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: Mandy, Indiana – ‘Bottle Episode’

January 4, 2022 — Leave a comment

Pictured: Valentine Caulfield (Lead Vocals/Chief Songwriter), Scott Fair (Rhythm Guitar/Producer) and Liam Stewart (Drums/Percussion) (2020)(Photo by Will Shields)

Good Morning to you! This is Jacob Braybrooke, and I’m thrilled that you’re getting invested 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! Formerly known as ‘Gary, Indiana’ – which is a true story according to Pitch Perfect PR – a bizzare twist of events saw this Manchester-based Alternative Punk project settle on Mandy, Indiana as their current name. Originally a duo comprised up of Valentine Caulfield (Vocals, Lyrics), Scott Fair (Guitar/Producer) and Liam Stewart (Drums/Percussion), the band mesh Noise-Punk with experimental recording methods that have found SFX of cluttering footsteps and muffled piano appearing on their debut EP release – ‘…’ – which was released digitally on November 19th, 2021 and later physically issued on December 10th, 2021 via Fire Talk Records. Their tracks for the EP were recorded in a variety of different places, from the band’s rehearsal spaces and traditional studio set-up to outside locations like a cavernous industrial mill. The band are also known for directing their own music videos that combine found footage clips with a style of macabre film-making craft which the batch of musicians state were influenced by film directors like Leos Carax and Gasper Coe in style and structure. ‘Bottle, Episode’ was recently featured on KEXP’s ‘Song Of The Day’ podcast, and you could also know Stewart from commonly touring with Lonelady. Let’s check out the new single below.

Seeking to capture a tale of conflict between armed forces for ‘Bottle, Episode’ – Caulfield says, “I wanted to build up on the military style of the track, but in a very slow crescendo, and not in a very obvious way”, as she explained in a press statement. Fair added, “The inspiration for the guitar line was based upon a recording of a flood siren in Todmorden. I was going to use the recording as a sample but then I decided to try and recreate it with the guitar”, to the conversation. Seeking to capture a somber and hawkish tone with their intriguing single, the band get off to a riotous start with a ramshackle drum beat that patters along to a brisk pace as Caulfield delivers some foerign language vocals, before a taut guitar melody is introduced to the fray in mimicry of a siren, as Caulfield snaps with her vocal pitch as the sinister pulse of the single violently screeches along with its layered soundscape of carefully programmed snare beats and destructive guitar riffs that, ironically, feels very combative in nature. Lyrically, war is never explicitly being mentioned, but there are clearly bleak themes afloot as Caulfiend’s growling vocals imply that men are all waiting for a massacre of-sorts. Instrumentally, however, it relies a little on a Club-oriented sound as the melodicism rises gradually as to introduce the new elements of the track in coherent ways and the battle between harsh abrasian and lyrical edge owes some debt to the No Wave music of decades past. While not for the faint-hearted, ‘Bottle Episode’ conjures up some disturbing imagery of bullets tearing apart the lives of soldiers in effective ways as it feels similar to a dance-oriented track in it’s layering, but they’ve made sure the chords are dark and dissonant enough and the arrangements are brutal enough to convey the very dark textures of the lyrics to strong effect. Overall, a strangely fun but all the more sinister recording that certainly includes some fascinating production tactics that has a unique selling point for the band and a stark visual reminder of the brutality of military conflict that earns notice.

Pictured: Cover Artwork for ‘…’ (EP) (Released on December 10th, 2021) (via Fire Records)

That’s all for now! After an understandably bleak note on the site today, we’ll be turning up the good times tomorrow as ‘Way Back Wednesdays’ makes its return to the blog as a weekly fixture. We’ll be remembering the third and final single to be taken off a UK top five album from the original Trip-Hop act of 90’s Bristol. The band won a BRIT Award for Best British Dance Act and have sold over 13 million copies worldwide. The trio have won two Q Awards and a pair of MTV Europe Music Awards.

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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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Today’s Track: The World Is A Beautiful Place & I Am No Longer Afraid To Die – ‘Queen Sophie For President’

December 29, 2021 — Leave a comment

Pictured: Cover Artwork for ‘Illusory Walls’ (LP) (Released on October 8th, 2021) (via Epitath Records)

