You better look out / you better decide
If Santa’s your man / or patriarchy must die
Lady Bits is coming to town
He stalks you when you’re sleeping
Gaslights and violates
He thinks he knows what’s bad or good
So be bad for goodness sake
You better look out / you better get wise
Cuz yr gonna find out / that being naughty is nice
Lady Bits is coming to town…
Lady Bits’ new single “Look Out” is out so give it a listen, grab a beer and have a happy new year. And for the stocking stuffer, check out their Lose The Thread EP below!
We all know that Mariah Carey is a lovely and talented woman but let’s face it if you hear her singing “All I Want For Christmas Is You” just one more time you may end up bashing in the head of the nearest reindeer with an oversized candy cane and no one wants that for Christmas. So, in the interest of concerned reindeer everywhere, we suggest that you scratch that XXXmas lust song itch with a new cover version of “All I Want” by Black Marble instead.
Replacing Mariah Carey’s whistle tone and Tony Mattola in a Santa suit with Casiotones, Korgs and a synthetic cowbell and sleigh bells disco groove–and a music video homage to Paul Simon’s "You Can Call Me Al"–is a stroke of genius and feels about right for Christmas: The 2020 Edition and plus it’s a perfect coda to Black Marble’s covers EP from earlier this year entitled I Must Be Living Twice(which is well worth checking out on it’s own merits–surely the first covers album ever to features songs by both Wire and Robert Palmer).
And if that’s not enough, and why should it be, you can also find “All I Want” on the hour-long Synthmas: A Holiday Special featuring performances from the likes of The Space Lady, Neon Indian, Mac DeMarco, Dam-Funk, Drugdealer and more, so many many more. Hosted by Maraschino and Jimmy Whispers–truly this generation’s Donnie & Marie Osmond–with an assist by a sardonic, chain-smoking magical talking Christmas tree, no one has seen holiday-themed musical numbers like these since Bea Arthur serenaded a giant extraterrestrial rat in the Star Wars Holiday Special and that’s been over 40 years ago. And yes, I mean that as a compliment so check it out or else you may find some coal in your fishnet stockings. And while you’re at it click those links and spread some holiday cheer to Save Our Stages and the Alexandria House. (Jason Lee)
People don’t often mention classic country and darkwave in the same breath but Tempers make me think of what would happen if Hank Williams and Patsy Cline were simultaneously reincarnated, went out and bought some modern-day gear and settled down in Brooklyn to write electro-tinged laments and darkwave floor-fillers. Electro-pop is the new honky-tonk after all.
Here’s a game to play called "Is This a Tempers Lyric or a Hank Williams Lyric"?
There’s a space in the night
where I tear a hole
the moon just went
behind the sky
to hide it’s face and cry
Trick question. It’s both. And speaking of both, Hank Williams and Tempers are both adept at taking inconvenient feelings like loneliness, heartbreak and longing and making something beautiful out of them, while each wisely throw some love songs and dance songs into the mix too because we can’t be So Lonesome We Could Cry all the time. A couple caveats to these parallel tracks: Hank Williams never made a concept album based on a German intellectual’s essay on shopping mall architecture and, to my knowledge, Patsy Cline wasn’t ethnically half-Iranian/half-Latvian and nor was she born in Florida and reared in England.
Tempers are the mixed-gender duo of Jasmine Golestaneh and Eddie Cooper and they started putting out singles together in 2013, with their first full-length arriving in 2015. The full-length in question is called Services and just this month they reissued the record on their current label Dais Records–seeing as the original was released on a German label (one factor in their sizeable European following) and only 500 copies pressed on vinyl. Vinyl festishist alert: the re-release can be had in clear vinyl, pink, marble smoke, or plain ol’ black plastic while supplies last.
