A Little International Women’s Day Love

Posted: March 8, 2023 by Kat Meow in Alix Dobkin, Americana, Brandi Carlile, Bush Tetras, Film Score, Folk, Hip Hop, Mai Yamane, Post Punk, Salt N Pepa, Vocalist
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Today is International Women’s Day.  Radio stations have been blasting us with a higher-than-usual ratio of kickass female artists, giving me the urge to spread some love on my forever faves, older and newer.  Here are five songs by or featuring women that I want to give some International Women’s Day love.

Ain’t Nuttin But a She Thing – Salt ‘N’ Pepa

My wee little 90s girl heart lived on the rhymes of Salt N’ Pepa.  And while “Shoop” may be the SNP tune I could rap on command, this one gets the IWD love for putting the boot down on being underestimated for our S-E-X.  I love this track for showing love to our unique ability to be mothers while still doing everything else a man can.  The video is equally ferocious, lush with female dominance and enough body-ody-ody for my burgeoning bisexual teen heart.  Extra bonus for the burns and beatdowns on the video’s violating males.

Gotta Knock A Little Harder – Mai Yamane (The Seatbelts)

This little gem from back in the day still gives me chills.  Mai Yamane’s voice is husky and fervent as she tears through this bluesy track.  Every yeah yeah and woo woo is sinewy flesh beating at the door to your heart and coming away with chunks of wood and iron.  Tucked away in the credits of 2001’s Cowboy Bebop motion picture, this track is one of the lesser celebrated triumphs of the “Seatbelts,” a jazz band of collected artists who created Bebop’s beloved and renowned soundtracks that were so good they nearly outshined the anime itself.  Yamane’s voice was a standout among them all, a beacon of fervor I still love decades later.

The Joke – Brandi Carlile 

A good way to measure if you’re dead inside is to listen to this track and try not to get some feels.  Carlile’s voice is crystal clear and resonates around my head.  No, really.  I feel it like someone is gently tugging the skin behind my ears, like the Goddess is gripping me by the cuff like I’m a puppy.  This track is a hammer on the heads of the snide and cruel.  Special love goes to the second verse that gives love to refugee and immigrant women, whose struggles are close to the heart of why have an International Women’s Day in the first place – the tragedy of textile workers, mostly immigrant women, who died while being locked inside the burning Triangle Shirtwaist Factory in 1911.

Too Many Creeps – Bush Tetras

Despite being a lifelong New Yorker, I only recently got into the Bush Tetras and their long history of being one of New York’s finest punk funk bands.  They were remarkable for being mostly female, comprised of vocalist Cynthia Sley, guitarist Pat Place, and a long history of female bassists.  Their recent collection, “Rhythm and Paranoia – The Best of the Bush Tetras” provides nubs like me with a lovingly crafted collection of their finest work, which I have devoured.  I got to catch them doing a Planned Parenthood benefit this past December, and let me tell you, our rock and roll elderwomen are freaking awesome.  Women ran to the front of the stage and stood our ground in a sweaty mess of estrogen and joy.  I wish I had this band growing up, but I am grateful I have them now.

The Lesbian Power Authority – Alix Dobkin

Alix Dobkin was the first lesbian feminist musician to originate in the states and go on a European concert tour.  Back in the days when the feminist movement of the Civil Rights Era was in full swing, Dobkin was a folk musician playing coffeehouses and singing about love the straights wouldn’t dream of.  Her landmark album, Lavender Jane Loves Women, remains close to the heart of today’s young lesbians.  It can be surprising to look back to the wee days of 1973, when singing songs about women loving women was brash and revolutionary.  There is no better day to remember who blazed the earliest trails for women to be fully free than on International Women’s Day.

Want to see other female artists Music Survival Guide loves? Check out:

SATE takes NYC
New Song and Video – “God Complex” by Gentle Party
Katie Toupin – Magnetic Moves album review
Dutch chanteuse Kovacs stuns with new album Child of Sin
Artist Feature – Lara Hope and the Ark Tones

Dutch chanteuse Kovacs stuns with new album Child of Sin

Posted: February 9, 2023 by Kat Meow in Classical, Kovacs, Netherlands, Soul, Vocalist
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Kovacs is the name of baldy-rocking Dutch songstress Sharon Kovacs.  After the initial success of her 2014 EP, My Love, Kovacs released full length albums Shades of Black (2015) and Cheap Smell (2018), as well as several successful singles.  In 2022, she whet the European public’s appetite with four of the album’s tracks as singles (“Not Scared of Giants,” “Bang Bang,” “Fragile,” and “Goldmine”) before dropping the her third full length album, Child of Sin, in January 2023.  In a departure from her more poppy and trip-hoppy releases this past decade, Kovacs seems to have found sturdy footing in a more classical approach.  Co-written with producer Jonathan Quarmby, Child of Sin becomes an unmissable piece of art and drama.

