Earlier this year, Ben Morey and Katie Preston broke ground on Dreaming Out Loud, an intimate live performance series for this site. Watching the two of them together made it clear that, no matter the future of this site’s editorial content, this was a series that needed to continue. Before too long, a few more appearances had been booked, including one from a man whose music has meant a lot to me over the course of this decade: Patrick Jennings.
Whether playing as a solo artist, with Middle Children, with PURPLE 7, or with Hot New Mexicans, Jennings has proved to have an innate sense of humility, honesty, and conviction. He’s been a crucial part of several of my favorite albums and songs of the past 13+ years and it was an honor to play host. Regrettably, both of my SD cards for my usual camera went haywire, leading to an impromptu iPhone filming session, making editing next to impossible. On the other hand, the raw, uncut nature of this volume of Dreaming Out Loud speaks to Jennings’ work as an artist, cat’s meows and all. A worthy trade-off.
During the filming, Jennings gave me the opportunity to pick the set list, leaving me frozen. If I’d taken that offer in full, Jennings and the band he had in tow would’ve missed their show that night by a few hours. Instead of requesting about four album’s worth of songs, he provided the courtesy of a three-song set spanning his discography. A new solo track, a Purple 7 gem, and the opener off Hot New Mexicans’ debut album, It’s Called Leaning Back. One full band, two in true solo acoustic fashion. Opting to kneel rather than sit, Jennings and co. provided a brief, mesmerizing run through one of the most remarkable catalogs in DIY punk.
As some readers may have noticed, Heartbreaking Bravery’s editorial aspect has been waning in recent times. A large part of this is due to the fact that it’s still a single-person operation, which has resulted in scheduling conflicts. At some point it became clear that Heartbreaking Bravery simply couldn’t exist in the way it did in the past, which is why I started looking towards the future. When 2019 draws to a close, the flagship site will cease regular updates. The site will still remain active, at least for a time, but Heartbreaking Bravery will continue in other ways.
One of those ways is Dreaming Out Loud, an idea I’ve clung to for some time. After having good experiences conducting acoustic sessions for The Media (All Dogs, Mitski) and Consequence of Sound (Johanna Warren), the impulse to attach that format to Heartbreaking Bravery proved too irresistible. The name Dreaming Out Loud comes from the Tenement song, which has appeared in variousversions throughout the band’s discography, as a way of honoring the impact that band had on my own musical development and the core of this site’s existence.
While Heartbreaking Bravery won’t solely be relegated to this series after the editorial function dies down, I’m hoping it becomes a definitive aspect of what this site leaves in its wake.
Ben Morey (Ben Morey and the Eyes) and Katie Preston (Pleistocene, solo) have the distinction of anchoring the first volume of the series. When Morey and Preston arrived at my apartment, the two had recently gotten engaged and were in the midst of a whirlwind tour that had taken on a freeing, celebratory bent. Preston accompanied Morey and Morey returned the favor as the two took turns trotting out new material. The session culminated by a stop at the lake for a gorgeous Everly Brothers cover that saw the two of them on equal ground, each happy to have found a worthy partner.
Watch Dreaming Out Loud: Vol. I below and subscribe to the Heartbreaking Bravery YouTube channel for future installments of the series.
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Purchase Ben Morey’s With Birdshere and Katie Preston’s Soap Opera here.
A band that’s continuously brimmed with an indistinguishable intensity from the outset, Big Ups’ attack has grown refined over the course of a handful of records. All of them are teeming with cathartic releases and bear evidence that their understanding of their own dynamics has deepened over the course of that run. It’s an understanding that hits a new apex with “Imaginary Dog Walker”, the band using silence and restraint like a weapon, holding the listener hostage and forcing them to really listen.
Brash, abrasive, and extremely disquieting, “Imaginary Dog Walker” is a perfect demonstration of the band’s growth and a fearless monument to their formidable talent. Opening with a small sampling of glitch-pop, “Imaginary Dog Walker” quickly segues into the kind of forward-thinking hardcore that enlivened the band’s past two records (both of which stand as tall now as they did on the day of their release). Soon enough, the band’s back to masterfully navigating a creeping tension, the music acting as a lit fuse of a bomb that always seems like its a second away from detonating.
When “Imaginary Dog Walker” does work itself up into its first genuine frenzy, it’s hard to tell if it’s the moment of release or just the song playing an effective trick. In an impressive feat, that moment manages to belong equally to both outcomes, ushering in both a cavalcade of high-wire frustrations that erupt and a false ending, quickly cutting back into the quieter tendencies of the song’s opening stretch. All the while, the narrative waxes poetic on life and destruction, playing into the unpredictably vicious swings of the music with a honed precision.
