Log Across The Washer - "It's Funny How the Colors" | Album Review
Throughout It's Funny How the Colors, Log Across The Washer’s Tyler Keene whips up a universe of ramshackle folk built for porch gazing as much as drifting through your own recollections of the past. The tape is never a bummer, although there's a hushed energy (in its lyrics) of accepting the present for what it is.
Alexalone - "Alexaloneworld" | Album Review
Luggage - "Happiness" | Album Review
Happiness’ approach to “the slow” has been touted as a “90s Chicago throwback,” which is not too far off in terms of general description of their approach to sludgy slowness. The trio stretch their perpetual sonic muscles, remapping an indie lineage that feels further drawn out of frame. Every track becomes its own little sonic nugget.
Mega Bog - "Life, And Another" | Album Review
Life, and Another is a fourteen-track, 44-minute affair, transmitted with the descriptor, Sci-Fi Pop, and yes, with James Krivchenia of Big Thief producing the sound palette is ripe of the sort. If there is a novum for what Mega Bog is currently accomplishing, then it is found within that synthesis of Birgy’s lyricism and sonic arrangements.
Black Midi - "Cavalcade" | Album Review
Cavalcade has been out for nearly a month now, and we’re all still oozing over how they managed to rip it up and start once more in their own orbit. The change to producer John “Spud” Murphy and significant increase in the size of their backing arrangements did not betray their adherence to any of the critical Speedy Wunderground tenants.
FACS - "Present Tense" | Album Review
Present Tense doesn’t have time for a meet and greet. It opens in media res; percussion bomb blasts, a gristling base, and snaring garage riffs and bloodshot vocals. If you know FACS, then you’re already home. Over the past few years, the Chicago trio’s annual dispatches have seen significant augmentation.
Claire Rousay - "A Softer Focus" | Album Review
Partnering with American Dreams, Rousay’s latest, a softer focus, is a subtle new leaf. All the usual elements of her previous recordings are still here, albeit with greater spaciousness; Rousay’s partnership with a handful of chamber collaborators are a key element in that, imparting her songs their own dusk-tinged shadows.
Lina Tullgren - "Visiting" | Album Review
Lina Tullgren has reunited with their first instrument, the violin. While featured in fleeting moments on Free Cell, Tullgren instead recasts their fate with the instrument in the form of veracious improvisations. It imparts a new language of sound, moving through the few crystalline zones with a tenderness and curiosity.
Various Artists - "Strum & Thrum: The American Jangle Underground 1983-1987" | Album Review
“The Stax, not the Motown” was the way Mike Sniper described the 28 cuts showcased on Strum n’ Thrum: The American Jangle Underground 1983-1987 in an interview. His label, Captured Tracks, has quietly cultivated several reissues, big and small, dedicated to overlooked gems. The promise of this new series, Excavations, is intriguing.
Wendy Eisenberg - "Auto" | Album Review
Wendy Eisenberg’s reputation as a fixture within overarching New England DIY from the punk-adjacent Birthing Hips to hip compositions for the guitar and banjo have enshrined them with a singular maverick quality. Auto makes good on all those pieces, coalescing them into a dense sonic universe that you could fill a book about its pieces