Avant-Rock

Today’s Track: Dama Scout – ‘Emails From Suzanne’

April 26, 2022 — Leave a comment
Pictured: Eva Liu (Vocals/Lead Guitar), Scot Lucci (Bass Guitar) and Daniel Grant (Drums) (2022) (Photo via PR)

Good Morning to you! My name is Jacob Braybrooke, and the time has almost come for you to delete all of the junk mail in your inbox folder after you’ve finished reading yet another daily track on the blog, because it is always my day-to-day pleasure to write up about a different piece of music every day! An Indie Punk trio comprised of vocalist/guitarist Eva Liu, bassist Scot Lucci and drummer Daniel Grant, Dama Scout were formed in 2016 and they subsequently spent years self-producing nightmarish soundscapes traversing through Noise-Pop and Industrial Rock in the studio, dividing their time between Glasgow and London. The band’s name derives from a line said by the protagonist of Harper Lee’s ‘To Kill A Mockingbird’ to whom Liu has long related, as ‘Dama’ means woman or deer. You can find support for the trio on sources like The Line Of Best Fit, BBC Introducing, NTS Radio, Amazing Radio and DIY. Their debut LP – ‘Gen Wo Lai (Come With Me)’ – was released on April 22nd via Hand In Hive, and it draws from East Asian Pop and Rock influences. An LP project that was assembled internally – with all of the material getting written, recorded, mixed and produced by Dama Scout themselves – and it explores the ethnicity of Eva Liu, who was born in Northern Ireland by two parents from Hong Kong, thus becoming an object of school playground curiosity. Their bold full-length outing is a soundtrack for her journey of attracting unwanted attention in her adolescence to becoming comfortable with her identity as a young adult, told in the form of harsh Dream-Pop backdrops and various genre fluid explorations. Check your crowded inbox for ‘Emails From Suzanne’ below.

Dama Scout says the promotional single pays homage to “the world’s finest vessel of passive aggression, wrought with the sincerest best wishes, high in frequency, low in fidelity – the email” and it is enriched vividly by the visual work of the accompanying music video, which the band pitch as “a short documentary exploring the death of the office, the nature of emerging flexible work environments and the relationship between labor and the millennial condition of perpetual adolescence“, in a press statement. On that note, a disturbing slice of visual imagery is a suitable companion to the thick walls of distortion and push-and-pull pacing on ‘Emails From Suzanne’ as a sharp, piercing ode to the passive aggression of workplace communication through online messaging. The lyrics are decidedly fragmented, with sequences like “How could/I have done it/All before” and “What is her name?, I ask/Is she wanted?, Any background information?” being repeated throughout the track with a collage-style, loose structure. They are evoked by a sense of Liu muttering under her breath, getting light frustrations and underlying anger across as the emerging feel of catharsis slowly makes its way to the forefront of the loud, quirky tune by the time that it reaches the end. The track twists through the grit of 90’s Riot Grrrl in the breathy bite of the vocals and the aggressive character of the backing band’s sections, while turning through more modern explorations of Shoegaze and Hyper Pop in the ear-catching viscerality of the full-blast guitar rhythms and the rather whimsical finale punctuated by the heightened instrumentals which evoke a nightmarish, anxiety-inducing tone. Rather than having a twisted sweetness to it that brings in some unsettling elements, ‘Emails From Suzanne’ is a little more intent on delivering some high-octane Dream Rock and brooding melodies to give the feeling that something is lurking in the dark corners of the underworld. It is not for everybody due to how outright angry that it sounds, but that’s no discredit to the risks that Dama Scout are taking and how they structure their recorded material with their slow builds that replicate the feeling of a live performance. It does not feel massively improvised, but it bears a decent amount of depth to it and there are flashes of a fresh band who are daring to be different even if the thick walls of distortion feel a little bit played out in their genre, a trope they aren’t necessarily subverting. Although the band have a limited discography, cuts like ‘Emails From Suzanne’ are promising in showcasing an emerging act who have the spirit to forge their own roads in a market that is not currently experiencing a dearth of new talent. A welcome invitation to the, sometimes frightening yet often Utopian, world of a 3-piece who are in control of their career’s direction and musical trajectory.

Pictured: Cover Artwork for ‘Gen Wo Lai (Come With Me)’ (LP) (Released on April 22nd, 2022) (via Hand In Hive)

Thank you for checking out my latest post on the blog, and I will be back tomorrow as we go retro for ‘Way Back Wednesdays’ with a revisit of a 90’s Hip-Hop classic that any fans of ‘Watch Dogs 2’ are going to love. Praised bu NPR and AllMusic, this duo from Long Island, New York were ranked as #5 on Rolling Stone’s list of ‘The 20 Greatest Duo’s Of All Time’ in 2015 and, unfortunately, their lost material was a victim of the Universal fire which affected hundreds of artists, whose tapes were destroyed in 2008.

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Today’s Track: Dana Gavanski – ‘Indigo Highway’

April 19, 2022 — Leave a comment
Pictured: Dana Gavinski in the official music video for ‘Yesterday Is Gone’ (2020) (Photo Credit: Tess Roby)

Good Morning to you! This is Jacob Braybrooke, and the time has come for me to settle my own nerves like a calming pill for a playful addition to my catalogue with yet another daily track on the blog, because it’s always my day-to-day pleasure to write up about a different piece of music every day! Inspired by the live performance aspects of David Bowie, Art-Rock singer-songwriter Dana Gavanski – a Canadian-Serbian musician based in London – almost followed in her father’s footsteps for a career in the film industry, but she developed her skills in music for a year and decided to release her first record back in 2017. Following that time, she has received acclaim for her work from sources like Exclaim, Monkeybiz and BBC Radio 6 Music, with the latter naming 2020’s ‘Yesterday Is Gone’ as their album of the week. She has recorded two live sessions for Marc Riley’s show, she has supported Damien Jurado on a tour across Europe and she has worked with Tuung’s Mike Lindsay as her producer. More recently, she recorded a cover version of King Crimson’s ‘I Talk To The Wind’ as a charity single. In the near future, she will be releasing her second full-length studio album – ‘When It Comes’ – as she gears up to add another release to her impressive resume for an artist who’s only been active since 2017. Set to release through Full Time Hobby on April 29th, she describes the release with “In many ways, this record feels like it is my first. When I could use my voice, I had to focus so there is an urgency and greater emotional trajectory than before. It’s very connected to vocal presence, which extended into an existential questioning of my connection to music. It felt like a battle at times, which I frequently lost”, in her own words. The new LP was recorded between Montreal and Belgrade, finally being mixed at London’s Total Refreshment centre by Mike Lindsay. Check out Dana’s single ‘Indigo Highway’ below.

