“It was a jaded time,” Kali explains. “L.A. was changing so much and it didn’t feel like the city I grew up in anymore. Pehrspace had shut down, and we didn’t have a spot to play regular shows. Most of these songs are about emotional exile and reclaiming a sense of power, contending with impossible truths.”

Lead single ‘Not a Citizen’ is almost a mission statement for Changing. Inspired by Claudia Rankin’s poetry collection Citizen, the track uses the riot grrrl blend of clear-eyed ferocity and sneering swagger to take on the themes of identity and injustice explored in the book, emerging with an alluring blend of frustration and catharsis that refuses to be pinned down. “I was thinking a lot about otherness and belonging and citizenship and exile,” Kali says, “and wanting to learn how to affect change, not having yet learned about transformative justice.”

‘Not a Citizen’ is out now on streaming services and available to buy from the Changing Bandcamp page.

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As Anna Haifisch’s album artwork suggests, one of the themes of the record is art, particularly how themes and ideas resonate with life in general (both metaphorically and not). Nowhere is this more apparent that on lead single ‘Vanishing Point’. Inspired by a documentary film on photo-realistic artist Vija Celmins, it gives the phrase “still life” a whole new meaning. Radical Dads ruminate on the silent freeze-frame nature of a painting and ask whether we can apply a similar sense of quiet and stillness to our lives.  “Her drawings and paintings and prints are extremely unremarkable images of space, clouds, water,” Baker explains. “I kept thinking about how she takes these images of turbulent water and makes them feel frozen and still. Maybe the song is about the continuum of turbulence to stillness.”

If that sounds uncharacteristically emotive, fear not, ‘Vanishing Point’ finds Radical Dads doing what they do best. Following in the footsteps of their college rock influences (e.g. Sleater-Kinney, Built to Spill, Yo La Tengo), they show that fun, noisy indie rock can have a deeper message too. Opening with muffled restraint, it soon kicks into life, charting its own spectrum of calm and motion that veers between carefree abandon and a kind of sun-bleached wistfulness.

It could be a still life if you want it to be

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Their latest album, The Challengers, is a case in point. Build around a ramshackle, house show rawness, the album stretches rock as far as it will go. As label Under the Counter Tapes describes, the record is a “blistering half-hour of odes to the basement,” the sound ranging from post-punk, psych and love ballads to “Little Richard-esque rave-ups about weed dependency,” “outer space romanticism” and “pitch-modulated descents into madness.” Or, put another way, “smoothie from a blend of Mission of Burma, M.O.T.O., Penetrators, Thin Lizzy, and The Mothers of Invention.”

We’re delighted to share ‘Trying to Reach You, the latest single ahead of the album’s release this Friday. Occupying the Venn middle ground between power pop and hard rock, the track is a another speeding slice of sing-along goodness. With themes of abandoning lost causes, the songs forms one of the more cathartic songs on the record, the gruff vocals and infectious momentum representing the celebratory feeling of letting go, new freedom in its undistilled form.

The Challengers is out via Under the Counter Tapes on the 29th of March and you can pre-order it now.

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Taking this sensibility and pushing further into experimental directions, Leggy’s forthcoming follow-up, Let Me Know Your Moon promises to see the trio realise their aesthetic more fully. Single ‘Taffy’ is a perfect case in point, racing out of the blocks with a real urgency as the vocals rise and fall amidst the tumult, breaking patterns and conventions in favour of more intuitive shapes. Focusing on interpersonal relationships, Allaer’s delivery veers between a desperate wordiness and plain-spoken mantras, meaning that the self-assurance displayed in one moment can descend (or evolve) into a manic rant within seconds. This brings into relief the grey area between people where communication is not possible, a zone where fury, sadness and self-doubt coalesce into a disorientating stupor.