Kovacs winnows down the guts of her stories into their most raw and pure form, and bejewels them in tinkling instruments and jaunty arrangements that center the beats of her storytelling.  There is no extraneous detail, no unnecessary layer, no excess that draws away from the white-hot heat of her bluesy vocal.  That voice!  On tracks like “Goldmine” and “Bang Bang,” she dances on rhythmic tip-toes like a Liza-esque chanteuse, breathing self-possession and ambition into every beat.  More sensitive tracks like “Fragile” and “High Tide” may recall an Amy Winehouse type of flesh.   But her pain isn’t necessarily sacred.  The choices of rhythm sound at home in a cabaret, draped in fabrics, which makes it fun and apt for repeated listens. And for all its pain, Child of Sin is transcendent. Kovacs is reliving the agonies of her youth and emerging, victorious.

The best draws of Child of Sin are the little grotesque details that become brain food for the visual listener.  “Fragile” has its own unique body horror, illustrated through her “porcelain teeth” and her body “decomposed til’ only dust is left.”  “Bang Bang” happens in the heat of the moment until you catch the premeditated detail of the plastic sheet.  Kovacs becomes her own “Love Parasite” after sensing her urges “crawling around my insides, multiplying in the dark.”  It’s this kind of attention to detail that gives her tunes their magnetism and helps expose her core. She is clearly having some fun with it all, like her own personal season of American Horror Story.

A tiny detail of hand-biting in “Goldmine” illustrates Kovacs being subjected to what might be the dominance of men withholding her cash and suppressing her talent.  Similarly in finale “Mama,” Kovacs gently rejects the overbearing maternalism from an apologetically cloying parent: “ain’t like it used to be, when I would hold your hand, and wobble on your knees.”  Kovacs unchains herself from the weights others use to restrain her, both personally and musically. “I’m controlling everything now, independently.” she says in her press release.  “Music, videos, costumes, set design, make-up, even the look of the record.”  The result is as addictive as it is gut-twisting, and wall to wall enjoyable.

Title track “Child of Sin” features a duet with Rammstein giant Till Lindermann singing from the core of the earth, telling a dual story of youth and pain.  While the story has just enough detail to leave the listener wondering about the ugliness of the protagonist’s origins, it creates just enough visual to leave me hungering for a spotlight and a sequin dress.  Kovacs, fellow baldy queen, write us a musical.  I can only imagine what you would do.

Kovacs Instagram ★ Kovacs Website ★ Kovacs Youtube

Music Survival Guide 2022 – Year in Review

Posted: December 22, 2022 by Kat Meow in Action/Adventure, Coventry Carols, Fishbone, General, Ho99o9, Hoddy, Ibibio Sound Machine, Live Shows, N8NoFace, OfficialSoda, Sho Madjozi, Stromae
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In the winter of 2021, while poking through shelves of thrift shop CDs, I posed a pitch to Soda Survive about Music Survival Guide.  My favorite band’s new album was underrepresented by people who make words mean things, and I was frustrated about it enough to act.  “Sure,” he said, handing me an inbox full of submissions he had no time to manage, having just given birth to Coventry Carols.  I began sucking down new music releases like crab legs at the Chinese buffet and regurgitating the thesaurus about ‘em.  Forty-five posts and roughly 20,000 words later, I have come to a few conclusions:  

  • I like writing, but I really like attention.
  • I know I’m good at writing, but I will be excellent at it.
  • I have absolutely no qualifications to write about music in any technical or academic way.  But I am going to keep doing it anyway.
  • If I could be at a show every night, I would be.
  • The hardest and most frustrating posts to write are about shows, and yet they end up being my favorite pieces to have written.

