July 2024 - Man, That’s a Lot of Tracks — The Ben Great Music Thing

Albums

**La Luz - News of the Universe**
La Luz’s style has been described as “surf noir,” a psychedelic blend of surf music, doo-wop, and 60’s era rock-and-roll. They’ve made a name for themselves based on great studio albums and electric live shows, which frequently involve *Soul Train*-esque dance contests and crowd surfing. This album feels different, though. There’s a palpable melancholy here, a rawness and intensity, added to the swirling harmonies and dazed tempos. There’s a reason for this.
In 2023, vocalist Shana Cleveland was diagnosed with breast cancer, resulting in a mastectomy. She’s talked frequently about the feeling of loss, dread, confusion, and isolation that came out of it, and in particular the feeling of looking at her husband and son playing in another room and feeling totally removed from their world.
What came out of that experience was a dramatic shift in the band’s creative process. They came together in the studio with nothing written, just to make some demos and see what comes out. As a result, the album is much messier than what they’ve produced before. It’s full of these buzzing electronic tones and searching guitar solos. Cleveland has said that she feels like she came out of the experience of cancer, losing part of her body - and the catharsis of making an album out of it - as a different person, and she wouldn’t want to go back.
The album has both an intensity and an optimism. The themes here are loss, trauma, motherhood, and as she phrases it, “unconditional love.” It’s a fascinating piece of work, and in my opinion, their best yet.

Trent Reznor, Atticus Ross, Boys Noize - Challengers [MIXED]
I haven’t seen the movie *Challengers*, which has been referred to as “the horniest sports movie you’ll ever see” (thanks for the quote, *Men’s Health*), but I probably need to. Not so much for the horniness, but for the fact that Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross did the soundtrack.
This version, mixed by Boys Noize, is especially great, and probably makes for a better listen outside of the film. It’s relatively chill for Boys Noize, but that isn’t saying very much. He even manages to work in his 2010 banger “Yeah.”
As an aside, if you ever find yourself wondering “whatever happened to [musician],” try googling “[artist’s name] soundtrack”. You might have to look up their real name to get it, but you’ll find that a lot of musicians are out there doing this. Reznor and Ross have certainly built up a demand for themselves this way, as has Clark and Oneohtrix Pointe Never). Mark Mothersbaugh practically owns the soundtrack industry.

Open Mike Eagle - Anime, Trauma and Divorce

When he set out to make this album, what Open Mike Eagle had in mind was a concept album about the role of anime in the lives of Black people. It was supposed to be an exploration of the idea that anime provides an escape into another world and a power fantasy for people who have grown up in a world of generational trauma, poverty, and racism. Instead, he suffered a series of personal losses which took it in a completely different direction.
The anime stayed, though. Sure, the album is about loss - divorce, the dissolution of his collaborative group Hellfyre Club, the cancellation of his show *The New Negros*, and then 2020 happened - but the story is always told with a metaphor from pop culture and a wry joke. It’s sad! But it’s mostly hilarious. I mean, he’s got a whole track called “WTF Is Self-Care,” a question I’ve been asking myself for years, even though I kind of know the answer already. “It’s like finding good smells/or fine wood shelves.”

Lambrini Girls - You’re Welcome

If Lambrini Girls are playing anywhere near you, cancel whatever you have planned that day and go to the show instead. When I saw them, it was at a half-filled venue in Cambridge, MA. The danger with a crowd that size is that people have too much space to walk around, look at each other, get a drink, or get distracted and chat. Instead it was absolutely electric. Within minutes they were in the audience, climbing up on people’s shoulders, crowd surfing, making everyone lie down on the floor, picking up their amps and walking around with them. There wasn’t a split-second of opportunity for anyone to get bored. I didn’t even know you *could* crowd surf with an audience that size.
It was also furiously political. The songs on this EP are all about the culture of abuse, victim-shaming, misogyny, and TERF-ism of the Brighton/London music scenes, which easily translates to American culture. Ours was one of the first shows on their US tour, and between songs they would occasionally ask the audience if we knew what “TERFs” or “lads” meant. TERFs yes, lads maybe. She mused that our version might be “chads.” I’m not sure, but I don’t think it matters. Even if we don’t know what a lad is, exactly, it’s not hard to get the gist.
My friends and I left the show absolutely shaking with adrenaline. On the way out we told the drummer (who was touring but from the US) how much we loved the show, and she responded by saying, “Yeah, those girls are machines. They’ve been in the country for two days, they’re horribly jet-lagged, and also very drunk. I don’t know how it’s possible for them to do what they do.”