In conjunction with the reissue, Tempers recorded an aching, acoustic self-cover of “Bright Over Me” the original of which is on Services. Besides this one the other track we got from the duo this year is “The Use of My Belonging.” A bedroom production released over the summer, it’s got a reflective vibe (“Well I didn’t see it coming / now I feel so out of place / what’s the use of my belonging”) written as it was in response to the Black Lives Matter protests and lockdown in the city. And while these two singles are certainly representative of the Year From Hell that somehow still isn’t over, I would submit that Tempers 2019 LP Private Life captures the stupefaction of late 2020 just as well as these other two releases. In fact, I’d go so far to name it the best album of 2020 released in 2019. Read on for further explanation.
Take a song like “Peace of Mind” which both in mood and in lyric captures a familiar experience, especially familiar this past year, that’s rarely addressed in song–namely just f*cking staring at these four walls–where isolation or boredom or insomnia or quarantine or whatever causes your mind to be both dulled and sharpened to the point where you pick up nearly every surrounding detail of your internal and external landscapes: “Lying in the bath, it’s half past three in the morning / this time alone, this time I know, is overrated / my hand’s a wave, my hand’s a tide, my hand’s a flood / picking up the light, water makes shadows on the wall / my hands a sky, my hand’s a bridge, my hand’s a home / this time alone, I’m feeling now, starting over.” But who actually writes a song about this? Brilliant.
Private Life opens with a song that’ll make your spine tingle if you’re inclined to such feelings. It’s called “Capital Pains” and its opening line is “It’s just a way of killing time” going on to describe a strange but seductive mashup of longing, regret, determination, desperation, voyeurism, and maybe even some hint of fulfillment. These divergent sentiments are mixed-and-matched by a musical backing of danceable electro-rhythms, vocals bathed in wraithlike echo, and occasional waves of double-picked/double-tracked electric guitar that envelop the listener. It’s hard to tell if this is supposed to be the sound of “peace of mind” or the start of the breakdown and maybe that’s precisely the point.
The next song is titled “Leonard Cohen Afterworld” (*ahem* so I can sign eternally *ahem*) and by now you see where this is heading. Taken as a whole Private Life nails the general aura of this current moment in time (including the title) to the extent that I’m convinced Jasmine and Eddie recorded it in 2020 and travelled back in time to 2019 to release the thing and give us all a coping mechanism to deal with the upcoming year. I mean just look at the song titles alone: “More Than You Realized,” “Guidance,” “Daydreams,” “Filters,” and “Sleep.” And the cover image. It’s all so very 2020. Given this evidence, you’d be advised to seek out Tempers’ music released next year to see what’s on the horizon for 2022. (Jason Lee)
It’s 2020 roundup time, whereupon we cast our music blogging net wide and pull in releases that didn’t make it into our annals as of yet.
Slut Magic are a fulsome foursome who make music for moderns, especially those of the sex-positive and queer-positive variety. Their music and image are chock full of good humor, man, beautifully boundary-crossing but still humanistic. With songs full of strum und twang, imagine Orville Peck for the punk rock set (and many other stylistic hybrids besides) and you’re getting warm. They once you actually hear them you’ll be getting pretty hot.
Following up on 2018’s debut LP In My Mouth the Slut Magic crew pulled out Trauma Queen earlier this year, a full-length musical insurrection made up of songs that run the spectrum from expressing empathy for victims of f*ckery (see the title track) to healthy doses of "just don’t give a f*ck"-ery (fave lines along these lines: “maybe it’s the DayQuil / but you look pretty good tonight”) to righteous howls of "f*ck this sh*t" (“God Is A Bad Dom”) which are all quite appropriate sentiments for this dumpster fire of a year.
Nearly as exciting as the release itself is the reveal that the band have made full-on music videos for each and every track — ranging from a first-generation PlayStation homage to a Christian broadcast TV montage to a choreographed rooftop assemblage (which rhymes if you say it right). So head on over to the band’s SlutTube and Slutcamp sites and take their full load of content right into your earholes and eyeholes. (Jason Lee)
"ALIEN HUNTERS DETECT MYSTERIOUS RADIO SIGNAL FROM NEARBY STAR"
No, this isn’t the headline from a recent Weekly World Newscover story but instead a legit National Geographic headline posted online two days ago. The mysterious radio signal in question was detected by an organization called Breakthrough Listen, a project with $100 million in funding that’s taken on the task of monitoring over a million stars for radio or laser transmissions. The signal appears to originate from Proxima Centauri which is the star nearest to our very own sun and that happens to have two planets in its own orbit, one of which, known as Planet B, resembles Earth with its rocky surfaces, temperate environment, and extensive network of Wawa franchises (ok, I made that last part up). This transmission has been labelled BLC-1.