For the last few years, I, like all of us, have all relied on hours upon hours of media content to keep ourselves entertained, functional, and relevant.  But our artists are struggling.  Artist after artist is canceling tours, citing astronomical costs.  They are subsisting on pocket change while half-dead code monkeys figure out new ways to gatekeep which songs break out to wider audiences.  Artists can’t get on radio, as if most radio played new music anyway.  Artists are handmaking merch only to find that venues want a cut of the pie. And you can’t even blame some venues, who are pressured to keep tickets and drink prices low while keeping the lights on with soaring rents.  Some smaller venue owners never really turn a profit, but they keep the machine turning because they like to see bands play – if they managed to stay open.  And yet everyone has their hands in the pockets of people with the fortitude to put their feelings on stage.  I can’t help but wonder what invisible voids are being left by artists who throw in the towel so they can make sure the lights stay on and the kids are fed.  

The ecosystem isn’t functioning.  I don’t know if it ever really functioned – I have no way of knowing, being an outsider.  But I do know that the rest of us take on responsible jobs to be flush with cash, and we’re not getting paid our worth either.  So imagine being the artists, carving their flesh on the stage, for dollars that can buy fewer and fewer groceries each week.

As listeners, we are the largest group of stakeholders in this ecosystem.  But we’re not going out to see shows, even though we’re curating playlists out of artists that make fractions of pennies for all the free pleasure we take.  And without us to consume the art, what is the purpose of performing it?  So much of our consumption of things is at home now.  We’re all gobbling Ubereats and White Claws while binge watching seasons of Gordon Ramsay’s Forehead Wrinkles.  We’re numbing ourselves to these fifteen second snippets of TikToks and reels flying by our faces so fast we can hardly consider the literal nothing we waste our time watching.  We’d rather be in bed than in the world, and we’d rather flake on our friends than muster the energy to connect, and boy don’t we feel numb, because if we weren’t numb, we’d be miserable anyway.  We’d rather keep the ten bucks, even though it’ll eventually end up being spent on corporate weed.  

But, starlight is starting to shine through the miasma.  On any given night, a dozen bands are playing a dozen crappy bars in a dozen cities, and doing it for ten dollars a pop to earn enough gas money to make it to the next town.  And they’re doing it because the alternative is eating some middle-manager’s shit for slightly more money.  There is no reason why any person with a dollop of disposable income and a couple hours of free time shouldn’t be standing in a room listening to someone wailing behind a thrift shop Casio.  There’s nothing at home, people.  The golden era of niche TV is nearly over, and whether Marvel movies are art or trash, we’ve all had our fill of them.  Even the shittiest band’s live show is better than most of the offerings on the streamers, or worse, the cultural feces of trending videos and sounds on the socials.  The plague made staying at home jump the shark.  What a bore.  And yet societally-induced depressions and anxieties have us telling ourselves home is better.  Change the conversation.

But I’m tired.  I’m always tired.  If I’m going to be tired, it should be because I danced.

It costs money.  If I have enough money to order Ubereats, I can afford a $12 cover and a watered-down vodka.

I haven’t heard of them.  I’ll hear of them tonight, then.  

Nobody will go with me.  Go alone.  Being with oneself is the shit.  Experiencing life alone is underrated and yet it still has a stigma of being off.  Fuck stigmas.

What if I don’t like them? I don’t think people understand the power of having a safe experience like listening to music-you-don’t-like-at-first and trying to understand it anyway.  There are few things in the world that teach a person about themselves better than leaning into something one dislikes.  Some of the best experiences I have had this year have been from breathing through something that strikes me wrong, and leaning in instead of retreating.  Remember, THEY have the guts to get on stage.  So give the act the respect it deserves just for having the br/ovaries to try.

A ten dollar show is an adventure waiting to happen.  And I can’t think of anything more dreadful than thousands of people sitting at home doing the same old nothing and feeling the same old nothing while even the shittiest, least developed, and greenest young indie band can make you feel something.  More people need to be going out to shows.  Let’s get off our asses.  If we can leave our hangups, our identities, and our preconceived notions at the door, we can find something in almost any piece of music made with the teeniest amount of skill and thought.  

So in 2023, I am going to write more about live shows.  I want to put my body out in the world, where the music is playing.  And I want other people to do it with me.  When the body is tired, we rest.  But when the soul is tired, we dance.  So let’s fucking dance.

To celebrate a year of good shows, here is a top five countdown of the best shows I saw this year, including a couple I hadn’t written about yet.

