The image of an empty house is a pertinent one, not least because such a space is alluded to in the title. The debut Grebes release, House Creature, is being released later this week on Broken Circles, and we’re lucky enough to be sharing the whole thing a few days early. From opener ‘One Trick Pony’, there is a sense that Ungerleider is working from within a state of isolation, becoming the titular house creature crafting private pop gems. Which is not to say the tracks lack any sparkle or detail, with the intricately layered ‘wyd’ showing off a stratified stack of synths and psych-inspired guitar, while the foggy pop of ‘Beleev’ is a party in its own right, even if it’s just a party of one.

Other tracks favour the enveloping sadness of nostalgia, with ‘Halo’ and ‘Always Home’ hinting at the folk underpinnings of the Grebes sound. The former kicks into a gentle groove a third of the way in, though the latter remains insular and faded. “And when the last green starling has flown,” Ungerleider sings from within the wistful ache of the instrumentation, “will there be anything to call your own, I would never / and when you’re tired and all alone, you know I am always home.”

The track signals something of a switch in the album’s mood, flipping the switch from peppy rhythms of the opening half to something far more downbeat. ‘Plum’ is a case in point, a sultry, half-paced croon that slinks and slides in slo-motion. “Keep me here when I’m alone, and I’ll watch your tv show,” go Ungerleider’s words, sounding somewhere between a promise and a plea. “See my fear is all I know, all I ever had to know.” The sun has well and truly set on the Grebes abode, and Ungerleider is digging in for a long night.

That said, the album ends not with some triumphant crescendo but rather a humble passing. Closer ‘Always New’ sets out with cushioned tones before being washed out by an accumulation of aqueous synths. The low-key finish encapsulates the House Creature aesthetic. If life is fragile and fleeting, events both special and terrible passing in a blink of an eye, then what use is bombast in its representations? Rather Grebes highlights the value of subtlety and discretion, charting not the melodrama of the moment but rather the slow melancholy of time’s passing.

Photo by Malcolm Donaldson

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The new Hypoluxo album, Running on a Fence, is their first since their 2016 debut If Language, and presents a band who are continuing to grow and develop. There’s an instant laconic atmosphere on ‘Huckleberry’, the almost surfy guitars supported by skittering percussion and Cogen’s signature vocals. It’s a song about the titular character, who happens to be a four-legged companion, and there’s something canine in the aesthetic, moments of infectious energy interspersing the general vibe of relaxation.

“I know it’s hard to feel insecure,” Cogen repeats on ‘Insecure’, which pairs the general sparkly vibe that Hypoluxo are so adept at producing with something a little more direct in the final third, the horizontally laid-back style distorted by guitar growls and drum slams.

‘Kentucky Smooth’ is wonderfully infectious, a new wave inflected lo-fi pop song that’s at turns sharp and spiky and soft and dreamy. The track is an example of the inexpressible nugget at the heart of the Hypoluxo sound, the interplay between seemingly contrasting forces creating a higher level of immersion. This extends to the vocals too, where Cogen maintains his air of cool, but couples it with an undeniable sincerity as he sings:

“You are my Kentucky smooth
and I would never leave you”

There’s a composed sense of self-possession on ‘Character Driven’, a song about a run-down apartment. “When I’m at work I still think about my home,” Cogen sings, “where there’s cracks in the floor and the furniture is torn, it’s a place where mice and roaches live in harmony it seems.” But even when detailing these less-than-ideal living conditions, Cogen still sounds unflappable. Musically the song has hints of country, Ian Kelman’s lap steel adding winding emotion to the beleaguered hopefulness of the repeated final lines.

“I see, I see
all the bad things you see
but I see, still see
some character within”

The coolness turns almost sinister on ‘Jimmy Whispers’, the title figure a “scary face with a nice suit and crooked teeth,” one of those old crocodiles who spreads a sense of mysterious unease at the local bar, while ‘Midnight Snack’ builds from taut and tense beginnings into a swirl of whining guitar and cymbal-heavy percussion. The title track closes in a hurried shuffle, punctured with hushed moments of negative space and an uplifting final chug, crowning what is a distinctive, memorable album—a sound leaning between styles and attitudes to form an intangible middle ground, and one far more interesting to stand upon than any of the traditional alternatives.

Running on a Fence is out now and you can get it from the Hypoluxo Bandcamp page, or on vinyl and cassette from Broken Circles.

