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.
BLACKLISTERS | “Le Basement”
Blacklisters are set to release their album of the year contender, Fantastic Man, this coming Friday, August 28th. “Le Basement” opens among a sea of feedback and a colossal rhythm, heavy enough to make the Earth quake… but it’s also hypnotizing. The complex pummeling steadily works in a motorik fashion. Then we get to the vocals, and the opening line “I am a national treasure” and if you’re not sold yet, you’re not paying attention. As the song becomes increasingly unhinged, the riff circles around like a swarm of rattled hornets, that cynical humor roars into a simple enough hook, “it’s all mine, the pleasure, the pleasure, it’s all mine.” It’s an easy turn of phrase that takes on a whole different tonality with it comes shouted and mangled in a whirlwind of wall of sound guitars and ever increasing intensity.
GEN POP | “Bell Book Candle”
Olympia punk band Gen Pop are set to release their full length debut, PPM66, which is also convientantly the catalog number for the album, due out on Post Present Medium, the revived label run by No Age’s Dean Spunt. While they’ve released records with Lumpy, Upset The Rhythm, and Feel it Records, the band have upped the fidelity a bit for this one, sounding better than ever have before but staying true to form. Lead single and album opener “Bell Book Candle” opens with a bouncing bass line and a corrosive dose of guitar distortion, before the reverb sets in on the blunt vocals. With the band’s duel vocals placed directly on top on another it creates an added layer of chaos, the entire song weaving toward an impossible tension that doesn’t quite resolve.
RZA | “Fighting For Equality” (feat. Ghostface Killah)
It’s always worth remembering that Wu-Tang is forever. There’s nothing that can stop them and we’re reminded on a day to day basis thanks to the longevity of the members’ solo efforts and their ever show stealing features. As time has gone on, the members have all intertwined with Hollywood, but none in the way that RZA has, who has directed and produced both movies and TV. He has a new movie out now, Cut Throat City (though we really don’t recommend going to a theater), and “Fighting For Equality” is the lead single from the soundtrack, a song pairing RZA with Wu-Tang’s own Ghostface Killah. The old pals and former roommates sound alive and energized on the song, with a dusty beat with minimal drums that sound appropriately cinematic. Both RZA and Ghostface delivers darts as only they can, RZA with an acrobatic sense of linguistics and Ghostface leaning into abstract mafioso rap.
WATER FROM YOUR EYES | “14”
We’re always eager to hear what comes next from the ever creative Brooklyn duo of Water From Your Eyes, While the band’s Rachel Brown and Nate Amos are consistently releasing music as Thanks For Coming and This Is Lorelei, their records together as Water From Your Eyes always feel a bit more calculated, from their early EPs, to last year’s impeccable Somebody Else’s Song, to this year’s no wave experimentation on 33:44. Their latest single “14” feels somewhere between their last two releases, built on sharp strings and synths, with an organic feel on each pluck and piercing high end scrawl. Brown’s vocals offer a lulling melody and a sense of repetition, song softly but confidently, over the epically sweeping landscape that provides both atmospheric beauty and dissonance.
WENDY EISENBERG | “Futures”
The virtuosic Wendy Eisenberg has released a lot of music since their band Birthing Hips dissolved. The albums have ranged from avant-garde guitar compositions (that have earned Eisenberg a position among the intellectual elite), to lo-fi bedroom pop, and Editrix’s tangled post-hardcore (which has earned them a position among our slightly less intellectual elite). Auto, due out October 16th via Ba Da Bing Records (Katie Von Schleicher, Youbet, She Keeps Bees), is Eisenberg’s first studio recorded set of “song” based music (rather than improvised), and the lead single “Futures,” it utterly stunning. I legitimately can’t stop listening to it. In two and half minutes, Eisenberg shows why they are considered such an incredible guitarist, swerving between movements and sections with complex arrangements that manage to sound fluid and natural. The softly spoken vocals rage into an explosive and menacing tornado in the middle of the song, before surging back into tranquility and wrapping itself further into a knot. It’s a wild ride that demands to be listened to over and over again.
Further Listening:
ADULKT LIFE “Country Pride” | ANGEL OLSEN “Waiving, Smiling” | BENT ARCANA “Bent Arcana” LP | DEATH VALLEY GIRLS “Hold My Hand” | DEFTONES “Ohms” | FEELS FINE “Washed Out Blue“ | GLASSING “Twin Dream” | HIDEOUS SUN DEMON “Distractions“ | IAN SWEET “Dumb Driver” | IRON WIGS “Purple Aliens” | LAWN “Summertime” | LOMELDA “Hannah Sun” | LUNCHBOX “Dream Parade“ | METZ “Hail Taxi” | THE NEW RESTAURANTS “Fuck Dallas BBQ” | NORMIL HAWAIIANS “In The Stone“ | PINK SIIFU & FLY ANAKIN “Dollar Dr. Dream“ | POOL HOLOGRAPH “Medieval Heart“ | PROFLIGATE “A Stranger” | THIBAULT “See The World“ | THOU & EMMA RUTH RUNDLE “Ancestral Recall” | TOM PETTY “Wildflowers (Home Recording)” | TOMBERLIN “Wasted” | TOTAL REVENGE “The Lawn” |