I've been listening to this David Nance & Mowed Sound LP for the better part of a month. I saw that it was on super sale at Armadillo Records, the only record store here in Davis. So, I bought it and let it worm its way into my mind over the last month. My first impression was that it sounded like 1970s country rock (The Band, Allman Brothers) and while that impression isn't wrong, this record is a lot more than that. First, it's not all rock. And, more importantly, it clearly has David Nance's fingerprints all over it.
I would start with track one - "Mock the Hours" definitely boogies like The Rolling Stones, Canned Heat or Grand Funk Railroad. And while the record does rock the blues sound (sometimes this gets a little ZZ Top-ish - "Cut It Off"), it also has quiet moments ("Tumbleweed"). And all of that happens before the Bandcamp imposed 7th track starting point.
This was released by Third Man Records. Reminder, about three weeks ago, I dropped David Nance's name when talking about the Michael
Beach live album.
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Walnut Brain is a Philadelphia noise/experimental duo made up of electric guitarist Steve Heise and diddley bow player Alina Josan. Their first full-length, Weird Wire, came out earlier this year on Petty Bunco records, full of jangling half-percussive, half-melodic metallic string vibrations that sounded like blues from outer space. In her review, Jennifer Kelly wrote, “The sounds that Heise and Josan make are far removed from the Delta tradition, consisting largely of staccato banging on strings, a rain of notes from both instruments that morphs and changes in the air, finding strange harmonies, dissonances and complementarities on the fly.” Here's what's in heavy rotation for them right now.
France — Destino Scifosi
We have been playing this one on repeat for many months. A live recording from the masters of the one chord jam with plenty of hurdy-gurdy screeching and shredding. The bass player and drummer show tremendous restraint and never stray from their initial simple groove.
Didona — PIZMA
This is a great Romanian noise pop group that sometimes reminds us of Fugazi in the best possible way. The cassette label it's released on, Beach Buddies, is putting out some really interesting and challenging music from Eastern Europe and beyond.
Nowhere Flower — Heat Dome
Really cool murky songs with distorted drum machines and twangy guitars. The lyrics are pretty much indecipherable which is how we prefer them.
De Vlaamse Primitieven — Lucht Van Een Andere Planeet
You can tell these guys are really good musicians. But they don't overplay. Instead, they use simple riffs and repetition to create these great hypnotic acoustic pieces.
Group Inerane — Marhajan Bianou
Many years ago, I (Steve) obsessed over live videos of Group Inerane on YouTube. Then a few months ago out of nowhere Sublime Frequencies released this album of live recordings from some of those very same live shows. Some of the best guitar rock jams out there.
Bohannon — Disco Stomp
A perfect song that's somehow both mellow and a foot stomper. We listened to it a lot this year. Heey, Philadelphia!
David Nance and Simon Joyner — Bedspring Symphony
David Nance has made a ton of great music since this one but it's hitting the spot these days. Originally released under a different name; one look at the art and you'll figure out what that was. Some of it sounds like soulful singing from the bottom of a well, some of it like raucous one-take rockers: perfect. Really looking forward to the return of his Astute Palate.
Marlen Haushofer — The Wall
This is a novel that we both read in turn this year and loved. Survival in the post cataclysm world while getting to better understand animals is going to be bittersweet.
Lale Westvind — Void Packer
Lale's phenomenal Grip is still one of the best comics I've ever laid eyes on along with her many others. Those beautiful drawings and stories have real power, electricity and humor. It's been a treat to wait for issues of Void Packer (what a great name!), now four in number, and see the main story take shape along with shorter ones that are dystopian and hopeful in turn.
Pat Finnerty — What Makes This Song Stink
Pat Finnerty videos are evergreen for us. We've watched each video many, many times. Pat is doing the real work of dissecting the worst music out there. We eagerly await the next episode.
Like most of us, I'm having a thoroughly depressing week — so I'm trying to cast my mind back to better times ... like when I saw Rosali and Mowed Sound last month in Denver! I was lucky enough to catch 'em at the very start of their Bite Down tour in 2024, and this Mile High City show was close to the tail-end of it all.
That first Denver gig was great. The second one was insanely, outrageously great. Rosali, David Nance, Jim Schroeder and Kevin Donahue levitated the crowd throughout, sending pretty much every song soaring into the stars. Afterwards, I think I managed to tell every member of the band that they needed to put out a double-live album immediately.
But until they follow my advice, here's a sweet Milwaukee Taper tape of a show from earlier this year, when Rosali and Mowed Sound were playing the Thawed Out Fest in Chicago, with the added attraction of Pearl Lovejoy Boyd on backing vocals. Bite down on it, my friends!
(And hey, you can still check out Rosali's excellent episode of All One Song — one of the best of the bunch! We gotta get Nance on season two!)
