We are in the dog days and I hope you are all staying relatively calm.It’s been a relatively cold week in the detached basement, though that’s a descriptor you’d never use on Nashille snooper They just released their hyperactive debut album.Also reviewed this week: Canada weird heat wave, Marc Ribert’s Ceramic Dogs, Ringstromand Decius (Psychedelic house band featuring Fat White Family’s Lias Saoudi).
It was also a cold week for Notable Releases, with Andrew also reviewing five albums, including Palehound, J Hus and more.
However, as far as music news goes, it’s not cold at all, and like most weeks after National Day, we’re inundated with new albums/singles/reissues from Vanishing Twin, Yard Act, The Drums, Lush / Tour Announcements, Bryan Jonestown Massacre, Modern English, Grails, Church, and more. I also reviewed a couple of big outdoor concerts: The Smile and Noel Gallagher/Garbage.
Also: The country is back and I’m rounding up $240 for pudding.
Head below to see this week’s reviews.
Album of the Week #1: Snõõper – super sniff (third person)
The hyperactive debut of these Nashville mutant punks was a sugar blast
do you remember that episode The Simpsons Bart and Millhouse find a $20 bill, head to Kwik-E-Mart, order a squeeze made entirely of syrup, and move on to “Crazy Broadway-style?” That’s what Snõõper’s debut album sounds like look. Pure sugar addiction where you eat all the Halloween candy — mostly Pixie Stix — completely off the rails, having the best time of your life, and then crashing into a pile on the carpet 20 minutes later. Formed in Nashville during the COVID-19 lockdown by Connor Cummins (Spodee Boy) and visual/video artist Blair Tramel, Snõõper quickly grew from a home recording project to a full-fledged band, adding drummer Cam Sarrett, guitarist Matthew Campbell and bassist Happy Haugen. They’ve been trying to unleash pent-up, frenzied pandemic energy ever since. After Bandcamp self-released a few singles and built a reputation as a can’t-miss live band, Snõõper was bought by Third Man, who housed them in an actual recording studio, which didn’t slow them down at all; Just made their short-lived mutant punk sound even more powerful.
most played songs super sniff Frantically hovering around the minute mark, playing like a key-wound wind-up toy, chock-full of haunting choruses, hook riffs, and surprisingly subtle arrangements, spinning almost out of control before springing, They stop suddenly. They’re perfect little creations, more like mosquitoes than earworms, but just as appealing. It would be a 15-minute record if it wasn’t for the final track, “Running,” which slows the tempo down to just 160 bpm and slashes and beats in surf’s West Coast punk style (Dead Kennedy/Agent Orange tones). combustion. It’s also totally appropriate that they have a song about fruit flies, which, as you remember from biology class, have a very short lifespan. How long does Snõõper last? That remains to be seen, but until then they’re going all out.
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Album of the Week #2: Weird Heat – world rhythm (mood cabin)
A stunning fifth album from the Victorian, BC electronic duo that blends beats and atmosphere with a stunning collaboration with Cindy Lee
Thomas Di Ninno and Steven Lind have been making dance music for over a decade, fusing disparate but compatible elements into a unique style. They’re always on the softer side, usually setting the tempo to “funky” and the temperature to chill.no cold wave Still: there’s a prominent post-punk element to what they’re doing, which makes things a little edgy. Likewise, while there are nods to various downtempo genres of the ’90s, FHW avoids making what I would call Euro Hotel Lounge music. world rhythm It’s their fifth album, their first in three years, and their most relaxed to date.If 2020 destroy the earth It’s a midnight drive through a rapidly gentrifying industrial city, an escape from the urban wasteland to the tropics before sunrise. (The script font embossed on the album cover lets you know before you hit play.) The saxophones slide alongside warm synth basslines and snappy percussion, while scenes are articulated through well-placed samples and sharp, well-thought-out riffs. The production to set. Most notable of these is their collaboration with Cindy Lee (Patrick Flegel, ex-Women) on “In a Moment Heaven,” an inspired, ethereal pop song full of Out of Melancholy Longing, it sounds a bit like one of the late left-field fluke hits. – 90s (White Town, Primitive Radio Gods). Its side tracks “The Time Has Come” and “Endless” are also excellent, as are the four songs at the back end of the album, but “In a Momentdivine” is so good that the obvious response was “We need a whole album.” Freak Heat Waves and Cindy Lee will be touring together this summer, so maybe that’s not out of the question.
