by Meredith Schneider | Nov 9, 2017 | wolf tracks
Everyone’s future favorite goth pop queen So Below is back with another stunner that we think the rest of the world deserves to peek. From the very first glittering stanza we’re hooked, but immensely drawn in by first line “speak in greys.” It sets the tone for a track that feels light and airy, but is actually a bittersweet track about (warranted) impatience and loss in love. That first line, however, already provides a moment for the listener to get introspective about how nothing in this life is ever black and white. Grey is a constant color in which we live, and reveling in its uncertainty is a beautiful thing. So Below has done what she can to capture that enigmatic and wondrous feeling for us.
Keep up with So Below here.
by Meredith Schneider | Nov 9, 2017 | wolf tracks
New York by way of Dallas soul/folk songstress Sterling Rhyne recently dropped her new track “Remedy”, which serves as a source of uplifting wisdom for women (and people, really), but also for the ears. The alluring blend of rasp and sweet effortlessness in her vocals really does encourage her listener to find the “joy” around them.
In true cheesy fashion, we are going to go ahead and tell you this song is a “Remedy” for a bad day. And the right way to get through the rest of your week.
Keep up with Sterling Rhyne here.
by Meredith Schneider | Nov 8, 2017 | wolf tracks
In the lead up to the release of their album bad Radio, San Francisco based rock outfit Down and Outlaws – comprised of Peter Danzig, Kyle Luck, Chris Danzig, and Jon Carr – have unleashed a new psychedelic single titled “Imposter” on us. As the first cords hit, the listener becomes enveloped in a thin, silky layer of softly swirling nostalgia. The guitars wane like sepia toned photos are the closest we’ve got to color, back during yet another time when facial hair, middle parted hair, and bell bottoms were popular. (They’re still a thing now, right? No?) Its mellow tone and vocal reverb will make you want to play it on repeat for hours.
So go ahead.
Keep up with the band here.
by Meredith Schneider | Nov 8, 2017 | wolf tracks
Los Angeles based pop musician Luna Shadows just released new reverb-filled, trance-like track “Youth”, and we’re planning to add it to every holiday playlist and beyond. Singing with her signature featherweight – almost celestial – vocals, the track has been produced in a very layered way, that almost feels inspired by an Owl City track. One thing is certain: This lady has taken the reigns with her art and really begun to carve a name for herself in pop music. We can’t wait to see what she comes up with next!
Keep up with Luna Shadows here.
by Meredith Schneider | Nov 8, 2017 | wolf tracks
Self-proclaimed “dancy dream pop” New York-based quartet Fovea – comprised of Steve Shaw (bass, guitar, vocals), Max Weigel (guitar, vocals, keys, electronics), Jake Denicola (drums, vids, foley), and Halley Furlong-Mitchell (vocals, keys, violin) – just dropped one of the most tantalizing tracks we have ever set ears on. It begins in an ethereal sound space, and you feel like you’re in line for Space Mountain at Disneyland as the glittering robotic sounds slow down and make way for even more robotic vocals. What is perhaps so interesting about this track is that the vocals are lush, vibrant, and warm in their delivery, directly contrasting with the idea of detachment that often comes with the sound effects that have been poured into the track. As they repeat “How we gonna function?” we ask ourselves the same thing, allowing our minds to let loose under the cacophony of sound that splinters the track apart at the end.
Keep up with Fovea here.
by Meredith Schneider | Nov 8, 2017 | wolf tracks
While the Barcelona-based psychedelic beach pop quartet The Zephyr Bones – comprised of Brian (guitar, vocals), Jossip (guitar, vocals, synth), Carlitos (bass), and Marc (drums) – was busy releasing singles from their debut album Secret Place, we clearly had our heads up our asses. But thankfully, we got a little taste of what’s to come just days ahead of its November 10th release. Packed to the brim with sparkling, nostalgic charm, we’re sure any number of the ten tracks on Secret Place will be on your permanent “good mood” playlist.
