Tag: Indie Pop

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Albums

Best albums of 2020: #4 No Joy “Motherhood”

Someone needs to get on updating the Wikipedia entry on No Joy. Calling the project led by Jasamine White-Gluz a shoegaze band now feels like a mislabel, especially after you listen to their excellent fourth record, “Motherhood”.

When I first got into Montreal-based No Joy six or seven years ago, the term seemed more apt. White-Gluz had just released a second album under the moniker, working as a duo with Laura Lloyd. Both “Wait to pleasure” and the debut that preceded it, “Ghost blonde”, were steeped in fuzzy and hazy guitar trails blazed by My Bloody Valentine, Ride, and Lush. But there was a progression between the two albums, a hint that this act wasn’t just here to recreate and celebrate the original scene, a trope adopted by other ‘nu-gazers’.

After a third album, 2015’s “More faithful”, that was recorded by a more fleshed-out quartet, didn’t seem to move the marker far enough, White-Gluz took hold of the reins and took a break from recording LPs, in favour of a series of EPs, each striking out in a different exploratory direction. Perhaps most notable of these was her collaboration with Pete ‘Sonic Boom’ Kember in 2018. She completely stepped away from her comfort zone here, dispensing with her trusty guitar and traded it for synthesizers. The resulting four songs on “No Joy / Sonic Boom” might not be what you’d expect from either artist but are definitely a compelling listen for fans of both.

For “Motherhood”, Jasamine White-Gluz picked up her guitar again but didn’t leave behind the synths. She picked up the shoegaze that she started this journey with but threw it in a shake-and-bake bag with some trip hop, hardcore, ambient, and a bunch of the other sounds she’s toyed with in the five years between LPs. Yet instead of sounding scattered and overwhelming, the eleven songs here are quite cohesive and have sense of direction. This is likely because the album has a singular driving force and her’s is an ethereal voice that works the room with confidence. I can’t wait to see what she’ll do next.

My three picks for you are actually the album’s first three tracks and first three songs released in advance of it and the varied sounds are a good indication of the album’s explosive makeup.

“Dream rats“: The video for track two on “Motherhood” was released just a few days before the unveiling of the album itself. The song features the vocals of Jasamine’s sister, Alissa, the lead vocalist for Swedish death metal band Arch Enemy, a collaboration that the sisters haven’t been able to venture into together since both were very young. And the tune fits like a glove for both because after a short lazy intro, the song bursts forth into a furious pace that sounds like it might venture deep into thrash scream-o territory. Then, the shimmering, dancing synths kick in and it all gets dreamy again. The vocals, too, save for some perfectly placed growls, are ethereal and wispy, flitting and fleeting deep in the mix, the words all but indecipherable, ringing angelic against such a black, black, black backdrop of sound.

“Nothing will hurt”: For a track that starts out sounding a discordant industrial number, the second single really transforms into a dance floor burner reminiscent of Blondie, albeit with some disjointed flair. White-Gluz has said of its recording: “our mission in the studio was that no idea was too weird to try. That led to us squishing bananas into very expensive microphones to get textured percussion noises, shoving kitchen knives into guitar necks to create a perfect slide guitar sound and adding some Primus-inspired slap bass.” Yeah, it’s crazy but it works. It is gazing excitedly at shiny dancing shoes, stabbing guitars and rifling rhythms and shiny synths, oh my.

“Birthmark”: The opening track on the album and very first peek at the project’s first new album in five years hits like a ton of bricks. It’s the sound of 90s shoegaze gone 90s alternative dance. Think Chapterhouse’s second album “Blood music” or anything by Curve. Like the rest of the album, Jasamine White-Gluz had a lot of fun with this one in the studio, finding use for a set of bongos and apparently, a broken clarinet. The bongos are definitely front and centre and form the basis of a dance floor beckoning drum rhythm but I challenge you to point out the clarinet in the wall of sound she’s created in the loops and loops and loops. The party sound belies the subject matter, which according to White-Gluz, has its basis in the experience of visiting a relative in a senior living facility.

Check back next Thursday for album #3. In the meantime, here are the previous albums in this list:

10. The Strokes “The new abnormal”
9. Venus Furs “Venus Furs”
8. Bright Eyes “Down in the weeds, where the world once was”
7. The Beths “Jump rope gazers”
6. The Rentals “Q36”
5. Secret Machines “Awake in the brain chamber”

You can also check out my Best Albums page here if you’re interested in my other favourite albums lists.

Categories
Albums

Best albums of 2020: The honourable mentions (aka #10 through #6)

Good morning everyone! And happy Thursday!