In its final minute, the song becomes a towering behemoth, “we walk the dogs” is screamed over and over becoming more of a mantra than a chorus. All the while, the guitar work — which remains some of the most inventive in the genre — and the rhythm section collide into a bludgeoning force, conjuring up a hypnotic storm. It’s dark, it’s eerie, and it’s masterful, it’s also one of the best songs to come out of 2018. Lend it as many listens as possible.
Listen to “Imaginary Dog Walker” (and watch a live video of the song) below and pre-order Two Parts Together from Exploding In Sound.
Last Friday offered an extraordinary outpouring of new records with several of those releases seeming poised to be legitimate Album of the Year contenders. While those records hit hard, Half Waif’s Lavender hit hardest. A handful of the record’s songs have been featured here already but it’s the cumulative effect of the record that elevates the songs from heartrending to heart-stopping.
Nandi Rose Plunkett, Half Waif’s fearless bandleader, wrote Lavender in the waning days of her grandmother’s life and found a way to preserve her memory in astonishing fashion with Lavender. Imbued with familial love and meditations on the joys and consequences of mortality, Lavender ceaselessly finds ways to grapple with heavy burdens through a series of open questions, some unanswerable. The examination process is one that becomes intimately familiar to anyone whose ever had to confront the death of a loved one and it’s not hard to read into Lavender as a personal reckoning from someone in the throes of that journey.
It doesn’t take long for the ghost of Plunkett’s grandmother to find a home in Lavender, appearing as early as the record’s breathtaking opener “Lavender Burning”. That specific song is a perfect introduction to the record as it marks a slight — but distinct and extremely important — stylistic shift for Half Waif, who move into a more subdued realm that’s enhanced by a re-dedication to introspection, more naked here than at any point in their discography.
“Watching my grandmother walking her garden, she’s lost her hearing does not notice the cardinal”, Plunkett sings, cardinal breaking up into lilting syllables as the memory overwhelms. It’s one of many small vignettes that litter Lavender‘s landscape, flowers dead and blooming. It’s not long before the burden of knowing sinks in and cries of “Is this all there is?” ring out over lush beds of synth and intuitive instrumentation. Confined to a confrontational solitude, Plunkett starts wrestling with existential autonomy: a sense of place, the weight of decisions, and the fear that accompanies free will.
All of these questions, all of these backwards looks and sideways glances are more immediate than any single narrative Half Waif’s presented in the past. They’re also by far the most gripping, as the music Half Waif has afforded these moments is their most expansive, textured, and ambitious to date, leaning hard into the band’s more ambient sensibilities. Lavender‘s rhythm section pulsates with purpose, reverberating throughout the record with the clear knowledge that the stakes here are legitimately life and death. From start to finish, it’s a fight for the means to survival.
If Plunkett’s grandmother is the foremost figure of Lavender, New York City and Plunkett herself aren’t too far behind. The relationship between the two, specifically, anchors some of the record’s most breathtaking stretches, including both “Lavender Burning” and “Back In Brooklyn”, which the songwriter penned an incredibly moving essay for over at The Talkhouse. “Back In Brooklyn” is a song that lands with exceptional force for anyone who’s ever been wrapped up by the titular city’s formidable being and goes a long way in laying out Lavender‘s gently beating heart.
Not coincidentally, the song resides in the album’s central stretch, arriving just after “Silt”, the two constituting Lavender‘s most breathtaking moment. It’s here where Plunkett comes nearest to breaking down completely, stretching out a hand for guidance, assurance, or even just a small moment of clarity in the fog of uncertainty. The closing moments of “Silt” offer up one of the record’s most haunting moments, an outro that beautifully segues into the painfully gorgeous “Back In Brooklyn”.
Everything that leads up to those two songs makes their back-to-back even more potent, the themes splintering apart into what feels like a million pleas, some from the city, some for the city, some from Plunkett, some for Plunkett’s own well-being. It’s here where Lavender finds its path to becoming transcendental. Those two songs combine to retroactively strengthen the songs that have preceded them while setting up one of the most memorable closing runs of the present decade.
It’s here where the allusions stop becoming guarded and are faced with no hesitation, Plunkett seemingly locked into a white-knuckle grip on the legacy of family, self-understanding, and the trials of knowledge. The latter of the three has one of the more potent dichotomies and that scale is explored through the framing of the former two. It’s that dynamic which makes the final quarter of Lavender so harrowing and so beautiful, the acknowledgment of the necessity of the scars and bruises that allow us to move forward towards our own destiny and towards the same fate that will take everyone we’ve ever loved.