Gavanski pitches ‘Indigo Highway’ as an unguarded Moog-built track that captures the loss of childhood relationships with sincerity and absurdity in her press release, as she explains, “From the beginning of my interest in songwriting, I’d tried many times to write about this relationship and never could. It felt too fragile, too fraught with experience and distant in many ways. However faraway the time feels, no matter what came next, ‘Indigo Highway’ endeavors to return to what made the relationship special. This song is like a prayer, or a way back, temporarily, to innocence and silliness and sunshine on a field”, in her words. The fun starts off with an idiosyncratic arpeggio groove and a distinctly retro kick drum beat that paves the way for Gavanski’s abstract vocals to find their mark, as lyrics like “I think I’ve found my way back home, Wandering out” and “When you come over and visit me, We’ll sit by the willow tree” offer pastoral and peaceful reflections on plunging yourself back through time to return to your innocence before the times that followed in adolescence. A Piano drops in rather whimsically, at a later point, to a jaunting set of verses where Gavanski passionately projects her voice with lyrics like “I’ll find your face, it’s changing in different ways/And I’m looking around to see” to contemplate the platonic friendships that she has been finding and declining, or naturally progressed away from, during her lifetime. Propelled by an obscure Synth hook and pierced Keyboard melodies that are locked together frenetically by a consistently no-frills drum kit, Gavanski conjures up a presence that feels highly original in the way that she mixes her playful musicality with youthful personality. Her warm crooning feels both familiar and otherworldly when paired to the otherwise percussive arrangement that feels reasonably melodic, but textured by the eccentric instrumentation and the transcendant qualities of her child-like lyricism. There’s shades of Nico and Cate Le Bon in here, as well as more Folk-costumed nods to Aldous Harding or Weyes Blood’s material, and so it should appeal nicely to a decent range of Alt-Folk and Country-Rock fans with it’s bright, yet widescreen brand of quirky atmospherics and whimsical daydreaming although it feels slightly faster in tempo than most of the music by the aforementioned influences. A joyful and cinematic piece that we could all connect to.

Pictured: Cover Artwork for ‘When It Comes’ (LP/Album) (Available from April 29th, 2022) (via Full Time Hobby)

That brings us swiftly round to the end of the Indigo Highway for today! Thank you for coming along for the ride, and I honestly can’t believe how short this week feels because it’s almost time for a fresh new entry of ‘Way Back Wednesdays’ that will be arriving on the site tomorrow. This time, we’re looking back at a very influential Swedish Prog-Pop duo with a cult following who have been celebrating their 20th anniversary with a number of re-issues since 2021. They are also known for wearing Venetian masks in their public appearances, and managing their Rabid Records label.

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New Album Release Fridays: Warmduscher – ‘Twitchin’ In The Kitchen’

April 1, 2022 — Leave a comment
Pictured: Cover Artwork for ‘At The Hotspot’ (Digital LP) (Released on April 1st, 2022) (via Bella Union Records)

Good Morning to you! This is Jacob Braybrooke, and you are tuned into a fairly off-kilter edition of ‘New Album Release Fridays’ as we prepare for yet another daily track on the blog, because it’s always my day-to-day pleasure to write up about a different piece of new music every day! Although you may mistake them for a quirky German pop band at first glance, Warmduscher are actually a London-based Post-Punk band currently signed to Bella Union who are famed for their inside jokes and eccentric live performances, and they have been supported by BBC Radio 6 Music very regularly over the years since their formation in 2014. Warmduscher have collaborated with the likes of Iggy Pop and Kool Keith, and their previous studio album – 2019’s ‘Tainted Lunch’ – received a stunning 9/10 score from The Line Of Best Fit’s review as well as a place on BBC Radio 6 Music’s Albums Of The Year list at #6 in 2019. They have also released a remix EP – 2020’s ‘European Cowboy’ – to coincide with Record Store Day in 2020 featuring contributions from Soulwax, Savage Gary and Decius, and it was strictly limited to just 1000 vinyl copies. Thankfully, their new album is more widely available and it takes the form of their fourth full-length LP, ‘At The Hotspot’, which arrives digitally today before being released on Vinyl on July 1st. Warmduscher have gained so much praise for their originality and humor that they were previously given a shout-out on the blog when I wrote about ‘Disco Peanuts’ in late 2019. The new LP incorporates more influences of Funk and Disco than before, and it was originally going to be produced by Speedy Wunderground’s Dan Carey, who has also produced countless records for artists like La Roux, Sinead O’Brien, Squid and Black Country, New Road in recent years. However, he fell ill with Covid-19 and the Clash-praised group turned to Hot Chip’s Alex Doyle and Joe Goddard instead. It includes the new single ‘Twitchin’ In The Kitchen’ that comes accompanied by a Brixton-shot and Niall Trask-directed music video, whose previous credits include well-received videos for Fat White Family and Working Men’s Club. Let’s give this pre-release cut a spin below.

