The March Album Round-Up
How It's Done by Pat and the Pissers
This selection and its ranking in this non-ranked top ten are heavily influenced by the cathartic live show I attended which coincided with the release of How It’s Done. But beneath the chugging riffs and track times barely ever cross the two-minute mark is the perfect blend of classic and contemporary punk. From the get-go even if you are just listening to the record, you can sense the performance of a Lester Bangs lookalike springboarding off the walls with natural and rebelliously coquettish smirk. While there is plenty of variety and more Mark Winter-esque flights of deadpan comedy, at the very core of the record is a pulse of sincerity that do-good rabble which is far in a way more earnest than all that has been informed by the dissected and fractured punk scene left after the self-administered egg/chain dichotomy.
Is by My Morning Jacket
The sun is shining, spring has sprung – and what does the world need besides the perfect driving record? Jim James and the rest of the My Morning Jacket crew swoop in with Is which proves that simple is never truly simple. Though we’ve been stripped of our anthemic space rock jams requiring intense engagement with the sonic chemistry and illuminative noodlings, what we are left with is an embarrassment of riches by way of radiant vignettes of jovial warmth. Are there detours into straight state-fairgrounds-level blues? Sure, but they’ve earned it with some beautifully concise grooves that’ll make weekend housecleaning or errand running that much brighter.
20247 by Taxidermists
Cooper B. Handy also know LUCY was not an artist I thought I’d give as much thought as I currently do when I first discovered his tape 100% PROD I.V. released by Bloomington’s own label Ulyssa. It’s far more silly and sugary (let alone rap-adjacent) than I usually lean, yet there’s an infectious singularity to everything Handy touches. Lyrically, sonically, atmospherically – there’s this charmingly intentional outsider quality to even the most straightforward song where you just fully want to live in the world the songs paint. This is very much the case with Handy’s latest band Taxidermists which feel far more approachable with less prefacing necessary to those not accustomed to twee midi-filled rap sonnets. You can call it slacker rock or simply lofi, but until you can concisely put “sorta like the fuzziest songs on Alien Lane were rewritten by Half Japanese” into a singular descriptor I’m just going to call it fun as hell.
a seasons end. by drug bug
You remember that quote from High Fidelity where John Cusack looks into the camera and says “People worry about kids playing with guns, or watching violent videos, that some sort of culture of violence will take them over. Nobody worries about kids listening to thousands, literally thousands, of songs about heartbreak, rejection, pain, misery and loss."? This is the exact byproduct of that sort of comedically serious pondering! Heavily and lovingly influenced by The Smiths, what separates this album from the countless others falling victim to the doldrums of derivativeness plaguing the new music scene (NO I DON’T WANT ANOTHER BAND SOUNDING LIKE MY BLOODY VALENTINE OR STEREOLAB) is the fact that drug bug is willing to be embarrassing. The whimpering, the codependency, the awkward gushiness – it’s all too real to be easily packaged and sold to [insert major record label parading as hip and underground record label of your choice]. I say this not to sound patronizing, but it’s an amazing reflection of the hormonally nightmarish times we’ve all gone through with a sliding degree of residual self-destructive tendencies and I’m glad drug bug was able sublimate enough of this wallowing to create an album that is both hyper individual but totally universal in its immature maturity.
Pain Tracks for the Opium Dealer by Harry Gould Harvey IV
For the sake of my own mental health, I try to limit my exposure to noise as it can easily scratch the sadomasochistic itch far too well and far too deeply. But with that said, I knew I was going to be coming back to this album once the first track opened with a reading of Psalm 88 amidst droning gnarls of feedback. I wouldn’t necessarily put it on par with the pinnacle of repentance and baptism through tinnitus that is Reverend Kristin Michael Hayter’s Saved! Series, but what I think Harvey excels at is lingering subtly and collective imagery. Typically residing in the realm of traditional art, Harvey’s background is far more personally and visually related to Quaker mysticism as it relates to spiritual drowning. With such understated and esoteric aesthetics, even wrapping one’s head around the presence of James Nayler on the cover takes far more dedication to the immediacy of Hayter. If you too feel you are blaspheming and simply need something to corrode the sensors acknowledging the plaque at the base of your soul – then this is the cassette for you.
Nothing Sticks by Pictoria Vark
There was some serious déjà vu when I threw on this record of who I thought was an artist completely unheard of to me. Not that I can fully say the bedroom ballads are completely hard to get confused with other likeminded artists, but something in Vark’s wandering tone had my ears on high alert. And wouldn’t you know it I had listen to an album of hers 3 years ago titled The Parts I Dread which I (ironically enough) dreaded. Talk about growth! Listening to Nothing Sticks comparatively it’s wonderful to see the growth of an artist and the cementing of a craft over time. The really rough edges left after so much polish was applied to the lyrics have now been given just enough development so that each song feels collectively whole. Vark is no longer a poet fighting the waves of instrumentation and deserves the evocation of emotions such sweet sounds develop across the album.
Earthstar Mountain by Hannah Cohen
Reading the credits on this record was like sifting through a big stewpot of the who's who of modern indie. With Sufjan Stevens, Clairo, Sean Mullins, and Liam Kazar as contributors and released by Congrats Records owned and operated by Zac Farro of Paramore – there’s enough stardust piled up here to produce something well worth more than some 20,000 odd views on YouTube. Maybe collectively we’re reaching a saturation point with reverb-laden melodies paired with ethereally breathy singers, but the personal soft-spot for such acts grows ever wider and more tender by the day.
Lust for Life, Or: ‘How To Thread The Needle And Come Out The Other Side To Tell The Story’ by Courting
With the term “indie sleaze” making the rounds in relation to acts like Charli XCX and The Dare, it’s not surprising or unwelcomed that Courting has provided an piss-and-vinegar soaked extension of such term to incorporate the ferociously slick sounds of mid-00’s UK rock. If you want to relive the days of booting up your iPod nano and throwing the Foals, The Rakes, The Cribs, and Good Shoes discography on shuffle as you make your way to an Urban Outfitters and all the nostalgic memories of the hay days of blogosphere bops – you’ll be well at home with this record.
No New Summers by Dylan Golden Aycock
As the first release of the year from forever underappreciated label Worried Songs, No New Summers is a wonderfully multifaceted album that contrasts American Primitive instrumentation with more modern approaches to ambient soundscapes. These seemingly polemic forces (like cowboy boots riding a skateboard as the album art presents) come together in a way that leaps over the at-times antiquated or purposefully inaccessible sounds of a tranced-out John Fahey interlude yet still has a deep understanding of the ways of dynamic storytelling that can only be bled from a man and his guitar however modulated.
Noor-e Vojood by Mohammad Mostafa Heydarian
To further cement the fact that it’s a dead project, surprisingly one of the main reasons I wanted to create this very website was to review a persian classical album just like this one. Something about the highly textural yet nevertheless meditative space these artists can paint into the void with seemingly minimal equipment besides a few strings and a bleating voice is astonishing on a musical and spiritual level.
Honerable mentions: no floor by more eaze & claire rousay, Gift Songs by Jefre Cantu-Ledesma, Was I Good Enough? by the body & intensive Care, Circle Breaker by The Taxpayers, The Near End, The Dark Night, The County Line by Takuro Okada, Points Of Origin by Will Stratton, the muffled version of Moonlight Sonata I heard while getting an MRI of my brain.
