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.

ANNA MCCLELLAN | “Desperate“ + “Pace of the Universe“

It could be said that I consider Anna McClellan’s 2018 album, Yes and No, among my favorite albums ever recorded. From every last lyric, to each break in her voice, it’s a timeless classic and an album that I’m pretty certain I will love forever. Two years later, McClellan is set to release its follow up, I Saw First Light, due out in November via Father/Daughter Records. Her songs retain the same sort of brutal honesty of a world view that captures both wonder and imperfections, retold in a way that balances sad introspection and a subtle sense of humor. The playing however has a new found looseness, with McClellan playing everything with less restraint and more spontaneity. “Desperate” has a boozy swagger, the type of song you can see being belted out in a crowded bar (in the before-times). “Pace of the Universe” is a more atmospheric song, exploring emotional complications as only McClellan can.

DIG NITTY | “Blue Bard”

Brooklyn trio Dig Nitty’s full length debut is out in the world. The record is a stunning combination of psych pop, fuzzy, lo-fi indie, gentle folk, and surfy garage rock, which is to say that there’s plenty of dynamics within it’s ever confident 35 minutes. One of the album’s many highlights comes via “Blue Bard,” a love song that flexes both sides of Dig Nitty’s strengths, from the swooning lullaby twang and dreamy aesthetics to the song’s eventual eruption of full blown wall of noise fuzz. It’s not your standard quiet-loud-quiet affair, Dig Nitty play it soft and beautiful throughout, with no hints of tonal shift, just Erin McGrath’s gorgeous voice rising and falling like the breeze that runs with it. Just when you’ve been fully lulled, the band blast back with one of the more satisfying crescendos this side of post-rock.

EXHALANTS | “End Scenes”

Austin’s Exhalants are quickly emerging as America’s finest noise rock band. The trio released their sophomore album, Atonement, via Hex Records (USA Nails, Gaytheist, Pinko), another flawless example of the genre’s dense and primal characteristics done right, with a touch of art punk, post-hardcore, and brawn that’s always balanced with brains. The record’s third single and centerpiece, “End Scenes,” is a furious take on their post-hardcore inclinations, calling to mind heavyweights like Unwound, Tar, and maybe even a touch of Chokebore, as they wrap themselves in complex structures that ripple the framework and rebuild it anew. It’s a massive song that never shows its full hand at once, always progressing, worming its way beyond The Jesus Lizard inspired guitar riff and the colossal hypnosis of the rhythm.

FLOATING ROOM | “Held Open Door”

“Held Open Door” is the album’s first single, a song that reintroduces Maya Stoner’s Floating Room with a vibrant and radiant force. Opening with an immediately detached guitar progression reminiscent of both Television and Palm, the guitar is dreamy and dissonant, the perfect art-pop mirage for the impossibly catchy vocals. Stoner’s voice sounds confident as the fractured vocals slowly come out in couplets before the amazing chorus, “I know I am strong, but strength don’t get me high. I get so bored and I want to be alive.” Addressing the desire for something more as a preference and not a need, it’s a heavily relatable feeling for anyone whose felt the days dragging forward. The jagged instrumentation works without being too rattled, leaving the pop essence in place while dazzling with shifted tempos, truly great guitar leads, and a dynamic finale that is so good you immediately want to start the song over again.

MAMALARKY | “Schism Trek”

After a slew of singles and EPs, Los Angeles’ Mamalarky are set to release their self-titled full length debut on November 20th via Fire Talk Records (Corey Flood, Dehd, Pure X). The album picks up where the promise of their recent singles has left off, matching the band’s twee jangle with heavier sludge pop and wonky lo-fi distortion that has their sound always wavering in the best of ways. Similar at times to bands ranging from Helvetia to Cherry Glazerr, lead single “Schism Trek” is a prime example. shrouded in echo and tape-y goodness one moment and crushing the next, all built on skittering drums and deeply infection vocals melodies from the band’s mastermind Livvy Bennett. It’s pop music bent into discordant rock shape, full of hooks at every turn and sweetness matched with just a touch of sour.

