#23 | Heartbreaking Bravery

April 20, 2017

Watch This: Vol. 158

Last week’s Monday-Sunday stretch yielded a large handful of outstanding live videos. While normally Watch This segments run on Sunday, this one (and the posts soon to follow) were held back by outside circumstances. The posting on Heartbreaking Bravery will be more frequent going into the future. Getting that rotation started is this crop of clips, which were strong enough to render compelling takes from the following as honorable mentions:

Jesca Hoop, Sigur Rós, Los Gold Fires, AJJ, Hurray for the Riff Raff, Dolfish, The New Pornographers, The Regrettes, Amy O, Sean Rowe, Desert Mountain Tribe, Weyes Blood, Hollerado, Vagabon, Future Islands (x2), Craig Finn, Noname, Deap Vally, Jonny Grave, The Smith Street Band, Car Seat Headrest, Hannah Lee Thompson, Hinds, Beach Slang, Liz Cooper & The Stampede (x2), Lou Canon, Sue the Night, Peter Silberman, Mipso, Juliet K, Ceschi, Anna Tivel, Lillie Mae, Bruise Violet, Hayley Heynderickx, Cold Country, Kyle Morton, Lisa Hannigan, and Kim Janssen.

As is typically the case, that’s a uniformly strong crop that reflects well on the selected features. So, as always, take a seat, calm down, take a deep breath, adjust the settings, lean in, and Watch This.

1. Vagabon (Audiotree)

A staple on this site for a few years, Vagabon‘s finally beginning to receive the levels of admiration, acclaim, and attention they’ve deserved for some time. Touring heavily on one of 2017’s finest releases thus far, the band recently found time to stop by the Audiotree studios and deliver a mesmerizing set. Running through several highlights from Infinite Worlds, the band remains in sharp form throughout and delivers one knockout blow after another, solidifying their status as one of today’s most exciting musical prospects

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2. Lady Pills (BIRN)

Lady Pills have made a few brief appearances on this site but this two-song take for BIRN virtually guarantees them expanded coverage. Both “I Hate You” and “Irrelevant” reveal an understanding — if not outright mastery — of a very specific style of songwriting. Energetic, commendably contained, and compelling, the band lights into both tracks with both force and feeling. The instrumental segue that bridges the two songs is a thing of beauty and Lady Pills never stop providing reasons to commit their name to memory.

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3. IAN SWEET (PressureDrop.tv)

When a label like Hardly Art shows interest in a band, there’s usually a handful of good reasons behind why they’re paying attention. Occasionally a band crumbles under the pressure or disintegrates in the face of a new set of challenges. IAN SWEET repaid that kindness in full, and then some, with their debut full-length, Shapeshifter. Following the record’s release, the band made a name for themselves on the live circuit. This full session acts as both a document and as definitive proof of their live prowess.

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4. Forth Wanderers (KVRX)

A short while back, Forth Wanderers released one of the best EP’s of 2016 in Slop, a staggering career highlight by any metric. They’ve been hard at work ever since, promoting that EP and working on new material. In this intimate, stripped-down KVRX session, the band splits the selections between Slop, Tough Love, and offers a look ahead. All of the songs remain mesmerizing, even when scaled back to only guitars and vocals, aptly demonstrating that the band’s appeal — and talent — runs far deeper than the surface offerings.

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5. Creepoid (Audiotree)

Creepoid‘s built a deeply impressive run over the span of their career, offering up plenty of fascinating twists along the way (the short film Ernest Undead being a notable example). In that time, they’ve also honed their live abilities, transforming into a tightly-knit wrecking crew that knows how to both enhance and accentuate the heaviness of their recorded material while still doing the ambient trappings justice. In this Audiotree session, they bare their teeth and clamp down, drawing a fair amount of blood.

August 25, 2016

IAN SWEET – #23 (Music Video)

ian sweet

Over the past several days, there have been excellent music videos to surface from Caspian, DJ Shadow, The Hairs, Clipping., Pleistocene, WL, Pop & Obachan, Donovan Wolfington, Chromatics, Matt Kivel, Dogbreth, Hiss Golden Messenger, Joyce Manor, The Cradle, The Avalanches, Barren Womb, and Walker Lukens. A few of those will undoubtedly be appearing on some year-end lists but that doesn’t mean that the rest should be ignored. All of those titles are worthy endeavors that deserve a certain amount of investment.

As good as all of those clips wound up being, this post’s feature was secured by IAN SWEET‘s endearing, Michael Jordan-influenced “#23”. Tenderly shot and directed by Eleanor Petry, “#23” imbues the subdued tone of the song into a clip that jumps, seamlessly, back and forth from a pick-up game in a park to a varied romp through Coney Island. There’s a lyrical poetry to the imagery that winds up complementing the best song of IAN SWEET’s emergent career.

In four minutes, IAN SWEET (and Petry) conjure up a narrative that feels alternately introspective and fearlessly outgoing, demonstrating a range of humanity that should serve the band well down the line. There’s a keen awareness to the entire affair that’s infused with a heavy amount of empathy, allowing “#23” to radiate a kind of warmth that’s been increasingly rare in the landscape of the punk-tinged basement pop genre. Should the rest of their forthcoming Shapeshifter live up to this precedent, we may very well be looking at — and listening to — one of the finest records of 2016.

Watch “#23” below and pre-order Shapeshifter from Hardly Art here.

July 28, 2016

Space Mountain – Never Lonely (Stream)

spacemountain

Over the past week or so there have been new songs to stream offered up from a varied cast of characters that included Infinity Crush, Secret Crush, Microwave, Slothrust, Screaming Females, The Only Ocean, The Submissives, Nots, Navy Gangs, Carl Sagan’s Skate Shoes, Aldous Harding, Steady Lean, Fir Cone Children, and IAN SWEET. In addition to those songs there was also a collaborative gem unveiled by Cole Kinsler‘s Space Mountain project that featured a thrilling guest vocalist turn from Forth Wanderers‘ Ava Trilling.

Way back in 2014, Kinsler’s project was making a solid impression and it’s been a privilege to watch (and listen to) Space Mountain grow in both scope and conviction. Recently, that project hit an exhilarating peak with the driving, mid-tempo “Never Lonely”. Easily the act’s finest work to date, it’s enriched by a communal spirit that brings Trilling’s memorable vocals into the fold.

Never before has Space Mountain sounded as expansive or as thoughtful, a mixture that pays massive dividends. By finding a way to bridge both the carefree, open-road atmosphere that permeates throughout some of the most timeless folk records and the dynamics that typically characterize a roster like Exploding In Sound’s, “Never Lonely” creates something that feels refreshing in its modernity while digging its heels deep into the past.

An impressive track at every turn, “Never Lonely” raises the anticipation level for the forthcoming Big Sky full-length a considerable amount. More than that, it demonstrates that Kinsler’s impressive first few works under this moniker were more developmental than most listeners likely realized. If the rest of the record can live up to the standard set by “Never Lonely”, Big Sky may just be one of the year’s finest surprise discoveries.

Listen to “Never Lonely” below and pre-order Big Sky here.

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