their own legalese and cowardice back at the bastards, BLOUS3 gives it a worthy attempt.

Conveying your contempt is a valuable and worthy endeavor in art as well as in life, especially in a land dominated by bribery and payoffs that are supposed to wondrously settle all grievance.

Instead of suggesting through abstraction, the naming of names is also important. The organizations and corporations that transgressed could have been alluded to here, and/or, possibly, spoken of in interviews that some fraction of the audience might have seen, having guilt implied or indirectly assigned.

But, mercifully/vengefully, it isn’t in this case. There’s a real great balance struck between the emotional crux and the testimonial. It’s neither sterile documentation nor an overwhelming howl. The excoriating is finely allotted, richly painted in tone, gracefully moving between contextual parallaxes and recrimination. It makes the wrath fun, compelling stuff.

Of course proper retribution is impossible. The dead are gone. The payout from the case is only a minor gesture, admission of fault (de facto, de jure is another matter), and some sad simulacra of compensation. If we are incapable of acquiring justice, at least let the villains be shamed and the martyrs be staunchly defended and honored. This is on both aesthetic and moral grounds a good and worthy effort.

Mixed into a really agreeable punk slurry by Jack Shirley at Atomic Garden. Arriving shortly on San Fran’s Cherub Dream Records. The track is $1 and the album is $7 on the bandcamp, fully releasing October 4th.

TRACK | Alas de Liona – Violet

5/5 golden merles

Art more than anything I know allows for the contorting of bad fate to good. A negative occurrence, through studied observation and documentation, can be subverted from a collapsed, crushing roofbeam into a fundamental pillar of support, so long as you don’t give the last word to god or coincidence or whatever. The universe tends toward entropy, but we are the arbiter of whether or not it succeeds.

Alas de Liona’s excellent indie pop track “Violet” reminds me of this sardonic repartee regarding nightmares: “Don’t worry. You were just having a bad dream. Heavily influenced by your nightmarish life.”

The lyricism present is rigorously bound to the melody but doesn’t suffer from it: “Victorious,” “Curious” (in the sense of unusual/of interest), “lamplight,” and the dream-based staircase ascent all hold a kind of balance between minimalism and tactically elaborated grandeur.

The non-lexical ligatures/ligaments give binding and body to what would otherwise be more ephemeral, negative space. It can also act as a symbolic representation of the quasi-coherent language of the dream, if you like. In either case, it’s a really fine melodic and semi-percussive foundation for the work, and a rewarding, chimeric balance of design and function.

There are several points in the production in which an abrupt fade or swell emerges, synth & orchestral, and that variance is well designed to distinguish segments amidst the steady delivering of the melodic spell. That intermittent puncture adds depth to the form that might otherwise go unnoticed or implied but invisible. It is not employed enough in most other production in the name of uniformity, cohesion, or some such vile and compromised thinking.

Lu Xun wrote that “Hope is like a road in the country; there was never a road, but when many people walk on it, the road comes into existence.” The cataloging of the event makes a map and the map becomes a shared experience. The map makes walking in the woods a joy instead of certain death.

It’s a strong track of lofty hooks, offering commiseration and mapping out subconscious space you didn’t know you shared. I am morally obligated not to link to spotify, but please see the soundcloud above, youtube video, or follow on bandcamp for more.

TRACK | Merce Lemon – Backyard Lover

5/5 golden merles

Sometimes the magic trick isn’t a slight of hand. Though often the case, it isn’t always derived from a dexterity of muscle memory achieved through practiced repetition coupled to a misdirection which makes it seem as though something incredible has happened. Sometimes a kind of magic is derived from slowing down. Or reexamining what is plainly visible but has been taken for granted. It is the exception to the rule but also remarkable. This is that second one.

Language is complex, small manipulations of its channels and ruts can have a cumulatively outsized effect.

In “Backyard Lovers” pauses are pulled apart, lines are staggered to warp or embolden them. It is a valuable offer for a free and safe means of disoriented coherency. The perspective shifts. The familiar is made a bit exceptional. It speaks in the language you speak, but it expands that language. It appears in a recognizable indie/folk rock arrangement, but it extends the possible combination of elements through some frankness and some creative problem solving otherwise known as invention.

Another way I find it to be good is that sometimes you can let a melody go and it comes back to you stronger. That takes some strong kind of confidence and it’s easy to lose in the process of making. In writing the song you’ve got to remember it; the more subtle its shifts and elaborations, the harder it is to keep the thread from tangling up and knotting here or there. There are many elements to this particular making that seem sheerly intuitive and others that seem deftly calculated.

For example, late on there’s an assemblage of attributes listed that don’t fit the earlier structure, compiled as an addendum between two instrumental passages. It’s placement is a little unusual, but it is adding significant, palpable depth and nuance to the portrayal of the world as it has been uttered into being. Instead of binding back into the chorus at the end and the edge of the track, the bridge leads out of the world, back to this one or another, whatever you prefer.

This song was found through the tireless and obscene scouting of Various Small Flames and you should go read that blog. Vinyls and Tapes from Darling Records, and preorder the files on the bandcamp; arriving on Sept. 27th.

TRACK | Busted Head Racket – Poor no more

5/5 golden merles

Garage Synth / Egg Punk. Newcastle, Australia. I will never in my life make something that sounds this good. Yet the merciless and merciful aspects of our brains are broken in similar if not effectively identical ways with respect to consumption ideals. What can be salvaged from a poisoned music culture and made good again?

