April Music Roundup
Notable music both new and old
All My Favorite Bands Have New Albums
I’ve been overwhelmed with exciting new releases and discoveries lately and everything I spent time with in April was top-notch. Not even halfway through 2017 and it is shaping up to be an exceptionally good year for music. I’ve been spending most of my time with new albums from three of my all-time favorite bands, all of which I’ve previewed in my monthly roundups.
I already told you to listen to “Dogs,” which might be Pile’s best song, and A Hairshirt of Purpose, out now on Exploding in Sound, might be their best album. There are definitely songs off You’re Better Than This and Dripping that top some of the songs here, but what A Hairshirt of Purpose lacks in immediate force it makes up for in layering, subtlety, cohesiveness, and cultivation of a desire for repeat listening.
I called lead single “Real Death,” from Mount Eerie’s new album A Crow Looked At Me, the saddest song I’d ever heard; the rest of the album is equally devastating. I don’t know how to evaluate this music critically — “barely music,” as Phil Elverum described it in a recent interview with Pitchfork. It is an album about death and mourning with lyrics that are direct and literal. Each song has at least one or two lines that bring me to tears. It’s not an album I enjoy listening to, but it is one of the most powerful pieces of art I’ve ever encountered and a beautiful dedication to the memory of Geneviève.
I didn’t rave about “Recent History,” the first single from The New Year’s new album Snow, in the same way I did about the Pile single, but Snow, the first The New Year album in nine years and fourth album from the Kadane brothers’ post-Bedhead project, is fantastic. For me, it’s the closest The New Year has come to matching the song-writing perfection that Bedhead achieved. A couple of songs on Snow prominently feature an electric piano, but not much else has changed: slow builds, meticulously crafted structures, interweaving guitars backed by a solid rhythm section, and not a single note out of place.
Punk, New and Old
Speaking of all-time favorites, I finally got a copy of X-Ray Spex’s 1978 masterpiece Germfree Adolescents on vinyl. I feel like this is one of those albums that you either know and love or haven’t discovered yet. If you like punk rock, but haven’t sought out this album, you owe it to yourself to check it out. For some better writing on the band, album, lead singer Poly Styrene, and the historical context of it all, check out Jenn Pelly’s excellent review on Pitchfork.
In the field of punk bands currently active, Aye Nako and Downtown Boys are two of best. Aye Nako are from Brooklyn and, in their own words, write “sad punk songs about being queer, trans and black.” Their new record on Don Giovanni, Silver Haze, is their best yet and is filled with distorted guitars, pop hooks, shifting tempos, and politically charged lyrics.
Downtown Boys haven’t released an album since 2015, the excellent Full Communism on Don Giovanni, but they recently signed to Sub Pop and released a new song called “Somos Chulas (No Somos Pendejas),” which translates as “We’re Elegant/Intelligent (We’re Not Dumb).” The song is sung in Spanish and, as the band explains in their introduction, it is “a declaration of one’s ability to decolonize one’s mind, and the importance of fearlessly unlearning the ways white supremacy conditions people to think and exist.” The energy and aggression are amped up here while the band’s trademark saxophone is missing, which, as someone who has a strong aversion to Bruce Springsteen, is fine by me. Although not Bruce’s fault, my experience growing up near Asbury Park won’t let me separate his music from the racism and chauvinism expressed by his fans in my hometown. I’m excited to see what the future holds for Downtown Boys and really rooting for them to expand their audience with their next album.
More New Releases
It seems like there has been a relentless stream of great new releases since my return from Marfa, so here’s just some brief words on a few more.
Sneaks’ new album It’s a Myth is nineteen minutes long, which is five minutes longer than last year’s Gymnastics. Sneaks is DC-based Eva Moolchan plus a drum machine, bass, and a touch of synthesizer. Together “they” make groovy, minimalist jams with clever wordplay.
In typical Milk Music fashion, I only heard that they had a new album, their first since 2013’s Cruise Your Illusion, through another band’s Facebook page. Mystic 100’s was released with little fanfare, but it is another stellar album of trippy, guitar-driven rock from this Olympia band with little interest in self-promotion. The nine-minute “Cryin’ Wand” is worth the price of admission alone, but the whole album is worth checking out.
I’ve been in Minneapolis for ten years and shamefully never saw a STNNNG show until this month. They are a fantastic local band on the Modern Radio label with a much-too-small following. They just released their fifth album, Veterans of Pleasure, which was recorded and mixed by Steve Albini at Electrical Audio in Chicago. Think noisy rock that’s part METZ, part Drive Like Jehu, and part Shellac.
Light in the Attic has done everyone a tremendous service once again by releasing a new collection of songs by Delta blues singer and guitarist Hayes McMullan. Everyday Seem Like Murder Here collects 31 previously unreleased songs and snippets of dialogue recorded in 1967 and 1968 by Gayle Dean Wardlow, thirty years after McMullan had quit playing the blues to become a deacon and civil rights activist. The music is superb and the historical and musical context provided by Light in the Attic is excellent as always.
Kelly Lee Owens’s new self-titled album is one of the best electronic releases I’ve heard in a while. Many songs are techno-driven pop songs, if on the experimental side, but it’s the ambient excursions, layered synths, and Owens’s vocals that really make this album shine. Jenny Hval, another recent favorite, is featured on one track as well.
Quicksand / Cradlesnakes
Finally, I would be remiss if I didn’t mention the essential deluxe reissue of Califone’s 2003 album Quicksand / Cradlesnakes. Everything experimental rock/folk band Califone does is great, not to mention Tim Rutili’s previous band Red Red Meat, but this particular album is one of their best and definitely contains some of their most standout songs. If Califone ever comes to your town, go see them. I’ve seen them four times now and each performance is as unique as it is captivating. This reissue also gives me hope that Dead Oceans will also reissue Roots & Crowns, my personal favorite from Califone’s catalog. Here’s hoping.
Garrett Karrberg is based in Minneapolis.
