Here’s a playlist for this month, again, ordered by moment of discovery not any sort of cohesive listenability. I ain’t precious about that.
Really been enjoying Shizuka. She was buds with the Les Rallizes Dénudés ppl. “III” is like low-fi demoy ballads and “Heavenly Persona” is noiser. “Plan For Solitude” makes me feel like i’m watching that scene at the end of Train to Busan where the little girl is singing through tears in the tunnel after escaping from the zombies, unknowingly saving her own life.
I have a feeling that April will be a month devoted to the discography of the infamous North Carolina and Merge Records band Polvo. Strangely enough I haven’t had a devoted moment to them yet in my lifetime. It is time. This was a realization I had on March 30th, so I think I’ll have more to say about the music at the end of April. Just so strange I have yet to really dig into this band considering how much I love Sonic Youth and Swirlies…. which are built on very similar sonic foundations. I find music that uses more these more innovative and unconventional but vaguely gazey sounds much more inspiring than traditional shoegaze. At least shoegaze that really commits to the “rules” and precedent set by Slowdive and MBV etc.
I listened to an episode of this podcast HardLore that was inerviewing the guy Todd from Nails. Nails is known as a really accessible entry point into heavy-azz music, I suggest giving their classic “Unsilent Death” a listen if you’re curious. I’ve always been a fan of em, since Alan played me some of their songs in the tour van, and think they do a lot of really exciting shit. I think making accessible music in heavy genres is cool. My friend Will said Nails is a classic “door guy’s tshirt” band. We were wondering what other tshirts guys doing door at venues often wear to signal dominance, feel free to comment below.
Todd spoke a lot about other hardcore bands he came up playing with in the 90’s and I found a lot of fun songs going down that rabbit hole.
Carry On is a legendary band he was in… I didn’t know about it before the podcast. My relationship with hardcore music has been really funny. I find it in a lot of random places and have missed hearing many of the foundational bands and classics. So I’m circling back and doing recon a bit. I really loved listening to a bands adjacent to the early Carry On/Nails scene: Buried Alive (they’re from Buffalo!), Go It Alone (Vanocuver), and Terror (LA).
I’m honestly not a huge fan of the gang vocals in a lot of these songs… they harken back to my middle school days listening to A Day to Remember which I’m assuming was influenced by this stuff. I’ve been getting lots of inspiration from their energy though.
I love the Oklou album………
It’s the first collection of songs in a while that I would describe as “minimal” and “tasteful” that isn’t boring or tedious in anyway.
I appreciate her patience and long intros. Really builds the world before coming in with anything akin to a “hook”
In a similar but totally different vein I leave you with Michelle Mercure. “Ahead of her time” is a gross understatement. The sounds she gets out of her analog equipment are so fucking impressive.
The album below is a collection of her self produced and self released songs in the 80s
