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 "Extended 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.
ALIEN NOSEJOB
“Live Like The Crowd”
Two years between albums is a perfectly acceptable amount of time even for the most impatient of fans, but for some reason its felt like an eternity for Alien Nosejob, who has spoiled us with seven great albums over the past eight years. The wait is over though, as Jake Robertson is set to return with the brilliant How A Mosquito Operates, a record that finds him once again embracing his hardcore roots. Due out June 26th via Iron Lung Records (Consensus Madness, Diät, Fake Dust) and Anti Fade Records (Station Model Violence, Institute, Itchy & the Nits), the album is brash yet radiant, a set of urgent punk songs that retains a sense of humor even as it scrapes the paint from the walls. The ever shapeshifting Alien Nosejob need no introduction at this point, and yet each record serves as a re-introduction. Such is the case with new single “Live Like The Crowd,” a song that feels like another extension of the project’s sound, adopting a crusty d-beat rhythm into the song’s relentless tongue-in-cheek churn. Embodying both carnage and acid tongued fury, Robertson spits out a tornado of riffs and animated venom.
ANNA MCCLELLAN
“Space, you big cloud” EP
There’s a timeless quality to Anna McClellan songs, her lyrics so often encapsulating the experience of being human. There’s unease, regret, empathy, love, a weary sense of realism, and a balance of fragility and strength that all comes together in a rush of grounded understanding. Nearly two years after the release of Electric Bouquet, McClellan is back with the surprise release of Space, you big cloud. Out via Father/Daughter Records (TV Star, Biita Houdei, Mia June), the EP was recorded over three days in Atlanta when the time presented itself on a cross country trip, McClellan presents another stunning batch of indie folk perfection. Spontaneous and full of heart, the record sees McClellan putting a greater emphasis on guitars over piano, the playing giving way to warmth and emotional ease. The lyrics are truly immaculate - from the honky tonk reverence found in “Twirl” to the acceptance of dissolving relationships in “Hot Water” and the wandering nature of “Restless” - compositionally composed to glow over loose structures and a laid back grace. As McClellan sings on “Roses,” “there’s never been a wrong time to love me, there’s never been a wrong time to love anything”.
BECK ZEGANS
“Record Tamer”
Consider this the official “you might consider this biased, but I’d be lying to myself if I didn’t include it warning.” If that bugs you, don’t read it, just listen for yourself.
After almost a decade performing as Goo, Beck Zegans decided it was time to move on, throwing caution to the wind in an attempt to evolve her songwriting. Engraving of Armor, released this past Friday, was recorded in that spirit, a chance to write and record without compromise, to develop ideas and devolve others. Recorded with Julian Fader (Ava Luna) and Alex MacKay (Nation of Language), the trio built from Zegans’ songs, reshaping them with the album in mind, working the pieces together in favor of the greater whole. The end results are stunning, a set of muscular psych folk songs that are as gorgeous as they are expansive. From sustained drifts to walls of immersive art pop, the record careens between turns, bouncing on a motorik pulse one moment and soaring into a dreamy hook the next. “Record Tamer,” the album’s final single is built on warped synths, sparse melodies, and the type of enormous rhythm that would make Beak> proud. Spiraling around Zegans’ mesmerizing vocals, the song weaves through plumes of smoke with a noir glow.
EDDY CURRENT SUPPRESSION RING
“Swimming Hole”
Often regarded as the benchmark of modern post-punk, Melbourne’s Eddy Current Suppression Ring can seemingly do no wrong. While their activity has become more sporadic over time, each new release feels like a genuine global event for punk music fans of all varieties, In Light of Recent Events, the band’s first full length in seven years feels like it was crafted with care, songs that took their time to reach their solid state of garage punk transcendence. It’s a raw record but rarely brash, acerbic but charming, jangling and free yet taut and aggressive. While there are many highlights (“My World,” “Ulterior Motives”), the album’s standout just might be “Swimming Hole,” a pulsating ripper that rides between a joyously blazing maligned-pop recklessness and a hypnotic beer soaked motorik boogie. Eddy Current sound their best when locked into the type of endless groove that could spin on for hours, careening and spitting in step with its own mesmerizing good time churn.
