Things We Liked in 2023 (Tough Love Edition)

Continuing our avoidance of year-end lists to, instead, highlight our favorite 2023 releases from labels we like…

This column focuses on London’s Tough Love label, which put out much that wasn’t difficult to enjoy in 2023, including these (particular) favorites:

Rat Columns, Babydoll.  Yes, Virginia, the year 2023 saw the return of Rat Columns, the currently Perth-based musical project helmed by David West, with Babydoll – the band’s first output for 2 years.  The new long-player showcases Rat Columns’ languorous, jangly side familiar to those (like us) who drooled over 2019’s Candle Power, while also layering in tighter, more muscular tracks, all the while maintaining West’s ear for melody.  The shoegaze swoop of beguiling opener, ‘Cerulean Blue’, sets a high bar, reminiscent of early EPs MBV or a distorted Lemonheads.  Elsewhere, strings and heavily strummed acoustics add tints of psych to should be future classics like the achingly lovely ‘December’.  Just for kicks, the band sprinkles in some crystalline synthpop over the feedback rushes of ‘Bees Make Honey’.  Well worth the wait.

Highlights include:  ‘Cerulean Blue’; ‘December’; ‘Heavenly Assault’.

Empty Country, Empty Country II.  This album was my introduction to Empty Country, for me, having somehow missed their first album.  No matter – it’s been enjoyable making up for lost time, and II has quickly become a favorite.  Even for one not typically attracted to big, heart on sleeve (dare I say, at times even Springsteenian) rock, the sheer, wrought righteousness of this set could not be denied.  Fronted by Joseph D’Agostino (formerly of Cymbals Without Guitars), the band is an absolute powerhouse.  The middle trio of ‘David’, ‘Dustine’ (personal favorite) and ‘Syd’ are hair-raisingly good.  It’s a fantastic ride, both cozily familiar and novelly exciting, with strains of Bowie, Patty Smith, Television, The Replacements.  Who the fuck is Jeff, indeed. 

Highlights include:  ‘Dustine’; ‘Pearl’; ‘Bootsie’.

Cindy, Why Not Now?.  San Francisco’s Cindy has quietly been releasing some of the best lo-fi, jangley indie pop around these past few years, but may have reached a new apex with April’s Why Not Now?  A key word here (hear?) is quiet – though decidedly urban in character and phrase (check the description of the commuter – heels in hand, carrying a Victoria’s Secret bag – in the opening, title track), each song has a hushed, muted quality.  It’s like you’re with the band in the middle of city park – an unusually secluded space where you can sit and really listen, but that can’t keep out the buzz and hum from the madding crowds (‘Wednesday’’s fire truck and car alarms, off in the distance).  Velvet Underground comparisons seem perhaps overly obvious, but useful as a starting point, as is a band like The Clientele (particularly, their early output).  Brilliantly crafted and worthy of close attention.

Highlights include:  ‘Wednesday’; ‘A Trumpet on the Hillside’; ‘Et Surtout’.

Index for Working Musik, Dragging the Needlework for the Kids at Uphole.  I’m always here for it when a band comes from out of nowhere, taps me on the shoulder, and invites me in.  Enter Index for Working Musik, who kindly (and, surely, unknowingly) did just that with February’s excellent Dragging the Needlework for the Kids at Uphole.  If that title has you thinking lysergic moodscapes, hushed vocals, gently menacing guitar work and, here and there, jabs of inspired noise – well, you’re in luck.  Deftly languid, but never sleepy, it’s kind of like one of those cartoon scenes where the main character is drawn along a visual aroma wave, though what’s at the end of this particular trail may not be pie or a roast chicken.  Highly recommended.

Highlights include:  ‘Ambiguous Fauna’; ‘1871’; ‘Athletes of Exile’.

Tough Love links:  website; fbook; twitter (still don’t care); insta; bandcamp.

Things We Liked in 2023 (Trouble In Mind Edition)

Year end lists – we here at tgh find them both potentially daunting (did we forget something?! probably…) and, also, possibly reductive.  Instead, dear reader (whomever might be left), we attempt to put a bow ‘round the latest year that just was by focusing on albums and tracks we’ve enjoyed, in no particular order or classification.  We strive for narrative structure by focusing on labels we like and some of their 2023 highlights – as we proceed, to give you what you need…

Part the first shines a light on Chicago-based Trouble In Mind, which had a superior year filled with an array of fantastic releases.  Our highlights included:

The Serfs, Half Eaten by Dogs.  Released in October, the masterful third long-player from Cincinnati-based The Serfs is a churning, heady blend of icy synths and taught rhythms.  Slate grey dance music reminiscent, in parts, of artists like Fad Gadget, Cabaret Voltaire, early New Order, and Crystal Stilts, The Serfs’ melding of post-punk and ’80s industrial, flecked with drone and dub, is exhilarating and possibly their best set to date (be sure to familiarize yourself with the band’s earlier works, as well).  Music perfect for a club night in the basement of a decommissioned rectory.  We only wished we had grabbed a tee to win friends and influence people before they sold out!  

