If there can be such a thing as a silver lining to stragedy, perhaps part of it is Nina Nastasia’s new band Jolie Laide, which started as a startlingly productive long distance project with Jeff MacLeod and has since grown into a full band. Talking to them, it became clear why the band’s growth has been so propulsive. Besides obviously being close friends, they are stoked.
Judy Hong who runs Quiet Year Records and organizes with Ice Cream Social in Richmond, VA, along with Nancy Grim Kells (Spartan Jet-Plex) and James Cassar, are part of the team responsible for Grim Year Wednesdays, an inventive online hybrid of interviews and performances with a focus on fundraising for the Virginia Anti-Violence Project.
Can’t Talk, Being Chased is densely layered, complete with tasty country flourishes like fiddle, lap steel, and horns, but still feels appropriately rough around the edges. You could imagine the band honing the album highlight “Mute ‘Em All” in a Philadelphia basement, adding every possible overdub to try and make it sound like it wasn’t honed in a Philadelphia basement.
Un-becoming arrives on the heels of J. Robbins’ old band Jawbox’s reunion and was recorded in the cracks of work, family obligations, and between rounds of video game sessions with his son. Does this mean that Robbins, now straddling the line between musician, producer, and father, has strayed from punk and into the feared territory of “dad rock” on his new record? In a word, no.
Fans of Rock with a Capital R will find a lot to love in the song’s first 30 seconds or so, as it opens up with a tunefully slanted riff and familiar trampling drums. By the end of the song’s five minutes, however, the listener has a fuller understanding of the disparate parts that make up Hansen’s impressively varied musical palette.