We’re finally nearing the end of this trash can fire of a year we call 2020. And not a moment too soon.

But this also means that it is that time of year. You know which I mean. The time of the year that music writers and hack bloggers, like myself, try to come up with their lists ranking the best that the year had to offer. Many end of the year lists have already started popping up, some even as early as the end of October. I don’t blame these eager beavers for trying to rush the end of this year but I wasn’t one of those. I wanted to keep my list open, in case something brilliant was released in November* or I found an album released earlier in the year that I had missed. And it’s a good thing I did too because one album in particular came out of nowhere and snuck itself into the number nine spot just before I started writing this post.

This will mark my fourth year running doing end of year lists for this blog so I’ve pretty much got this process down to an art. Like last year, I decided to wrap things up with a final post on my favourite album on the final day of the year, and so to do that, Thursdays became the day of the week of choice for this series. As always, I am starting things off with an ‘honourable mentions’ post, this post, listing out albums 10 through 6, and will countdown my favourite five albums, one each week, for the next five.

Of course, I’ve cheated a bit with my photo at the top of this post. You may note that it shows three additional albums from 2020. These are albums in my vinyl collection that won’t appear in the list but bear mention nonetheless. I also featured two of these – Gateways Drugs “PSA” and The Exbats’ “Kicks, hits and fits” – in my Vinyl Love series over the last two weekends so go check those out too.

Despite (or perhaps because of) all the craziness going on this year, 2020 was another great one for new music. I had fears early on that the COVID-19 pandemic would have an impact on the ability of all our favourite musicians to continue to produce and release new music and that at some point during this year, the new releases would dry up. But this never happened. Indeed, the reverse seemed to be true and musicians everywhere seemed to become more productive and creative in the various states of lockdown we endured.

With all these excellent releases, I am sure I missed out on one or two so as we go through my own 10 favourite albums over the next month or so, I welcome your comments and thoughts and perhaps even your own top ten favourites in the comments space provided.

Let’s do this.

#10 The Strokes “The new abnormal”

Back almost twenty years ago, way back in 2001, New York City’s The Strokes released “Is this it”, an album often credited with reinvigorating indie rock and kickstarting a garage rock wave that would eventually morph into a post-punk revival. I’ve never thought they’ve been able to come close to the same energy that made that debut album so great and breathtaking but in my opinion, on “The new abnormal”, their sixth LP and first in seven years, they’ve come very, very close. The garage rock from the debut has given way to a new wave glam vibe but their knack for breathing new life into retro sounds is still very much alive. “The new abnormal” is indeed a temporary respite from these crazy times.

Gateway tune: “The adults are talking”

#9 Venus Furs “Venus Furs”

This self-titled release by Montreal-based Paul Kasner’s project, Venus Furs, is the album I mentioned above that just squeaked into this list at the last moment. Its relatively quiet launch back in July meant that I missed it until it received a positive review in one of my favourite magazines, Under the Radar, and the words there piqued my interest. Kasner’s perfectionist approach to this debut album has drawn favourable comparisons to Kevin Shields, Anton Newcombe, and Thurston Moore and yeah, listening to the eight songs on this neat package, you might catch whiffs of each. But you might also catch on to something else going on here: perhaps it’s a psych rock explosion that transcends space and time. A glass of wine, a rose, a special pipe, a lava lamp, and a jet pack to the next galaxy.

Gateway tune: “Chaos and confusion”

#8 Bright Eyes “Down in the weeds, where the world once was”

It feels to me like this indie rock/folk trio led by Conor Oberst has been around forever but I’ve never found myself able connect with their music. I’ve checked in on the albums they’ve released over the last couple of decades and even seen them live once (and maybe twice). I know Oberst has always been a strong songwriter and he has a legion of fans that swear by him but I actually think it took his collaboration with Phoebe Bridgers last year on their project, Better Oblivion Community Center, for me to truly appreciate his worth. Maybe it was leftover shiny and fuzzy feelings from that album that had me falling for this one on first listen but given the reactions to this being a smooth next step despite the nine year separation between albums, I went back and rediscovered that maybe I’ve been wrong about Bright Eyes all these years. I definitely think “Down in the weeds, where the world once was” is either an accidental stroke of genius or a planned mess of perfection. Maybe both.

