NEW MUSIC FRIDAY starts now with these cutting-edge records from around the world
Tell ya friends.
BRUNA MENDEZ - Corpo Possivel [LP](Light In The Attic)
While it came out in 2019, “Corpo Possivel” sounds just like a record in 2021 should. Mendez’s sweet Electronic Soul is intimate and as danceable as anything else you hear today. She sings like a chanteuse (“Tropical”) but likes to dot her music with weird effects (all those at-home EDM records) and classic sounds. These tracks are both sinuous and sensuous. “Aviva” could engage the most Indie Rock of fans, while “Transbordo Lounge” barely gets above a Lana Del Rey-ish whisper to create a knockout ballad. “Imagem Em Mim” even takes a rudimentary Hip-Hop esque beat to build a bass-driven Quiet Storm wonder. “Corpo Possivel” is a Pop record at heart and Mendez shows that she definitely has the ability to both fit in and craft it.
CAMPBELL/MALLINDER/BENGE - Clinker EP [LP](Crepuscule BEL)
As tight as a trio can be, here are three musicians pulling and pushing these blistering hot Electronic/Industrial jams in a variety of directions. “Monochrome” combines tough Gang of Four-esque minimal guitar strikes with distorted voices and drum machines whose rhythms would drive and swell - without the Cabaret Voltaire-esque sequencer patterns. Julie Campbell a/k/a Lonelady really helps Mallinder and former John Foxx band member Benge find tough melodies (“Influx”) and extract new experience out of tracks that would not sound out of place on “The Crackdown” like “Signification.” “Camouflage” is even striated and developed enough to be a dancefloor magnet. Campbell/Mallinder/Benge make an EP that sounds less like a side project and more like the beginnings of a group.
LIONLIMB - Spiral Groove [CS](Bayonet)
Nashville’s Stewart Bronaugh already has one big fan in Angel Olsen. The “Spiral Groove” album should earn him quite a few more. Lionlimb combines the emotional drift of Elliott Smith with the buoyancy of Seventies/Eighties Pop. Working with a lot of limitations, Bronaugh, Joshua Jaeger, and Jonathan Sumner flesh out these songs almost perfectly. “Loveland Pass” is a sparkling bittersweet single that builds on clattering drums to its big ending without ever taking you away from the root riff. Bronaugh writes and sings with such tenderness, it would be easy for some to write him off as Bedroom Pop or Twee. However, he assails these hard subjects with simplicity and honesty (“Nothing”) and has a real gift for letting the instrumental portions act as subtext for these confessions. “Ultraviolet” slips from its acoustic opening to a slinky love song where his pleas of “Ultraviolet like you” are both denouncement and salvation. A very promising debut.
LOW LIFE - From Squats To Lots: The Agony and XTC of Low Life [LP](Goner/The Orchard)
On their third album, the Aussie band Low Life does their very best to shake up Post-Punk while still sounding both familiar and new. With their urgent Big Black-esque songs and drilling near Husker Du guitar haze, it would be easy to lump them under trying to revise AmerIndie from the Eighties. However, the band switches tone and color so well. “Collect Calls” may sound very 1980 with its boomy drums, thundering bass, and freeform verse/chorus structure, but it is actually closer to the same Punk coming out of Australia now. Low Life knows repetition is the key and takes the beeping, drone-y swirl of “Conversation” straight into the string-laden Church-like wistfulness of “Hammer and The Fist” like they are the same song. “From Squats To Lots” adds a lot of depth and drama to an already important scene in Australia.
HOLIDAY INN - Torbido [LP](Avant!/Maple Death ITA)
With a more B-Boy stance (and technology,) this Italian/French duo reformulates the Suicide formula to produce drony, loud synth-rock that haunts you. Holiday Inn’s minimalism is seemingly always made less evident by their overdriven synths (“They Wanted It” is as if Throbbing Gristle did a Bossa Nova) and their embrace of squealing noises and ring modulator randomness. Occasionally, the duo will overprogram their drum machine (“No Speaking”) but it is only for you to catch the magic of hearing their synths almost catch up with the beat. “Black Sun” is a rugged, howling Blues that is Holiday Inn at their simplest and most visceral. “The Closer I Get” uses some very impressive vocal effects to sound out of this world. “Dirty Town” is their standout. While it does not stray too far away from the Vega/Rev sound, it really shows how they harness their own inspiration through different pushes and the slightest changes.
JOHN (TIMES TWO) - Nocturnal Manoeuvres [LP](Brace Yourself UK)
This blaring loud, stadium-ready duo from the UK is out to crush everyone in their path. John Newton and John Healey are Post-Hardcore renegades who run at making the largest sound possible with only guitar, drums, and a mountain of effects. Healey's guitar soars above then dives below Newton's howl and pounding drums like they are insects battling for the last dose of light. "Sibensko Powerhouse" and "Jargoncutter" hint at their ongoing control over IDLES-like drama and Royal Blood-ish bash. But "Nocturnal" mostly sounds like those AmRep bands from the Nineties with a ton of delay. "Stadium of No" bristles and bends around Newton's bark and unleashes a load of promise for these two Johns.
LEVIATHAN - Far Beyond The Light [LP](The Devil's Elixir UK)
Swedish Black Metal group Leviathan found an impressive balancing point between slashing waves of guitars, ponderous storm clouds of drums, and an ear-shredding howl on their 2002 debut. Twenty years later, while it sounds like the Black Metal of today, "Pleased By Your Pain" rages past you like Ministry sans electronics and their slightest hints of melody hiding within the tsunami of anger are signposts of what is to come.
DARKWOODS MY BETROTHED - Angel of Carnage Unleashed [LP/CD](Napalm)
With their Captain Howdy vocals and maximized near-Prog Black metal, Finland's Darkwoods My Betrothed are at their best when their songs are structured as if they add just one more part if might collapse. "Black Fog and Poison Wind" is all about capturing that tension and putting the different parts in play with each other. 23 years of silence leaps out at you on "In Evil, Sickness and In Grief" as the band bathes the opening in synths before the drums and guitars open the floodgates. "Angel of Carnage" switches on a dime, and Darkwoods My Betrothed, even in opposition with each other (with members of Nightwish as well) slashes and burns their way back.
Well, another week, another list of several different styles and pursuits in music for you. Enjoy. Listen again. Share as you wish.
NEW RELEASES lovingly compiled for you from this very week!
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