Three weeks into April 2019 and the month’s yielded a staggering amount of good material and a small handful that’s genuinely great. Today, this site will feature the last of what has been a series of quartets: songs, music videos, and full streams. A wide range of genres and styles is on display and everything’s more than worthy of some serious listening and/or watching investment. Art this strong should always be featured in some capacity, as many times over as possible. Scroll down and enjoy the riches.
Patio – Essentials
Patio‘s potential has been evident since the evening they made their public debut at Palisades (RIP). Essentials, the band’s first full-length and second release following their excellent LuxuryEP, finds the trio paying off that promise with the conviction that’s always been present beneath their icy exterior. Detachment and post-punk tend to go hand in hand, which is why Essentials‘ willingness to embrace a no-frills directness feels exhilarating. Every move throughout the record feels considered, resulting in a level of precise articulation that many bands spend entire careers trying to match. There’s an exacting nature to both the narratives and the instrumentation Patio wields throughout the record, which finds the trio weaponizing their own restraint. Measured, deadly, and teeming with confidence, Essentials lives up to its name.
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Supermilk – Rare Delusions
Jake Popyura‘s made a few of the present decade’s best records as a member of Doe and adds to that winning streak with Supermilk‘s second EP, Rare Delusions. Popyura’s solo project had an enticing debut EP in Hello? Yes this is Supermilk… but Rare Delusions betters it in every aspect. Doe’s recent run has seen Popyura take a considerable artistic leap as a songwriter and that comes through in full on all four of Rare Delusions‘ tracks. Each track detonates and effectively captures a youthful energy that hits like an adrenaline rush. Angst, ennui, and clarification are leveraged into a surging momentum but Popyura never lets Rare Delusions fall apart after it flies off the rails, ensuring its place as one of 2019’s most galvanizing listens.
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Nightwatchers – La Paix Ou Le Sable
La Paix Ou LeSable, Nightwatchers’ latest, is a snarling behemoth. Modern, pop-informed basement punk at its most vicious and unforgiving, La Paix Ou Le Sable is an unrelenting tidal wave of unchecked aggression funneled into some of the year’s hardest-hitting songs. An into track provides a moment of peace before the storm’s unleashed and the band really never lets up after that opening minute. Everything hits with a high degree of impact but, impressively, the cumulative effect never becomes desensitizing. A breathless declaration of intent from a band that seems hell-bent on making its presence count.
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Bleary – Gates
The members of Bleary have been fixtures in Nashville’s local punk scene for some time, which helps explain how Gates sounds so monumentally assured. The band’s still a relatively new act, with only a three-track demo to their name. Gates, the band’s debut EP, is a head-spinning affair that announces the quartet’s arrival with the same clear-eyed determination that elevates the band’s music. Front to back, Gates is pure catharsis. Classic shoegaze gifted some contemporary twists, pitched in all the right keys, Bleary has crafted something that feels genuinely definitive. An extraordinary accomplishment that should find Bleary successfully searing their name into many new converts’ memories.
April got off to an extraordinary start with a few dozen songs making a viable bid for inclusion on this list, which represents the material that emerged in the month’s first week. Ultimately it was the 10 below that prevailed in a surprisingly overcrowded field for what proved to be a curiously stacked week. The last “Best Of” compilation for this category had a handful of artists making consecutive appearances in this column but only one of them returns a third time. The rest of this field is a mixture of favorites, old and new, with each offering up a song worth celebrating. All of them can be heard below. Enjoy.
1. gobbinjr – afraid of me
An artist that’s slowly but surely built a steadfast reputation as an emerging star in the bedroom pop genre, gobbinjr makes a bold statement with a full-on switch to full band indie pop in the vein of Frankie Cosmos and it works beautifully. “afraid of me” is as rich and memorable as anything gobbinjr’s released so far and proves that the project’s scope might be a lot more expansive than initially suggested. It’s a breezy tune that’s ready-made for spring and summer mix tapes.
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2. En Attendant Ana – Night
A new name to this site, En Attendant Ana manage to make a huge splash here with “Night”, a driving burst of basement pop that doesn’t hesitate to look upward and immediately start trying to grab the stars. A beautifully produced track, “Night” also demonstrates the band’s penchant for composition, turning on a dime from one section to another, sustaining a magnetic, romantic atmosphere. It’s the rare kind of song that can convince you an artist’s name is worth remembering.
