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.

BAD HISTORY MONTH “Deep Bright Future” + NYXY NYX “No Worries”

Sometimes a split release feels inevitable. Case in point, Death Takes A Holiday, an album length split from Boston’s Bad History Month and Philadelphia’s Nyxy Nyx, two impeccable songwriters that have found a great deal of influence among one another over the past few years. With a prolific back catalog between them, the two artists come from a similar background of depressive yet immersive songwriting, the type that captures both the depths and beauty of fractured mental states. Bad History’s songs tend to be lyrically dense and profound (one of the most gifted of our generation) while Nyx’s are often more esoteric, but they bring out the best in each other.

“Deep Bright Future” is an undeniable masterpiece, a song that is as close to perfection as we’ve ever heard. Revolving around the story of the first man revived from cryostasis and the public’s general indifference, BHM’s Sean Sprecher weaves together a narrative both thought provoking and intimately introspective before running itself directly into a wall of blistering feedback. Nyxy Nyx’s is a breezier companion, a song created to quell panic and anxiety, as “No Worries” plays like a poetic mantra to “holding on” as best we can. The construction of it feels like a mid summer daydream, with a radiant vocal and guitar harmonies.

FLOATING ROOM | “Shimanchu”

While we eagerly await a new Floating Room full length, Maya Stoner’s band has announced Shima, a new EP due out November 12th via Famous Class Records. Judging by the record’s first single, Floating Room are getting heavier with this release. “Shimanchu” is a song that reflects Stoner’s Uchinanchu heritage and a retaliation to the condescension she faces daily as an Asian American woman. It’s a song about feeling alienated but mad enough to push back, to fight against the bullshit, addressing not only the problems faced by many Asian Americans, but the silence and lack of support from those around them. The song starts with a big distorted crunch similar to Floating Room’s prior EP but takes a hard shift into something far more volatile, as Stoner repeatedly screams the hook with seething intensity, feeling like an island, isolated from those around her. While the song is clearly rooted in heavier subjects, the video pays homage to Dance Dance Revolution as both an animated and non-animated version of Maya dance away the trauma of it all.

HABIBI | “Somewhere They Can’t Find Us”

It was only a few weeks ago that New York’s Habibi released Nice Try, a digital only EP featuring covers of Delta 5, Kleenex, and Quix*o*tic as part of their new label, Kill Rock Stars’ ongoing 30th anniversary covers compilation. Now the band are back with their first official release for the label, the Somewhere They Can’t Find Us 7”, due out October 29th. The singles A-Side finds the consistently engaging band moving away from surfy garage rock and retro girl group pop into something closer to post-punk. With eyes firmly set on the dance floor, “Somewhere They Can’t Find Us” is tight and propulsive, with a big rhythmic groove and the guitars that tangle themselves in between, snaking and bouncing around. As always, Habibi’s vocal melodies are inescapable, adding a cosmic charm to their disco-indebted punk with brightly weaving harmonies.

ORANSSI PAZUZU | “Palava Puu”

Finland’s Oranssi Pazuzu create their own brand of experimental black metal that owes as much to psych rock and retro “space rock” as it does anything in the world of metal. Their ability to create cosmic epics that are both terrifying and illuminating is what makes them one of the most exciting heavy bands in the world. Following last year’s Mestarin Kynsi, a whirlwind of sonic diversity and outer realm terror, the band are back with “Palava Puu,” a new song recorded during the album sessions. As part of the ever ongoing Adult Swim Singles series, “Palava Puu” as both horrifying and cinematic, with the band’s signature croaky vocals and a progression that marches forward with glazed intensity and tormented atmosphere. Like the cold recesses of the universe, Oranssi Pazuzu pair tension with wonderment, offering meditative respite even as the rhythm continues to envelope us all.

WENDY EISENBERG | “Analogies”

Wendy Eisenberg is both a virtuoso and a visionary, a musician who creates both technically profound compositions, experimental pieces consisting of trial and error, and in terms of their band Editrix, combustible noise rock and post-hardcore punk. Having just released the instrumental beauty of Bloodletting, a record that pairs improvisational pieces on both guitar and banjo, Eisenberg has announced their next album, the gorgeous Bent Ring. Due out November 5th via Dear Life Records (Michael Cormier, MJ Lenderman, Natalie Jane Hill), the record finds Eisenberg once again on banjo, this time creating an album that is as much avant-garde as it is spiritual folk and perhaps experimental Americana. Lead single “Analogies” is complex and wrapped in expression, a song that feels like “pop” in the most unnatural way. Built on tightly wound rhythms that are tapped beneath hypnotic banjo, pulled and plucked in an abrasive manor, there’s a punk sensibility at its core, but a pop splendor in its full bloom.

Further Listening:

Fuzzy Meadows: The Week's Best New Music (September 27th - October 3rd)