Tag: 2020

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Best tunes of 2020: #14 The Beths “I’m not getting excited”

<< #15    |    #13 >>

Just a few days ago I posted about a set I caught at last year’s Ottawa Bluesfest, a set that serves as just one example of what makes the festival so special: the strong possibility for musical discovery in the joy of live music. This next band on my Best tunes of 2020 list was another example of one whom I really fell hard for when I saw them at this very same festival.

The Beths were formed in Auckland, New Zealand in 2014 by four musicians who met at university while studying jazz. They released their debut long player “Future me hates me” in 2018 but I didn’t come across it until the following year, else I might have included it on my list of favourite albums that year. Luckily it didn’t escape other’s notices because all the critical acclaim meant multiple tours and one of these landed them on the 2019 Bluesfest lineup. I don’t remember now if I picked up on them before I saw their name on the website or afterwards, but I definitely earmarked them as a set I really wanted to catch after repeat listens of their power pop harmonies. And of course, I’ve mentioned a few times on these pages how the New Zealand quartet “blew the doors off” the stage and I afterwards stumbled over to the merch tent to pick up a copy of their record.

So for me, “Jump rope gazers” was a highly anticipated release in early 2020, after having played the hell out of the debut record for the rest of 2019. Unfortunately, the sophomore record wasn’t quite as immediately attention grabbing as I was expecting and instead was one that had to grow on me, working hard to earn its place on my end of the year list. Track one on the album was an exception to this, a real standout for this writer, right from the first spin.

“I’m not getting excited
‘Cause my fight and my flight are divided
And so I don’t enthuse
Keep my grip on joy loose
And I wait for the news
With my feet in my shoes”

At first glance, the music doesn’t match the song title. The revving guitars, insistent drum beat, and Elizabeth Stokes’ breathless delivery is all very exciting and feverish and energetic. However, when you consider its almost like an updated and more self aware take on Green Day’s “Basket case”, albeit with a different set of neuroses, the anxious tone reveals itself, as does the pervading take on The Jonah Complex. “I’m not getting excited” is so good and so relatable.

For the rest of the Best tunes of 2020 list, click here.

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Tunes

Best tunes of 2020: #15 Venus Furs “Chaos and confusion”

<< #16    |    #14 >>

“Paul Kasner is a perfectionist in the same way Kevin Shields, Anton Newcombe, and Thurston Moore are perfectionists. So, it’s probably befitting that all three of the aforementioned artists were among the many influences on Venus Furs, the self-titled debut from Kasner’s solo moniker of the same name.”

These are not my words but those of music writer Dom Gourlay conjured for one of my favourite music zines, Under the Radar. These are the words that he opened his eight out of ten review for “Venus Furs”, still the only album released by Paul Kasner’s project. And yes, these are the words that goaded me into checking out the album after I had missed its initial launch in July of 2020. I gave it a handful of spins on Spotify and found that it was indeed within my wheelhouse and was quickly on the website for Silk Screaming records, the label Kasner set up to release said album, and ordered a copy of it on vinyl for my record shelves*.

Paul Kasner is a Montreal-based songwriter, multi-instamentalist, and producer, who has toured with The Horrors and The Twilight Sad, and has worked by himself for many years on this one album, working to get it just right. Indeed, it is a lovely and tight 8-song cycle of guitar heavy, psych rock, toying with shoegaze and noise rock along the way.

“Chaos and confusion” is the five minute opener that layers acoustic strums with wispy reverb drenched electric licks. Meanwhile, the poltergeist on drums keeps time and space in check with a menacing leer and the bass line eases its way in and out of the miasma like a perfect stitch line sewing up eternity. And floating just above it all is Kasner’s vocal track, affecting his best Jim Reid/Peter Hayes impression, a woeful tale of gambling and loss.

*It later muscled its way into my top ten albums list for that year.

For the rest of the Best tunes of 2020 list, click here.

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Tunes

Best tunes of 2020: #16 Dehd “Haha”

<< #17    |    #15 >>

Dehd recently announced the upcoming release of their fifth studio album, “Poetry”, due out in May. Some very welcome news for fans of their energetic blend of surf, post-punk, and garage rock.

I only came across Dehd with the release of 2020’s “Flower of devotion”, but that was actually their third album, after forming five years earlier. They are the trio of Emily Kempf (bass guitar, vocals), Jason Balla (guitar, vocals), and Eric McGrady (drums), based in Chicago, which surprises me every time I remember this fact. Because for some completely irrational and unknown reason, to me, they sound like they should hail from the UK.

And though I’ve not heard anything prior to it, I felt completely at home with “Flower of devotion” when I first heard it upon its release in July 2020. It felt alive and raw and vibrating with nervous energy, though from all reports it’s shinier and cleaner than its predecessors. It was exactly the kind of music that we needed as we were coming into the first summer of the pandemic, very much like an invitation to go outside and play.

“How does one get here?
When did we cross the line?
When it comes to falling, yeah
I’m falling all the time“

My favourite tune on “Flower of devotion” was track three, right from the very beginning. “Haha” was never released as a single but it certainly sounds like it could’ve been one. It is just over two minutes of jangly guitars, a hopscotch bassline, tongue clucking, and he said/she said, call and response vocals. With its staccato and twitchy chorus but fun feel throughout, it all seems so simple. But sometimes simple is exactly what you need for a perfect pop gem. And yes, that title makes me laugh every time.

For the rest of the Best tunes of 2020 list, click here.