January 2021 – Page 2 – 7th Level Music

Review: Shame – Drunk Tank Pink

What do you do when you spend a good chunk of your young adult life as a touring rock band, build your identity around said band and said touring, and then have all of that yanked away from you by a pandemic?

If you’re British rockers Shame, you look inward, ask yourselves “What the hell were we thinking? We’re more than…whatever we were during nonstop tours and parties.”, and refocus on how they (and the rest of us) were going to deal with reality in 2020 and beyond. You also write and record an outstanding record like Drunk Tank Pink.

Named after a color used in jail cells to calm, you guessed it, drunks, Drunk Tank Pink has Shame taking their angry, bratty punk sounds down multiple avenues that include post-punk influences like Talking Heads and pop icons like Elton John.

“Alphabet” starts off with snappy drums and singer Charlie Steen telling us flat-out “What you see is what you get.” He and his mates are through with perceived notions and crafted images. They’re just as pissed and antsy as the rest of us, and Sean Coyle-Smith‘s guitar certainly amplifies that notion. “It just goes on,” Steen sings on “Nigel Hitter” – a song about repetition and how life can and will continue whether you want it to or not. “Born in Luton” has Steen raging about feeling trapped alone in his own home (“There’s never anyone in this house!”). The song dissolves into a slow burn of boiling anger at a world that botched its collective response to the pandemic and thus left millions feeling like him.

“I should just go back to sleep…In my room, in my womb, is the only place I find peace,” Steen sings on “March Day.” It’s a rather plucky song about depression, with Steen poking fun at himself and realizing that self-medicating his way through the pandemic wasn’t a good idea. “Water in the Well” has a deceptively wicked bass line from Josh Finerty and some fun horror movie imagery and great percussion from Charlie Forbes that runs around the room like a cackling gremlin.

“I live deep in myself, just like everyone else!” Steen yells on the wild “Snow Day” – a barrage of punk and prog fury that has great, sly lyrics like, “I know what I need, I just haven’t got it yet.” Finerty’s bass is at the front of “Human for a Minute,” which would be a great name for a Gary Numan song but sounds more like a slightly heavy Edwyn Collins track with its groovy swagger and lyrics about finding a new identity with a new lover (“I never felt human before you arrived.”).

“Great Dog” builds and builds to wild, mosh pit-filling riffs and then plunges off a cliff at the end to leave you breathless. “6/1” has Steen proclaiming, “I pray to no God! I am God!” He’s determined to be in control of his own destiny / fate / life, even more so as he watches so much of the world tear itself apart over petty things while the rich get richer. Coyle-Smith and Eddie Green‘s guitars on “Harsh Degrees” come at you from so many different angles it’s like you’re being attacked by a a dozen Shaolin monks. “I need a solution, I need a new resolution and it’s not even the end of year,” Steen lazily sings on the closer, “Station Wagon.” He’s looking for something, anything, to turn a lame year into something worthwhile. We were all doing that in 2020 and still are not even a full month into 2021. “Look up there. There’s something in that cloud. We’ve seen it before,” Steen says. “Won’t someone please bring me that cloud?”

Drunk Tank Pink comes to us in 2021 to remind us that, yes, 2020 was one of the worst years ever (“No one said this was going to be easy,” Steen says on the final track.), but, you made it here if you were lucky. You survived. You have the moment, the moment all of us have had and ever will have, to move forward and emerge stronger.

You can come out of the drunk tank with a new perspective. It’s okay to acknowledge what you suffered. There’s no shame in that. This album reminds you to put that rage down after you’ve acknowledged it, to learn from it, and to keep moving ahead.

Keep your mind open.

[It would be a shame if you didn’t subscribe.]

[Thanks to Jacob at Pitch Perfect PR.]

Miss Grit unleashes heavy title track from upcoming album – “Impostor.”

