JoobieSeaz apparently recorded the guitars for “Cramps” on “amateur” equipment a couple of winters ago and couldn’t replicate the sound on more professional gear. And there’s something to be said for laying down a mood with a unique texture and sonic quality. The completed song as it is doesn’t sound like it’s coming from any conventional realm of rock even given its psych aesthetic. Like the band took the aforementioned guitar work that sounds like Cranes and Bardo Pond had an acoustic jam session and sketched out some delicate passages that couldn’t help but be unusual and mysterious and built the rest of the song around it with a framework of a loping, descending bass line, soft percussion and vocals that whisper with an intimate, diarist quality that both ponder and seem to beckon. Really JoobieSeaz’s song doesn’t sound like much else except it has a feel like something that could have come out on a 1990s American underground label that was home to unique and some would say eccentric artists like a K Records, Kill Rock Stars or early Matador. Listen to “Cramps” on YouTube and follow the German band JoobieSaez at the links below.
The video for Fox Fagan’s “Let’s Get Lost,” directed by Jon Delouz begins inauspiciously enough with the songwriter lost in the desert carrying a plastic gas can when he stumbles across a trio of what look like desert cowboy mystics. But the simple, distorted shimmer of the guitar riff keeping up an almost hypnotic melody alongside Fagan’s direct yet hazy vocals gives the whole scene some thematic direction as it is given a funk flavor with the synths and subtle bass. This colorful and fanciful soundtrack we follow our hero out of being lost into an enclave of the aforementioned mystics and joins them in a set like a jam space out of a 1970s road adventure movie. But is it all a wonderful dream? You’ll have to watch the video to find out. But the song is kind of an ear worm in its simplicity and Fagan’s inviting energy to go along on the journey of its jaunty pace and gently infectious energy. Watch the video for “Let’s Get Lost” on YouTube (featuring cameos from Orenda Fink of Azure Ray and Todd Fink of The Faint) and connect with Fox Fagan at the links provided.
The sonics of Spirits of Leo’s single “Solaris” are so vivid and detailed it’s easy to get lost in its ethereal drift of vocal and guitar melody guided gently by the accenting rhythms. The way the elements of the song synergize gives a sense of intuitive composition, an organic feel in how well everything syncs up. In the studio and perhaps in the songwriting it’s Ryan Santos Phillips (vocals, guitars, bass and synth) and Alex Lichtenstein (drums) but that can turn into an exercise in self-indulgence but you can tell the musicians considered the place and role of the instrumentation and the possibilities of expression when reinforcing and complementing each other. The processional pace and elegant dynamics of course recalls the likes of The Cure and Cocteau Twins but Spirits of Leo has clearly taken that inspiration and crafted its own musical character. The song though invoking the title and themes of both the Stanislaw Lem’s 1961 novel and Andrei Tarkovsky’s 1972 film uses that poetic imagery as a vehicle for song about the meaning of one’s life and its direction and getting back into focus after feeling adrift for too long. “Sift core from ether/Lest I forget what I’m made of” is a beautiful image of rediscovering one’s essence and the line “This is my time now/Retake my Solaris” speaks to reclaiming one’s power and engaging in the activities and habits of mind that make life feel worth living. Listen to “Solaris” on Spotify, connect with Spirits of Leo at the links below and look out for the full length album Gossamer Blue available August 12 on á La Carte Records.
London Plane employs a lo-fi sensibility on its psychedelic post-punk single “Come Out of the Dark.” With the imaginative music video for the song one gets a taste of what feels like a more humanized science fiction concept album that is its new record Bright Black (which released on June 17, 2022). It’s not really comparable sonically or songwriting-wise to Failure’s 1997 masterpiece Fantastic Planet. But conceptually and in terms of how some of the imagery and language used makes for a more colorful storytelling and the ability to tell stories of human psychology and relationships in ways that don’t seem hackneyed or trite. “Come Out of the Dark” deftly incorporates electric and acoustic guitar with synths, drums, bass and poignant vocals for an effect like Siouxsie and the Banshees’ “Dazzle” but repurposed as more modern indie pop space rock song. The easy sweep from major chord progression to minor and back throughout the song at unexpected points enhances the emotional impact of its layered melodies. The message of the song encouraging a specific person or the generalized you for whoever needs to hear the words to stop being disengaged, jaded and above it all when you can “be cool” and “come out of the dark” and “be adored,” “Be a defender,” “be a hero.” Yet the tenor of the song is one of understanding of a desire to disconnect with the world and events and community because of how it can wear you down or alienate but if you have some great personal qualities and skills and knowledge it’s wasted in wallowing in cynicism and bitterness when you can enjoy putting that all into the world in a productive way. Even if only a little. The music video is like something that Panos Cosmatos would make if he were in the business of such things and really captures a desire for isolation when the human community needs people of creativity and imagination more than ever. Watch the video on YouTube and follow London Plane at the links below.