“Why do I still pout?
I pray to be content with all these goodly things I’ve found.
You fit like a glove but still I push you away.
Why do I do that my love?
Can’t you tell that it scares me when you say you will do anything for me
and I can eat you like a saltwater taffy
and I melt in the way you adore me
Boy I told you I’m crazy”

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Opener ‘Trouble’ drops you headfirst into the Shrimpwitch rockpool of crustacean jams. Scrappy garage pop, shadowy post-punk and swaying surf pop all come together to create something novel, helped by the fact that Georgi and Kim are natural performers, nowhere more at home than wailing their weird pop songs on stage.

Perhaps unusually for a genre that’s often all about a simple good time, Shrimpwitch also give their lyrics importance. Take ‘Leerers’, for example, which as the title suggests is about the unwanted attention the band can receive from certain (male) parts of their audience. It’s a song “about trying to say no to creeps and leerers when you feel backed up against the wall,” Georgi explains. “It is specifically inspired from two experiences I’ve had while performing in Shrimpwitch. So it’s self-referential, in that when I’m performing live, I’m literally screaming at people that ‘I’m not here for you to leer.’” The result is not just thrillingly direct and raw, but also completes a neat shimmy that takes the power away from oppressive gazes and back where it belongs, with Georgi and Kim, with Shrimpwitch.

‘Green Potatoes’ is another one where the lyrics stand out, a track that the band discuss in an auto-interview over at Pilerats. As with most things the band say, it’s hard to know just how serious they’re being when they describe the song as “basically a comment on the food wastage from capitalist, ruthless, major supermarket corporations who are replacing Gen Z’s first job opportunity with machines and completely and utterly—single-handedly—destroying our economy!”, but either way, hear, hear!

There’s an easy rhythm on ‘Bung Eyed Baby’, a song which shows that Shrimpwitch can do pop as well as punk, while ‘Repetition’ kicks and flails it’s way into tight little curls of a post punk chorus. ‘Digestion’ is full of rollicking swampy guitars and shrill vocals, delivering lines like
“skillfully able to repress / the horror I had to address / the power I possessed to finally find my happiness” with a sardonic fervour.

The full-throttle yelpy punk of ‘Mystique’ is followed by finale ‘Shrimping’, which feels like one last detoxifying purge, a shore-side exorcism that leaves the band twitching and frothing as the last of the shrimp-spirit energy leaves their bodies. It’s a fittingly crazed and energetic end to an album the likes of which you won’t hear again this year.

Gave Me the Itch is out now, and you can get it on cassette via Psychic Hysteria and the Shrimpwitch Bandcamp page.

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This autumn sees the band release a new 7″ single, and we’re happy to share a video by Jonny Mancini for the track “Lazy Hazy” to get you excited for the release. “This is a song about being done,” the band explain, “and about settling for now, and about crying over nothing, and about lying to yourself about how it’s ‘nothing.’ It’s a love song in denial.”

This downbeat subject matter is not matched by the sound and tone of the song. ‘Lazy Hazy’ is crafted out of a carefree sense of abandon that borders on reckless, the fun tending toward something near feral with yelps and growls. With a swelling energy that recedes only to flow back in with increased fervour, the track is fuelled by its own zeal, Eire and Leavay singing in tandem or competition, and sometimes just yelling over one another as though seized by an urge no more complicated than screaming at the top of their lungs.

Therefore, the track is neither lazy or hazy, and indeed could serve as an antidote to such afflictions. Shybaby are here to shake you free from lassitude or lethargy through their cavalier, cathartic brand of punk.

The 7″ will be released later this autumn so keep an eye on the Shybaby Bandcamp page for more information, where you can also find their previous release. If you are in New York, they are play a show in The Gutter in Brooklyn on the 29th September so head along to that.

Photo by Jonny Mancini

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As such, it’s difficult to tell whether the shuffling sound is shaking itself sober or spiralling inward toward complete inertia. After the brief prologue of ‘Mosquitoes’, which feels like laying at the bottom of a pool and looking up, ‘Got My Penz’ announces itself with spiky guitars and a paranoid, hyperactive twitchiness, though this slows into a dreamy lethargy by the close. ‘Baklava’ is altogether more slick, taking R&B vibes to creating a floaty sensation, a night where the mixture is good and your feet seem to glide across the ground.

