Steady Lean - FLAT JAMBS (2015)

I found this album not through the usual submissions but looking to a label that had released a previously submitted album, I believe by the South Korea-based American Timothy Cushing. The label itself is called Laughable Recordings, who've listed themselves as being from Kennebunk. Because this is not a submission I've got even less info that usual (though my favorite submission email had nothing other than a link and that he worked a Toys R' Us in California). So not having shit to go on about who made this I am just gonna say what I thought of the songs.

Basically, I was way into these tunes. It's a trippy and weird album full of noisy and incredibly washed out folk rock loaded with unexpected yet surprisingly smooth transitions. I gotta say I love the song "Completely Terrified" because it hits all the notes of odd and pleasant so perfectly well. I mean there's whistling, and not the annoying kind your co-worker does that causes unimaginable rage but the classy Western soundtrack kind. All layered with guitars, drums and humming vocals that drip of low fidelity. This isn't to diminish any of the other tracks, in fact the opening song "Clouds Bled The Rain" is what captivated me initially. A damn fine album all around.

To be had here:
Steady Lean - FLAT JAMBS

Acessórios Essenciais - Sinais de Ocupação Humana (2015)

I love Brazilian music and if I had more time and energy I'd devote much more of this blog to writing up all the great music coming out of the Latin American powerhouse. That said, I wish I had a more expansive knowledge of Brazilian bands to reference whenever I want to share one. I can't imagine it means much to group from Rio De Janeiro to be compared to Os Mutantes or Gal Costa. That'd be like saying an English band is like the Rolling Stones or the Beatles. So I'm gonna resist the easy out, and when you're telling all your friends about this great album try to do the same. And you just might wanna do that.

Acessórios Essenciais are indeed from Rio De Janeiro. They music is acoustically based and relies heavily on dual singing from a singer of each gender. The songs are kinda strange, of the sort that if it was an North American band I'd call it freak folk or new weird america, for while the acoustic guitar and vocals are the core there's plenty of uncommon and sporadic instrumentation to be heard on Sinais de Ocupação Humana. They've sprinkled in sounds of cymbal crashing, horns murmuring, maracas and tambourines rattling along with any manner of whistling. While it can appear as a cacophonous arrangement at first, the inconsistency really makes the album more memorable and enjoyable than it'd otherwise be. Maybe my favorite song at the moment is bit more conventional "Bike da Babi" but he seems to say "welcome to Mississippi" toward the end and I found that adorable.

Thanks again to my friend Barbara for sending me this great Brazilian album, which if we're all lucky won't be the last.

To be had here:
Acessórios Essenciais - Sinais de Ocupação Humana

Leon Patriz - Overcome (2015)

So the Leon Partiz character is back and it is still goddamned weird. Maybe you recall the EP that was put out last year, Better Luck Next Fall? It was hard to describe and strangely disunited in style, yet compelling to hear nonetheless. Perhaps this lack of cohesion in sound is the formula, not the craziest thing I'd have heard nor the most foolish of notions. I mean I do own Cornish In A Turtleneck's album called A Collection Of 20 Songs About Booties, which isn't just a funny name but a wholly accurate depiction of the album's contents. To be fair, Overcome isn't that strange, however the Leon Patriz does share some musical qualities with Cornish In A Turtleneck. That is experimental pop music done with remarkable talent that is mostly undermined purposefully and beautifully weirdly.

I have often experessed my admiration for this sort of bizarre outsider pop, and some of my good friends here in Detroit have entertained me many an evening with just such music. Therefore, it will always be something I'm all about and Leon Patriz isn't just one of them but one of the better ones I've heard on the blog in the last few years.

To be had here:

Leon Patriz - Overcome

Nate Henricks - Quest for the Obsolete Egg (2015)

As I'm sure you may imagine I get large amount of musical material sent in for write-ups. This is something I encourage, but it doesn't seem to be fully randomly how the come in, at least from my point of view. I'll get a bunch of emails from folks I've never heard of, then one after another it will be returning musicians in an absolute shower of happy reoccurrence. This is my way of saying we have a series of previously featured musicians upcoming, starting with the notable Nate Henricks. This dude has been often praised by me for reasons that'll be clear to anyone that listens to any of his albums, not least of all the newest among them, Quest for the Obsolete Egg.

If is possible to comprehend I do believe our dear Mr. Henricks got even a bit farther out with this album. It bears similarities to the tracks "Your Arcade Prize (Live from Times Square)" and "Vegetarian Dog (Live in Tokyo)" from the prior album, Apple Juice, insomuch that it has an effected lo-fi quality to the vocals and an echoey facet that serves for choir-style backing. Obviously he does many weird things throughout like a spoken word list joke and some most erratic instrumentation. Naturally, these aren't gimmicks but the strange brilliance of Nate Henricks style of recording psychedelic bedroom pop.

Also, if you're not aware this is only one of many albums put out by this prolific man currently dwelling is Lawrence, Kansas. Do take the time to check out others. They never disappoint.

To be had here:
Nate Henricks - Quest for the Obsolete Egg

Blue Diamond - It's A Puppy's World (2015)

Every now and again there's this strange sort of album that comes the Spacerockmountainway. A weird bedroom project that's hard to describe and is dissimilar to most other things on the blog but are at the unified in that aspect. Blue Diamond has fallen into this category nicely. It is most definitely the work of a dude with eccentric tastes made tinkering away alone only sharing it with us all now that he's completed the strange tunes. As usual, I'm eating this shit up.

