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.

DUMMY | “Mono Retriever” + “Pepsi Vacuum”

Last year Los Angeles’ Dummy released their full length debut, Mandatory Enjoyment, via Trouble In Mind, an album that landed the band on many year end lists (ours included), and for good reason. The transportive record traversed shoegaze, dream pop, art rock, and the lounge-inspired retro futurism of bands like Stereolab and Broadcast. Since then they’ve done their first US tour, announced another US tour with Horsegirl, and as of a couple weeks ago, joined the ranks of the Sub Pop Singles Club (on the same day as Irreversible Entanglements no less). Those two songs, “Mono Retriever” and “Pepsi Vaccum” highlight the two sides of Dummy’s sound, with the a-side an immediate krautrock inspired jaunt into dreamy punk with detached melodies and a propulsive urgency, while the b-side opts for a more ambient/library influenced sound, spacious and tranquil, meditative and layered, with its head deep in the clouds.

ELECTRIC CHAIR | “Live With It”

We’ve become increasingly obsessed with Electric Chair’s Social Capital, released last year via Iron Lung Records, a blistering nine and a half minutes of hardcore at it’s finest, with blistering riffs, sociopolitical fury, and enough coloring outside the lines to make everything feel unique. The Olympia punk band play rattled and urgent, with feedback careening headfirst into expressive basement hardcore, ready to burn everything to the ground. After three absolutely essential EPs, the band are set to release their full length debut, Act of Aggression and while the release date seams to be a “wait and see” kind of deal, lead single “Live With It” has immediately made this one of our most anticipated releases for the remainder of the year. With hints of psychedelic flourish, the band’s otherwise crusty hardcore comes out swinging over corrosive bass and a guitars that shred and shred. Electric Chair’s brand of punk is loaded with personality, and highly recommended for fans of Lysol, Friend E/M, and Warthog.

ELUCID | “I Told Bessie” LP

Armand Hammer have been making some of the most resonant and forward thinking hip-hop of the past decade, and unsurprisingly, the same can be said for ELUCID and billy woods’ solo albums. woods gave us the quintessential Aethiopes earlier this year, and ELUCID has followed suit with another cosmic hip-hip classic, I Told Bessie, a cerebral rap masterpiece of experimentation and a futuristic tribute to the past. It’s a surrealist dedication to his grandmother, Bessie, the matriarch of the family, who shared both wisdom and support for ELUCID as he was getting his footing in rap. He’s a long way from the early days, and stands among the greats, painting swirling pictures of the city in psychedelic grime, the dirt and free association becoming hard to separate. Like woods, ELUCID’s lyrics provide endless analyzation, with each carefully worded bar delivered with thought and abrasion, rooted in the struggle of the city but spiritually in another realm. With production from The Lasso, Alchemist, Messiah Musik, Child Actor, Sebb Bash, and more, ELUCID wanders through abstract beats and warped grooves with brilliantly blunt rhymes, adding yet another wondrous addition to his already stellar thought-provoking catalog.

GERM HOUSE | “Germ House EP”

The past few years haven’t treated many of us all too well, but it’s been a great time for getting to know Rhode Island’s Germ House, the solo punk project of Justin Hubbard. After releasing his debut album back in 2014 via Trouble In Mind, Germ House released a few EPs, singles, and splits over the next half decade before the release of 2020’s terrifically lo-fi Spoiled Legacy was released via Girlsville Records. Hubbard has stayed relatively busy since, having released an instantly sold out single on Chunklet Industries (Lifeguard, The Apples In Stereo, Man… Or Astro-Man?), where he’s returned with a new self-titled EP, five songs of pure gold fuzz punk. The project has never sounded better, as Hubbard’s punch power-pop and scuzz remain blown out but the details have been refined. The melodies are more psychedelic, the crunch a bit harsher, and layers more radiant than ever. Songs like “Stacking Mistakes” and “Gum Up The Works” interweave lo-fi garage aesthetics with a jangly density, the entire thing coated in good times fuzz.

JULIA JACKLIN | “I Was Neon”

Julia Jacklin has never released anything less than great. She has two great albums (Crushing being exceptionally great), great stand-alone singles, and great covers. With her third album, PRE PLEASURE, coming out in August via Polyvinyl, the Sydney based songwriting, is once again, releasing nothing but great songs, as seen with lead single “Lydia Wears A Cross” and now “I Was Neon,” a propulsive indie rock ripper that proves why Jacklin remains among the best of the “indie darling” crowd. She has an ability to create both heart rendering ballads and upbeat rockers (which are not mutually exclusive) and “I Was Neon” is definitely a bit of both, capturing Jacklin’s innate ability to reflect on life’s difficult times and the shaky sense of self it can create as she floats between mesmerizing extended riffs and tight rhythmic repetition.