Good Morning to you! This is Jacob Braybrooke, of course, and it is time to get your ears stuck into yet another daily track on the blog, because it’s always been my day-to-day pleasure to write up about a different piece of music every day! *deep breath* The World Is A Beautiful Place & I Am No Longer Afraid To Die are an emo Prog Rock band with what must be the longest band title in the business and, yet, in a digital age of streaming services and IP resurgences, they must also be applauded for ending their latest album on two epic pieces that total half of it’s near 70-minute duration. Their fourth LP record – ‘Illusory Walls’ – is the record in question, an underground release that took its inspiration from the infamously difficult ‘Dark Souls’ series of popular role playing video games. Bridging the gap between genres like Space Rock, Atmospheric Rock, Post-Hardcore and Post-Rock, the Emo collective have released a number of EP’s and Splits, including a memorable collaboration with Christopher Zizzamia, a Spoken Word artist, and they cite a diverse range of influences including Battles, Caspian, Godspeed You! Black Emperor and Explosions In The Sky for their fretwork-style material. A double album released via veteran Nu-Metal label Epitath Records, the new LP is the band’s first album since the death of founding member Tom Diaz and the departures of guitarists/vocalists Dylan Balliet and Tyler Bussey. Now, the members of the 5-piece are split between the bear-filled woods of rural Connecticut and the quarantines streets of Covid-ridden Philadelphia, and it is the band’s first project that recruits outside producers in the form of Greg Thomas (Misery Signals, End), the studio partner of lead vocalist/guitarist David F. Bello, who helped the rest of the band to remotely write and finish the ambitious record within the most part of one year. According to Bello, the new album’s title of ‘Illusory Walls’ “refers to a hidden surface that seems to prevent entry, but upon inspection is nothing more than a visual illusion”. Check out the third single ‘Queen Sophie For President’ below.

Elaborating on the LP’s development stages, Bello says, “The extra time gave the band time to manage the unexpected, such as Katie Dvorak sustaining an injury that meant she was unable to sing or talk for a couple of months at the end of 2020. Had they been on a normal recording schedule, she wouldn’t have been able to get her vocals done”, concluding, “Instead, she was able to channel what happened into her songs. Though ‘Queen Sophie For President’ is ostensibly about the tenacity of oppression, whether on a personal or political level, it is heavily influenced by her injury” in his press statement. While ‘Queen Sophie For President’ scales up the bombast, it also puts a twist on the band’s sad emo-style foundations of their sound by introducing vocals that feel lighter and nostalgic, thanks in part to the keyboardist taking on the lead vocal duties. Lyrics like “Impossibly persistent, waiting for the chance to take over” have a dizzying darkness to them and they blend into Chris Teti’s intricate guitar work with a pulsating 80’s rock sound. A wide array of evocative lyrics like “Never get better and never do anything” chime the chorus along with a feeling of urgency, while rapid-fire refrains like “It won’t burn with the oven off/That damn persistent slime, just burn the whole house down” owe more to Opera Rock with their haunting harmonies that permeate angst and anxiety, riddling the zoned-out Synths of the soundscape with a deep flavour of hard-hitting songwriting that is more anthemic. Instrumentally, the barreling guitar riffs and the percussive drum beats, topped off by a punchy lead guitar solo towards the end, retain their warmth and intimate nature while delivering highly technically proficient production all-around. Most of all, however, it is the fact that Dvorak’s increased involvement threatens to steal the show at times that makes it all more worth the while, and it is the very robust chemistry between Dvorak and Bello, on vocals, which clicks together and strikes the biggest chord with me – if you see what I did there. Dvorak’s sugar-coated vocals blend together with Bello’s emotional croon, as well as the fancy handiwork from guitarist Chris Teti, very cohesively. This creates some of the most enjoyable ‘Jam Band’ moments that you could hear in 2021. An extravagant piece of ferocious Jangle-Pop meets sophisticated Post-Rock, ‘Queen Sophie For President’ is a tour-de-force of feel-good indie and profound lyrical proportions that definitely gets my vote.

Pictured: David Bello (Lead Vocals/Percussion), Katie Dvorak (Keyboard/Synths/Backing Vocals), Josh Cyr (Bass Guitar/Backing Vocals), Chris Teti (Trumpet/Lead Guitar) & Steven Buttery (Drums) (2021) (Photo by Adam Peditto)

That’s all I’ve got lined up for you on the blog today – and I’ll be back tomorrow with the final part of my series shedding light on some of this year’s most unforgettable underground releases, before we go fully back to normal, with a post regarding a band who have made many year-end lists for 2021. Signed to Saddle Creek Records, the trio take their name from a Spanish Drama film of the same title released in 1973.