The band: Acetone 4. The band’s music: A bit mysterious, more than a bit mesmeric. The band’s identity: Even more mysterious. The music of Acetone 4 sounds like it’s been beamed to this planet from across the universe, and it’s my working hypothesis that this is in fact precisely the case. In other words, BLC-1 equals Acetone 4. A transmission from the satellite heart. A sad, sexy satellite heart. Acetone 4 have released two songs thus far alongside a couple photos posted on Instagram and Bandcamp: one ghostly, blown-out Polaroid of the band in humanoid form (see above) and one other spectral image. And that’s it. Otherwise there’s no names attached and no other information or explanation of any kind provided. So yes, this is obviously the work of extraterrestrials attempting to utilize our primitive social media to reach out to the cosmos.
The first song to be shot out into the ether by Acetone 4 is called “Linden Hill.” This is a name of the neighborhood in Queens where the Proxima Centaurians clearly plan to set up their first base of operation. The track opens with the sound of an interstellar beacon sending out a scratchy, repeated distress signal. A few seconds later they wisely add a guitar melody to help keep the humans’ attention and next there’s some droney, pulsating synth and a thumping beat accompanied by a female voice simulator unit that appears to be singing in English, but the words are mostly indecipherable. All the while you can hear the Proxima Centaurians in the background working on emergency spacecraft repairs with little bleeps and bloops echoing into the vastness of space. This transmission was received on 17 August of this year and its proceeds benefit the Sex Workers Outreach Program of Brooklyn in solidarity with misunderstood and demonized "Others" across all dimensions.
The second and most recent transmission was received on 5 September 2020. The Proxima Centaurians are clearly beginning to get a better grasp of our modes of communication and psychological points of entry. The track "PSR" (mysterious acronyms!) kicks in straight away with a slinky beat that’s likely to prick up the ears of most homo sapiens and to lead many of them to look up some Internet porn. Then there’s some garbled alien communication not unlike the sounds of truckers on their CB radios to our human ears. Enter the female voice simulator unit again saying something along the lines of “Trying to pull together / reflect in a dream” followed by “call / response / no answer” which aptly summarizes our collective failure to establish contact. From here the voice unit repeats a sort of stressed-out mantra declaring “insomnia / no dreams” and it’s obvious the Proxima Centaurians are getting to better understand this planet and our current precarious situation. Whether this will all result in them wanting to help us out, or to get the hell out of Dodge, remains to be seen.
Here’s hoping that Acetone 4 reestablishes contact in 2021. It may be our only hope. (Jason Lee)
On this, the last day of Hanukkah aka Zose Hanukkah, consider this provocative hypothesis: Hip Hop and Hanukkah are brothers from another mother. For one thing, both are tied to numerology. Hanukkah lasts eight days and nights–the number eight being a “number of completion” that symbolizes the “metaphysical world” in Judaism. Cut that number in half and you’ve got the fabled “four elements” of Hip Hop: DJing, MCing, B-Boying, and Graffiti Art. Plus both Hip Hop and Hanukkah incorporate an extra number “to grow on.” During Hanukkah there’s the ninth candle in the middle of the menorah–called the shamash–used to light the other candles as the holiday progresses. And in Hip Hop there’s the well-known trope of the “fifth element” variously said to be knowledge, beatboxing, basketball, fashion, or some other something.
Also, both celebrate the warrior spirit. The Jewish holiday honors the Maccabees, the rebel warriors who took control of Judea, while Hip Hop celebrates verbal warriors who brandish liquid swords in street cyphers or Verzuz battles, and DJs who battle each other in parks, playgrounds, and turntablist competitions. Zooming out another level, hip hop celebrates the warriors who battle socio-economic oppression and white supremacy.
