It being the start of a long weekend in honor of the 4th, I figured what better way to commemorate the holiday than by revisiting the battle of our formation and pitting our former colonial masters against the scrappy upstarts here in the new world — musically speaking, of course. So this week we’ve got a batch of stuff from bands in the UK, balanced with offerings from those here in the US — and since we won we get one extra (sorry, suckers) — but first we’ll start with my recent obsession, a funky band from Canada named Pottery. (It IS America’s hat, so maybe we get two extra…)
I first mentioned these guys a month or so ago thanks to the strength of their EP, which encompassed the first few singles from this album and I’d been wearing out on the regular. Now that the album is here I’ve been doing more of the same, listening to it front to back over and over again. The previous singles are spaced out almost equally with one or two new songs in between, serving as familiar anchors while you get acquainted with the new surroundings — and boy, are they some fun new surroundings.
The album as a whole plays like a breathless, infectious frenzy, slowly whipping you into a lather before dousing you with some cool water at the end with the lovely closer, “Hot Like Jungle.” Up until that point, though, you’re in the unrelenting (and oh so fun) grips of songs like “Hot Heater,” “Down in the Dumps,” “Texas Drums Pt I & II,” and “NY Inn.” (Among others.) The full album deepens the feelings from the singles with the band really calling to mind early Talking Heads with all their frantic energy, jittery riffs, and irresistible motion.
As good as so many of the tracks are, it really deserves to be enjoyed in full — because quite honestly, when are you guaranteed to have nearly 40 minutes of unfettered fun these days? Rather than split out any of the frenetic fever dreams and diminish their impact, I’ll leave you with the finale and the sweet “Hot Like Jungle.” It’s a great song (there’s some strong satisfaction with singing the line “oooooh that’s nice, ooooooh that’s nice — hot like juuuuungleeeeeeeee” in its awkward, odd glory) and the perfect comedown to the rest of the album. You’ll enjoy it even more once you’ve experienced the sweatiness surrounding it first — in the meantime, give it a ride here:
The other recent obsession has been the latest Run the Jewels album, which aside from absolutely ripping verses from Mike and El, includes a host of guest appearances from Josh Homme, Mavis Staples, Pharrell, DJ Premier, and Rage’s Zach de la Rocha. It’s a perfectly timed album — a) because with the world melting down, we need good music to keep us going, and (more importantly) b) because the guys are spitting some ultra relevant rhymes on the racial issues plaguing our country and contributing (rightfully so) to that meltdown. You can tell the two are serious, as almost all the dick jokes and horsing around are gone so as not to distract from the lyrical content. It’s a monster of an album — it will definitely be showing up here at the end of the year, the only question is in what place — and aside from some of the best beats the boys have deployed to date, the verses are just top notch. Examples abound, but none are more head exploding and poignant than the ones the guys rattle off in this one, “Walking in the Snow.” Crank it up, clean your ears, and take notice:
Next comes the latest from the erratic, at times odious, but almost always excellent Kanye who dropped a new song this week. (Two, actually, if you count his verse on Ty Dolla Sign’s track.) He’s been on a bit of a downward trend in my book, as the eight of you are likely already aware — his last album was the first I didn’t buy in its entirety and his five mini-disc spree in five weeks back in 2018 was a hit or miss medley best digested as a mixtape, as I wrote about then. And then there’s the “I’ve gone gospel” and all the political stuff to deal with. It can be a bit much (ok, a LOT, even for fans like me), so it’s not clear what we’re dealing with here — but just taking the song on its own terms, it’s pretty darn good. Really good beat (almost Yeezus like in its heft), decent enough lyrics from Ye and Travis Scott — we’ll see what comes next, but for now this is a solid addition to the summer songlist. See what you think here:
We’ll close with a couple performances from the archives that were worth a watch/listen. Now that Shaky Knees has joined the ranks of Lolla, Coachella, and all other major festivals — dashing my hopes for live music/fun anytime in the foreseeable future — it looks like livestreams and old performances are the only way we’re going to satisfy our urge for live music. (Save you taking up the ukelele and putting on sidewalk performances for me — give me a call if you are, Rizzo and I will watch from the window.) As a result, Pickathon extended its series pulling a new concert from its archives each day, and two I found noteworthy were from Kevin Morby and Blind Pilot.