In another stylistic pivot which proves Ruth Good have more than one string to their bow, ‘Shooting Range’ is something of a folk song, complete with earthy twang and lyrics. Again, there’s something slightly detached about the sound, the edges softened and blurred as if viewed through glass, the singer’s voice scratchy as if lost in the real drama, some time in the distant past. ‘Ice Water’ follows a similar thread but is more developed, a country rock song etched with garage flourishes, ending up somewhere between a classic driving song and 90s emo hit.

‘YLIE’ employs poppy vibes to spread its message, the refrain probably the most direct of the record. It’s fitting, then, that the sound is the most vivid too, the colours flowing back as if in response to the love in question. This is followed by ‘Milkshake Boyz’, which retains the same sense of emotion but changes style to a Minus-The Bear-style sound. The song makes for a fitting close, descending from the coherent beginning to mathy breakdowns and barely-audible lyrics, as though the previous paranoia is back and sitting still becomes difficult once more, the fading out at the end suggests the cycle keeps on spinning.

Spliff EP is out now via Citrus City Records and you can get it from Bandcamp.

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Since releasing their debut album, In My Dreams I Am A Sailor, back in 2012, Brooklyn three-piece Vassals have remained relatively quiet, popping back only to put out the snappy, sarcastic festive EP Here We Come A Vassaling in 2015. 2017 will see that change, with the band set to release a brand new EP, Halogen Days on Post Fun. The release, which came into being as the “dark half” of a “dichotomous project”, is an altogether more serious effort, with the press release promising “four songs of bleak beauty, chaotic minimalism and conflicted rage… frantic but muted, morose but unpredictable… drift[ing] effortlessly from slacker-rock ambivalence to post-punk cynicism to huge walls of fuzzing noise and heartbreaking harmonies.”

Sound good? Well lead single ‘SoHo’ certainly backs up the slacker-rock ambivalence side of the description, a bummed-out, off-kilter slice of garage rock that simmers with frustration and anger without ever quite managing to fully break through the spiritless numb. The result is like a face screwing and scrunching behind a blank mask, perhaps even screaming silently, all in the hope that someone on the outside might recognise the strife and intervene.

“I wanna feel alright.
I’m faded, dematerialized
Swimming in a sea of light,
I’m swimming in a sea of light
I’m floating on an awful high”

Song with a colour in the title

Metallica – Blackened

This was the first thing that came to mind. There are certainly many way better songs involving colors, but I fucking love Metallica* and I don’t care who knows it. Plus it’s sorta funny choosing the absence of color.

*forgetting everything that happened after 1990

Song that reminds you of someone special

The Allman Brothers – Blue Sky

Anytime I hear this song it makes me think of my dad, who’s probably the sole reason I started playing music in the first place. The Allmans are pure joy and Southern Rock at it’s finest.

Song that reminds you of your favourite video game

Primus – Jerry Was A Racecar Driver

This song will forever and ever remind me of Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater. Primus kinda rules. They were the first truly weird band I got into. Plus, bass playing bandleaders are much too scarce.

Song to soundtrack your Hollywood biopic

Foe Destroyer – Strut

Appropriately named, to me this song feels perfect for walking around the city and just taking it all in. I think it’s really just the bouncy-ness of the guitar part and general playful vibes. For some reason any song that I can blast while cruising in the car or walking around in the city feels soundtrack-worthy and this one is my current go-to.

Song from at least ten years ago

The Beatles – Yer Blues

I figured The Beatles had to make it onto this list at some point. This is one of the very few songs we’ve ever attempted to cover and it’s super fun to play. The recording has always been a treat, you can hear John’s original vocal bleeding into the drum mics but it’s masked just enough by the overdubbed version to make it an easter egg of sorts. Plus the overall darkness of this song pairs well with our new EP.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AoKXCtkBufQ

Quietest song you know

Leapling – Crooked

Maybe not the quietest but I’ve always liked the feeling of intimacy of this track and album in general. Leapling’s recordings do a great job of feeling really close and immediate while still maintaining a “band” sound. Runner up: The Can’t Tells – Lonely Guy.

