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: Discogs

New song: RECKLING || Spiders

Early this year, RECKLING (Kelsey Reckling) recorded 24 Hours for the Burger Records Quarantunes compilation series. I liked that song enough to start following her on Bandcamp. She released her debut full length on cassette in 2018, which is worth checking out if you are into garagepop/rock. Last week she released another great tune, Spiders. This garagerock track has a strong ’90’s alternative music vibe. It’s the kind of song MTV would have played to death in the nineties, and I wouldn’t have minded that at all. The song features Max from Fidlar on drums, who also produced the song. Fingers crossed RECKLING will release her sophomore album in 2021.

Add to wantlist: Bandcamp

Best of 2020 Playlists || Niek’s Favorite Songs of 2020

At the start of each year, I create a playlist to keep track of newly released songs I like. Then, at the end of the year, I pick out the best song from this list to create a year-end mixtape, a playlist I like to return to every now and then, and revisit or rediscover songs and memories of a specific period of time. The thing is, I am not a very efficient person. So basically I drag songs to the playlist for 350 days resulting in quite the mess – the playlist currently has 1944 songs, almost 92 hours of music. Then, with the year coming to its close, I frantically go to work trimming down the playlist to its essence. That’s the hard part, because I am way better in adding stuff than throwing things away, or so I am told.  I usually end up with a playlist around 300-400 songs, in spite of my good intentions to keep it shorter. This year is no exception. What I did do differently this year however, is split up the songs in two playlists that reflect my two musical taste buds: a playlist with more straightforward punk, powerpop and garage hits from 2020, and one playlist with a little less distortion (i.e., indiepop, jangle, twee, but also postpunk, and more fuzzy and surfy popsounds). As always, one song per artists. Click read more to check them out. Hope you’ll like ’em, and will uncover some new favorite tunes! BTW, in case this is my final post of the year, take care, be well and see you in 2021!

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

Music Year-End List || Niek’s Favorite Singles And EPs of 2020

Last week, I published my Top 50 Albums of 2020. The week before, Dennis published his. Time for the final AtW list of 2020: my Top 40 Singles and EP’s of year. There was a lot to choose from, and I am sure I overlooked and forgot several releases that would otherwise be included on this list. I opted out of the painstaking process of ranking these singles and EPs, so the bands are in alphabetical order. If I had to choose though, Romero probably would be my #1 pick, followed by Hard Action, Civic. Click below on read more to go to the list. I’ve included short explanations and my favorite song of each single/EP, either with a bandcamp embed or a video. If you like what you hear, just click on the title and AddToWantlist. There is an almost complete Spotify playlist of the releases at the bottom of this post – six are currently not on that platform.

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 songs: Jakob Mind || Rock’n’Roll’s Got Me All Messed Up/Watch The City Burn

With 2020 stumbling to the finish line, let’s focus on something to look forward to in 2021: In April, Jakob Mind will release his debut The One That Got Away on Lövely Records. Jakob Mind is a new solo project by Jakob Arvidsson from Sweden, who you may know from garagepunks Rotten Mind, or the pretty awesome Undertonesque poppunk band Real Tears. Currently, Jakob has leaked two songs of the album, watch and listen below. These songs are fast, melodic, and insanely catchy. Hope they make you as curious about the rest of the record as I am.

New Album: 錯乱前戦 (Sakuran Zensen) || I Am Sakuran Zensen

There is a lot I hate about the Internet, but here’s something I love. Two years ago, I received a LinkedIn request from someone from the US I hadn’t met. Let’s call him Dan. Apparently, Dan followed me on Spotify, appreciated some of my playlists and wanted to say hi. That in itself I thought was a cool thing of him to do. Fast-forward two years, I messaged him that my AOTY list was up and that I started this blog with my brother. Dan replied and shared his own Top Ten of 2020 which he was working on for his friends’ annual poll. Dan’s top 10 included 9 excellent picks, and one completely unknown one from Japan: 錯乱前戦 (Sakuran Zensen). I have been playing their latest album I am SAKURAN-ZENSEN nonstop this morning. What an exciting garage rock-‘n’-roll record. Just one look at the album cover and the video below tells me: these guys know exactly what they are doing and are destined for bigger things – they remind me of early Hives in that sense. So thank you, Dan. And welcome to the wantlist 錯乱前戦!

Lookout for a list of records we overlooked in 2020 sometime in the near future.

Add to Wantlist: Discogs 

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