If you were to judge the spirit of America by the number of new releases showing up on Bandcamp right now, you would have to assume that something has happened. But what? What could have happened to so thoroughly crush Americans’ creative spirit. Other than the perennial electronic and death metal releases, there just doesn’t seem to be much going on out there in Tune-land. I attribute it…
This week, we were able to come up with three new tracks from American artists, a bit of a rarity these days as Americans seem to have been laying low. Since there are only three of them, we will introduce them here as:
The Needmores, a thoroughly engaging rock band from Detroit, Michigan whose new song “Lookin'” is in the Cars tradition or thereabouts.
Leaves Floating On The Water is a jam rock project…
Our favorite band of the week turned out to be my favorite band of last year, despite the fact that I only just discovered them — The Breaks Inc. and their amazing album Hotel Earth. Also, belatedly, a couple of tracks from the Chillhop Winter Essentials disc and new music from Mogwai. Not to […]
The Breaks Inc. are a band from Queens, NY. Their new album, Hotel Earth, is a concept album about the end of the world. Cutting to the chase, yes, it’s kind of depressing, but it’s also really beautiful, tuneful, and wise — in short, it’s one of the best albums of last year that you […]
Here in the northeast, we’re in that peak/past peak moment with foliage. We balance precariously at this point for quite a few days before one day the weatherman pronounces decisively, “we’re past peak,” and you know it’s true. It’s also a time when we balance precariously between two radically different views of the future — […]
We took the summer off. It didn’t start out that way but somewhere around mid July we got the idea that we needed a vacation, and then our return date sailed by and next thing you know, it was September and here we are. Since the indie world seems to more or less revolve around […]
Summer slowdown is already underway. This week’s playlist had to make room for summer songs, war songs, death songs, and even a handful of love songs.
Now that Max Blansjaar’s new album is out, we were finally able to play our favorite track, “Pieces of the Sun.” We fell easily into the low key slackdom of Max’s world, a world that will come crashing down one day as flowers turn to dust, our hero now expendable, nervously “waiting for someone.”
No, it’s just a playlist. Nothing to see here but the tunes. Happy Juneteenth!Happy Heat Wave, too. Lots of oldies from Chuck Brown to George Clinton, saluting freedom, the weather, and the good old summertime. New this week — Hungrytown’s highly evocative “Circus for Sale,” M Vaughan’s optimistic “All Good,” and Las Nubes rock-heavy guitars.
Plus the usual, “more”…
June brings crickets and heat waves.A wren is nesting in the gourd house! People are starting to drift away to vacate themselves to distant shores.Indie bands go on tour, hot grubby exhilarating tours across the country in cars and vans! Not a whole lot of new music this week so we filled in with oldies from groups that once upon a time also toured the land in cars and vans.
It’s hard to say what we were on about this week. There was a sense of doing the Charleston on the deck of the Titanic, and also one of “Look, how beautiful, it’s June!”
A certain nostalgia prompted us to revive the Lemonheads, Uncle Tupelo, and Unrest, not to mention the still very active Mountain Goats, currently on tour everywhere. We played “Jaipur” from The Coroner’s Gambit — classic Mountain Goats with all the trimmings including Darnielle’s trademarked* pissed-off vocals.
Baffling number of the week was “Good Luck, Babe” by Chappell Roan.
La Souterraine is one of our favorite labels, originating (we think) in an area of France known also as La Souterraine. This newish compilation released by them is called Traboule and is dedicated to the city of Lyons from whence all the artists included are based. A traboule is a uniquely Lyonnaise thing referring to the covered passageways found throughout the city.