This week’s playlist is bookended by the banging double single from electro duo, Snow Strippers. There’s new tunes from a couple of upcoming indie acts who I’ve covered on the blog previously – Slaney Bay with another slice of big chorused, hook-filled indie rock/dream pop. And Seb Lowe who continues to produce something pretty much completely different with each new single. This one’s very quaint, which made me want to hate it, but it’s so catchy that it won me over by the second listen. Plus 90’s dance vibes from Romy, DJ Drama bringing a Ghostbusters-type rap beat, and what sounds like a lost mid-2000’s indie hit from THE GOA EXPRESS. Listen to the playlist and read about the rest of this week’s picks below.
Tunes of the week
Trip Westerns – Blame Charlie
Check out some of the social links provided below for Brighton’s Trip Westerns and their pictures will probably give you a good idea of what to expect. Cowboy hats, big moustaches, luscious long hair, and Western shirts; if you could translate that image into a sound, then this is it.
Starting with twangy riffs, they offer their brand of what I like to think of as slacker psychedelia. When I think of psychedelic music, it’s often lengthy intricate soundscape type stuff, which verges on being a bit too try-hard. This is too laid-back to care. It owes more to the psychedelia of 60’s garage and surf rock; tightly packed into three minutes.
Although midway through it suddenly livens up and almost transforms into Dick Dale’s Misirlou (you know it – the tune off Pulp Fiction). And after a brief flurry of excitement, they compose themselves and chill out again to close things off.
I have to mention my partner’s description of the vocals as well: “That sort of drawl where you know they’re a prick, but it sounds cool”. I concur… the cool bit, not the prick bit.
Allie Crow Buckley – Cowboy in London
This is the latest single from LA-based, Allie Crow Buckley, ahead of her upcoming second album, Utopian Fantasy, next month. And I’m gonna defer to my partner’s judgment again on this one – “like Lana Del Rey meets Orville Peck” – that’s not a bad way to describe this.
The beginning briefly reminded me of mid-00’s electro one-hit-wonders Mattafix’s Big City Life (which is an absolute tune BTW). But the Orville Peck comparison works as there’s an old country/folk-style simplicity to the storytelling here, plus overt cowboy references about rhinestones and riding off into the sunset. Mixed with some self-consciously cool references you’d expect from Del Rey; like dancing to Led Zeppelin in a Kensington basement.
But this is delivered in more of a dream pop style, all ethereal vocals and a hazy minimalistic cool underpinning everything, with the pace and volume never rising above breezy. So I’ll throw in one more name to complete the comparison – like Lana Del Rey meets Orville Peck as interpreted by Beach House.
boygenius – Anti-Curse
Last week, I mentioned my bewilderment about the hype around boygenius. But this tune has won me round (although I still think the hype is largely unjustified).
Sometimes a song just needs a brief moment that’ll make you want to keep coming back, and there’s about 22 seconds here which feel massive. There’s a two minute build up with Julien Baker taking the lead, describing an incident where she almost drowned at sea, which is then followed by the excellent 22 second emotional pay off.
The rest is ok. It goes from quite straightforward storytelling to more cryptic lyrics, which slightly takes the sting out of things. And I feel like they fumble over a couple of moments seemingly designed for hooks which they don’t deliver (which is a theme across their songs for me). But whatever, cos that 22 seconds is fucking great.
Council Cut – Sound
I’ve previously written about Stoke’s Council Cut in February and March, so I feel like I might become a broken record. But as long as he’s knocking out good tunes, I’m happy to keep banging the same drum.
On first listen, I actually thought this seemed overly reliant on a couple of lines. But, there’s an art of repetition thing going on here, which really drives home the song’s themes. There’s almost a mundanity to the chorus, which reflects a very British (or maybe just very male) attitude of defaulting to a front of everything being ok, regardless of your actual feelings. You could probably read the chorus either way; partly a celebration of stoicism in the face of adversity, partly a critique of the slightly toxic trait of being unable to open up. The beat is probably the most minimalistic of his releases so far, which kind of works as a representation of that stoney-faced attitude portrayed in the chorus.
The song starts by leaning more towards brash rap boasting. But as the verses develop he introduces some of the struggles that are going on deeper down, touching on mental health and the coping mechanisms that go with it. It’s as if the song gradually peels back the layers to reveal what lies underneath the bravado.
I might just be indulging my pretentiousness with these interpretations but it’s rewarding to follow along as you get the sense he’s letting you into more of his story with each new release. An upcoming artist doing interesting work, and delivering anthemic tunes along the way.
Bob Dylan – Watching the River Flow
I love Dylan, but his average song length is probably something like seven minutes and sometimes I just can’t be arsed. So it’s a pleasant surprise to just get a quick and easy three minutes.
This is taken from the upcoming Shadow Kingdom album, based on a pandemic era ‘concert’ film (it wasn’t actually a live concert, but pre-recordings which were then shot as a performance in a fictional French club). It comprises of re-workings of some of his 60s and 70s era songs. This one is a cover of a slightly obscure 1971 non-album single.
It’s a pretty straightforward blues number and while it’s not the best song he’s done lately, it’s probably the best he’s sounded in a long time. His old man croak is still there a lot of the time, but there’s moments throughout where you can really hear the voice of classic 60s/70s Dylan coming through.
Now, I don’t actually think it’s as good as the original, but he’s one of the all time greats and it’s just nice to hear a hint of the old Dylan, and him seemingly having fun with it, fifty years later.
Drake – Search & Rescue
This one isn’t actually on the playlist as I think it’s pretty forgettable, but it prompted some thoughts on Drake.
Take Care and Nothing Was the Same are pretty much modern classics, and he’s still capable of pulling out the odd banger. But he’s been delivering far more misses than hits for around a decade now (that may not be strictly true in terms of commercial numbers, but you know what I mean). This, like a lot of his recent work, is boring and he mostly sounds bored. I wouldn’t even say it’s outright bad but, again like much of his recent work, it’s too long. As a couple minute album track it’d be fine, but it’s neither catchy or interesting enough to justify four and a half minutes.
He also resorted to the gimmick of sampling Kim Kardashian talking about her divorce from Kanye, seemingly an unprompted swipe in their on-off feud. Now, I’m not gonna try to defend modern day Kanye, but taking bitchy swipes at him seems particularly pathetic. Dude is pretty much rock bottom, there’s really nothing to be gained there, and it’s not even like he called him out for anything he actually deserves criticism for.
Also, Drake is in his late 30’s. Grow up FFS. Rap beef Drake is the worst version of Drake. There’s a reason Ghostface Killah once called him the softest rapper in the game, but that version of Drake was actually great.
You can check out previous weeks’ best new music roundups at the Best New Music Weekly archive. And you can keep up with the latest updates by following No Frills Reviews on your chosen social platform.
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