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Today’s Track: Calva Louise – ‘Euphoric’

December 28, 2021 — Leave a comment

Pictured: Cover Art for ‘EUPHORIC’ (LP) (Released on August 20, 2021) (via FRKST Records/300 Entertainment)

Good Morning to you! This is Jacob Braybrooke, of course, and thanks for joining me today as we fill up the awkward post-Christmas and pre New Year’s slot with some music that got a little underrated during 2021 with yet another daily track on the blog, since it has always been my day-to-day pleasure to write up about a different piece of music every day! Formed in 2016, Calva Louise are a Manchester-based indie punk and post-grunge band who take their influence from many variations of Noise-Rock and Synth-Punk between both UK and US outfits, while also getting in touch with their Latin Rock heritage throughout the two albums to their name so far. Fronted by the bold creative vision of vocalist/guitarist Jess Allanic – the trio have supported the likes of Razorlight, Highly Suspect and Albert Hammond Jr in their time together. Earlier in the year, they released the ambitious multi-media project of ‘EUPHORIC’, which was fronted by a concept album about the duality of being human and the different perceptions of reality. The band have stated that the lyrics detail episodes of the dreamer’s experiences in the form of an inner conversation with his other self – the counterpart of the human being – that seeks to experience freedom and have an encounter with the unknown. The sophomore album was produced and mixed by Bobby Bentham of Strange Bones fame. Moreover, the album was accompanied by a 45-minute Animation short film that was entirely created by Jess Allanic, who used software like After Effects and Blender to bring the Graphic Novel-inspired visuals of her band’s creative record to life. For now, let’s have a sample of the title track below.

Released digitally in late August and finally manufactured on physical vinyl copies in December by Blood Records, Calva Louise collectively say, “Our passion for audiovisual production is constantly intertwined with the concept of the album and that is why each new step to take becomes a new challenge, it is as if each completed experience gradually reveals the signs that guide us on our way”, noting, “The perception we have of this adventure shows us horizons that seem to be beyond our rational understanding as artists, and in order to see clearly we try to express these experiences through visual effects, as a complement to the music and the lyrics of the songs”, to their LP’s product description. ‘EUPHORIC’ feels like an expository title for the project, bolstered by a title track that is filled with meaty hooks and soaring melodies that hints about how you may feel after completely listening to the album in a single bingeable session. With eruptive drumming and partially processed vocal peaks, lyrics like “I wait in line, Your head is on fire, Ahead we cry in a simple way” and “When you and me are nothing, Only one of us will be euphoric” that set a fiery temper for the underground feel of the track, Allanic powerfully backs her vocals to some thrashing electronic melodies – including some gradually bubbling Synth riffs in the opening that become more acidic throughout the first verse – and some old-school Punk personality that complements the moody tone of the lyrics. The vocals are partially screamed at different intersections, but the pacing is fairly even, as Allanic uses some slower guitar notes towards the end to give the vocals just a little space to breathe. Meanwhile, the electronic production of the single goes heavy and hard by trading some twinkling keyboard riffs for a hefty amount of grit instead, with plenty of glitchy bass riffs that sweep in for a futuristic tone and Allanic concentrates hard on making her ferocious vocals feel as knife-edge as she can, and she even recites some non-English language lyrics towards the latter half to remind us of her Venezuelan upbringing, and the heavy dancehall influence of this particular touch reminds me of Arca in a few ways, especially with the audio-visual medium of the project hanging in the balance. Overall, while the more Noise-Rock based riffs get a little repetitive at times there is no doubt that Calva Louise explore decent ideas on this project altogether. It is very interesting to see the band expressing their ideas with intriguing ways by leaning into the sci-fi themes that audio-visual side projects can enhance for them. As well as giving them a unique selling point, it gives them more space to create their art, and I certainly like how there is more than just music to this. The sound, meanwhile, is an energetic one that becomes very unrelenting and combines qualities from Nu Metal and Prog Rock with dramatic results. Overall, this is an exciting band and a fresh project that, while not perfect, are certainly worth a look.

Pictured: Jess Eastwood (Vocals/Guitar), Alizon Taho (Bass Guitar) and Ben Parker (Drums) (2021) (Photo via PR)

That’s all for now – and thank you for reading about the euphoric melodies highlighted in today’s post. I’ll be back tomorrow with more content that concerns an operatic Conneticut-based indie rock band with one of the longest names in the business. Their discography includes a key collaboration with the Spoken Word artist Christopher Zizzamia – and their influences include Battles and Explosions In The Sky.

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Today’s Track: Parquet Courts – ‘Walking At A Downtown Pace’

November 11, 2021 — Leave a comment

Pictured: Cover Art for ‘Sympathy For Life’ (Released on October 22, 2021) (via Rough Trade Records)

