Dark Places | Heartbreaking Bravery

May 7, 2018

sewingneedle – feel good music (Music Video)

Last week a slew of music videos came out and some of the finest came from Floating Room, Bodega, Petal, Brooke Annibale, TENTS., PILL, Maria Kelly, Sad Baxter, Mikaela Davis, Frankie Cosmos, Protomartyr, Young Fathers, The Plainviews, Elke, Parquet Courts, Olden Yolk, and Dott. Each of them are worth multiple viewings but sewingneedle earns the feature here with their eerie clip for “feel good music”, a foreboding song off their upcoming full-length, user error.

Every once in a while, there’s the kind of band that kicks around in murky shadows, refining a mixture of sludge, grunge, and post-punk. Boston built an entire scene around that specific genre but the latest band to forge an identity on the back of that kind of darkly-tinted magic comes from Boston’s far neighbors to the (Mid)West in Chicago’s sewingneedle. The band’s been active for more than four years, turning heads at an increasingly rapid pace with a reportedly stellar live show and incredible new material.

“feel good music” is part of the band’s improbable run towards greatness, a song that was released simultaneously with an effortlessly captivating music video that touches on the kind of lurking anxiety that the band imbues into their music. The clip’s opaque, opting to strive towards eliciting an immediate, intangible reaction rather than going for something easily explained. Drone shots of a raft tethered to a journeying boat, men racing through a field, and urban sprawl all coalesce into a mesmerizing whole in “feel good music” which defiantly announces sewingneedle’s bid for something bigger.

Watch “feel good music” below and pre-order user error here.

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April 27, 2018

Iceage – The Day The Music Dies (Music Video)

Over the last stretch of last week, there were some incredible songs with Deeper, Benny P, Stringer, Hundred Waters, Touché Amoré, Maria Kelly, Stef Chura, Pinkshinyultrablast, Rachel Angel, Dommergang, Dana Sipos, Leisure Tank, Eleanor Friedberger, and Mystery Art Orchestra all playing a part. There was also the chaotic new clip for “The Day The Music Dies” from the increasingly unpredictable post-punk act Iceage.

Teeming with imagery that hosts a handful of connections to other iconic visuals, the band completely eschews any inhibitions of operating on anything other than a ridiculously grand scale. That grandeur pays dividends, ushering in a bold new era for a band that once seemed content to operate on nearly anarchic terms. In “The Day The Music Dies” they take their mission to the church, light some fires, present a united front, and preach from a pulpit.

All of the confrontational immediacy is escalated by the track itself, which is lent a surprising amount of heft by some incredibly effective horn charts. Fascinating at just about every turn, riddled with allusions to Gothic-tinged entertainment (Paul Thomas Anderson’s There Will Be Blood acting as a more recent reference point), “The Day The Music Dies” finds Iceage comfortable in continuing to expand their boundaries, making Boundless — the band’s forthcoming full-length — one of the more intriguing prospects on the release calendar. The ride to get to that release, should “The Day The Music Dies” be a solid indicator, will be worth taking.

Watch “The Day The Music Dies” below and pre-order Beyondless from Matador here.

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December 2, 2016

Nothing Stops In November: The Month’s Streams

While only two premiere spots ran on this site over the course of November, there was more than enough new material being released to keep anyone attempting to track it all extremely occupied. A total of nearly 200 outstanding songs found their way out into the world and, just as the preceding posts did for full streams and music videos, this post will serve as a recap of the majority of those titles. If there were enough time to provide all of these tracks feature spots, they’d be receiving a lot more words. However, that shouldn’t distract from their merit; all of these tracks are more than worth hearing. So, bookmark the page, click around, and discover a few new favorites.

Hater, Alyeska, Dama Scout, Fred Thomas, Turtlenecked, Pissed Jeans, Rolling Blackouts Coastal Fever, Wild Pink, Permit, Ty Segall, The Courtneys, Julien Baker, brunch., Holy Now, Breast Massage, Hideout (x2), Jitterz, Drakulas, Ted Leo, Peter Silberman, Creepoid, ot to, not to, Luxury Death, Leapling, Day Wave, No Sun, Matthew Squires, Skyway Man, Dominic, Tobin Sprout, D.A. Stern, Minor Moon, Dear Georgiana, Slumbers, FRIGS, Nadia Reid, Mark Sultan, Polyester, Imaginary People, Shiny Wet Machine.