by Dan Goldin (@paintingwithdan)
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 late hours of the night and semi-unedited... but full of love and heart. The list is in alphabetical order and we sincerely recommend checking it all out. There's a lot of great new music being released. Support the bands you love. Spread the word and buy some new music.
INSTITUTE
“The Shooter”
Austin’s Institute make economical anarcho-punk that favors melodic shifts over sheer bark. The bite is all the more menacing as a result. They’ve always dealt in sharp corners, their songs are intrinsically pointed and raw while brightly swarming around coiled hooks and gluey riffs. With their first ever Australian tour coming up, Institute are set to release a new self-titled EP on February 20th via Anti Fade Records (Station Model Violence, Itchy & The Nits, R.M.F.C), and lead single “The Shooter” captures the band at their very best. It’s a political song about the dangers of gun violence (as perpetuated by the police and other small minded idiots), a song that highlights all the wrong reasons people find to validate a shoot or be shot mentatily… all too present in these current times. It’s unfortunately incredibly timely, but the song never feels like a slog as it spirals into a dizzying rhythm and crisp cutting guitars that sit snuggly with the rattled vocal. Over a decade in and Institute keep getting better.
LANDOWNER
“Rival Males”
No one does it quite like Western MA’s Landowner, a band that plays impossibly tight punk with a penchant for abrasively clean tonality. Everything hits like a sledgehammer as a result, replacing distortion with wrought tension that feels like it could snap at any moment. There’s magic in a sensory overload built on minimalism. With the quintet’s new album, Assumption, arriving on February 27th, the band have shared the record’s lead single “Rival Males,” a song both frantic and hypnotic, brash yet full of character, riddled with concern but driven by impenetrable propulsion and Landowner’s chaotic charm. It’s a real beaut, an acerbic rampage of righteous irritation. Dan Shaw’s lyrics bring a primal aggression to the mix, presiding over the taut instrumentation with unflinching presence and you can’t help but be enamored by the time he sings “love is leverage, feed your miracle, pursued by gooOooOoOons.” Making every moment count, Landowner remain our heroes of less-is-more punk.
POWERPLANT
“Bridge of Sacrifice”
There are a lot of bands that take a dynamic approach to their music, but none with the exuberance of London’s Powerplant, a band that has truly never released the same album twice. It’s been nearly a decade since the world was introduced to Theo Zhykharyev’s ever shifting brand of synth punk madness and the project remains as unpredictable as ever. From “egg punk” to dungeon synths and warped and bubbling post-punk, Powerplant keep it interesting by keeping everyone guessing as to what comes next. Bridge of Sacrifice (due out March 13th via Arcane Dynamics) and its title track present a wild ride even by Powerplant’s standards, blending crooning romanticism, caustic synth punk, crusty black metal, and cosmic garage psych to create something oozing and engaging, as strange as it is delightful. It shouldn’t really work and yet it works wonders. “Bridge of Sacrifice” is unapologetically over the top punk rock weirdness (with an overload of good ideas), and all the better for it.
ROBBER ROBBER
“The Sound It Made”
Following up a truly excellent cover of Elvis’ “Suspicious Minds,” Burlington’s Robber Robber have announced their second full length album, Two Wheels Move The Soul. Due out April 3rd via Fire Talk (Hannah Frances, Wombo, Kassie Krut), the record continues to expand upon the band’s vibrant sound, a bold sonic statement from one of indie rock’s most exciting modern bands. Robber Robber fuse together post-punk, shoegaze, krautrock, and elastic art punk structures with a pop core, for all their experimental tendencies the songs are still rooted in immediacy with bright hooks embedded in the serrated edges. “The Sound It Made” opens the record with a kinetic bang, a sunspot of distortion that explodes out the speakers and the shuffle of Zack James’ always dazzling rhythmic onslaught. From there the song bends and contorts via Nina Cates’ melodic vocals, colliding to create a sugary dose of anything goes mutant pop carnage. There’s a lot going on, from the bombastic drums to the glitchy layers of manipulated distortion, but Robber Robber keep a firm grip on it all.
ROC MARCIANO
“656” LP
Sometimes you just have to do it yourself. Roc Marciano, a true DIY hip-hop legend, understands that. 656, his latest album, is self-produced and self-released (through his own Pimpire Records), allowing Marci to serve as the sole architect of the exceptional and unflinching record. Following a pair of collaborative albums together with The Alchemist and DJ Premier, 656 is a reminder that the Hempstead based MC is every bit as gifted as a producer as he is a lyricist, crafting a landscape of haunting loops and dusty soul samples that fit his stream-of-conscious bars to perfection. Roc Marciano’s world is often split like an earthquake between the dirt of the streets and the eloquence of high fashion and luxurious excess, his words a kaleidoscopic mix of blunted menace and designer vision. Lyrically dense and characteristically vivid, songs like “Easy Bake Oven” and “Childish Things” prove Marci to be in a class all his own. With the only features coming courtesy of Errol Holden (whose Mulberry Silk Road was produced in full by Marciano), 656 presents an unfiltered view of Marci’s deviant grace.