Rather than waist time on hypothetical situations, Plunkett discards them in the service of realism and a commitment to the bravery the bandleader strives for on “Parts”. There’s a dissection of shame and anxiety in that song, one that resonates through to Lavender‘s end, before the tacit acceptance of the fearlessness required to continue existing. By the record’s end the only home Plunkett seems to have is forward motion, abandoning cities, clinging to friends, family, and lovers, doing whatever it takes to find a measure of peace in life’s restlessness.
Lavender‘s final verse acts as a summation of the themes Plunkett can’t escape through the course of the eleven songs and diverts them in a fruitless bid to forget what most of the record has exhausted itself in staring down before its final, heartbroken declaration: I don’t wanna know this/I don’t wanna know how this ends/In the grand scope of things/I know. It’s right then, in that last word, Lavender becomes complete. Not just a record about confronting death, Lavender is a record about the allowances of life, the difficulties that make it harsh, the people that make it worthwhile. In the end, when all is said and done, what’s left is the weight of knowing, and allowing it to sink to oblivion or float just a little while longer.
Listen to Lavender below (and watch a packet of live videos beneath that) and pick it up from CASCINE here.
The last week ended strongly, offering up an absolute treasure trove of full streams for a host of records that may find themselves being discussed again in December. Speedy Ortiz, Double Grave, Rachel Angel, Spielbergs, Holy Now, Anemone, Sibille Attar, Launder, Porlolo, and Grouper were all artists that played a part in that outpouring (as did the just-featured Forth Wanderers). Still, the focus of this post falls to an entry in a different format entirely: Snail Mail‘s elegantly crafted and surprisingly pointed clip for “Heat Wave”.
The solo project of Lindsey Jordan, Snail Mail has been making a series of incredibly smart decisions over the past year, including their partnership with Matador Records. Another one of those decisions was enlisting Brandon Herman‘s talents for the clip, allowing the filmmaker to handle directorial, editorial, and DOP duties with aplomb. The project and the filmmaker have delivered a carefully constructed metaphor for the importance of fighting for yourself, even in the face of unfavorable odds and seemingly insurmountable pressure.
“Heat Wave” finds clever ways to make its timely heft an incredible amount of fun (without sacrificing an ounce of integrity). Centered on Jordan, wrapped up in a hockey-centric escapist fantasy, “Heat Wave” refuses to pull punches throughout a range of exceptional moments, from an anxiety-inducing confrontation to some cathartic moments of unbridled rage. By the clip’s finale, Jordan’s made sure that absolutely nothing’s left on the rink and that the songwriter can escape with both contentment and a touch of pride.
Uplifting and upsetting in turns, “Heat Wave” is an effective portrayal of the themes frequently deconstructed by the clip’s protagonist. It’s a gentle reminder of societal culpability and just as effective as a demonstration of how our own convictions are necessary for not just advancement but survival. The song’s a new highlight for the project and the clip is its best to date. We should all be grateful that Snail Mail’s being given the chance to accelerate.
Watch “Heat Wave” (and a live performance of the song) below and pre-order Lush from Matador here.
A solid round of full streams (or expanded samplers) have arrived over the past couple of days, coming from acts as varied as Say Sue Me, Bacchae, Spring Onion, Oceanator, The National Jazz Trio of Scotland, DEWR, Marbled Eye, and Playboy Manbaby. However, just as was the case in the last post, the focus here will shift to a release that’s been out for a bit but only recently became available for full streaming: Dusk’s new 7″ — and their first release for Dirtnap Records — The Pain of Loneliness (Goes On and On) b/w Go Easy.
Made up of a laundry list of some of central Wisconsin’s finest musicians, Dusk’s most unenviable task is likely distinguishing themselves from bassist/vocalist Amos Pitsch‘s main vehicle, Tenement. Making things a little hazier was the decision to tour the US as an expanded version of Tenement, suggesting that the distinction might not matter to them as much as the connection. It’d fit Pitsch’s history, which has long leaned more towards a familial collective than compartmentalized separation.
Still, even in the face of their similarities (and not to mention the fact that virtually every member of Dusk also spends time playing in other projects), Dusk sounds so wildly different from most of the band’s associated acts that they seem to have garnered a sterling reputation solely on their own merit. It’s been interesting to track their progress, with many people surprised to find out which members of the band they’ve seen and heard before, but it’s also been deeply worthwhile.
Dusk’s songs tilt in a more classically country-leaning direction than anything else, each release laced with the requisite amount of attitude to bring their singular charisma through the recordings. They inflect their songs with a little bit of a lot of genres, from Motown to soul to honky tonk to basement punk, creating something that’s simultaneously enigmatic and familiar. There’s a sense the band’s striving to create the sounds that they love and don’t hear enough anymore, re-contextualizing the influences of separate eras by viewing them through a decidedly modern lens.
