We posted about The Lovely Basement's "Lazy Travelers" LP on No Aloha Records last June. Precious Recordings released this sweet 7" in early October in time for all fall festivals. "Cornstalk Girl" comes with an excellent cover of Beat Happening's "Angel Gone" on the B side.
The Lovely Basement (Bristol, England) will be releasing another full length on No Aloha and Precious Recordings in a few days. It's called "Lowlands" and it mines a similar sound to all previous releases.
Our earlier post of The Lovely Basement mentioned The Velvet Underground and The Bingo Trappers. I would add Lewsberg to this list of comps.
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It was a sad day when those of us who were fans of the Dutch band Lewsberg heard they'd called it a day. However, out of bad comes good, and Arie Van Vliet from the Lewsberg formed a new band with Klittens' Yael Dekker, and voila! The Hobknobs were formed!
I enjoyed their Gather No Moss release from last year, and now they have a forthcoming LP on the 12XU label out in late June. 16 songs, so they'll be giving us a nice dollop of music.Â
This first single is fantastic. The sound isn't totally unlike that of their previous bands; in other words, real low-key rock/pop music bent on minimalism and excellent songwriting. Think of Jonathan Richman fronting his heroes, the Velvet Underground, and you'll be in the (very big) ballpark.
Dance, tap your foot, or just stand there. The Hobknobs don't care; they just want you listening.Â
It's going to take years to unpack the last few months of 2023. Whatever mental trauma is inflicted upon those removed from the situation in no way approximates the devastation and inhumanity occurring daily to millions. That the US is funding it all, and institutions and businesses domestically are punishing those who speak out about it, is sickening and terrifying. The latest Lulu's email newsletter wrote more eloquently about it all than I could, and plainly calls for empathy at the end: "Be good in a bad world."
And we do that, pretending things are normal for the sake of others, our kids, our partners. But things are not normal, and that pressure forces other changes, because while we can to some degree control what happens within our lives, there's no fix for seeing (let alone experiencing) dead, maimed children regularly on Instagram, victims of bombings without caution or consequence. A sense of powerlessness pervades. What we can do is keep talking, sharing and banding together. Being good in a bad world.
Some notes:
Lots more instrumental, or nearly instrumental, music than usual this year on my list, which tracks with the current climate. Music without words, or without discernible words, leaves space for thoughts to become untangled, sure; but a lot of what’s highlighted below felt more transcendent than meditative.
I still listen to rap quite a bit, but very few new songs I heard stuck around past a few days. Call it malaise from living in an era where every other song on the radio has a trap beat. Starlito dropped a clunker, which shouldn't have shocked me but did, and it personally felt significant. Maybe it’s indicative of the old guard’s demise, but hopefully it removes a wall and allows me to engage with newer rap music better. That being said: Veeze's Ganger was head and shoulders above everything else; billy woods' short verse on "As the Crow Flies" made me gasp the first time I heard it (and I also loved ELUCID's verse on "Baby Steps"); and I listened to The Jacka's The Jack Artist most of all.
Of all the books I read this year, two books by Fernanda Melchor, Hurricane Season and Paradais, stood out. Melchor’s prose is incredibly powerful, bleakly funny and vicious in equal measure. The sharp, frank assessments by characters in often ludicrous situations feel like a product of the contemporary but imbued with some ancient wisdom. Shout out to Julia S. for the new and notable South American literature tips.
In the midst of holiday/short day doldrums, amidst endless bleak news reports, it was difficult battling back cynicism to listen to anything, especially back to all of these records and tapes listed below. It ended up being oddly therapeutic, highly enjoyable and maybe necessary, the same as when I force myself out to shows when it's easier to stay home. That feeling chips away at the notion of this list-making exercise as futile, for me certainly, but hopefully also for you. Thank you for reading, and I hope you find something you like, too.