SEASON 2
“Abundance of Power”
With an inherent sense of camaraderie and reverence, “Abundance of Power” serves as our introduction to Melbourne’s Season 2. The new band comprised of Carolyn Hawkins (Parsnip), Charlotte Zarb (The Snakes), Claudia Serfaty (The Stroppies), Freya McLeod, and Matt Powell (Phil & The Tiles) glow with collaborative spirit, from the gorgeous gang vocal harmonies to their itchy pop jangle, there’s a degree of giddiness at play throughout their upcoming album Power of Now (due out April 24th via Upset The Rhythm and Spoilsport Records). The lead single opts to play it nonchalant and yet its far from despondent despite revolving around endless boredom and “waiting for the future but it never seems to arrive”. With duel guitars and soaring keys, general malaise has rarely sounded so promising. The vocals land like shimmering post-punk superglue, implanting themselves deep into your memory banks, an earworm melody that really bounces despite its decidedly deadpan delivery.
ULRIKA SPACEK
“Picto”
Seeing London’s Ulrika Spacek live is something like being immersed in a tidal wave. Everything is carefully composed yet somewhat unglued, with sweeping dynamics that are both beautiful and crushing, amorphous yet deeply in the pocket. EXPO, the band’s fourth album, due out on February 6th via Full Time Hobby (Dana Gavanski, Bananagun, Tunng), captures that energy and momentum. It’s a record that locks into a hazy groove one moment only to find itself brilliantly tangled in cinematic layers the next. “Picto,” the last of the pre-release singles, is built on combustible energy, building on a jazzy drum pattern, a moving cloud of processed harmonies, and looped progressions with a wall of sound warmth and an experimental bliss. There’s so much nuance and depth in Ulrika Spacek’s patchwork art rock sound, and with songs like “Picto” they sound more alive than ever before
WENDY EISENBERG
“Meaning Business”
Time and time again, Wendy Eisenberg has proven capable of just about anything. From the banjo induced beauty of Bent Ring, the other wordly exploration of Viewfinder, and the bombastic glory of Editrix to the litany of improvisational collaborations, Eisenberg’s music exists in a realm somewhere between gentle reflection and cosmic upheaval. With a new self-titled solo album via Joyful Noise (Deerhoof, Finom, Asher White) coming on April 3rd, Wendy has shared “Meaning Business,” a stunning song that blends folk rock, alt-country, and a nervy bit of experimental complexity (tastefully scratching at prog’s door) in a way that works on every level. There’s an immaculate structure to the peaks and valleys of the writing, melodies softly sliding up and down within the silky composition in a surrealist (kind of perfect) sort of way. For an artist that’s tirelessly profound, the genuine nature of “Meaning Business” is jaw-dropping, an immediate highlight from a fearless musician.
Further Listening:
January 12 - January 18:
ABRONIA “Gemini” | CASHIER “Like I Do” | COMMITMENT “Dog Pound” | CONVERGE “We Were Never The Same” | DEAD FINKS “Anodyne“ | ELUCID & SEBB BASH “First Light” (feat. Mattie) | ERROL EATS EVERYTHING “Round N Round (Statik Selektah Remix)” (feat. Rome Streetz) | FAN CLUB “Don’t Give A Damn” | FLEA “Traffic Lights” (feat. Thom Yorke) | HANNAH LEW “Another Twilight” | IMMOLATION “Adversary“ | IRK “TechNoir Session” | JANA HORN “Come On” | JO PASSED “Dizzy Izzy” | KETA ESTER “Big Stomp, Big Stomp” | KIM GORDON “Not Today” | MORGAN NAGLER “Grassoline” | NO/MÁS “Ley Indigena“ | THE NOTWIST "How The Story Ends" | NOVA ONE “Basketball Court” | PEAER “End of the World” | RATBOYS “The World, So Madly” | REMEMBER SPORTS “Nevermind” | RINGING “Incandescent” | SAM WENC "Run the River Clear" | SCOUT GILLETT “Too Fast To Last” | STATION MODEL VIOLENCE “Heat” | SURFBORT “Jessica’s Changed”
JANUARY 19 - JANUARY 25:
BAD HISTORY MONTH “Something Pure” | THE BEACH BOYS “We Gotta Groove (2025 Mix)” | THE CLAYPOOL LENNON DELIRIUM “WAP” | COMMON HOLLY “Dyson” | COURTNEY BARNETT “Site Unseen” (feat. Waxahatchee) | DREYER “Three Sisters Garden” | EXHUMED “Shovelhead” | FIF “ii-n // Now hang on” | HEN OGLEDD “Clara” | IDK “E.T.D.S.“ LP | JUVENILE “B.B.B.” (feat. Geneisthegawd) | LIGHTNING BOLT “Cloud Core” | NIGHT MOTH “Rumination Song“ | OZZIE HAIR “Don’t Wanna” | PEARL “Party” | STEPMOTHER “New World” | THA GOD FAHIM & COOKIN SOUL “Tha Source Wall”