one small stEP is an EP from Boston based band, “Major Moment.” The band is heavily influenced by groups like Linkin Park (the album is even dedicated to the late Chester Bennington,) Nine Inch Nails and 30 Seconds to Mars. The intro is a pleasant surprise, a brief and eerily cerebral instrumental number that sounds like it could have been on the Poltergeist soundtrack. Before it’s Too Late is the first full length song. It features a lot of musically dynamic elements, some solid vocals (the verses are particularly good) and a memorably killer Iron Maiden tier guitar bridge near the end. The songs on here tend to start out mellow, with tepid intros and slowly build until they kick in with heavy, saturating choruses. You can just feel the energy when the song kicks in, like you’re near a mage unleashing a spell at full force. The Release is the softest tune on here. Instrumental in nature, it features delicate piano and captures a quiet, haunting ambiance.
Vocalist/guitarist Andrey Borzykin (whom I never would have guessed is from Russia) has a great, unassuming voice. It has an early 2000s emo quality but without sounding whiny. It’s very soothing and is complemented by (fellow Russian?) Alexandra ‘Sasha’ Razumova. The band plays very well together. They’re all on the same wavelength throughout this album. Lead guitarist Gabriel De Mattia continues in the tradition of excellent guitar players from Brazil (why are there so many?) Drummer Adam Soucy does what drummers do and holds the framework of the songs together. These are not the easiest songs to drum to I would imagine. There are a lot of changes to keep up with.
One impressive thing about one small stEP is the diversity of sound within songs. There is a lot of variety in the pacing, tone and the way in which synths are utilized. They really do cram a lot of creativity into each song. There is not a lot of repetition here, and no corners are cut (no copy and pasting, looping etc.) Unlike with many bands that sound nothing like their claimed influences, the music of Major Moment actually does bear an uncanny resemblance to Linkin Park, although it doesn’t contain the “rapcore” elements many associate with classic Linkin Park songs. This EP is worthy as an homage, but clearly the band has their own distinct sound, which has proven to be able to stand on its own.
How to Polish Your Longhorns is a new full length album from Jay Kipps Band. I would describe the sound as almost a “psychedelic country.” The band classifies their style as “Roots Americana” which explains the eclectic influences. The guitars remind me of the music from old Clint Eastwood westerns of the 60’s. This was my first impression anyway upon listening to the first track, Colt 45. Rotten Apple Blues settles into a more familiar and contemporary country/Americana sound. Featuring a catchy title and chorus, it’s one of those songs that strikes me as an instant country classic. Country/Americana artists seem to be very good at coming up with clever titles and concepts for songs (such Mel Tillis’ Coca Cola Cowboy etc.) What seems like a rather predictable track, Big Old Engine surprises by taking on 60’s rock n’ roll qualities, particularly with respect to the backup vocals on the chorus, which wouldn’t have seemed out of place on a Velvet Underground track. Besides Rotten Apple Blues my other favorite song on this album is Harp Bomb which sounds like music which would appear in a vintage video game RPG. It just has this bright, be-boppin’ feel to it. I don’t know…you just have to listen. This album is genius and demonstrates that Americana artists are far more imaginative than many people give them credit for.
“When a man says he’s a dreamer, there’s nothing on this Earth that keeps him happy.” And just like that I was drawn in by the resonating lyrics of Last Night, the opening track on Trio of Awesuhm’s album Cowboys&Aliens. Trio of Awesuhm (the name for the NY based folk rock band) is only false advertising in the sense that there appears to be more than 3 members of the group. The music is awesome by any standard. I really have to hand it to “lead vocalist, lyricist and composer” Monica Uhm. While everyone plays their part well, her vocals just really carry these songs to another level. The fact that she is a powerful creative force and more than just a voice that sings or a figurehead gives an authenticity to her charisma and credibility to her brand of what she calls “philoso-folk.” She has such a wonderfully pleasant voice to listen to that when the song is over you wonder if you’ve just been hypnotized and been subliminally programmed to carry out some nefarious orders.