And so:
LP
Lewsberg, Out and About (12XU)
Equipment Pointed Ankh, From Inside the House (Bruit Direct Disques)
The Native Cats, The Way On Is the Way Off (Chapter Music)
Water Damage, 2 Songs (12XU)
VoidCeremony, Threads of Unknowing (20 Buck Spin)
Emily Robb, If I Am Misery Then Give Me Affection (Petty Bunco)
CIA Debutante, Down, Willow (Siltbreeze)
Olimpia Splendid, 2 (Fonal/Kraak)
Nusidm, The Last Temptation of Thrill (Bruit Direct Disques)
Incipientium, Underg​å​ng (Happiest Place)
Witness K, s/t (ever/never)
Leda, Neuter (Discreet Music)
12"/10"/7"/CS
Chrome Cell Torture, Laugh Then Lie 7" (Scarlet)
Joe Colley, Acting As If 10" (Substantia Innominata)
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First picture is of Lewsberg at Outer Limits in Hamtramck on October 13th, 2023
Second picture is the album cover for Out And And About that came out this year
I first heard them when their Speedy Wunderground 7" came out called Six Hills. I didn't stick with me at the time but I remembered their name enough to check out this album when it came out and I'm very glad I did. They have such a beautifully minimal approach to the twee pop and post punk sound. I'm always a strong advocate for minimal approaches to music and this is a great example of it. I have since listened their discography a bunch of times and still love them and am stoked to have got to see them on their US tour that just passed.
The once post-punk clatter of Lewsberg has diminished to an unsettling hum. No longer scrambling, but even so, not at rest, the Rotterdam four-piece follows airy pop melodies into odd corners. Lyrics provoke and don’t quite resolve, drifting off into dot-dot-dotted elusiveness, while the hard edges of guitar and drums melt into lucid-dream-like sustained textures: organ, violin, floating female voices.
This fourth LP gives the two women in the band greater prominence, a trend that started with 2021’s In Our Hands. Shalita Dietrich, the bassist, sings or chants on a plurality of the tracks. Her cool, unruffled soprano brings the temperature down on jaunty “Without a Doubt,” casting an aura of calm over fractious jangle, much as Georgia Hubley does for Yo La Tengo. And yet while the tones are serene, the lyrics are knotty and complicated and terse, picking at big themes like alienation from thought and body and religion in fitful bursts of cogitation.
Arie van Vliet, the other main singer, pokes in his deadpan way at the absurdity of physical existence in “An Ear to the Chest.” His heart is beating faster. Could it speed up indefinitely? He asks the doctor. She runs some tests. It is all very quotidian, matter of fact, against a clangor of straight-strummed guitar and boxy drums. And yet it opens up into philosophy when the doctor says, “You asked for it. You asked for so much.” We did. We do. Our hearts put up with a lot.
Later in “Communion,” Lewsberg tips religious commonplaces on their sides. “Bless the lord my soul, as I watch him from above,” van Vliet chants in a lyric that doesn’t quite match up; it is usually the almighty who grants blessings and watches from overhead, not the person praying. And indeed, these lyrics have a moebius strip quality, where they seem to proceed in a logical way, then double back on themselves, so that you are all of the sudden upside down.
The best and most striking song comes near the end in “There’s a Poet in the Bushes,” a slow-paced, radiantly set piece that is at once a cosmic joke and a deep meditation. A poet sits in the bushes, taking literally the lines, “I am a poet. If I want the rose to bloom, the rose blooms,” and trying to will the garden to flower. Around him, ordinary suburban life unfolds; parents tell their children to stay away from the man in the bushes. The song is absurd and funny and profound, and though the rose never blooms, it says a lot about art and spirit and beauty.
And so, a band that caught our fancy with its slashing post-punk energy turns into something else entirely, more serene sonically, but still challenging in its slow, thoughtful way. Â Here chilly, cerebral ideas provide structure for enticing pop, and the sweetness comes with a bit of vertigo.