Warmduscher played a gig at Cambridge’s The Junction venue on March 26th, which was moved to a larger room due to high demand. They will also be hitting the road for dates in Brighton, Bristol, London, Manchester and Sheffield later in the year, some of which have been sold out already, and a few later dates in European locations like Amsterdam are coming up shortly too. Their frontman, known as Clams Jr, notes, “We’re just really psyched to play this whole thing live now, and it’s a whole revamp – new label, new producers, new logo – new everything”, rather matter-of-factly, in Bella Union’s press release about their new record. ‘Twitchin In The Kitchen’ gives you a good idea of what to expect, establishing a raucous mixture of aggressive Funk and harsh, dissonant Synth melodies that builds up to a screamer of a chorus. The instrumentation sounds unapologetically Post-Punk, while the lyrics complement the spacey, disco vibe of the verses because they sound pretty daft and they find the band putting on a show with their wit and sense of distinctively quirky character, as Clams recites lines like “I can’t take it, here I’m sweating/I’m clucking like a chicken” and “Grab a bowl, scrape it clean/Two-four out the door, sniff it off the kitchen floor” that are pretty silly, but they are sung with a low-pitched croon typical of Clams’ cowboy character. The vocals feel energized and heightened for certain, while the looping arrangement feels industrial and psychedelic through it’s combination of Post-Punk and Progressive Funk beats, before building to a child-like sing-along that makes the final refrains sound like a schoolyard chant-a-long of the chorus. A perfect pick-me-up for kitchen disco lovers all around the UK, Warmduscher have created an infectious Alternative Funk anthem for those who love to do a bit of ‘Twitching In The Kitchen’ with no apologies given in their typical quirky fashion. It may drive you Disco Peanuts.

Pictured: Clams Baker Jr, Jack Everett, Quicksand, Mr. Salt Fingers Lovecraft and Little Whiskers (2019) (via PR)

If you’d like to hear more of what’s in store, you can also check out my previous Warmduscher post that was published in the build-up to ‘Tainted Lunch’ back in 2019.

‘Disco Peanuts’ (2019) – https://onetrackatatime.home.blog/2019/11/30/todays-track-warmduscher-disco-peanuts/

Pictured: Cover Artwork for ‘Tainted Lunch’ (LP) (Released on November 1st, 2019) (via The Leaf Label)

That’s all for now! Thank you for ‘Twitching In The Kitchen’ to this tune with me today, and I’ll be back to guide you through another track on the blog tomorrow, where we’ve got new music coming from an Irish Post-Punk band who, although being mentioned a few times due to their frequent collaborations with Dan Carey as their producer, haven’t been covered for a fully-fledged article on the blog until now. Their second album was nominated for Best Rock Album at the 2021 Grammy Awards, and their debut LP, ‘Dogrel’, was named the ‘Album Of The Year’ by BBC Radio 6 Music.

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Today’s Track: Obongjayar – ‘Message In A Hammer’

February 17, 2022 — Leave a comment
Pictured: Cover Artwork for ‘Some Nights I Dream Of Doors’ (LP) (Available from May 13th, 2022) (via September Recordings)

Good Morning to you! This is Jacob Braybrooke, and it’s time to hear a defiant word of resistance from today’s important new voice in music with yet another daily track on the blog, since it’s always my day-to-day pleasure to write up about a different piece of music every day! Long-time readers may remember how Obongjayar reached the last spot of my ‘Top 5 Best EP’s Of 2020’ list with ‘Which Way Is Forward?’ eons ago, and that’s because this artist is doing a lot of very creative things within the Afrobeat genre by blending elements of Electronic, Spoken Word, Psych-Pop and Post-Rock music together to create frightening and visceral soundscapes that lyrically explore non religion-specific spiritual overtones about searching for your soul. Obongjayar is the release moniker of London-based Afrobeat artist Steven Umoh, who was born in Calabar, Nigeria and he moved over to the UK with his mother to escape their abusive relationship with his father. He is influenced by the US Hip-Hop artists of the 2000’s who he spent his childhood listening to including Eminem, Ciara, Usher, Nelly and Snoop Dogg. His work has gained praise from Pitchfork, The Guardian, New Wave Magazine and Deep Cuts – and he has recently collaborated with Pa Salieu and Little Simz. He also contributed to the ‘Everything Is Recorded’ project that was started by Richard Russell, who is the executive of XL Recordings. Umoh will be releasing his debut studio album – ‘Some Nights I Dream Of Doors’ – via September Recordings on May 13th. In an attached press release, Umoh says, “This album dives into the idea of opportunity and tries to explore what that means, what lies beyond those doors, and asks if we’re ready for it”. Check out his haunting single ‘Message In A Hammer’ below.

The new album features 12 tracks including the other pre-release single – ‘Try’ – and a new collaboration with the Mercury Prize-nominated Prog-Jazz musician Nubya Garcia. ‘Message In A Hammer’ is built on a pummeling beat that Umoh devised with co-producer Barney Lister, and Umoh makes his stern warning sound clear, saying, “Message In A Hammer is about fight, and fighting against the powers that take and steal and rob from us, and calling them by their name – thieves and murderers”, in a press release. The ‘hammer’ in the track’s title is not metaphorical in the video, and he matches this striking imagery with a piece of music that finds him chanting methodically with his vocals that sound very determined and brutal with honesty. Refusing to be placed into a box, he protests against colonialism and state corruption with unbridled lyrics like “Born in trouble water/Every stroke is war” and “They drowned the ones before us/But we’ll make it to shore” that hint towards the actions bought about by SARS, a Nigerian authority who has come under scrutiny for the violence that it has inflicted on young Nigerians with its special police force. Synths hover and waver in the backbeat, while the drums thump along at a relentless pace and sell the disdain that Umoh has instinctively felt about the history that he refuses not to get overburdened by, and he instead turns the tide – in both a literal and a lyrical sense – with the leading hook of “You can beat me, shoot me, kill me, throw me in jail/You can strip me, use me, abuse me” that makes his very commanding presence felt and leads his unsullied chorus. His tone is furious and hellbent, but his vocals come across as passionate instead of preachy, for the most part. I think what really works about Obongjayar’s music is how his voice stretches through a plethora of political and intimate themes, while set against a range of different influences and subsequent backdrops, without coming across as too self-righteous and it feels harsh, but well-balanced, instead. This is another solid example that he displays on ‘Message In A Hammer’, a message against the dispatch of systematic oppression that acknowledges the past while conveying a forward-thinking ethos and delivery. The naval percussion, the sinister Synths and the brisk pace tie a neat ribbon around it all.