Finally, Hip Hop is sometimes described as the art of making “something from nothing," and likewise, Hanukkah celebrates the miracle of a paltry supply of lamp oil somehow lasting eight days inside the newly retaken Temple of Jerusalem. So you see, practically the same thing! Let’s go ahead and declare “Hip Hanukkah” the portmanteau of the day and get Lin-Manuel Miranda to write the musical.
Which brings us to the real subject of this piece and the inspiration for the chin-stroking thesis above: the Brooklynite rapper of Jewish-Ukrainian ancestry known as Your Old Droog, who yesterday released the Hanukkah-dedicated single seen at the top of this piece. For five years-plus YOD has been making waves in the hip hop underground, a favorite of heads who recognize his formidable skills and appreciate his verbal acrobatics, encyclopedic references (forget about consulting Genius since YOD had all his lyrics removed from the site), clever punchlines, and grimy ‘90s-style beats. Collaborations with the likes of Danny Brown and Heems have only cemented YOD’s reputation.
Often compared to such upper echelon verbalists as Nas and MF Doom, YOD achieved early notoriety when he first started posting tracks on SoundCloud minus any additional social media presence or photos or personal info of any kind. This quickly led to rumors that YOD was actually Nas recording under a pseudonym. After positively IDing himself in a 2014 New Yorker profile and subsequently selling out a show at Webster Hall, it was revealed that he was actually a heretofore unknown white dude from Coney Island. Your Old Droog had seemingly come out of nowhere and created “something out of nothing” right out of the box.
But in reality more than just “some white dude” as his last two records have made clear–concept albums focused, respectively, on his Jewish heritage and Eastern European ethnic ancestry. On the first day of Hanukkah, late in 2019, YOD dropped Jewelry. The third full-length released in an insanely prolific year, the album opens with a track called “Shamash” (the ninth menorah candle referenced above!) that opens with the sound of a matchbook being struck which transitions into a hazy, dubby beat with incantations over the top that all sounds either highly spiritual or like someone coming down from a latke binging session.
[[Editor’s note: A Jewish colleague informs us that this track "samples someone reciting the blessings that we say each night as we light the Chanukah candles." We advise caution to Deli readers looking to this publication for advice or instruction on religious practices of any kind. And now back to our regularly scheduled programming…]]
But soon you’re snapped back to lucidity with the track “Jew Tang” (Ain’t Nuthin’ to F*** With!) that with its buzzing, lumbering beat feels like nearly getting run over by a Mitzvah tank barreling down Eastern Parkway with (one time?) Hasidic reggae icon Matisyahu in the passenger seat. Here and elsewhere on the album YOD spits bars that slant-rhyme “Cash Rules…” with “Kashrut” (Jewish dietary standards!) and chrome mags with Cro-Mags (NYC hardcore legends!) and lots of other mind-expanding lyrical mashups besides. If there’s a better portrait of punk rockers and hip hoppers and multi-hued Brooklynites of all types existing together in all of NYC’s true grit and glory I’d like to hear it.
if there one thing you can surely say about Your Old Droog is that you’ll never find him “writing the same thing over and over / like Bart Simpson in detention"–a charge he levels against wack rappers in “The Greatest To Ever Do It”–since on every project he takes on a new direction. And the recently-released Dump YOD: Krutoy Edition is no exception as YOD code-switches between English and Russian (his first language) on tracks named after locales such as Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, and Kyrgyzstan. It’s a bold assertion coming from someone who’s been frequently misperceived in the past: “if you were my complexion and poor / they just thought you were Spanish.”
A sonic travelogue, Dump YOD is a trip in the truest sense with train whistles and barrel organs and mournful horns and hammered dulcimers and that’s all on the first couple of tracks. These sounds help to sketch the plight of a “legal alien” as described near the end of “Ukraine,” which opens with YOD thinking back on being “outsiders since day one / been there since way young / used to squirm in the seat / when teachers called out my name, son.” In an age of widespread Nativist zeal it’s a potent message for immigrants and children of immigrants–who are well aware that “the hardest thing to be is yourself.” (Jason Lee)
2020 has been a very bad year for a lot of things but not so for underground hip hop. Dig around in the digital mire for a while and you’ll probably come up with something pleasing. Case in point: last Friday night on Billy Jam’s “Put The Needle On The Record” radio show there was a track featured by the Buffalo-based duo of Cee Gee (he’s the DJ) and Genecist (he’s the rapper) that caught this blogger’s ear.