MIRANDA WINTERS | “Little Baby Dead Bird”

No one does quiet like Chicago’s Melkbelly, a band that combines mountainous rhythms, blisteringly corrosive riffs, and it’s it core, the sweetly burning melodies of Miranda Winters’ vocal melodies. While they play upon the finer elements of noise and abrasive tendencies, Winters’ solo music is amazing in its own right, trading in volume for for texture and careening distortion for something more poetic and intimate. Set to release a new two song single, All-Purpose, on October 2nd, we’re treated to the record’s b-side, “Little Baby Dead Bird” and it’s sweeping string accompaniment, a beautiful reminder as to why Winters’ quieter songs often stand out among her best. The soft progression and warm hum lend to earnest vocals and Winters’ incredible lyrics, “I don’t want for a lot, Just for everything that’s bigger than me.”

OLD MAN GLOOM | “ZOZOBURN: Old Man Gloom + Zozobra LIVE at Fiesta Roadburn“ LP

Once again using Bandcamp Day as a platform to do good and contribute to a slew of charities, Sige Records (Sumac, Black Spirituals, Mamiffer) unleashed another essential live recording, Old Man Gloom’s colossal 2019’s Roadburn Festival performance, an evening dedicated to the memory of the late Caleb Scofield, with a full Old Man Gloom set in addition to a set of Zozobra songs played together with members of Cave In and Converge. It’s a massive family gathering from those who collaborated with Scofield for decades, and the set is a monstrous dose of artistic sludge metal and apocalyptic hardcore, swirled together in a way that only the experimental sprawl of Old Man Gloom really allows for. The band sound enormous at moments are fueled by spacious resolve at others, the tension pushing and pulling with extremes on both ends.

OSEES | “Scramble Suit II”

If the Osees ever decided to sit back and rest on a proven formula for an album or two, no one would blame them, but that’s just not who they are and how John Dwyer does things. They’ve been at it for nearly two decades (under one spelling or another) and for the most part they’ve yet to recreate a previous release. Their latest, Protean Threat, is a bugged out ripper, and a welcome shift following the jammier elements and longform wandering of last year’s Face Stabber. The band don’y waste a second of their new album, an all crushing and convulsing release of propulsive energy. Take album opener “Scramble Suit II” which pretty much kicks down the door with a double drum blast beat and a swarming guitar that’s so saturated in fuzz and static that it feels like the demolition of space and time itself. The song continues to jittery and spasm in the verses, peeling back the attack momentarily, but retaining the same sense of cataclysmic force.

SLEEPER AND SNAKE | “Reach Out”

Melbourne’s Sleeper & Snake are set to release their second album, Fresco Shed, on September 25th via Upset The Rhythm and LuLu's Sonic Discs. The duo of Amy Hill and Al Montfort (who between them play in Terry, Lower Plenty, Constant Mongrel, Primo!) have created a creaky psych folk record that is built as much on no-wave as anything traditionally song-based… and yet folk music it is at its core. It’s in this unwieldy approach that Sleeper & Snake sound distinct, taking discordant cello, keys, and horns to create a back drop for acoustic guitars and their voices. “Reach Out” is built on a sustained whirring courtesy of a Wurlitzer organ, as the song combines a post-punk jangle with an underwater reverberation. The band pair the floating sound with more grounded acoustic guitars and their signature doubled vocals and alliteration heavy lyrics.

SMALL BILLS | “Safehouse” (feat. Fielded)

New York rapper ELUCID works at a very prolific pace, between solo releases and as one-half of Armand Hammer (whose Shrines is one of the year’s best hip-hop releases so far this year), and now as the MC behind his latest duo, Small Bills. Together with Detroit based producer The Lasso, the two will release their collaborative debut, Don’t Play It Straight, this October via the ever reliable Mello Music Group (Marlowe, Homeboy Sandman, Che Noir). Lead single “Safehouse” finds a stubbed toe jazz beat swirling with funk and psych, a beat that wouldn’t sound out of place on a Dungeon Family associated record, but works with ELUCID’s raw delivery, as he floats in and out of focus, delivering lyrics in both raw punchlines and spaced out exploration.

