by Dan Goldin and Patrick Pilch
Welcome to FUZZY MEADOWS, our 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. 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.
CLIMAX LANDERS
“Valkyrie Profile”
Do you ever feel bad? Do you ever feel lost? Do you know how cool it is to play an instrument? Do you know how cool it is to play an instrument badly? Do you know how cool sharing is? Do you like music? Do you like Climax Landers? Frances Chang? Kolb? Girl C*ck? Do you like music videos? Do you like art? Do you like the elusive, mysterious visual artist Robert Calzone? Whitley Watson? Do you want to be friends? Do you want to go to a show? Do you want to see Climax Landers? Do you like games? Do you like music? Is this thing on? Do you know you can do it? Do you know you can do it yourself? - Patrick Pilch
COOTIE CATCHER
“Friend Of A Friend”
Great news for mouths: smiling is back again. Cootie Catcher are back with a sick new single, so best get to grinnin’. “Friend of a Friend” is what happens when you take twee seriously, and this project is serious about twee. This band has the most indecipherable vibe and that is a massive fucking compliment (and I never say “vibe(s)”.) “Friend of a Friend” is the first single from Cootie Catcher’s upcoming Cooked Raw full length I Get Shy and it’s a total doozy. Sharp snares and guitar chugs drive the track’s underbelly while static-contact synths flicker like a fried light switch. By the end, a noodling key line fires and sparks and voilà; you’ve got another irresistible tune from the Toronto four piece. - Patrick Pilch
DAVID NANCE
“Don’t Take That Way, That Way’s A Mess: Outtakes 2020-2024” LP
Don’t Take That Way, That Way’s A Mess could be a cautionary tale, but even David Nance’s outtakes and scraps feel like true gold. Once again opening the treasure trove of his vaults in time for Bandcamp Friday, this collection is potent with deep fried Americana, distorted and experimental, but Americana all the same. The strength of Nance’s voice and the earnest nature of his writing make songs like “I Stood Alone In The Grocery Store” shine beneath the warble of the recording, a ramshackle country tinged tune that roars and crackles with muscular twang. The release feels essential to the make-up of Nance’s music, a diverse collection of dynamic ideas and gorgeous songs. - DG
FUTURO
“Dois Mundos” EP
Four years removed from the triumphant Os Segredos Do Espaço e Tempo, São Paulo, Brazil’s Futuro are back with a new EP, Dois Mundos. With an increase in fidelity that retains the band’s inherently raw approach, the quartet tear through three urgent songs, stinging with discordant fuzz and hard hitting rhythms. Their sound resides somewhere between garage punk, hardcore, and psych, skidding and hurtling their way forward with sustained distortion and bruising riffs that often threatens to swallow everything whole if not for the frantic shouts of Camila Leão, her vocals catchy if not entirely melodic (in the best of ways). - DG
HELLRAZOR
“Static” b/w “King of the Castle (Beak> cover)
Two years after the release of Heaven’s Gate, Hellrazor return with a new two song single. "Static” and “King of the Castle” both have an expansive sprawl and patience to them, two songs as much about their fuzzy atmospherics and locked in groove as they are the rhythmic pulse and the band’s usual overdriven intensity. “King of the Castle,” the single’s “b-side” is a Beak> cover, a tribute to Geoff Barrow, who is retiring from music following Beak>’s upcoming tour dates. Hellrazor play it pretty close to the original, ramping up the warm production while retaining the mesmerizing effect of the motorik beat. “Static” on the other hand, finds Michael Falcone and the band sauntering above thick bass and slowly corroding distortion, the song evolving in time, taking a circuitous route to cementing itself in all our brains. - DG
