Dennis

New album: Slaughter Beach, Dog || At The Moonbase

This is another album that wouldn’t have been out of place in my year-end list. In this case the fact that it’s missing is not because I overlooked it, but because it was only released last Friday. I think it ties in well with the mood of the last days of 2020. At The Moonbase, the new LP from Slaughter Beach, Dog (in this interview the band name is explained), is the follow-up to the excellent Safe And Also No Fear (2019). The music was written, performed and produced by Jake Ewald during the corona pandemic. He received help from several guest musicians, of which Wil Schade’s contribution is particularly striking: saxophone solos as heard on records in the 80’s. Apart from that, it is especially the lyrics that are intriguing. Lyric videos were made for all 11 songs, give it a try (you can see one of my favorite tracks, Do You Understand (What Has Happened To You), below).

Add to wantlist: Bandcamp || Lame-O Records

Overlooked album: Kyle Lacy || The Road To Tomorrow

Every year it happens again: you have published your album of the year list and then you discover that you missed LPs that you really didn’t want to miss. Today I listened for the first time to the music American singer-songwriter Kyle Lacy released in 2020: his first full-length solo album The Road To Tomorrow (released February 14, CD on Dala Records; listen to stand-out tracks Low and Slow and Hangin’ On below), his EP Bad Bad Days (May 1, independently available from Bandcamp), his EP in collaboration with Warren Malone Lunchbox Special (August 7, Bandcamp) and his EP No Better Me (October 1, Bandcamp). All worth checking out. A fine mix of soul, blues, gospel and rock ‘n’ roll that deserves a larger audience (why isn’t this dude as famous as Eli “Paperboy” Reed and Nick Waterhouse?). Kyle Lacy may be missing from my year-end list, but it’s never too late to discover such good music.

Add to wantlist: Bandcamp || Dala Records

“New” album: King Gizzard & The Lizard Wizard || Teenage Gizzard

What a pleasant surprise from King Gizzard & The Lizard Wizard! The Australian rock band released Teenage Gizzard, a compilation of their first songs, recorded in 2010 and 2011. Very cool to hear how they started: short rock songs with surf influences, in which the characteristic singing style and hypnotic guitars are already central, but less complex and drawn-out than in their later work. The ten tracks are available as a digital album, but you can also bootleg the album yourself (like seven other albums – live shows or demos). The audio master files and cover art can be downloaded for free by anyone who wants to release this album (in 2017 they did something similar with Polygondwanaland, now 288 different versions have been made). I look forward to the creative outbursts this new challenge will yield and I want to have at least one of them in my collection.

Add to wantlist: Bandcamp || Discogs

New album: Neil Brogan || Weird Year

Anyone who likes jangle pop is probably familiar with the Irish band Sea Pinks (otherwise listen to Art Imitating Life, for example). Neil Brogan, their founder / songwriter / singer / guitarist, has now also released a (digital) solo album. Weird Year is a song diary of the weird year 2020. It was recorded at home as the months slipped away, a period of cancellations, miscommunications and garden visits. Fortunately, this alienating time has resulted in a nice retrospective. However, let’s hope 2021 will be less weird and indeed brings some cheers.

‘The inverse of what’s real and within touching // is what’s there to fear // not for nothing // do I hold you // So dear.’

Add to wantlist: Bandcamp

New album: Bingo Trappers || Giddy Wishes

In 1995 Waldemar Noë visited Wim Elzinga to record a few songs at his home, the start of Bingo Trappers. Now, 25 years later, the Dutch lo-fi band still works that way. They make 60’s/70’s-influenced psychedelic garage pop with a twang. Old-fashioned craftsmanship. Their new album Giddy Wishes, follow up to Elizabethan (2018), offers ten new melancholic tunes that bring a little light to these dark days. Most of the songs are a bit more subdued than before, but the singer’s ‘Whoo!’ exclamation halfway through the stand-out track What’s the score (listen below) shows the enthusiasm that the band still has. The album title refers to an old-fashioned postcard: ‘Some giddy wishes from a confined place – mind and heart are free to travel from A to B.’ Just what we need right now.

