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The Album Leaf Pairs With Bat For Lashes to Imbue “Near” With the Warmth of Yearning Affection

The Album Leaf, photo courtesy the artist

Jimmy LaValle as The Album Leaf brings a real sound design and cinema score aesthetic to his tracks for the forthcoming album FUTURE FALLING (due out May 5, 2023). But he is able to transform the background and pure mood aspect of that form of songwriting into ambitious pop songs like “Near” which features Bat For Lashes aka Natasha Khan. The song sounds like the kind of tune you might write if you were trapped by winter snows in isolation and yearning for contact with someone for whom you have a deep affection. The sweep of textural drone in the background flowing with percussion that seems to move in the seemingly random manner of precipitation while highlighting Khan’s soulful and introspective warmth and gift for conveying an expansive and enveloping spirit. Listen to “Near” on YouTube and follow The Album Leaf at the links below.

The Album Leaf on TikTok

The Album Leaf on Facebook

The Album Leaf on Instagram

thealbumleaf.com

Gurriers’ Raging and Intense Send-Up of Online Culture “Approachable” is the Noisy Post-Punk You’ve Been Looking For

Gurriers hit us with a flood of imagery and moods in the video for its song “Approachable.” It’s a heated and heady send-up of a culture and its commentators who, as they say, live online in that kind of personal echo chamber of hyper reality in which rage culture brews in a cauldron of dissociative psychosis. The video is a mashup of news imagery cut with abrupt savagery and inspired editing and animation. It perfectly complements a song where guitar howls in whirling noise and the driving rhythms buoy the distorted vocals in a dancecable fury that fans of Viagra Boys and IDLES will find immediately resonant. Though the song sounds like someone on the verge of a psychotic break it also seems imbued with a wry sense of humor that gives it a self-aware edge. One only imagines what this kind of seething energy might be like to witness live. Watch the video for “Approachable” on YouTube and connect with the Irish post-punk band Gurriers at the links provided.

Gurriers on Instagram

Pacing’s “Aliens” is a Chill Dream Pop Song of Acceptance of Leaving the Earth With Mysterious and Benevolent Aliens

Strummed acoustic guitar sets the mood and meter of Pacing’s unusual slowcore pop song “Aliens.” Drums accent the lines and in the background we hear the sound of plucked strings that might be a keyboard or processed violin or harp, spare piano, flutters of electric guitar and at one point the noise of a car on a highway coinciding with the line “the car you drive.” It’s a spooky yet oddly comforting song and in the last sixth of the song two of the choruses are layered and it almost sounds like chaos yet it oddly syncs up with the vocals not quite harmonizing but close enough to seem like it. But the lyrics sound like the words of someone dissociating after an abduction by aliens with words about being in “the big space machine that they fly in the sky with the birds” and “I can see my house from here.” At one point in the song Katie McTigue drops in a quirky single word in observation in“cool” after the bit about being able to see her house, breaking the fourth wall of the song narrative, not unlike Laurie Anderson dropping in a “Hi mom” in “O, Superman.” The abrupt ending of the song could be ominous but the tenor of the song is one of acceptance of this unique and novel situation and with the way the world is now who wouldn’t want to be abducted by what seem to be benevolent aliens? Listen to “Aliens” on Spotify and follow Pacing at the links below.

Y La Bamba Explores the Contours and Shading of Complex Romantic Feelings on “Dibujos De Mi Alma”

“Dibujos De Mi Alma” is the lead single from the new, and seventh, Y La Bamba album Lucha. The title translates into English as “Drawings of My Soul” and with the usual inventive blend of styles it expresses a complex emotional state. Luz Elena Mendoza Ramos says the “song was written for a romantic partner right before the shutdown in 2020” and that it is “a song of longing for this person but at the same time trying to detach myself from the unhealthy parts of connection.” Which is a perfect sentiment for that confusing time that also forced many of us into a period of isolation and reaching an unusual clarity of priorities and boundaries. For the song Ramos and the band employ a typically shifting and layered yet spare polyrhythm in the percussion, bass and the orchestrated pacing of sounds. Her vocals sound like a reaching into the delicate places of the psyche for a conversation with self that teases out the strands of emotion to take in the honest resonances to glean a true gauge of feeling. The insights issue from the psychedelic tinge of guitar and the strength of singing Ramos brings to bear in the last half of the song as it fades into an elevated tone. It’s a song that is gentle in the beginning and has an effect like a psychological cleansing by the end with the sifting out of un-useful uncertainty and ambiguity in favor of a healing knowing of where one’s hear should be going. Listen to “Dibujos De Mi Alma” on YouTube and pre-order Lucha on the Tender Loving Empire website linked below.

Pre-Order Lucha by Ya La Bamba on Tender Loving Empire here.

The Veldt’s “Sweeter” is a Psychedelic Soul and Shoegaze Tribute to a More Transcendent Love

Shoegaze/alternative soul legends The Veldt released its new album Entropy is the Mainline to God on September 2, 2022 with a batch of songs that re-establish the group as a unique and powerful voice in the realm of genre-bending music. The video for “Sweeter” directed by xiouping features Daniel Chavis floating in a quantum vortex of images looking like he’s traveling through a wormhole to a higher state of being and following a route to a more transcendent love as per the chorus of “Sweeter/deeper/when you need her/love to love you.” It invokes some of the dreamlike moods of late 70s Donna Summer and late 80s Madchester if that whole thing had gone through a psychedelic soul revival. Watch the video for YouTube and listen to more of The Veldt on Spotify and Bandcamp.

