Tag: United States

TRACK | Eola – Chaosos

5/5 golden merles

A simple handful of elements combine in this 72 second track to mimic the creation of the universe, and in a pretty flattering way.

Deceptively simple and full of wonder, there are only limited number of components: The 1-2-3-4 scale on the piano, the organ’s repeated quiver, and the various dreamy octave orations.

“Over your shoulder, chaos is growing”

This was the 5th track on a mix I made to drive to NY in 2010. The song was released a few weeks prior. My good friend Larry had moved to Hell’s Kitchen and needed a roommate.

I had my degree. I’d worked on a few failed campaigns. The grandfather I was assisting had died in hospice. It was a good time to move.

Listening to it now I am filled with both great nostalgia and anxiety. I feel like I’m driving a rented minivan in the dark, one long shot from Indiana, a folding bed and a box of clothes rattling around in the cab. stupid, hopeful.

Deliriously tired, when I dropped off the van I forgot the CDs in the cup holder. I know that the first worker who found them rightfully threw them out. But I was also hoping that maybe they didn’t notice them. And maybe the next inhabitant had found them and used them on their trek to LA, or Chicago, or back home, or wherever.

TRACK | The Coromandelles – The Project

5/5 golden merles

The Project is a golden and somewhat bloody haze of chamber surf. The tune is outfitted with much to admire: bells, whistles, but structurally it is also sound underneath.

Proudly pop, lest the textures fool you, the build into the chorus will convey and confirm your suspicions: all of this is meant to go together, and is precise with intention.

Artisans have built it and now it is to be admired. It’s a great structure of a beast.

TRACK | Naomi Punk – Gentle Movement Toward Sensual Liberation

5/5 golden merles

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.

TRACK | Amy Annelle – Miss it more than you know how

5/5 golden merles

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.

TRACK | Teenage Burritos – Kamikaze

5/5 golden merles

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:

TRACK | Katie Von Schleicher – Strangest Thing

5/5 golden merles

Katie Von Schleicher has released not one but two essential rock albums of our common era, 2020’s Consummation and 2017’s Shitty Hits.

This track is off the former, which is the latter, chronologically. I don’t have a copyeditor. This is a blog that only people who are getting ping-backs to their bandcamp pages are reading.

The point is that very few people are writing songs on the level of The Image and Strangest Thing. They’re full of majesty and momentum and calibrated to kill. In a kind way.

She’s also doing engineering/recording with Nate Mendelsohn for Shitty Hits Recording Co. If you’re in the NY area and need such services.

TRACK | Dig Nitty – Screen

5/5 golden merles

Dig Nitty, “Reverse of Mastery” was one of the best albums of 2020.

Screen is a bit more up-tempo than the majority of the album, but it all includes these inventive, careening vocal melodies drenched in the appropriate level of reverb. The drumming pattern in the chorus is expert and perfectly arranged.

Other standout tracks are the harpoon to the heart that is “Angel Calling,” and the highway hypnosis of “Palm Springs.” But it’s all very good.

Erin McGrath et al are writing excellent songs.

Please buy them.