Add to wantlist: Almost Halloween Time || Grapefruit || Morc Records  (Bandcamp) || Morc Records (website) || Unread

New album: Degurutieni || Dark Mondo

Obviously, cool things are happening in Japan. Strange things too: just listen to this album by Alco Degurutieni (アルコ デグルチーニ), a one-man band from Osaka that has been making songs for almost 40 years. Apparently you should actually see him live (pre Covid-19 he was touring through the world constantly), an experience as incomprehensible as unforgettable. Dark Mondo is a compilation with older songs (self released or on tiny labels) and new ones, songs that deserve a larger audience according to the people at Voodoo Rhythm Records. They describe Degurutieni’s music as weird, wild, obscure, spooky, exotica burlesque toy junk muzak trash made with broken cassette desks and fucked up record players. And that’s not even all you hear or see. Fascinating. RIYL Tom Waits, Captain Beefheart, cinematic weirdness.

Add to wantlist: Bandcamp || Voodoo Rhythm

New song: The Shop Window || Sad Eyes

It’s always nice when an artist not only makes good music, but also embraces a bigger idea. As The Shop Window (UK) does. The art work of the five songs they have released so far have the same layout (including the band name mirrored) and the Spotify playlists of the band members are “shop windows” of their favorite tracks. But I certainly appreciate their jangly indie pop too, especially this new song Sad Eyes.  After an impressive visit to his 104-year-old grandmother, composer Carl Mann reached for his guitar as soon as he got home and this song wrote itself (video on YouTube). Beautiful. Unfortunately, this track will not be on the forthcoming album The State Of Being Human, due out in the spring, but is now available digitally and will be released early 2021 on 7 ”vinyl through Spinout Nuggets.

‘I see you sitting in your chair // Waiting there, watching time // All you have now is the past // The future has gone beyond your grasp’

Add to wantlist: Bandcamp

New EP: Crosstown Killers || Exotic Psychotic

The idea behind this blog is that we share the work of relatively unknown artists, work that we would like to have in our collection, work you might want to add to your wantlist. That’s not always that easy. This week, through a Spotify playlist, I discovered Exotic Psychotic, the second EP by Australian psych rockers Crosstown Killers. I immediately dragged the track This World is a Modern Day Jail to my favorites list, but it seems there’s no option to pay for the music. They have a website and some social accounts, but unfortunately no page on Bandcamp, no physical release either. Too bad for you and me, but also for the band, I guess. I found a song on Soundcloud to give you an idea of what you’re missing.

So apparently the EP is not for sale, but it can be heard on Spotify.

UPDATE: Message from Crosstown Killers: ‘We’re in the process of making some hard copies for sale.’ 🙂

New song: Daniel Young || The World Ain’t Gonna Wait

American singer-songwriter / guitarist / drummer / sound engineer / producer Daniel Young knows how to capture the Zeitgeist in this new song. ‘We’re all locked up in our homes, trying to figure out just where to start’, he sings with a country sob in his powerful voice, assisted by Tyler Lambourne (bass), Ryan Tanner (piano), Marcus Bently (backup vocals), Andy Joy Chase (hand claps, yeah!), Sadler Vaden (guitar) and Trevor Nealon (B3 organ). A beautiful song, but also an important one, because ‘The world ain’t gonna wait for us, wondering what we did with our lives’.

Add to wantlist: Bandcamp

New EP: Hobby || Hobby

Now that was an original way to announce a name change: last year this five-piece band from Paris released a split tape with themselves – the A side under the new name Hobby was called After, the B side under their previous moniker Deaf Parade was called Before. And now there is a new EP from Hobby (‘not professionally and not for pay’) with four tracks, just called Hobby, although none of the songs are titled Hobby. The co-release of Hidden Bay Records (vinyl) and RDS REC HH (tape) offers an interesting combination of slacker jangle and alternative rock with a 90’s feel.

Add to wantlist: Bandcamp

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