Chicago-based band Bnny, led by Jess Viscius alongside her twin sister Alexa Viscius, plus best friends Tim Makowski and Matt Pelkey, is Fire Talk’s newest signing. In conjunction with their signing announcement, they present their new single, “Time Walk.” The song is featured in the finale of the new season of Shrill, which drops in its entirety tomorrow.
Jess Viscius started Bnny in the moment, after someone’s guitar had been left at her apartment. After teaching herself a few chords, she quickly found songwriting to be therapeutic in ways visual art couldn’t touch. Eventually, her sister Alexa and former Bnny drummer Drew Ryan persuaded Jess to start a band, and it ultimately stuck, along with a newfound community and friendships.
Their new song, “Time Walk,” is a taste of Bnny’s crackling energy, clocking in at just over a minute and a half. It layers in quick succession with plucky bass, uncomplicated drums, and jumpy guitar lines. Throughout, Viscius’ half-whispered vocals are cool to the touch. It was produced by fellow Chicago musician and Fire Talk artist, Dehd’s Jason Balla. The video, which features Jess, was partly shot on the Lake Michigan coastline. It offers a glimpse of Bnny’s strong visual aesthetics.
“‘Time Walk’ is about the clarity you find when in motion—walking, driving, running,” says Jess. “It’s about a friendship ending, but still feeling connected to the person. It’s about looking back while moving forward in slow motion. Time walk is a wake-up call.”
King Gizzard & The Lizard Wizard proudly announce their second album of 2021, Butterfly 3000, which will be released on June 11th via the band’s own KGLW label. The band have decided to play this one close to the vest, and will drop the album in its entirety on June 11th without any advance singles, or sharing the album artwork, which will be a cross-eyed autostereogram created by long-time collaborator Jason Galea. The countdown to Butterfly 3000 begins today.
Their 18th studio album, Butterfly 3000 might be their most fearless leap into the unknown yet; a suite of ten songs that all began life as arpeggiated loops composed on modular synthesisers, before being fashioned into addictive, optimistic and utterly seductive dream-pop by the six-piece. The album sounds simultaneously like nothing they’ve ever done before, and thoroughly, unmistakeably Gizz, down to its climactic neon psych-a-tronic flourish. This is undoubtedly the most accessible and jubilant album of their career.
If you’ve been thinking there isn’t any good doom metal out there right now, allow me to use a phrase I find myself saying now and then, “Meanwhile, in Sweden…”
In Sweden, Alastor have been crafting heavy, spooky doom metal for a few years now, and their new album, Onwards and Downwards, is about (in the words of guitarist Hampus Sandell) “…one person’s gradual slip into insanity. An ongoing nightmare without end. It also sums up the state of the world around us as this year has clearly shown.”
So, don’t expect a happy-go-lucky record. Expect skull / soul-crushing riffs and images of things watching you from the shadows.
Opening track “The Killer in My Skull” unleashes a fusillade of cymbal crashes, rocketing riffs, and vocals about questioning reality. “Dead Things in Jars” creeps around you like something in a secret laboratory you just found in a witch’s basement. Sandell’s solo on it is slick. “I hear them callin’, shadows are fallin’…There’s no denyin’, red eyes are cryin’…” Is it a warning or a lament? It’s probably both. The breakdown around the five-minute mark leads to heavy riffs suitable for something emerging from a cauldron.
I’m fairly certain I can hear a piano being pounded on during the rocking, reeling “Death Cult” – a song made for blasting out of the windows of your muscle car are you’re being chased (or you’re chasing) werewolf bikers. The bass groove alone is pretty damn cool. “Nightmare Trip” could be a subtitle for the year 2020. “Shadows like walls around me slowly closing in,” they sing with a slight edge of reverbed fuzz on the vocals that mixes well with the killer bee buzz guitars. The tolling bell at the end is a great touch.
Believe it or not, there’s acoustic guitar on the instrumental “Kassettband,” showing that Alastor aren’t a one-trick pony and could easily be a psych-band if they wished. The nearly ten-minute-long title track (complete with spooky haunted house organ) has vocals that seem to cry out from behind an ornate mirror that was formerly covered in a dusty crimson cloak. The guitars and drums feel like they’re rising up from the ground to become something you can’t escape (“There is no place you can hide…”). The song somehow gets creepier around the seven-minute-mark, especially with lyrics like, “Your dying heart is beating faster as you are pushing through the night.” The closing track, “Lost and Never Found,” is another heavy-hitter that further explores the descent into madness a lot of us were sensing for the last year.