Pictured: Cover Art for ‘Which Way Is Forward?’ (EP) (Released on February 7, 2020) (via September Recordings)

That’s all for now! Thank you for checking out some different music with me today, and thank you for lending a pair of eyes to my site for just a few minutes today. I’m visiting my sister in Kent tomorrow – so you can rest assured that I’ve gotten ahead of my game and written all about tomorrow’s pick for ‘New Album Release Fridays’ in advance. We’re discussing the ambitious double album project from a Chamber Pop duo from Baltimore, Maryland who have been nominated for a Swedish GAFFA award.

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New Album Release Fridays: Trentemøller – ‘All Too Soon’

February 11, 2022 — Leave a comment
Pictured: Cover Artwork for ‘Memoria’ (LP) (Released on February 11th, 2022) (via In My Room Records)

Good Morning to you! This is Jacob Braybrooke, and it’s time to get through the last few hours of your tiresome working week with the aid of yet another daily track of the blog of the ‘New Album Release Fridays’ variety, given how it has always been my day-to-day pleasure to write up about a different piece of new music every day! One of today’s most eventful album releases comes from Trentemoller, a Danish film score creator, producer and multi-instrumentalist from Copenhagen, Denmark who has released lush compositions of a cinematic style for over 20 years now by drawing on elements such as Minimalism, Glitch, Dark Wave, Downtempo, Instrumental Hip-Hop, Synthwave, Post-Rock and more with productions that feel eerie and progressive for his grounded discography. Trentemoller started making music in the 90’s as a part of different Indie Rock projects and he has since founded his own label – In My Room Records. He also headlined the Orange Stage at Roskilde Festival in 2009 with a set designed by his close friend and touring drummer Henrik Vibskov, a night that saw him playing in front of 60,000 people with innovative visuals to captivate them. Today, he is releasing his sixth full-length studio album – ‘Memoria’ – via his own label. This is the follow-up LP to 2019’s ‘Obverse’, a record that was nominated for IMPALA’s European Independent Album Of The Year award of that same year and it also saw him collaborate with Warpaint’s Jenny Lee Linberg and Slowdive’s Rachel Goswell. For one of his latest singles – ‘All Too Soon’ – he has reached out to his own girlfriend Lisbet Fritze for a glistening series of radiant backing vocals. Let’s give it a spin below.

Taking us through the narrative behind ‘All Too Soon’ on his own Bandcamp page, Trentemoller says, “All Too Soon examines ostensibly diametric relationships of light and dark, life and death, day and night, love and hate, while actually presenting them as dualistic, and symbiotic, influencing each other as they interrelate. What might appear to be a dispiriting take on our mortality could just as easily be interpreted as its acceptance being liberating”, in his own description. Beginning with a light acoustic guitar strum that becomes more intense and darkens the atmosphere before Fritze’s mysterious vocals kick in, who croons pained lyrics like “Have you ever fallen in/Into an inner void?” and “Do you feel like I do? Abandoned from it all” with an enigmatic presence, with a Trip Hop-influenced soundscape that morphs into a more glitched and distorted picture frame of a piece as the four minute duration of the track takes its time. Trentemoller complements the scattering Shoegaze opus of the chorus – with regretful lyrics like “We can’t live forever/If we could, we would” being sprawled all below percussive feedback stabs by Fritze – with sumptuous melodies of melancholic Drums and antagonized trails of reverb. Together, it makes up for an ethereal combination of psychedelic Dream Rock and textured Progressive Pop with a few vague lyrics like “Is a growing darkness/All you see?” creating a platform of intrigue. Through the means of collaborating with his girlfriend, Trentemoller toys with the idea of connections, with lyrics like “Is it day or night/Is it love or hate/Is it anything between?” that contrast each other and his instrumental work employs some warm percussion that counteracts the more cold, dry tones of the guitar and drums. Overall, ‘All Too Soon’ is a detailed and well-informed exploration of items that are bound together, yet they are opposite and he soundtracks these relations with his pivoting instrumentation and his emotive yet guarded lyricism that doesn’t reveal much in terms of laying out a direct meaning, with an underlayer of Pop that ensures that light is appropriately clashing with darkness throughout his soundscape.

Pictured: Anders Trentemøller in an official photoshoot for ‘Obverse’ (2019) (Photo by David Ampong/Waves.com)

That leaves me with nothing left to say other than to thank you for time and wish you well on your way to the weekend. ‘Scuzz Sundays’ will return in two days time for the usual throwback to the ‘trashy teen’ era of our lives, but I’ve also got some new music to share with you tomorrow that comes from an Indie Rock duo from the Isle Of Wight who have been all played over BBC Radio 1 and BBC Radio 6 Music since their debut single – ‘Chaise Lounge’ – went viral last year. They are shortlisted for BBC’s ‘Sound Of 2022’ poll and they began touring in the US in December as they keep finding success.