Blue Diamond is a guy from La Quinta, California and he's taken some old, warped 80s new age/new wave sounds and mixed it up with some truly bizarre vocal stylings, including some answering machine message recordings. The whole album gives a sort of vaporwave vibe, striking similarities to SODA lite in the instrumental parts. For as strangely and purposefully awkward it seems at times, there are some songs on this album that transcend it all really shine as great pop gems, such as delight tune "Boatful Of Weed Crashes Onto Nude Beach."

To be had here:
Blue Diamond - It's A Puppy's World

Steady Lean - Here's Something (2014)

From the Los Angeles suburb of Santa Fe Springs comes Steady Lean. They make an amorphous lo-fi folk rock that can be called by any number of newish sub-genres like gloom pop, weirdo folk, and even alt-country. While the songs aren't the very melancholy and stark sounds of Ellis Swan nor even the more traditional folk of C. M. Slenko, it doesn't reach the uptempo of the Strange Boys or Judas Equus. Hope you've been keeping up with recent posts, otherwise those references are nonsense. In the submission email they compared themselves to Pavement and Modest Mouse, if that's any easier.

Setting comparisons aside, Here's Something is not only a wittily named album, but a very pleasantly enjoyable one to hear. It doesn't have much in in the way of peaks and valleys, instead maintaining a ongoing light jangle with quirky, echoey singing. Steady Lean is the prefect name for such a band, as one can easily picture them leaning back while happily playing these songs. It's a well-composed album that I became increasingly enamored with as I continued listening. By the time I got to the final track "Ladle" I was ready to start it all over again, which is exactly what I did. 

To be had here:
Steady Lean - Here's Something

Judas Equus - Pilgrim / Infidel (2014)

All week I've been commuting from my hometown, some sixty miles outside of Detroit, as I am watching the numerous dogs at my parents' house. The extra chores and fighting rush hour traffic has made for a good deal of time to listen to music, but very little time to write a word about any of it. On top it all I'm taking antihistamines just to stop my eyes from burning and to breathe through my nose with all these damn dogs here, thus I'm loopy and drowsy. Not sure my pitiful English skills can be relied upon.

Pilgrim / Infidel was sent into SRM by the fella that runs the Polish label, Resonating Wood Recordings. Seems he and the man known as Judas Equus were in the band Frank's Hard Drive together, whose EP I post a while back. Pilgrim / Infidel will to be familiar sort of album to close followers of the blog, falling into the lo-fi, unpolished folk style that I'm incredibly drawn to as evidenced by posting of Twin Man, Joshua October and The Wool, and even the fine indie pop/folk of Arvid. They're all, Judas Equus not least of all by any means, extremely talented musicians that have sat down and made something then chosen not to fuck around with it too much. And leaving it raw makes it endearing and relatable to someone like me, that hasn't the energy to see most projects through to a refined state. I'd argue things really don't need to be, especially as far as 'folk' music goes. The songs are remarkably catchy to listen to, and I think much of it is due to the unevenness and the strange lyrics as anything else. Judas Equus hooked me deep with "Prayer by Proxy" and "Wall of Screens" in this manner, and the instrumental "Si dormieris, non timebis: quiesces, et suavis erit somnus tuus" really shows off the bizarrely pleasant tone he's capable of invoking. Also, if you wonder why he sings such fine English in Krakow, it's because he's an expatriate, which  say only to explain the accent and as a counterpoint to what I must assume is my poor writing.

Lastly, I am gonna recommend you keep an eye on Resonating Wood Recordings as they're gonna be working with one of my favorite musicians, A Big Silent Elephant (a.k.a. A Man and His Broken Piano) who'll have a release via the label next month.

To be had here:
Judas Equus - Pilgrim / Infidel

Nate Henricks - Apple Juice (2014)

The return of the much lauded Lawrence, Kansas-based experimental musician Nate Henricks. Followers of Spacerockmountain should recall the several previous posts on releases from Mr. Henricks and the interview with him on an earlier episode of our podcast. So I don't think it'll be a stretch to imagine my excitement at seeing that he's gone a released another album, I believe this to be his fifthteenth. Apple Juice carries on and simultaneously deviates from the themes of the recently preceding albums like NEON FOR NO ONE and HORSERADISH, that is as much as a theme can be applied to experimental pop. 

Overall, the songs are still very much in the camp of bedroom psych-pop that I've used to describe Henricks' music before, but the songs that begin the album have a harsher and cheerful tone, with more dissonance and erratic features that caused be some jostling upon the first listen, yet no means did I dislike it. In fact, the listener shall notice he circles back to this style with the track, "Tazareth," where some post-hardcore seems to have seemed in. Now, there are songs that'll fit the E6 sort of fuzzy psych that Henricks is a master at if he so chooses, and the two 'live' tracks "Vegetarian Dog" and "Your Arcade Prize" are instant earworms in this vein. I found myself humming each of these at work all week long. However, what makes Apple Juice as an album a truly awesome listen in the variation in throughout the short batch of songs. Being only 21 minutes it begs repeated listenings, and has I did so I found myself looking forward to all the weird, noisy and uncharacteristic parts as much as anything that could be considered a single out these tracks. The chiptune boops and beeps he throws in, the howling singing for a minute, the dark guitar riff and sound effects all add up into a wild display, which is more coherent than sound collage for sure but bears some relationship. The final number, "What is Not the Answer," is even a country tune, and a beautifully done one at that.

To be had here:
Nate Henricks - Apple Juice