Tag Archives: rat columns

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.

Check Out New Tracks from Mr. Twin Sister, Papercuts, Lithics, Molly Nilsson and Rat Columns

The past several weeks have seen the release of many great new tracks, from artists both known and loved, and new. Here are a few to get started on, with more to follow. 

Mr. Twin Sister, “Jaipur” (Self-Released)

Up first, New York’s Mr. Twin Sister, who return with, “Jaipur”, their first new music since 2016 and our favorite – if we must choose – of three (!) new tracks to emerge over this past summer (“Power of Two” and “Echo Arms” the others). “Jaipur” is a beguiling reentry, retaining the suave r&b/‘baby-making music’ sound of 2014’s self-titled effort, all swelling strings and lush vocals – but the storm here feels anything but quiet. All that smooth is jarred by a sped up Bollywood tempo and horn blasts, reflecting a more jittery, self-conscious take on love – anxiously looking for it, while simultaneously fearing that, once found, you’ll just fuck it up and run away, disappointing both the other and yourself.

It’s unclear whether any of these new tracks will be included as part of a forthcoming long-player, but take your chance to hear them live on the band’s upcoming tour, beginning October 18 in Allston, MA. 

Rat Columns, “Sometimes We’re Friends” (Slumberland)

Another welcome return, this one courtesy of Rat Columns, the recording project revolving around David West, who we’ve previously gushed over thanks to their sublime 2017 album, Candle Power. 

“Sometimes We’re Friends” is released as part of a year-long tribute in honor of Slumberland Records’ 30th anniversary. Riding in on a lovely jangle, the track captures the same effortless charm as found on the album, with the kind of road-weary romanticism of bands like The Go-Betweens, Prefab Sprout and the Blue Nile married to an early Cure style guitar chug, uncoiling into an extended and repeated chorus. It’s fantastic, and hopefully means there’s a new full-length coming soon. 

Papercuts, “Laughing Man” (Slumberland)

San Francisco’s Jason Quever returns with Papercuts, bringing the kind of vertiginous psych/dream pop that made us believers on 2009’s You Can Have What You Want. “Laughing Man” was the first of the new tracks we heard (followed closely by “Sing to Me Candy”), and it grabbed us immediately with it’s “Be My Baby”ish beat and woozy harmonies. Sweetly melancholy vocals describing someone “staring into space”, gripped by a memory they “can’t face”, before requesting we be upstanding not for the mayor of simpleton, but the laughing man.

The track will appear on Papercuts’ forthcoming new album, Parallel Universe Blues, due October 19 on Slumberland.

Molly Nilsson, “Slice of Lemon” (Dark Skies Association; Night School)

Another returning fave – this time, Molly Nilsson shares “Slice of Lemon” from her forthcoming full-length, 2020 (that’s the lyric video, above). It’s another world-beating slice (sorry) of new wave-flecked sophistipop. Riding a woozy synth and laconic beat, Nilsson’s lyrical focus feels placed on the beginning and end of a relationship, viewed through the eyes and ice of the narrator and the other – there’s a pang of wistfulness, but without regret. The track feels simultaneously new and like the song that could have soundtracked an alternate version of the denouement to “Sixteen Candles”, in which Sam eats the birthday cake alone, bummed it didn’t work out with Jake, but ultimately ok with it.

2020 is released November 2 on the ever-amazing Night School Records and Nilsson’s own Dark Skies Association imprint. Follow along on fbook, where you can find Nilsson’s upcoming tour dates in the EU and North America.

Lithics, “Photograph, You of” (Thrilling Living)


Back in May, Portland, OR’s Lithics put out one of our favorite records of the year in the form of Excuse Generator. Last month, the band released a one-off single on the Oakland-based Thrilling Living label, and it’s every bit as vitally abrasive. The a-side is a fantastic continuation of Excuse Generator’s tetchy and tuneful post-punk, sneeringly cool vocals playing off the rambling rhythm and jagged one-two guitar lines. B-side, “Lost Signal” brings a kind of Devo meets Television vibe sure to invoke full body shakealongs on the dance floor. One of the best band’s going right now, no doubt.

Grab a copy of the single here. Excuse Generator is out now, on Kill Rock Stars.

Review: “Candle Power”, by Rat Columns

Rat Columns, Candle Power (Upset the Rhythm)

Rat Columns is the project of NYC-by way of Western Australia’s David West, whose previous work with bands such as Total Control, Rank/Xerox and Lace Curtain, as well as his solo material (most recently, last year’s great Peace or Love), explored different musical territory, from noirish post-punk, new wave imbued rhythmic explorations and dazed and confused psych.

Candle Power, his latest release with Rat Columns, finds West stitching together these various elements into a seamless and truly wondrous indie pop gem.  “Blinded by the Shadow” expands on the Hot Chip (and their 80s antecedents) stomp of Lace Curtain, burnished with the addition of backing vocals from bassist Amber Gempton (featured throughout) and the inspired use of violin to add texture.  “Northern Soul” weds the jittery, gothic post-punk of West’s work with Total Control and Rank/Xerox (I also kept hearing Lords of the New Church) with hazy psych.  The album is shot through with moments of sublime, pop bliss.  Opening one-two, “Someone Else’s Dream” and “She Loves the Rain”, jangled perfection in the spirit of classic Flying Nun on through to The Byrds. Closer, “Dream Tonight” a dancefloor ready mashup of New Order and Prefab Sprout (“Time’s No Vessel” also reminds of a less blissed-out Sprout with a shot of Orange Juice).

A dreamy, sepia-tinted melancholy hangs over the album, showcasing West’s ability to coalesce wide-eyed melodies with urbane, sometimes caustic lyrical takes on love and relationships, which are at variously “like driving a motorbike straight into a wall” (“Is This Really What You’re Like?”), an ephemeral, ‘did that really happen?’ experience (“Someone Else’s Dream”), and portentous “dark cloud that rains down from above” (“Time’s No Vessel”). It’s brilliant.

Candle Power is out now, on Upset the Rhythm.  You can follow along with all things David West on his bandcamp and fbook page.

Highlights include: “Someone Else’s Dream”, “Time’s No Vessel”, “Blinded by the Shadow”, “Dream Tonight”.