Morby’s is from 2015 and despite being only five years ago he looks like a baby-faced troubadour, running through a set of early songs (including a ripping version of “Harlem River”) in his 45-minute set. It’s from my favorite era of his so far, with the wondrous Meg Duffy playing alongside him on stage, so is great to go back and see this version of the band in full force. (Side note: I really miss Morbzahatchee streams — when are they coming back?!?)
As for Portland’s own Blind Pilot, their set was more of a surprise. I’d written about these guys back on the old site in 2015, but hadn’t really kept up with them since. Their set from the year prior was a really lovely, relaxing reminder that maybe I should, though, so see if it sparks the same in you:
With that we’ll jump across the pond to hang with the losers a bit (I kid — I’d live there again in a heartbeat, particularly as COVID swirls like pollen over here while they’re doing far better, among other deserved knocks on our homeland of late.) We’ll start with the upcoming reunion of Doves, which has been in the offing for a while now. I wrote about it back in April of last year when they’d announced they were recording new material, but it’d been crickets since then.
Thankfully they released the first song last week, and even more thankfully it sounds just like the rest of their stuff — no decay from years of disuse or dangerous new styles trying to capitalize on current trends. Just classic Doves — frontman Jimi Goodwin’s swooning vocals, Andy Williams’ sturdy drums, and guitarist Jez Williams’ swirling guitars. Let’s hope the rest of the album is as good as this — check out “Carousels” in the meantime:
Next comes the latest single from Irish act Fontaines D.C., who are set to release their sophomore album at the end of the month. (A Hero’s Death is due out 31 July.) They’ve showed up here before, thanks to their occasionally excellent debut, Dogrel. This one’s a bit more sedate than some of the stuff that showed up there, sporting a hypnotic riff from guitarists Conor Curley and Carlos O’Connell and some repetitive chants from frontman Grain Chatten. It works well, though, so will be interesting to see if this is a new direction for the band once the full album arrives. Check out “Televised Mind” while we wait:
It being the 4th we’ll close with some fireworks, courtesy of the brash boys from Bristol, Idles. They’re back with the second single from their upcoming third album, Ultra Mono (due out 25 Sept). They’ve shown up a couple times here before, courtesy of their huge sound and the gonzo energy of frontman Joe Talbot, whose occasionally nonsensical lyrics are nevertheless tremendously satisfying to shout at high volumes while raging out with the band. (ALL ABOARD THE COCAINE GHOST TRAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAIN!)
Their latest bottles up the tension, threatening to explode but never letting it get there, which is not to say this is a letdown in any form or fashion — Jon Beavis still lays down a pulverizing beat that guitarist Mark Bowen throws a wicked buzzsaw riff on, and Talbot is his usual winning self. Excited to see what else they’ve got in store for us — enjoy “Grounds” for now:
Before we go, wanted to throw one last thing out there for folks — I’m not sure where everyone gets their music news from these days (other than here for you eight beloved heroes), but one of my key sources, Stereogum, just sent out a crowdsourced plea for help thanks to COVID killing concerts, their major source of revenue. They’ve already raised over $230,000 (!?!), but still have another $20k to go in order to keep their writers on staff and keep the site going.
In addition to supporting a good cause (IMO) you’ll get an exclusive album of current bands doing covers of early ’00s classics (songlist to be revealed) among other goodies, so please share with others and support if you can/feel like it. Should be a good one once released — Car Seat, Death Cab, Hamilton, PUP, the National, Ty Segall, Waxahatchee, White Reaper, and others who’ve appeared here are all on there.
That’s it — hope everyone has a safe, quiet holiday. Until next time… –BS