Wow guys, wow. Okay. I’ve been away for a bit. Work (you know, like the thing I actually get PAID to do) hit a fever pitch for a spell there and I haven’t had much time to write, but I’m coming back around now. A lot of great music came out today and I owe you all a brain dump of what’s on my radar, in my headphones, and under… the table and dreaming? God, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to bring Dave Matthews into this.
Friday the 13th brought us some gems and here they are in no particular order.
The Jesus Lizard just dropped their first full-length studio album since 1998’s Blue. That’s fucking bonkers. I just can’t imagine having done something in 1998, not having done it since then, and then doing it again now. Sure, there have been some live albums and a couple of EPs, but recording a whoooole thing in the studio is a whoooole thing. I was in eighth grade in 1998. Now my back hurts. I haven’t had a full listen to Rack yet. This one feels like a kitchen blaster that I should play over the Bluetooth speaker while I’m on my feet making dinner and moving around. Word to the wise: fans of The Jesus Lizard would do well to check out Providence’s Department of Teleportation.
Favorite track at the moment: What If?
Now this is a concept album. I truly believe that Wendy Eisenberg is incapable of putting out uninteresting music. I was lucky enough to catch their former band Birthing Hips in an Allston (read: Boston) basement yeeears ago, and to have their math-crunch trio Editrix join an album release show I put on in 2020. Now an NYC artist, Wendy continues to make incredible art. Written as a “song cycle for improvisers,” Viewfinder was born from Wendy’s new lens for seeing the world, quite literally: they got Lasik surgery in 2021 and it changed the whole game. Wendy writes:
“Finally able to see the world unmediated, everything about my relationship to tactility, immediacy, and perception changed. I could no longer blame the distance and otherness I feel in this world on the too-fallible panes of glass or plastic that delivered the visual world closer to me. I had to write myself into clarity about the closeness I now felt to the visual world, how disorienting clarity can be.”
This is a jazzy, ambient record that is likely to both disorient you and help you find your footing. Give it a shot in a bubble bath, but don’t stand up too quickly.
Favorite track at the moment: After Image.
Nilüfer Yanya - My Method Actor
I feel like I had this record simmering away as a Bandcamp pre-order for a year, but it was probably only a few months. The single Like I Say (I runaway) caught my ear right away. Nilüfer’s vocals flow and eddy caramelliflously around what has to be the lower end of her range until some sweet higher notes bring the listener up for air. I love the acoustic-to-fuzz journey on this song. My Method Actor is my first Nilüfer Yanya record and I’m looking forward to working backwards from here. No kitchen blasters or bubble bath tunes here: this is a go-for-a-drive record.
Favorite track at the moment: I gotta be laaaaaame and pick the single right now because I just can’t stop bumpin’ it. Like I Say (I runaway).
🚨 Heads up! Nilüfer Yanya is coming to Boston October 2nd. 🚨
Local H - Whatever Happened to P.J. Soles? (20th Anniversary Remaster)
I ain’t gonna say too much about this one because I’ve got a full review coming soon in Post-Trash! But I’ve still got to make sure you know it’s out. Where remakes are lame (LEAVE GHOSTBUSTERS ALONE!), remasters can really breathe new life into a record, and this one is scratching my throwback itch at just the right time.
Favorite track at the moment: California Songs (2024 Remaster).
UUUUUUUUUNNNNGGGGGHHHHHHHH I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: I fucking love this band. This is a record to shave your head to. Burn your ex’s photos. Do some disconcerting shit in the woods. These tunes are bottom heavy but sharp. Top heavy but full of bowling balls.
I had to laugh at a recent post on the band’s Instagram that pointed out how they’d inadvertently given their record the same name as Hozier’s 2019 release… I’ve heard Hozier’s most recent single three times and I have been sincerely convinced that I was listening to CeeLo Green’s Crazy each of those three times. So, I wouldn’t worry about it too much.
Favorite track at the moment: Whatever The News.
Nicholas Burgess - Jabu-Jabu (single from the forthcoming record Mejora Majora)
Full disclosure: I’m a guest vocalist on this album. But not on this song! Jabu-Jabu is the fourth track now available from Mejora Majora, which will slither its way out of the ocean holding the master key in its jowls on October 11th. Nicholas is a friend of mine who I met… I dunno, last year or something? on Mastodon. Weird, right? I said dang, this guy is spooky. And the rest is relatively recent history. Since then I’ve had the honor of contributing hoots and howls as well as some real big clarinet and a lot of percussion to a number of his tunes.
Mejora Majora will be part ode to The Legend of Zelda, part Moby Dick fan fiction, and part Burgess trying to record vocals at times that are really inconvenient for everyone in his building. I asked him if this was a concept album and it sounds like the answer depends on whether or not you live inside his brain, which I try to limit to alternate Thursdays and bank holidays. Jabu-Jabu, he says:
is a synthesis of [all the album’s themes], because it's about a whale from Zelda and the experience of being inside one's physical self.
Woof, what a weirdo. I can’t wait for more.
Other recent and noteworthy releases:
Astral Bitch - Haunting You (Single) released September 10th
Astral Bitch is back on Earth with a new lineup and a new track. Haunting You is old school punk with new school depth. Scott Pilgrim’s cooler older cousin would have worn the tape right out of the cassette on this one. I’ve seen (and played with) guitarist/vocalist Sam Coren in a ton of projects over the past almost 15 years, and they’ve found their whole-ass voice in Astral Bitch.
Department of Teleportation - Forward Stories Told Backwards released September 7th
The aforementioned Department of Teleportation dropped a not-shockingly killer record just under a week ago. Full of piss and vinegar and teeth, Forward Stories Told Backwards will leave you not even knowing which door you came in. It’s fine. Just pick one and act confident.
Bent Knee - Twenty Pills Without Water released August 30th
If you haven’t seen Bent Knee live yet, you don’t know what you’re missing. I’m so glad I caught them at The Sinclair in August, where they played a lot of material off of Twenty Pills Without Water. This band is extra AF and their latest record is absolutely cinematic. Not in an Ennio Morricone sense. I just mean that it’s just epic and there should be a movie made around it. Just… around it. Put the record in a little petting zoo and build a whole world around it Truman Show-style. Like a Sim City level where this record is City Hall. Like Everything Everywhere All At Once, and this record is the everything bagel.
Ty Segall - Love Rudiments released August 30th
Immediate records-of-the-year countdown material. I have so much to say about this one that I’m not saying a damn word. Keep your eyes peeled for my full writeup coming soon in Post-Trash.
~RMSC