Tracks

Royal & the Serpent, GAYLE - kinda smacks

You know what? It’s fun when a song sets the stakes really really low.

Talaboman - Discodrums

Talaboman is John Talabot and Alex Boman. They’ve done a few releases under this collaborative name, and this one is just as fantastic as you would expect it to be.

Courtney Barnett - Help Your Self

It’s funny how siloed music scenes can be, even within the English-speaking world. I was aware of Courtney Barnett, but I’m looking at a laundry list of awards she won or was nominated for, and of course I had no idea because I’d never heard of these award-giving organizations to begin with. I guess maybe I should look up more about The Australian Independent Record Awards and The Australasian Performing Right Association? I won’t be looking up Rolling Stone Australia, at least not today. I feel like I know enough about the normal Rolling Stone, but it could turn out to be like eating Taco Bell overseas where it’s a weirdly nice restaurant. And now that I’ve made that joke, I’ll say that I ride for Taco Bell, even in the US.

Tindersticks - Man Alone (Can’t Stop the Fadin’)

Tindersticks has been around for quite awhile now, with a brief hiatus for Stuart Staples to do some solo releases. “Man Alone” captures a lot of what’s always made them great, including the cinematic builds and the crooning vocals. I think the new thing here, though, is the track’s descent into deep chaos. I love chaos.

Don Glori - Dlareme

You can’t argue with a groove like this one. The opening piano vamp alone is worth it, and then we drop into this Quincy Jones-y “doot-doot” chorus section. It’s so 60’s, I love it.

MCR-T & horsegiirl - My Barn My Rules

I can think of at least three explanations for “My Barn My Rules,” which took TikTok by storm in 2023. They are all speculation because horsegiirl (not to be confused with Horsegirl) has never explained anything. I propose the following possibilities:

horsegiirl is a furry, and everything about this track is completely in earnest (or mostly in earnest). I don’t really know enough about furry culture to say for sure, but her insistence on staying in character through all interviews lends this theory some amount of credibility. That said, apparently she was discovered by “Whitney Horseton?” So ok, probably not completely in earnest. Most furries I’ve talked to have a sense of humor, so it seems within the realm of possibility nonetheless. And yes, I did google it just to make sure there isn’t actually a Whitney Horseton out there somewhere. Afaik, there is not.
It’s a brilliant pastiche, skewering the subgenre of female voices talk-singing some swaggering lyrics about sexiness and/or badassery over a dance beat. If so, the tempo is brilliantly exaggerated (I suppose this would be what we used to call “happy hardcore.” I haven’t written those words in a while), and the horse thing is just plain hilarious.
It’s a banger about a horse and the kids on TikTok love it. So do I. Why am I thinking so hard about this?

Cat Power & Iggy Pop - Working Class Hero

This track comes from a 2023 tribute album to Marianne Faithfull, a cover of the version on her 1979 album Broken English. That album was a true masterpiece. If you haven’t heard it, check it out. It’s an intense blend of 60’s folk-rock, punk, new wave, and some sonic experimentation that would still sound edgy today. Her version of “Working Class Hero” isn’t the original either - it’s a cover of Plastic Ono Band. Myself, I prefer Faithfull’s version (it’s not all that much like Lennon’s), and this Cat Power/Iggy Pop version is very much in the same dystopian spirit. Plus you get to hear Iggy Pop’s voice, and almost any excuse for that is a good one.