Listening to “Push” by Big Empty Zero one hears a softly industrial beat like something that might have been conceived in experiments with 8-bit sounds and early video games but paired with luminously moody synth lines and an abstract, extended melody that gives a sense of being pushed along through a near future cityscape where automated processes see to the maintenance of urban spaces and can thus seem like living in an MMO or the world of an old cyberpunk video game but without the menace, just the sense of ambient and steady movement. The track has momentum but it never reaches the point of urgency, just a solid sense of energy and place that continues on day and night often unnoticed unless you take the time to be aware of those things around you that make your way of life flow more efficiently than it would be otherwise. Listen to “Push” on Spotify and follow Big Empty Zero at the links below.
Shintaro Sakamoto was the vocalist and guitarist for Japanese psychedelic rock band Yura Yura Teikoku (“The Wobbling Empire”) for 21 years from 1989-2010 when the group amicably split. Since then he’s embarked on a solo career with music that has gone stylistically well beyond that of his former project. The title track for Sakamoto’s new album Like A Fable (which released in June 2022) finds the songwriter sounding like he’s making music for relaxing at a seaside resort in the evening. But as with the earlier parts of his career the lyrics are more existential and this time around speak to an anxiety that emerged perhaps unbidden and mysterious in origin. He sings about taking a trip back in time the way stories were told in the kamishibai style where illustrations were used on cards to give the stories a visual component and it was a form of storytelling most popular in the 1930s but of course when the art form was taken on by future manga artists like Shigeru Mizuki it was a direct predecessor of what would become manga. Sakamoto is invoking going back to roots and falling in love “like in a fable” as a way to figure it all out or at least to connect with the spirit of a time and place that seemed free of being “Plagued by terrible thoughts.” And all to get to where one can feel an excitement for life instead of the wave of despair that sits like an ambient energy on a lot of the world by reconnecting with older forms of popular entertainment. With this blend of psychedelic folk, lounge jazz and that era of Japanese folk rock embodied by Happy End’s 1971 album Kazemachi Roman and the strange, otherworldly yet playful music video Sakamoto is creating a passage to a headspace that may make it possible to have a respite from the stress of dire world events and sometimes that’s what you need to get through it to be able to face what has to be done. The video looks like something that was shot on a Betamax machine yet benefits from modern video production while maintaining the aesthetic and there’s an undeniable charm to this eccentric visual presentation of the song. Watch the video for “Like A Fable” on YouTube and connect with Sakamoto at the links below.
Matthew And The Arrogant Sea did something unusual with its song “D F K” (perhaps from the opening words of “Dumb fuck kids”) by writing a melancholic and beautiful psychedelic folk pop song that turns generational bravado on its head. You see too many people having really idiotic discussions about what generation is best or worst and why when it doesn’t matter. Different social, economic and political forces are at play at all times and putting anyone on a pedestal or self-aggrandizing or any of it is just another effort at self-defeat or blowing up someone’s ego for your own selfish purposes. But in “D F K” at least the self-critique is one that seems regretful and empathetic. And in that mix is a level of self-reflection that keeps it from slipping into maudlin self-pity. When older people talk about the mayhem young people get up to and an impatience with seeming and too often actual lack of action even when such is absolutely called for without only following official channels and established methods for doing so. There is an admission at a little jealousy at how clever someone’s approach to things might be and the audacity to do something you might have done yourself at a younger age. When you’ve essentially passed on to just doing the basic in getting through life under the impression that being active in society even if just expressing resistance to a status quo that has become destructive due to the complacency of well-meaning folks what can you expect from people who feel things so immediately. The line “Don’t matter at all, we’re only just existing” is a kind way of stating that self-criticism. Later in the song the bit about “In the midst of it all, it feels like the worst thing, walls closing in” is a direct result of embracing one’s comfort a little too closely when perhaps pushing back when you could while still possessing a bit of one’s youthful spirit might have made a difference before things got too intense. Within that realization, though, is the implicit acknowledgment that despite having hit bottom too many times in life, despite having become a touch jaded about life and society, it’s still possible to stop hoping for a younger generation to take care of the problems you helped to generate and do at least a little something yourself even something as minor as a change of spirit and outlook. The song’s sweeping vistas of emotion and texture and contemplative tone makes that realization not hurt but is a salve to a psychology that has maybe taken a few too many blows and remains tender but can be nudged to a better place. The title is thus a bit of a self-deprecating joke about a mindset and sentiment that is too common but has long been outmoded. Listen to “D F K” on YouTube and follow Matthew And The Arrogant Sea on at the links provided.
