Soon: Ought
My brother once gave me a mixed tape entitled “opera for people who don’t like opera”. I was reminded of that title when I heard the Montreal-based band Ought. For the diehard guitar-loving veteran indie kid, the band’s keyboardist Matt may be said to be playing “keyboards for people who don’t like keyboards”. He actually sounds […]
11:26
Here’s another outstanding contemporary post-punk record from North America. When I first heard the Calgary band Preoccupations’ eponymous second album, I was simultaneously so impressed and so bewildered that I had to do some background research. I just couldn’t understand where they were coming from, and how they managed to hold together and irradiate such […]
Soon: Protomartyr
It seems fitting to stumble across Protomartyr’s The Agent Intellect way after the fact and realize it’s your missed album of the year for 2015, and then take another few months before you get around to finally writing about it. Stumbling, belatedness, near misses and wilfully waiting for the right moment seem to be what […]
Soon: Duelectrum
Offering their own interpretation of the introspective evanescence so integral to the shoegaze mindset, Duelectrum seem to barely exist. They are from São Paulo, Brazil, and include Filipe Albuquerque on vocals and guitar, Franklin Weise on vocals and bass, Lucas Lippaus on guitar and Elson Barbosa on drums. Formed in 1999 by Albuquerque and Weise, […]
Continental Drift
I’d read somewhere that a book called Hearing History: A Reader, edited by the promisingly Fall-esquely named Mark M. Smith, explored the distinction between “American sound” and “European sound”. This got me all excited and I chased down the book. Disappointingly, though, it turned out that the relevant chapters were not really about the similarities […]
Soon: You Walk Through Walls
The warm, crepuscular tones of You Walk Through Walls’ self-titled new album evoke a tender and reassuring yet somehow distant domesticity, like photos of friends and family pinned onto the fridge or letters written to loved ones back home from a mildly adventurous yet personally significant trip. The London-based band includes two former Air Formation members, […]