It’s a heavy record, both in sound and theme, and well worth a listen. Yes, it’s about staring and walking into the abyss, but the riffs are powerful enough to give you the strength to emerge from it like a warrior.
Keep your mind open.
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It’s entirely possible that CHAI has been having more fun than anyone else in rock, Japan, or even the world for the last few years. Each of their albums, Punk, Pink, and now Wink, is pop-punk / electro perfection and all of them are brimming with positivity.
Wink continues the trend and starts a new one for the band – collaborations. Ric Wilson, YMCK, and Mndsgn all appear on the album to join the fun. The first track, “Donuts Mind If I Do” is a song about aging gracefully and eating donuts. What’s not to like (especially with that Earth, Wind & Fire-like groove)? “Maybe Chocolate Chips” (featuring Mr. Wilson, whom they met at Chicago’s Pitchfork Music Festival) posits the theory that a birthmark on your body might be a tasty treat.
“It’s okay. Everything is okay.”, CHAI sings on “ACTION” – a sharp dance track inspired by the Black Lives Matter movement that lets us know that we can change dour circumstances by, if nothing else, getting up and deciding to do something. The electro-bass slides into near-goth industrial territory for a great effect. Speaking of dancing, just keep at it during “END” – a bouncy, dance-punk cut with the band yelling “Shut up!” at their doubters and haters and throwing in rap verses because they damn well can.
“PING PONG” (with YMCK), with its video game sounds and aerobic workout beats, is one of the best dance tracks of 2021 and is a song about playing ping pong after spending a day at a spa. The world needs more songs like this, not to mention a day at the spa. I beg to differ with “Nobody Knows We Are Fun,” a song in which CHAI claims no one realizes they’re cool and worth inviting to the party, because (as I mentioned earlier) CHAI are having more fun than 90% of the planet.
“It’s Vitamin C” has a bit of a slow-jam groove to it as “It’s good for you, it’s good for me, it’s good for the body,” they sing, and I have a feeling that their lyrics about orange juice are a metaphor for…ahem, something else. “IN PINK” (with Mndsgn) blends electro-pop with P-funk. The lazy beat of “KARAAGE” is hypnotic and, let’s face it, sexy.
“Miracle” has some thick bass to go along with its booty-shaking beats and sunshine lyrics. “Wish Upon a Star” is another R&B-like jam with soft organ tones and subdued beats. The closer, “Salty,” is about fond memories – sometimes rediscovered through food (one of CHAI’s favorite subjects).
Wink is a bit stripped-down compared to CHAI’s first two records, but is no less fun than them. As always, CHAI deliver uplifting music when we need it most.
Imagine being in a relationship with someone for almost two decades, as well as being in band together, and then deciding to end the relationship but continuing on as a band. How would that affect the writing and recording processes, let alone touring?
If you’re Remington Super 60, and if you’re songerwriter / producerChristoffer Schou and singer Elisabeth Thorsen, you realize that the end of a relationship doesn’t have to mean the end of a friendship or an artistic collaboration, and, along with Magnus Abelsen, you make a fine EP like Nouvelle Nouveau.
Perky, poppy “Talk with You” instantly makes you feel warm and nostalgic for quiet European cafes and mellow afternoons with your lover. The EP is full of references to Schou and Thorsen’s break-up, of course, and the first track alone has lyrics like “All I want is to get close to you so I can talk with you.”, but the EP isn’t gloomy. It’s too bright to be a downer.
The Cure-like bass and guitar on “I Won’t Change My Mind” backs up Thorsen singing, “I don’t know what I can do to make this easy for you…I tried to tell you, but you never understand, but it’s too late now.” The song is a sad tale, but one of shared grief. Both she and Schou know they have to move on from what they had and both know that being okay with it is far better than being spiteful or bitter. “All I Want” has a neat acoustic guitar sound that seems to blend country and psychedelic folk.
Electo-lounge keyboards (vintage ones, no doubt, as Schou loves using and collecting them) start “Still Near,” with Thorsen claiming, “I don’t want to see you again. It hurts when you’re around.” and “I just want to disappear even though you’re still near.” “See This Through” has a bit of a bossa nova flair to it with Schou and Abelsen’s synths and beats and Thorsen’s vocals that are somehow sad and upbeat at the same time. I don’t know how she does it.
