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.
Wallplant is a solo project from Chicago’s Donny Walsh, a Chicago musician that has been busy with a wide breath of projects over the years (Stuck, Krozer, Surveillance). While it’s been three years since Wallplant released Understand, this week Walsh returns to the project with a new EP, Nothing For Sure.
Set to release Slack Capital 3 on Friday, 100% of the proceeds will be donated to Austin Justice Coalition, a local justice group that seeks to educate and build community. The 41 track compilation was curated by Eric Braden (Big Bill), Nathan Lankford (Austin Town Hall Records), and local booking agency Howdy Gals.
Their new album Goodbye, Blue Sky is an acid soaked voyage to the distant cosmos. It is sonically ambitious and rewarding. They’ve moved far beyond the garage pop sensibilities of Nico...and her Psychedelic Subconscious into a universe of dark atmospheric swells, lush vocals, and larger than life synth and organ arrangements.
Their website header reads “The ONO Statement of Purpose: Experimental, Noise, and Industrial Poetry Performance Band Exploring Gospel's Darkest Conflicts, Tragedies and Premises.” Forty years into their existence, their motive remains incredibly potent; ONO’s artistic mission is as important as ever on Red Summer.
Varsity’s sound has been revised with each release since they formed in 2013. What has remained static, though, is the persevering spirit at their core. Even when broaching darker topics, there is an optimism present that is absent from their peers. Their new album Fine Forever takes that resilience and embraces it at every juncture.
Judy Hong who runs Quiet Year Records and organizes with Ice Cream Social in Richmond, VA, along with Nancy Grim Kells (Spartan Jet-Plex) and James Cassar, are part of the team responsible for Grim Year Wednesdays, an inventive online hybrid of interviews and performances with a focus on fundraising for the Virginia Anti-Violence Project.
Overall, their new EP serves as an excellent addition to the small but growing Lance Bangs discography. Prior fans of the band will be pleased with WHAMMY’s adherence to and progression of the singular style put on display with Lance Mountain. For new fans, it is the perfect place to dive in for the first time, all in just over eleven minutes.
On Shadow Talk, Cafe Racer leap into a new era. On their 2018 debut Famous Dust, the Chicago natives proved themselves capable and well-versed proponents of psych and space rock. On their new record, they have pushed their penchant for the psychedelic forward into tighter playing, vast structures, and blossoming arrangements.
In Bandcamp’s ongoing quest to better the world, they are once again waiving their cut of all sales on Friday, June 5th (PST). There are literally hundreds of thousands of records that deserve your attention on Bandcamp. We are highlighting some of our favorite black artists on Bandcamp, though it’s just a drop in the ocean.
