Bursting out of the Japanese knotweed of intersecting rhythms and notes is the wonderful new track “Against Nature” by Portland band Lubec. They carry that same kind of punk dressed in dream pop vibe you’re used to, but the composition this time around feels more complicated and frustrated, properly mirroring its subject matter.
Seattle’s Ian Kurtis Crist returns with the latest Béret record, Jesus White, due out on October 18th via the project’s new home at Born Yesterday Records, a record that captures the broad scope of post-punk among its nine tracks. While so much of the genre has become stagnant, Crist’s sonic vision is one peppered with variety.
Fire-Toolz’s Orange Milk debut is a dense amalgamation of maximalist prog and quantum physics, the holographic principle of glitched jazz fusion. Field Whispers (Into The Crystal Palace) is Marcloid’s experimentation with calculated mayhem, as the producer jukes fluidly through acerbic breakdowns and splintering blast beats.
This collection of new work by iji's Zach Burba feels like a homecoming. It's a collage of home-studio tracks for which Burba casually incorporated friends and absorbed their worlds. It takes a bevy of styles and moods and places them under the same warm haze. Your Music lends credence to an embrace of process, method, and habit.
For the past six years New Jersey’s own Francie Moon has been standing proudly in a class all their own. Led by Melissa Lucciola, their mix of soul, folk, country twang, garage punk, and psych pop is brilliantly unique, bolstered by the undeniable strength of Lucciola’s vocal howls and melodic swells.
New Paltz’s Chris Sunshine make that good mopey slacker rock, the kind that’s engaging and detached, similar to bands like Peaer and LVL UP before them. Set to release their fourth release of 2019, the young band are churning out syrupy rockers that stick like glue as they blend dreamy melodies with a fair bit of shoegaze.
Upon the 20th anniversary of Robert Pollard and Doug Gillard’s Speak Kindly of Your Volunteer Fire Department we get a remaster of one of the shining moments in Pollard’s never-ending discography. This record was birthed from Pollard sending Gillard songs he had written for Gillard to compose music for separately which Pollard would add vocals to later.
Led by Joseph Farago, the queer pop band started playing together in 2016, and has since expanded into a quartet to bring to life the unabashedly pop-centric songs. Dealing with the anxieties of being queer, Joey Nebulous use sparkling lo-fi and what they describe as “Nintendo-inspired synth melodies” to capture both love and heartbreak.
Following Big Ups’ hiatus and Lal’s move to Oakland, he’s set to release his debut solo album, Gardening, on September 27th via Never Content. After years of noisy output, Gardening, much like the album’s title, is a calming effort, an ambient record built on a backlog of tranquil ideas, field recordings, and gorgeous textural synths.
Oakland’s Half Stack find that perfect space between the alt(ernative) and country in “alt-country.” While the band are a decent way from the South, their dusty twang and down-home hooks feel natural, authentic, and easily settled. There’s no tension, just open sky and big melodic relaxation, the type that never feels stagnant.
This record strikes one as the confident expression of a band very solid in what they’re making. If one looks at the liner notes, they can see another expression of this: their previous full-length was credited as being written by Rebecca Ryskalczyk, while Bethlehem Steel credits the band itself as writing the songs. This is a band hitting their stride.
Woongi’s video for their single “Antiques” starts off on a good foot and then just keeps getting progressively more fun until it’s thrilling (yet casual) finale. It’s a real cinematic experience of the highest variety, kinda like Repo Men condensed into three minutes… with more dancing. Okay, it’s not really like Repo Men, but both are excellent.
The logic of DIY rarely leaves room for an unusual grace, but in Close it Quietly, the new album by Frankie Cosmos, there is room for passages and interferences of pure softness. Greta Kline seems to have found, after a long search for several LPs and albums, a structure and a clearer way to an ideal of limpid and moving beauty.
Shormey, a Virginia-based musician, crafts ethereal and grooving jams that fall somewhere between disco, funk, and psychedelia. On her debut EP Boogie Tape Vol. 1, she proves that, while her music may have a retro aesthetic and call to mind some artists of the past, Shormey is simultaneously in her own lane.
Bull in the Shade is the sophomore full length release from Allston (Boston) indie rock quartet Beeef, that increases the muscle in the tunesmith and lends an interesting perspective towards songwriting. Perry Eaton uses a slightly quirky vocal delivery that grabs attention immediately while the band establish mostly frantic instrumentation.
