Do You Like Empanadas?

Hello, and welcome back to the Spins. This edition is going to be a real random grab bag of thoughts. If you would like a through line, please do not look here as I cannot provide one. Let us begin.

The Obsessions

Live Music

This one seems rather straightforward—and somewhat obvious—for a newsletter about music. Hey, go watch bands play music! Wow, wild take, A.C. I must say that I don’t care for your tone. Anyway, for my wife’s birthday, we ended up going to see three shows over the course of 11 days: Japanese Breakfast, Haim, and Pulp. Each of these shows was absolutely excellent. All of them played great, and they are reminders of the power of live music.

All of these shows leaned primarily on material from the new albums and some hits from the back catalog. The biggest surprise in these shows is how much the Twin Cities audiences show up. They are enthusiastic, dancing and singing along with the tracks. They are fully wrapped up in the show, and it’s great to see, especially having gone to so many shows where the audiences are at best vaguely engaged. In addition, it was nice to see the personalities of all the bands come out throughout the shows. This was of particular note with Pulp, where Jarvis Cocker delighted everyone in the room with his banter. In fact, the title of this dispatch comes from his banter about what he wanted to say to Bob Dylan if he ran into him while in town.

The last thing that I wanted to remind everyone about when going to live music is actually showing up early enough to see the opener. For all three concerts, the openers were great, putting on entertaining sets. I’ve always enjoyed seeing openers because it gives you an opportunity to see someone on the come-up. If it is good, you get in on the ground floor of a new act or just see something really wild. (I’m reminded of the lead singer of Gil Mantera’s Party Dream setting his pubes on fire when opening for The Rapture in 2004.) If it sucks, you’ve lost a half-hour that you would have lost otherwise puttering around while waiting to go to the show. So, in my mind, there is only upside to seeing an opener.

“Cue Fanfare”

As you may assume from my lifestyle, I have random songs pop into my head. Usually they are connected to something, starting from somewhere. This is not one of them. As I have probably made clear through this newsletter, I love the band Prefab Sprout. Their albums Steve McQueen and From Langley Park to Memphis are fantastic, as is Jordan: The Comeback. However, the song stuck in my head is from none of those albums; it is from their debut, Swoon.

“Cue Fanfare” is from this album. What is it about? Bobby Fischer playing chess against the Russians, obviously. I have no idea how I got this stuck in my head, but its chiming guitars, funky rhythms, and two-part harmonies have been there all week. The lyrics are all over the place, but don’t worry about that. Only think about the bouncing “Plane, plane” in the chorus and ride the very smooth vibe.

Protomartyr

I’m not sure if I have written about this band here before, but if I haven’t, I’ll give a brief introduction. Formed in Detroit in 2010, Protomartyr is probably one of the best documenters of American malaise. Over the course of their six albums, the guitar of Greg Ahee, the bass of Scott Davidson, and the drums of Alex Leonard provide the accompaniment to the free-verse talk-singing of lead man Joe Casey.

Playing a primitive form of post-punk, Casey’s musings take on the density of Mark E. Smith on the finest Fall albums, full of allusions, references, and metaphor. While one does not go to Protomartyr for uplift, the band makes powerful, exciting music. The rhythm section of Davidson and Leonard rattles the foundation as Ahee dances through the empty space. Casey’s voice, deep and resonant, demands attention.

I’ve been listening to these guys for over a decade at this point, and they continue to improve, providing a form of catharsis for our terrible current state. There are a few songs that bounce around in my head from them, but the primary one for this week has been “Polacrilex Kid” from their 2023 album Formal Growth in the Desert. It is a solid example of what the band excels at: angular guitars, solid rhythms, and deeply felt lyrics.

London Calling

The other night, I was complaining about the length of Am I The Drama?, the new Cardi B album that is pretty good if not way too long, and my wife and I got into a conversation about good long albums. Two of the albums that came up are the Minutemen’s Double Nickels on the Dime, a perfect album; and the Clash’s London Calling. Given that I had recently listened to Double Nickels and hadn’t listened to London Calling in several years, I put the latter on the other day.

London Calling is a phenomenal album. You can see what they are aiming for with the project. Furthermore, the album is crammed with absolutely fantastic tracks: “Spanish Bombs,” “Rudie Can’t Fail,” “Lost in the Supermarket,” “Clampdown,” and “Guns of Brixton.” I can keep going, but you get the point. If this album has one downside, it is the fact that “Jimmy Jazz” is a terrible song. Absolutely terrible. Maybe you haven’t listened to it in a while, consider rectifying that. If you have never listened to it, you’re in for a grand journey.

“Grooving in the Bus Lane”

Pat Fish, for multiple decades and with many collaborators, ran a band under the name The Jazz Butcher. Releasing weird jangle pop songs was his part and parcel, and they were criminally underrated during their time. While there have attempts to rectify this, the Jazz Butcher remains well within the realm of record store guys and college radio DJs, a Venn diagram that is mostly a circle.

In any case, I first experienced “Grooving in the Bus Lane” while I was at WOBC. We had the album, Bloody Nonsense, and I couldn’t help but be attracted to this song, with its jangling guitars, the epic bass line, and the organ and harmonies on the chorus. This song is played at the pace of an uplifting gospel track, and it has the same qualities. It’s not spiritual, but it does make you want to move. This song pops in my head every couple of months, and that’s great with me. Now that I’ve introduced it to you, maybe you’ll have the same thing happen.