KAL MARKS | “Ovation”

Boston’s Kal Marks return with a new lease on life, but let’s not get carried away, Carl Shane and co. are still revealing in the dark and sludgy, bringing their usual dose empathy to the otherwise constant dread. The new lease on life isn’t so much thematic as it is structural, both in terms of the band’s line-up (which now includes Christina Puerto, Dylan Teggart, and John Russell), which expands the trio to a quartet for the first time, and also in terms to the songwriting itself, still undeniably heavy but with it’s core rooted further in “pop” than ever before. Fret not, Kal Marks aren’t pandering to the mainstream’s pop obsessions, but the band has continued to evolve, and an emphasis on strong hooks and (relatively) clean vocal melodies working their way into the fold. It’s evident on My Name Is Hell’s first single “Ovation,” a song that feels both corrosive and mesmerizing, digging its way out from within the confines of snake-handlers and swindlers alike. The Shayna Strype directed video is really something to behold, as the band’s likeness is projected to puppets and other stop-motion figures in the most disarming of ways.

LITHICS | “Nature Observation Poem”

As the post-punk wading pools continue to flood and subsequently dry from boring imitations, Portland’s Lithics continue to give a masterclass in the genre. It’s been two strange years since Tower of Age was released, a record that expanded the band’s sound into noisier territory, pushing the lines between post-punk’s razor sharp turns, piercing tonality, and elastic motorik dexterity. It’s a sound that Lithics have always and continue to do better than most, case in point, the band’s new single, “Nature Observation Poem,” a one off single released as a limited edition lathe cut 7” (which is already sold out). The song arrives fully locked in, with a tightly coiled rhythm setting tone and tension, with Aubrey Hornor’s ever so slightly melodic vocals the only thread of melody prior to the snaking guitar noise. Everything sputters in fits and stabs, weaving its way through and around the relentless pulse, as Lithics bent reality with a mesmerizing repetition and the attack against it.

PET FOX | “A Face In Your Life” LP

A Face In Your Life, the third album from Boston trio Pet Fox is the album they’ve been working toward, a highlight of surging fuzz, pop hooks, melodic post-hardcore intricacies, and overt chemistry. The band’s subtle complexity, which could be compared to stalwarts like Jawbox and Pinback, is the backbone of the record, but the immediacy of the “pop” elements is utterly stunning, as Theo Hartlett, Jesse Weiss, and Morgan Luzzi come together in each song to support one another, the music reliant on their fluid interplay as they contort rhythms and structures for nuance, while letting a degree of familiarity do the rest. That chemistry that comes inward from the band, and their mutual admiration for one another as musicians, but it expands outward bringing a sense of confidence to songs very much about insecurities and anxieties we all feel. As the album slides from one highlight into the next, the songwriting remains consistently engaging and impossibly timeless.

TOMB MOLD | “Aperture of Body” EP

It can be said we’re in the second golden age of death metal and we wouldn’t disagree. One of the true stand-outs of this new era remains Toronto’s Tomb Mold, a band that’s been muddying the waters of foundation crumbling metal for the past six years at a colossal pace. It’s been three years since the outer-dimensional filth of Planetary Clairvoyance buried us all on an alien planet and perhaps Tomb Mold have just been waiting for everyone to catch up, as that record’s breakneck riffs and monolithic rhythms take plenty of untangling. Aperture of Body, a new self released EP, limited to Bandcamp and cassette, finds the behemoth’s in fine form, lurching between spacial dissonance and impenetrable density. “Final Assembly of Light” is an extraterrestrial introduction, our voyage outward, before the carnage envelops us all with the EP’s cavalcade of riffs and guttural decimation.

WOMBO | “Snakey”

Since the release of Wombo’s Blossomlooksdownuponus and its subsequent reissue via Fire Talk Records, it seems as though the Louisville trio has been on the road, one tour after the next. In that time the band’s sound has evolved and refined, not necessarily smoothing out the edges so much as manipulating them in a more graceful way. The turns are still there, bent and delightfully wonky, but they’re moved beyond jarring into something that feels oddly dreamy, even lulling, in it’s own art punk kind of way. Their upcoming Fairy Rust, due out in late July, captures that place between dream pop and math rock, bouncing between distorted riffs and stop/start rhythms without the need for aggression or abrasion, it’s more about the groove and fluid dexterity of the trio. “Snakey” is a perfect example, a song that squiggles and squirms but remains easy on the ears.

Further Listening:

JUNE 06 - JUNE 12:

JUNE 13 - JUNE 19:

Fuzzy Meadows: The Week's Best New Music (June 6th - June 19th)