There are hints of Americana sound here, and with a few twists, turns and twangs this music could easily make it into country western territory. It doesn’t quite go there though. A better way to describe this album’s sound is that it is like a less cheesy, more folk version of ABBA. The production here is excellent. Kudos to Joe DiGiorgi of Headline Studios, who apparently recorded and co-produced it. The album achieves better than (contemporary) major label production quality without sacrificing its indie folk soul. Cowboys&Aliens is contemplative and mellow, yet still keeps you moving with its consistent energy.
Ben Arzate is something of an enigmatic figure in that he is fairly prominent within edgy alternative political and literary circles but almost never expresses opinions on anything other than his analysis of people’s books. What does he actually believe? Who knows. If we are to follow the clues in his own books, we come no closer to unraveling the mystery except to infer that he might believe that nothing really matters, and one is better served in these turbulent times by taking refuge in the world of transgressive fiction, quietly amusing ourselves with the everyday horrors of contemporary life.
A while back I reviewed Ben Arzate’s brief poetry chapbook, which I found to be rather promising. So I was excited to read his new book of short stories, The Complete Idiot’s Guide to Saying Goodbye (published by NihilismRevised, 2018) because I knew it would be longer and have more meat to it (insert that’s what SHE said joke here.) What he excels at brilliantly in this book is in creating characters which behave and communicate realistically within the ridiculously absurd, exaggerated and often sci-fi situations they are placed in. He subtly shatters our idealistic and romantic notions by revealing just how mundane, unremarkable and pathetic our lives really are…in any context.
A prime example of this is the story, The Arranged Marriage. In recent years, arranged marriages have gained a resurgence of support and idealization among fringe reactionaries of the “trad” variety, which view them as a solution to “the incel problem” among many other so-called societal ills. Yet in Arzate’s The Arranged Marriage he depicts what I believe a contemporary arranged marriage would actually be like. Lisa and Michael are forced into an arranged marriage by their respective enthusiastic parents. The young couple agree to go along with it without much in the way of protest or enthusiasm. The couple’s conversations are filled with apathetic, intentionally uninspired strings of dialog such as the following:
“Are you looking forward to going to the
carnival?” I asked Lisa.
“I guess,” she said.
“Yeah,” I said.
This is the way people in forced relationships really do talk to one another, regardless of whether the “forced” relationship itself is literally due to familial setup or it’s just two people that happen to be dating but aren’t emotionally invested in one another. They’re just going through the motions.
A relatable story for me is The Country Musician, which relays a tale of a struggling country music artist named Hank in rather realistic, unromantic and less than heroic terms. This isn’t That Thing Called Love.
Hank put the five songs on the Internet.
After a year, each has less than 300 plays. None of
them have gotten any plays in the past month.
This is what being a contemporary indie music artist is actually like. You release an album. A handful of people buy it, but ultimately no one cares except for maybe a few weirdos and lonely e-girls that have crushes on you. You put songs on Soundcloud and sort of promote them in a half-assed way, but they barely get any plays. You mail copies out to important people and record companies, and occasionally someone is interested but nothing happens. At some point someone important will express some interest in your music and offer you something, but only on the condition that you radically change it in ways which are incompatible with who you are and antithetical to your artistic vision. In Hank’s case, a record executive offers him a record deal but wants Hank to record a reggae album instead of country:
The executive tells Hank that he liked his
demo, but country is out. He says that reggae is
the next big thing.
Hank tells the executive that he likes
reggae, but he does not play reggae. He plays
country. He also says he is not black and not
Jamaican.
The executive tells him that it does not
matter that he is not black. There are white
Jamaicans. In a voice that sounds like Santa
Claus, he says that Hank just has to do a fake
Jamaican accent.
Almost all of the stories are written in this style of dry, deadpan prose. It’s clearly by design and emphasizes our drab, mechanical, stop-motion animated lives in clownworld. Most of the stories in The Complete Idiot’s Guide to Saying Goodbye have a weird horror/scifi component to them. The story with the same name as the book’s title concerns a house that physically gets cancer. Admittedly, this was one of the more horrifying and grotesque stories for a hypochondriac like me to read. The best way I could describe the stories in this book is that they remind me of the vignettes in 80s-90’s shows like Tales From the Darkside and Monsters, minus any preachy moralizing, important life lessons or poetic justice. I chose those shows to compare the book to specifically rather The Twilight Zone or The Outer Limits, which were often trying to lecture or teach us something about how to make the world a better place. Shows like Monsters only did that to a lesser extent and mostly just aimed to creep out the viewer.