Good Morning to you! I’m Jacob Braybrooke, and it’s time for you to jive along to yet another daily track on the blog, because it’s always been my day-to-day pleasure to write up about a different piece of music every day! First of all, apologies for teasing this week’s ‘New Album Release Fridays’ pick at the bottom of the page yesterday a day early – where we’ll be looking at the exciting new album release from the multi-time ARIA Award winning indie female singer-songwriter Courtney Barnett – my brain thought it was Thursday. The fact is that we’ve got one more regular shout-out to go before then, and it’s a golden one coming from the NYC-based Post-Rock quartet Parquet Courts. I really enjoyed their previous album, 2018’s ‘Wide Awake’, and I’ve seen plenty of very positive reactions for their follow-up album – ‘Sympathy For Life’ – which was released late in October via Rough Trade Records – from fellow members of the BBC Radio 6 Music Listeners Group community on Facebook. It has also received positive reviews from Pitchfork, Paste and Pop Matters, also including a five-star review from NME and some lovely words from Professor Skye’s Record Reviews on YouTube, which is one of my favourite channels on the viral platform. Produced by The XX’s mainstay Rodaidh McDonald and musician John Parish, the Garage Rock 4-piece’s new album takes some influence from bands like Primal Scream and Talking Heads. The Grunge-inflicted group have been around for quite a long time, and ‘Sympathy For Life’ is actually their seventh main LP release overall. According to ringleader Austin Brown, “Wide Awake was a record you could put on at a party. Sympathy For Life is influenced by the party itself”, and the band recorded the main bulk of the tracks pre-pandemic in England before they flew back to New York just a couple of days before the official Lockdown periods began. They flirted with the idea of tweaking songs and adding new content for the album, but they decided to just keep working on the songs they had already developed and just delay the release. The lead single, ‘Walking At A Downtown Pace’, comes with an excellent music video put together by the street photographer David Arnold, who captures a diverse array of surrealist and frenetic scenes throughout the band’s city of New York as he captures choreographed chaos in a one-shot technique. On that note, let’s check it out below.

Talking more about their new album’s origins, Brown explains, “Most of the songs were created by taking long improvisations and moulding them through our own editing.”, adding, “The biggest asset we have as artists is the band. After ten years together, our greatest instrument is each other. The purest expression of Parquet Courts is when we are improvising”, in their new album’s description. This sense of improvisational genesis is easily detectable in the scattered guitar riffs and the unclean vocals of ‘Walking At A Downtown Pace’, where the band pin their initial jamming sessions into a delectable drum groove created by Max Savage, who manages to nod clearly towards Disco and Funk in his filtered style. Meanwhile, lyricist Andrew Savage places us on a curbside as we watch the world go by in the complimentary music video. His lyrics, with wry and witty sections like “I’ve found a reason to exist/Written on the tile of the platform wall/Begging not to go extinct to all those who saw”, plays upon a numb reflection of his own disassociation from society. Other lyrics, like “Combining sound from the corners that you use yourself to tune/Like a Piano, well-tuned and walking slowly”, slip his mood down. These sections provide an interesting contrast to the bombastic nature of the music that swirls around him, acting passively like irrepressible downtown traffic and crowded neighborhoods, that warp around the somber analysis from our lead man as the narrator. All in all, ‘Walking At A Downtown Pace’ plays to the strengths of the band in showing off their outstanding ability to deliver bleak observations in the form of catchy grooves that hint towards other, more light-hearted genres than their typical categorization as a Post-Punk or Garage-Rock outfit. The kind of tune that can make you want to nod your head in slight happiness or nod in agreement to the songwriting, it establishes the band in the same ilk of King Gizzard and Dry Cleaning in how they clearly love to just jam a ton of content in the studio together and give us their better takes as their audience. The final results clearly bring a smile to your face.

Pictured: Andrew Savage (Co-Lead Vocals/Co-Lead Guitar), Austin Brown (Co-Lead Vocals/Co-Lead Guitar), Sean Yeaton (Bass Guitar/Backing Vocals) and Max Savage (Drums) (2018) (Photo via PR)

My introduction to the band and another song done in a similar style was ‘Wide Awake’, which has also been previously featured on the site. If you’ve had a blast ‘Walking At A Downtown Pace’ with them just now, why not give it a shot here?: https://onetrackatatime.home.blog/2019/09/18/todays-track-parquet-courts-wide-awake/

Pictured: Cover Art for ‘Wide Awake’ (LP) (Released on May 18th, 2018) (via Rough Trade Records)

That brings us to the end of the page for another day! Thank you for joining me on the blog today, and if you’ve already caught up with yesterday’s post or paid your full attention to today’s, let’s see if you can guess what I’ll be covering tomorrow *winks*.

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Way Back Wednesdays: Stereolab – ‘French Disko’

November 10, 2021 — Leave a comment

Pictured: Tim Gane (Lead Guitar/Keyboard), Lætitia Sadier (Lead Vocals/Percussion), Andy Ramsay (Drums), Joseph Watson (Synths) and Xavier Muñoz Guimera (Bass) (2021) (Photo by David Cowlard)

