Ben Auld's previous LP, "Lemongrass" (Earth Libraries, 2022) was beautiful, but certainly didn't hint at what was coming on "Loserdom", released just a few weeks ago on Repeating Cloud (Maine) and Safe Suburban Homes (UK).
Auld is from Norwich, England and grew up "a fan of lo-fi, scrappy DIY bands like Guided By Voices, The Replacements and Bill Fox...[he also] spent his early twenties learning how to write the perfect 2 minute pop song."
On "Loserdom" he appears to have modeled that song on Teenage Fanclub, Weezer and Tony Molina - specifically, "Grand Prix by Teenage Fanclub, Pinkerton by Weezer and Tony Molina’s Dissed and Dismissed." The Bandcamp notes also mention Jellyfish and Big Star as touchstones for this release.
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When I mentioned Mark Monnone yesterday, it made me remember that his project, Monnone Alone (Melbourne, Australia), has a new LP coming out. Aside from being a great person and the mastermind of Lost & Lonesome Recording Co., Mark is an outstanding pop musician in his own right. Micah and I saw it firsthand when Monnone Alone opened for The Zebras years ago in Sacramento. Additionally, he was a founding member of The Lucksmiths. Special guest appearances on the new album include Steph Hughes (Dick Diver) and Gary Olson (The Ladybug Transistor).
"Dry Doubt" has a definite Pavement-sounding guitar and feel. But Mark's voice and melodies are all his own. "Ways To Wear My Hair" was originally released back in 2023 on a lathe-cut from Royal Mint (Finland).
Bands like The Slow Summits and Chime School ply a similar sound to Monnone Alone. Meritorio Records and Repeating Cloud will be releasing "Here Comes the Afternoon" in early May 2025.
When I first started listening to Mythical Motors "Upside Down World" I suffered from the recency bias of just having listened to Teleman. The more I listened, the more I realized this wasn't anything like Teleman, but rather more like Guided By Voices. But the effortless songwriting ability of Thomas Sanders (and Robert Pollard) is on display
Then, before I got too far ahead of myself I thought I'd do a search of the blog. And lo and behold, we'd previously posted about the band in 2019 (a cassette retrospective released by Fall Break Records).
Mythical Motors (Chattanooga, Tennessee) is the vehicle for the music of Matthew Addison, and he's been playing music long enough to have album art courtesy a child (in this case Alie Addison). A career that long will lead to many comparisons (just read the liner notes for "Upside Down World") - but I will repeat the ones I hear the most - The Cleaners From Venus, The Bevis Frond and Let's Active.
This is released on cassette by Portland, Maine label Repeating Cloud.
Jeff Tobias — One Hundredfold Now in This Age (Repeating Cloud)
Photo by Tobi Erner
Jeff Tobias wrestles a frantic saxophone in psych-jazz Sunwatchers and a subtle bass counterpoint in serene and minimalist Modern Nature. Here in a solo project, he splits the difference, amping up indie melodies with proggy, jittery, staccato arrangements, and reinforcing dystopian scenarios with enticing, nearly pop tunefulness.
One Hundredfold Now in this Age takes a strong political stance, but sweetens the polemic with indie drift and dream. “End It,” allow only a brief interval of synth-and-strings shimmer before unspooling its insurgent chorus. “Burn the American flag, one hundred times a day,” Tobias croons, his tone unbothered, his message aflame, as a glittering fusion jazz fanfare goes off in his wake. The song was inspired by American support for the destruction of Gaza, but the music is elegant and restrained.
“Gimme Coherence” continues this odd juxtaposition, as a bubbly dance synth riff percolates behind lyrics about death and destruction, but it’s with “Arp (Burning Property)” that the music becomes really disturbing. In a long spoken word interval, Tobias takes on the character of a man willingly complicit in government oppression: “I force two dozen men to lie on the floor and put their hands behind their backs/And I blindfold them/I arrange to have dogs traverse the length of the room, growling, pulling their leashes taut/Other people I work with are nearby burning property.” The man’s life is utterly normal— bagels, email, riding a bike—but overshaded by threat and repression. “I look across the river at the place where I live, but it’s also Beirut, it’s also Johannesburg,” he observes near the end. It distills the weird combination of normal and bizarrely frightening that we’ve all been living with for the last six months.
The music is slippery and elusive, but quite good, bounded by irregular rhythms and colored in with woozy textures of sax and synthesizers. Tobias’ voice, and the complexity of his lyrics, reminds me most of The Beauty Pill, another band that puts twisty contradiction under the serene surfaces. It’s mostly Tobias and his We Versus the Shark partner Scott Smith on drums, but other out-psych luminaries—Wendy Eisenberg, Kryssi Battelene, Karen Waltuch to name a few—jump in in various places. Â
A lot about One Hundredfold reflects its unsettling time and place, with its gleaming technological surfaces, its machine-like precision and its invocation of rot and threat and corruption. If we ever get through this period, we may not want to hear it again, but for now, it’s a mirror to what’s around us.
Thanks again to Austin Town Hall for helping bring new music to my attention. Festiva are another band that prove that Portland, Maine is indeed a vibrant and fertile music scene. Previous posts about Big Blood, The Wickies, and Midwestern Music all attest to the truth behind the preceding sentence. Also, Repeating Cloud is a local record label releasing work from local musicians (in addition to those outside Portland).
Festiva have a heavy guitar/pop sound. They remind me of a combination of the pop sensibilities of Eugene McGuinness and the guitar overload (at times) of Dinosaur Jr. Listen to the last song, "Grimoire" - it's a stripped down song where you can really hear the McGuinness comparison. I would also add Ray Davies as a touchstone when listening to this song.
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