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3. Forth Wanderers – Ages Ago
The previous two Forth Wanderers songs that have been released in the lead-up to their forthcoming self-titled were featured on this site and “Ages Ago” makes a very convincing case that the band may very well have one of the year’s finest records on their hands. “Ages Ago,” the band’s latest track, isn’t just their most polished outing to date, it’s their best. Tapping fully into their mixture of irrepressible energy and open melancholy, “Ages Ago” offers the kind of duality that builds incredible material. It’s spellbinding.
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4. Grouper – Driving
Few artists are managing what Grouper‘s been doing for the past few years. Every new song plays like an elegant masterwork, deftly demonstrating every last bit of songwriting talent in the most breathtaking fashion imaginable. “Driving”, the latest from the ambient act, is among the past few years’ most quieting and soulful works. It’s nearly impossible to not want to hang onto every second as the song gently washes over you and it’s equally difficult to not want to immediately hit play again when it ends in a whisper.
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5. Boys – That Weekend
In an impressively brief time, PNKSLM‘s established itself as one of the leading labels for introspective basement pop. One of the best acts on their consistently incredible roster is Boys, who usher in a career best here with “That Weekend”. Bits of dream-pop, powerpop, and post-punk all congeal into an incredibly wistful track, full of a sense of genuine longing. It’s a perfect way to spend two and a half minutes and stands as a testament to both the band’s promise and considerable talent.
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6. Been Stellar – Everyone Smokes in the City
Been Stellar’s another new name to Heartbreaking Bravery that makes an incredible first impression with “Everyone Smokes in the City”, a track that echoes the best work of The Strokes. The band separates themselves from the over-abundance of bands that proudly bear that influence by exercising restraint in a way that simultaneously informs the song’s tension and provides it an additional level of energy. It’s fun, it’s promising, and it’s an easy standout.
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7. Yumi Zouma – France (Grands Boulevards)
The second ambient-leaning act on this list that seems to perpetually top themselves, Yumi Zouma return with the most gorgeous work of their career in “France (Grands Boulevards). Gentle tones, a tender vocal delivery, and some intuitive production heightens the work as it glides along, wrapped up in its own journey. Unassuming and beautiful, “France (Grands Boulevards)” marks an enticing new chapter in the band’s history.
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8. Petal – Better Than You
Kiley Lotz, the songwriter spearheading Petal, is a commanding solo performer. Charismatic, entertaining, and fully in control, Lotz can reduce an audience to whispers and extinguish those a few minutes later. That being the case, Lotz also knows how to turn up the volume and let it rip, as is the case with the enormous “Better Than You”, which has shades of Waxahatchee‘s rowdier work. Fed up and determined, “Better Than You” is an unmissable statement from a singular talent and bodes well for Petal’s future.
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9. Yours Are The Only Ears – Fire In My Eyes
A pair of great tracks from Knock Hard — the forthcoming release from Yours Are The Only Ears — have already been released but “Fire In My Eyes” exceeds those heights. One of the best tracks of Susannah Cutler’s illustrious works that have found release under this moniker, “Fire In My Eyes” finds Yours Are The Only Ears experimenting with precision (and continuing a fruitful collaborative history with LVL UP and Trace Mountain‘s Dave Benson). As always, the narrative aspect carries exceptional emotional weight but the arrangements have rarely been as effective or powerful.
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10. Say Sue Me – Coming to the End
Completing something of a hat trick, this is Say Sue Me‘s third consecutive appearance in the “Best Of” columns for songs, each track teasing the exceptional Where We Were Together. “Coming to the End”, appropriately, is the record’s final track and its most breathtaking moment. A sprawling 7 and a half minute slow-burn, “Coming to the End” has the time to display just about every reason Say Sue Me’s been turning heads over the past year. Melancholic and explosive in turns, it’s a masterwork of dynamics and controlled atmosphere, never ceasing to be anything less than gripping over the course of its runtime.
It’s a towering track, epic in scale and wildly confident in its ambition, bringing to mind the recent work of Young Jesus while remaining true to the enchanting identity the band’s managed to carve out for themselves over their brief but promising discography. The guitar solo that makes up the bulk of the song’s back half goes sideways as often as it reaches skyward but, as is the case with the band, you don’t just hope it’ll arrive at its intended decision but know it will with an abundance of grace, no matter erratic it may seem. When it fades, it’s hard not to think “Coming to the End” isn’t close to perfect.
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A small list of other outstanding songs to be released this past week:
In addition to all of those bands’ new releases, there was also another outstanding installment of the DBTS:BS series via their third volume: DBTS:BS3. While all of those succeeded on their own terms, it was — unsurprisingly — the second of Tenement‘s Bruised Musiccompilation series that wound up registering as a genuine standout (and subsequently snagging this post’s featured spot).
