Indie Basement (5-10): the week in classic indie, alternative, college rock and more
April showers bring May flowers. What do Mayflowers bring, besides Pilgrims? Lots of new releases and this week I review eight of them including Arab Strap, Les Savy Fav (first album in 14 years), Dehd, Shannon & The Clams, Montreal’s Bibi Club, two former Bad Seeds (Barry Adamson and Mick Harvey), and Myriam Gendron.
Need more reviews of this week’s offerings? Andrew spins the latest from Knocked Loose, Yaya Bey, How to Dress Well and more in Notable Releases.
Like many of us, I am still processing that Steve Albini is no longer with us. So many of my favorite albums of the ’90s were “recorded” by him but my favorite is probably The Wedding Present’s Seamonsters. The band’s David Gedge talked to us about working with Albini for the album’s 20th anniversary a few years ago and is a good read if I do say so myself. I hope Steve is organizing a card game in the afterlife like he used to do at ATP. RIP.
Head below for this week’s reviews.
ALBUM OF THE WEEK: Bibi Club – Feu de garde (Secret City Records)
Beguiling second album from this Montreal duo that includes Plants & Animals’ Nicolas Basque
Some records feel instantly transportive, tapping into old memories or hitting an emotion center that you didn’t know you had. The second album from Montreal’s Bibi Club does that for me. The music singer/keyboardist Adèle Trottier-Rivard and guitarist Nicolas Basque (of Plants & Animals) make has a nostalgic melancholy running through its veins, warbly in all the right ways. To call it sad would not be exactly right, but there is a wistful breeze blowing through these 11 songs that make you want to close your eyes, sway and feel it blow across your cheek. Some are danceable, some folky, and some evoke ’60s French pop by way of early-’80s post punk. At the center is Trottier-Rivard’s voice, breathy and inviting, that is especially good at “oohs” and “ahhs” that convey as much feeling as any words (though half of the record is in French so I’m admittedly missing a lot of top-level intent). The arrangements on Feu le garde are minimal yet very cinematic and recall early-’00s output of Morr Music (The Notwist, Lali Puna). From the autumnal “Parc de Beauvoir,” through the spring bloom of “Rue du Repos,” it’s an album for all seasons, at least for anyone with a taste for the bittersweet.
—
Arab Strap – I’m totally fine with it 👍 don’t give a fuck anymore 👍 (Rock Action)
Feeling overwhelmed by 2024? Aidan Moffat and Malcolm Middleton are here to commiserate and get down in the muck. Also: album title of the year.
Few groups look into the depraved, dark heart of human existence and find empathy and humor amongst the inky gunk of apathy and hopelessness like Arab Strap do now. It almost feels as if Aidan Moffat and Malcolm Middleton were willed to reform their duo in 2016 just to help the world process all the deeply fucked up shit that was going on. And still is. The overwhelming nature of our very online, 24-hour-news-cycle lives where social media and access to everything is making us more isolated than ever is the subject of Arab Strap’s eighth album which begins with the now ancient sound of a phone modem booting up. It sets the (dial)tone for this dark but compelling concept album that sports one of the best, bleakly funny and relatable titles of the year. I’m totally fine with it 👍 don’t give a fuck anymore 👍 is full of tales of agoraphobics, cyber bullies, 50-somethings looking in the mirror under harsh light, and general despair, not to mention Moffatt’s own online addition. “When will I be cured of this fucking crippling FOMO? You went down for half an hour and it felt good,” he sings to his wifi router on “Sociometer Blues,” but then adds, “I accepted then that you would never light this face again, but I crumbled when you came back – you knew I would.” Still, Moffat never lets things get hopeless, dropping in funny, memorable lines (“You left your knickers on the moon”) throughout. Meanwhile, Middleton is taking the Arab Strap into new musical territory, from near metal (“Allatonceness”) to dance music (“Bliss”) and at least one song that’s somewhere in between (“Strawberry Mood”). Have things spun so far out of control that we may never make sense of things again? Let’s hope not, but its weirdly comforting to know Arab Strap are with us along the way if not to help than to remind us we’re not alone in these feelings.
—
Les Savy Fav – OUI, LSF (Frenchkiss)
Pushing 50, these former Williamsburg/LES hipsters are older and wiser, but still pretty much the band you remember on their first album in 14 years
Who had “New Les Savy Fav album” on their 2024 Bingo Card? Not me. Though the band, which formed at RISD nearly 30 years ago, have played occasionally (their NYC homebase, festivals, usually), over the last decade, they haven’t released an album since 2010’s Root to Ruin which felt like a lid welded shut onto the hipster Brooklyn 2000s which LSF were central. Most of the band still live here and have stayed involved in various creative endeavors, but making music as a band didn’t seem like a going concern anymore. But here we are and I’m happy to report that OUI, LSF is the band you remember from many years of totally bananas shows but also a record that reflects their current lives that are filled with kids and other responsibilities/troubles most people pushing 50 have. Part of that was Harrington, who in the interim between records was diagnosed with bipolar disorder and quit a longtime job he realized he hated. Hitting his 40s, he also grappled with the dichotomy of his onstage (wildman) and offstage (father, husband) lives as well. “There was this sense of some agony around the idea of being an artist while also doing groceries,” Harrington told Kerrang! “Like, does the guy who’s doing groceries get to write the kind of music I want to write? That was really hard. The pendulum swung from one side to the other. I had to try to get it to not swing in a way that was like a wrecking ball.” Both quitting his job and coming to terms with his mental illness ended up being freeing, though, and Tim found the creative floodgates opening again. The joy that is in LSF’s best music is present here in songs like “Legendary Tippers,” the slinky, snarky “Limo Scene” and, especially, album standout “World Got Great” which is defiantly positive with nary a whiff of cheese. “I think it’s not too late to save,” he sings with that attitude-heavy half-sung-half-spoken vocal style that doesn’t seem to have aged. “Just cause we’re stuck today don’t mean there’s no game left to play.” Les Savy Fav still got game.