PHRENELITH
"Stagnated Blood"
Four years and many tours after the release of their second album, Copenhagen’s Phrenelith are set to release their highly anticipated third full length, Ashen Womb, Due out February 7th via Dark Descent and Me Saco Un Ojo, “Stagnated Blood,” the album’s lead single is pulverizing and apocalyptic death metal at it’s finest, the riffs crawling under your skin, laying waste to any sense of stillness. There’s almost a classic feel at times to the composition as they swerve between colossal dirges of impenetrable low end and the careening eruptions of seismic atmospheric dread, dizzying in scope, but brutal in execution. - DG
ROC MARCIANO & THE ALCHEMIST
“The Skeleton Key” LP
Having already released Marciology, one of the year’s best hip-hop records, back in March, Roc Marciano surprised us all last week with The Skeleton Key, a new collaborative album together with The Alchemist on the beats. Much like the duo’s 2022 effort, The Elephant Man’s Bones, Marci and Al seem to bring out the best in one another, providing an electrical spark that has Roc Marciano really lacing the beats instead of floating above them. His rhymes are devious and detached, with an indulgence that never pulls its punches. Extravagant bars are met with psychedelic production, the samples leaning between noir grime and hypnotic repetition. A late entry that’s likely one of the year’s finest records. - DG
TOTAL DEFEAT
“You Can’t Win” LP
Hailing from Perth, Australia, Total Defeat release their first full length, You Can’t Win. The record follows the hardcore band’s great Dreg EP, released back in 2021, only this time they’re leaning further into their brand of unglued wall-of-sound chaos. Out via the great Televised Suicide (Vampire, Phantasm, Gaoled), it’s a menacing hardcore record that seethes with disgust for a society that fails so many struggling and marginalized people. Total Defeat never sound dejected though on You Can’t Win, this is catharsis with an iron first. The record is blistering and wildly energetic, kicking up dust and blasting from one violent stampede to the next, a reckless landslide of unhinged corrosion. - DG
Further Listening:
DECEMBER 02 - DECEMBER 08:
BLONDE REVOLVER "Depleted :( (demo)" | BUIO OMEGA "On The Prowl" | CAVE IN "Jupiter (25th Anniversary Reissue)" LP | CHEEKFACE "Hard Mode" | DAZY "I Get Lost (When I Try To Get Found)" EP | DERADOORIAN "Digital Gravestone" | FACS "Desire Path" | FATBOI SHARIF & DRIVEBY "Malik" | FELICIA DOUGLASS "Take Time" EP | FUSILIER "Birds" | GAYTHEIST "Brave The Swarm" | HYPERDOG "Tales From The Mountain" EP | IGGY POP "The Passenger (Live at Montreux Jazz Festival 2023)” | INTERMISSION "Ball N Chain" | K-THE-I??? & KENNY SEGAL "Spellcasted Televsion" (feat. Armand Hammer) | KASSIE KRUT "Blood" | KURIOUS "Bacalao Opera" | LINA TULLGREN "Glow Emits" | LIQUIDS "Abcess/Water It Down" | RAZ FRESCO "Marvelous Motion" (feat. ANKHLEJOHN) | SPIRITWORLD "Western Stars & The Apocalypse" | THANKS FOR COMING "Untitled" (Interpol cover) | TITANIUM EXPOSÉ "Disorders" EP | TVOD "Car Wreck"
DECEMBER 09 - DECEMBER 15:
DEAF CLUB "El Camino Car Crash" (Swing Kids cover) | GOON "Death Spells" | GUIDED BY VOICES "The Great Man" | HORSEGIRL "Julie" | JULIA JACKLIN "Good Guy" (feat. Faye Webster) | LIFELESS DARK "Forces of Nature's Transformation" LP | LOTS OF HANDS "Masquerade" | PINK SIIFU "WHOUWITHHO+" (feat. Kal Banx) | PLEASANTS "Losing Streak / Sick Sad Situation" | ROC MARCIANO & THE ALCHEMIST "Chopstick" | SUITOR "Prize Horse" | TRENT REZNOR & ATTICUS ROSS "Vaster Than Empires" (feat. Alan Sparhawk)