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Off Day. Adult School
Working towards its second release, 'No Party', on 19 July, Adult School shows off its chops with this punkrocking single, lasting as short as the best 1960s singles, i.e. under 2.30 minutes. Off Day contains it all. A melodic intro, the powerpop/rock verses played tight and muted to the all out going choruses and a The Beatles ending. In between Adult School shows it knows how to build a song and a potential party song. Off Day has the quality and the fun to set off a crowd at any time of the day. Time and again within the 2.26 the song lasts. In the singing, whether that is Anton Benedicto or Nick Wuebben, I do not know, there is certainly more than a hint at emo, making the song have even more impact. Off Day is a part of the U.S.' alternative rock tradition of the last three decades, but has a very nice own take on the genre, combining it with punkrock in an ever so nice way. 'No Party' may be an album to watch out for.
With Swaying Pelvises Elenne May releases its third single working towards the start of its theater tour called 'Velvet Beings' this fall. Working with Tessa Rose Jackson (Someone) as producer has its effect on the music of Elenne May. Again I notice the electronic underground of the song. This is more an electronic song than ever before. The dark synth bass, played by Roeland Scherff, is a very characteristic part of the song that, as it were, floats over the drums of Eddie Jenssen. He is a drummer who is not afraid to step back, near fully, when a song calls for it, just delivering some percussion. Jenssen is totally present though in Swaying Pelvises. Although the song can be called dreampop, his drums certainly make it dreamrock. Over the electronic music voices weave into each other more and more, adding to the mystery the song already contains abundantly. Lyrically the song at first glance at about dancing and about freedom. All other interpretations I'll leave open here, for you to muse on. With Swaying Pelvises Elenne May has set quite a different course for itself, allowing it to dive deeper into unchartered territory. Reading the band's Bandcamp page text accompanying the single, an album is announced for February next year. The news keeps getting better.
In week 17 Wiri Donna debuted on this blog with a single from her EP Being Alone. Full of disbelieve I was working my way through the huge surprises 'No Follow Through' offered me. How can she ever top that experience?, was the question I was left with. The answer I know now, is by staying true to her artistic self. Wiri Donna, or Bianca Bailey from Wellington in New Zealand, and band can change a tranquil lake into a raging, dangerous highrise of water of biblical proportions. Ever since The Police and of course especially Nirvana, we know how this is done. (As an aside, have you ever heard 'Send Me A Postcard', Shocking Blue's second hitsingle and two before 'Venus'? No, allow yourself to be amazed in that case. It's late 1968!) Wiri Donna uses extreme dynamics in her songs quite successfully and spices them up this way no little. All the time manoeuvring herself between pop and alternative rock successfully. The songs are different enough among themselves to keep me on my toes easily. Being Alone is a great introduction to another female rock singer from New Zealand, where apparently they are growing on trees in abundance.
With Salt Wytiki releases her second solo single (see week 20 for the first one). Again it is a song that is on the very verge of my musical tastes. Electronic, dark and mysterious Salt is. Long-held electronic notes make up the music, with sparse, muffled, electronic percussion. In an interlude there's just atmospherics, Wytiki's voice and something electronic emulating her voice underneath. When the song comes back to life again, a guitar enters as do other synths and electronic strings, eventually real ones too. The song becomes more analogue by the second and is brought to life because of it, thus creating a great difference in < 3 minutes Salt lasts. This development caught my attention just in time. I'll admit to already having struck the title from the list, to put it back on. Like Belgian singer Lizzy, Wytiki successfully scales that outer edge of my musical interest. More is to come in the fall.
This trio is a recent signing to the Hamburg based Glitterhouse Records label. The single is released ahead of an LP announced for later summer. It totally fits in with recent releases from German punking rock bands. Tom Allan & The Strangest may be a little more mysterious but know how to rock in a straightforward manner as well. The mystery is caught by the different guitar effects, changing the sound of Unimpressed & Unaroused. The title leaves me with an urgent question though. If you like alternative rock and punk, and this song leaves you unimpressed and unaroused, it would seem to me like you have an issue or a hearing problem. This song is fun and there's not another word for it.
