Anything On Your Mind?
Well, we’ve reached 2020, a year where I don’t need to explain why it was important. On March 12th, I was told to stay home from work and a week later my kids’ schools shut down. And at that point, life was very different, very strange, and for a while, very terrifying. At least until we settled in some and got used to staying away from people and figuring out how to actually live. I don’t want this to be a general memoir of that time, because I’m not sure people want to read that, but I’ll touch on a few things. Live music was, for obvious reasons, out. Some artists did do some livestreaming of performances, but I didn’t pay much attention to that, for the same reason I’ve never really paid much attention to live albums. I did participate some in some live events for a podcast I listen to, but mostly I relied on online gaming to stay in touch with my friends. While there are pleasures to be had there, and I miss the gaming lunches with one friend in particular, it’s really not quite the same as sharing a table. My roleplaying campaign shambled forward thanks to Discord and Roll20, I played a lot of BoardGameArena, and Jackbox games got a real workout. Enough to keep me sane, not enough to really feel like I was fully living my life.
I’ll be honest, I don’t remember exactly what was happening with record releases at this time. I’m sure stuff ground to a half for a while, and I know that a lot of artists were struggling with the sudden lack of income from live shows. But work reached another level of difficulty during the supply disruptions, and I didn’t have a lot of time for thinking about anything other than work, figuring out how to keep my family safe, and keeping my kids entertained and engaged. I’m curious what I’m going to see when I look at the album chart, because I genuinely don’t know what I’d flag as a “2020 record”.
I’ve got seven of those in the library, which is an increase from the previous couple years, although I do suspect again that that’s just random chance. (Once again, only two albums from the following page.) I would not have guessed most of these albums were 2020 releases, with the exception of Jeff Rosenstock’s No Dream, and that’s only because I happened to be looking at his discography the other day to see when Ska Dream came out (2021).
What Are You Listening To, Josh?
A sampling of albums that I’m playing regularly, whether older ones or newer ones. Just the things that I think are worth highlighting, and maybe you’d enjoy.
Texas Sun, Khruangbin
I think this opinion is kind of chalk-y, but I don’t really care: this is the best Khruangbin release. Khruangbin should be very much up my alley, a blend of funk, soul, dub, and whatever else all together, but while I think they’re fine, they mostly don’t grab me that much. I do listen to them occasionally, but on paper, they should be constantly in rotation. The big exception to that is this, one of their 2020 releases (they also had a full-length, Mordechai), the EP Texas Sun. They got together with Leon Bridges, and the collaboration really lifted things up. It’s only four songs, but it’s delightful. If you haven’t heard it, give it a spin, but if it’s your first Khruangbin, you might be a little disappointed by the rest of their discography.
Cuttin’ Grass - Vol. 1 (The Butcher Shoppe Sessions), Sturgill Simpson
This one came up the other day as one of the random tracks, but I’m going to put it up here as well. Sturgill Simpson would deserve a ton of credit for his ambition and creative restlessness just on the merits of his records. That he has performed that work within the frame of country music and even met with mainstream success (including a Grammy win and multiple nominations) is even more impressive. The Cuttin’ Grass records are a way that Simpson can let his hair down, metaphorically, and do something that is obviously just for himself. That it turns out to be yet another success, as a modest but very well-executed collection of bluegrass interpretations of his songs, is another testament to his skill as an artist. It seems to me that this stripped down approach fed into his next proper studio record, The Ballad of Dood and Juanita, but that’s for another time. In the meantime, there’s a lot of pleasure to be had in this album, listening to a band doing exactly what they want to do with precision and care.
May Our Chambers Be Full, Thou & Emma Ruth Rundle
Thou, the inventive doom metal plodders from Louisiana, were in the middle of an extremely productive period. They’d released multiple strong EPs, had an excellent studio album not long ago, had released some cover records, had a collaboration with the Body, and had just generally been putting out tons of good music for a while. But most of that is not as memorable as this, their collaboration with Emma Ruth Rundle. While her goth-y kind of post-rock/folk/whatever sort of stuff doesn’t seem like an obvious fit, it comes together in a way that doesn’t really sound like either of their work independently. It’s possible I’m only making this connection because Thou released a collection of Nirvana covers, but there’s something kind of grungy about this release. I think the dour nature of it, but with clean vocals and without quite as many overt metal markers maybe makes me think that. Or it’s just the Nirvana thing. Whatever it is, this is a great record, although it’s not really that useful of an introduction to Thou’s discography.
Let’s Talk New Releases
Records come out every week, and there’s no way to stay on top of them. This isn’t a comprehensive look at everything, just a few things that have caught my ears out of recent releases. Any impressions here are very early!
I’m going to go back to some new releases because as I suppose is not surprising, 2020 isn’t quite as big a year for new releases as 2019.
