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.
CHUCK STRANGERS | “Prospect Park West”
It’s been five years since Chuck Strangers released a full length album and three years since the great Too Afraid To Dance EP offered a reinvention of his sound, but it looks like there’s a new EP on the way. While his start came as an in-house producer and member of Pro Era, Strangers quickly took to the mic and made a name for himself as one of the next generation’s premier MCs, a versatile rapper, that moves between his surroundings and the surreal, offering a dose of warped street soul in the process. “Prospect Park West” is his first single since finding his new home at Lex Records (Fly Anakin, YUNGMORPHEUS, Pink Siifu), and it feels like another fresh start. The song, produced by Crooklin, features a casual soul sampled beat, breezy and free, perfect for Strangers to kick some stream-of-conscious rhymes, lacing the track with weed-friendly bars as he rolls through the neighborhood, shining as he rides by, “trying to smoke dope and let my angels sing.”
DOMMENGANG | “Society Blues”
If the early days of the pandemic and the constant state of being at home were good for anything, it provided ample time to listen to music, allowing us to dig deeper, to spend our time checking out everything we may have missed over the years. During those strange days of discovery, Dommengang’s No Keys, an album released in 2019 became an undeniable favorite over here, a psych rock record that places equal influence of blues as it does krautrock. Dommengang get your brain chemistry bubbling, channeling far-out freakouts from way out. The Portland based trio return with Wished Eye, their fourth album, out April 21st via Thrill Jockey (Oozing Wound, Big|Brave, Rose City Band), led by the electric surge of “Society Blues,” another dip into the cosmic sprawl. The band’s power trio set-up sounds mountainous with bleeding fuzz and wah-wah soaked distortion refusing to take singular shape, instead blanketing the cascading space blues fury. Turn off and let Dommengang take you to another dimension.
NAIMA BOCK | “Lines”
As far as we’re concerned, Naima Bock’s debut album, Giant Palm, was undeniably one of last year’s absolute best records, a stunning showcase of beautiful arrangements and instantly gorgeous vocals. It’s the kind of dynamic folk music that feels timeless, a blend of acoustic and electronic instruments that work together to support Bock’s vocal melodies, layered with graceful textures that incorporated dream pop, psych, and elements of her Brazilian roots. With everything swirling into position, Naima Bock’s angelic voice soared above the clouds, immaculately shifting between her higher and lower registers. With a US tour beginning in March, she returns with “Lines,” a new single out via Sub Pop (Mudhoney, Quasi, King Tuff), further capturing the strength of her voice and the beautiful complexities of her magnetic folk music. A song that Bock says is about “the dance of intimacy” and “what we do to each other,” it expresses the ups and downs of how we treat those we love, swooning with strings, group harmonies, and the dazzling strength of Bock’s unshakable voice.
PUBLIC ACID | “Placebo (Live)”
Shout Recordings’ Beat Sessions never miss. The in-studio series has captured S.H.I.T., Marbled Eye, Institute, Uranium Club, Impalers, and more over the years, presenting some of this generation’s best punk in all its rawness with live recordings that are triumphantly captured in a studio setting. Following last year’s essential Gen Pop session, the series continues with the filthy onslaught on North Carolina’s finest, Public Acid. The set is primarily built on songs from the great Condemnation EP and their debut album, Easy Weapons, but the introductory single, “Placebo,” is new, capturing the primal insanity they’ve spewed forth since their first recordings. The song is loud, unglued, and sonically violent, with distortion running rampant, encircling the stampeding brute force rhythm like a tornado of bad vibes and all encompassing dirt. Public Acid may just be one of the most exciting hardcore bands in the country, and it’s in their reckless speed, noise, and nods to caterwauling psych that bring their sound from the gutter to… well, a strangely more majestic gutter.
ULRIKA SPACEK | “If The Wheels Are Coming Off, The Wheels Are Coming Off”
Sometimes shit falls apart, nothing lasts forever. Ulrika Spacek understand this, letting the chips fall where they may, moving beyond the need to fix every thing that can and will go wrong. “If The Wheels Are Coming Off, The Wheels Are Coming Off,” the band’s latest single, isn’t so much pessimistic as it is adaptable, realizing there are highs and lows, and we have to live with both. Pulled from Compact Trauma, the London based band’s long awaited new album out March 10th via Tough Love, the song is constructed on a phenomenally off-centered beat, grooving entirely off its axis, simultaneously detached and mystifying. The band lock right into the toppling drum pattern, as guitars surge and drone, wrapping themselves into a dreamy knot of kinetic melodies and slow drawn progressions. Each replay presents its own rewards, as the song evolves and spits, careening from dissonance to tranquility in the blink of an eye.
Further Listening:
B. COOL-AID “Wassup” (feat. Devin Morrison, Pher, & MoRuf) | BIG BREAK “Angel’s Piss” LP | BLACK THOUGHT & EL MICHELS AFFAIR “That Girl” | CATTLE DECAPITATION “We Eat Our Young” | CHONCY “Company Man” | CORAL GRIEF “Wow Signal” | CORY HANSON “Housefly” | DEBT RAG “Too Sick” | DECISIVE PINK “Haffmilch Holiday (Jane Weaver Remix)” | DEERHOOF “Wedding, March, Flower” | DOUG TUTTLE “A-Lo Urras” | DRY CLEANING “Swampy” | ELUVIUM “Phantasia Telephonics” | FRANCIE “Waiting Around to Provide (Demo)” | FROZEN SOUL “Morbid Effigy” | FULL OF HELL & PRIMITIVE MAN “Tunnels To God” | GRUB NAP “Closerer” | GUT HEALTH “Inner Norm” | THE HIRS COLLECTIVE “XOXOXOXOXOX” (feat. Melt-Banana) | JESUS PIECE “Tunnel Vision” | KOLEŻANKA “City Summer Sweat” | LARRY JUNE & THE ALCHEMIST “60 Days” | LOBBY “In The Wall” | LUNAR VACATION “Only You” | MAJESTIES “Our Gracious Captors” | MEGA BOG “The Clown” | MIKE SHABB & NICHOLAS CRAVEN “Save The Joker” | MOLINA, TALBOT, LOFGREN, & YOUNG “You Will Never Know” | NATURE’S NEIGHBOR “Jeane“ | NEEK BUCKS “Gambinos” (feat. Raekwon & Benny The Butcher) | NICOLE YUN “Lost Keys” | OPERATOR MUSIC BAND “10 Days” | PHYSIQUE “Again” LP | POSH SWAT “The Spent Sadist” | PUBLIC INTEREST “Undone” | SALVAJE PUNK “Mundo KK” | SCIENCE MAN “Give To The Plague” | SCREAMING FEMALES “Mourning Dove” | SHARP PINS “You Turned Off The Light” | SQUID PISSER “Liquified Remains” | SWEET DREAMS NADINE “Weird Love” | SWIM CAMP “Apple” + “No” | TELEHEALTH “Do The In Between“ | THURSTON MOORE “Hypnogram” | TUNIC “Whispering“ | TV STAR “In-Between” | WHO IS SHE? “My My Orca Card” | WINTER “Good (Water From Your Eyes Remix)” (feat. SASAMI) | YOURS ARE THE ONLY EARS “We Know The Sky” | ZORN “Already Dead”