The Power of Dax Compels You to Follow Your Better Instincts on “The Devil’s Calling”

Dax is always reliable for a visually fascinating music video and that for “The Devil’s Calling” is like a short existential horror film. In the song Dax outlines how he’s struggled with the forces of evil in his life and sees them threatening the people in his life as embodied by the figure of The Devil. Whether or not you’re a Christian, Dax’s embrace of his better instincts and habits as being with God as a source of strength against the influence of our weaker inclinations. He invokes, Malcolm X, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and Rosa Parks as people who leaned on their faith as reinforcing a will to personal liberation and the song with its haunted yet urgent beat and Dax’s forceful verbal flow makes choosing the better path seem more desirable than the opposite even if you stumble along the way through life. Watch the video for “The Devil’s Calling” on YouTube and follow Dax at the links below.

Dax on TikTok

Dax on Facebook

Dax on Instagram

Night Hikes’ Warmly Dreamlike “Perfect Wonder” is a Soothing Reminder to Exercise Gentle Self-Kindness and Patience for a More Fulfilling Tomorrow

Night Hikes imbue the title track from their recently released Perfect Wonder EP (released March 24, 2023) with a dreamlike haze and an uplifting spirit. Its lightly distorted synths have a soothing effect that mixes nostalgic reflection with a hopeful wistfulness of opening horizons that Neon Indian had on the Era Extraña album. But there is no patina of regret and no “Perfect Wonder.” Its very much about accepting how things are now and how current frustrations, struggle and limitations are so often not permanent and with some effort and patience, with no small amount of self-kindness, you can get through those times to reach a better place. The lines “And when the present washes away/I let tomorrow make it okay/Somehow I know it’s all worth waiting for/And I’m inclined to stay and see.” This is not a sentiment of false hope, it is a very gentle pragmatism that requires only to resist egotistical impulsiveness and not blind faith so much as trusting in natural processes you don’t always know or see to work out. Listen to “Perfect Wonder” on YouTube and follow Night Hikes at the links below.

Night Hikes on Facebook

Night Hikes on Twitter

Night Hikes on Instagram

Chrome Waves’ “Under the Weight of a Billion Souls” Seethes and Resonates With Hope For a Brighter Future for Humanity

The performance video for Chrome Waves’ “Under the Weight of a Billion Souls” showcases the groups twin and complementary virtues. There is the feral and acidic vocals and driving beat one might associate with black metal as well as the rapid, ascending guitar riffs but paired with a moodiness and melodic touch that gives its more aggressive elements an immediacy and accessibility that allows its songs to reach a little deeper. This song in particular is expansive and its message of cultivating our collective responsibility toward one another as fellow humans and going beyond tribal obsessions and narrowly crafted and conceived social circles for our mutual benefit seems especially poignant and relevant at this moment in our development as a species. The yearning guitar arcs and gritty ambient soundscape both posits a question about if it’s possible to transcend our current social and psychological limitations and offers an emotional resonance suggesting in the affirmative if we want to. Watch the video for “Under the Weight of a Billion Souls” on YouTube and listen to more Chrome Waves on Spotify. The group’s new album Earth Will Shed Its Skin releases April 28, 2023 on M-Theory Audio (link to Bandcamp below).

Trummerkind’s “Revolt” is a Thrilling, Tribal Industrial Post-Punk Chant Against Genocide

You don’t need to know that Trummerkind wrote “Revolt” as a protest against the genocide of Ukrainian citizens for it to have the proper impact or context. The song’s distorted opening drone and its menace like an abstracted air raid siren before facts about how the roots of the conflict go back to 2014. But then the song goes directly into a chant-like decrying of genocide with industrial tribal drumming and an urgent guitar line that sounds almost more like the hum of a machine cycling up and down than a standard instrument and sweeps of synths to elevate the mood to one of defiant excitement. The net effect is like a Killing Joke song as done by Pussy Riot and with its well arranged elements in electronics, vocals and agitprop it hits a bit like one of Crass’s more experimental pieces. Listen to “Revolt” on Spotify and follow Trummerkind at the links below.

Trummerkind on Facebook

Trummerkind on Instagram

Miss Torsion Takes Us From Despair to a Hard Won Hope on Electro-post-punk Song “Lost”

Former Cell Division guitarist Miss Torsion expresses a feeling of self-imposed isolation on “Lost.” The electro-post-punk song is reminiscent of ADULT. in its undercurrent of menace and sustained purge of anxiety. And in the last portion of the song it takes a turn into a more upbeat and melodic dance song yet its lyrics with the refrain of “I’m lost the world does not hold me/I’m lost I’m falling no end” and then ending that set of words with “I’m lost I’m falling apart” and concluding with “I fall so deep, see myself from above.” It’s like in the hypnotic and irresistible rhythm Miss Torsion has given herself to that mood and felt it right through to its natural conclusion rather than get distracted from actually feeling those uncomfortable and enervating states of being, experiencing that wave and coming out the other side with a hard won sense of psychological clarity. The more brooding first part of the song and the more dance-y ending reflect this progression in a creative way rather than being so obvious and offering hope without the usual clichés about how it’s going to magically get better. Miss Torsion shows us one way how. Watch the video for “Lost” on YouTube and connect with Miss Torsion at the links provided.