5. Too Many Zooz supported by YamYam

Yam Yam started the show off pretty good.  Funky and soulful, with a number of really groovy moments that had me moving.  The bassist was up there looking like Jaco’s grandcousin playing that funk and a handful of smooth covers.  I enjoyed them.

I was supposed to see Zooz many times and never made it, so it was really satisfying to finally be in the sprawl and see what they really do.  Saxophonist Leo P was equal parts gutter and glam in sparkle jorts, Beavis and Butthead tank, and vaguely pink mullet.  Ever a showman, Leo blurts out these deep fat tones while he grinds Ginuwine “Pony” style against his baritone sax.  To the left, the trumpeting was crazy wild from Matt Muirhead.  That trumpet sounds even farther out front in the real world, screaming with impassioned frenzy that vibrates the chest.  But it’s King of Sludge that engaged me most – his face was concentrated, framed by his strong jawline adorned with curly beard hair, framed in a bright pink beanie.  Sludge is lean and solid, and even though he could put down his tools in this non-busking context, he remains pregnant with his drum on his waist, thundering airily like Zeus banged it himself.

4. Ho9909 supported by N8NOFACE and Hoddy

N8NOFACE remains unlike anything I have ever seen.  His maddening self-inflicted violence over darkwave synth loops color his intensely painful traumas, leaving you with powerful danceable Tucson punk.  Ho99o9 headlined with their own combination of hellish cyberpunk filth. Ever been turned on by a six foot tall horror clown with dreadlocks and platform boots? My second 999 show and not my last.  Read more.

3. Stromae supported by Sho Madjozi

This show opened with Sho Madjozi, whose pop Afrobeats and wild dance moves were fun to watch.  She was the first South African musician to ever play the Garden, a dream come true for her.  She’s a high energy mix with her Tsonga-fusion looks and stomping dances and lots of fun.

But Stromae!  I had decided to swear off arena shows after the disappointment of Pumpkins and Jane’s at UBS.  But Belgian pop icon Stromae had sold out two nights at Madison Square Garden, and I had never seen a full stage pop spectacular before.  Plus, I had good company: a friend that had introduced me to Stromae’s heart-grabbing Europop and vibrant imagery through their love of French language.  Stromae’s dramatic voice poured through his most profound songs.  He was illustrated by fifteen enormous screens positioned on robot arms with articulated ball joints; screens that alternated between precise visual choreography and being one giant beast theater for Stromae’s charming animations.   “Fils de Joie,” for example, used images of animated marching soldiers, in military garb of many nations, to illustrate a facade of dignity over the tale of an exploited sex worker.  Geometric animations colored Stromae’s incurable hurt during “Papaoutai.”  A choreographed recliner partnered with Stromae during “Mauvaise Journée” et “Bonne Journée.”  I wanted a spectacle, and I got it – one of very few arena shows that I think were worth every penny.

2. Fishbone supported by Action/Adventure

Action/Adventure are cutie patooties with their barrier-blasting pop punk and branded hot sauce. Fishbone is a tried and true favorite.  A Fishbone show is family. Six down, infinity to go.  Read more.

1. Ibibio Sound Machine supported by DJ Sinkane

Ibibio Sound Machine is now a no-miss band for me.  A friend asked me if they were becoming my new Thumpasaurus, I had them on repeat so much.  That’s some high-as-hell praise if you know me. And Eno Williams is a goddess. DJ Sinkane was a worthy watch considering I’m not a lover of DJ sets. Sweatiest most joyous show of the year.   Read more.

I won’t only be writing up live shows.  Keep the submissions coming!  A handful of career retrospectives and interviews with artists are also coming when I bring back the Music Survival Guide Podcast.  Thank you for reading and for all of the clickies and internet points. Happy Winter! I’ll see you at the end of January 2023.  Keep in touch on instagram, @officialmusicsurvivalguide.

Music Survival Guide Instagram ★ Music Survival Guide Podcast

Glam Rockers ROYAL SUGAR premiere video “Fleeting Love”

Posted: December 15, 2022 by Kat Meow in Glam, Nashville, Rock, Royal Sugar
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I have been a sucker for prettyboys in makeup and scarves ever since I started experimenting with heterosexuality in my late teens.  Royal Sugar know exactly what they are doing with every painted nail and pouffed curl in their new video, “Fleeting Love.”  Check out this Raven-haired nephew of Robert Plant serving drama.  This is toxic romance ripe for angsty teen girls, but I’d be lying if I didn’t say my head doesn’t swing when he shouts “You can’t leave me love!”  

