New Jersey-based indie psych rock band Speed The Plough – comprised of John, Toni and Mike Baumgartner and Ed Seifert, joined by former STP bassist Dan Francia and drummer Ken Meyer – released their latest full length on December 8th. The album, titled …And Then, is comprised of ten tracks that dare to drag you into a soundscape that doesn’t altogether make sense in one grouping. From one track to the next, the group displays their musical prowess and keeps the listener on their toes with the variety of sounds they are able to create together.
Take “Crossing the Tizsa” for example. The lyrics are almost like a fairy tale or a beautiful children’s story, set over dark instrumentals that eventually lighten into a Renaissance-like tranquility. This makes sense, as it was found in a songbook of Hungarian folk songs. (John’s mom is the one who can be heard in the spoken word section, by the way. Props to her!) “Take Me” allows the album to take on a whole different persona, introducing itself with bass that would rival the best oughts’ pop/punk tracks. And while “Azimuth” has an unmistakable 70s vibe, perhaps driven by the keys that make up the melody, “The Bitter End” feels abrupt and intense in its disposition. By the time we reach fifth track “Marina”, we’re not sure what to expect, as Speed The Plough tends to switch up the sound on us from one track to the next. For example, “Marina” brings back that beautiful renaissance-meets-rock feel to it, almost as though it should be on an A/B Side with “Crossing the Tizsa”.
“By This River” is light as a feather, largely driven by simple and delicate piano chords. Its sound is slightly different from its predecessors as well, if not only for the fact that it is a cover originally done by Brian Eno. While we might expect “Why We Fall in Love” to be some sort of intense love ballad, it’s more of a quirky indie track with percussion that feels primal, and perhaps groups it back in that “far-off places, daring sword fights, magic spells” territory. (Guess that reference in the comments and you’ve got a new bets friend!) “The Bird Has Flown” is almost theatrical in its presence, notable for its robust piano chords and delicate guitar.
Last two tracks “Running On” and “Dark Continents” happen to have been originals from an earlier iteration of the band called The Trypes. These tracks hadn’t gotten the studio attention the band thought they needed to thrive, so these tracks happen to have a different, low-key, “vibing out” feel to them that really tends to invigorate as the last track fades out beautifully.
…And Then is available now. Keep up with Speed The Plough here.
Los Angeles-based duo Swimsuit Issue – comprised of Miles Garber and David Gagliardi – may have based their name from the fact that Garber’s initial introduction into the entertainment industry was as a relatively prominent model in the fashion world, but that’s not the initial takeaway from their art. In fact, as good looking as both guys are, their career has the ability to stand on its own based purely on their talent. It’s obvious to see why if you just listen to their debut single, a mid-tempo indie pop/rock track whose guitars give it edge while the vocals reside in more of a Kurt Cobain-meets-Sting ethereal sphere, replete with reverb.
The song itself is about addiction, the lyrics melancholic and sensitive, as one would expect. And though the duo has admitted to having a more somber tone to their music, we’re thrilled to hear what’s to come from their upcoming record.
Just last month, Massachusetts-based indie pop/punk rock four piece Kindling released a particularly impressive and instrumentally heavy 10-track album titled Hush. Though the intro to a lot of the tracks starts in a different soundscape, eventually the meat of most of the songs hits with multiple guitars that create an almost cacophonous ambiance around the chorus of vocals. It’s quite the experience, and while we certainly suggest showing off your dance moves while enjoying the album, we also kind of hope you have access to a starry night sky, dope lawn chairs, and string lights to enjoy “Rain”.
We got the chance to catch up with vocalists/guitarists Stephen Pierce and Gretchen Williams shortly after the release of Hush.
What was the first album or song you remember ever listening to, and who introduced it to you?
Stephen Pierce: I don’t know exactly the record, but my parents were always listening to a lot of British Invasion stuff — Yardbirds, The Animals, The Kinks.. My dad liked the Stones and my mom liked The Beatles. There’s in particular this one tape my dad had of The Yardbirds’ BBC sessions that is seared into my consciousness, right down to the hammy BBC announcer’s voice.