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Way Back Wednesdays: The Smashing Pumpkins – ‘Cherub Rock’

February 9, 2022 — Leave a comment
Pictured: Billy Corgan (Lead Vocals/Chief Songwriter/Producer), James Iha (Bass Guitar), Jeff Schroeder (Keyboard/Rhythm Guitar) & Jimmy Chamberlain (Drums/Percussion) in a press shot for ‘Cyr’ (2020) (Photo via PR)

Good Afternoon to you! This is Jacob Braybrooke, and I’m here to deliver a ‘Smashing’ new entry into our exhaustive library of weekly ‘Way Back Wednesdays’ posts on the blog as we remember some of the seminal sounds of the past with another daily track on the blog, given how it has always been my day-to-day pleasure to write up about a different piece of music every day! TNA promoter, of all surprising side hustles, Billy Corgan is a 90’s-leaning songwriter with an artistic drive who always puts a great effort into the visual aspects and the guitar effects within his material. Although some of his Smashing Pumpkins work has varied in quality, he is still going today and, as I’ve mentioned on the blog in previous relevant posts, he is never without inherently uninteresting ideas and one of his risks paid off neatly with ‘Cherub Rock’, a 1993 hit that was taken from his band’s second studio album – ‘Siamese Dream’ – that was unveiled to the globe as the first single from the release at the time. It was nominated for a Grammy Award for ‘Best Hard Rock Performance’ and it was later covered by Rochester-based indie rock band Roses Are Red in 2005. ‘Cherub Rock’ was one of the last songs to be written for ‘Siamese Dream’ and it peaked at #31 in the UK Singles Chart. The influences and lyrics of ‘Siamese Dream’ stood out among other Alt-Rock releases at the time despite recording sessions fraught with high tensions and some difficulties, and it was regarded as one of the most critically-acclaimed alternative albums of the 90’s by institutions like Rolling Stone. Let’s revisit ‘Cherub Rock’ below.

Although ‘Cherub Rock’ was not as widely marketable or commercially successful as ‘Today’ by critics upon its initial release, it remains to be a fan favourite and it was given a new lease of fresh life during the 00’s when it was included on the playable soundtracks of popular rhythm action video game franchises like ‘Guitar Hero’ and ‘Rocksmith’ available for multiple console platforms. Starting off with marching drums that remind me of The Red Hot Chilli Peppers, who arrived on the scene a bit later on, that morphs into a prominent set of guitar riffs that have a heavy Grunge aura to them, we thrust defiantly into fuzzy and soft instrumentation that is energetic and driving in its excess of feedback. This glitched delivery has a clear Shoegaze element that also points towards My Bloody Valentine or Ride with the textually thick balance of hypnotic Post-Punk and high-cadence melodic precursor to mid-90’s Brit-Pop. Lyrically, Corgan relates to his own relationship with the ‘Indie’ music community of the 90’s and his perceptions within the larger media, with forceful lyrics like “Doesn’t matter what you believe in/Stay cool” that encourages you to follow your instincts as an artistic matter and “Hipsters unite/Come align for the big fight to rock for you” that carry his determined ethos to bring rag-tag gangs together to enjoy music socially and within a communal environment that is free for you to express yourself in as an artist or audience member, with a bad-tempered hook of “Let me out” that mirror the relationship of a songwriter and a record label getting sour as towering creative differences ware on. Corgan delivers one of his most fiesty vocal performances and the soaring guitar solo is a highlight in showcasing his skills as a guitar player. What is interesting is how he recorded the prominent effect section of his guitar parts by recording the music to two different tapes at simultaneous fashion, and he clearly alters the speed of one of his tapes. What this means is that it makes the effects feel as though they are not really coming from the guitar, leaning into his Shoegaze influences most directly. Overall, ‘Cherub Rock’ still sounds great as the lyrics ring true, the instrumentation is more diverse than it may feel at first glance, and you have a well-informed vocal performance by Corgan who layers his furious songwriting on top of the stellar drums and the distortion-drenched guitar melodies to build up a cascading wall of sound around him as to convey his emotions with a swelling buoyancy. Drifting through Shoegaze, Alternative Rock, Electronica, Psych-Rock, Prog-Punk and Dream Rock through a vicious cycle that is paced coherently, ‘Cherub Rock’ could represent Corgan at his most creative and most visually detailed.

Pictured: Cover Artwork for ‘Siamese Dream’ (LP) (Released on July 27th, 1993) (via Virgin/EMI Records)

If you’re looking to smash some more pumpkins, you’ve come to the right place. You can get festive with my write-up of the rare track ‘Christmas Time’ from 1997 here: https://onetrackatatime.home.blog/2021/12/19/santas-scuzz-sundays-the-smashing-pumpkins-christmas-time/. You can dive into some of Corgan’s latest material with ‘Wyttch’, a promotional single taken from his 2020 album ‘Cyr’ here: https://onetrackatatime.home.blog/2020/11/27/todays-track-the-smashing-pumpkins-wyttch/. Or take a trip to the moon with my older assessment of ‘Tonight, Tonight’ with this post: https://onetrackatatime.home.blog/2019/10/27/scuzz-sundays-the-smashing-pumpkins-tonight-tonight/.

Pictured: Cover Art for ‘Mellan Collie and The Infinite Sadness’ (LP) (Released in 1995) (via Virgin/EMI Records)

Thank you for checking out my latest post, and it is always a pleasure to join you in remembering the creatives who bought the excellently produced LP ‘Mellan Collie and The Infinite Sadness’ to the world in the 90’s. I’ll be back tomorrow, however, with a large emphasis on fresh new music as I introduce you to a very interesting Berlin-based Experimental Rock musician who made a name for themselves as a part of LA’s LGBT community of underground producers. They have performed alongside Charli XCX and Flume, and they’ve received positive support from the likes of Mixmag.

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Today’s Track: The Mushroom Herders – ‘Gainesville Square’

January 20, 2022 — Leave a comment
Pictured: Cover Artwork for ‘HERE!’ (LP) (Released on December 18th, 2021) (via 2189610 Records DK)

Good Morning to you! This is Jacob Braybrooke, as per usual, and it’s time for us to invest just a little bit of time into yet another daily track on the blog, because it’s always my day-to-day pleasure to write up about a different piece of music every day! A self-described “North Georgia Cat” as per his Bandcamp profile, The Mushroom Herders is the underground indie rock project of singer-songwriter Christopher James Estrada, who has spent time in a few places like Colorado and Atlanta, but has always returned to his “original stomping grounds” of the Northern Georgia area. Introduced to the likes of Cypress Hill, The Offspring and AFI by his close brother at twelve years old, Estrada became enamored with the acoustic guitar and fell in love with genres like the 60’s Psych scene, the 70’s Punk scene and the late-80’s Alternative scene in his young adulthood. He likes to describe his music as “music for the common people” and says he thinks “It’s always been about inspiring others to feel the motivation to create their own world” when reflecting on his own work in recent times. He released his latest LP – ‘HERE’ – on 19th December, 2021 via 2189610 Records DK, a collection of recordings that he’s been producing and writing since 2016. After a few years, he re-discovered the rough recordings on a burned disc in his car and retrieved the files via his PC’s hard drive and, after feeling nostalgic about the length of time the unreleased material has been kicking about, he has decided to publish it for the world. I loved ‘Gainesville Square’ when I first heard it, which gets the music video treatment below.