Highlights include:  ‘Beat Me Down’; ‘Spectral Analysis’; ‘ Cheap Chrome’.

Melenas, Ahora.  From Pamplona, Spain, Melenas released Ahora in September.  We’ve been smitten since first hearing them rave like a some kind of garage-y Lush on tracks like ‘3 Segundos’ and ‘No Puedo Pensar’ from 2020’s Dias Raros.  This year’s edition relies less on jangle, plugging the band’s enervating knack for gorgeous melody into analog synth and psychpop textures – and it’s stunningly beautiful.  From the swirling hooks of ‘K2’ to more introspective, swaying in place tracks like ‘Promesas’ (which sounds like a psych Ultravox and will have you blissfully singing ‘nah/na na na na’ over and over), Ahora is truly amazing and deserving of a place with fellow travelers like Broadcast, Molly Nilsson and Fatamorgana.

Highlights include: ‘Promesas’; ‘Dos Pasajeros’; ‘K2’.

En Attendant Ana, Principia.  Paris-based En Attendant Ana remain masters of taking 60’s folk and jangle and adding Gallic elements, jazzy skronk, and beautifully serpentine rhythmic interplay.  Released in February, Principia continues to evolve the band’s sound without sacrificing what makes them so great.  The opening, title, track sets a heady, jangle-psych tone, singer/songwriter Margaux Bouchaudon singing of being stuck with others in parallel lines that suppress interconnection.  Bouchaudon’s voice is perfect throughout, conveying feels without being over-emotive, a la Trish Keenan (RIP) or even Harriet Wheeler, with the rest of the band in fine form (the bass playing a particular pleasure).  On repeat.

Highlights include: ‘Principia’; ‘Same Old Story’; ‘Fools & Kings’.

Guardian Singles, Feed Me to the Doves.  Auckland-based Guardian Singles released Feed Me to the Doves in May.  From the straight ahead, Ramones-like bludgeon of ‘Chad and Stacey’ to the Hüsker Dü meets Mission of Burma fuzzed tenacity of ‘Com Trans’, Guardian Singles brings an intensity and emotion to their music that never feels forced or mawkish.  There’s an exhilarating tension maintained across the album’s 10 tracks that forces attention, culminating in the cathartic action/time/vision of ‘Ground Swell’.  Personal bonus points to the band for leading me to rediscover their eponymous debut, which is also excellent – many thanks!

Highlights include:  ‘Ground Swell’; ‘Manic Attraction’; ‘Nightmare Town’.

FACS, Still Life in Decay.  Chicago’s FACS released Still Life in Decay in April, and we’ve made repeated trips back to the aural well since.  Somehow sounding simultaneously gigantic and intimate, the album crackles in the juxtaposition between razorwire-taut instrumentation and the often dead-eyed vocals of singer/guitarist Brian Case.  The trio are an absolute force throughout, swooping off on tangents and then rejoining like swallows in the gloaming.  Not sure how to categorize – isn’t everything ‘post-punk’ nowadays? (I keed) – but the best tracks feel both crushing and uplifting in equal measure. Given humanity’s current state, these latter moments feel especially welcome.

Highlights include:  ‘Slogan’; ‘Class Spectre’; ‘New Flag’.

Check out Trouble In Mind’s compilation featuring 2023 releases here and find your own faves!

Trouble In Mind linksbandcamp; website; fbook; twitter (yes, I know – I just don’t care); insta; youtube; tiktok.

Check Out “No More Summer Songs”, from Phantom Handshakes

Phantom Handshakes, No More Summer Songs (Z Tapes)

[‘A Secret Life’ appears on our “Run and Find Out” playlist on Spotify, while ‘Skin’ can be found on our latest playlist, “Still, There Was Truth In It”]

Phantom Handshakes are the New York-based duo of Federica Tassano (also of the band Sooner) and Matt Sklar. Their debut full-length, No More Summer Songs, was recently sent forth into the world, and it’s an exquisitely delivered set of jangled shoegaze and dream pop.