Nashville-based Duo Tyler Cohenour and Garrett Carr started their journey on Tiktok covering Harry Styles’ live track “Medicine.”  But while their sounds come from One Direction, their looks come from another: the Aqua-Net and sterling silver tradition that I have been grieving since the early 00s, when all the bro bands decided to make misery rock and be extra dudely.  Boring.  Royal Sugar plan to carry the banner of a glam rock revival.  Oh please, please do.  I will shower you in glitter confetti.

“Fleeting Love”

Royal Sugar’s ripe-for-arena pop bathes in the visual legacies left by Marc Bolan and Queen.  GNR-flavored crane shots give us full views of their impressive array of deep V-neck tops and scarves.  Bathe in the drama with Cohenour and his antique red telephone.  Watch Carr and his wispy spikes tempt fate while his guitar wails on the wet bathroom floor near a broken antennae television.  So pretty.  So tortured.  So retro.  I hope those heeled boots insulate them from their guaranteed electrocution.  

Royal Sugar are a little silly.  But if you scan their TikTok, they know they’re a little silly, whether they’re eating skittles off their star-spangled tops, or chiseling open oranges with their jawlines.  Think of them like Måneskin but more sexy-cute than sexy-dangerous.  It’s a bit of a respite if you’re bored of oversexed pop imagery.  Glam ought to have a bit of mystery to it.  I look forward to more.

Royal Sugar TikTok ★ Royal Sugar Instagram ★ Royal Sugar Spotify ★

Witchy new video “Hubble Bubble” by FreQ Nasty feat. Chris Munky and MARF

Posted: December 8, 2022 by Kat Meow in Chris Munky, Electronic, Experimental, Freq Nasty, London, Los Angeles, MARF
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FreQ Nasty and his dreadlocked crown hail from desert festivals and underground dancefloors writhing with experimental madness.  Known mostly for his instantly recognizable work with Santigold, and a long resumé of well-known collaborators and remixes, FreQ (Darin to his mum) also pioneers with his own bass and breakbeat collection.  His newest video release, “Hubble Bubble,” is a potion concocted with velvet vocalist MARF and fellow breakbeat producer Chris Munky.  It is spooky, and disconcerting, and rumbles with ill-fated sensuality.  MARF’s shiraz voice casts a potent spell over this ominous gem and its fractured smatterings of sound. 

“Hubble Bubble’s” spell brings toil and trouble in the form of gently pagan motifs and warped analog tape.  Shots of FreQ Nasty and Chris Munky seem to flaunt a collection of imprisoned and mind-warped men as MARF lavishes menacingly in her own cauldron.  FreQ Nasty’s eyes are crazed as if still warped by a spell binding him to his urges.  You get the sense that the desperate spider under a glass, panicking with the drum flourishes, is being rendered impotent by the very spell MARF is casting with her knife and chess token.  She lounges among nature adorned in beats and furs while the vibrating bass rumbles with primal magicks.  Her gaze, dark and witchy with flavors of Siouxsie, enraptures: “Give me your wrists so I can hold them / Give me your heart so I can put it in a bag / Give me your love and devotion / He knelt down and I pulled out my dagger.”  Fuzzy screens, ladders, and reversed physics give the whole video a vibe akin to the cursed video in The Ring, so thanks for those nightmares again.  

FreQ Nasty describes the tune’s “angular amen cuts, slow-motion 808 kick drums, and hypnotic mantra-esque whispers,” which, for the technically uneducated, means he makes all the twiddly knob bits make absolutely looney sounds like distended wibblewobbles and fwips and thudnnnnnnn-D-D-D-D-D-D-D-D-D-D-D-D-D *clap* bits.  It’s really good. It’s electronic music with a really delicious homemade visual experience.  I would do some weird psychedelic shit on the dance floor to this one if I encountered it in the wild, and I hope I do.