G.U.N.
“Death Dealer” EP
Nashville’s G.U.N. are back after a three year absence with a new line-up, a new record, and the same chaotic intensity. Their caustic approach to hardcore feels inspired by the USHC of the 80’s - blistering guitars, primal drums, and restless tempos throughout the seven minute surge of Death Dealer. Released via Poison Vision Records (The Losers, Backslash), the band come ripping out the gate, bludgeoning a path of head-spinning riffs and recklessly pounding drums, erupting in violent bursts of righteous indignation. Death Dealer isn’t all pillaging however, hooks abound. Big, earnest, slap-you-in-the-face-with-a-sack-of-bricks hooks. With a jittery energy and a pulse that feels supernatural, the band slip and slide on their corrosive distortion, howling and thrashing with a socio-political awareness and bite that’s just as rabid as the accompanying bark. As our country continues to crumble at an alarming rate, G.U.N. aren’t merely stoking the embers, they’ve set the entire ignition into process.
HOLY WAVE
“s33.u.in/HAL”
We’ve mentioned in the past our reverence for Holy Wave’s continuous metamorphosis. The Austin based quartet has reshaped their world with each successive release, drawing upon their catalog while pushing it forward, the changes gradual but distinctive. Three years after Five of Cups (and a few odds and ends releases) comes their new album i’m DADA, and it would appear they’ve made yet another great leap forward. Defining their new record, due out July 10th via Suicide Squeeze Records (The Coathangers, Chastity Belt, Minus The Bear), as “subterranean pop,” Holy Wave sound as though they’ve been transported from earth’s crust into the dimensional unknown. “s33.u.in./HAL” is as great a place to start as any, a futuristic and experimental song built on warped bliss and bent accessibility. It’s a psychedelic pop odyssey, mutating one moment between space-age samples and caterwauling distortion while softly humming the next, but with every smooth shift they take, we remain fully transfixed.
KOLEŻANKA
“Lessons In Textiles”
Last week proved to be an exceptional week for fans of warped and wonderful dream pop tunes with new singles arriving from Pearl & The Oysters and Starcleaner Reunion, but the highlight just might be the return of Brooklyn’s Koleżanka, the art-pop solo project of Kristina Moore (Foyer Red). “Lessons In Textiles” arrives three years after the release of Alone With The Sound The Mind Makes, a record that expanded the project’s framework into cosmic territory, shifting between drifts of electronic psych and lounge-tinged expanse. There’s a wonderful surrealism to be found in the make-up of “Lessons iIn Textiles,” a song that softly locks into place and works its own dizzying magic. Floating with layered synths that are both immediate and textural, the song dances on a nimble drum beat and an acidic groove. Moore’s vocals sit serenely at the center of it all, the meditative focus in an otherwise looping dreamscape. Here’s hoping an album isn’t too far behind.
mclusky
“Live on KEXP”
There’s that old saying about life and patience that goes “it’s a marathon, not a sprint” and yet watching mclusky play live simultaneously feels like both the marathon and the sprint. The sheer amount of energy exerted by the legendary UK based “noise rock” trio is more than admirable, bringing their songs to life with a mangled sense of irreverence and insanity. mclusky should be seen live at every chance. For the shut-ins, those who can’t be bothered, and the rest of us that simply want to relive the experience, the band stopped by KEXP on their recent US tour to perform a catalog spanning set of fan favorites and at least one ill-advised post-hardcore anthem. From the unhinged joy of “Lightsabre Cocksucking Blues,” (which sets the deranged level of adrenaline at a high) to recent songs like “People Person” and the slide-assisted bulldozer that is “As A Dad,” the band are equal parts rash and brilliant, punching up whenever possible with a razor sharp sense of wit (for all their clever inclinations though, they still find time to play “Chases”). Then there’s “She Will Only Bring You Happiness,” quite possibly the band’s catchiest song ever written, if only it wasn’t about sex offenders (which seemingly became all too on-the-nose, coincidentally, a decade later in a horrendous way unrelated to mclusky). It’s incredible, a sincere song that lacks a grain of sincerity, a piss take that’s really taken on a new and unfortunate life. Regardless, it’s a smash hit. mclusky forever and ever. Except no substitutions.