“Misconception” has Thorsen tells us (and, let’s face it, Schou) that she doesn’t need saving. Schou and Abelsen’s synth work on it is great, mixing synthwave with dance-pop grooves. Believe it or not, “All Alone” was written many years ago, long before Schou and Thorsen’s break-up. Schou sings lead vocals on it, and one can’t help but marvel at its predictive nature. The acoustic guitar and hand percussion on the track mix well together, and it’s a dreamy send-off.
I don’t know if Remington Super 60 will continue to make music together, but Nouvelle Nouveau is a good sign that they can still create lovely, dreamy art and embrace change. The world would be a better place if we could all have that presence of mind.
Keep your mind open.
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Bloc Party‘s 2008 album, Intimacy, is perfectly named. Every song on the record is about love – new love, lost love, dying love, old love, hopeful love, desperate love, and probably another five or six variations that I’ve forgotten. The album is loaded with Bloc Party’s signature heavy guitars, stadium rock drumming, prog-rock switches, intricate lyric stories, and passionate vocals.
Opening track “Ares” has the band wanting to declare a war and expressing anger and rage in the only way they know how – through warning alarm guitars and car crash drumming (instead of breaking things with their fists). Lead singer / guitarist Kele Okereke wants to punch something, but would rather use those hands that “could work wonders, with their touch listening to dead singers in your room in ’98” for more intimate matters.
“Mercury” brings in electro-beats as Okereke warns “This is not the time to start a new love, this is not the time to sign a lease.” He wants love, though. He’s tired of “sleeping with people I don’t even like,” but “Mercury’s in retrograde” and everything is fucked up beyond belief.
Gordon Moakes‘ bass licks are on fire throughout “Halo” – a powerful rocker that tells a tale of two lovers desperate for a connection (“I ask you for the time, but I am asking for so much more.”). “Biko” is a tragic tale of a lover’s impending death and how there’s nothing Okereke or anyone else can do to stop it. “Was my love strong enough to bring you back from the dead? If I could eat your cancer I would, but I can’t.” The song is a beautiful gut punch.
“Trojan Horse” has Okereke trying to understand his lover’s depression (“You used to take your watch off before we made love.” / “Just take me back to the start, when your earthquake was just cracks.”). Russel Lissack‘s lead guitar sounds like angry hornets during his solo on it. “Signs” is another sad tale, with a ticking, chiming music box as its backdrop, of another lover who has passed from this world (or perhaps the same from “Biko”) and Okereke not quite being able to make sense of it.
Matt Tong‘s percussion and sizzling cymbals mix well with programmed beats on “One Month Off” – a tale of a cheating lover and Okereke claiming “I can be as cruel as you,” but by the end telling her, “If you need time…” Okereke admits his own faults on the choir-backed “Zephyrus” with lyrics like “Baby, I’m ashamed of the things I put you through. Baby, I’m ashamed of the man I was for you.”
“Talons” is story of impending death, but Okereke isn’t afraid of it (“When it comes, it will feel like a kiss.”). “Better Than Heaven” has Okereke settling down a bit and trying to seduce his lover as she becomes more and more tired of him (“You get sadder the smarter you get, and it’s a bore.”). Tong’s drum work on the track is outstanding. Okereke keeps up the sentiment of growing old in love together on “Ion Square,” with lyrics like “Let’s stay in, let the sofa be our car…All the bright lights do is bore me.” The synth-heavy track send the album out on an uplifting note.
Some versions of the album include extra tracks and remixes. The copy I own has four bonus songs and remixes of “Mercury” (by CSS) and “Talons” (by XXXchange). The bonus songs include a sharp post-punk track (“Letter to My Son”) and three electro dance-rock cuts (“Your Visits Are Getting Shorter,” the rave-ready “Flux,” and the slightly gothic “Idea for a Story”), and the remixes are top-notch.
Museum Of Love – the New York-based duo of Pat Mahoney and Dennis McNany – shares the new single/video, “Marching Orders,” from their forthcoming album, Life Of Mammals, out July 9th on Skint Records. It follows lead single/video “Cluttered World” and their “Cluttered World / Marching Orders (Remixed)” EP featuring remixes by Parrot and Cocker Too and Justin Van Der Volgen. “Marching Orders” starts with an irresistible cowbell driven rhythm track. It builds with a propulsive bass riff, a casually whistled melody, and a whole studio load of chaos. Combined together, it’s a hypnotic musical invitation to join Museum of Love’s carnival procession that’s part Blackstar, part NYC block party and part after hours smash up at Mardi Gras.