Gretchen Williams: When I was about seven or so, I had a camp counselor that had my troop perform the Shangri-Las‘ “Leader of the Pack” in a talent show. Naturally, I was assigned to be part of the motorcycle gang and made a construction paper leather jacket to wear. I really loved the sound and doomed-love-story subject matter as a kid, and played my cassette of the recording a lot at home.
What is the Kindling origin story?
Gretchen: In the winter of 2014, Stephen and I formed Kindling after he asked me to contribute to a few songs he’d written. Initially, we didn’t really have a sense of where we might be headed; we just wanted to write a bunch of catchy songs quickly. Our demo was just the two of us, and we subsequently self-recorded a 7″ before recruiting others to the band.
How would you say you’ve developed your sound and your relationship with each other since your first EP?
Stephen: I think Hush is definitely bigger and more ambitious than the previous stuff, which was probably bigger than the stuff that preceded that… Each recording we’re one step closer to being a fucking prog band or something. But seriously, the more ya work at anything, I guess the more comfortable it’ll feel, and I feel pretty comfortable these days with the band, from our process to our songs to how I communicate with my bandmates – communication hasn’t always been an easy thing for me. But, like: You figure out what works best for everyone, and try to do things that way.
Gretchen: Despite a lot of the lyrical content of Hush focusing on uncertainty, I think we’ve found a little more confidence on this record. We reached for a bigger, more complex sound and integrated some new instruments (mellotron and sitar appear on a few tracks throughout the album).
What is your writing process like? Do you start with a melody, start with concept, brain dump lyrics? Take us inside it all!
Stephen: I usually sit with a guitar on the couch and just, like, watch tv and if something good appears, I’ll hit mute on the tv and record it on my phone, then revisit it at the practice space, or sometimes maybe just, like, loop it and vibe it out. Lyrics come afterwards, usually I’ll demo the instrumental stuff with Andy, our drummer, and spend a lot of time listening to the instrumentals while, like, riding my bike or something. Then Gretchen and I will work on vocal phrasing and words. Or we’ll have ideas and throw them back and forth between each other, usually what we come up with is pretty similar.
How do you imagine people listening to this album?
Gretchen: Late at night when you can’t sleep; or on a long bus trip; or walking through the woods; or just trying to get through the day — basically any time you might feel a little bit wistful and restless.
Stephen: I like the thought of Hush playing annoyingly loud while quitting yer shitty job, or something. Tell off the boss in a giant spectacle with the assistance of Hush.
Who is your favorite superhero? Substantiate your claim.
Gretchen: The only comic I ever read growing up was Archie, so I guess my favorite superhero is Jughead? He always seemed pretty impervious to the stresses of modern life in Riverdale–a trait I admire.
Stephen: Spider-Man, because he was such a loser and I find that highly relatable.
What is your favorite word?
Gretchen: Probably a toss up between “somnambulance” and “goblin.”
Stephen: Mine is “Goblinambulance”
Perfection. Anything else you’d like to add?
Stephen: Thanks so much!
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Hush is available now. Keep up with Kindling here.
This weekend, Gainesville-based alternative rock/indie collective The Forum – comprised of Michael Higgins, Nick Wheeler, Jacob Farrell, and Alex Klausner – dropped a surprise 6 track EP into our laps, and we cannot tell you how thrilling it’s been to dig into it. Illuminate initiates its journey with the undeniably upbeat track “Father Hunger” – despite its quirky, almost existential, lyrics – that lures you charmingly right into mid-tempo track “My Chest Is Your Dance Floor”. The title itself is captivating, the song following the narrative of giving someone permission to, for lack of a better term, stomp all over you.