In what’s become, I imagine, a depressingly typical scenario in “these COVID times” [Bad Brains ensemble voice], the entire album – as was the case with last spring’s No Better Plan EP – was recorded by Tassano and Sklar separately, but it’s difficult to tell with the depth of musical understanding throughout. It’s a lovely album that – in the way of many of the best albums of the genres from which it is sourced – can burnish, elevate and/or validate a mood. 

From the trepidatious opening chimes of ‘I Worried’, No More Summer Songs sets a melodic course through bands like The Sundays, Sarah Records artists like The Field Mice, The Radio Dept. and newer fellow travelers like Jeanines.  Guitars jangle, basslines reverberate, while Tassano’s vocals convey a cathartic melancholy á la Harriet Wheeler with a hint of the scrape of Karin Dreijer.  Lyrically, the album feels confessional – accepting and letting go of unhealthy thoughts/people – while also touching on societal angst and the feel of the world falling into the proverbial handbasket bound for something other than glory. It’s a forehead pressed to a rain-streaked window, silently contemplating and questioning.

While the album title could be a bit of cheek – given the chosen oeuvre’s predilection for slickers over sundresses – I can’t help but feel that it fits just as well for those desirous of bright sun, white sands and bejeweled waves as for those who enjoy (prefer?) a foggy embrace, sea spray kisses and a bit of a rocky vista.   

No More Summer Songs is out now, courtesy of Z Tapes, with a portion of online proceeds donated by Phantom Handshakes to The Trevor Project

Web: label, bandcamp, insta, and fbook.

Highlights include: ‘Skin’; ‘A Secret Life’; ‘This Shade’; ‘How to Stay Awake’.

Our Latest Playlists in One, Convenient Location!

Here, you can find our latest batch of playlists, featuring artists that we’re really loving. Enjoy, and follow us on Spotify!

Check Out “Human Snake”, the Debut from P22

Image from P22 Bandcamp page.

P22, Human Snake (Post Present Medium)

P22 are a Los Angeles-based quartet comprising Sofia Arreguin, Nicole-Antonia Spagnola, Justin Tenney, and Taylor Thompson.  Named for a mountain lion that crossed the notorious 405 interstate to disappear into L.A.’s Griffith Park, the band’s debut full-length, Human Snake, was released in April and it’s fantastic.

While P22 could be generally classified as “punk”, it’s perhaps too restrictive and lazy a label to place on a group who make music that throws so many curves.  Yes, there’s plenty of straight up hardcore (of the west coast variety), but swaddled in a hairshirt of different textures and tempos – elements of free jazz, jangle, noise, no wave, and classical pop up, with a vocal delivery that feels as much driven by beat poetry as post-punk.  My (admittedly, older) ears kept going back to bands like Flipper, Saccharine Trust – ‘punk’ bands that weren’t interested in only playing something traditionally categorized as such.  ‘Intro’ is a good example, starting off sounding like Saint-Saens, before settling into a tense, ominous noir of loosely strummed guitar, then dissolving into some kind of beatnik marching band number and leaving on a deconstructed freakout. 

All these twists and turns keep you on your toes, but don’t feel as though they’re forcing the band’s art into artifice.  The band’s playing is incredibly tight, a fact that is sometimes missed due to the mesmerizing vocal performance, but shouldn’t be ignored (I particularly enjoyed the basslines throughout – particularly on highlight, ‘Shortly’).  Fun bonus:  I now know what a ‘terminarch’ is (the last member of a species or subspecies, in case you wondered); #themoreyouknow #edutainment.  Highly recommended.

Human Snake is available now, courtesy of Post Present Medium.

Weblabel bandcamp 

Highlights include:  ‘Human Snake, 1978’; ‘Shortly’; ‘Reprise for Steer’; ’Ending Chorus for the Terminarch’ 

Check Out “Less of Everything”, from Es

Es, Less of Everything (Upset the Rhythm)

Photo credit: Poppy Cockburn

Less of Everything is the debut full-length from Es, a London, UK-based four piece comprising vocals, bass, synth and drums.  It’s a sharp, gripping collection of goth-infused punk that deserves a wide audience.