First track “Hurricanes” establishes that lazy, waning guitar sound we’ve come to admire in beach wave music. The vocals are layered, but almost fragile in the way they are delivered. That upbeat momentum continues into “Penny’s Week”, with its mesmerizing guitar riffs and and slightly-punk feel. “Juglar Child on the Carousel” might have one of the most odd titles we have heard in a while, but the track has a not-so-off-the-beaten-path 80’s synth wave aspect to it, which absolutely makes it the best song to premiere as the first single from the collection. It maintains a head-bobbing beat that revels in line with Bleachers and Grimes, almost catapulting you into fourth track “Las Olas”, which takes a contrasting acoustic path.
It’s with “I’ve Lost My Dinosaur” that an almost melancholic feeling overtakes the album. The song has this smooth, almost sensual, feel to the instrumentals, but the vocals are almost sad. That is, until mid-track when the tempo picks up and feels more frantic than anything for a stretch of time before heading back into its regularly maintained tempo-range. The title track begins with quirky, staccato notes that pull you into another sound space completely, as you experience the instruments almost fight for attention atop a bed of soft echoes. “Black Lips” exudes a little more edge in the beginning – Or is that the title talking? – but its overall feel is very “50s sock hop slow song” and we’re totally on board with that.
“September” slows the entire album down exponentially, and is one of those songs that really makes you appreciate the guitar as an instrument. We can imagine almost anyone sitting back in their chair, just reveling in the sounds that come from the speakers. (We suggest vinyl for this track to be totally nestled in the warmth of the moment.) “Telephone” is – without a doubt – a toe-tapper that eventually encapsulates you in fizzy, otherworldly bits of synth. For reasons unbeknownst to us, this is the one we have been playing on repeat. (Try to figure that one out for us, ok?) The Zephyr Bones have chosen to round everything out with tenth track “The Arrow of Our Youth”, which hilariously feels a little less throwback – despite its clear nods to the 80s and 90s – than its predecessors. Once again, the instrumentals take center stage and give you a feeling of being carried away.
Before the album abruptly stops and you cry a bit because you just didn’t want it to end. (Just hit “repeat all.” We get it.)
Secret Place is out November 10th and is available for preorder now. Keep up with the band here.
by Meredith Schneider | Nov 7, 2017 | wolf tracks
London-raised multi-instrumentalist and electro alt-pop extraordinaire Harlequiin (Rory Simmons) has set his sights on the industry with flare, releasing his Something To Believe In EP recently, a follow-up to earlier 2017’s Clock That’s Stopped. Although he’s no stranger to music – he has been both a touring and studio musician with acts like the 1975, Paolo Nutini, Labyrinth, and more – it wasn’t until Clock That’s Stopped that he was releasing music his own music on his own terms, and we’ve been impressed with his chops ever since. Beginning with the smooth sounds of the title track – which later reveals early 2000’s quirks interwoven into its sound -, Harlequiin establishes his sound as one of all-encapsulating calm teetering on the edge of a sea of frenetic energy. This energy can be found audibly in every song, most notably toward the end of second track “Dream Deep Bloodlines” and throughout the seductive lyrics and vocals in “Kloro”. Last track “Heal Me” has a mainstream pop draw to the initial beat, layering in these beautiful, off-kilter sound effects that continue in the frenetic vein as its predecessors.
Not a single track on this EP is even remotely like the one before it, and somehow Harlequiin has found a way to truly create a signature, driving sound that aims to get your hips moving.
Every. Single. Time.
Something To Believe In is out now. Keep up with Harlequiin here.
by Meredith Schneider | Nov 7, 2017 | wolf tracks
If you’ve got a pension for bands who come up with long, educated album and song titles and intricate lyrics that are both highly relatable and super specific to their own lives at the same time, then you’ll want to look no further than Boston-based psych/indie rock project Bad History Month‘s new album Dead and Loving It: An Introductory Exploration of Pessimysticism. The album itself was created out of a moment of inspiration when brainchild Sean Bean – who “Wrote the songs, played whatever’s not noted otherwise, pissed and moaned mercilessly, ended up doing some editing and arranging and having a lot of fun eventually.” – witnessed Dust From 1000 Years perform “Black Rot” in 2013 during a time when he was reading War and Peace. Because of this, a sense of triviality is sprinkled over the entire album, as we get a peek into Bean’s existential ponderings.