Miss Grit, moniker of Korean-American musician Margaret Sohn, releases the title track from her forthcoming Impostor EP, out February 5th. It follows the “addictive” (Consequence of Sound) lead single “Dark Side Of The Party.” Throughout Impostor, Sohn explores the titular “impostor syndrome” that so often characterizes the insecurities of the early 20s. This is clear in EP closer “Impostor”: “They’re clapping awfully loud // For no tribulations or trials // Your reward’s // Faking worth // You’re no star // Impostor.” In Sohn’s words, “‘Impostor’ is the shredder I put all of the nagging voices in my head through.” The track bursts with fuzzy chords and bright keys, and when it hits its climax, Sohn’s vocals fade into a fury of heavy, eruptive guitar. Subsequently, there’s a stretch of bliss, Sohn’s voice floating over atmospheric keyboard and acoustic guitar: “Let ‘em smile // Let me smile.”

Listen to Miss Grit’s “Impostor”

Sohn makes relatable songs that masterfully dissect the feeling of self-doubt. Her songs can drastically shift from delicate to explosive as they show her technical prowess as a guitarist and melodist, and her evocative lyricism. On the heels of her Talk Talk EP, a “truly awe-inspiring first work” (NME), Impostor is a six song collection that’s more cathartic, resolute, and fully documents the array of talents she brings as a multi-instrumentalist, singer, and producer.

Impostor addresses her life-long navigation through the racial impostor syndrome she experienced as a half-Korean girl “trying to fit into the white space” of the Michigan suburbs where she grew up. Not even a move to New York City, where she studied music technology at NYU and began to dream of creating effects pedals for a living, could ease her internal conflict. Part of that uneasiness for Sohn was her initial success with Talk Talk and the feeling “she was someone who was impersonating a musician.” Her solution was producing the EP by herself at Brooklyn’s Virtue and Vice Studios so that she had complete creative control.

“I’ve gone my whole life feeling really uncomfortable defining myself,” Sohn says. “I realized that a lot of the time, I’m more comfortable with other people defining me and making up their mind about who I’m supposed to be.” Writing this EP helped her understand that futile pattern. Miss Grit is a project that allows Sohn to break through self-bias, creating a version of herself that doesn’t need to be limited. Expressing herself through her powerful, confident music while still being vulnerable about her insecurities is a dynamic that characterizes her work, with all of its pushes and pulls of emotion. Ultimately, Sohn says, the Impostor EP is about feeling self-doubt, working through it with music, and letting it all subside.

Listen to “Dark Side Of The Party”

Pre-save Impostor EP

Keep your mind open.

[Don’t forget to subscribe.]

[Thanks to Jessica and Jim at Pitch Perfect PR.]

Brijean take us to the “Ocean” with single from new album due February 26th.

Brijean – the Oakland-based duo of Brijean Murphy and Doug Stuart – shares the new single/video, “Ocean,” from their forthcoming album, Feelings, out February 26th on Ghostly International. It follows the single “Day Dreaming,” “a full-on swoon, a dazed, lovestruck reverie that captures that magical feeling of giving yourself over to someone — or something — new” (Stereogum). Murphy’s vocals on “Ocean” are reminiscent of Astrud Gilberto’s airy croon, floating atop a brushed drum pattern, sparkling Rhodes lines, and softly funky woodblock bops. “Ocean” stands out by leaning back for momentary sways of blissful introspection.

“‘Ocean’ reflects on uncertainty while maintaining curiosity,” says Brijean. “Written as an inquiry into self-reflection, the dimensions of love for another person and humanity’s capacity for health. Around the time we wrote the song, we were listening to a lot of Jobim and wanted to channel some of the serenity his music gives us.“

For the “Ocean” video, “Various methods of video feedback and modular video synthesis were utilized to manipulate the footage captured by Brijean and Doug,” remarks director flatspot ___•. “We decided on a black and white treatment of the footage, contrasting with selective coloring and unusually cropping of the clips to evoke a dreamlike sequence, bringing the ocean to the desert.”
Watch “Ocean” Video

Murphy – one of indie’s most in-demand percussionists (Poolside, Toro Y Moi, U.S. Girls) – and Stuart, who share backgrounds in jazz, Latin and soul music and were both fixtures in Oakland’s diverse music scene, began collaborating in 2018. Following the duo’s first sessions, which resulted in the mini-album Walkie Talkie (released in 2019 on Native Cat Recordings), Brijean continued collaborating in Oakland, inviting friends Chaz Bear, Tony Peppers, and Hamir Atwal, who all would end up contributing to the album. “We improvised on different feels for hours,” says Murphy. “Nothing quite developed at first but we had seeds. We re-opened the sessions a couple months later, after returning from tours, and spent a month developing the songs in a little 400 square foot cottage.”

