New (to me!) Tunes!

Here's some stuff that came out in 2015 that, for numerous reasons, I'm hearing for the first time. This is what January has looked like for me. 

Foxing - Dealer

I think I saw this in the running for Get Alternative's Best of 2015. I only finally listened to it after revisiting a music blog I periodically check for new emo bands. Phew. This is a less bombastic Aereogramme tinged with enough indie tendencies that they could flirt with mainstream success but probably entrenched enough in emo to scare people away (though they are playing Shaky Knees this year). The indie flare is really just a trap. This is for professionals.

Wrekmeister Harmonies - Night of Your Ascension

Some thirty collaborators join JR Robinson to create Wrekmeister Harmonies' most daunting album to date. It's an album inspired by villainous acts committed by supposedly pious and god-fearing people and is a towering nightmare.

Marching Church - This World is Not Enough

Coincidentally, Marching Church is about to release a new album (on my birthday!). This is the dude from Iceage and Var doing his take on soul music. Purportedly inspired by Sam Cooke and James Brown, it's kind of a cool, weird mess of an album. My favourite song sounds like a Nick Cave song, and I'm not entirely unconvinced a couple tracks don't sound like blown-out Bright Eyes songs.

Drug Church - Hit Your Head

I actually pre-ordered this album last year (along with the rest of Drug Church's catalogue), but I still don't have it yet and kinda forgot about it. I started listening to it again while walking the dogs, so I'm including it here. Patrick Kindlon from Self Defense Family fronting a Quicksand-type alt band. If you wanna make someone mad, tell them Tool's first two albums and Quicksand sound identical. They'll be mad because it's true and they can't handle it. 

Gates - Bloom and Breathe

Doesn't that album title make your heart swell and your shoulders lighter and chest looser and lungs fuller and eyes sparklier? "Bloom" is such a beautiful sound and breathing is such a beautiful thing to be able to do. Gates is a band, historically, that appears and disappears from my radar with an odd irregularity. This new album, though? Again: phew. Soaring, skyscraping post-rock-doused emo that is as triumphant as it is crushing. Probably better suited for neophytes than Foxing but still demands emotional fortitude. 

Crippled Black Phoenix - New Dark Age

"Damn, they really sound like Pink Floyd right now," I thought to myself while listening to Crippled Black Phoenix cover Pink Floyd's "Echoes" before looking at the title of the song(s) and realizing, "Well duh." Cool 57-minute "EP" from perhaps the most underrated post-rock band ever. The two original tracks find the band pushing their brand of riff-heavy post-rock into gloomier places while the 40-minute "Echoes" cover demonstrates the band's psychedelic and textural range. This might be better than Mankind (A Crafty Ape). 

Christina Vantzou - No. 3

The first song on Vantzou's 2015 release is titled "Valley Drone." I'm tempted to just leave it at that. Put this on, pick a book, and let the building tonal registers and sawing strings creep into the spaces between the letters and fill your eyes with nothingness.

Slow Meadow - Slow Meadow

Lush, gorgeous ambient music that feels like a lighter Deaf Center with plenty of sorrowful strings and piano drips. Maybe like a vocal-less stripped down Sigur Ros. Look at the name of the band, imagine what a slow meadow might sound like, and you're exactly right. Breathtaking. 

Helena Hauff - Discreet Desires

Rhythmic, danceable electro-goth with no vocals from this German DJ. An unavoidable impetus to dancing if ever there was one.