FreQ Nasty Links ★ Chris Munky Linktree ★ MARF Website

Jem debuts “Love Me Or Lose Me”

Posted: November 30, 2022 by Kat Meow in Jazz, Jem, London, R&B, Soul
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Jem is an English artist hitting the British jazz pop scene with her EP, Love Me or Lose Me.  Motifs about forbidden love come through Jem’s rich tones and smooth jazz rhythms in its four tracks.  The EP starts with “Juliet,” which introduces the more self-conscious and exploratory parts of starting a new relationship.  The red flags are waving throughout – the overthinking, the doubt, the blinders over the lover’s flaws, but that’s par for the course if you’re getting drawn in by a Romeo.  “Falling 4U,” featuring Tomi Balogh, romanticizes the falling with some 00s-type R&B flavors.

A standout track for is “1.18,” where our Juliet is caught in her thoughts in the wee hours of the morning.  Smooth rhythms with spoken-word vocals lament a deep insecurity from an unsure love.  All those red flags from the first two tracks come to a head here.  Sweet and strummy guitars illustrate that frustrating feeling of uncertainty.  It’s hard to know if her lover is giving her the runaround, or if she’s giving it to herself through that endless process of thinking and rethinking into eternity.  What strikes me is how often I’ve been down this road, and how many friends I have watched spiral, asking “what are we?”  Maybe needing to ask is the biggest red flag of all.

Jem’s voice and keys fit with the shift to cold winter tones.  Final track “Fingertips” tinkles this warm EP to a close.  A solid effort from this London-based newcomer.

Jem TikTok  ★  Jem Love Me Or Lose Me EP  ★  Jem Instagram

Reeny Smith’s New Single Amber Lights & Holiday EP Where You At Santa?

Posted: November 23, 2022 by Kat Meow in Uncategorized
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Nova Scotia’s soulful songstress Reeny Smith released smooth ballad “Amber Lights” in late September. “Amber Lights” are warning signs to slow down and heed some caution. Reeny’s gospel-trained pipes are warm to the ears. It’s a sweet track with a good message, especially if you’re the kind of person that sees an amber signal and hits the gas… a possible disaster in either a car or a relationship.

Reeny’s sound and vibe are pitch perfect for a holiday album, and as we welcome the winter season, also check out her EP of holiday tracks, Where You At Santa? It’s a low-key bunch of tinkling hot cocoa ballads and Hallmark movie R&B. I’m always down for a new version of “Little Drummer Boy” and Reeny’s is pretty nice.

Reeny Smith Website ★ Reeny Smith Bandcamp ★ Reeny Smith Instagram

Basic Printer’s HAHA YEAH Drops A Week Early

Posted: November 17, 2022 by Kat Meow in Basic Printer, Electronic, Experimental, Nashville, Pop
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The front page of his bold bright-on-black website welcomes you with the following: “You’re finally home, my fellow weirdo.” He might as well have rolled out a red carpet for a dweeb like me.  Basic Printer (Jesse Gillenwalters) and his color-blocked universe hail from Nashville’s underground, where he has developed a small but mighty following for his catchy experimental pop with electronic twiddly sound bits.  True to the tone of the album, he succumbed to his id and set it free a week early. HAHA YEAH is 26 minutes of bright vocals over earwormy rhythms as he explores relationship drama and emotional blockage, an experience he describes as a “temper tantrum” of emotional immaturity.

The album makes an interesting choice by tossing medical terms in with its robo-imagery, giving this pop a bit of iron and gristle.  The first track is called “<3 MECHANICAL HEARTBEAT <3,” pre-emoji hearts included. This tune laments the speaker’s defensively cold heart with a pretty vocal.  Boppy “TOURNIQUET,” references tying wounds and “razors in her mouth.”  It’s a little metal for the bedroom pop but I’m not mad about it – these medical references give his candied synth an edge. But HAHA YEAH gets more dark than gooey. “EVER SINCE YOU MOVED (DOWN THE STREET)” uses its mechanical voice for a fizzy buzzy confession and then lets VGM sounds express the shame and panic that the voice cannot.  Even the end of “PATIENT ROLE” slows itself down and darkly declares that “we are conjoined,” the weightiest medical word of the tune and one that shifts its sadness into what feels like a want of control. 

“PATIENT ROLE” ends up being a stand out track.  It has this mellow descent that is so smooth and beautiful while also being powerfully desperate.  A hip hop interlude from A. J. Crew slides smoothly through extended covidian metaphors.  But the biggest draw for me is how Jesse’s cutie-pie vocal wraps around my vena cava.  We get moments of his raw insecurity coming through: “Tell me/I need to know I’m needed/I need to know I’m healthy/I’m begging for empathy/know me.”  It warbles through my mellow and pokes the buttons in my needy spots.  I like the way his voice goes high.  Get it, Mariah.