PARTY DOZEN
“Special Unit”
No one does it quite like Sydney’s Party Dozen. The duo of Kirsty Tickle (saxophone, vocals) and Jonathan Boulet (drums, percussion, samples), seem to be on an endless hot streak, developing their own unique blend of hypnotic punk rock and experimental music. With pounding rhythms and a caterwauling melodic resolve, the pair dip into skronky dub-indebted dancefloor carnage and no-wave urgency, finding the common ground between bands like Black Sabbath and Viagra Boys. With each passing release the band seem to push further toward a mutated “pop” core, careening into barn-burner hooks and warped earworm vocals. “Special Unit,” the band’s latest single for City Slang Records (McKinley Dixon, Lambrini Girls) arrives just ahead of the duo’s US tour dates (both headlining and supporting Amyl & The Sniffers), a song that comes blasting out the darkness with a punchy rhythmic pulse and shout-a-long vocals (even if you’re not exactly sure what’s being said). It’s an undeniably great time, a song that contorts and shakes with urgency and clamoring sax menace.
PHARMACIST
"Lazure Sphacelation"
Vertebrae After Vertebrae, the third full length from Japan’s Pharmacist arrived this past week. a grindcore record that feels something like a homemade lobotomy. It’s gross, it’s ragged, and languishes in general dissection. There’s a lot of textures oozing forward from the duo (who may or may not actually just be one person) and none of them could be considered “friendly”. While their first album was primal goregrind in every regard, their second record opted for a more technical and progressive approach to their splattered attack. WIth Vertebrae, Pharmacist peel back the layers to create their most “accessible” (this is relative) music yet. Case in point, “Lazure Sphacelation,” the record’s second single (which I believe is about layers of gangrenous tissue) brings their archaic yet medically inclined brand of death metal into knuckle dragging territory (again, this is relative), grinding out buzzsaw riffs that separate the bile from the regurgitation. “Lazure Sphacelation” isn’t for the faint of heart, but it’s a lot more approachable than much of the band’s (gloriously) disgusting catalog, an ease in decomposition.
PORCHES
“MASK” LP
There was a time when Porches were one of the rowdier live DIY bands in NYC. Joyously unpredictable, there was a special energy to seeing them live in the early days, bringing ramshackle charm to Aaron Maine’s more dissociative songs. His latest, MASK, recorded to 4-track with warts and all, feels like a callback to those days, a raw look at Porches without the studio sheen, and they’ve rarely sounded better. Crispy and laconic, the record reminds us of the brilliance in Maine’s stripped back writing, a look behind the “mask,” a gritty dive into noisy rippers and perma-stoned lo-fi ballads. Pairing immediate highs with unabashed flubs, Porches present a look into the process, the human element that lives in the heart of their music. Stinging distortion, clipped ideas, bruising shoegaze riffs, candle lit melodies, and Maine’s fried croon all collide together to rub dirt into beauty, and the results are transfixing. From the sustained patience in the verses of “Everyone Goes To Heaven” (a modern Porches all-timer) to the skeletal punk of “Habit” and it’s gluey hook, MASK (a record that really deserves a Bandcamp release) is another fascinating chapter in the project’s ongoing story.
ROME STREETZ
“Cocaine Coltraine”
Pick a bar, any singular bar from “Cocaine Coltraine,” the latest Rome Streetz single, and you’re likely to have your brain rearranged like a grease fire in a frying pan. The first single from the NYC based MC’s upcoming album, Sock It 2 My Pocket (out July 17th via Mass Appeal), runs rampant with tight lyrical detail as he talks his shit, cutting between lines like “I shine gold, know the code, got the dopest stanza / got no knowledge and wisdom, how they gon understand us?” and “got high standards, they dumb blind 85 / I’m the god, pay me tithes when I rhyme it's cyanide,” leaving the concrete smoldering in his wake. Rome Streetz has often felt like the next coming of Big L and Nas but as his catalog builds, he continues to develop his savage dexterity, adaptinf his delivery to a wide range of beats. Produced by Griselda’s Denny LaFlare, “Cocaine Coltraine” is jazzy boom-bap that sits well in the pocket, the type of noir landscape that allows Rome Streetz to throw lyrical haymakers all over the track.