Endearments have tapped into a certain aesthetic of 1980s New Wave/synth pop sound for its single “Too Late.” That mix of lush, atmospheric melodies, soulful vocals, soft but finely accented percussion and palm muted guitar followed by elegant and minimal leads giving definition to the more ethereal synths. That sound is suited well to nuanced takes on the complex interpersonal politics of relationships especially those that have fallen apart in ways that leave at least one of the people hurt and confused until they sort out what it is they wanted all along and more importantly what they don’t want. In this song when Kevin Marksson sings “That is not the way to love me at all” it’s a declaration of self-worth. The earlier part of the song describes the awkward conversations in which the person who has transgressed against the formerly shared trust of the relationship tries to explain themselves with excuses that amount to insults by way of rationalizations. The perspective of the song seems to be an interesting emotional place of having gone beyond the initial hurt and pondering what went wrong to embracing what’s best instead of what once was but is now broken. It’s an important psychological turning point for anyone that’s been in a relationship gone awry and essential for moving on to better places in one’s own heart and perhaps better recognizing earlier when things won’t work out. There are a lot of love songs, a lot of break-up songs, a lot of songs about missing someone, a lot sitting in a place of anger and betrayal but this one is about loving yourself and being adult and we could use more of that sort of framing in pop music. Fans of Washed Out and Future Islands will appreciate the sounds and sentiments in this song. Listen to “Too Late” on Spotify and follow Brooklyn-based Endearments at the links below.
“Suck It Up” might initially get The Wheel Workers compared to the Pixies or some older alternative rock band and not just because the group has been around since the turn of the century. The loud-quiet-loud dynamic is there but the Pixies didn’t invent that. That was another Boston band called Mission of Burma. But obvious comparison aside, this song has a wonderfully demented structure so that its buzzsaw guitar riff hovers above and then below the vocal line and the frantic keyboards, which get to shine in spectacular fashion mid-song going off the rails and circling back on track, while the drums and bass seem to guide the arc of the song and anchor it as it seems to threaten to fall apart at any moment. The vocals, both the leads and backing, are anthemic in their enthusiasm in expressing a fairly complicated emotion seemingly jaded but ready to pick oneself up to try the things you love again even if you have to coax yourself into even making the effort. Lines like “Stab deep until can’t bleed anymore” and “All the dreams, unstuck, unstored” really capture that moment in life when you really do need to put effort into endeavors you take for granted and have been through countless times. When it’s a creative project you need to summon a bit more of actual juice from your psyche rather than depend purely on going through the motions ritual or it feels like and comes across like phony bullshit and this song is very much in form and spirit the opposite of approaching the music from a place of psychic numbness. Maybe you need to give yourself a little tough love and knock the dust off as the title suggests to get going but it seems obviously worth it. Listen to “Suck It Up” on YouTube and connect with The Wheel Workers at the links below.
MF Ruckus may have hit its songwriting stride with its new single “Polly Ann Marie.” While its sound has run the gamut of thrashy punk to honky tonk-ready country rock to glam the storytelling element has helped make its music a worthwhile listen from the beginning. “Polly Ann Marie” is the story of a man who witnessed perhaps indirectly his father’s philandering ways and decided he never wanted to go that route in his relationships with women and instead sets out on the road going from town to town, maybe in a band, maybe in an otherwise nomadic lifestyle and doesn’t pretend to be someone looking for anything but a good time and not make promises and otherwise lie about his intentions as summed up by the line “why should I wreck some woman’s life when I can make some lady’s night.” But in the life of most people living such a free spirited life there comes someone that inspires more than the usual casual, carnal interest and for our narrator that is the singular Polly Ann Marie. The song with its lively use of saxophone and Aaron Howell’s passionate and expressive vocals alongside grittily tuneful riffs might be compared to New York Dolls or Hanoi Rocks but really it has more in common with Faces and its hard edged, soulful boogie. Listen to “Polly Ann Marie” on Spotify and follow MF Ruckus at the links below.
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