Hits From Oblong! - 8 January 2014

From here on out, I will publish my very own Hits From Oblong! (terrible name, I know) every Wednesday with some brand new music (plus the sporadic, ostentatiously devised pop culture reference). Behold!

Phantogram - Fall in Love

With "Fall In Love", one of the tracks off their upcoming February sophomore release "Voices", Phantogram once again thrust a myriad of discordant elements into a single blockbuster of a track without sacrificing its lilting appeal. Such an incredibly addicting band who has yet to disappoint.

Courtney Barnett - Avant Gardner

Aussie songstress Courtney Barnett is simply one of a kind with her off-kilter, yet euphonious pop narrative. She instantly endears herself to the listener with deadpanned train-of-thought vocal jumblings, clever, witty observations (I don't need a nine-to-five-/telling me that I'm alive). Not often does the song reflect the writer's personality to a tee, in all its candid glory.

EMA - Satellites

Following her fantastic 2011 LP Past Life Martyred Saints, the ever-devious Erika M. Anderson (Gowns) unveils a bleak industrial track, "Satellites", which fittingly captures the ubiquity of today's digital age-paranoia. The song ends with a repeating vocal loop uttering the words "ain't coming out that well."

THE DUNK

Sleaford Mods - Austerity Dogs
Quite possibly the most compelling, fresh-sounding group I've stumbled upon in months. The sheer resentment emanating within Sleaford Mods's verbal onslaught is equally startling and comical. Though it may be better for your health leaving the 'comical' bit out while addressing these two Notthingham blokes, Jason Williamson (words) and Andrew Fearn (beats, bass), directly. You might end up upside down in a dumpster somewhere…or worse.

Let's just say - hypothetically speaking - if The Sex Pistols were to emerge in the 21st Century - with all of today's tools and technology - they could well end up making this kind of blue collar, profanity-laden punk-prose. Then again, Sleaford Mods's indignation isn't provoked by some kind of social political canon, they simply antagonize anything and anyone by default…even themselves. Williamson said in an interview with FACTmag.com:"I started shouting over this death metal loop my mate made as a piss take, and I haven’t looked back." Curious to see what's in store for their upcoming LP, to be released some time this year. Something tells me they have plenty of grudges left.

THE CLUNK 

James Vincent McMorrow - Post-Tropical
In a way, I kind of empathize with James Vincent McMorrow's artistic soul search. When it comes to timing his releases, he's like Kurt Russell's title character Jack Burton in Big Trouble In Little China, heedlessly jumping into the fray just as the fisticuffs subsides. His modest debut LP Early In The Morning was released at a time when people bellyached over that whole clean-cut Mumfordian folk-fad. When I interviewed him in 2011, he conceded that his musical taste didn't really coincide with what many consider to be his peers. As it turned out, he was more into the likes of Justin Timberlake and Pharrell Williams.

His brand new LP Post-Tropical ambitiously attempts to draw on the trendy - yet increasingly wearisome - indie-R&B sound. Aesthetically though, it comes across as this kitsch Disney-score instead. Whoops. While Post-Tropical indeed has its gleeful moments - the vibrant, exotic "All Points" being one of them - McMorrows compulsory, repetitive falsetto-eruptions frequently reach level "cringe-worthy". Nonetheless, McMorrow still attains his credibility by taking a significant creative leap of faith instead of employing that same bland, domestic singer-songwriter shtick. Admirable, even though - in this particular case - the result kind of forfeits its apparent intangibles. Who knows, down the road we'll remember Post-Tropical as McMorrow's Transformer Man: even though it might not be as deliberately bad, in a way it's just as endearing.

DOUBLE DUTCH

Rooie Waas - Doe Niet Zo Moeilijk

Leftfield absurdists Rooie Waas are something else aren't they? I mean, really! It's next to impossible to pigeonhole these crazies: twisted, deranged vocal delivery benumbed in straight jacketed delirium, the thronging soundscapes and voodoo metronome prolonging the tenuous threshold between sanity and complete and utter pandemonium.

The Sweet Release Of Death - Ghosts In Fur Coats

About six months ago, I saw these cats play an impressive opening slot for Those Foreign Kids at DOKA in Amsterdam -  turns out they are actually based in Rotterdam. Ever since I've been living there, it never ceases to amaze me how many talented bands are operating right from under my nose. The Sweet Release of Death relish in the fatalistic, devil-may-care noise rock variety, shrewdly lashing out their talons with erratic, cutting-edge fury.