Softspot | Heartbreaking Bravery

April 21, 2017

Waxahatchee – Silver (Music Video)

Throughout the past six or seven days, great music videos by the likes of Pale Grey, Meat Wave, Tim Kasher, Mark Lanegan, Fuzzystar, Special Teams, Gurr, Chick Quest, EMA, Street Eaters, SOFTSPOT, No Vacation, Mayflower Madame, Airpark, Real Numbers, Hoan, Exit Kid, Murlo, M.I. Blue, Kurt Swinghammer, The Broken Hearts, Skye Steele, and Morning Teleportation have found their way into the world. All of them made several very good impressions but none of them seemed to go quite as deep as the considerable indent Waxahatchee‘s “Silver” left in its wake.

Katie Crutchfield’s projects were always going to be a staple of this site for however long either wound up being around. Ever since becoming accustomed to the songwriter’s work during P.S. Eliot‘s tenure. Fortunately, Crutchfield’s kept busy under the Waxahatchee moniker, releasing one sterling record after another and Out in the Storm looks ready to carry that unimpeachable run. “Silver” the first song to be released from the record also came equipped with an appropriately DIY-leaning video.

Throughout the clip, Crutchfield’s shown in a variety of ways, from running through the song with the band, to lip-syncing along to “Silver” while bathed in confrontational strobe lights, to black-and-white footage of the artist simply walking around. All of it forms a coherent whole that seems to enliven the song driving the whole affair. Clever editing, an easygoing charm, and a sense of place all congeal into something striking. When all’s said and done and the storm has abated, Crutchfield remains calm, standing proudly as one of this generation’s essential artists.

Watch “Silver” below and pre-order Out in the Storm from Merge here.

April 11, 2017

Another Two Weeks Worth of Streams

Just a short while ago, a handful of pieces ran on Heartbreaking Bravery recapping some of the year’s finest first quarter releases. In the time it took to assemble those lists, a fresh slate of songs, music videos, records, and live videos emerged. Tonight’s posts will be dedicated to highlighting the most noteworthy releases of that selection. Starting off with the individual songs category, which was characteristically rich in terms of output over the course of the past two weeks. To that end, here are some of the finest titles to have surfaced in that time. Click around, there’s a little something for everyone. Enjoy.

Cayetana, Dan Misha Goldman, Big Thief, Major Leagues, Caddywhompus, Daddy Issues, Montrose Man, Tica Douglas, Michele Nox, Anna Altman (x2), (SANDY) Alex G, Thunder Dreamer, Ulrika Spacek, Tashaki Miyaki, WALL, Nana Grizol, Woods, Spencer Radcliffe & Everyone Else, The Bingers, Art School Jocks, Peeling, Harmony Woods, Stonefield, HotKid, The Presolar Sands, Gnarwhal, Gouge Away, The Black Angels, Kids and Chemicals, Alyeska, New Swears, Du Vide, Chemtrails, Dead Heavens, Sprinters

Hoop, PIPSY, Sheer, Emperor X, Pony, Duncan Lloyd, H.Grimace, Cuesta Loeb, INVSN, Monograms, Joan Shelley, Flasher, Ultraviolence (x2), Joey Agresta, Blessed, Mise en Scene, High Sunn, A Victim of Sobriety, Catch Pritchard, The Luyas, Trophy Dad, Julian Fulton, Broken Social Scene, Chastity Belt, Dama Scout, Matthew Logan Vasquez, Soft Fangs, Hiva Oa, Morning Teleportation, The Megaphonic Thrift, Marika Hackman, Shugo Tokumaru, Elf Power, Wet Dreams, WATERS, PAWNS, The Bad Signs, Abram Shook

Sean Rowe, Drug Sweat, Mad Denizen, Greater Sirens, Husky, Slow Dancer, Arthur Gee-Whizz Band, Gardener’s Bell, Odd Couple, Pale Grey, Los Angeles Police Department, Junior Astronomers, Mayflower Madame, The Spookfish, The Velveteins, Turtlenecked, Saint Etienne, The Dirty Nil, Sam Amidon, SOFTSPOT, Chloe Foy, Lulu Lewis, Wooing, Exhibition, Amber Arcades, Sundaes, Romantic States, Tinmouth, Pinky Pinky, Sleep Party People, Maxim Ludwig, Keeper Keeper, Sloan Peterson, Spotting, Grumpus

Storm the Palace, Walter Martin, Nick Hakim, The Moonlight Love, Dig Deeper, Two Inch Astronaut, Tony Peachka, Ora Cogan, The Peacers, San Mei, and Moon Duo.