“Gainesvile Square means a lot to me. There are stomping grounds for me. It’s wild. I first started performing it on the square out of convenience. It didn’t seem to bother anyone that I would play my loud, silly music here”, Estrada says about his productive live experience in the video’s description, adding, “Eventually, I started bringing out actual amplifiers and playing louder music, and even that didn’t seem to bother people, surprisingly. This allowed me to flourish creatively. It gave me an open space to try out weird, strange sounds in the public eye. It allowed me to really discover what I wanted to play and perform for people”, as he comments on the connection between the outdoor environment and musical influences of the track. Kicking off with a modulated vocal sample that progressively gets warped and just surrounds the listener with an atmospheric gloom reflective of the informality of the track’s title location, we soon get a driving drum loop that kicks into gear and raises the tempo with percussive handclaps. The vocals are screwed and chopped, providing a hazy and psychedelic 90’s backdrop for the delayed pedal effects to create a buoyant melody from. The lyrics are difficult to hear in the mix, but the soundscape is detailed with helicopter sound effects and drowsy backing beats that feel a little trippy, continuously adding more intensity to the layered melodies that each reflect the sprawling, open and public setting of the track’s title. A strange groove of playful keyboard riffs and hazy guitar loops is created as the buoyant Synth riffs and the glistening Keys merge together to provide an overall psychedelic shine of production that makes the leading hook of the chorus of “Just sitting around on Gainesville Square” feel very triumphant and not mundane as it may appear on paper, but it feels relaxed and calm because the tone of the rhythms are positive and high-spirited in the mood they evoke. The lyrics are simplistic yet very bright, with sequences like “There’s leaves on the ground, and leaves all around” that describe the scene in a catchy flow, while other lyrics feel more wide-eyed and observational in delivery, as “There’s cars and there’s people too, and there’s me and you” that address you in the second person tense and make you feel more believably absorbed into the scene. Overall, it becomes not only a track about finding cheer and joy in your current surroundings, but a light commentary on the philosophy between making music and where you perform it. By the sounds of it, it is also a location that I really want to visit.

Pictured: Cover Art for ‘Midnight Outings & Blacklight Showers’ (LP) (Released on August 16, 2011) (Self-Released)

That’s all for now! Thank you for checking out my latest post and giving ‘Gainesville Square’ a few minutes of your time, and I’ll be back tomorrow to celebrate one of the weekend’s most exciting album releases for ‘New Album Release Fridays’ as we mark the debut album release of a Leeds-based indie punk 4-piece who have admittedly featured on the blog a few times before, but there’s a huge air of anticipation about their first LP. They have been supported regularly by BBC Radio 6 Music for the past eighteen months and they are included on BBC’s ‘Sound Of 2022’ poll. I also got the chance to see this band perform live at The Portland Arms (Cambridge) in September.

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Today’s Track: LYR (feat. Rozi Plain) – ‘Cascade Theory’

January 10, 2022 — Leave a comment
Pictured: Simon Armitage, Richard Walters and Patrick Pearson (2021) (Photo Credit: Callum Lovell Harrison)

Good Morning to you! This is Jacob Braybrooke, and I’m crossing my fingers for a peaceful start to a new week for you as we invest in yet another daily track on the blog, because it’s always my day-to-day pleasure to write up about a different piece of music every day! ‘Cascade Theory’ is a brilliant new track from LYR, an experimental Post-Rock trio that is currently comprised of British poet laureate Simon Armitage, musician Richard Walters and multi-instrumentalist Patrick Pearson, with additional vocals by Winchester-based Alternative Pop singer-songwriter Rozi Plain. The trio’s name is an acronym for Land Yacht Regatta, and the three creatives say they found each other through the galvanizing philosophy of blending words. Last year, they released their debut album – ‘Call In The Crash Team’ – and they collaborated with Hollywood actress Florence Pugh and Melt Yourself Down’s Pete Wareham on their single ‘Lockdown’. A follow-up EP – ‘Cascade Theory’ – was released in late November via Mercury KX, a five-track release that elevates their typically Spoken Word blended with Ambient Rock style of music to more scientific proportions. LYR have said that “Cascade Theory takes a scientific principle and applies it to a social or psychological setting. Things crash into each other – especially thoughts and ideas – and the resulting fragmentation is both bewildering and exciting”, in their product description for the short-form release. The attached music video follows actor Richard Fox and it was directed by Jordan Martin, as well as produced by Double Vision, and it matches the single to some Noir-like visuals that finds the real world and an imaginary setting colliding at full speed, leaving behind a mess of stardust and glitter. Let’s check it out.