The leap from 2019’s Walkie Talkie to Feelings is marked by a notable expanse in range and energy. Brijean’s signature sound — a golden-hued dream pop tropicalia of dazzling beats and honeyed vocals — elevates with the addition of live drummers, strings, and synths. The album also finds Murphy fully trusting in her strengths, not just as a percussionist, but as a songwriter and collaborator. “Valuing myself as elemental instead of an ‘aux’ percussionist, and the undoubted support and talents of Doug, encouraged me to both make this project and collaborate with many different people.”

Brijean wants you to move, physically, mentally, dimensionally; this is dance music for the mind, body, and soul. With Feelings, they’ve manifested a gentle collective space for respite, for self-reflection, for self-care, for uninhibited imagination and new possibilities. The album cultivates a specific vibe, a softness Murphy has come to call “romancing the psyche.” In nebulous and verdant worlds of hazy melodies, feathery hooks, and percussive details, Feelings simply want us to feel alive. The songs radiate in wonderful abandon and with a sense of devotion to the self.
Watch “Ocean” Video

Watch “Day Dreaming” Video

Pre-order Feelings

Keep your mind open.

[I’ll have fuzzy feelings if you subscribe.]

[Thanks to Patrick at Pitch Perfect PR.]

Blanck Mass’ new album, “In Ferneaux,” due February 26th.

Blanck Mass – the project of musician Benjamin John Power – announces his new album, In Ferneaux, out February 26th on Sacred Bones, and shares “Starstuff,” a single edit from the album. It’s the follow-up to 2019’s Animated Violence Mild, which “channels the horrors of the surveillance state and the creeping dread of everyday life into the most aggressive music of [Power’s] career” (Pitchfork). In turn, In Ferneaux explores pain in motion, building audio-spatial chambers of experience and memory.

Using an archive of field recordings from a decade of global travels, isolation gave Blanck Mass an opportunity to make connections in a moment when being together is impossible. The record is divided into two long-form journeys that gather the memories of being with now-distant others through the composition of a nostalgic travelogue. The journeys are haunted with the vestiges of voices, places, and sensations. These scenes alternate with the building up and releasing of great aural tension, intensities that emerge from the trauma of a personal grieving process which has perhaps embraced its rage moment.

An encounter with a prophetic figure on the streets of San Francisco presented the question of “how to handle the misery on the way to the blessing.” This is the quandary of the impasse we now all find ourselves in, trapped in our little caves, grappling with the unease of the self at rest – without movement, without the consumerist agenda of “new experiences.” The possibility of growth, always defined by our connections with others, held in limbo. Sartre said that “Hell is other people,” but perhaps this is the Inferno of the present: the space of sitting with the self.

A blessing is often thought of as a future reward, above and beyond the material plane. With In Ferneaux, Blanck Mass wrangles the immanent materials of the here-and-now to build a sense of transcendence. Here, the uncanny angelic hymn sits comfortably beside the dirge. The misery and blessing are one.
Stream “Starstuff” (Single Edit):
https://youtu.be/gF8U-dU2VWw

Pre-order In Ferneaux:
http://sacredbonesrecords.com/products/sbr267-blanck-mass-in-ferneaux

In Ferneaux Tracklist:
1. Phase I
2. Phase II

Keep your mind open.

[Why not subscribe while you’re here?]

[Thanks to Patrick at Pitch Perfect PR.]

Review: LADYMONIX – Club Nowhere

Back in October, when we were in full COVID-19 doldrums, wondering how we were going to safely hand out Halloween candy and being baffled by everything happening (or not) in Washington D.C., LADYMONIX released Club Nowhere – a four-track EP that is made to make you move and forget your troubles. Turns out we still need this EP three months later…Boy, do we ever.

The opening title track is a house music dream, bringing to mind warm night clubs in European towns with its lovely, piping synths and thick bass. It grabs your attention, and you’re thankful for the pick-me-up. “Mood” is a lush track almost in the “chill vibe” category, but with enough dance beats to keep you bopping on your way and from getting a gin and tonic.