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Tracklisting:

Mike Pace and the Child Actors – Everyone Out of the Car
Miranda Winters – The Futuristic District
Exam Season – Strawberry Milk
Saccharine – Pumpkin Guts
Tuvaband – Wolfpack
Devon Welsh – Dreams Have Pushed You Around
Mending – Alan after the Fire
Reddening West – Even If
Valley Maker – Light on the Ground
The Washboard Abs – Return to You
Manatree – Brushfire
Miserable Chillers – Horse Opera
Saint Charles – She Don’t Wanna Know
new casino – going for a walk*
Frankie Valet – Why Blue
Goodbye Max – Old Photos
Adeline Hotel – Habits
Joe Kaplow – I Said I Was Going and I Went
Pecas – Tuesdays
Sun Kin – Neglect
Baby Cages – flowers
Crooked Spine – Skinned Knees
Lauren O’Connell – Out of Focus
Mount Goldie – Summer
Harvey Trisdale – Baby
american poetry club – the sum of your parts
Babehoven – Out of the Country
Adam Arcuragi – Low Parade Rain
Jason Bemis Lawrence – Southern Midwest
Campdogzz – Sorceress
Barfoot – A Thin Place Between Worlds

* not on Playmoss

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After Dark, the latest release from Brooklyn duo Pecas, certainly falls into the latter category. The project of Sandy Davis and Johnny Dynamite, Pecas make a sultry brand of dream pop that feels not so much suited to night but crafted from it, After Dark collecting six soundscapes woven from thick dark air and neon threads.

Opener ‘Tuesdays’ sets the tone, the tempo sluggish and speckled with synths, lending a doped viscosity to the atmosphere where experience is softened and heightened all at once. The vocals of Davis emerge to flit and flutter within this haze, a near whisper as ethereal as the mood itself, all the while the track rising toward something of a crescendo. Once reached however, the moment of crystalline clarity lasts for all but a moment, lucidity slinking back beneath the fog to dissipate once more.

Davis’s vocals on ‘Girl Wonder (One More Chance)’ are breathy and sensual, sighing in the spaces between languid beats and shiny synths, while the breathy ‘French Kiss’ has an unstable edge, as though threatening to escalate or unravel at any moment. ‘Matchstick’ is far sleeker, part funky pop song, part humid and sticky soul, the smooth sax bringing an air of opulent 80s cool as the vocals condense like hot breath on your cheek. As the title suggests ‘Te Olvidaras’ is minimal downbeat disco delivered in Spanish, before closer ‘This is Why (We Can’t)’ paints the shadowy atmosphere with luminous synths and gentle slo-mo firecracker beats.

With After Dark, Pecas deliver an album for the nameless hours of night, where time and even life itself is suspended and experience takes on a strange, otherworldly shimmer. The feeling might seem foreign the next morning, inimitable even, and that is half the charm. The sensation is unique and transient, a chance escape from the banalities of everyday life, so enjoy it while you can.

We’re excited to be able to share the album in its entirety a few days before release, so grab your headphones and turn out the lights.

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After releasing releasing a number of EPs and singles, Nice Knees is back with Blue Mirror, a brand new EP to be released at the end of June on Broken Circles. We’re delighted to share the album a few days early. The release serves as a complete realisation of the Nice Knees style, the bass and synths combining to craft a realm of crystal and quartz, a world alien yet strangely familiar too, as though, should we care to look hard enough, we might end up catching snatches of our own reflection across the glinting walls.

The title track is the archetypal example of this, a space sparse and warm both, while ‘Backout’ has an almost Trouble Books-esque sound, possessing the intricacies of organic life yet retaining a mechanical feel too, like some post-natural landscape of cell-shaded simulation. ‘U Would Do’ follows a similar vein, its sky shot by forks of mesmeric synths, before the vocal swirl of ‘Athena Whine (Exit Song)’ and the more moody ‘Weekend Fun’, where the brilliant sparkle is threaded by a brooding heaviness.

Through the curious interplay between nostalgic familiarity and radiant futurism, the question of time is at the forefront of every song. Indeed, the Nice Knees sound could be said to toe the strangely thin line between primordial and post-human, Cenower’s vocals becoming part of the fabric of something much larger—something newer, more ancient, or altogether timeless.

Cover photo by Greazi

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