“The scientific phenomenon that is central to the EP is found in behavioral economics and explains decision making in sequential fashion, enlightening us on why observation follows imitation”, Mercury KX adds about the EP’s titular track in a press statement, explaining, “Simon Armitage’s ambient Spoken Word passages, at the forefront of the track, expand upon their personal interpretation of the network-based theory”, in the EP’s listing pages. This collision of objects, like the paint of the music video colliding with “space junk” as Armitage recites in the single, mirrors the vibrant explosion of poetry and Post-Punk of LYR’s sound on the track, as Armitage recalls that “one thing follows the other” in a key refrain of the lyrics. We start off with a minimal Piano beat that builds up to a soaring drum beat before a guitar riff is introduced to the melody, which becomes lightly distorted and feels suitable for the grim black-and-white colour palette of the music video. Meanwhile, Armitage uses a fairly laidback tone for his vocals that feels insistent as brief anecdotes like “Drop the tight bow in next door’s pond and call it a song/Broke a borrow side on a hiding rock, Mowing wet hay” and “It built a business park in a green field, While I fitted about and fine-tuned, the useless Haiku of a Rubik’s cube” that not only explain the cascade theory that is relevant to the track’s title, but apply the theory to everyday practices. A key refrain later on, where Simon Armitage recounts, “In the face of Jesus, I saw the orangutan” connect the theory to ongoing debates around religion and science. Not only are the lyrics intriguing, but the instrumentation feels cinematic and engrossing, as the chirping guitars and the reminiscent Drums create a stirring soundscape of unyielding chords. There are echoes of Sigur Ros in the Post-Rock textures, while the bass lines are more comparable to Future Islands in how the lyricism melds with the ascending melodies. There’s a hint of Jarvis Cocker to the male vocals, which come across with a near-equal mixture of light humour and academic intellect. A solid interplay between the male vocals and the female vocals of Rozi Plain is present too, who uses warmer lyrics like “Ding, Ding, Ding/You’re bowling in a pan” and “We need everyone sitting, now everyone stand” to contrast the high-tempo aggression of the Prog-Rock elements with a softer tone of voice that controls the chaos, for lack of a better term. Overall, thanks to the excellent pacing and the good interplay between Armitage and Plain – that reminds me a little bit of how the tone was calming on Peter, Bjorn & John’s mid-00’s cult hit ‘Young Folks’ in a few ways – ‘Cascade Theory’ is a treat that combines anthemic Post-Rock with clever intellect to engaging results.

Pictured: Cover Art for ‘Cascade Theory’ (EP) (Released on November 12, 2021) (via Mercury KX)

That brings us to the end of today’s presentation on One Track At A Time, and I thank you for sticking to the blog with me. Please feel free to join me again tomorrow as I shine a spotlight on some more music that came out in the latter end of 2021 that deserves a listen. My next pick comes from a Liverpool-based solo artist who found fame on TikTok and then began touring with bands like The Orielles and Trudy & The Romance – before he released his debut album through Melodic Records last October.

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Today’s Track: Bloc Party – ‘Traps’

January 8, 2022 — Leave a comment
Pictured: Cover Art for ‘Alpha Games’ (LP) (Available from April 29th, 2022) (via BMG/Infectious Records)

Good Morning to you! As you expected – this is Jacob Braybrooke, and thank you for spending a few minutes of your weekend by visiting the site for yet another daily track on the blog, given that it’s my day-to-day pleasure to write up about a different piece of music every day! Those of you who grew up in the 2000’s will probably remember when Bloc Party got their big break by sending BBC Radio presenter Steve Lamacq and Alex Kapranos (of Franz Ferdinand fame) a demo tape of ‘She’s Hearing Voices’ in 2003, and, since then, the band have scored multiple UK Top 10 album releases, UK Top 40 single chart entries and sold their way to a global tally of over three million albums worldwide as of 2012. Known for blending vivid elements of danceable House music and urban Electronica into their crossover-friendly brand of Punk-oriented Indie Rock music – Bloc Party are returning with their sixth studio album, ‘Alpha Games’, which is set for a release date of April 29th, 2022 via BMG/Infectious Music. The follow-up to 2016’s ‘Hymns’, the long-awaited new album by the Kele Okereke-led project is the first to fully feature new band members of Louise Bartle and Justin Harris who replaced the long-standing members of Gordon Moakes & Matt Tong by joining the group’s ranks in 2014. The comeback single – ‘Traps’ – is currently on the BBC Radio 6 Music daytime playlist and, as you may spot when you stream it, was noticeably produced by Adam Greenspan and Nick Launay who have produced music for Nick Cave, IDLES and The Yeah Yeah Yeah’s before, as the band dig into the archives of Bloc Party’s sound to recapture their roots with a modern twist on ‘Traps’. It follows solo releases by Okereke. See how it sounds below.

“From the moment we wrote ‘Traps’, we knew it had to be the first thing people heard from this album”, says the ringmaster Kele Okereke on the new single from this futuristic iteration of Bloc Party, explaining, “Playing it in soundchecks on our last tour before it was finished and hearing how it sounded in those big rooms and outdoors”, in a press statement as the band prepares to support the album on tour in the UK and Europe later during the new year. Mixing predatory lyrics with spinning instrumentals that connote a feel of horror, and the frenetic music video of ‘Traps’ showing Okereke performing in an adrenaline-fueled dance floor captures this dark tone. Reciting threateningly flirtatious lyrics like “You’re not making it easy for me, Strutting round here in those pum pum shorts” and “You’re so maverick, you’re a bit of me/You can get it anytime you want” over the top of some chugging bass guitar riffs and an angered pace on the drums that shows a return to Bloc Party’s popular dance-rock sound in the verses, but they are met with a sinister undertone that feels as though Bloc Party are adding their take on the Post-2020 punk sound that bands like Fontaines DC have found popularity through establishing where the lyrics are sardonic and the dance influences are quite aggressive. The chorus feels more familiar for casual Bloc Party fans, with some earworm hooks like “But you’re headed to a trap/Meet me in the boom boom room” that definitely feel playful. The track certainly has an aura that feels edgy and unusual to it as an overall modern pop/rock piece, however, and the lyrics seem to comment on masculine manipulation and the advances that some women probably have to deal with in a night club environment, and so it feels progressive for the band by mixing the new and the old, in terms of Okereke’s vocals and Bloc Party’s sound, in some exciting ways. I am not completely convinced the execution is totally on-key however, as lyrics like “There you go-go/Looking like a snack/Cute like Bambi” and “Lick, lick, lickety split” feel a little questionable for my liking. That removed, I felt like this was a fun and daring return from the band who bring some exciting guitar riffs and some intriguing new Post-Punk influences to their repertoire, although some of the songwriting stuck the landing a little roughly for me. Still, it flew by entertainingly enough and I’m quite interested to see what the new members of the group bring to the full album release.

