Listening with an open mind. Writing about what I hear. Do you have something interesting you'd like to share? Write Mick at thasoundblog@gmail.com. Twitter @thasoundblog
Andy Loebs is the first goocore artist I've interviewed for this blog's podcast (but hopefully not the last). I'm very smitten by the luster of his incredibly imaginative and dream-like productions and it was very cool to finally have a chance to talk with him about his process and his latest album Cercopithecoid (SIR-koh-pi-THEE-koyd). It is out on Orange Milk, the gooey-ist label of them all. Check out our convo below:
Alsarah & the Nubatones has been around for more than 10 years, elegantly matching North African music with a lively cross-stitching of neo-soul and R'nB- unsealing the potential that this harmonious integration contains to embody history and the patterns of global migration. Seasons of the Road is the group's third LP, and likely takes its name from the constant state of motion through which the well-traveled and tour-forged crew has earned their reputation. It may also reference the sense of alienation that being witness to a world that is unremittingly committed to tremendous acts of violence can engender in a person not yet ready to forsake their humanity. When horror is commonplace, living with a feeling of placelessness inevitably becomes normal. While Alasarah's resplendent vocal prowess and fluid sense of melody, and the band's overall accomplished sense of rhythm and composition, can, and often does, lend itself to some extraordinarily intriguing and accessible acoustic folk hybrids, the fact that they're willing to embrace a kind of futurist outlook to their radiantly retro style makes each listen that much more engrossing- almost like your encountering a backdoor into an alternative past, one that is more abundant and gracious than our own- an envelope of possibility where brutality of the present was not inevitable. "Fa3el Fi Eldawam" begins the album with a suitably restless rhythm and poly-percussive pastiche of caravan craft, which moves in consonance with Alasarah's wondering, plaintive bawl. "Bye Bye" is more stripped-back and playful, ridding a reticent, shuddering chord progression on a star-catching offering to the seizing draw of spellbound devotion. "Disco Star" feels like a nomadic astral march through a needle's eye of chance and determination, while the evocative textures of "Tendo" feel like being baptized in the ocean. There will always be rough road ahead, not just a season, but a whole lifetime, and when conditions are inhospitable underfoot, something lovely in your ears can be a balm for the pain of our pilgrimage.
More Michicagn emo! That's what I need at the moment, and No Problemo! (out of Lansing), wet behind the ears, and with a Spanish 101 under the bench-seat in their van, are fit and decorously determined to deliver. Year Of The Frog is the group's debut EP, hopping up to snag the spotlight a full 6 years after the band formed as a result of a friendship kindled on r/emo.* Their six-song seminar on living your best life, vengefully, and spitefully, online and otherwise, is light enough in tone to float on a lily pad without sinking into the mire below, remaining buoyant while not neglecting substance in terms of lyrics and managing to supply some incredibly crunchy riffs, all of which crinkle and pop deliciously, like deep fried bullfrog served up as the premier repas at a greasy French eatery. The gang gets twinkly on the ruefully optimistic opener "Gas Station Joe Jonas" and follows it up with the slingblade guitar sway of "r/Emo Drive," a quiver of cyanide-laced best wishes unleashed to rain down on a deserving pariah (or just some subreddit mod). The rhythmic interplay on "On My Glob" is easy to get tangled up in, even while the vocals steep you in a dint of bile and top-shelf vinegar. The chaotic energy of the prior track is a fair counterweight to the grungy, second-stringer angst and pushy reverie of growing pains embodied by the simply titled "MVP." The penultimate number, "twitter is a beautiful place & i am no longer afraid to die" is nothing if not grandiose- following a brief prolog of spoken word poetry it confronts the listner like an emphany upon realizing that they've been stood up on a date, causing a whole universe of aniscedents to converse on a single painful point of clarity, while managing to wind us up perfectly for the bubbly, down-and-out closer, "Mr. Pibb Ain't Quite Flyin' Off The Shelves, Todd," a track which match the vehemence of it predecessor as it hauls ass all the way back to twinkle-town, a return to the starting line of the EP that nips at its own toes, demonstrating the band's flexibility one last time by tying the album into a proper emoroboros.
Provoker is such a strange creature to me. The LA group replicates cyber-punk aesthetics to package downtempo pop and R'nB, which always seems to be in the process of sinking into its own shadow, like a prehistoric tiger proudly drowning in a tar pit. They remind me a lot of The Weeknd if he sobered up and hired Drab Majesty to back him up on an album. I'm obviously not put off by the group's more accessible inclinations, but what keeps me coming back to their records is the subtly alien and arrestingly rawboned quality of their grooves, especially the guitar work, which has this ugly and lonesome jilt to it, like its violently shrugging away from a reassuring hand on its shoulder or some similar extension of human warmth. Their 2018 debut EP Dark Angel is particularly good at giving this wanton sort of cold shoulder to the listener. Opener "Flinch Awake" is a drizzly veil of nightmare-gaze, whose clawing chord progressions absolutely give the impression that you are being stalked through the entirety of its run time. Much later, the possessive closer "Body Vehicle" revels in an oppressive sort of sodden angst, like someone had seeded a cloud with annotated sheet music transcribed from The Cure's early-80s oeuvre, and now it's pouring buckets of melanocytic acidic tears all down our backs. Then there is the title track, which begins by writhing with stark and sinister assurance before settling into a plaintive, heart-breaking dalliance while bladed riffs pierce its back and sides like the proverbial Saint Sebastian- a martyr for its ill-fated passions. Provoker still has a lot to offer these days, but they really tapped into something dire and divine on Dark Angel.