On the B-side, “Gonna Let” is even more hypnotic. It curls around you like a happy cat and will have you creating a dance club in your kitchen, living room, bedroom, or driveway. LADYMONIX’s sampling (and the chopped-up restructuring of a single vocal sample) is top-notch…as is that killer bass groove. “Movin’ On” encourages you to leave the past, the drama, the anger, and anything else keeping you down behind…and to dance your way out of the MF’ing room.

You can’t help but be happy listening to this EP, which is a tremendous blessing in these crazy times.

Keep your mind open.

[Move on over to the subscription box before you go.]

Review: Too Free – Love in High Demand

Hailing from Washington D.C., Too Free (Awad Bilal, Carson Cox, and Don Godwin) got together to make a record that blended multiple genres (R&B, electro, house, synthwave) and to get people to move and love themselves and each other. They also decided to force nothing about the album. The record, like their friendship and collaboration, would naturally emerge and be a full team effort. The result, Love in High Demand, sounds like they’ve been making albums for years instead of it being a debut.

Opening track “Gold” blends Tears for Fears synths with nearly industrial / goth bass and beats while Bilal sings to his crush that he could be his one and only if his lover would accept not only Bilal but his own true nature. “Elastic” has Bilal putting his foot down, saying, “Boy, I’m not a clown.” and declaring he won’t wait all night (let alone his whole life) for his lover to get his head straight. Cox and Godwin’s beats on it are sharp as tacks, and the guest guitar of G.L. Jaguar of Priests is a nice touch.

“Touch Upon Touch” is a sultry track with Bilal’s vocals weaving a sexy tale as his bandmates almost recreate an Art of Noise sound. The beats on “ATM” are nothing short of outstanding. Bilal’s vocals almost sound like they’ve wandered in from another song, and it works. It works very well, making you want to dance and yet stand still at the same time so you can just absorb the whole thing. “X2” races with near-punk speed and layers Bilal’s vocals over each other to point where you’re not sure which set of lyrics is the lead one. It’s a cool effect.

His vocals on “The Void” echo back and forth with gospel-style passion and trip-hop styling before the album moves onto the longest track on the album, “Breathing Underwater” (at just over five minutes). Godwin’s simple, groovy bass line roots the song and the electro beats and Bilal’s sampled breathy sighs provide the rest of the rhythm. Bilal sings about touching “all the right stuff” and letting himself drown in ecstasy.

On “Wanna Let Me Know,” Bilal delivers a smoky performance as he encourages his lover that he’s ready to his next Big Thing. It’s a short R&B / synth appetizer for the closer, “No Fun” – which is actually a lot of fun. “…change your life, make up your mind,” Bilal sings. His lyrics and Cox and Godwin’s make-out dance music beats encourage all of us to “go for broke” and pursue the love we want and deserve. You can’t ask for a much better message to go out on than that.

Love is indeed in high demand nowadays. Too Free’s debut album not only acknowledges this, but gives us the (loving) shove we need to go after it – on the dance floor, across the street, through a webcam, or anywhere else.

Keep your mind open.

[Music news and reviews are in high demand, so subscribe and get your fill.]

Review: Aaron Frazer – Introducing…

Aaron Frazer‘s debut album, Introducing…, sounds like it’s played by cats who casually walk into a restaurant where they sometimes have jazz or soul bands play on Friday nights, but are playing on a rare Wednesday evening when they have the good chicken pot pie special, and then are so good that your pot pie becomes cold because you forget to eat it due to being wowed by them.

Introducing… is a sharp R&B / soul record, produced by Dan Auerbach of The Black Keys no less, and Frazer’s first solo record. He’s one of The Indications, as in Durand Jones and The Indications, and is known for his falsetto voice, drum chops, and all-around love of soul, love songs, and grooves.

Opening track, “You Don’t Wanna Be My Baby,” with its horn section back-up and lead bass, let you know right away that you’re in for a treat. Frazer’s voice comes out of your speakers like warm maple syrup. “If I Got It (Your Love Brought It),” inspired by a Teamsters slogan, has a groove you can’t escape – nor do you want to do so.