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 28, 2015

Midnight Reruns – There’s An Animal Upstairs (Stream)

It’s been a long while since an individual song was featured on this site, a happenstance that’s left the floodgates open and the banks flooded. To that end, there’s a long list of those songs that will be included over the majority of the next few posts- all of those outpourings will, as always, will be accompanied by a featured song. This post’s headlined by a band that’s no stranger to this site but still relatively unknown to the listening world at large: Midnight Reruns.

The band’s sophomore full-length, following an extremely promising debut and a sophomore EP that expanded on that promise, was produced by Tommy Stinson and is due out in a few weeks on Dusty Medical (their first for the label). It’s a hard-charging burst of hook-heavy, punk-leaning rock n’ roll that sounds distinctly Midwest and the assault is led by the surging “There’s An Animal Upstairs”, which– nearly impossibly– also benefits from a genuine sense of breeziness.

Marked by the band’s characteristically formidable dual-guitar attack (something that’s earned them more than a few Thin Lizzy comparisons) and guitarist/vocalist Graham Hunt’s increasingly impressive lyrics, “There’s An Animal Upstairs” takes the already raised bar and kicks it up a few levels. Highlighting this ongoing evolution are the opening lines of a chorus section that floored me on first, second, and 40th listen: “I can feel my proteins burn/and I can feel my atoms/I can feel my stomach churn/and overflow with acid”- a section that hints at what the rest of the album has to offer.

Riding their usual crest of half-drunk Replacements heroics, the song also finds the Milwaukee quartet deepening their grasp on dynamics as well. Everything about “There’s An Animal Upstairs” clicks so well that it practically justifies the awed pre-release compliments its been picking up on its own power. There’s a certain sense of identity that accompanies the song, lending it a considerable amount of power and furthering its immediacy.

Every shift the song takes is maximized for its fullest impact, with each of those hairpin turns navigated with a precision that somehow compliments the songs giddy, shambolic aesthetic. It’s a song of conflicting components that continuously find surprising ways to reconcile and ensure that “There’s An Animal Upstairs” isn’t just great but genuinely memorable. An earworm with an incredible amount of substance, it’s also one of the best songs of the year and should prove more than a little helpful in ensuring Midnight Reruns their proper place on the map.

Listen to “There’s An Animal Upstairs” below, pre-order Force of Nurture from Dusty Medical here, and scan through a long list of some great recent songs beneath the embed.

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Joanna Newsom – Leaving the City
Helvetia – Crumbs Like Saucers
Saul Williams – Horn of the Clock-Bike
Gun Outfit – Dream All Over
Jono McCleery – This Idea of Us
Primitive Parts – Troubles
Emilie Levienaise-Farrouch – Strelka
Seratones – Necromancer
Vision – Inneraction
Black Abba – Betting on Death
BREVE – Movement
Little Fevers – Make It Easy
Historian – Pulled Over
Ex-Breathers – Car
Expert Alterations – You Can’t Always Be Liked
Keeps – I Don’t Mind
Operator – Requirements
Lust For Youth – Better Looking Brother
Bethlehem Steel – 87s
NØMADS – Traumatophobia
Wavves – Pony
Frankie Cosmos – Sand
Prom Body – Ultimate Warrior
Billie Marten – Bird
Hazel English – Fix
Cheatahs – Signs to Lorelei
Black Honey – Corrine
Joseph Giant – On the Run
Swings – Tiles
Kinsey – Youth
Woozy – Gilding the Lily
Casket Girls – Sixteen Forever
Mal Blum – Robert Frost
Palmas – I Want To Know (Your Love)
Let’s Say We Did – Sometimes Every Second Is A Dream
Go Deep – Palms
Spencer Radcliffe – Mermaid
Evil Wizardry – Ajax Takes Both
Tracks – Moonlight
Skinny Girl Diet – Silver Spoons
Black Lips – Freedom Fries
Decorations – Girls
Alex Chilltown – Cwtch
SULK – Black Infinity (Upside Down)
Air Waves (ft. Jana Hunter) – Thunder
Microwave – Thinking of you,
Long Beard – Dream
Softspot – Abalone
Dan Friel – Life (Pt. I)
Oberhofer – Sun Halo
Club 8 – Love Dies

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