HAHA YEAH reveals a lot of turmoil in eight pop tracks.  It comes to a begrudging, maybe even petulant conclusion that makes it hard to know if its voice is maturing or just yielding.  But what it does most successfully is toss in eggs and sugar to bake these contradictions into funfetti cake.  It’s a worthy choice for the repeat button, I think.

Basic Printer Website ★ Basic Printer Bandcamp ★ Basic Printer Instagram

Vinyl Floor’s Funhouse Mirror Triumphs Over its Melancholy

Posted: November 11, 2022 by Kat Meow in Denmark, Indie, Rock, Vinyl Floor
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Funhouse Mirror is the fifth offering from Danish duo Vinyl Floor.  Brothers Daniel and Thomas Charlie Pederson share vocals and songwriting duties and play most of the instrumental parts themselves.  Supported by a handful of invited musicians, the album was recorded live in Malmö, Sweden and finished in their native Denmark.  Funhouse Mirror’s ten tracks are a plate of biscuits with buttery layers of beautiful sound and lyric.  This is really approachable and satisfying melodic indie pop with gently psychedelic qualities and stark lyrical imagery.  The Pederson’s vocals have a richness, like a tint to them that I feel like I keep hearing in other artists of Scandinavian descent (Daði Freyr and Erlend Øye come to mind). They are clear, pretty, and warm.

Funhouse Mirror is a collection of minor key melodies stuffed with soaring whooshy moments thanks to its liberal use of horns, keys, and breezy vocals.  From the start, opener track “Anything You Want” is a stomper that introduces the album’s retro “grandchild of Sargeant Pepper” feel.  Following, “Clock With No Hands” and “Between Lines Undone” really center those amazing Pederson vocals.  They’re chock full of Jellyfish-like woowoos, and I love me some woowoos.  Woowoos power the engines that keep Vinyl Floor’s melancholic songs in flight.  Like much music coming out right now, the majority of songs were written in the dark years.  Funhaus Mirror is an attempt to make that inescapable mid-lockdown “Groundhog Day” feeling into something that transcends, and somehow it manages to capture both the good and the bad without being too reminiscent of all those crappy feelings that you’d rather forget, because now they feel like funnel cake during a day at the carnival.

Around mid album we start getting heady and folky, with tracks like “Dear Apollon” and “Ever the Optimist” playing with idioms and allegories.  “Dear Apollon” prays for divine inspiration through Billy Joel-esque piano soft rock, continuing that sense of listlessness: “I long for pacific winds to shake me through, today not tomorrow.”  “Ever the Optimist,” turns this common phrasing of words into a character who seems to descend into himself.  As “Ever” rolls into a delicious jamband groove, I realize these attempts to stay skyward and jaunty are more and more desperate.  

By the last third of the album, the tracks become one long narrative diving into one’s darkness and back.  The album hits its emotional nadir during “Death of a Poet,” where it changes and molts before descending into proggy grunge in “Stare, Scare.”  This one is heavy enough for some Heavy Metal-esque mental animations thanks to its electric guitars and references to fear.  For all of its tonal darkness, this one is the most optimistic as it stares mortality in the face, and suddenly drum beats are clubs bashing the brains of zombies or Nazgûl or stalfos – pick your fantasy poison.  Its finale, “Days,” is like a reward for the vigilance of battling the evils.  If the album soars through the sky, “Days” is a dusky orange horizon and a reason to set down and rest your head.  

All in all, Funhouse Mirror is beautifully done.  It carries its triumph throughout its ten tracks and still manages to end on the strongest emotions. It’s a great offering for anyone who is looking to sit in their sads and watch the clouds.

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A Saturday Night with Ibibio Sound Machine and DJ Sinkane

Posted: October 28, 2022 by Kat Meow in Afrobeats, England, Funk, Ibibio Sound Machine, Live Shows, Post Punk
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I think it was WFUV’s Russ Borris who first played Ibibio Sound Machine on the radio on my way to work, and I was instantly hooked.  Their fourth album, called Electricity, is an infectious mix of African percussion with electronic keys and horns for days.  It’s like Afrobeat dance punk, and it’s stunning.  Their latest album was produced by dance titans Hot Chip, who are beloved in New York and are basically cousins of hometown heroes LCD Soundsystem.  Everyone in this room would have these three on the same playlist, which made me a little irritated that Brooklyn Bowl wasn’t packed to the gills with heads the way I have seen this venue before.  This is the party.  Imagine missing this.  Nonetheless, there was a respectably sized crowd of eclectics, so I didn’t feel too bad. 