Home Counties - Uptight

This track feels like it lives somewhere between SG Lewis and Men’s Working Club. There’s some other good stuff on this album, Exactly As It Seems, but this is the one that really worked for me.

Jessica Winter & Jonathan Snipes - All I Need

Sometimes this reminds me of Goldfrapp’s Black Cherry era stuff, but a bit harder. I poked around in their respective catalogs a little. It seems like Jonathan Snipes is mostly too intellectual for me, but I found a few good Jessica Winter tracks. Check out “Do You Do You” in particular. This is the most recent thing either of them have done, so maybe there will be more? I hope so.

Unloved - I did it.

What if 50’s/60’s girl group, but really sludgy?

Wordcolor - Mallets

I’m pretty excited about this track. It’s beautiful, intricate, hard, and full of people making weird yelping noises. I’ll dig into Wordcolor a little more in the coming month. From what I’ve seen so far, it seems like his best stuff happened within the last year or so, so hopefully there’s a new album on the way.

King Hannah - New York, Let’s Do Nothing

I’m not sure whether the irony in this track extends to the idea that she feels good when she’s in New York “doing nothing.” I certainly don’t. For me, New York is pretty stifling unless I’m constantly on the move. I thought that was the whole idea with New York? But hey, different strokes, I guess.

Mildlife - Rare Air

Take some krautrock synth patches and add a smoky dance club vibe and what’ve you got? A pretty good time, I think.

Dina Summer, Kalipo, Local Suicide - All or Nothing

I hope they play this track the next time I go to a goth thing. Not everything they play at goth things is really dancefloor-ready. This would take some mixing, but I think there’s potential.

Baby Bugs - Hey Bunny

I’d understand if you felt like this track overplays its hand. There’s a real 2000’s-era newgrounds.com vibe happening here, so depending on how much you liked The Binding of Isaac and Salad Fingers, you may or may not find this appealing.

Gossip - Real Power

I had only the vaguest recollection of who Gossip was until I looked at the cover of Music for Men, and I remembered seeing it on the shelf at the record store I worked at in the summer of 2009. I also remembered my manager saying something to the effect of “Yeah, I think they’re big in Germany?” This track leans a little more heavily on the soul/disco side of their sound. It was worth a short trip back through their older stuff, but I think they’ve done a pretty good job of updating their sound here.

Re:ni - BURSTTRAP

It’s a shame that the bass music scene is so atrophied in Boston. There’s some good stuff now and again and I almost never hear it in the wild anymore.

Kablamo - assertive-aggressive

I definitely think that Kablamo is at their best when they’re doing this shoegazey psych stuff.

Conic Rose - Learn to Be Cool

This reminds me of some of the cinematic electronic music that was happening in the mid-2010s, like Bonobo and Tame Impala. The horns definitely surprised me in here.

upsammy - Building Is a Stone

That’s the problem with music these days. Not enough boing sounds.

MØ and The Raveonettes - Attack of the Ghost Riders

For the 20-ish-th anniversary of the release of Whip It On, The Raveonettes released Rip It Off, a small collection of covers by a variety of artists, including people like The Brian Jonestown Massacre and Dave Gahan. There are some interesting takes on there. I especially like this one (MØ is always great) and also “Cops on our Tail” by Trentemøller.

Bambounou - Tboujeh

I haven’t put any footwork in here in a while. I have to really be in the right mood for it, but this is a great example, with a surprising drop into half-time in the middle.

5miinust & Puuluup - (Nendest) narkootikumidest ei tea me (küll) midagi

Sometimes when I find something like this, I think to myself, “man, I should really be watching Eurovision.” And then I sit down to watch Eurovision and I think to myself, “Well, maybe I should just watch the highlights three years later.”

Hannah Peel - Emergence in Nature

I haven’t really figured out what the pattern is for electronic artists who do lots of soundtracks. Why are the soundtracks sometimes listed under their names and sometimes not? Anyway, this isn’t from a soundtrack, it’s just awesome.

July 2024 - Man, That’s a Lot of Tracks