We begin our journey with a track called “The Church of Nothing Matters”, which is an instrumental cacophony of sorts that really starts out quite beautifully and then launches into an eery few stanzas of crashing cymbals and off-key, waling guitars. It isn’t until 2:04 that we get vocals, monotone and honest as lines like “nothing matters” and “I don’t go to church” jump out from the folds. While “Gazing At My Navel” certainly doesn’t evoke that exact feeling for its listeners, it is a calming track with quirky chords that don’t seem to want to fit into the track gently layered in every once in a while. The song picks up, and around 4:12 is when the vocals hit the track. “A Small Life” seems to play with dissonance, almost making you beg for the song to come forth. Which it does, but it’s closer to the 2 minute mark before jarring, sung/spoken vocals are inserted into the track.
“The Nonexistent Distance” is when we see vocals pick up at a more acceptable rate (Sorry, guys, we’re lyrics people!) about twenty seconds in, Bean asking simplistic, almost rhetorical, questions that trigger a jumping off point for a thought process in the listener. By the time you get to “The Imaginary Tone”, the entire album has mellowed out substantially and it seems as though each syllable comes out for this track as practices and defined as possible. It is here at we realize the precision with which this release was made, though not the first time the idea has occurred to us. “Being Nothing” certainly calls into question our existence, as it layers together and he quietly repeats “you are nothing.” The song speeds up as he echoes the same sentiment we’ve all been feeling as of late in the lyrics “I’m tired of wasting all my time talking the same shit to myself over and over.”
“A Warm Recollection” is adorable in its own way, discussing the ways that love is so intimate when you’re familiar and beautiful to one another without putting on a face necessarily. The instrumentals suggest a slight eeriness, but it’s beautiful the way he pairs simplistic ideas of love with layers of sound, almost “fumbling” in places as he expresses in the track. What we glean from it is that this is raw, this is real. And is that not what Bean meant for us, as we head into final track “A Platitude And A Final Understanding”? Slow, practiced, over ten minutes of instrumentals paired with bursts of narrative in which we witness Bean expressing the sentiment “I’m lucky” repeatedly. But he’s not wrong, and we’re all lucky in a way. Because our lives have led us to a space where we can share this music, – relatable or not in our current situation – and bond over the eery beauty that has been created in a world that is slowly reaching a spiritual awakening.
Dead and Loving It: An Introductory Exploration of Pessimysticism might be the next step in that collective journey.
DEAD AND LOVING IT TOUR
Nov 7 Burlington VT, SEABA, 404 Pine St
Nov 8 Cambridge, Elks Lodge w/ Pile, Ovlov
Nov 9 Portland ME Apahodion Theater
Nov 10 Hamden CT, Counterweight Brewery, 23 Raccio Park Rd. w/Stevia, Dave Go
Nov 11 Brooklyn, Alphaville (18+), 140 Wilson Ave
Nov 12 Jersey, New Brunswick, The Grand Exchange
Nov 13 Philly, Kung Fu Necktie w/Soft Fangs, Left and Right
MIDWEST, locations tentative
Nov 25 Pittsburgh tba
Nov 26 Lexington/Indy/Bloomington ? somewhere betwn pitts n nash, get in touch…
Nov 27 Nashville tba
Nov 28 St. Louis, Foam Coffee and Beer, 3359 S Jefferson Ave
Nov 29 Milwaukee, Cactus Club
Nov 30 Madison, Williamson Magnetic, 1019 Williamson St
Dec 1 Chicago, Landland w/Spencer Radcliffe, Date Stuff
Dec 2 Kalamazoo, Rupert’s Brewhouse, 773 W Michigan Ave
Dec 3 Ann Arbor MI, The Blue House, 712 E Kingsley St,
Dec 4 Detroit/Windsor?
Dec 5 Toronto, The Burdock
Dec 6 Montreal, Quai des Brumes, 4481 Saint-Denis
Dec 7 Burlington, The Monkey House
Dec 8 Woodstock, 51 Rock City Rd
Dec 9 NYC Market Hotel w/Pile
and many more …
Dead and Loving it: AN Introductory Exploration of Pessimysticism is out now.
by Meredith Schneider | Nov 7, 2017 | snapshot
On Friday, November 3rd, PlaylistPlay and Fine Dining Productions put on a show for the ages. The Rino in Kansas City was graced by the presence of Walker Lukens, with support from local acts Momma’s Boy and Westside Royal. Peep some photos below.
Keep up with Walker Lukens here.