SMARTS | “Cling Wrap”

The Australian punk invasion continues, proving over and over again that they do it better down under. With Anti Fade Records at the heart of the never ending flood of exceptional bands popping up, it is only fitting that Smarts, the latest and greatest Melbourne based, “egg punk” tinged, post-punk band comes from none other than the label’s founder, Billy Gardner. Together with members of label favorites Parsnip and Ausmuteants/Alien Nosejob, the band are set to follow up their 2018 demo with Who Needs Smarts, Anyway? (out via Anti Fade / Feel It Records), a kinetic fusion of jerky and tangled post-punk that’s brimming with bite but balanced by unbridled joy. It’s sarcastic and biting, drawing from bands like Uranium Club, Lumpy Records, and their own rattled punk catalogs, lead single “Cling Wrap” is a welcome introduction, hyper pressurized and exploding at the seems with tight rhythms, buzzing riffs, and anthemic shouted vocals.

SUN JUNE | “Singing”

After a great full length LP with Keeled Scales back in 2018, Austin’s Sun June are getting ready to release a new album via Run For Cover Records (Horse Jumper of Love, Katie Dey, The Berries). Before that happens however, the band have a new stand alone single, “Singing.” The languid song immediately puts us back in their world of self proclaimed “regret pop,” with somber melodies among breezy guitars and sparse rhythms. As the lyrics paint a sense of longing and disbelief, there’s a chill atmosphere to an otherwise shimmering disposition, as the song concludes, “I don’t want to fight, I just want to drive home, Waiting for my head to roll” with an emphasis on the last line amid repetition.

THA GOD FAHIM “Tha Poverty Bothers Me” (feat. Your Old Droog & Mach-Hommy)

Frequent collaborators and three of the underground’s absolute best MCs, it’s always a treat to hear Tha God Fahim, Your Old Droog, and Mach-Hommy on a track together and “Tha Poverty Bothers Us” is no exception. Underground may be misleading as they’ve all built themselves loyal hip-hop followings, though they’ve largely avoided the mainstream, seemingly by choice. Going in over a dusty soul sampled beat courtesy of Tha God Fahim himself, the trio go in on exactly what the title suggests, the issues with poverty, with systemic inequality and the struggle to rise above it. Never at a loss for intellectual verses and steely cold flows, all three of the rappers attack the track with their trademark laid back lyricism, spitting hopes for a better future, where justice replaces poverty.

USA NAILS | “I Don’t Own Anything”

London noise rock luminaries USA Nails are set to release their latest full length, Character Stop, on October 23rd via Hex Records (Exhalants, Gaytheist, Pinko) and Bigout Records. The band’s fifth full length album in six years (among a never ending parade of EPs and singles) keeps their prolific pace up will continuing to evolve the band’s sound ever so slightly into new ever more dense territory. The record was announced with lead single “Revolution Worker” and recently followed with “I Don’t Own Anything,” a pair of songs that show a political focus to the record, even if it bled through biting sarcasm and buzzsaw riffs that scrape like rust. Over a deviant groove, the band quip, “I experience everything but I do not own anything,” a statement that packs a punch against consumerism and modern life as a product.

WENDY EISENBERG | “Centreville”

Last month the ever virtuosic Wendy Eisenberg announced their solo studio debut of “song” based material (as opposed to their work as an avant-garde composer and improviser) in the form of Auto, due out October 16th via Ba Da Bing Records. The record’s single is “Centreville,” another stunning example of Eisenberg’s ability to blend the complex arrangements of their guitar work with the simple beauty of their singing. The playing is wildly tangled but without aggression, like carefully patch-worked lattice that sets a disorienting tone for Eisenberg’s reminiscent vocals as they explore the past and the memories that lead them to change, allowing them to feel more comfortable as a result. It’s a breathtaking fusion of technicality and bedroom pop honesty, culminating in a swarming finale as brilliantly constructed as they come.

Further Listening:

August 31 - September 6:

September 7 - September 13:

September 14 - September 20:

Fuzzy Meadows: The Week's Best New Music (August 31st - September 20th)