Despite their intentionally uninspiring form and low-charisma characters, these short stories are surprisingly engaging. I didn’t find any of them to be boring or lackluster. The objects and “living” physical backgrounds often take up the slack themselves morphing into lively characterizations. There is plenty of imagination here and some stories may have a life outside this book. The Arranged Marriage in particular I feel has the potential to be developed into a novella or short film. The stories in The Complete Idiot’s Guide to Saying Goodbye often end abruptly and without a satisfactory resolution, much like our lives usually do: A man makes a plate of chips and salsa. He sits down on the couch to watch the football game. The game is a blowout, and the team he is cheering for is losing. He is not enjoying the game. During the third quarter, he suffers a heart attack and dies. There are a few chips left on the plate, but most of the salsa got on his shirt. A neighbor finds the man’s body the next day and calls the morgue to tell them there’s a dead body. While he is waiting for someone to arrive, he sees the plate of chips and decides they might not be too stale, so he eats one. (This is not an actual story in the book. I just made it up by the way.)
That’s how our lives actually are though and The Complete Idiot’s Guide to Saying Goodbye both horrifies and entertains by briefly taking us out of our depraved world of delusions so that we may cringe and laugh at ourselves and everything around us.
Wonderchild is set to be released this month. It’s a new 7 song EP from “SEDA,” an R&B/Pop & Latin artist from The Bronx, NY. The lead single for this upcoming EP has already dropped. It’s called Deserve and is available on Spotify. If there’s one thing that’s evident from this track, it’s that SEDA can actually sing quite well. Unlike so many artists in this genre, SEDA’s voice comes through bright and clear, without assistance from a bunch of vocal processing and autotune type effects. You just can’t fake it with this style of singing. If you’ve got it, it’s apparent immediately, as it is on this recording. Musically, the song is very minimalistic and ambient. It’s SEDA’s emotive vocals amidst an echoey, dreamlike mix of piano and light synths. This isn’t a club jam. It’s more like music for a romantic, candlelit dinner, with the song invoking a soothing atmosphere. You can tell that someone put their heart into making this recording.
Don’t be fooled by the title of Bye Bye Banshee’s new EP, Deathfolk Magic. There’s nothing horrifying about this recording. It’s actually quite beautiful and cerebral. It’s pleasant pacing and calm demeanor are accentuated by the sparse yet enchanting vocals of songwriter, Jezebel Jones. These peacefully poignant songs approach the subject of death abstractly with a kind of minimalist, meditative mindfulness. My favorite song on this release is Skull Rattles which contains the artists premonitionary declaration upon death that “graymatter don’t matter no more” and was simply “a temporary condition.” Intellectually I find this album to be pretty engaging, and musically I found myself entranced by it. This is neo-folk music at its finest.
The Ladder The Climb The Fall is the latest album from InCrest, a Danish grunge-rock trio. With a sound that takes it’s influence from the early 90’s golden age of alternative rock, the album manages to capture that essence completely, while still leaving enough room for the band to have a distinct musical identity. One might not expect that a Danish band could emulate the Seattle sound so convincingly, but InCrest has done just that. The Ladder The Climb The Fall often alternates between grunge and hard rock, sometimes blending the two. The opening track, No Second Chance has a peppy kind of “speed grunge” feel to it, in contrast to some of the dreary, dragging pace and whiny tone that’s often associated with lighter alternative music. The faster pace songs on this release remind me a bit of stuff from groups like Rollins Band. It’s cynicism and commentary but with balls. After the opening song, the album settles into a more conventionally paced heavy grunge style with Nightcrawler, (a song which boasts an excellent, attention grabbing guitar intro.) This is actually my favorite track of this release and from a quality standpoint ranks right up there with the top hits of Soundgarden and Pearl Jam (though it’s probably not going to get the same level of exposure and recognition.)