Tauter in feel and execution than Object Relations, the band’s great 2016 EP, Es come flying out of the gates with opener, ‘Chemicals’.  A roiling, Banshee sounding rhythm and chunky bassline underpin vocalist Maria Cecilia Tedemalm’s lyrical quandary – “what have I acquired/to be getting/so tired” – a musing equally apt in these pandemic times as it is a statement of more general frustration and feeling of uncertainty.  Tedemalm sings of an existence where a necessary tough skin becomes “too thick” (‘Foundation’), a sense of “hanging by a thread/uncertainty/lies ahead” (‘Severed’), grasping at straws “with my mind” (‘Hidden Track’), but also a fightback, rising “fully formed” (‘Sesame’) – lines delivered with equal parts withering dismissiveness and rising indignation.  

While the band’s various parts and shapes sync to great affect throughout, a particular mention is needed for the amazing bass playing of Katy Cotterell and drumming of Tamsin M. Leach.  Being guitarless, Cotterell’s bass plays a dual role of holding down the fort and leading the melodic charge, while the heft and sway of Leach’s drum hones the album’s overall percussively trippy feel.  Musical signposts can be heard in the aforementioned Banshees, 17 Seconds-era The Cure, X-Mal Deutschland, Savages – the tension and drama across the nine tracks is palpable.  One personal favorite (if I have to pick), ‘Severed’, almost veers into pop territory before the synth turns ominous and pushes the track over the edge and down the rabbit hole.  A fantastic debut.

Less of Everything is out now, courtesy of Upset the Rhythm.

Webbandcamp twitt label insta

Highlights include:  ‘Sesame’; ‘Chemicals’; ‘Severed’; ‘Kingdom Come’

Friday Playlist

Here’s “Sprung”, our latest playlist of new found sounds, for your enjoyment. Take a listen, and follow us on Spotify.

Check Out Gaffer’s Self-Titled Demo

Band photo credit: Kyle Biggins (sourced from Weirdo Wasteland)

Gaffer, S-T demo (Helta Skelta)

Gaffer are a new band out of Perth, Australia, featuring members of powerhouses like Cold Meat and Helta Skelta (the band).  Having just formed last year (I think), the band recently released its self-titled demo via Helta Skelta (the label), and it’s a riveting debut.

Each of the tape’s seven tracks sound as if it was recorded live, such is the intensity.  The set features raw, determined punk and post-punk sounds whose origins may sound from the mists of time but the tone of which remain sharply relevant.  Frustration, isolation, the feel of being under the yoke – an anxiety made palpable by the arrangements and playing, with song titles like ‘Animal’, ‘Skin of Your Teeth’, and ‘Stuck’ serving as signposts.  The demo has the diaristic feel of albums from early Black Flag (particularly, Damaged), The Mob, Flux of Pink Indians, or early Killing Joke.  The vocalist inhabits a kind of younger Willy Loman character, one being told he’s “got everything to live for” while simultaneously feeling like he’s moving through life “with a noose on”.  On ‘Skin of Your Teeth’ – one of many highlights – the not so quiet desperation finds form in lyrics like “can’t do this anymore/getting through by the skin of your teeth…/no real purpose/no real energy/no end product”.

Gaffer’s demo is available now, on cassette, from Helta Skelta.  Looking forward to hearing what the band does next.  In the meantime, you can check out the video of their first live gig here.

Weblabel

Highlights include:  ‘Animal’; ‘Skin of Your Teeth’; ‘No Pace’

Check Out “Debuts”, from Pop Crimes

Band photo © fanny pommé

Pop Crimes, Debuts (Howlin’ Banana) 

Pop Crimes is a Paris-based quartet who share a name with the title of an album from Rowland S. Howard (RIP), and include members of (amongst others) En Attendant Ana.  Debuts, the band’s appropriately titled first release, is a brilliant four song introduction to a very anglophilic sounding group of francophones. 

On Debuts, Pop Crimes demonstrate a wicked proficiency in fusing the blissful and the barbed –  c86-style jangle and slacker indie, weighted with the crunch of garage and shoegaze and a soupçon of Libertines-like louche swagger.  Perfect example:  the hazy, scuffed pop of ‘Goes’, with antipodean shades of groups like The Church and the swing and swagger of early Ride or The House of Love.  Like the best of bands who wear their collective influences on their sleeves, the set brings fond memories without sounding like mere rehash.  Very much looking forward to hearing what comes next.  

Debuts was released in January, courtesy of Howlin’ Banana – allez, go pick it up!

Web: bcamp fbook label

Higlights include: ‘Goes’; ‘Always Lover’

New Playlist!

Here’s a new playlist, featuring tracks both new and in memory of those we lost this past week (Little Richard, Betty Wright, Florian Schneider, and Andre Harrell (Uptown)). Enjoy – and follow us on Spotify, if you’re so inclined.