The track is called “I Got You” and it starts with a simple keyboard figure that’s soon backed up by a tight MPC-style beat but get this during the whole intro you also hear Miss Piggy, or a convincing facsimile, dropping ad libs over the beat. Enter Genecist with a laid-back strutting flow that locks in with the loping rhythmic underpinning–you can hear the groove in the lyrical refrain alone: “told ‘em yeah I got chu”–and meanwhile Miss Piggy is still doing her thing but then before too long Genecist does an about face and starts spitting rapid fire triplets while praising his fans and the scene and his own skills (duh) and God Up Above before easing back into the opening groove. Rinse and repeat.
Compelling enough stuff to check out both artists. Turns out that Cee Gee, aka Cee Gee Incorporated, stays true to the latter moniker by releasing a steady stream of beat tapes, solo work and collaborations. This is backed up by his most recent Facebook post at the time of writing (yes I’m a social media stalker what of it?) that boasts “14 Beats In 4 Hours!!!” so here is a man with a serious work ethic who also knows how to create some undeniably ‘90s-style beats alongside the overall stark, slightly off-kilter feel that if you’re into a certain Mr. Jay Dee you may be into this too. A few years back Cee Gee left computer-based beatmaking behind and acquired an Akai MPC so no wonder at the ‘90s vibe. For more of his flavor you can look up his collab with another Buffalonian, graphic artist and comic book creator Kevin Delgado aka Frigid Giant, together known as Green Giant.
Genecist likewise appears to be a busy guy lately. Known locally on the scene as a singer-rapper in 4 B-LO, a group specializing in sexytime R&B music, his solo work culminated in 2017’s <Genecist Project> collecting his output up to that point. After nearly retiring from the music-making game Genecist has come back strong with three new EP’s released this year and a fourth in the works (four EPs in one years sounds awfully familiar). The most recent two EPs, both released in October, are tag-team DJ & Producer collaborations: 20:20 with Roobxcube and Proverbz and Video Gamez with Cee Gee.
Before closing I’ve gotta mention at least one more track on the latter EP, the one directly before “I Got You” that’s called “Sega Genecist.” No doubt you get the pun but the duo take it next level, building the track over the chirpy game-intro music to the old school arcade classic Galaga. One could easily see this sample fitting perfectly into a chiptune song, but here Cee Gee and Genecist take the goofy-sounding tune (for which I have a great affection to be fair) and alchemize it with a heavy beat and with fleet rapping and even some nice vocal harmonies, all the while weaving in references to Tekken, Street Fighter, and Dragon Ball in the lyrics, and damn if it doesn’t make you wanna grab your joystick. It’s pretty mind-expanding stuff and I can’t help but notice that the two tracks discussed here and the one before it (“Follow the Leader” though not an Eric B. and Rakim cover) all clock in at precisely 4:20 in duration. Coincidence? You be the judge. (Jason Lee)
Octonomy is a Brooklyn-based sound artist whose work ranges from ambient-floating-in-the-clouds reveries (4•3•3•6) to glitchy-grimy-down-in-the-dirt noise sculptures (0) to vocal-based work combining ambient/noise elements with what I’m calling “interdimensional electropop” (Warhorse). It’s a heady mix that’ll get under your skin so head on over to the Elsewhere rooftop tonight via Twitch (note: the physical space is closed to the public for the winter) and get your mind and body right through the strange magic of electronically-generated sound waves and real-time virtual broadcasting.