They’ve tapped into something that’s given their name some weight and it shows again on their latest 7″, The Pain of Loneliness (Goes On and On) b/w Go Easy. Both songs are full of the well-worn charm and conviction of the band’s past releases but ably showcase how comfortably they’ve embraced their identity. The harmonies are as gorgeous and ever and they’re still finding ways to pull new tricks out of their sleeves, with guitarist/vocalist Tyler Ditter taking a turn on lead vocal duties in “Go Easy”.
Both tracks are imbued with the same kind of breezy, wide-open road feel that the band’s successfully touched on in the past. Pitsch lends a trademark bite to the A-side while Ditter anchors “Go Easy” with a honeyed sweetness that serves the band’s sound extremely well. Packaged together, it’s another strong entry in a discography that hasn’t stopped improving since the band’s staggeringly strong demo. Easily one of Wisconsin’s best acts, this kind of release suggests they’re well on their way to being regarded as far more than a local act.
Keep their name and their releases filed away somewhere safe, there’s no telling what they might wind up being worth.
Listen to The Pain of Loneliness (Goes On and On) b/w Go Easy below (and watch a package of videos of the band playing live beneath the stream) and pick it up from Dirtnap here.
Being the first song to be featured after a long interim with sporadic updates, it might seem unwise to break form but the song’s laced with so much personal meaning that I’m breaking one of the cardinal rules of this site and switching to a first person narrative. It’s one of the only ways that I can think of to suit the song’s central premise and its near-confrontational intimacy, which was written about eloquently over at The Talkhouse by the project’s mastermind, Nandi Rose Plunkett.
Plunkett and I shared a frighteningly similar experience of our stints living in Brooklyn, managing to take the city for all its worth, simultaneously, as so many of its expats have done and will continue to do. There’s a sense that its world is a separate one, operating at a more intense velocity than the cities that swirl around its gravitational pull. It’s jarring to come into but it’s easy to accept, instinctively knowing that the best way to navigate its chaos is to completely submit yourself to its constant whims, no matter how painful or uplifting.
Coming to know the city as a home takes some time but once you do, it becomes a part of you that’s impossible to shake. It’s harshness and demand stoking various levels of anxiety and fear, while its open embrace of its residents can provide a warmth that’s worthy of moments of pining. All of this, the endless duality and dichotomies that the city births in anyone that manages to claim it as a temporary home, is painfully evident in “Back In Brooklyn”, which nearly wrecked me the first few times I was fortunate enough to watch Half Waif play it live (one of those instances is captured below).
It’s the most plaintive moment on Lavender — easily one of the best records I’ve heard this year — and it’s the most arresting. Plunkett’s narration across the record’s one of the most unsparingly honest perspectives I’ve come across in recent memory, looking at everything through the lens of someone lost in their own thoughts while the road flies by their van windoes. Sideways glances and subtle allusions are shelved in favor of an intense directness that can occasionally approach the overwhelming, it’s nakedness on full display. Longing and love are its most prominent intersections but they’re anchored by a rare understanding, which can make the material — as is the case with “Back In Brooklyn” — frighteningly real.
During its three-plus minute run time, on every pass I’ve given the song, it’s transported me back to the city, reminded me of all of the things, places, and people I loved, all of the moments with them I cherished, and all of the moments where I felt lost or afraid. It’s an immense work that’s delivered with a well-worn affection and laced with the knowledge that once you leave, its shape shifts and changes, rendering some of the things you held onto unrecognizable. Honest, unflinching, empathetic, and deeply moving, “Back In Brooklyn” isn’t just breathtaking, it’s a small miracle in a minor key.
Listen to “Back In Brooklyn” (and watch a recent live performance of the song) below and pre-order Lavender from CASCINE here.
Rolling Blackouts Coastal Fever have popped up on this site with relative consistency in the past. The band’s particular brand of rambling, punk-tinged Americana hitting several of this site’s pleasure nerves. In recent years, the band’s grown bolder and more confident, transforming themselves into a well-oiled machine worthy of a host of accolades. In this full session for KEXP, the band also proves how sharp their touring schedules made their live show, which is a thing to behold.
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2. Aye Nako (Audiotree)
A lot of places (this one included) have championed Aye Nako in the past but they’ve never been afforded a showcase as definitive as this live session for Audiotree. Tearing through a set of songs that highlights what makes the band so great, the quartet seemed poised throughout. Tenacious, composed, and purposeful, Aye Nako deliver a blistering set that ranks right alongside anything from their recorded output; this is a band that never stops improving.