Song that makes you want to smash things up

Converge – Dark Horse

Man, this was a toss up. Since I already used Metallica on another question, I had to go with my other heavy music favorite, Converge. What can I say? I’m originally from Boston, where there’s a long standing tradition of aggression.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z9wZDd_GgPs

Halogen Days is due for release on the 7th April via Post Fun and you can pre-order it now from the Vassals Bandcamp page.

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The first single, ‘Living Room’, highlights the growing maturity and cohesion of the band and serves as a mission statement for the album as a whole. Using the idea of spaces both literally and as figuratively, the song charts the tension that comes with forming, sharing and losing bonds with people and places, and how without compromise and conscious attempts at balance, unequal commitments will lead to guilt and pain.

Yet, while understandably wistful and a little brooding, there’s a lightness to the track too, something within individual notes or Cohen’s lyrics which floats above the most frustrated moments. As such, the track feels less like a chronicle of a disintegrating relationship than the beginning of a process of self-examination, of moving forward, of weighing things up day-by-day and acting accordingly. This sense of purpose is highlighted in the closing refrain, which sounds like a long-lost pop hit fronted by Patti Smith.

“There’s a living room
Filled with all of our stuff
I can’t get it to move
Without unsettling dust”

Mise En Place is set for release on the 5th May and you can pre-order it on vinyl/CD from Father/Daughter Records, on cassette from Sports Day Records, or digitally via the Alex Napping Bandcamp.

Photo by Helmut Studio

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Jenny Berger Myhre – Måter Å Forstå Seg Selv I Verden

Jenny Berger Myhre is an experimental folk artist from Norway who utilises her interest in other artforms to push the boundaries and explore complex themes more fully and intuitively. Aside from being a photographer, Myhre also records the audio of her surroundings, finding sound can evoke an even more physical reaction. “I try to use my sound recorder in the same way I use a camera – capturing moments, not necessarily important moments, but allowing them to grow in the archive.”

Her forthcoming debut, Lint, made up of recordings made between 2011 and 2016, focuses on how memories can interact and change with the passing of time, and how nostalgic thinking about the previous events ironically reshapes our memories and thus the past as we understand it. While such unsteady footing could be overwhelming and unpleasant in some hands, Myhre creates songs that find peace with the idea, learning to find beauty and wonder in the shifting of perspective and what we once thought of as ‘truth’. Listen to single, ‘Måter Å Forstå Seg Selv I’ below:

Lint is available from the 1st March on Canigou Records, including a limited edition cassette as a collaboration with The Lumen Lake.

big snack – a book of poems

A member of Baltimore’s SUN CLUB before parting ways last summer, the face behind big snack now writes sad solo bedroom pop fleshed out with lo-fi but surprisingly rich effects. February sees the release of latest album i’m going to die in the catacombs, and opening track ‘a book of poems’ is the perfect introduction to the sound – delicate and striking and sombre and sad – basically everything you could want from such a song.

The entire album is available on Soundcloud right now, and if we get the time we’ll get a full review written up in the not-too distant future.

Tom Cunliffe – Old Moon

Recorded in the small port town of Lyttelton in New Zealand, ‘Old Moon’ is the opening track from Tom Cunliffe’s debut album, Howl and Whisper. Rooted in traditional folk and the natural world, the song plays as a cross between love ballad and wanderer’s hymn, the sort of song a mysterious drinker might croon at some hour past midnight in the corner of a low-lit bar, causing other patrons to wonder about his history but never quite dare ask.

“Some men are given mountains
Others have the sea
But the moon
The moon
Is for you and me”

Howl and Whisper is out now via the Tom Cunliffe Bandcamp page.