Good Afternoon to you! You are reading the words of Jacob Braybrooke, and it’s time for me to take you back to a much simpler time for another weekly entry of ‘Way Back Wednesdays’ on the blog, because it’s always my day-to-day pleasure to write up about a different piece of music every day! A cult favourite and influential band who were one of the first bands to be dubbed as “Post-Rock” in the 1990’s, Stereolab have seen a few line-up modifications in their share of time since they formed between London and France, but they currently tour and record music together as a 5-piece. Known for combining some elements of Kraut-Rock, Lounge Jazz and Motorik music together, and realizing some philosophical and sociopolitical themes of Surrealist and Situationist themes within their lyrics, Stereolab were a key figure for renewing interest in older analogue equipment during the Synth-oriented times of the 90’s. Also drawing from Brazillian and Funk influences in their sound, Stereolab have been regarded as one of the world’s most important bands and have once managed their own record label, Duophonic. Despite achieving relatively little commercial impact in their 90’s heyday, the band have reunited as recently as 2019 and they have hopped between the likes of Warp Records and Elektra Records when releasing their material. 1993’s ‘French Disko’ is one of their most recognizable singles, and it had originally appeared on their EP, ‘Jenny Ondoline’, before finding a second life on their 1995 compilation, ‘Refried Ectoplasm (Switched On, Vol. 2’. As someone who’s been to a handful of gigs before as a young adult in Cambridge and Stoke-On-Trent, I can say that I often see a die-hard in the crowd with a Stereolab shirt. Give them a spin below.

‘French Disko’ has been covered by the likes of Editors, The Raveonettes and Cineplexx since Stereolab’s original release in 1993. Another very interesting fact about the track is that in the UK, due to ‘French Disko’ becoming a surprise commercial success due to unexpected commercial radio airplay, the ‘Jenny Ondioline’ EP had stickers that read “Includes French Disko” on the cover art, and so the EP was being sold on the strength of ‘French Disko’ as an unnofficial single at one point. Stereolab also gained attention with the live performance on TV above, which was broadcast on a programme called ‘The Word’ that was designed to replace ‘The Tube’ in Britain. The track itself, ‘French Disko’, isn’t really the soulful and funky disco tune that you may expect when reading the title, and it instead places an emphasis on driving 60’s Motorik beats and absurdist lyrics that act as a call to arms for action against a dominant socio-political force. Refrains like “Well, I say there are things worth fighting for”, often recited by Lætitia Sadier, feel conversational and catchy, bolstered by a wry delivery that plays on the absurdity of the overall themes of the songwriting. There’s some elements of the Grunge era led by Nirvana in the 90’s with the distorted bass guitar riffs, and there’s some slower sections of the recording that point towards a more Acid Rock-oriented sound. The vocals have an air of 70’s Jangle Rock about them, mainly in their upbeat and quick-witted delivery. Other lyrics, such as “Though this world’s essentially an absurd place to be living in/It doesn’t call for a total withdrawal” and “Acts of rebellious solidarity/Can bring sense in this world”, that play on how we believe the things that we read in the news as humans, and how the media is typically motivated by a secret agenda. Overall, the concise lyrics are touching upon personal freedom and how there’s a path to a better future if you’re going to spend time calling out what clearly isn’t working. These themes still feel relevant today, in a world where we’ve been following instructions on how to navigate the Covid-19 pandemic as a mass society. While Stereolab are dealing with a rich assortment of some complex themes here, the sound of the track itself felt contemporary for it’s time and the formula of Sadier intonely droning above the harsh Synth climax and the noisy, collage-like guitar and drums melodies creates enough of a late-80’s New Wave element to balance a retro and modern style for its time to a point where it feels original and not outdated. The hook of “La Resistance” is a powerful and ominous one, and the track has an overall playful style to it that weaves together the band’s different influences of Kraut-Rock, Prog-Rock, Drone, Noise-Pop and Synth-Rock in a way that feels accessible yet stacked. Therefore, it’s that reason why I would suggest ‘French Disko’ as a good entry point into the rest of Stereolab’s discography if you are not familiar with their music. In conclusion, ‘French Disko’ is a very punchy cocktail of academic influences that still sounds unique today.

Pictured: Cover Art for ‘Jenny Ondioline’ (EP) (Released in 1993) (via Duophonic/Elektra Records)

That’s all for now – and, as I mentioned yesterday, ‘Way Back Wednesdays’ will be going on a short break until Wednesday 5th January, 2021, because it’s time to begin our ‘Countdown To Christmas 2021’ feature that we’ll be spreading throughout the days of the coming weeks because Santa’s on his way – whether we like it or not. With the goal of adding some Alternative festive options to your playlists, we’ll be mixing some of the latest seasonal releases with older tunes from some of our favourite on-brand names on the blog. Tomorrow is ‘New Album Release Fridays’ and we will be shifting our focus to the new LP from multi-time ARIA award winner Courtney Barnett.