For a sneak preview you can check out the Octonomy live set below filmed in the halcyon days of the Summer of Covid. This performance was part of DJ Vox Sinistra’s weekly StrictTempo series–likewise streaming on Twitch and still going strong–a showcase that originated at Seattle’s Mercury@Machinewerks late last year but which now features a cavalcade of DJs and live acts transmitting from locales across the globe every Thursday night starting at 7PST/10EST. Since the plague hit it’s been this writer’s weekly goto fix for electro-punk, coldwave/darkwave/minimal wave, cybergoth, acid and industrial, dark techno, synth pop and synthwave, EBM, and "all things cold, dark and wave-y" with due attention given to cool visuals and S&M-derived fashions.
In the meantime look out for new music coming soon from Octonomy on Faktor Records. And also on the Elsewhere bill you’ll get some bonus Khadija with proceeds going to the important work of the National Bail Out collective–a “Black-led and Black-centered collective” working to “end systems of pretrial detention and ultimately mass incarceration.”
(Jason Lee) (photo credit: Chthonic Streams)
Duo acts carry a certain mystique to this day. At all times just a single city bus mishap away from solodom, they’re like the two-piece-chicken meal deals of rock ‘n’ roll (sure it’s a meal but it’s sure to be on the value menu). Rock ‘n’ roll duo acts tend to adhere to a certain minimalist aesthetic by design but often follow a brutalist aesthetic as well by showcasing BIG drums and BIG guitars–the “value” part of the meal–or even BIG keyboards like in Quasi or Matt & Kim to take two very different examples. And also if you’re brave enough to play in such a stripped down format you’d better have some BIG hooks and BIG stompin’ and rockin’ rhythms to keep your listeners engaged–we’re talking about the special herbs and spices here.
The group that’s most often credited with pioneering the two-piece "rock ‘n’ roll value meal" format–by the way there’s a guy whose name rhymes with “Frack Site” who cites them as a major influence–is a little group called the Flat Duo Jets. On the band’s 1985 demo cassette (In Stereo) and 1990 self-titled debut album, Dexter Romweber (guitar/vox) and Chris “Crow” Smith (drums) kick up a cloud of Southern-fried psychobilly psychosis that’s hard to resist or serve with a cease and desist.
And now to the subject at hand, Shadow Monster is a two-piece rock combo from Bushwick, Brooklyn that’s taken up this baton of late and they wield it admirably. Unlike a number of high profile acts in Musical Duos-ville who spice up their sound with programmed drums and sequenced keyboard parts (we love ya Ravonettes, Kills, et al.) Shadow Monster do without these musical equivalents of coleslaw and curly fries. No side dishes, here’s your chicken and biscuit thank you and come again!
With a sound that recalls classic mid-90’s shiz–not the Jonah Hill flick tho’ that was cool, I’m talking stuff like Juliana Hatfield’s Only Everything or Sebadoh’s Bakesale–Shadow Monster relies less on overwhelming force and more on well-constructed tunes and songwriting. For instance their 2019 album Punching Bag opens with a hook-laden eponymous song that’s a swaying mid-tempo jammer about “rolling with the punches” and the masochism implied by the phrase that builds to a climax with Gillian Visco’s vox and guitar spinning into the ether with the support of John Swanson’s gallivanting drum fills.
Next comes a more upbeat number called “Temporary Love” that starts with some quick-strummed acoustic guitar but which turns out to be one of those it-sounds-happy-but-it’s-about-darkness-and-doubt-and-romantic-dysfunction songs which is always a good combo. Over the full course of the seven songs on the rekkid you continue to get a decent range of moods and styles but with some consistent lyrical themes such as (according to their official bio) “themes of loss, depression, and isolation.” Hey, I feel seen! No surprise then that track six titled “Lovegun” isn’t a Kiss cover. But it should be obvious anyway–for one thing the title’s written as one word and also it’s not about Paul Stanley’s c*ck. But instead it’s more of a wistful lighter-waving song which it’s always good to have one of those and so it’s more like their "Beth" except the drummer doesn’t sing this one.