—
Shannon & The Clams – The Moon is In the Wrong Place (Easy Eye Sound)
Its creation is intertwined with tragedy but this is Shannon & The Clams’ best record yet
San Francisco’s Shannon & The Clams are generally associated with good times, especially their live shows, but new album The Moon is in the Wrong Place was born of tragedy. In 2022, Shannon Shaw’s fiancé, Joe Haener, was killed in an auto accident just weeks before their wedding. “We all felt the urgency of making something that reckoned with this meteor that smashed into our planet,” keyboardist Will Sprott says. “This is the most focused record we’ve ever done, as far as everything coming from a singular traumatic event.” The circumstances and lyrics are heavy but it has resulted for Shannon & The Clams’ best album to date. The Moon is in the Wrong Place feels urgent and inspired, from songs to the dynamite performances, and Shaw’s impassioned, often heartbreaking, vocal delivery, all captured in vivid sonic detail by Dan Auerbach who has worked on their last few records (and Shaw’s underrated 2018 solo album In Nashville). More than anything else, it’s a wonderful testament to Shaw and Haener’s love.
—
Barry Adamson – Cut to Black (self-released)
The former Magazine and Bad Seeds bassist floats through an imagined past for one of his most enjoyable solo albums. It’s a blast.
For his 10th solo album, former Magazine and Bad Seeds bassist and all-around cool cat Barry Adamson looked to the past for inspiration. He was still in a reflective mood, having published Up Above The City, Down Beneath The Stars, the first volume of his memoirs, in 2021, but Cut to Black is not the soundtrack to the book, but instead an alternate history. “I started to imagine my life without me in it,” Adamson says. “An author-as-observer, looking down upon this Murky World during that time and making a record of what I found there.” It’s a look at the early history of pop music and pop culture, starting with the death of Sam Cooke — murdered in a motel in 1964 in South Central L.A. — and explores forwards and backwards in time from there, with Adamson’s style and wit in sharp focus as usual. As he’s done on previous albums he takes elements of classic rock n’ roll, soul, R&B, gospel and jazz and filters them through modern production techniques. Barry clearly had a lot of fun making this one and that comes through loud and clear on the listener’s side, and songs like “Amen White Jesus,” “One Last Midnight,” “Manhattan Satin,” “Was it a Dream” and “The Last Words of Sam Cooke” are a blast.
Cut to Black is out May 17
—
Mick Harvey – Five Ways to Say Goodbye (Mute)
Elegant covers and mournful originals coexist on the Birthday Party and Bad Seeds co-founder’s latest that explores death and mortality
Speaking The Bad Seeds, Barry Adamson is not the only former member of that band to have a new record out this month. Mick Harvey, who was also in The Birthday Party, is here with Five Ways to Say Goodbye which feels like a mix of everything he’s done in his long solo career that has included four albums of Serge Gainsbourg adaptations/translations and numerous soundtracks. “(The album) is kind of about farewells or saying goodbye,” says Harvey, “There’s a lot around that subject so it’s got a kind of melancholy and sentimentality around it.” It’s a mix of originals and songs “by people who have moved on” as well other covers that are about moving on, all done in his elegant, orchestral style. Those include Lee Hazlewood’s “Dirtnap Stories,” and a number of songs by fellow Australian artists: Ed Kuepper’s ”Demolition,” Fatal Shore’s “We Had an Island,” Triffids frontman David McComb’s “Setting You Free,” and The Saints’s “Ghost Ships.” Five Ways to Say Goodbye ends with especially mournful, moving take on Neil Young’s “Like a Hurricane.” Long a master interpreter of other people’s work, Harvey makes it all his own.
—
Dehd – Poetry (Fat Possum)
Fifth album by this Chicago trio sounds simple but is subtly complex
Together for nearly a decade, Chicago trio Dehd are seasoned indie rock vets who have honed their distinctive style to a slightly polished shine on their fifth album. They have a unique chemistry, as most trios do; bassist Emily Kempf and guitarist Jason Balla’s trade-off, call-and-response vocal style is key, as is the simple but sturdy stand-up drumming of Eric McGrady. Dehd specialize in big choruses that all but demand singing along at their shows, and that, along with that chemistry, makes songs like “Alien” and “Light On” sound simple but there’s actually a lot going on. Likewise, the production by Balla and Ziyad Asrar mixes scrappy elements (they’ve always had a DIY venue vibe) with subtle studio finesse. It’s a delicate balance that they pull off with aplomb.
—
Myriam Gendron – Mayday (Thrill Jockey)
Know for adapting other’s works, this Montreal artist writes mostly her own material on her third album which features Dirty Three’s Jim White
Montreal-based artist Myriam Gendron first gained attention setting Algonquin Roundtable fixture Dorothy Parker’s poetry to music on 2014’s Not So Deep As a Well but then took an extended musical hiatus when she became a mother. She returned in 2021 with Ma Délire – Songs of Love, Lost and Found which featured her interpretations of traditional French-Canadian songs, along with a few originals, and which was made with contributions from experimental luminaries including Bill Nace and Chris Corsano. Three years later she’s back, now signed to Thrill Jockey, with her third album which features primarily originals and made with guitarist Marisa Anderson and very busy drummer Jim White (plus Nace, saxophonist Zoh Amba and more in guest appearances). The result is spare and beautiful, a mix of ’70s folk with elements of improvisational free rock. It may take a few listens to find your bearings on quirkier songs like “Lully Lullay,” but her voice and songs stick with you.
—
Looking for more? Browse the Indie Basement archives.
And check out what’s new in our shop.