Jay Som – The Bus Song

We’re not going to be pretend to be new or fresh to this, but the new single from Melina Duterte’s upcoming album Everybody Works is too good not to mention. Working on her well-developed formula, ‘The Bus Song’ feels like a consolidation of style and an expression of just how confident Duterte is in the Jay Som aesthetic.

Everybody Works is set for release on the 10th March and you can pre-order it now on a variety of formats via the Jay Som Bandcamp page.

Family Friends – I’m Like You

Family Friends is Rebecca and Tom Fitzsimons, a sister-brother duo split between Melbourne and East London who draw upon various aspects of their respective locales to create music both city cool and shoreline sunny.

New single ‘I’m Like You’, the second track to be released from a forthcoming EP, follows the above recipe word for word, playing like a swaggered stroll along the sea’s edge, sunglasses on and chest puffed out. The band describe the track as “finding another weirdo whose weirdness makes total sense to you,” which gives the air of confidence another dimension, painting that unique pleasure and comfort of being seen in public with people you relate with completely.

The EP is set for release via Beatnik Creative on February 24th.

YOWL – Saturday Drag

A Peckham band with an apparent reputation for “both balance and disharmony,” YOWL’s new EP, Before the Sleep Sets in, is said to “veer from impish morbidity to candid sincerity.” Such swerves are present on the lead single ‘Saturday Drag’, the track opening in a detached stupor before exploding into a raging life around the minute mark. This oscillation continues across the run-time, painting the picture of a character insulating themselves from the banalities of life through self-induced listlessness, snapping out of it only to realise the folly of the tactic, growing anxious to live before the sleep sets in.

My lesser self walks down and down
And all my thoughts straight to video
I’m shooting blanks at every rodeo
I’m sending out the siren call

Before the Sleep Sets In is available now from iTunes.

Andrew James – Shoreline

Houston’s Andrew James writes emotive folk songs in the vein of Noah Gundersen, toeing the line between bitter sadness and something a little more romantic. The title track from his latest release, ‘Shoreline’, is an exemplary display of restrained melodrama done right, blanketed by grief but never suffocated, the sort of song that would be perfectly suited to a disarmingly emotional montage on your favourite medical drama (in a good way!).

Shoreline is available now from iTunes.

Laura Jean Anderson – Won’t Give Up On You

Hailing from Olympia, WA, Laura Jean Anderson uses her folk rock sound to explore intimate things such as honesty, empowerment and personal change, and thus creates some sort of space to examine the wider political climate. “I wanted to release ‘Won’t Give Up On You’ as fuel to the belief that you cannot give up on other people just because they give up on you,” Anderson explains. “It’s a deeply personal song but I believe more than ever that the personal is political.”

The track is a slow burner centred on Anderson’s evocative vocals, the instrumentation added gradually and subtly though eventually coming together to form a rousing finale of wailing guitars and crashing drums.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UYlj_DskXAY

Bad Dad – Sum Bunny Gun Love Me

Bad Dad is a self-described “country vapor wave” artist from Oklahoma City who makes “blue music to space out to.” If ‘Sum Bunny Gun Love Me’ is anything to go by, that translates as a melancholy brand of dream-folk populated by cowboys dragged into the future, lovesick folk singing the blues as they always have.

‘Sum Bunny Gun Love Me’ is out via Merlin Circle.

Canshaker Pi – What You’re Trying To Say

Despite still being in their teens, Dutch quartet Canshaker Pi (that’s Willem Smit, Boris de Klerk, Ruben van Weegberg and Nick Bolland) managed to enlist the production skills of Stephen Malkmus for their debut album, the Pavement man travelling all the way to the Netherlands for that specific purpose.

Taken from that self-titled release, latest single ‘What You’re Trying to Say’ gives a hint as to why indie rock royalty would go to all that effort. Drawing on the likes of Sebadoh and Guided By Voices, the track exudes an enthusiastic yet gritty slice of fuzzed-out noise, managing to sound at once menacing and catchy through its use of simple melodies and oppressive feedback.

‘What You’re Trying to Say’ is out on the 3rd February via Excelsior Recordings.

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