The return of a harmonized, harmonious Camp Cope is the highlight of a week of musical highlights...
SINGLES
CAMP COPE - Blue (Run For Cover Records)
by Ancient Champion
Camp Cope's first new music in a while. Although singer Georgia Maq's 2019 LP Pleaser was very very cool. It's kind of nice to hear the band back together. Blue, is a delightful piece of Australicana of our fave kind by our favorite feminists who are suddenly saying it with Harmonies and possibly disassembling, dismantling the pervasive boy girl-lost-boy pop trope. Phone in my hand, still checking if you called. I'm double texting. Less lumpy than say the impeccable The Opener but just as skeweringly adept of course. Softer and harder than ever. Oh my god I love this band.
MOMMA - Medicine (Lucky Number)
by Tim London
This is the story of two crazy chicks who started a rocknroll band. One of them had a natural charm, the kids would take one look and slide across to be touching distance. The other was quieter but she was intense. Maybe she didn’t have the magnetism but she had the drive and that’s what counts. Both of them together completed each other. They liked to play the kind of guitar music that came from Sonic Youth, from shoegaze, the whole just cos I’m a chick kinda rocknroll that meant they could be taken seriously but still be their goofy selves. One day they released a single in November and everything changed.
RUN THE JEWELS - Never Look Back (BMG)
by Tim London
Rappers acting, ah, sweet. Being chased very slowly by zombies, not the most athletic escape. Nevertheless… there is a touching friendship apparent between these two. Can imagine them throwing barbies for each other’s fam’s, still sharing a dressing room after all these years. So, when the track actually starts after various levels of hoaky zombie bollocks it’s good to hear them still pushing, with an arpeggio’d synth that could have been stolen from Tangerine Dream merging with some basic hiphop beats and their police-procedural flow making us feel like it’s all very important. Even if it’s not.
CHIARA YOUNG - Stupid Happy (Soundcloud)
by Tim London
‘Me…’ ‘you…’ ‘me…’ ‘Yodelly yodel…’ ‘stupid happy…’ ‘me…’ ‘you…’ ‘yodel…’ ‘six figure Tik Tok…’ ‘yodel’.
CHRIS LAKE & GRIMES (NPC) - A Drug From God (UMG)
by Tim London
‘Elon! Elon! I’ve had another brilliant idea!’
‘Wash your hands.’
‘Yes, in a minute. Elon, I’m starting an imaginary all girl group. You can vote all the members in or out. I’ve already written the first track, with Chris.’
‘You spoke to Chris while you were in the bathroom?’
‘ We didn’t speak, we made a track. It features me as the first and only member of my PR exercise, I mean my new all girl group.’
‘On the toilet.’
‘So? You use the empty toilet rolls as toy spacecraft. I can hear you making the take off noises.’
‘That wasn’t me that was my…’
‘Anyway, it’s going to be huge and, BTW, Elon? I’m leaving you.’
‘Wash your hands.’
THOMAS DOLLBAUM - Florida (Big Legal Mess Records)
by Toon Traveller
Tired of a life played out, fallen apart, and there's a sense of all to blame. Sad tears of a wasted life, this is what happens at the end of the road, with no more road, no money, no fuel, and no-one cares but you.
LITTLE MIX - No (Sony)
by Tim London
Intrepid pouting.
POND - Take Me Avalon I'm Young (Spinning Top)
by Tim London
The sound of a young man leaving the park in the evening before the rest of the gang and walking home desperate to eat toast in his bedroom with headphones on. Whilst listening to World Party. Bittersweet and sort of lovely.
MARGO CILKER - The River (Loose Music)
by LamontPaul
Margo Cilker gets her debut album, Pohorylle, underway with a lurching countrified lyrical gem, "That river, in the winter, it could fuck me up. Crack my ribs, bust my lip, it could do enough..." From the Pacific North West to your Heart I'd say. Cilker's archetypal country timbre is surrounded by a cavalcade of indie all stars all intent on getting the mood right. The record might be in the country idiom but Cilker culls her tunes and attitude from a restlessness that's inherent throughout the record. Good.
BRION STARR - The Butler (Taxi Gauche Records)
by Tim London
‘Brion! Brion! Are you being David Bowie again? I thought I told you!’
‘Mom, no, leave me alone, I’m an individual, I have my own sense of style and I don’t sound anything like The Master. And it’s ‘Boh-wee’ not ‘Bow-wee’ mom. God!’
OTIS REDDING (FEAT DJ REG WEST, XONDA & DJ SPINNA) - (Sittin' on) The Dock of the Bay [Remixed] (Rhino)
by Jay Lewis
Have you ever seen any of those colourized versions of classic black and white films such as The Third Man or Casablanca? Or even that seasonal fave It's a Wonderful Life? In each case, something that was a loved and respected piece of art was turned into a shabby and shitty novelty.
You have? Well, it's just like that.
EPs
JAMAEL DEANE - Primordial Waters (Youtube)
by Toon Traveller
Spiritual Synthesized wind intro, cool. The rest idk. Music for escalators whilst Christmas shopping.
LPs
TASHA - Tell Me What You Miss The Most (Father/Daughter)
by
Tasha's new LP is a beauty. Read the full review here.
CASPER SKULLS - Knows no Kindness (Next Door)
by Toon Traveller
Casper Skulls have a new LP, Knows No Kindness. Well. while I was listening to Ouija from the record I began to think, wow, lovely clear voice, soft and pure, great sharp guitars, normally this sorta tambourine shaking 3 4 chord strumming leaves me cold.It's sense of optimism is buoying me through the COP-OUT-26 disappointment. Actually loved the guitar refrain the middle - an echo of the themes in Clints Spag-westerns, thinking The Good the Bad and the Ugly. This stands a few plays and that's always a good sign.
Main Image: Camp Cope screen grab from Youtube.