Pictured: Cover Artwork for ‘Silent Alarm’ (LP) (Released on February 2, 2005) (via Wichita Recordings)

Funnily enough, not at all long ago, we revisited the previous incarnation of Bloc Party when we covered ‘Helicopter’ for Scuzz Sundays. Check it out here: https://onetrackatatime.home.blog/2021/11/07/scuzz-sundays-bloc-party-helicopter/.

Pictured: Kele Okereke (Lead Vocals/Rhythm Guitar/Electric Piano/Samples), Russell Lisack (Lead Guitar/Samples/Programming), Gordon Moakes (Bass Guitar/Backing Vocals/Keyboard/Synths/Glockenspiel) and Matt Tong (Drums/Percussion/Occasional Backing Vocals) (2014) (Image via whenthegramarphonerings.com)

That’s all for today, but ‘Scuzz Sundays’ is back on the docket for tomorrow as we remember one of the, sadly, few female-led groups of the trashy era of commercial Pop-Punk music forms. This Welsh rock band brought Cerys Matthews to mainstream fame in the late-1990’s and they were key pioneers of the 1990’s Cool Cymru music movement. They also performed at the opening ceremony of the 1999 Rugby World Cup on October 1, 1999 in the Millennial Stadium situated in Cardiff. I’ll find you there.

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Today’s Track: Spiritualized – ‘Always Together With You’

January 3, 2022 — Leave a comment
Pictured: Jason Pierce (Lead Vocals/Lead Guitar/Keyboard) (2018) (Photo via Juliette Larthe/Nasty Little Man)

Good Morning, it’s Jacob Braybrooke! How has your year been? It’s time for me to write up about yet another daily track on the blog, since it’s always been my day-to-day pleasure to write up about a different piece of music every day! This is the first of roughly 250 ‘Today’s Track’ on the blog aside from my other features in 2022, so I thought it was only fair to kick things off with a cosmic bang alike to a big meteor hitting a Volcano – or something not quite as dramatic as that. Either way, ‘Always Together With You’ is a fresh new single by Spiritualized that I’ve been hearing on the radio lately, and I really can’t get enough of it. Spiritualized is now the solo project of Jason Pierce (J. Spaceman) of former Spaceman 3 fame who was born in Rugby, Warwickshire. Spiritualized used to be a group featuring the likes of guitarist Doggen Foster, drummer Kevin Bales, keyboardist Tom Edwards and more, among a few line-up changes over the years. At the time, Spiritualized won NME’s ‘Album Of The Year’ award in 1997 by beating stiff competition like Radiohead’s ‘OK Computer’ and The Verve’s ‘Urban Hymns’ with their critically acclaimed album release ‘Ladies and Gentleman We Are Floating In Space’ that year. Pierce’s ninth studio album under the Spiritualized project – ‘Everything Was Beautiful’ – has recently been announced with a release date of February 25th, 2022 via Fat Possum Records. On the new record, Pierce plays a staggering amount of 16 different instruments that he recorded in his home and in 11 different studios. More than 30 musicians, including Pierce’s former band-mate John Coxon and his daughter Poppy, will also appear on the new album. Penned during lockdown, Pierce says the album was written in a state of embracing the isolation while viewing it as a “beautiful solitude” and noting “I felt like I’d been training for this my whole life”, as per a press note. Let’s check out the opener below.

“There was so much information on it that the slightest move would unbalance it, but going around in circles is important to me. Not like you’re spiraling out of control, but you’re going around and around and around and on each revolution, you hold onto the good each time”, states Pierce – who will be taking his Spiritualized act on the road for tour dates beginning with North American gigs running through April – adding, “Sure, you get mistakes as well, but you hold on to some of those too and that’s how you kind of… achieve. Well, you get there”, in his own words. Thankfully for Pierce, his new single begins with pin-point precision by kicking off with a whirring Synthesizer loop and a settling, if distant, voice amid the soft strums of the guitar melodies and the spacious backing vocal that feels ragged in delivery. Simple lyrics like “If you will be my lonely girl/I would be a lonely boy for you” and “If you want another world, I would be another world for you” make up the fragmented soundscape as discordant yet lightly textured Post-Punk bass guitar riffs and hard-edged Drum beats quicken the pace of the swelling sounds. The vocals are layered yet forceful and the quietly shimmering backdrop of diverse sounds make for a detailed but fairly grounded arrangement. Towards the end, a sudden crescendo of Strings set to lyrics like “If you walk the galaxies/I would walk the galaxies for you” and “Always together with you/If you’ve got a lonely heart” that transforms the brief moonlight of his vocal textures in the early going into more full-blown Space Rock as Pierce gathers up his dreams and allows the themes of high romance and space opera to collide more fully. Lonesome yet humble, Pierce looks inwards while gazing upwards with this beautiful new tune that feels beautifully textured and carefully produced with thoughtful pacing choices to the point where the peak cinematic explosion between Psychedelic Pop and slightly classical Rock feels astounding. This is an artist who clearly knows what he’s doing, and the new single is a very effective teaser for a pretty and intricate new album exploring heartache and tranquility with a sense of grandeur that will hopefully be met promptly. A fantastic single that could only be Spiritualized.

Pictured: Cover Artwork for ‘Everything Was Beautiful’ (LP) (Available on February 25th, 2022) (via Bella Union)

Thank you for journeying into a galaxy of new music with me today, and I’ll be back tomorrow for our second best regular post of the year so far with an intriguing Alternative Punk track that I recently found through KEXP’s ‘Song Of The Day’ podcast recorded by a Manchester-based band with over 2.3k monthly listeners on Spotify. The 4-piece’s producer and third member – Liam Stewart – has toured with Lonelady.

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