Since a week or something I'm reading that this single from 1985 is having a second run of success because of a streaming series called 'Stranger Things'. 1985 is near 40 years ago, so how does the song fare in 2022 with me. In 1985 I was at university and could not afford to buy everything being released I liked. And, to be honest, I did not like everything going on on this Kate Bush album. When someone bought a record, an LP of course, we all taped it on a cassette and expanded our collections that way. Running Up That Hill was the first single of the album 'Hounds Of Love' and the video was exciting. The song was all over the radio as well and the strong pulse driving the song ever forward, struck a chord with me alright. For me it seemed like a return to form, after the album 'The Dreaming' that totally passed me by musically and intellectually most likely as well. Running Up That Hill in one way is not that different from 'The Dreaming', it is that ever going forward rhythm representing that running and getting out of breath, making the difference. Hear how the guitar comes in later on, and an 'In The Air Tonight' like drumbreak no less, keep up the pace. It is 2022 and I can only write that Running Up That Hill has lost nothing of its alluring beauty and mystery. Kate Bush was on the top of her singles hill, with 'Cloudbusting' still to come. Hopefully the youth of today will listen to more of that great music she released before this single. Only one question remains: If this indeed is a huge hit again, how high will the song end at the end of 2022 in our Top 2000?
Soul in 2022? Yes, it exists and Carlos Truly shows the world how soul and a little jazz can be combined with more modern sounds. Decades of music meet in the twine. Soul as if recorded by the Muscle Shoals band or Aretha Franklin's musician's, a jazz piano from a smoky 1950s club and more modern rhythms and some electronics merge in a near perfect way. Carlos Truly sings over it with a highish voice, supple and soft, not to be mistaken as not being on the spot. The mix works and deserves to be heard. I am remembered of two things. First, Josh Stone's debut album, where Truly stripped away all excesses from. Second, the best The White Stripes songs, where Truly stripped away all excess noise and antics from. What you are left with then is an extremely soulful song called Vessel. Where a soul guitar plays a few blue notes and a, very warm, organ is allowed to play a few chords only. As if they are accidental passers-by. "In der Beschränkung zeigt sich erst der Meister", as J.W. Goethe wrote in one of his sonnets. I can't tell how good Carlos Truly's German is, but he certainly heeded this lesson.
What to make of Big Tear, Pitou's first single on the V2 label? Oh, it is beautiful, make no mistake there. But what kind of music is this? There seems to be a little of everything in it. A mysterious intro and outro. Classical elements, world music sounds, a rhythm that is not everyday's in pop music. And yet Pitou in her own way is part of the pop family. Yet, listen to the way she sings, listen to the beautifully constructed harmony vocals and you will know you are in pop territory. With a lot of external factors in the music itself. I can imagine this song having come to her on an acoustic guitar or piano and from there deconstructed and built up again into something completely different. However Big Tear was conceived and/or made, the result is a single Pitou can be quite proud of. An album is not to be expected before 2023. So just like with Elenne May in the above, two musicians that are certainly alike, patience is called for. More singles are announced in the mean time. And, people, should that big tear fall from the sky in the mean time, it will teach you how to swim, Pitou teaches us.
Jillette Johnson returns to this blog with another single. A whole album is more for Erwin Zijleman, the occasional single certainly can sit on my right side. Cul de Sac is a dreampop song with a country twang guitar as a strong feature. The reverb on the amp is up quite a bit providing that echo on the sound. All the while Jillette Johnson softly croons over the song. In a way it has the right title. It is not going anywhere really or at best brings you back at the point where you started, following the loop at the end. But is it necessary for a song to go anywhere, always? No, because it is possible to enjoy the ride for the ride. This is what Cul de Sac offers. Soft and slowly moving forwards, without much truly accentuating the music in the song. The dry snare sound, a twang, some vibrato and you've highlighted it all. In the mean time, Jillette Johnson sings her song about growing up in a cul de sac, thinking she was all alone and being wrong. It is enough in this case. Cul de Sac indeed.
Two Erwin Zijleman favoured singers in a row. Lera Lynn returns with her new single and combines two musical worlds, not unlike Lana del Rey does. The romantic 1950s are a part of this single as are more modern times, making the song tougher than most Del Rey's songs, if not all. The dreamy illusion of things long, if not too long ago is spiced by a strong rhythm and a muted country style guitar. The way Illusion sounds was impossible in the 1950s of course. In 2022 the whole orchestra that was behind the singers from 1950 is missing here. It is that elusive way of singing with all the studio effects on the voice, today, that creates that atmosphere from long ago. There are more singers fishing in the pond Lera Lynn is active in with her new single. That works out fine however. Illusion is a song that is warm and aloof, as if the warmth is not meant for me but for someone else. Sometimes that kind of warmth is enough to receive and today is such a day.
Wout de Natris
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