Gateway tune: “Mariana trench”

#7 The Beths “Jump rope gazers”

I admit that I was a bit disappointed when I first heard this sophomore release from Auckland, New Zealand’s The Beths. It was another of those cases of expectations raised beyond reconciliation by the band’s previous release, in this case their fantastic debut, “Future me hates me“. Their blistering set that I had witnessed last year at Ottawa’s Bluesfest obviously didn’t help matters. However, I didn’t give up after the first listen and  my persistence has paid dividends, allowing the album to grow on me exponentially with time. Yes. “Jump rope gazers” has a lot of the same energetic power pop that made the debut so buzz-worthy but also has Elizabeth Stokes and friends slowing things down and getting personal with equally rewarding results.

Gateway tune: “I’m not getting excited”

#6 The Rentals “Q36”

I discovered this year that I’m a Rentals fan! Sure I remember liking “Friends of P.” back in the day but never bothered to check out the rest of the debut album, 1995’s “Return of The Rentals”. Then, I heard their 2014 album, “Lost in Alphaville”, in passing and thought it enjoyable as well. But it wasn’t until I listened to the new album (too late to the party to get a copy of the self-released, super limited vinyl) that I finally woke up. I immediately went back to acquaint myself with the complete back catalogue of the project by ex-Weezer bassist, Matt Sharp, and it’s all excellent. If you’re not in know (as I wasn’t until recently), I highly recommend starting out with this retro futuristic concept album that smacks of Ziggy Stardust-era David Bowie called “Q36”.

Gateway tune: “Shake your diamonds”

*As it is, I feel like there might be at least one noteworthy album released in December will not get its due from all the list makers (myself included) because of its late release.

Check back next Thursday for album #5 on this list. In the meantime, you can check out my Best Albums page here if you’re interested in my other favourite albums lists.

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Tunes

100 best covers: #64 The Boo Radleys “There she goes”

<< #65    |    #63 >>

While looking for something to listen to on Spotify recently, I rediscovered that Alan Cross’s amazing radio show, “The ongoing history of new music”, is available on there as a podcast. I may be one of the only people that I know that never got into the concept of podcasts, always preferring to listen to music whenever the opportunity is afforded to listen to something, whether it be in the car, at work, or just puttering around the house. However, I always loved listening to Alan Cross’s radio show back when I was younger and living in Toronto, where his show was originally broadcasted on CFNY, and I decided to give the podcast a try. I’ve now listened to and enjoyed a few episodes (of course, Cross is still as interesting and engaging as ever) and can now see myself checking it out on the regular.

I mention this because in a weird coincidence the theme on the very first podcast episode to which I listened had for its theme, one-hit wonders of the 1990s, and in the middle of the show, Cross called The La’s’ “There she goes”, ‘the perfect pop song’. I myself included this very track and ranked it number one when I did a post on my top five one-hit wonders of the 1980s* a few years ago. In that post, I also referred to it as a perfect pop song, to the ‘jangly guitars that shimmer in the sunlight’ and how ‘Lee Mavers’ vocals alternate between rough and soft’.

This balance and counterpoint and the compact song structure and length is likely why so many artists have covered it and have had success with it. Indeed, “There she goes” has been covered by The Wombats, Robbie Williams, and by an American a cappella act called The Kingsmen. Perhaps most famously, Sixpence None The Richer covered it and released it as the second single off their self-titled album in 1999, the follow up to the ubiquitous hit, “Kiss me”. Their slowed down, acoustic focused version did quite well and sure, it’s lovely enough, but in my opinion, it completely dispenses with any of the edge on the original.

The cover version that I prefer is the one by British contemporaries, The Boo Radleys, and this can be attributed to the fact that I discovered it at the same time and place as I did the original. Both versions are featured on the soundtrack for the film, “So I married an axe murderer”** and the two together are, in a sense, a de fact theme song for the film. They book-end the album, the cover opening the proceedings and the original having the final word. I used to think they were pretty much the same but on closer inspection recently, I managed to separate the intricacies.

The Boo Radleys ease off a bit on the jangle by replacing the iconic arpeggio guitar intro with horns and they unbelievably one-up the original in peppiness by increasing the tempo, adding handclaps, and vocal harmonies. In another ‘how did they do it’ facet, The Boo Radleys’ version even managed to come out thirty seconds shorter than Lee Mavers’ perfect pop song length in the original.

Is the cover better? You won’t catch me answering the affirmative here – the original is so good – but I do enjoy both.

Thoughts?

Cover:

The original:

*”There she goes” was originally released as a single in 1988 but was re-released a couple of times in the 1990s. Hence, it being attributed to both the 1980s and the 1990s.
**It’s a great soundtrack, much better than the film for which it was put together. For a bit more on both, have a peek on my post on Suede’s “My insatiable one”, another track that appeared on the soundtrack.

For the rest of the 100 best covers list, click here.