Shadow Monster perform live tonight at beloved BK hot spot Our Wicked Lady meaning they have portable heaters on their rooftop bar. If you’re in the vicinity you may want to consider making a reservation to watch the band from the club’s aforementioned heated rooftop where you can order drinks while the band rocks away downstairs and watch it on video feed. Masks and social distancing required you know the drill. Or alternately, and more easily, you can catch them livestreaming on the club’s Youtube, Facebook and Instagram channels or give Friendster a try cuz you never know. (Jason Lee)
It’s not easy to make a synthesizer or a sampler weep, or to make programmed/processed drums shudder in fright, but Son Lux has mastered these tricks alongside others–able to make their machines and their instruments breath and gasp and pant and sob. To be sure they also coax ecstasy, calm, and even hope (see "Prophesy" below) out of their gear, both electronic and organic, and from Ryan Lott’s choked-with-emotion voice. Son Lux may tend towards the melancholic but just as often these and other emotional colors are blended together to create new unnamed hues.
Maybe here it would help to consider the etymology of the word “emotion” (just nod along!) which is a combination of the Latin for “to move” and the Latin for “out.” Put these syllables together and it refers to “moving outside” or “going beyond” one’s normal boundaries, that is, transcendence. In the musical realm what better way to transcend this plane of existence and to "move beyond" than by entering a synthesized reality–a world we can more readily control (in theory, anyhow) and shape to mirror our own interior landscapes. One must wonder then where the popular notion comes from that regards electronic music as being automatically robotic, anti-human, and anti-emotional? Maybe Ted Nugent?
All the ways that Son Lux finds to weave together electronic and organic sounds–bringing distinctly human rhythms to the former, while frequently making the latter sound foreign in the true sense of the word–harkens back to what was arguably a golden age for these kinds of organic/synthetic synthesis as developed in the late 20th/early 21st century by artists like Bjork, Massive Attack and Radiohead.
Around a decade ago Son Lux took up this torch, or one of the torches at least, and hasn’t dropped it since. Currently they’re in the midst of releasing their most ambitious work to date: a trilogy of works starting with Tomorrows I put out earlier this year; continuing with Tomorrows II released a few days ago; and continuing soon with Tomorrows III. Or at least I assume that’ll be the title unless there’s a serious misdirection at work here. Below you can check out a couple of more tracks from Tomorrows II, just try not to get too emotional. (Jason Lee)
Pom Pom Squad’s cover of Wham’s “Last Christmas” is the best version of the Eighties seasonal perennial at least since the one Crazy Frog did (Ariana Grande pffft) but did Crazy Frog add a dramatic soliloquy to the George Michael composition or curse out the song’s errant lover-to-never-be at its conclusion? I think not. The CGI amphibian went top-ten in both Sweden and Belgium with the song in 2006 which makes me think PPS should be a lock for a top-five chart placing at minimum.
Band frontperson & Orlando-to-Brooklyn refugee Mia Berrin (pictured) heightens both the wistful melancholia and the implied tension of the original version and plus the Pom Pom’s update advocates staying at home for the holidays so win-win. And while you’re at home you can pop in the new “Simply Having A Wonderful Compilation” compilation (released last friday) into your virtual CD changer alongside Tiny Tim’s Christmas Album and that Hanukkah record from last year with Haim and Flaming Lips and Jack Black and Yo La Tengo and have yourself a grand ol’ time.
“Wonderful Compilation” featues Pom Pom Squad alongside a full slate of indie small-stars all wishing you a dream-poppy, grungy holiday (sample title: “Santa Is A Neocon”) but with the occassional foray into 16th-century caroling which all makes sense since it’s a co-production of indie mainstay Father/Daughter Records alongside Wax Nine, the latter of which being both a sister label to D.C.’s Carpark Records and a friggin poetry journal which is the brainchild of Sadie Depuis of Speedy Ortiz and Sad13, the latter of which having been discussed in the post right before this one so you see how everything in the universe is connected.
But before closing just two last words about Pom Pom Squad. And those two words are "Heavy Heavy" for they are both of those things.
Listening to Sad13’s second full-length album called Haunted Painting takes me back to my six-or-seven-year-old self and a trip to visit my aunt and juvenile delinquent high school cousin in the Spray Tan State and in particular our trip to the Disneyworld Industrial Complex widely known as the home of animatronic dead presidents and Johnny Depp singing “Yo Ho” to all the ladies.