The Recommendations

Orions Belte - Pur Jus

This Norwegian trio comes back with another excellent album of their quasi-instrumental world music. Their sound pulls from surf rock, jazz, psych, anything they can get their hands on. If you listen to stuff like Khruangbin or Mildlife, you know the vibe and this band will immediately be in your wheelhouse.

Robin Kester - Dark Sky Reserve

This is an album that I immediately locked into when I started listening to it. The synths, guitars, and rhythm all mix perfectly with Kester’s breathy vocals, which can play with a range of emotions. The result is an album that takes you into its world for its 34-minute runtime. That world is a little sad, a little eerie, but it’s not scary. It’s a perfect soundtrack for driving on an empty road at 3 in the morning or roaming on a foggy moor, but please listen to this at any other time during the day. You will still enjoy it.

Case Oats - Last Missouri Exit

Spencer Tweedy is a busy man. Between playing drums in Waxahatchee and working on his dad’s new triple album, he still somehow managed to record an album of easygoing Americana music with his fiancee, Casey Walker. To be perfectly clear, Case Oats is Walker’s project, and you can hear her all over the album. With Walker delivering detailed vignettes with plainspoken vocals over deceptively simple instrumentation, this album is a high recommendation from me.

Laveda - Love, Darla

On this album, the band takes the sounds of the 1980s-1990s post-punk underground (e.g., Sonic Youth, Blonde Redhead) and merges them with some shoegaze and grunge. Lead singer Ali Genevich sounds like the 90s grunge ladies, and this is a very good thing. It stands out well among the twisting rhythms and the angular guitars lines that are reminiscent of the aforementioned bands as well as current bands like Cola. While they have a lot of things going for them, they have at least taken a new approach to the grunge renaissance that never seems to end, and I applaud them for that.

Nation of Language - Dance Called Memory

Nation of Language is one of the finest synth-pop projects working right now. On this album, the trio is still playing with synths while opening the sound to more guitars and live instruments. But, don’t expect to hear them straight. They are still heavily processed, making them sound further away than they are. Although this can sound cold and distant, the albums are anything but. The vocals of Ian Devaney bridge the distance, welcoming the listener into the world of the album, even if the lyrics aren’t always the cheeriest. This album is the sign of a band who is control of what they are doing and will only continue to grow if they keep building on this.

Hamilton Leithauser - This Side of the Island

This one is a little bit of a cheat on my part. He was the opener for the Pulp concert, so I listened to him perform a large block of this album live. It was really great, and the album didn’t disappoint. Those expecting a continuation from the Walkmen will be slightly disappointed. His solo stuff is a bit weirder, with a bit more forward momentum and a little more rocking. His voice is still the selling point here, and it is in truly fine form.

Comet Gain - Letters to Ordinary Outsiders

As an indie pop person, I’m culturally obligated to tell you that there is a new Comet Gain album. If you are not an indie pop person, Comet Gain are legends of the genre. For decades, they have been pushing out brilliant 60s-influenced pop gems. Some of them are noisy, some of them are folkier, but they are routinely excellent. This new album is a bit slower than earlier albums like Realistes, but they still show their teeth from time to time, turning it up and letting it run loose. It’s always a delight to get a new album from them.

Total Wife - come back down

Hailing from the shoegaze capital of Nashville, Total Wife have decided to buck the current renaissance by recalling the actual greats of the style (My Bloody Valentine, The Telescopes). While this would suggest slavish devotion, they make their music more interesting by taking the more experimental approach forwarded by bands like They Are Gutting A Body of Water. On their new album, they take Loveless-style guitars and vocals and merge them with explosive drums, samples, and synths. The result is extremely engaging and never boring in the slightest. I deeply appreciated this album because it showed a band in the movement who has the ability to take the parts and make something new and intriguing, rather than trying to make White Pony over again.

Wednesday - Bleeds

I came into this album with low expectations. Despite every critic trying to tell me otherwise, I thought that their previous album, Rat Saw God, was fine. It made me want to listen to Eleventh Dream Day, which was doing the same thing as that album but better. Wednesday convinced me of their excellence with this album. They dialed up both the country and the noise here while keeping the precisely drawn, frequently dark lyrics of Karly Hartzman at the center. On this album, they now sound like no one other than themselves, a goal that more bands wish they could reach. In a fair world, this is their breakthrough album.

Kassa Overall, CREAM

Trust me on this one. I will explain the concept and you’ll say it’s dumb. I swear it works. On this album, Overall and his sidemen do instrumental jazz covers of some 90s hip-hop tracks. You can still very much recognize the songs, and the band is just vibing. You should do the same while you listen to this.

Cate Le Bon, Michaelangelo Dying

Cate Le Bon, one of the true art-pop weirdos working right now, has a formidable catalog. Her new album is another worthy addition to it. On it, she works through various aspects of her breakup. The stories are elliptical and sometimes cryptic. They are told with accompaniment from murky synths, processed guitars, and drums that sound like they are miles away. The instrumentation heavily recalls Kate Bush; however, her vocals are more deadpan than Bush’s. This album may take more than one listen to understand, but I think that it is worth it as Le Bon is making some truly original music right now.

Alright, that is all from me. I’ll be back with a contemplation of 1995 next week. I will try my hardest to not write a 3000-word dispatch about the majesty that is To Bring You My Love. I will probably succeed, but if I don’t, you shouldn’t be upset because that album absolutely rules. And you will also learn that I have thought far too much about the music of Polly Jean Harvey. But, until the next time, be nice to yourself and each other.