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New Album Release Fridays: Geese – “Low Era”

October 29, 2021 — Leave a comment

Pictured: Cover Art for ‘Projector’ (LP) (Released on October 29th, 2021) (via Partisan Records)

Good Morning to you! You are reading the words of Jacob Braybrooke, and it’s time for us to take a closer look at one of the week’s most newsworthy album releases for 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! The likes of LGBTQ+ Techno activist Maya Jane Coles, legendary Leeds Trip Hop producer Nightmares On Wax, Qrion, Sam Evian, Eleanor Buckland and mainstream music mega star Ed Sheeran are all releasing new full-length efforts today, but one of the most intriguing offerings comes from the Brooklyn Art-Punk band Geese. ‘Projector’ was intended to be their last album before they split up and went to seperate colleges in the US, but they were signed up to Partisan Records, the home of successful bands like Fontaines DC and Chubby & The Gang, and appointed the critically beloved producer Dan Carey (Idles, Squid), who Geese cite as influences, to mix their new album. Their beginnings as a band trace back to 2016, however, where their members met during freshmen year at high school and they bonded over their love for 70’s Synth-Rock groups like Yes! and Pink Floyd to build chemistry together. Their single, ‘Disco’, has gained huge praise from the alternative music press, and Geese have since been covered by journalists from NME, SPIN, Brooklyn Vegan, Stereogum, KEXP, KCRW and more. They have also headlined Berlin, a club located beneath the Lower East Side Bar 2A, found in their borough in New York. They’re also expanding through the UK and Europe, with two performances set for The Honeyglaze in London and a concert taking place at the Endorphin Transistor in Paris next month. Get a taster with recent hit ‘Low Era’ below.

Geese – whose oldest member has just turned 19 – have plenty to say about ‘Low Era’, which comes accompanied by a gloomy and trippy music video that was directed by Fons Schiedon, and they explained, “We like the idea of confusing the listener a little, and trying to make every song a counteraction to the last, pinballing between catchy and complicated, fast and slow”, adding, “Low Era is on one end of that spectrum, and ultimately broadened the scope of songs we thought we could make”, to their press notes. ‘Low Era’ ushers in a psychedelic 3-D element that ends up appearing throughout the new album, a single that Geese began playing live in 2020 and it helped them to grow their following. Calling back to Alt-Rock bands like The Strokes and Klaxons of the 00’s, ‘Low Era’ builds appeal from its raw and cagey vocals, the persuasive blend of steel guitar frames and shoegaze influence, and the New Wave instrumentation which gives proceedings a quirky uplift, and echoes the sentiments of LCD Soundystem and A Certain Ratio in radiating something more groove-led from the misfit psychedelia with the balance of playfulness and commandment. Their guitar melodies are a little funk-oriented, but lyrics like “On the hour of my death, the page rips/All is lost, and I am left to rot” are quite morbid and the delivery is fairly authoritative, but given a Falsetto-like croon to make things feel a little bizzare or pecuiliar, even. Some of the lyrics, like “Modern magazines and holy scriptures/My play rehearsals all go unheard” are witty and sardonic, while other lyrics like “The beginning of the end approaches/You and I, we float up to the top”, sound more post-apocalyptic and a little silly in tone, and so Geese approach the track as a neat balancing act of taut Post-Punk afflictions and more wacky, dance-led undertones. It is a risky move, but it thankfully pays off pretty well on ‘Low Era’ because these two different moods are juxtaposed pretty evenly and distort one another with an overlapping effect at times, so the production feels coherent and charming, leading up to the atmospheric instrumental section that finishes ‘Low Era’ off at the end. This is an intriguing track where, despite the call for dancing or listening quietly seeming a little unclear in direction, the band are pulling off more tricks than your average, moody gang of Post-Punk outcasts, with some instrumentation that feels interesting despite a little unfocused at times. A hypnotic combination of Synth-Punk and Prog Rock, coming from a band who are still really young and developing at a strong pace.

Pictured: Cameron Winter (Lead Vocals/Keyboard), Max Bassin (Drums/Percussion), Dominic DiGesu (Bass Guitar), Foster Hudson (Rhythm Guitar) & Gus Green (Lead Guitar) (2021) (Photo by Daniel Topete)

That brings us to the bottom of the page – for yet another day, of course! There’s no ‘Scuzz Sundays’ feature this week because we are getting into the Halloween spirit with a two-day spread of Spooky Season posts, where we will be comparing selected songs from the soundtracks of the 1978 version of ‘Halloween’ and the 2018 rebooted release, both of which were scored by the prolific Horror film director John Carpenter.