The video, featuring footage deconstructed and edited by Shaun MacDonald, “is a hallucinogenic dreamscape describing the collective feelings everyone went through over the last year of the pandemic,” says Museum Of Love. “All of us feeling crammed in our tiny apartments like an elephant in a tiny tea house. Time and reality, not computing for many of us.”
Life Of Mammals is a dizzying swirl of chaotic art rock and metronomic dance music. The creative process for Life Of Mammals was approached like an art project while the lyrics throughout are delightfully elliptical, with a thousand valid interpretations. The album was recorded in bursts between Mahoney’s LCD Soundsystem touring commitments. It has been mixed in its entirety by James Murphy (LCD Soundsystem/DFA) and features guest appearances from legendary saxophonist and Arthur Russell collaborator Peter Gordon (The Love of Life Orchestra) and Matt Shaw.
If you’ve ever imagined what a band influenced by Scott Walker, John Cale, Jonathan Richman, dub, Robert Wyatt, post-punk and Krautrock might sound like, then you might finally have your answer – Museum Of Love. Weird, perhaps, but also enormous knockabout fun, at times approaching their song craft with the bombast of “Bohemian Rhapsody,” the outlook of the Marx brothers and matched with the production knowledge of a Basic Channel record. A bewitching combination that rewards repeat listens, it’s doubtful anyone will release a more compelling and beguiling album this year.
I was in St. Louis, Missouri a couple months ago in my first trip outside my home state in many months. I was staying not terribly far from a college campus, so I figured there’d be at least one good record store nearby. Sure enough, Vintage Vinyl was about a fifteen-minute drive from the hotel.
Unfortunately for me, I got there with only about fifteen minutes to shop before they closed. The place is open 11am – 6pm during the week. 6pm seems like an odd time to close a record store located in a busy campus shopping area, but the hours were probably altered due to COVID-19 restrictions – as the store’s website says they’re typically open until at least 8pm. I’d love to go back because I could’ve spent over an hour in this place.
As you can imagine, with a name like that the store is heavy on new and old vinyl records. This is just a small sampling of their large and eclectic collection.
A spoken word record featuring Aleister Crowley sandwiched between a record about baseball and another about stenography. Stuff like this alone makes the place worth a visit. They also had DVDs, shirts, and, of course, CDs.
That $1.00 bargain bin is where I decided to do my ten minutes of shopping. I scored albums by The D4 and Soulwax…for $2.21 total. I’m sure I would’ve dropped at least ten times that if I’d had more time to shop.
Take extra money for parking when you go. Finding a spot in the area can be difficult, and most of the spots have parking meters that will only let you pay for up to an hour at a time.
Situation Chicago 2 is a fine compilation of Chicago bands and artists, and proceeds go to helping artists and venues affected by the pandemic (which, by the way, is pretty much all of them). The project is part of the CIVL SAVE fund, which needs all the help it can get to support independent music venues throughout the Windy City (full disclosure, some of these venues are my favorite venues in the country).
“Sinistry” by MIIRRORS is a fiery live rock cut with some light goth touches. Robust‘s “Dont Know Why” is a smooth example of Chicago’s vibrant rap scene. The bass line alone on it make impregnate you. Speaking of great example of Chicago’s music culture, Fess Grandiose‘s “Keep the Rhythm Goin'” is a prime one of Chicago house music (a genre that, while popular, still deserves to be better known around the globe). Umphrey’s McGee and Bela Fleck team up on the bouncy and bright “Great American.” Reduxion‘s “The Imperial Boxmen” is sweet funk jazz that will make you want to spin your lover around the room. Speaking of fun, Jeff Park delivers a great instrumental cover of WAR‘s “Slippin’ into Darkness.”
“Drowning” by Neptune’s Core starts side B of the vinyl with strong power-pop hooks. Goth country makes an appearance with The Goddamn Gallows‘ “The Maker.” V.V. Lightbody‘s “Really Do Care” is a slice of dream-pop complete with birdsong and cat’s purr-like guitar. Erin McDougald‘s lovely, sexy “The Parting Glass” is a wonderful exemplar of Chicago’s jazz club scene and makes you want to seek out her live performances.
It’s a good compilation, and proceeds go to a great cause. You can’t miss.