Ascension, Nedgravd
This one came to me via Bandcamp’s monthly metal roundup and I’m instantly charmed. Everybody is saying this sounds like Infester’s 1994 record, To The Depths, In Degradation, and hell yeah it does (Seattle mentioned!). Like that record, it sounds like some teenagers bashing away in a basement, and I am always going to have a soft spot for that kind of thing. It’s the metal equivalent of garage rock, where the humanity of things are coming across clearly. That’s not to say it’s amateurish or sloppy, necessarily, just that it’s happening on a human scale. It’s legible as the work of people in a room, as opposed to your extremely technical death metal, which sounds like it was cooked up in a lab. That doesn’t mean I don’t enjoy some of the virtuosic stuff out there, but it can also leave me cold.
But Nedgravd? This is fun! Yes, I recognize that something that sounds as deranged as this being described as fun is very stupid, but it genuinely does sound like they’re having a great time playing it, and it’s infectious. I first put this on while walking the dog and I found myself going further than intended just so I could keep it going. What a charmer.
The Ritual, Night Vigil
Night Vigil is a project I hadn’t heard of until learning about this record, but the artist behind it is apparently alternating metal and non-metal records as part of a longer story. I haven’t listened to any of the other ones yet, but this one is…well, I keep listening to it, so I think I must like it? It’s obviously inspired by 70s prog and psych, and very specifically Pink Floyd’s most discursive tendencies. I have already gone over my love of 70s Floyd, so I won’t belabor that story, but suffice to say that when the artist here hits some of those really Gilmour-esque bits, I pull an appreciative face. I also enjoy that this album winds its way up to a crescendo that is three minutes of metal chaos at the end. Anyway, I figure if I’ve listened to it as much as I have recently that I should probably bring it up here.
Di Hotel Malibu, Thee Marloes
You know the deal: funk/soul trio, I’m going to enjoy it. But Thee Marloes are distinguished by a few things. First, Natassya Sianturi’s vocals are lovely, and not something you find with a lot of these sorts of bands. Second, there’s a cinematic feel to these songs, in that they sound like they belong to the soundtrack of a very cool 60s movie. Finally, their arrangements are very expansive for a trio, which is also fun. What a delight so far! Writing this up prompted me to pick up their first record, so I’m looking forward to that as well.
Five Random Songs
Yes, it’s the “classic” five random songs format. It’s been told before on this blog many times, but basically, on an old forum, people would post the last five songs their shuffle pulled up. I liked it, so I made it into a blog. And now, here we are.
“sham spam”, freak puke
I know nothing about this band, other than this album came out in 2024, it’s basically maximalist everything and sounds like an entire jazz band was taking serious uppers, and the band shares the name with an excellent Melvins album. This is the album closer, and I dunno, check it out?
(NB: the YouTube video in the playlist is the whole record, you might have to use the tagged times to jump to this track.)
“Holiday Fortnight”, The Specials
A lot of commentators focus on the first Specials record, myself very much included. Every note of that album is burned into my brain, and I sometimes forget that they actually did other stuff. This one comes to us from their second record, inventively called More Specials. It does wander a bit more away from the two-tone of the first album, which may be part of why I don’t listen to it quite as much, but I really should.
“Jeers of a Clown”, New Bomb Turks
They never got tired of pun song titles, did they? While I think their first record is a masterpiece, the New Bomb Turks really gave me diminishing returns by the time they arrived on Epitaph with this, their third record (Scared Straight). It fits very much alongside the rest of what Epitaph was up to in the mid-90s, but there’s also nothing particularly special about it. In the absence of the shaggy garage-y touches, it just turns out to be a competently executed punk record. Fine, but I need a little bit more to stay engaged.
“Shotgun”, Big Black
This song is from their EP Racer-X, later compiled onto The Hammer Party. Those three EPs found the band forming the iconic sound they would have on Atomizer, a record that set the template for so much noise rock that followed. By the time of this one, the third, they pretty much did sound like themselves. The compilation is for sure worth listening to if you are a fan of noise rock and somehow missed it, as hard as that is to imagine.
“Volontaire (Alain Bashung)”, Pilori
2026 alert! I haven’t had a lot of chance to absorb this album yet, having only listened to it once so far. Consider this very preliminary. The band call themselves “blackened hardcore/crust/grind” and, sure. Although I don’t really get a lot of the breakneck fury of grind here. Blackened hardcore and/or crust? Why not. It’s heavy, there are some pretty interstitial bits, this song has a nice, pounding menace to it, let’s do this.
Some Better Places To Learn About Music
Check these folks out, you’ll learn more for sure. In no particular order: To The Teeth, Wolf’s Week/Plague Rages, The Devil’s Mouth, Burning Ambulance, Lamniformes Cuneiform, Hex Records, See/Saw, Starkweather.