The show opened with a DJ set from Sinkane.  His music was a delicious mix of Afrobeats and funk/soul rhythms I hadn’t heard before.  I’m not usually keen on DJ sets in general because I don’t want to watch people standing behind their setups twiddling knobs and buttons – I watch Star Trek for that.  But Sinkane was actually engaging to watch.  He is as into the music he’s playing as anyone in the crowd would be, and he grooves like every minute of sound he twists and twiddles is an opportunity not to be wasted – a thought given extra weight by his ominous tee shirt that shouted “HEAVEN HELP US” in bold colors.  Dancing now is surviving Now.  The crowd swings smiles and arms around a loose floor.  One crowd-goer, I thought, was doing her whole Zumba routine.  Oh, to have that stamina.

Lights go dark, and the crowd turns forward expectantly as deep tones flood the floor.  Ibibio Sound Machine descend to the stage.  They are a gorgeous set of performers in colorful printed patterns and geometric embroidery.  Frontwoman and vocalist Eno Williams was a dream in marigold yellow, draped in layers of fabric from her powerful epaulettes, and belted, like the jumpsuit of an Afrofuturist super saiyan.  Medallions dangle from her crown of braided hair.  She is utterly, unbelievably, beautiful.  

They eased in with “Electricity,” a perfect opener that washes away the “big big English/big big grammar” of the world’s nonsense.  It grows in layers of percussion and synth and envelopes you in the song’s message of love.  That’s when guitarist Alfred Kari Bannerman pulls out an austere-looking Ghanain instrument called a “korego.”  It produces this pure plucking tone that sounds otherworldly in context of Hot Chip style synths and drums.  Bannerman chants with the korego, deepening its thick notes.  Every so often you go to a show and you see a moment of something so uniquely beautiful that you know you will remember it for a very long time.  

We are, like, 3 minutes into the show, and I’m already levitated on rhythm, bless.  

I was perched at the front of the stage beneath Afla Sackey’s drums – Sackey’s face is grinning through his concentration while his hands slap out the rhythms that make my hips twirl.  His hands are a blur during “17 18 19” and I am complete – this is the tune that first hooked me.  At one point Sackey takes the mic and shares how, when he plays, all of his problems disappear.  Yeah, when you play, mine do too, heh.

Eno addresses the crowd with love.  She reveals “Protection From Evil” was written as a ward against Corona before its wobbly electro tones begin the song’s incantation.  Ibibio is a gorgeous language I can only interpret through my hips.  The funk keeps coming.  “I Need You to Be Sweet Like Sugar (Nnge Nte Suka)” and “Afo Ken Doko Mien” give us slower grooves, and Eno gets to use a voice modulator and keys during the most gentle moment of the show.  “Wanna Come Down” and “Wanna See Your Face Again” show her love for the Brooklyn crowd.  At one point, DJ Sinkane and several of the more fabulous looking crowd members joined ISM on stage to smash some percussion.  A flautist named Domenica Fossati, from Brooklyn’s own Underground System, tore into a fiery flute solo while Williams danced in celebration.  

My poor injured feet and aching body.  At one point I held onto the stage’s barriers just so I could keep whipping my aging heft from side to side.  I had had two weeks of several low-key or just plain underwhelming shows, and Ibibio Sound Machine set me alight in the way I needed.  You know you love a band when you can’t stop listening to them, for days on days on days, after seeing them live.  I only wish some snafu hadn’t taken away our opportunity hear soulful anthem “All That You Want” as I was ready to croon along to it.  But it’s no matter, I’m sure the chance will come.  Maybe one day I’ll get to see them in their London home base.  In the mean time, Ibibio’s four albums of bonafide bangers will have to do.

Ibibio Sound Machine are Eno Williams, Afla Sackey, Alfred Bannerman, Winston Blissett, Joseph Amoako, Scott Baylis, Tony Hayden, and Max Grunhard.

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