Color Tongue | Heartbreaking Bravery

June 17, 2018

June’s First Half: Honorable Mentions (Songs, Music Videos, Full Streams)

The first half of June carried plenty of surprises. This month has been, notably, dominated by major hip-hop artists and included the release of several major records that have the capacity to hijack year-end lists. Those releases have never been the focal point of this site and this won’t be the post where that changes. Every item on this list, as always, deserves more attention than it’ll receive. Following this list, there will be a few other key releases that get highlighted but these songs, clips, and records deserve all the support they can get, including the below listings and anyone willing to click their links. Enjoy.

SONGS:

Rob Dickson, Rolling Blackouts Coastal Fever, Dead Sullivan, Henrik Appel, Cuesta Loeb, Protomartyr, Amos and Spencer, Fleabite, Thin Lips, Dumb, The Molochs, Spencer Radcliffe, Kevin Krauter, Bleeth, Everything By Electricity, Scattered Clouds, Susie Scurry, MOURN, The Rareflowers, Clean Spill, Guts Club, Darren Jessee, Orions Belte, Late Bloomer, Laurel Halo, The Ophelias, Freedom Baby, Kaitlyn Aurelia Smith, Alexander BIggs, Manatree, Runtom Knuten, Manchester Orchestra, Sun June, Angelo De Augustine, Ancestors, ShitKid, Icecapades, Deafheaven, Baby Blue, Frida, Cigarettes After Sex, R+R=NOW, Van Common, Hana Vu, The Dirty Nil, Stalagmites, Wild Nothing, Birdtalker, Jon Spencer, Two Meters, Claw Marks, El Ten Eleven, Birds In Row, Color Tongue, serpentwithfeet, Estrons, Echo Courts, Lazyeyes, Death Grips, Mom Jeans, Gold Star, and a massive offering from Ben Seretan (which accompanies a behemoth multimedia art project that’s worth tracking).

MUSIC VIDEOS:

Clearance, Strange Relations, Death Bells, LIFE, oso oso, The Essex Green, White Woods, Devon Welsh, NEEDS, Thirsty Curses, lemin., Spiritualized, Cold Fronts, Empath, Dirty Projectors, Anna Calvi, VedeTT, The Beths, Cornelia Murr, King Princess, The Fur Coats, Stringer, The Due Diligence, NOTHING, Howard, White Denim, Animal House, and Sad Baxter.

FULL STREAMS:

Miranda Winters, Petal, Spiritual Cramp, Deux Trois, Dark Thoughts, Dos Santos, Some Gorgeous Accident, Johnny Conqueroo, Tancred, Blushh, Juliana Daugherty, Giant Peach, Hala, Anthony Green, Two Meters, Cold Meat, June Gloom/Rock Solid, CASCINE and Stadiums & Shrines’ Dreams compilation, Palberta, Bloody Knives, Will Henriksen, Surf Dads, God Bless Relative, GRLWood, and Ana Egge.

August 12, 2016

Forth Wanderers – Slop (Stream)

Over the course of the past 24 hours, there’s been some astonishing material finding its way out into the public eye. Gringo Star, LA Font, Hissing Tiles, CC Mose, toyGuitar, Liam Betson, ExSage, Hello Shark, Left & Right, Truly, and a pair of tracks from Girl Tears (“Uneasy” and “Sedated“) provided a momentous start to the day’s proceedings. Apart from the standalone streams column, there were fascinating music videos from Dinosaur Jr., Nice As Fuck, Vision, and Prinze George. Big Eyes, Color Tongue, Thee MVPs, Rainwater, and a formidable compilation from Orchid Tapes cemented a strong haul for the full streams as well.

While those titles were all readily equipped to reward investment, today’s feature spot falls to the resurgent Forth Wanderers (whose vocalist Ava Trilling recently had an impressive guest spot on Space Mountains’ “Never Lonely“) and their incredible new track, “Slop”. The title track from the band’s forthcoming EP, “Slop” immediately stands out as the band’s career highlight. Riding a slow, deliberate groove, “Slop” capitalizes on the luxury afforded to the most effective slow-burners and becomes hypnotic.

At seemingly impossible odds with itself, there’s an incredible amount of nuance packed into a relatively straight-forward structure, Forth Wanderers utilize their impressive grasp on dynamics to exhilarating results. The band coaxes an inexplicable amount of beauty out of a piece ostensibly rooted in self-doubt, allowing the more confrontational aspects of the narrative to come across as a spiritual cleansing that provides “Slop” its beating heart. It’s a gorgeous four minutes and it sets the tone for what should prove to be a very big year for a band that deserves the recognition.

Listen to “Slop” below and pre-order the EP from Father/Daughter here.

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July 18, 2016

Yankee Bluff – I (EP Review)

Dogs On Acid II

To close out last week, a variety of great songs got released from the likes of Jeff Rosenstock, Sharon Jones & the Dap-Kings, The Channels, YJY, Morgan Delt, Color Tongue, Pill, Multicult, Alphabetic, dreambeaches, and DYAN. While all of those tracks were certainly worthy of a great deal of attention, this featured spot goes to the surprise debut from Yankee Bluff, a band that was born out of the ashes of site favorites Dogs On Acid (pictured above), who announced both this new project and their end in a recent Facebook post.

While losing Dogs On Acid is tough to swallow, the sudden appearance of Yankee Bluff helps smooth out the transition. Helping matters even further is the fact that their debut EP, I, easily ranks as one of the format’s finest entries of the year. Beginning with “Agessi”, I demonstrates the songwriters’ increasing knack for nuanced basement pop and distances them even further from their emo roots.

Anchored by a compellingly battered production aesthetic, everything in I comes across as surprisingly grounded without sacrificing some towering pop-leaning hooks. As the EP progresses, a folk undercurrent slowly emerges, recalling some of Tenement‘s more Americana-informed works. By the time I hits its halfway point, Yankee Bluff have fully announced themselves as a democratic collective, allowing each member’s respective voice the opportunity to become distinctive, bringing their contemporaries in LVL UP to mind.

There aren’t any weak patches throughout the EP, with each song demonstrating a new angle that Yankee Bluff manages to successfully explore, a trait that will undoubtedly work to their advantage down the line. Whether they’re latched onto the near-anthems that Dogs On Acid cranked out a startling rate or the slow-burning acoustic act that defines the EP’s penultimate track, they also manage to cultivate a singular identity and establish themselves as a very serious force.

Ultimately, I stands as an unlikely — and unexpected — triumph. In the wake of losing one of the best bands of the past few years, we’ve been gifted a band that’s very capable of taking up the mantle. I is as good of a debut as anyone’s likely to hear this year and opens up the doors for even more impressive material in the coming years.

As Dogs On Acid recedes into the distance, it’ll be incredibly reassuring to have the privilege of watching their spiritual successor keep their flame alive and burning while forging an entirely new path. Even at the start of the party, there’s already an abundance of riches. Pick them up and hold them close, value them with the respect they deserve, and don’t make the mistake of letting them disappear without acknowledgement. After all, nothing lasts forever.

Listen to I below and pick it up here.