Air Guitar | Heartbreaking Bravery

September 14, 2016

Strange Ranger – Sunbeams Through Your Head (EP Review)

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Over the past two days, there were a handful of exceptional new tracks from the likes of Purling Hiss, Kississippi, Kevin Morby, Pop & Obachan, benngrigg, Busman’s Holiday, Trails and Ways, Emilyn Brodsky, Sun Angle, Touché Amoré, Crying, Suburban Living, Kim Gordon, Henry Jamison, Light Fantastic, Levitations, Softspot, Rick Barry, and Shana Falana. Additionally, there were outstanding music videos from Martha (who also found room for an amusing Radiator Hospital cameo), Sex Stains, The White Stripes, Adam Torres, Wolf People, Chromatics, The Kills, Matt Kivel, and Nøise. Rounding everything out were incredible full streams via Oh Boland, Low Culture, Sat. Nite Duets, Left & Right, Human People, LA Font, Bad Kids To The Front, Cheshires, and Toy Cars.

While more than a handful of those were considered for this post’s featured spot, Strange Ranger secured the position by virtue of releasing an EP that contains a few of the finest songs to have been released all year. One of those, the record’s opening and title track, earned a healthy amount of recent praise. “Sunbeams Through Your Head” set an impressive, melancholic tone for its namesake which was released in full earlier today.

Following the haunted title track, Sunbeams Through Your Head could have gone a number of directions but chose to expand on its thesis statement. The EP’s second track, “Life Would Be Cooler”, is by far its longest and one of its most gripping. “Life Would Be Cooler” also turns out to be surprisingly economical in its narrative, painting a portrait of an intense (and intensely damaged) longing in less than 60 words, closing with a devastating plea that drives a staggering amount of genuine feeling home.

It’s an opening salvo that packs an emotional wallop but Strange Ranger stays on course for the next barrage of tracks, remaining unapologetic for their overwhelmingly weary nature and casting an atmospheric pall in the process. In a strange way, it’s almost moving, listening to the band support their most downtrodden tendencies with intuitively empathetic moments in the instrumental composition. “Dolph”, “Whatever You Say”, and especially the gorgeous, instrumental “Thru Your Head” all contain breathtaking moments of a deeply felt compassion.

Everything that the EP works towards comes splintering apart, quite literally, in the manic closing track, “oh oh oh oh”. From the outset of the record’s final statement, the vocals are cracking to the point of breaking as a mournful organ line runs underneath the pained theatrics. Those are the song’s only two elements and they grow more pronounced as the narrative grows more hopeless. Eventually the narrative’s abandoned altogether, buckling underneath its own weight and disappearing into the ether, as the organ figure delivers a somber eulogy. It’s a challenging, mesmerizing way to close out an incredible EP and allows Sunbeams Through Your Head to linger long after it’s gone. It’s company worth keeping.

Listen to Sunbeams Through Your Head below and download it here.

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September 1, 2016

Sat. Nite Duets – Attached to the Lamp (Stream)

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Yesterday saw the release of memorable music videos from Cherry Glazerr (who nearly nabbed this post’s featured spot), Diners, Diamond Hands, Molly Burch, Headwaves, and Jenny Hval. A trio of full streams from the camps of Radar Eyes, Chris Farren, and J&L Defer tied everything up in a neat bow, providing a dash of energy in the process. While all of those releases are worth exhaustively exploring, this post’s feature spot was claimed with brash confidence by Sat. Nite Duets‘ exhilarating career highlight, “Attached to the Lamp”.

Heartbreaking Bravery was fortunate enough to receive an advance copy of Air Guitar several months back and “Attached to the Lamp” has been in near-constant rotation since its initial play. From the song’s epic-ready intro onward, “Attached to the Lamp” cranks out an astonishing amount of genuinely great moments, never once slowing down or bothering to look back at the carnage left in its wake. The band’s lyrics have never been sharper and the guitar leads echo the most sweeping moments conjured up by the likes of Titus Andronicus and Diarrhea Planet at their very best, elevating them with the narrative’s ridiculously effective tongue-in-cheek humor.

