"Fuzzy Meadows: The Week in Review" is a weekly round-up of the best new music premiered this week across the internet. It's a weekly embarrassment of riches, let Post-Trash be your guide. It's the weekend, here's what happened...
BUILT TO SPILL | "Good Enough"
[Noisey]
"the intimacy of the space matches perfectly with the slow and steady pace of the song to do the sound justice. The emotion and strength in Doug Martsch's voice comes out in full display, delivering just the right amount of emphasis on each word." - John Hill, Noisey
EUGENE QUELL | "Song For Marla And Lucas"
[The Line of Best Fit]
"On Quell's latest work we hear guitars squall over languid drums and deliciously grungy lurches - all preparing the listener for the song's messy tale .. Hayes' vocal snarls befit Quell's unruly nature, heightened by gritty guitar solos that hang loose like a Cobain creation." - Charlotte Krol, The Line of Best Fit
WOOZY | "Gilding The Lily"
[Little Elephant]
"This band is incredible" - Little Elephant
EARRING | "Black Chalk"
[Noisey]
"Earring is a duo from Chicago that play post-punk with incredibly thick guitars. The song "Black Chalk" features guitars continuously cycling into themselves, creating a layer of droney strangeness that still manages to be poppy. The visual component directed by Jenna Caravello adds more to the despondency of the track, it's an animated short where the rules of reality aren't firmly set." - John Hill, Noisey
GUN OUTFIT | "In Orbit"
[press release]
"...directed by band member Dylan Sharp. Shot on Hi-8 and Super 8 with the help of Lilah Slager Rose, it’s an experimental video that depicts alien life forms disintegrating into washes of colors. Sharp describes the video as “an exploration of the glimmering surface of the veil that separates us from the emptiness of sea and space.”
OUGHT | "Beautiful Blue Sky"
[NPR]
"While drawing heavily from sonic inspirations like Talking Heads, Sonic Youth and The Fall, the group fashioned a sound of its own over the course of two albums and two EPs ... despite its sometimes anxious post-punk gloom, feels like a sun coming up on a new day." - Jim Beckmann, NPR
SOUPCANS | "Siamese Brutality"
[CMJ]
"Toronto slug punks Soupcans rip off fuzz-caked riff scabs all over on their recently unleashed EP LP, Soft Party (Telephone Explosion). Fittingly, on this new vid clip for “Siamese Brutality,” director Winston Hacking offers up an equally sliced and jarring collage art." - Eric Davidson, CMJ
BIG HUSH | "Cough"
[The Fader]
"D.C. band Big Hush are releasing their new EP, Who's Smoking Your Spirit?, on December 1 via DZ Tapes. The record is a five-song, fuzz-heavy, shoegaze pop whirlwind." - Leah Mandel, The Fader
CHASTITY BELT | "Lydia"
[NPR]
"Chastity Belt's music isn't abrasive, and never ugly. But "Lydia" in particular uses a guitar line that approaches sunny, and is the only one of the album's 10 tracks to feature Lydia Lund's vocals, which is softer than that of front woman Julia Shapiro. For the video, director Shaun Libman married the vulnerability and accessibility of Lund's voice with equally dreamy visuals." - Katie Presley, NPR
MEW | "Making Friends"
[Stereogum]
"The new clip throws the band, wearing freaky mime facepaint, into a sort of half-rotoscoped animated landscape that looks a bit like the apocalypse. Various weird monsters make appearances, as do foxes, dinosaurs, and a big meteor. Jonas Bjerre directs, and I have no idea what any of it means." - Tom Breihan, Stereogum
VAGABON | "Sharks"
[Impose]
"Anyone who has witnessed the veracity and passion of Vagabon on stage is well-aware of the power of Laetitia Tamko‘s songwriting. But there is an underlying intimacy that Brooklyn photographer Andrew Piccone captures beautifully in his latest This Has Got To Stop session.
CHILDBIRTH | "Let's Be Bad"
[NPR]
"The song's wild new video, helmed by Portland director Lara Jean Gallagher, features the performance art guerilla grrrl Alicia McDaid as a homemaker seduced away from her smoothies-and-floor-scrubbing regime by the lure of tight skirts and Barbie-shaped chocolate cake. McDaid stuffs her face and pulls off her plain brown wig (to reveal a classic Sharon Stone, bleached pixie cut), before atoning with a manic yoga routine. Visions of animated, whirling doll parts, a sexy cat, and the band lustfully eating torment McDaid until she cracks." - Ann Powers, NPR
THE BRAINSTEMS | "No Place Else" LP
[Impose]
"The recording has the kind of scratchy surface this style calls for, but is otherwise remarkably clean. These songs feel finished, rather than carelessly tossed off. An album like this is proof even for those of us who are deeply weary of Straightforward Rock n’Roll that there’s still value in the formula, that it can still be done right." - Jes Skolnik, Impose
PLEATHER | "Wish U Well"
[Impose]
"Introducing Pleather; comprised of Couple Skate boss Andrew McKibben & FF’s own Claire Nelson ... the two set the anti-rock stage of continuing the canons found in the movements they champion like what they refer to as the “feminist futurist divas” and their own slacked-back style of future-primitivism." - Sjimon Gompers, Impose
THE SHRINE | "Coming Down Quick"
[Noisey]
"In their sweaty, surreal new video for "Coming Down Quick," LA hesher brigade The Shrine slash, smash, and burn through a psyched-out stoner rock groove stacked with wild solos and gratuitous distortion." - Noisey
DESPITE THE RAVEN | "Hereinafter" LP
[Audioeclectica]
"After hearing Craig Cirinelli in his other bands (Damn) This Desert Air and Hidden Cabins, I had a feeling that this new project would be the next step in his musical path. Teaming up with guitarist Chris Homentosky, this dynamic duo has created an album that stretches past the influences of the 90’s contemporaries and pushes deeper with each song. The eleven songs on this album are full of great rock n roll with added elements of ambience and soulful melodies." - Brian Lacy, Audioeclectica
and of course, on Post-Trash...
DAN FRANCIA | "Solo Bass" EP
[Post-Trash]
"Solo Bass is a quick yet dynamic listen... a true display of Francia's infatuation with bass and the instrument's wide range of capabilities from dense punk riffs to whirlwind jazz arpeggios ("Prophecies") and airy melancholic ballads ("One Second"). The center piece of the EP, "Bassists Medley" is Francia's own way of paying respects to the greats, offering his own interpretation on the songs of Stanley Clarke, Jaco Pastorius, and Victor Wooten."