We can’t let the bastards entirely have melody. We can’t allow them to curse and butcher the synth that sings, or only allow play for profit. I can’t make what the band has made. I like to hear it. Busted Head Racket are thriving in the new fresh hell.

As far as simulacra that mimic the moment go, it is a course correction. It’s a good interpretation. There’s an adequate amount of noise and degradation applied that substitutes for where it is otherwise extracted in daily, unavoidable consumption. The filth is placed back on the scale, countering the kitsch that sits like a lead balloon upon the other side.

The discordance is like a filter that allows you to see what lingers around you and at all times but is otherwise invisible; They Live sunglasses or Wilkinson Microwave Anisotropy Probe quietly mapping all the background radiation. It is encouraging to see. It helps us navigate the world.

What niche allows for such a thing to emerge and inhabit a space and not be smothered or obliterated? I don’t know, there’s not enough, you should probably support it if you are able. Name your price on the band’s bandcamp. Buy the Vinyl on Erste Theke Tontraeger.

TRACK | O.R.F. – wie schön

5/5 golden merles

What can be learned from this? Its direct and graceful descent. Its puncture and pulse. The relaxed raving of the narrations, the chosen selection of attributes as illustrative pastiche. The contents holding enough detail to endear as a sort of half stripped down, functional ruin. And the adequate melodic curvature to facilitate an ease of entry into the canal. Why does it work within the genre when so much else seems to flail about helplessly or sicken or combust when exposed to oxygen?

Probably for some to succeed others have to fail, and en mass; some sad blighted aspect of human perception and consumption: if too many find a balance they become unremarkable and we sharpen the point at which the balancing is possible. And whatever gets caught on that spear is called progress or best of the year, the reward of which is to be impaled and left atrophying in the sun. Also, it’s a nice pop tune and fun!

The track responds to a feeling, irreverence and care balanced out in one coherent, self-contained, 83 seconds of media. It tolerates enough elements of the antithesis to overcome intellectual opposition through instinct. Or maybe it curtails instinct sufficiently in order to compose a pleasing and compatible story.  It is the same game as always. But this is a good attempt. According to me, a man who can just about afford to pay for webhosting.

Either you’ve heard this song 20,000 times before or you’ve never heard it. The limits are in place: lung capacity, coincident rhyming forms of language, melodic coherence processing tolerance, range of audible tone and transmittable frequency, mass production, and a hundred other great filters of pop music. Eventually the plaque of nostalgia will harden entirely around your heart. You can use this as a test to see if the barricade is complete or if some gaps remain for admission. $0 on the bandcamp.



TRACK | Little Oil – Hey Judas

5/5 golden merles

Coming 2nd among Twelve Songs, Little Oil’s “Hey Judas” is a psych-folk tune composed of deftly piercing hooks dispensing immense compassion. Piano’s plonk and murmuring synths ferry the arbitration neatly forward, familiar myths reconfigure, agreeably heralded in the heat of the room. The melodic components are strong. The envoy offers consolation, there’s very little dread to be found within a context usually larded with it, only sunny reconciliation.

How to even begin to approach this subject and themes in its gilded iron sarcophagus, or deflect the baggage of the bastards who claim its copyright?

The answer is: orthogonally, reinventing suppositions around base symbols we’re all locally steeped in, the reframing of the frame within another. Or just generally with a little innovation and the warmth distinct to those who remain in the world.

There’s plenty of good examples within the approximate genre to pull from and a nice suitable lineage. “Hey Judas” slides into place among other fine tracks such as Loose Fur’s “The Ruling Class,” Brian Jonestown Massacre’s “The Ballad of Jim Jones,” Page France’s full “Hello, Dear Wind,” Doug Marsch’s rendition of “Woke up this morning with my mind (staying on Jesus).”

The whole set has a lot of these same sensibilities, cutting melodies, rich images placed aside non-lexical grooves and is worth investigating. Cassettes from Fountain Inc. and digital are $12 on the Bandcamp.

COMP | Este Sinte Mata Fascistas

5/5 golden merles

New compilation from Argentina in the wake of the December inauguration of the libertarian hatchetman and fascist clown Javier Milei. In the absence of simply gawking in terror at the spectacle of a modern state being disassembled and sold for scrap, what can be done? Well, Fichines Ruido Zafarla have put out Este Sinte Mata Fascistas, that’s what. The disc functions as a unified front of disgust and defiance from a collection of some of the nations finest punks.

There’s a good breadth of style to the pieces, from egg and devocore tinged tracks like Valentina & los Bindis’ “Basta” to harder proto punk and hardcore Desborde’s “Hartxs” components. But the spirit remains consistent throughout and pulls from common threads of musical influence and political offense.

In “Basta” saw synths reverberate in a synchronized percussive wave, the chorus a harmonized rallying cry of that eponymous declaration (“Enough!”). It’s great synth punk, melodically sound and structured with playful invention within the coalescing vocal lanes, commiserating formidably with the best of the genre. There is value in mutiny during times of madness, singing about this dissension, and celebrating noncompliance with your friends.

The act itself is valuable but fortunately the record is also exceedingly good. Show a bit of solidarity if you should see fit. The beautiful CD option comes in a floppy disk sleeve, for $3 ($15 to get it up and over to the US), or name your price for the digital files.