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Today’s Track: Gorillaz (feat. Jelani Blackman & Barrington Levy) – “Meanwhile”

October 18, 2021 — Leave a comment

Pictured: Damon Albarn with Murdoc recording ‘Momentary Bliss’ in Kong Studios (2020) (Photo via PR)

Good Morning to you! I’m Jacob Braybrooke, and you’ve tuned in to One Track At A Time, where it has always been my day-to-day pleasure to write up about a different piece of music every day! It is quite unusual that I would cover such a big band as Gorillaz, and especially on a Monday instead of a weekend day where there would typically be more eyes and exposure to the site, but I hate to admit that I am fairly late to the party on this release already. ‘Meanwhile’ comes from Gorillaz – the beloved and eccentric project of Blur frontman Damon Albarn and visual artist Jamie Hewlett, which was listed as the world’s “Most Successful Virtual Band” in 2010’s Guiness Book Of World Records, and the duo also scooped up the award for ‘Best British Group’ at the BRIT’s in 2018. It has long become a vehicle for Albarn to experiment freely and make some exciting collaborations happen, and it has sold over 25 million records globally. The ‘Meanwhile’ EP was released with no prior announcement on August 26th, a new three track release that includes new tracks featuring Barrington Levy and Jelani Blackman on the title track, as well as additional guest spots from AJ Tracey and Alicai Harley on the other two tracks. Together, these three tracks are a homage to carnivals and growing up in West London – and they were all debuted during a live concert performance at London’s O2 Arena earlier in August, which was free to attend for NHS workers and their selected family members and it featured cameos from De La Soul’s Posdunos, Robert Smith of The Cure and Peter Hook of New Order. To say the animated animals behind Gorillaz have been in hibernation would be far from true, since the suprise EP follows up the release of the ‘Gorillaz Almanac’ last year, a graphic book documenting Gorillaz’ 20-year history as a project. Last year, there was also the release of ‘Song Machine: Season One, Strange Timez’ that paired quirky collaborations with new music videos and staggered single releases, which allowed Albarn to explore collaborations with artists like Slowthai, St. Vincent, JPEGMafia, Chai, Elton John & Schoolboy Q. Give ‘Meanwhile’ a listen below.

The titular track of the recent EP release includes featured spots from Barrington Levy and Jelani Blackman, and has been pitched, in the accompanying press notes, as a tribute to the cultural historical event of The Notting Hill carnival, which would have taken place in late August alongside the record’s release, but it was cancelled again due to the ongoing ripple effects of the Covid-19 pandemic. 2-D, the animated frontman, added, “Meanwhile Gardens are just round the corner from Memory Lane. If you get to Crawley you’ve gone too far”, to the document. The most noticeable element of ‘Meanwhile’ is how the tune plays with a nostalgic Grime element, with some smoky Hip-Hop vocals from Blackman during the opening verses that lay into the traditions and significance of the event in his life, with lyrics like “Play street with the street I played” and “See when the sound system break/We make the system shake” that reminisce over the fun of the carnivals and the cultural diversity that it celebrates. The chorus is an expansion of these ideas, with lyrics like “I love Carnival bass, ya don’t feel the same, That’s cool, don’t get in my way” that feels a little catchier, but it still feels grounded within the rumbling Grime-style instrumental beats. The second half of the tune, where Albarn and Levy enter the fray, similarly sings of longing for another live event disrupted by the pandemic and the rich heritage of the event, while exploring memory with a more call-and-response style of structure. These different pieces, including the first-hand Brit-Rap sequences from Blackman and the bittersweet tones of Albarn & Levy’s sections, are all held together cohesively by the interweaving Synth patterns that twinkle along to the stoned backing beats and the dream-like aesthetics of the overall package. This probably doesn’t feel like the most inventive lyricism that we have ever heard from Gorillaz before, but it is a charming and coherent celebration of Carnivals and their meaning of purpose, both to an intimate and broader perspective. The instrumentation feels bold and vibrant too, while the sound swoops in for a clear Grime element but never gets too harsh or abrasive for a casual audience group to find too disorienting, and so Gorillaz continues to feel like an exciting project due to the well-produced graphics and fun feature spots. An engaging reminder that Notting Hill is more than just a film.

Pictured: 2-D (Vocals), Murdoc (Drums), Noddle (Guitar) & Russell Hobbs (Percussion) (2017) (via PR)

We have covered a few of Gorillaz’ tunes before, including the launch track of the ‘Song Machine’ series, which featured Slowthai and Slaves. You can find out what I thought of ‘Momentary Bliss’ for an escape here: https://onetrackatatime.home.blog/2019/11/22/todays-track-gorillaz-on-melancholy-hill/. Alternatively, you can read up on their 2010 classic ‘On Melancholy Hill’ here: https://onetrackatatime.home.blog/2019/11/22/todays-track-gorillaz-on-melancholy-hill/

Pictured: Gorillaz with Slowthai in a press shoot for ‘Momentary Bliss’ (2019) (Photo via NME.com)

That’s all for now! Thank you for joining me on the blog, and I’ll be back tomorrow for an in-depth look at a laidback single from a London-based Psychedelic Jazz quintet who have just released their fourth studio album over the past weekend on Fire Records. The band are female-fronted and the one of their members was previously a member of Fanfarlo. The drummer’s production credits also include Bat For Lashes and Gruff Rhys’ “Neon Neon” project. Their style has been oft-compared to Stereolab.