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3. Middle Kids (Indie88)
Middle Kids have made a habit out of appearing on Watch This, whether it’s in the weekly roundup of links or in a feature capacity. While all of their previous entries have been unmistakably impressive, there’s something about this Hidden Studio session the band recorded for Indie88’s Stiegl Hidden Studio Sessions that stands out. The band’s voracious touring has molded them into one of the best live acts currently on the circuit and this session serves as both document and definitive proof.
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4. Terry Malts (Audiotree)
Over the past several years Terry Malts have been quietly becoming one of the best outfits in both basement pop and basement punk. The band graciously contributed a demo to the A Step Forwardcompilation last year and have been on something of a tear this year, touring heavily and releasing an excellent single. Audiotree recently hosted the band for a no-holds-barred, career-spanning set that nicely underscores the band’s intensity. Catchy, aggressive, and always full-throttle, it’s a characteristically outstanding session for all parties involved.
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5. Why? – Easy (CPR)
Oaklandazulasylum, Elephant Eyelash, Alopecia, Eskimo Snow, and a handful of other records released under the name Why? solidified the project as one of the most fascinating acts since the turn of the century. Yoni Wolf, who started Why? as a solo project and his since expanded the outfit but remained the heart of the operation, has staked a claim as one of this generation’s most inspired lyricists. It’s hard to tell which direction the band will pursue at any given moment but for CPR’s Open Air, they went the calm and gentle route, unleashing a gorgeous rendition of “Easy” for a breathtaking live capture. Don’t let this one go unseen, unheard, or unnoticed.
Katie Crutchfield’s no stranger to this site, seemingly all of the songwriter’s projects having been covered in some capacity. Waxahatchee has become Crutchfield’s calling card in recent years and remains the most singularly focused of the musician’s artistic output. Here, Crutchfield and company rip through an enticing new song entitled “No Curse” for Weathervane’s outstanding Shaking Through series. It’s a potent reminder of the inherent power of one of this generation’s finest artists.
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2. Hurray for the Riff Raff – Living in the City (The Current)
A handful of releases into an increasingly notable career, Hurray for the Riff Raff continue an impressively upward trajectory. Each consecutive record and performance seems to constitute a new career high for the project, which has never been anything less than commendable. “Living in the City” is just the latest upward rung on a never-ending ladder that seems poised to reach stratospheric heights. Looking down from where the act is now, it’s more than enough to induce a serious amount of vertigo.
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3. Vundabar (Audiotree)
One of the more intriguingly frenetic punk bands of recent times, Vundabar have carved out a reputation for themselves by meticulously crafting unpredictable music. Recently, the band swung through Audiotree’s studio to record a session perfectly showcasing the tension and urgency the band’s so adept at creating. Every song in this session is eye-opening and executed to perfection without anyone in the band sacrificing even an ounce of conviction.
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4. Nothing (Amoeba)
Watch This veterans, Nothing keep finding new ways to impress. In this Green Room session for Amoeba, the band sacrifices their signature onslaught of volume for something far more intimate and contained. In passing up one of their most noted trademarks, the band also ably demonstrates how good the songs lurking underneath have been since the beginning. Utterly transfixing and devastatingly sincere, this acoustic session stands as an entirely unlikely but wholly welcome new high for the band.
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5. Allison Crutchfield (KEXP)
While Katie Crutchfield may have taken the opening slot on the features list in this volume of Watch This, Crutchfield’s twin sister is the one to close it out. As another musician whose projects have been well-documented on this site throughout a lengthy career, Allison Crutchfield seems poised to spearhead a sterling solo career. A lot of supporting evidence can be found to back that claim up, including this abbreviated set for KEXP, which finds the band (which includes Radiator Hospital‘s Sam Cook-Parrott) running through an impressive array of new songs with a sense of unified purpose.
Oscillating between various riffs and figures — both vocal and instrumental — at a furious pace, “Walkie Talkie” takes aim and hits its mark, repeatedly, bludgeoning it into oblivion. It’s an incendiary piece of work from one of the most obscenely talented emergent bands and it’s the type of track that needs to be heard to be believed. Palm’s set to make a whole new slew of converts in the wake of “Walkie Talkie” and it’s hard to imagine they’ll be content with stopping; “Walkie Talkie” is a warning shot and it goes a long way in underscoring the notion that Palm seems destined for deadliness.
Listen to “Walkie Talkie” (and watch the band tear through the song at DBTS in 2015) below and pre-order Shadow Expert from Carpark here.
Heartbreaking Bravery 