The February Album Round-Up
End of the Middle by Richard Dawson
Far in a way my favorite release of the month, perhaps of the year so far. Granted it’s only been two months so the impact of such acclaim feels lessened, but it is still nonetheless deserved as Dawson provides an extremely poignant reflection on modern mundanity that would have the likes of Nicholson Baker singing its praises. My history of Dawson had me concerned going into the project as I feared that there would be a drastic turn somewhere along the way which would end up dropping me into the pagan spookiness of 2017’s The Peasant. But much like with the aesthetic/symbolic condensing of his name from Richad to Rich as listed on the album’s cover, the End of the Middle shines with its intentionally minimal production. The teetering strums of guitar provide a hushed singsongy backdrop that one would catch from a bystander’s whistle, which throughout the album cements a throughline of hope amidst the brand-laden vignettes of class and consumerism.
Serene Demon by Art d'Ecco
Someone please swab this dude’s mouth and run a DNA test, because this album has me convinced cloning is real and Art d’Ecco is the second coming of late-2000s Kevin Barnes. With too many infectious bass lines to count paired with smokey falsetto vocals, Serene Demon is an extremely solidified front from an artist who has proved themselves willing to sacrifice and experiment drastically for the sake of a well curated sound and style. Each listen has me going back and forth between wanting to get lost downtown under the hypnotizing glow of headlights or simply dancing around my apartment like some glammed-up version of Risky Business.
It’s Summer, I Love You, and I’m Surrounded by Snow by Dead Gowns
Perhaps I’m easy to please. Perhaps I just know what I am looking for. Perhaps I’m waiting for a siren in a wolf cut to sing their bellowing song to lead me into that cold yet comforting abyss. No matter how you slice it, Portland’s Genevieve Beaudoin under the moniker Dead Gowns comes out swinging for the fences in this debut album saturated in an intensely relatable and hazy exhaustion. The songs which open this album do such central theme justice, though what secured this release in this (what has consistently turned out to be) top 10 was the lead single In the Haze which just cuts the bullshit and breaks the silence with a staggeringly screamed “it’s not loneliness / when you’re only crying.” I don’t know where Courtney Barnett is or if we’ll ever see Angel Olsen return to the grungy femme fatale formula of My Woman, but while I got this spinning for its sleek 45 minutes I don’t have ask any questions – just sweetly sulk in the reverb.
Après coup by Laurie Torres
As spring begins to bloom, the drive towards quieter albums draws that much stronger. You are able to see the world for more than just a blank canvas of white and grey smudges and therefore can handle meditations that are consonant to the beating intricacies of life’s continual renewal. It is with such visions in mind that Laurie Torres sculpts a light and jazzy record that is nevertheless ruminative. You get the warmth of Olafur Arnalds, the hypnotic lulling of Phillip Glass, and the graceful brooding of Gia Margaret – so what’s not to love?
Harmony of Loss Has Been Sung by Tunic
I’m still reeling from the disbanding of Sprain and their masterful expansion upon the noise rock formula of chugging abrasion and implosive monologues. While I’ll always have Lamb As Effigy and the snippets and live shows that sneak their way out from Alex Kent’s new project Shearling, what has been filling the void is the Canadian band Tunic. Compared to Sprain, the grander dynamics are intentionally stripped away to the gnarled bone on the altar of pure no-wave. That said there’s still plenty of heart and agony throughout as Harmony of Loss Has Been Sung is conceptually driven from the perspective of the band’s frontman dealing with the tragic event of a miscarriage and the existential ripples that haunt both him and his wife. For a genre so easy to stumble across acts that devolve in a race towards the bottom in terms of sonic and lyrical transgressiveness, it is refreshing (albeit nonetheless tragic) that such an album can find a singular and unified space to be as viscerally cathartic to perform as it is to listen to.
Until The Light Takes Us by Rapt
Down to the sepia-toned antique photo cover art and 7-minute folksy vignettes, this album is taken from an alternate universe where Mark Kozelek (for better or worse, depending on who you ask) never put down the classic guitar for the sake of grander experimentation. Think Admiral Fell Promises except it’s coming from a British guy who looks like Gallagher.
Nozomi by Masako Ohta & Matthias Lindermayr
A thoroughly beautiful pairing of two masters, one of piano and the other of trumpet. Lindermayr’s breath control especially sticks out as each note from the horn is imbued with a whispered warmth one can fully confide in through the pained silences that arise late into the evening.
It Will Be Like Now by Vulture Feather
Not to fall victim to the biggest cliché in media commentary, but Vulture Feather’s music is hard to label. This is because that though the howling baritones and surplus of anthemic crescendos quack with the likes of true stadium rock, the rest of this duck waddles with such meticulous pacing to not be anything but highly informed indie rock. Cold-sweated nights of waffled categorization aside, each track feels like it would closing number to some Sundance darling before the fade-to-black and roll of credits.
Sinister Grift by Panda Bear
Even if not as showstopping as the collaborative effort that was 2023's Reset in Dub, Panda Bear returns to the tropically sedative sounds which leave you yearning for a beachside view and a handful of quaaludes.
Into A Greater Nothing by Tete Leguia
I like to think that my days of noise are far and well behind me, though every once and a while there’s something that breaks the chains that have imprisoned so many dulled edges and tired concepts. Tete Leguia’s sonic profile of prepared electric bass (specified to having no effects and no overdubs) is kinetic and gushing with an organic primitivism. Sure there are deafening hums and screeches which bludgeon the listener like a head concussed on concrete, but deep within these reverberations is a dynamic structure which ebbs and flows back to something nearly musical. The most direct comparison would be Derek Bailey or Tashi Dorji however corroded to a very textural and skeletal specter.
Honerable mentions: Spider Towns by Old Pup, man oh man! by Martin Luke Brown, High Tide by Able Noise, Winter Poems by Yuval Cohen Quartet, Catching Tigers in Red Weather by Trent Liptak, Electroacoustic Works For Halldorophone by Martina Bertoni, The Stars Are Very Far Away From All Of This by Benjamin Fulwood, Prodigal Son by Liam Grant, Run to the Center by Cornelia Murr, Shards by Tim Hecker, Strange Behavior by Katy Pinke, Waiting Room by Maria Kelly, Beyond the Break by Kristin Daelyn