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Way Back Wednesdays: Talk Talk – “Eden”

September 22, 2021 — Leave a comment

Pictured: Cover Art for ‘Spirit Of Eden’ (Released on September 16th, 1998) (via Parlophone Records)

Good Afternoon to you! You are reading the words of Jacob Braybrooke, and it’s time for us to revisit one of the seminal sounds of the past that proved influential to those of the present for ‘Way Back Wednesdays’, not forgetting that it’s always been my day-to-day pleasure to write up about a different piece of music every day! This week, for our feature, we’re looking back at the 80’s London-formed Synth Pop group Talk Talk, who you may have noticed circulating around some news circles, in publications like Pitchfork and KEXP, and that’s because the Art Rock trio’s 1991 LP release, ‘Laughing Stock’ is celebrating it’s 30th anniversary year since its original release. Their magnum opus, however, is more widely considered to be 1988’s ‘Spirit Of Eden’, which was absolutely showered with critical praise upon release following a long recording process at Wessex Studios. It was quite different to their more accessible hits – like 1985’s ‘Life’s What You Make It’ – in the sense that it drew from improvisational elements of Ambient, Blues, Classical Jazz and Dub music, and the LP made an appearance on NME’s list of ‘The 500 Greatest Albums Of All Time’ back in 2013, despite receiving a muted commercial response due to it’s experimental approach at the time. In a tragic turn of events, we lost Talk Talk’s frontman Mark Hollis in 2019, but bassist Paul Webb and drummer Lee Harris have continued to work in the business as producers, and they have collaborated on a few seperate projects as a duo. ‘Spirit Of Eden’ was seen as one of the very early Post-Punk records, and it has been cited by contemporary groups like Elbow, Radiohead and Explosions In The Sky as a major influence on their output. Check out the fan-favourite piece, ‘Eden’, below.

Sadly, the daring and moody nature of 1988’s ‘Spirit Of Eden’ made Talk Talk a difficult act for their label, the Virgin-owned EMI Records division, to promote. When Hollis first sent a demo of the now-beloved LP to his producers, they doubted that it could become a commercial success and the band refused to tour in support of the album due to the difficulty of performing the tracks live, and, therefore, some friction was created with EMI, eventually resulting in legal action and counter-suing later on. The record did still, however, spend five weeks on the UK Albums Chart and it peaked at #19 there. It is a shame, then, that ‘Spirit Of Eden’ can also be argued as a catalyst for the band’s disbandment that was eventually confirmed in 1991 because, when you listen to ‘Eden’, it is easy to find the intriguing mix of textured guitars, pastoral electronic textures, an emphasis on dynamic transitions and fades between sounds, ambience and lovely minimalist elements that are heard as part of the equation breathtaking. ‘Eden’ is not marketable rubric, but it has an intellect that sets it apart from the mainstream tactics of the time. Vague lyrics like “Rage On Omipotent’ have a biblical charge, delivered with a wide-eyed voice that reminds me of Frankie Goes To Hollywood, as opposed to the more pop-friendly style of Duran Duran. Lyrics like “A child of fragrance so much clearer/In legacy” are just as hushed and restrained, and certainly open to further interpretation by the listener as either an embodiment of inner peace, or more alike to a haunting emotion. Either way, it boasts a sense of cinematic grandeur and Post-Rock minimalism that places a large emphasis on the large emotional pull that resides in the use of silence. There’s a harsh, yet thrilling, rupture of a lead guitar hook towards the end of the track, which also boasts a free-spirited feel and a free-form personality that marks another unexpected burst of both subtlety and discordant attitude. All in all, it’s a stunning piece of work that is a unique track – and a peculiar album – for several interesting reasons. A frail and challenging, yet a distinctive and rewarding, listen which simply dared to be different.

Pictured: Mark Hollis (Lead Vocals/Guitar/Piano), Paul Webb (Bass Guitar), Simon Brenner (Synths/Rhythm Guitar) and Lee Harris (Drums) (1982) (Photo via Michael Putland/Getty Images)

That’s all for now! Thank you for joining me today and supporting my independent journalism, and please feel free to join me again tomorrow for an in-depth look at a London-based producer who is gearing up to release a new album next month on BMG. He cleverly combines elements of Funk, Prog-Jazz, Neo-Soul and Hip-Hop into his repertoire, and he first emerged onto the UK’s Grime scene in 2007 with ‘The 140 Mixtape’. He has since collaborated with acts like Terri Walker, Flowdan and P Money.

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