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Ceramic Dog by Marc Ribot – connect (German sausage)
Marc Ribot, Shahzad Ismaily and Ches Smith’s fifth album is lyrically and musically hot
Marc Ribot has been a sought-after guitarist for over 40 years since his time at The Lounge Lizards, playing with just about everyone, including Tom Waits, Elvis Costello, John Zorn, Robert Plant and Alison Krauss, Marianne Faithfull, Joe Henry, T-Bone Burnett, and loads more.libert alone most Closely related to jazz, but has the Downtown No Wave scene in his DNA. With Ceramic Dog, a trio of drummer Ches Smith and polymath Shahzad Ismaily, he passes bluesy, raucous indie rock while using it as a pulpit for his proud left-wing sociopolitical convictions. (Check out the amazing 2018 solo albums song of resistance.) connect Porcelain Dogs is the fifth studio album, and Ribot, Ismaily and Smith sound especially enthusiastic, both lyrically and musically. Incendiary songs like “Subsidiary” and “Connection” don’t sound like the work of a 70-year-old, pitting the likes of No Wave compatriot Jon Spencer for money . Best example: A dismemberment of the Declaration of Independence, “Soldiers in Love’s Army” is infuriating, but also hopeful, and above all, entertaining. When Ribot unleashes a falsetto chorus followed by an enthusiastic “weoowwwww!” – with three dogs playing wildly – it’s hard not to smile. The same goes for “Ecstasy,” the album’s biggest hit, featuring backing vocals from organist Anthony Coleman and Syd Straw. nearly an hour long, connect Might benefit from some pruning, but on the longer tracks — “Order of Protection” and “Swan” — the band is really cooking, and that’s what many Ribot fans come here for, when they’re clearly enjoying themselves. What right do we have to say “let’s end it” like they are here.
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Lindstrøm – Everyone else is a stranger (Town Ultrasound)
The Norwegian space disco king floats in familiar but confident territory on his seventh album
After entering the surrounding galaxy in 2019 On a sunny day I can see you forever, Hans-Peter Lindstrøm returns confidently to the cosmic disco track with his seventh album. everyone else is a strangercopied from the original title of John Cassavetes’ 1984 film love flow (A good name for a Lindstrøm album, too, actually), with four lengthy riffs that, while not breaking the boundaries, still deliver what you want from the Norwegian producer: four Floor beats, pulsating synth basslines, warm melodies, “pew pew” sound effects and lots of whirling vibes for club regulars. There are also some playful details, like the chorus sample on the title track that coexists with some R2-D2-type noise, and the subtle strings that color the background of “Nightsiwm.” (Although designed for the dance floor, this is clearly also a headphone album.) The highlight is opener “Syrene,” which you might think of as The Strokes’ “You Only Live Once” before it soars into the stratosphere. ” cover. everyone else is a stranger It might not be the starting point for Lindstrøm newbies, but fans will find a lot to love in these familiar, reassuring rhythms.
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DECIUS – DECIUS TRAX EP II (self-published)
Acid house band starring Fat White Family’s Lias Saoudi return with second sweaty EP of the year
Fat White Family seems to be on a long hiatus, but frontman Lias Saoudi is still busy with other projects, currently including DECIUS, the ’90s psychedelic group he formed with brothers Liam and Luke May (founders of Trashmouth Records) and Warmduscher’s Quinn Whalley. House style band. They’ve been around for almost a decade, but have really ramped up their activities over the past few years, culminating in a debut album in November 2022 and two EPs this year.these two Decius Trax The EP is Bandcamp-only, and the band says it’s “too hot for Spotify”.exist EP IIThe case may be trying to avoid “The Heat” on a track like “Dearly Be Lovers,” which uses the intro to Prince’s “Let’s Go Crazy” nicely (probably not cleared). These three tracks (plus a dub version of “Acid 4 U”) are for the serious rapper, and are filled with piercing acid 303s, electronic claps, cowbells, and soulful vocal hooks that almost ooze hours of production. The smell of sweat, which is undoubtedly Saoudi’s favorite state, clothes may be optional as usual.
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