Daydreams in a Roach Motel is a deeply weird release, one that pushes past a stale game of “spot the reference” to paint a larger regional portrait of gender identity and spiritual renewal, of life and death, horizon and transience in the thick flow of the James. Cat Be Damned’s hazy lo-fi feels like a fitting artifact of too many landscapes to count, compounded over soft synths and hushed vocals that teeter towards collapse.
Car Seat Headrest songs are about the big, scary questions that we’re all asking ourselves. Although Toledo doesn’t claim to have the answers, you still end up feeling empowered as a listener. The record captures the all too familiar sense of emptiness and uncertainty that comes with the start of adulthood, and it will fiercely resonate with young people who are trying to figure out how to live in a world that feels like it's falling apart more everyday.
Pity Sex recently released White Hot Moon, its follow up to 2013’s critically acclaimed record Feast of Love. The album delves into and subverts pop music with blurry ballads and distorted guitars, with lyrics co-written by Britty Drake (vocals, guitar) and Sean St. Charles (drums). Over email Drake and St. Charles conversed about Pity Sex’s beginnings, influences, changing sound and the meaning behind White Hot Moon.
Sam Ray is the bedroom-pop powerhouse behind Julia Brown. The project formed in 2013 with the release of To Be Close To You- a light-hearted indie pop album full of lo-fi love songs. With An Abundance… Julia Brown returns, taking on a much darker tone and hitting on sadder elements of love including loss, heartbreak, desire and dread.
The producers behind the eagerly awaited Melvins’ documentary, “The Colossus of Destiny: A Melvins Tale,” have announced the first public screenings of the film: Los Angeles’ Don’t Knock The Rock Film Festival in late July and at Psycho Las Vegas the weekend of Aug. 26 to 28, with more screening announcements to follow.
PJ Harvey is a subversive and uncompromising artist that rewards a deep immersion in her music. Her output generally defies easy categorization and straightforward subject matter. The Hope Six Demolition Project isn’t any different, although this time I’ve been struggling with the effectiveness of her observational presentation.
Vishnu Basement’s latest release is only three tracks long but Bulb is most definitely a full length due to album opener “The Mythic Rot” and it’s nearly 20 minute running time. Yep, strap yourselves in, this is one of those releases. Blending elements of free jazz, math pop, and prog rock, the expanded running time of the track is anything but wasted.
This experimental art-rock crew has built a solid following over the last six years with incredibly haunting tunes that range in style from the brooding, mobile squall of 2010’s debut Zeroes QC to the cold, bodily grooves of 2013’s Images du Futur, all the while incorporating the breathy, alarming moments of early 2000s Radiohead into an eerie palette of psychedelia, krautrock, and oddly driving rhythms. But only “Leyla,” from last year’s collaborative album with Jerusalem in My Heart, points towards the sparseness of Suuns’ newest LP, Hold/Still.
Valley Slander’s debut release How Animal is a brief and excellently crafted slice of modern no-wave influenced punk music with a distinct southern vibe. Valley Slander hail from Harrisonburg, Virginia; a small college-town located deep in the valleys surrounding the Shenandoah Mountain Range. Their downbeat, mid-paced, scorching brand of punk is equal parts doomed hardcore and southern sway that harvests inspiration from the rotten end of southern life.
When Brooklyn DIY venue Palisades announced that Mothers and Palm would play a show together there, I was confused about this pairing. Would the twisted, cerebral, dissonant music that Palm plays make for a proper warm-up for Mothers’ more hushed, obviously personal songs? After catching the show, though, it became apparent that both bands share a good deal of influence and technical prowess.
