by Dan Goldin (@post_trash_)

Welcome to FUZZY MEADOWS, our weekly recap of this week's new music. We're sharing our favorite releases of the week in the form of albums, singles, and music videos along with the "further listening" section of new and notable releases from around the web. It's generally written in the early hours of the morning and semi-unedited... but full of love and heart. The list is in alphabetical order and we sincerely recommend checking out all the music we've included. There's a lot of great new music being released. Support the bands you love. Spread the word and buy some new music.

*Disclaimer: We are making a conscious effort not to include any artist in our countdown on back-to-back weeks in order to diversify the feature, so be sure to check the "further listening" as well because it's often of top-notch quality too.

KIM GORDON | “Hungry Baby”

After all this time, the legendary Kim Gordon has released her proper solo debut album, No Home Record, via her long-running label home Matador Records. Best known as a pioneering member of Sonic Youth, Gordon has stayed busy since the band’s demise, releasing a pair of avant-garde albums with her Body/Head project as well as collaborating with a slew of other musicians, but with this record Gordon returns to form with an expression all her own. Still noisy and experimental, the record is texturally rich and vibrantly abrasive, but ultimately constructed in song form and relatively accessible. The last single, “Hungry Baby” is a blistering rock song with some no-wave skronk and bleeding guitars, the kind of swarming chaos and forced melodic grit that made Gordon a generation’s musical hero. She’s able to bring a glamorous touch to sordid and relentless punk in a way that’s often duplicated, but never replicated.

LAUNDROMAT | “Humans”

Perhaps you’re familiar with the music of Toby Hayes (Eugene Quell, Shoes and Socks Off, Meet Me In St Louis) and perhaps this is your introduction. Either way, we’re all in for a treat with Laundromat, his first new band since the quiet dissolution of the exceptional Eugene Quell project. Set to release their debut album in the not-too-distant future (we’ve heard it and we can’t stop listening), the band have shared single “Humans,” a perfect intro to Laundromat’s sound, a melding of Hayes’ past, present, and future that glides into glossy post-punk and futuristic art-pop that shares a bit of Stereolab and Broadcast influence. The warped transmissions and infectious groove are locked in for the first, the perfect bubbling atmosphere for Hayes’ gorgeously withdrawn voice and waves of textures that appear and fade in fuzzy bliss. He’s always had a knack for tonality and production, and everything about Laundromat is composed brilliantly.

MEGA BOG | “Audiotree Live”

Another week, another great live session from Audiotree Live, who are doing an excellent job of documenting the country’s touring bands (regardless how you may feel about the between song interviews). Mega Bog, who I believe we’ve called a national treasure once or twice, is led by Erin Birgy who has a gift for jazzy and experimental cosmic folk that slips between hypnotic grooves and textured nuances, with a celestial kinda quality. The four piece band (which includes iji’s Zach Burba) played four songs from the fantastic Dolphine (released this Summer on Paradise of Bachelors) and a previously unreleased song, each one bursting with muted colors and gentle kind of psych quality, one that you invites you in to Mega Bog’s world with grace and ease. Everything is played carefully and thoughtfully, with Birgy’s unique vocal phrasing and stunning vocals at its core.

THANK | “Please” EP

From the unnerving vacuum filtered carnage of “Commemorative Coin” and it’s cynical anti-religious anthem, Thank set the tone of big hypnotic grooves, bigger noise, and plenty of hilarious scorn. Explosive and bitingly sardonic, vocalist Freddy Vinehill-Cliffe’s (also of Beige Palace) lyrics manage to often steal the show on a record where there’s never a dull moment and every piercing note and throbbing rhythm is maximized for abrasive bliss. “No Respect For The Arts” is a stand-out, a tongue-in-cheek screed that begins “punk music is bad and the people that like it are idiots” like a mantra of disdain for their own craft, claiming “he’s got no respect for the arts, and I hate you for that.” The song peels away at a nervous rhythm, layered and dynamic, and shoves a blaring high-pitched tonal assault on top together with a cavalcade of acerbic guitars to match. With the flood of sound crashing like a monsoon, everything is able to finds its own place in the eye of the storm, and Thank miraculously never sound muddy.

URANIUM CLUB | “Two Things At Once”

The ever essential Uranium Club have a new single out following their third full length, The Cosmo Cleaners, released earlier this year. “Two Things At Once,” split into parts one and two, is out now via Sub Pop’s “Singles Club” and it finds the Minneapolis punks at their best, with a song that’s brilliantly tangled, mangled, and tightly wound to perfection. Part One recoils with incredible subtle shifts and changes, the type Uranium Club has made their masterful signature, bouncing from one elastic riff to the next, somehow never snapping as they frantically dart toward an evolutionary rising. The song takes a sarcastic stance toward gun ownership rattling off lines like “the possibility for irresponsibilities outweighs the benefits of our children’s creativity,” and “people die every year just falling out of bed, wanna take away my mattress next,” and ultimately “I grew up to be the man you see before you today, a second amendment defender, with a self-inflicted gunshot wound.” After a quick pause, they lurk into part two, the instrumental continuation that weaves around as the dust settles, before ominous and frenzied whispers of “what happens next.” We can only wait and see.

Further Listening:

Fuzzy Meadows: The Week's Best New Music (October 7th - October 13th)