“Neurons” is led by an intricate and fun percussion section, the sound swirling into a relatively upbeat song with more of a veil over it, which can be found in the twinge of darkness in the vocals. By “Stop Singing”, we’re enveloped in bewitching guitar chords as a jazzy feel to the instrumentals appears and continues right into fifth track “Aftertaste”. In fact, there is something about the vocals that keep us playing this one on repeat, so it might take a minute for you guys to catch up as well, but last track “Blue Jay” is this intricately concocted layered track, beginning delicately and then tumbling into a cacophony of crashing symbols and passion. It’s presented as though the song begins as a timid, introvert of a specimen and slowly develops its ability to speak up and completely annihilate the environment around it.
Though his musical prowess spans years of experience in the Los Angeles music scene, Spencer Robinson’s latest indie/alternative folk project – Spencer Robinson and The Wolf Spiders – focuses on a darker sound. And they’re preparing to release a new eight track album on November 24th, so we sat down to listen to it so you can get a feel for what’s to come.
It’s a lot of darkness, but a lot of fun.
Steady percussion begins first track “Drink Gasoline, Spit Fire”, splintering into a 70s rock feel. Once Spencer’s vocals hit, the tone of the song becomes more mysterious than before, as he sings with a jaded attitude – it is essentially a Sons of Anarchy drinking song – that would suggest a true old soul might live “beneath the surface.” While “Killer on The Farm Tonight” might have a title that seems a little off-kilter, it can be a very real fear for people who live in rural areas. (Especially after viewing particularly scary movies.) Still, the lyrics allow it to be a little bit more of a fun song. “Bleed Me” gets pretty vulnerable, as Spencer sings of pulling poison out of his body, a process that can get intimate. Really, if we’re looking for a widely translatable approach, he’s singing about ridding himself of demons and negativity of the past.
But don’t allow yourself to get enveloped by talks of blood, as you’ll soon have to come up for air just to “Enter the Void”. An introspective track, lines like “Are you lost inside your head?” and “What’s it all about?” allow you the distinct pleasure of pondering those thoughts as the song slowly meanders along. And though “September” is now long gone, we don’t have a substantial answer for Spencer’s question as to where it actually went. He goes on to sing about darkness – the coming of shorter days, it seems – and the loss of time, which he spins into having a lack of his own faculties before an abrupt end as he takes his “last breath.” And you won’t be finding any warm fuzzies in “Take Me To The Killing Floor”, but you will find yourself intrigued with the details as the track unfolds. Seventh track “10 Years of Fire” lightens the entire album up instrumentally, replete with chimes. He’s taken ten years of transgressions and thrown them on a contrasting backdrop, while simultaneously allowing even the most ethereal sounds to spin you wildly out of control. He rounds it all out with “Teenage Supernova”, a track that feels slower, like it retrieved more inspiration from California surf rock than a grunge or folk scene. The guitars match that feel, and almost gives off a positive – certainly less-than-jaded – feel of confidence.
If only we could all be Teenage Supernovas…
Beneath The Surface is out November 24th via Rusty Knuckles. Keep up with Spencer Robinson and The Wolf Spiders here.
Polish alternative band Trupa Trupa – comprised of Grzegorz Kwiatkowski, Tomek Pawluczuk, Wojtek Juchniewicz, and Rafał Wojczal – released an eleven track collection titled Jolly New Songs at the end of October. Packed with intense attitude and reverb for miles, the album’s sound will keep you captivated as it trudges through first track “Against Breaking Heart of a Breaking Heart Beauty” until the last fourth, when it enters into an even darker soundscape and really thrashes into “Coffin”, which enters into the light, indie pop realm with its sound. By the end of it, you spiral into a feeling of falling, which is perfect because the third track is a frantic attention-getter that swirls into a dreamlike state-inducing trance track titled “Falling”. And while “Mist” is darker, led by percussion, the title track keeps a pleasant sound to the vocals, as though it’s staying on the polite end of the soundscape almost because of its title. That’s all well and good, until the song takes on an almost Tim Burton flare and spirals into a heavy instrumental cacophony that feels dangerous and inviting.