For close to a decade now, Tenement has been one of the most influential bands in my life, both directly and tangentially. At this point, no band has been covered on this site more extensively than the Wisconsin trio, who I’ve lobbied for endlessly- to anyone who would listen. At some point, their songs became such a personal marker for me that they inseparably intertwined themselves to very specific parts of my life. To that extent, when I listen to Bruised Music Vol. 2, it’s extremely difficult to separate the music from my own personal history. However, it’s not entirely impossible to divide them into arenas that are mutually exclusive.
A large part of the connection I have to these songs can be directly sourced back to what made Tenement my favorite band: the surprisingly literary aspects of the songwriting, the unapologetic commitment to carving out an incredibly well-informed pop-sensibility, the absolute refusal to adhere or appropriate any of the trends that have unceremoniously appeared and disappeared throughout the time of their existence, and a genuine, undeniable, uncompromising passion for the music they make, fearless risks and all.
On the first collection of the Bruised Music compilations, I contributed an extensive piece for the record’s insert on how the band played a large role in shaping my tastes and — to some extent — my own humanity. While Bruised Music Vol. 1 was an impressively comprehensive look at the band’s earliest era, Bruised Music Vol. 2 is a different beast entirely. Where its predecessor was more concerned with the band shaping a very particular sound, the latter excels in that sound’s expansion, deconstruction, and absolute demolition.
While there are still moments speckled all over Bruised Music Vol. 2 that are reminiscent of their early works, the majority of their latter efforts are imbued with a more adventurous approach to songwriting. A cleaned up version of “Taking Everything” — a song that originally appeared on a 2011 7″ that ranks as one of the best entries in an extraordinary discography before being released again in demo form on a Burger-issued cassette package of Napalm Dream — which kicks the compilation off, may be the record’s most straightforward moment.
Where this version of “Taking Everything” differentiates itself between the powerful 7″ version and the frantically-paced demo version rests squarely in the drumming pattern, which ultimately winds up being a fascinating glimpse at the band’s decision-making process. Considering how overwhelmingly thoughtful Tenement’s songwriting construction has proven to be, time and time again, that’s not something that should be taken for granted. All of the subtle intricacies that have come to define the band’s musical aesthetic only point to an unavoidable conclusion: this band’s not just surpassing their peers as pure composers, they’re offering up masterclasses at an alarming rate.
It’s patently absurd that Bruised Music Vol. 2 is going to be viewed, largely, as a collection of scraps because they scan as essential elements of the band’s oeuvre. Whether it’s the more direct fare of Bruised Music Vol. 2‘s opening run or the more avant garde leanings that shape the record’s back half, there’s an evident level of painstaking care that goes a long way in making sure everything is represented adequately.
Toy pianos, sheer noise, and unrelenting dissonance inform the collection’s braver moments, like the instrumental “Jet Slug”, which casually reaffirm Tenement’s well-earned status as a singular act operating on the fringes of punk, noise, hardcore, and powerpop. For every stacked-to-the-heavens pop-leaning anthem that appears, there’s a stark counterbalance that arrives in tracks like Sick Club Vol. 3‘s extraordinary, convention-defying “Books on Hell and Sermons on TV”. While the band may have made their name on the former, it’s their unbelievable skill with the latter that’s elevated them from one of the most exciting bands presently operating to one of the outright best.
One part of Tenement’s ethos that never gets enough recognition is their complete and total willingness to disregard their most commercially accessible trappings in favor of intensely bold choices that have left sizable portions of their audiences feeling completely alienated. Whether that’s via the typically downtrodden Realism-Americana-Southern Gothic narrative hybrids of Amos Pitsch’s lyrics, the band’s embrace of John Cage-esque explorations of noise, or their continued refusal to be pigeonholed into any particular genre (much to the chagrin of many purists), they’ve established themselves as their own entity.
Bruised Music Vol. 2 functions strongly enough to have a legitimate shot at becoming the definitive example of how Tenement evolved into one of America’s most fascinating bands. None of these songs are weak and each one benefits from a very specific personality that betrays the band’s small-town upper Midwest upbringing. As a collection, it’s fairly representative of Tenement’s 2010-2014 era. As a standalone record, it’s stronger than most acts best release. As a demonstration of everything that has distinguished Tenement as one of the most inspirational acts in contemporary music, it’s an absolute necessity.
Listen to Bruised Music Vol. 2 below and order it from Grave Mistake here.
Heartbreaking Bravery 