Fuzzy guitars join the party on “Can’t Leave It Alone” as Frazer delivers a verbal smackdown on his lover for treating him bad, yet he knows he can’t walk away from a hot thing. “Bad News” would make Marvin Gaye proud with its bad-ass 1970s groove, jazz flute, and Frazer’s assured vocals that sound so natural that you think he could just roll out of bed and put down a track like it anytime he wants.

Frazer’s gospel influences are evident on “Have Mercy” – in the title, the backing voices, and Frazer’s pleading to a lover to go easy on him because he’s fallen so hard he might shatter. He’s “Done Lyin'” on the next track, however. The groove on this cut is so good that you’re moving and swaying like you’re one of his backup singers within seconds.

“Lover Girl” is classic soul that sounds like it was found in a Detroit basement near the Motown Studios’ original property. Frazer encourages his lover to take a love journey on “Ride with Me.” He just wants to her take the leap of faith and head off into a groovy sunset with him. Who doesn’t want that?

Big and bold piano and horns start “Girl on the Phone,” then the piano turns downright funky as Frazer sings, “Wish I had someone to love me like this girl I just heard on the phone.” It’s a tale of him overhearing a conversation on a party line (Remember those?) and falling for her just from the sound of the voice, and being envious of the lover to whom she was speaking. Frazer tries to answer a question people have been asking since, well, there have been people on “Love Is.” It’s “what you make it,” according to Frazer, or “anything you make it.” I know I’m in love with the bass groove on the track because it could seduce the coldest of hearts.

The drums on “Over You” (the album’s first single) are as hot as popping popcorn and Frazer’s vocals bounce off the back of the club wall and practically shove you out of your chair to the dance floor. The album ends with “Leanin’ on Your Everlasting Love,” with Frazer and his band laughing as the song begins and sweet organ chords taking us by the hand for another gospel-inspired love song. It’s a lovely send-off.

And it’s a lovely record that I’m sure will be high on my “Best of 2021” list. There isn’t a bad track on it, and Frazer knocks his debut out of the park.

Keep your mind open.

[Let me introduce you to new bands. Subscribe.]

[Thanks to Sam at Pitch Perfect PR.]

Rewind Review: Punch Brothers – The Phosphorescent Blues (2015)

Named after a Mark Twain short story, Punch Brothers play a cool brand of folk that, dare I say, might have some krautrock influences on their 2015 album The Phosphorescent Blues.

My possible evidence for that is the opening track – “Familiarity.” On it, lead singer and mandolin player Chris Thile goes bonkers on it, playing at the speed of a hummingbird, while singing in seemingly a different time signature, and the rest of the band puts down sparse, repetitive beats and bass for over ten minutes. Crank up the fuzz and put in a second drummer and this could be an Oh Sees tune.

The record is full of musical mastery like this. The bass line on “Julep” is so smooth that it might cause you to fall on the floor. “Passepied (Debussy)” is a nice instrumental. “I Blew It Off” and “Magnet” are as good pop tunes that Fountains of Wayne might’ve written. “My Oh My” has great vocal work to back the instruments, and “Boll Weevil” gets back to the band’s folk roots with subtle instruments to underscore the lazy nature of a warm morning in Appalachia.

“Forgotten” comes after another short instrumental and is a soft track with some underlying jazz bass that makes it excel. There’s a fun bounce to “Between 1st and A” after Thile’s vocal intro. It continues throughout the song and puts a pep in your step like a walk on a cool fall day. The album ends with “Little Lights,” a soft ballad that takes its time and is all the better for it. The song is under five minutes long, but it seems longer – in the best possible way.

It’s an impressive record, and a pleasure to hear such master musicians at work.

Keep your mind open.

[I’ll have the blues if you don’t subscribe.]

Review: King Gizzard and the Lizard Wizard – KG

As they are often happy to do, prolific psych-rockers King Gizzard and the Lizard Wizard have released an album enshrouded in mystery and riddles. I’m sure that the cover, with its imagery of a collapsed structure, has produced many Reddit discussions about hidden messages within it. Is that a totem pole on the bottom left corner? Are those snakes to the right? What does the block with nine holes in it on the upper right represent? What’s with the crosses? Finally, where’s “volume 1” if K.G. is “volume 2?” It wouldn’t surprise me at all if KGATLW’s next album is called A.T.L.W. and it’s listed as “volume 1” on the cover for reasons unknown to anyone but the band.