“Leave It All” is as melancholic in sound as the title would suggest, though the song itself leans more toward an off-kilter lounge band sound, though the theatrical nature of “Love Supreme” draws us into a Wizard Of Oz-meets-death march realm where Tim Burton’s antics feel slight and far away. “Never Forget” pulls us out of the darkness and plunges us into a dark alleyway, where we’re almost marching forward, decked out in combat boots and a leather jacket. “None of Us” reminds us of a dark and murky lullaby – perhaps for Satan’s children more so than anyone else – with guitar riffs that could swallow your ears whole. The tumultuous instrumentals in “Only Good Weather” remind us of the so-called reliability of the National Weather Service (ha!), replete with waning guitars and a swirling, psych rock bed of sound. And – if you ask us – Trupa Trupa did us a service making the crashing sounds of “To Me” the last track, as it, too, splinters into an uproar of crashing cymbals and intense rock vibes before leveling out and inducing a feeling of calm with its listeners.
Every emotion is palpable with Jolly New Songs. You just have to let it envelope you.
Jolly New Songs is out now. Keep up with Trupa Trupa here.
On December 1st, the debut full-length from Sunset Neon – the nostalgia pop music project from multi-genre musician and producer Bret Autrey – will be released. His intention with this project was to hone in on 80’s inspired pop sound, a far cry from his work as Blue Stahli. In honor of the release of his new lyric video for “You Are The Sun” – which makes us wish it were about to be summer instead of winter – we spent a few minutes with the artist to get the low down on his process and the eighties.
What is the first song or album you ever remember hearing, and who introduced it to you?
There’s two that stick out. Once was the small window of time that my mom had a record player and would put the soundtrack to Top Gun on. I’d get so amped up on stuff like Dangerzone, I’d just bounce around the entire living room. The other was visiting family on a farm in Oregon and I was running around in a Max Headroom mask. My cousin had just started driving, so she would drive me into town and play Front 242 extremely loud. I’ve been in love with drum machines, synths and samplers ever since.
Was there a moment that it struck you and you realized you were going to pursue music, or did it kind of slowly evolve?
This is really the only thing I know how to do. I’m just lucky enough that I can make a living doing it. The first recording I ever made was when I got ahold of a tape player and blank tape and recorded myself humming the theme to the A-Team. We had a piano in the house that was saved from being taken to the dump by some church. I would plink around and work out melodies on that beat up old thing. Later on I discovered programming music and sequencing chopped up one-shot samples in DOS in the glorious mono 8bit of Scream Tracker. After getting better sound quality in Impulse Tracker I started sampling that old piano, and loading in synth loops I sequenced on a Roland keyboard to warp and twist in weird ways. I absolutely lived for the times I could be messing with programming music in hexadecimal in a DOS tracker or chopping out atmospheres and sound FX recorded in from VHS movies. It’s what I lived for then, and what I have to do now.
Historically, you’ve been a rock musician. When you chose to go into this 80s music project, did you already have an idea for what you were doing or did it kind of develop organically?
With my main project, Blue Stahli, I genre-hop all the way from upbeat funky breakbeat stuff to purely electronic sound design to riff-heavy electronic rock. While doing all this genre-flailing, I would kick out a few nu disco-esque tracks or start leaning towards a more indie pop type of sound. Once the itch for this started lining up even more, it became clear that a lot of these tracks that didn’t really have a home before could all exist under a dedicated project for exploring all the more colorful lo-fi 80s influenced stuff. So I’d say it all reached a point where SunsetNeon *had* to exist.
You were quoted saying “I’m freakishly excited to create some weirdo VHS music.” Could you elaborate on what “weirdo VHS music” is, at least in your opinion?
Some of my favorite things are lost movies or straight to video fare on VHS. The memories of a room lit only by the small screen (in this case, I was watching everything on one of those small portable TV’s hooked up to a clunker of a VCR), and the feeling of the synth scores and lesser known songs that would accompany some of these movies just washed over me. I see the “weirdo VHS music” as SunsetNeonbeing part of the soundtrack to a strange forgotten VHS from 1986 who’s music you love so much you record it to cassette and listen to it until the tape snaps. You’ll hear bits of these songs warp and glitch, sometimes like you’re hearing the process of them being sampled from VHS to an old sampler while the power is flickering.
