Artist: Jumbling Towers
Album: Jungle’s Going to Be on My Mind
Jumbling Towers are an energetic lo-fi pop band from St. Louis, and — well, one reason Jungle’s Going to Be on My Mind isn’t ranking higher (aside from the fact that some albums *have* to rank near the bottom of an albums list) is that this is all I’ve been able to learn about them. They play fast, melodic, often noisy songs in which guitar, bass, […]
Artist: Youn Sun Nah
Album: Lento
The song Hurt — which is covered on Youn Sun Nah’s 8th album (but first for me) Lento, so I’m not being random — began as the final track on Nine Inch Nails’ emotionally draining masterpiece the Downward Spiral. Following 14 tracks in which pretty, minor-key pop tunes were barraged with dozens of layers of aggressive studio effects — and shuttled abruptly between different time signatures, noise levels, and genres — […]
Artist: And So I Watch You From Afar
Album: All Hail Bright Futures
All Hail Bright Futures, the third album from And So I Watch You From Afar and by most accounts the giddiest, feels less to me like a collection of songs (which, by formal reckoning, it is) than like rock music as a textural abstraction of joy. Guitars overlay each other in resounding major keys behind layers of effects. Synthesizers burble and squiggle (or, on […]