I've heard folks grouse that this is "a bad year for music" (a judgment I've heard from somebody or other every year I've been paying attention), but me, I keep hearing new songs I like. What more could I want?
Local Picks
The ballads were nice, but this is more like it. Atop a rhythm track I must call “Wilburyish,” Ber gives Minneapolis a 6 out of 10, tromps to Bull’s Horn for cheese curds and then to CVS for something to “make my pee sting less,” all while floating along in love as the world turns to shit and her friends ask, “Who’s this bitch?”
Nikii Post is screaming her head off again, and why not? She’s damn good at it. The title track from In Lieu’s new album, due on October 24, rhymes "caught cutting school again" with "done something uncool again" and clocks in at one second shy of the two-minute mark. And why not?
The indefatigable rocker is back with garage-punk fury, rhyming “avoid” with "schadenfreude" and declaring “Karma’s a bitch and so am I” en route to the the chilling coda: “If you could get away with it would you do it again?” Lawson is at the Schooner on Saturday, October 11, with Crush Scene, who you read about here last week, and Green Bay's Holly and the Nice Lions.
May + the Ladies, “Holding On”
May Klug’s soprano propels itself over a track that’s both spare and colorful, austere and romantic. Arty synth-pop? Synthy art-pop? Poppy synth-art? Yes, and then some. May + the Ladies will play Cloudland on Friday, October 10, with Extraterrestrials and Scott Yoder.
Ray Gun Youth, “Aftermath”
On the first single from the band's new album, Second Estate, Jake Frazier's woozy arpeggios hang suspended, his warble crescendos to a full scream, and Travis Clark's bass and drummer Hunter Theisen fill up the space below with increasing insistence.
Non-Local Picks
With the big five-oh in sight, the over-erudite backpacker is still cramming his bars to bursting with polysyllables, and his latest, Black Hole Superette, is his best full-length in nigh on a decade. Maybe his most down-to-earth too: On my favorite cut, he and his gf find a snail in their home aquarium that multiplies with shocking haste. Runner up: “John Something,” about the guest lecturer in art school who turned Aes on to When We Were Kings.
Dry Cleaning, “Hit My Head All Day”
The novelty of Florence Shaw’s sprechgesang may have worn off for some listeners, but her observations on the first single from Secret Love, due next January, are Gang of Four-worthy (“The objects outside the head control the mind/To arrange them is to control people's thinking”). Anyway, Shaw’s always only been half the draw—Tom Dowse scrapes out primo Adrian Belew noise hooks on guitar, and that reconstructed funk still keeps you on your toes.
Parts Work, “Trenton”
Hop Along singer Frances Quinlan (at least I hope they're still the singer for Hop Along—it’s been a while) has formed a new duo with Kyle Pulley of Thin Lips. On their first single a fiddle dances about, then a piano muses below, and Quinlan’s voice shapeshifts throughout in all those expectedly unexpected ways that mess with your guts. I’ve been waiting my whole life to hear Quinlan sing “Trenton makes/The world takes” and I didn’t even know it.
Wednesday, “Townies”
I appreciated rather than loved this Asheville band’s critical breakthrough Rat Saw God, but dullard that I am, it’s the more gregarious and engaging new Bleeds that's done won me over. Karly Hartzman looks back at a time when she was “16 and bored and drunk” with good humor rather than self-criticism. And we dullards live for little tricks like that slowed-down coda.
A swingin’ lil country trifle about how those furry pests mess with your concentration. (Sample lyric: “When I get on task they wanna break my focus/Finishing a thought sometimes seems hopeless/What was I saying? Oh yeah/Squirrels.”) Also it made me think of this dumb fun '80s parody for the first time in years. This title track from a sharp album that also boils the Bible down to “Don’t be a dickhead” and addresses the gentrification of Young’s hometown with “Welcome to Nashville, Asshole!”
Worst New Song
Sombr, “Undressed”
Shane Boose's stealth gift is that it’s so hard to concentrate on his songs, they slip right past you before they truly annoy you. Which is why, though that Gotyesque bassline has stuck in my craw since I first heard it, this "worst new song" is more than six months old. It's one thing for an alarmingly cheekboned Finnothée Chalohard hybrid to coyly demur to strip for a new sweetie. But “I don't want the children of another man/To have the eyes of the girl I won't forget” is utterly barfworthy.
Wanna get a local song considered for the playlist? To make things easy on both of us, email keith@racketmn.com with RACKET PLAYLIST in the subject header. (Don’t, as in do NOT, DM or text: If I’m in a good mood, I’ll just ask you to send an email; if I’m in a bad mood I’ll just ignore it.)