To further stir the pot of witches’ brew, the first track on K.G. is “K.G.L.W.” The short instrumental harkens back to themes heard on Murder of the Universe and it drifts like incense smoke into “Automation” – a track that returns the band to their psychedelic roots (a much welcomed return at that) and some of the microtonal sounds they brought us on Flying Microtonal Banana. “Minimum Brain Size” is even better as it pushes the psychedelic elements a bit further with its Middle Eastern-tinged guitars and spiritual song vocals.

“Straws in the Wind” reminds me of some of the stuff KGATLW released on Sketches of New Brunswick East with its mellow tones, excellent acoustic guitar work, sitar touches, and slightly krautrock timing. “Some of Us” continues our trek through a starlit desert while KGATLW sing about the “destruction of everything” and enlightenment.

“Ontology” picks up the pace. It sounds and feels like we’re heading down a river that slowly grows more rapid by the moment. Then, to throw us out of the mandjet and into the Nile for a wild tumble, along comes “Intrasport” – an electro dance track that any DJ could drop into any set and fill the floor. Thumping synth bass, disco drums and synths, 1970s porn film guitar…it’s all there.

“Oddlife” then mixes the disco synths with psychedelic vocals (“It’s an oddlife, ’til you get it right.”) and killer drumming. The harmonica and acoustic guitar on “Honey,” one of the first singles from the album, make it a standout. It sounds like a fun bike ride around the back forty of a mint farm in the late summer (complete with harp flourishes).

The first time I heard the closer, “The Hungry Wolf of Fate,” the local tornado siren test started just before the song’s intro ended. It was a perfect mix. A warning of danger and a song about a fierce beast with heavy drums and howling guitars.

K.G. works quite well and is a nice return for the band to shorter songs with concise songwriting. Mind you, I love their epic ten-minute-plus jams, but here they show they can cut in, cut up, and cut out.

Keep your mind open.

[Don’t forget to subscribe before you split.]

Top 35 albums of 2020: #’s 5 – 1

Here we are. We’ve reached the cream of the cop.

#5: Yardsss – Cultus

This album is “only” three tracks, but one of them is over twenty-three minutes long. The other two are over seven minutes each. Even more impressive? This entire psychedelic / prog-rock album was improvised. Yardsss came in without a game plan and created a monster of a record that you can’t believe was done on the fly.

#4: Caroline Rose – Superstar

This is Caroline Rose’s best album to date. She tackles subjects like fame, flying your freak flag, sex, love, lust, and finding the self with power pop riffs, playful, lovely vocals, and some of her wittiest songwriting to date.

#3: Windhand – Levitation Sessions

I watched several livestream concerts this year, and all were good. This one by doom metal giants Windhand, however, literally gave me chills. That moment came during “Forest Clouds” when I could feel something happening. The hairs on my arms stood up and I couldn’t stop grinning. It was a powerful moment that I needed to remind me that live music will return. Nothing can stop it (or Windhand, it seems), and this entire live album was like being handed a battle axe as a hobgoblin army advances on the city.

#2: Automatic – Signal

I knew right away upon hearing Signal that (A) it was a post-punk gauntlet thrown down at other bands, (B) it was sexy as an underground 1960s dance club in Paris, and (C) it was going to be my favorite debut album of 2020. Everything on this album works at a high level. It makes you feel like a sexy bad ass, and all three ladies in Automatic are such. Tread lightly, however. They’re not screwing around and might whack you with a claw hammer if you cross the line.

#1: Flat Worms – Antarctica

This psych / garage / punk masterpiece by Flat Worms went into my #1 spot upon first hearing it in April 2020 and never moved. It is stunningly powerful and chock-full of killer lyrics about fighting against the rat race, internet addiction, the depersonalization of others, economic inequality, and toxic relationships. This is one of those albums that sounds new every time I hear it. It’s a shame they couldn’t tour to promote it, because this album could’ve and should’ve made them big-time draws.

I’m already hearing good stuff in 2021, so let’s stay healthy and get back to shows and festivals.

Keep your mind open.

[Don’t forger to subscribe.]