One criticism that’s often (usually unfairly) leveled at grunge bands is that they’re less skilled at playing their instruments, and that this is masked by the heavy distortion. That’s certainly not the case with InCrest. On this album they give a polished performance, displaying a lot of artful musical detail and precision timing. Even the vocals are right on point. The final song on the album, Neversleep is a good example of the softer, delightfully detailed musicality the band is capable of. One final note is the production quality on this album is major label tier. This is not some lo-fi, Sebadoh styled kind of obscure, indie art project (although I love that stuff.) In the right place and at the right time, this music would be on the radio and the band would be giving jaded performances in stadiums.
It was a pleasant surprise to discover that “The Interplanetary Acoustic Team” isn’t a bunch of dudes sitting around playing acoustic guitars (not that I’m all that opposed to that sort of thing.) In fact, they describe themselves as “a group of musical explorers whose mission is to listen to the stars, to record the deep gravitational waves rolling across the wide sweep of time, the voices carried on those waves.”
Their debut album, 11 11 (Me, Smiling) is a creative tour de force. Incorporating collage, retro-futurism, obscure sampling, groovy synthesizers, space ambiance, and occasional guitar, vocals and who knows what else, this album is nothing short of an avant garde, cerebral masterpiece. Others have likened it to the sound of a Kubrick film such as 2001, A Space Odyssey, however, to my ears it’s more reminiscent of soundtracks from late 70’s, early 80’s scifi films, such as Saturn 3(music by Elmer Bernstein) or maybe the movies of John Carpenter. It’s like an arthouse version of Buck Rogers. This music is very meditative, almost entrancing. While listening to this album I wanted to line up my crystals on the carpet, close my eyes and see if I could open a stargate portal through my third eye…
I’m not sure if they used all analog synths for this project, but they certainly have captured the best of “the analog sound.” There’s lots of warmth and just the right amount of tape hiss in these recordings. My favorite songs are the title track, 11 11, and also…Islands in the Cosmos. I’d love this album even on aesthetic grounds alone, but unlike so many avant garde, experimental musical creations, the music on 11 11 (Me, Smiling) is actually extremely pleasant to listen to and very good.
Terry Milla’s It’s Bangindo is more than just a geniously titled hip hop track. It’s a lively, piano driven jam with enough going on musically to keep the listener engaged the whole way through. The song features both male and female vocals, with Terry leading the way with rhymes and “Flossy Mae” providing some excellent accompanying hooks. Her expressive, emotive delivery gives the song some dramatic flair. According to Milla,It’s Bangindo “is about the music being dope even if it’s not on the radio.” True enough, but I would also add that it deals with the drive to get things done and the frustration in waiting for others to come through and get the ball rolling. Some people are just “always on” and rather that wait for everyone else to finish doing the hokey pokey, they have to just move forward and do everything on their own. Anyhow, It’s Bangindo is a solid jam and marketable. Terry Milla strikes me as a fun going, entertaining performer that takes care of business.
Possibly is the latest release from San Jose based band, “God Analog.” Despite the name, “God Analog” is a rather humble minded musical group consisting of Adam Days, Christian Jaeger, and a guitarist simply known as “X.” Their sound is like if you were to combine Depeche Mode, Marilyn Manson and some ’00s hipster garage band like The Faint and manage to make it all blend together cohesively. While, the band may have started as a bedroom musical experiment, Possibly demonstrates that the group can achieve label-tier production quality. Seriously, whoever mixed this did a hell of a job cause it sounds smooth and crystal clear. There is a lot of stacking and layering going on in this track, but the best sound always seems to be brought out.
Christian Jaeger’s mid-to-high pitch vocals are easy on the ears, while the lyrics oscillate between emo yearning and jaded disillusion, with Adam’s backup vocals rounding things out. The backing music is driven by drums, guitars and a variety of snazzy synths which contribute to the ambiance and give the song a little more moxie. Anyway, these guys are tremendously talented. It’s kind of disheartening to think how hard of a road bands like this have to get recognition, but the potential is there.