SHANNON LAY
“Past The Veil”
After a decade playing gorgeous yet skeletal folk music, sparse in design but emotionally complex, Los Angeles based songwriter Shannon Lay’s music is evolving. Past The Veil, her upcoming album due out July 28th via All The Best, moves beyond gentle acoustics into majestic and swirling art-pop territory, retaining all of beauty while adding a stunning degree of depth. “Past The Veil,” the record’s first single comes to life on a slinky rhythm, pairing surrealist space age lounge pop with the effortless grace of Lay’s vocal melody. It’s swooning amid a deep groove (the kind that wouldn’t sound out of place on a Weyes Blood record), still delicate but undeniably lush and blooming. There’s a real sense of change and momentum inherent in both the sweeping construction and the intricate beat as well as in Lay’s lyrics as she explores the need to push herself from out of her comfort zone in order to find herself anew on the other side. Sometimes the only way forward is through, and the results for Shannon Lay are dazzling.
ULTRA LIGHTS
“Bad Feeling”
Atlanta’s Ultra Lights seem to have an innate understanding of what makes a great song. In just two short years they’ve proven over and over that they deal in smash hits, songs that pick and choose from alternative rock’s many sub-genres in favor of creating the most infectious pop rippers that have existed this side of the “college rock” era. Effortlessly blending together punk grit, melodic fuzz, hard driven jangle, and the mountainous hooks that hold it all together like superglue, the band are dealing exclusively in FM gold. Set to release their first proper full length, Pleasure’s All Yours, on July 10th via Chunklet Industries (Harvey Milk, Vangas, Man… Or Astro-Man?), along comes “Bad Feeling,” a song that stomps between bright corners, gleaming with inescapable hooks and instant charm. Rumbling with a sense of dangerous swagger and overdriven melodies, this is alternative rock at it’s very best, with every moment designed to embed itself forever into your head. Blistering pop at its most infectious.
extended listening:
ANKHLEJOHN “Eyes On My Road” (feat. Mvzonik & Willyynova)
BABEHOVEN “Blue Around You”
BECK ZEGANS “Riddle”
BIG|BRAVE “an uttering of antipathy”
BIITA HOUDEI “Life Inside The Hourglass”
BOLDY JAMES & NICHOLAS CRAVEN “Summer’s Eve”
CLAMM “The Licensing”
CLOSETALKERS “State of Nature” LP
CONSENSUS MADNESS “New Bag (Money)”
DIÄT “Youth of Neukölln (Live)”
GILLA BAND “Giraffe”
GREMLIN “You’re The Man Now Dog” EP
JOSALEIGH POLLETT “The Witness”
JUG “Bug Frog” + “I Am Wrong”
LEAH SENIOR “Softly, Once Again”
LEFT TO DIE “Archangel” (Death cover)
MELTIFICATION “Nuclear Death Threat”
MISCOMINGS “I’m Blue”
NEPTUNE’S CORE “Lemon Car”
PEARL & THE OYSTERS “Mandarin Moon”
PEARL SUGAR “DVD”
PIXIES “Planet of Sound (Live)”
SEA MOSS “First Greens”
SMIRK “Dog Years”
SNAKESKIN & JORGE BALBI “Liege”
STARCLEANER REUNION “Weather Instrument”
SUNNIVA “Surface Tension”
SWEEPING PROMISES “Shooting Shadows”
THEEE RETAIL SIMPS “Theeeee Retina Lamps”
THEY ARE GUTTING A BODY OF WATER “Charter Spec” (feat. Horse Jumper of Love)
WEEN “Bad Day In Brownsville”
WHAIT “Icarus In Training” LP
WIDOWSPEAK “Soft Cover”
WINDED “Double Memoir”
YAZAN “I Was Wrong”