Of course it’s also home to the Haunted Mansion and all those paintings in the entrance hallway where when you look at them at first it’s like some baroness or something stretched out on her fainting couch but then before your very eyes she transforms into a spooky apparition like Medusa with snakes sprouting out her head or who knows what but some or other creepy character for sure and then you blink and it’s back to the baroness. Then before you know it you’re riding along in your bumper car and you look up into the mirror on the opposing wall and there’s a goddamn hitch-hiking ghost sitting on your head. That sh*t blew my six-or-seven-year-old mind.
Haunting Painting reminds me of all this. Band frontlady Sadie Dupuis–good name for a baroness, she also belongs to a band called Speedy Ortiz–pulls out all the stops and the starts on this album. What I mean by that is that many of the songs start off as one thing and then go around a corner and suddenly transform into another sonic apparition entirely. Like the single “Ghost (Of A Good Time)” that starts as a synth-based new-wavey “slappin’ bop” (sorry for the technical terminology there) but then a couple minutes later the groove suddenly drops away and a brief berserker guitar part swells up and ushers us into what sounds like a waltz for a haunted ballroom and soon there’s some beautiful harmonies and counter-melodies building layer upon layer before if finally goes back to the first section like nothing ever happened. You see what I mean about the portraits.
Pull-quote: Sad13’s Haunted Painting is a pandemic Pet Sounds for shut-ins. The future’s looking febrile, indeed!
All in all even with all the charming pop elements this is a real headtrip album–headphones strongly recommended–there’s so many little ornate curly-cue details on the record that it rewards repeat listens. Ms. Dupuis & Co. reportedly recorded this album across roughly a half-a-dozen-or-so studios and they picked up whatever odd junk store odds ‘n’ ends they could wherever they went and that’s why you hear things like glockenspiels and pennywhistles (disclaimer: you may hear neither of these) which together with all the asymmetric twisty melodies and time-signature changes creates a cool funhouse mirror vibe. Relevant note: Sadie made it a point to work exclusively with female sound engineers on all the tracks which is a role that’s still a male-dominated enclave of the recording industry today so yea!
Be forewarned going in that, much like your average nominal “fun” house, there’s some scary stuff lurking in the dark even if all the shiny surfaces and candy-coated textures may distract you from the stuff. Except for when the dark stuff occasionally bubbles up to the surface like near the end of “Ruby Wand” which is mostly a straight-up Baroque electropop number until towards when it goes all haywire for a minute. Oh, and don’t listen to or read the lyrics if you don’t like the dark stuff.
It’s all somehow insular and mind-expanding all at once. The whole aesthetic applies equally to the videos released alongside the album which are equal parts silly and creepy and strange and ornate. To give a couple examples on “Ghost” Sadie Dupuis goes all Cindy Sherman with the multiple personas who look right into your soul both seductively and ominously, and the video for “Hysterical” that riffs on the whole entire-movie-taking-place-on-a-computer-screen premise of 2014 social media horror flick “Unfriended” but updated here for the Zoom age. Also, Sadie essentially admits over the course of the video that she’s been stalking Wallace Shawn for ages so we’ve got some incriminating evidence for when Wallace goes missing.
Finally, I should mention that our fearless bandleader is based in Philadelphia and not New York City. But that’s ok I’m just going to go ahead and claim her as ours because Sadie’s life-altering turning point was self-reportedly when she transferred colleges from M.I.T. to Barnard, and changed her major from mathematics to poetry in the process, which led directly to her songwriting career. Yea Barnard University!
And finally finally the other reason to write about Sad13 at this very moment is that they’ll be appearing tonight as part of the No Bummer All Summer “Virtual” Beach Party with Sadie doing a “beach read” of her poetry–Could that be a Zoom background or the real thing? You be the judge!–as part of the evening’s lineup of performances, activities, and specials organized by Montreal shoegazers No Joy which all starts at 8PM EST. Check out details and get your tickets here. (Jason Lee)