How was the writing/production process different this time around, creating this “weirdo VHS music?”
This was really all about going back to my roots with tracker music. So just destroying the audio and one shot synth sounds (some of which were made by stacking single cycle waveforms on top of each other and getting all wonky with the layers and filters) and exploring warping stuff with the effects you have to enter in hexadecimal and revel in the fact that all those little bits of information are coming together to form a beat that makes you want to move and evokes emotions. It’s a more stripped down approach, while somehow also being a bit more complicated in other ways.
Everything we’ve heard from your debut album feels like it could be used in a kitchy 80s “throwback” movie (a la Hot Rod) or a fun musical. If you could create anything with this music, what would it be and who would you collaborate with?
Oh hell yes, that is absolutely the intent. It *should* feel like a pure fun jolt of video haze from a guilty pleasure movie you’ve seen 87 times. I would love for this to show up in a movie or tv show (even something animated!) built on the same love for that glow. Stranger Things, Ready Player One, anything that is fully in love with this atmosphere. I have a feeling there are some astounding people who will be creating in this realm that we still have yet to see, and I can’t wait for all of it.
If you could be any character in an 80s movie, who would you choose and why?
A cross between Wolff from Spacehunter: Adventures in the Forbidden Zone for the way he always seemed to know what to do, and Fletch or Axel Foley for always having the perfect string of jokes to accompany getting out of situations in the most hilariously badass way possible.
What are you most looking forward to about this release?
I’m really just excited for this to be out there and connect with people. I do this because I adore it and try to create songs that have an atmosphere you can get lost in, so I hope that these songs serve their emotional purpose for someone out there whether they’re connecting with the more dance-oriented fun material, or the dreamy lo-fi love songs.
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Starlight is available for preorder now. Keep up with Sunset Neon here.
At the end of September, Austin-based indie/blues artist Jackie Venson released her dazzling five track Transcends EP. Starting it out with the upbeat track “Flying”, lines like “from the ashes something new grows” bring you into a more positive head space, more than adequately preparing you for the rest of the release. From second track “Fast” – which borders on 80s/early 90s synth rock with a Fefe Dobson-esque attitude to it – to smooth listening track “Mysterious” with its wider display of Venson’s range and exceptional use of ensemble vocals. “Fight” draws some more rasp from Venson’s voice, keeping an 80s sound to the instrumentals while singing about vibrational energy and – once again – looking forward to a positive existence and “the good fight.” Transcends closes out with its most completely rock track of them all – beginning with waning, rough guitar – the title track, which brings with it an edge to Venson’s voice that enhances the fact that not only did she come to play, she came to win.
Transcends is available now. Keep up with Jackie Venson here.
Michigan-based indie folk rock trio The Accidentals – made up of Katie Larson, Savanna Buist, and Michael Dause – are heading out on the road to celebrate their summer release, an incredible thirteen track album by the name of Odyssey. By now, most of us have had the chance to listen to the album in its entirety. (If you haven’t, here it is.) But their most recent offering is a music video for the title track, and we want to make sure you get your eyes on it.
“Odyssey” as a track begins slower, with a simple acoustic guitar and soulful lyrics keeping pace and leading you through an ethereal sound space even before the additional instrumentals hit the track. The video begins with the trio in what looks like a hang space in a basement, bathed in warm colors to match the warmth of the song. They’re gathered in a circle, enjoying what seems to be a small jam session. We also get to witness them play in shallow waters under a beautiful blue sky, as well as a little glimpse into their live performance life on stage. The video is beautifully captured, with softened colors and slow motion applied in just the right places. We’re deeply moved by the track, and incredibly happy with the video.
Odyssey is available now. Keep up with The Accidentals here.
