Primordial and ritualistic is the sound of Deerhoof, who are faithful to their aesthetics and history. The idea of Future Teenage Cave Artists is a fascinating foothold, a handhold to a search for creativity in which every atom of chaos is meaningful and expresses the meaning of sonic exploration that is never banal.
They’ve been in the Chilean underground scene establishing themselves as an iconoclast, revolutionary band through cathartic live shows and a fierce musical output. With the release of their new album Mapas Auténticos del Mundo Imaginario, Mapas Imaginarios del Mundo Real, punk gets unleashed into free-form jazzy performances.
Coriky is The Evens with the addition of Joe Lally on bass and MacKaye switching back to guitar. The vibe is still very similar but there’s the interplay of the trio that makes it its own unique band. It’s a little louder, a little looser feeling. It has a lived in feel that comes from three musicians that are very used to playing together.
Mike Hlady’s songwriting boasts an impressive range, switching between mellow acoustic laments to explosive guitar driven instrumentals that spiral in and out of consciousness. Holiday Music’s newest album Certified Ailments expands upon both. It is steeped in sonic manipulation, meticulous in detail, and relentless in execution.
Where before Modern Nature found urgency in exploring their sonic boundaries though - dipping into everything from krautrock to free jazz - Annual is a conceptual rather than experimental piece. Annual documents one year in Cooper’s life, with his thoughts drawn from a journal filled with ideas and notes.
Just in time for the height of leafy backroad drives and sleepy afternoons spent in a humid sun, Toronto’s most underrated folk-rock outfit Little Kid have dropped the ideal summer album. Transfiguration Highway is a beautiful exploration of self-worth and spiritual identity through a lens of religious mysticism.
Far Enough contains rallying cries against power, gatekeepers, cynicism, greed, and all the other obstacles that attempt to wear and beat people down till they’re too exhausted to fight back. It’s all housed in thick, driving bass lines, quick, steady drums, and stabbing guitar work. It’s punk that is still incredibly catchy and hook laden.
“Welcome to Bobby’s Motel, the place where all your dreams come true.” Those are the first lyrics we hear on Welcome to Bobby’s Motel, the debut long player from Montreal band Pottery. After hearing the full album, those introductory words seem apt; Pottery proceeds to take the listener on a sonic odyssey, criss crossing genres.
Spain's Yawners honestly feels like they've emerged from a time capsule buried deep in the earth some time in the previous decade. The prickly, precious little confections they bake up on their latest album, Just Calm Down, are so delicate and delightful that they will feel like they could melt in your mouth.
Catharsis has always lain within a truly heartbreaking country song: a few minutes of ached crying, staring into the abyss of romance and loss, and a temporary peace comes over the singer. This is something Esther Rose recognizes and so we have her new EP, filled with covers of some of her favorite depressing country anthems.
This covers album is essentially a cleanup of Johnston’s ramshackle workings, an imagining of how the outsider artist may have sounded if he hadn’t been plagued by weighty personal issues and a lack of quality recordings. There is no attempt to match the wild spirit of Johnston - they couldn’t - instead offering a fair homage to the icon.
Scott Ryan Davis (Psychic Ills) brings us an album vastly differing in tone to the experimental psychedelia of that band’s work, a welcomingly soft departure. Vincent’s Playlist feels intensely personal, a loving remembrance of the glory of guitar music. The songs scratch and soar as if they had arrived from a Flying Nun Records release.
The Cool Greenhouse’s self-titled LP presents a series of nightmarish vignettes and seedy character studies to reveal the faux-idyllicism of provincial life. The band succeeds in crafting a matching sonic space to the album’s uncanny and foreboding lyrical world, where the true strength of their debut lies.