The CTMF - A Certain Boy
Des Demonas - The Duke Ellington Bridge
Thee Cha Cha Chas - Don't Lie To Me
Thee Headshrinkers - Motorbike
Lambrini Girls - Love
Sex Mex - I Love Everyone
David Nance - Pure Evil #9
TVOD - Car Wreck
Sleaford Mods & Hot Chip - Cat Burglar
Last Quokka - OTC
Daffodil Pill - Swallow Song
Ismatic Guru - Manic Vision
Benzin - Krise
Heather The Jerk - Parasites
The Men - Pony
The CTMF - Shapes Of Things
Thee Headhrinkers - Derivative
Advance Base - The Tooth Fairy
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Pictured: SIDA
Tracklist:
01. SIR E.U - Maybe
02. SIDA - Tu es mort
03. Badaboum - Rap
04. Isotope Soap - I Saved You From Jesus
05. Courge - Big Benne
06. BECKY & THE POLITICIANS - buckling trends
07. neutrals - swiss
08. Skull Cult - Stab Me With a Knife
09. Stratocastors - Portable
10. Schrairaum - No No No
11. Disco 3000 - Designed To Contextualize
12. Sweat Tongue - Dark Star
13. Pool People - You Git That Family Thung
14. Yersinia Pestis - Sekhmet
15. X-Ray Fiends - Deep Space Shark Attack (Live)
16. DREAMDECAY - IAN
17. Rutger Hauser - n-n-n-n
18. PRC - Drift
19. No Waves - Feet On The Brim Of My Board
20. Lie Ins - You Don't Deserve to Wear Glasses
Download: Zippyshare / MEGA
FAKE RADIO, Vol. 24
Pictured: Rank/Xerox
Tracklist:
01. Stefan Christensen - Braille
02. Sparrow Steeple - Mantis
03. David Nance - Accept Nothing [orig. 2013. just “reissued” on Bandcamp)
04. PoulainJar - Paris
05. CREAPOPOLVSQVE - A Fairy Cock Tale
06. Hive of Wires - Emotional Labor [Side A Excerpt]
07. Gates - Vīvum
08. Equipment Pointed Ankh - ABRAHAM TO-GO
09. La Baracande - Tout en me promenant
10. FRKSE - Hammering Bliss
11. 100% - Lost Youth
12. Gianni Giublena Rosacroce - Declino
13. Live Low - Antiplot
14. THE JOHN MERRICKS - Magdalena
15. RANK/XEROX - M.y.t.h.
16. Naked (On Drugs) - Boudoir Fingers
17. ARTO LINDSAY - DECK
18. Léonore Boulanger & Maam-Li Merati - Avaz-e Bayat Esfahan (Tasnif-e Shab-e Mahtab)
19. GROUP DOUEH & CHEVEU - TOUT DROIT
20. Starlito - Streets Want That (feat. Mista Cain)
One of the best slabs of pure rock action I’ve heard in quite a while. Written and recorded in a single weekend, Astute Palate is the debut long-player of a Philadelphia underground supergroup of sorts — with a ringer from Omaha thrown in for good measure. From the City of Brotherly Love, we’ve Emily Robb on vocals and guitar, Daniel Provenzano on bass and Richie Charles on drums, plus Nebraskan David Nance on guitar and vocals. Together, they make a righteous racket, whipping up Stooges-worthy stompers, “Danger Bird”-esque slow burners and deeply mesmerizing choogles. Exciting, raw and immediate stuff that grabs you by the collar and doesn’t let go.
Human beings have long disdained the bland middle, neither this nor that, and tending to recede into the background. Revelations 3:16 puts it this way, “So because you are lukewarm, and neither hot nor cold, I will vomit you out of my mouth.” Rosali, a songwriter from Phildelphia who is developing at warp speed into one of our best, may not be spewing the moderate out, but she is definitely not ready to settle into a pleasant roséwave haze.
For No Medium, her third album, Rosali enlists David Nance and his band for a raucous, Crazy Horse-ish roar, recording mostly live in ten days with all stops pulled. And yet, though Nance and his crew add a definitely heat and flavor, the songwriter remains very much at the center. It’s been a long time since anyone has reminded me this much of Neil Young, as much for the graceful, unfussed melodies as for the surge of guitar racket, and it’s her, not her backing band, that compels the comparison.
Rosali’s last album drew on a different, less rough-necked band but pulled a similar trick. When I reviewed Trouble Anyway in 2018 for Dusted, I wrote “What jumps out at you is how smoothly intricate the mix of sounds is, how beautifully the boom of bass notes pushes melody forward, how achingly the pedal steel underlines the melancholy, how easily Middleman’s voice flits and flutters and plummets bluesily into an enveloping mesh of sounds.” She is likewise in control here, gaining heft and volume from her band but never ceding authority.
Consider, “Bones,” for instance, a wild blare of blues rock, rough and distorted and slouchy, like an offcut from Let It Bleed, from whose turmoil Rosali emerges unscathed, her voice low and certain, fluted with the tiniest bit of vibrato, and warmly, confidently melodic. “So I gathered my bones, to go back home, to be alone,” she asserts in the chorus, gathering strength as the line progresses. The guitar solo, when it erupts, seems to carry and express that strength, not obliterate it.
Elsewhere, things get pared back, as for instance, on the piano ballad “Waited All Day,” where only a few chords, a soft swell of choral music, fill out the contours of Rosali’s voice and the song. But what a song it is, fluttering and fluting and refracting the title phrase into a few dozen syllables. “All This Lightning,” which follows, may be the best of the slow songs, framed in acoustic guitar with a little electric blues catching fire in the periphery. “All this lightning…ain’t frightening to me,” Rosali croons softly, with the calm that comes from getting through life, seeing a lot and knowing that most of it can’t hurt you.
This is just Rosali’s third album, but there’s a lovely maturity to it. She came to singing late; she’s not one of those artists that you can watch growing up record to record. But she is getting better, all the time and at a rapid pace. No Medium is her best yet.