“Attached to the Lamp” may come as a shock to the system for anyone who wrote the band off as a Pavement retread several years ago (an unfortunate tag that never really did what the band was doing any kind of justice) or anyone who was expecting something more along the lines of the excellent “TAFKA Salieri“. More than anything the band’s done in an already impressively storied career, “Attached to the Lamp” is a frantic, all-out blitz of a song that showcases a band with a serious amount of assurance in their identity.

Sat. Nite Duets are typically at their very best when they’re at their most unhinged and every second of “Attached to the Lamp” feels like a definitive example of that aspect of the band’s stylistic makeup. Tearing away at a breathless pace, the song winds up nearing the three minute mark but feels less than half as long (and more than twice as complete as most songs that run a similar length).

The band find an unteachable amount of joy in reveling in snark, expertly doling it out at a rapid pace in the song’s opening stanza:

I don’t wanna pick up the phone when it rings
‘Cause I know who it is they wanna talk about things
Oh yeah, I prefer the silence of nothing at all
Just the books on my shelf and the shit on my walls

The quips don’t let up from that point forward, including an absolutely perfect and absurdly clever stanza that retells the story of watching an opening act get picked up by his dad providing an unexpected twist with the repeated insistence that “it’s happening right now”, which paves the way for all kinds of painfully honest moments when the band takes this on tour. All of the sly lyrical moments ultimately culminate in an unforgettable final verse that abruptly switches gears from comedic distancing to open sincerity, providing “Attached to the Lamp” with one last grace note that ensures its status as one of 2016’s most outstanding moments.

Not a second of “Attached to the Lamp” is wasted and the band coaxes maximum effect out of every scintillating solo, turn of phrase, dynamic moment, and snare hit they can muster. Whether it’s the final bridge that finds the vocals dipping to match the sudden recession of intensity or the intuitive bends of the soaring main riff, Sat. Nite Duets seem hell-bent on making a mark that lasts. By the end of “Attached to the Lamp” one thing’s very clear: they have themselves one hell of a little motherfucking rock n’ roll band.

Listen to “Attached to the Lamp” below and pre-order Air Guitar from Father/Daughter here.

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July 1, 2016

Sat. Nite Duets – Tafka Salieri (Stream)

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Ours + Yours, Field Mouse, The Lees of Memory, Joanne Pollock, Lié, Halycine, MIYNT, Sunjacket, Year of Glad, and Katie Dey were just a handful of the artists responsible for the last haul of great songs. Each track had its own individual charms but the spotlight here belongs to the resurgent Sat. Nite Duets, who are preparing a legitimate Album of the Year contender in Air Guitar — their first effort for site favorites Father/Daughter — and leading off the record’s promotional campaign with “Tafka Salieri”.

For several years, the band’s been transforming themselves from an act visibly (and audibly) operating in Pavement’s shadow to one that’s cultivated a unique identity. While “Tafka Salieri” barely hints at the wide array of styles that run through Air Guitar, it does successfully re-introduce the band. While the Pavement influence can certainly still be heard, there’s a newfound confidence to the band’s composition and execution that benefits them well. Yes, “Tafka Salieri” still primarily operates in slacker pop but it updates it from the ’90s-mining that was so prominent in their past work to something that scans as refreshingly current (while still paying homage to some classic influences).

In one song, they set the tone for a record that’s primed to catch a whole host of people off guard and win over a whole new legion of converts. There’s a new depth of intelligence to the band’s songwriting that ably shows through “Tafka Salieri” and seems set to not only be sustained in the future but potentially even perfected. This is a song that’s perfect for solo summer drives, parties, after-parties, or even the come-downs that accompany those parties. It’s a sublime piece of seemingly carefree basement pop that betrays the band’s sense of meticulous perfectionism. Give in to its charms and walk away with a new summer anthem.

Listen to “Takfa Salieri” below and pre-order Air Guitar from Father/Daughter here.