It’s becoming increasingly common practice for an artist to post an original playlist to their Spotify page in the run-up to a new album. It’s a canny strategy: Throw a few tracks together then sit back as the mix gains followers, who then become a readymade audience when the record comes out. The original-playlist promotional gambit is just the latest new marketing tactic in an industry defined by them: Last week’s record club becomes this week’s free mp3 download becomes next week’s Twitter Takeover, and so on. Thus, for every three perfunctory artist playlists that show up on Spotify pages these days, there’s one stand-out entry, a mix put together with extra TLC that both stands on its own and complements the album being released. Courtney Barnett and Kurt Vile’s “Lotta Duets” playlist is just such a mix. Honestly, this thing rules. Compiled to accompany the duo’s debut collaborative full-length, Lotta Sea Lice, “Lotta Duets” is a who’s-who of classic pairings: George Jones and Tammy Wynette, Marvin Gaye and Tammi Terrell, Serge Gainsbourg and Jane Birkin. The mix spans genres and eras. Dolly Parton and Kenny Rogers’ “Islands in the Stream,” as virtuosic an example of streamlined ‘80s pop as any that exists (it was written by the Bee Gees, btw), is flanked by the gentle folk of “Early Morning Rain,” by Canadian duo Ian & Sylvia, and “I Knew You Were Waiting (For Me),” a collaboration between George Michael and Aretha Franklin. While the indulgent production of the latter track bears little resemblance to anything on Lotta Sea Lice, its inclusion feels consistent with Vile and Barnett’s penchant for winking references. Many of the tracks on the playlist are more obviously influential, as in the fuzzed-out indie pop of The Vaselines’ “Son Of A Gun,” the saccharine crunch of Iggy Pop’s “Candy” (featuring Kate Pierson of The B-52s), the snarling grooves of “Stop Draggin’ My Heart Around” by Stevie Nicks and Tom Petty. If you were to melt all these tracks down, what you’d have is a winsome, sturdy, occasionally nostalgic, occasionally cheeky rock sound anchored in the past but with some modern flourishes—in other words, exactly the sound of Lotta Sea Lice. That’s a pretty neat trick.
Los Angeles rappers have a propensity for giving themselves two letter names. YG is the city’s most well-known export, but there’s also RJ (pictured), AD, T.F, and KR. Most of these artists have collaborated with each other, and are a hit or two away from breaking through at the national level.This playlist contains songs by these two-letter rappers, as well as the rest of the city’s best young talent. “Young,” of course, might not be the best description. Some of the artists, such as RJ and G Perico, hover on either side of the 30-year mark. Many of the artists have been releasing music for several years, cultivating loyal regional fan bases. But no matter their ages, all of these rappers are poised to have lengthy, promising careers ahead of them.They were certainly born in a good place to become a rapper. Los Angeles has long been a hub of the music industry, as well as an historic hip-hop city. Still, L.A.’s scene can be as insular as any other town. Many rappers achieve local hits on Power 106, but never make it across the country to Hot 97’s airwaves. Part of the reason is the specific sound the city embraces, largely fueled by the distinctive production of DJ Mustard.Many of the rappers on this list, especially those who’ve collaborated with Mustard, hail from South Central Los Angeles. Gang affiliation, either red or blue, plays a significant role in the music of rappers like G Perico, AD, and Boogie. But, given L.A.’s massive sprawl, there is, naturally, diverse music being made in various pockets of the city. Natia and Cam & China hail from Inglewood; Warm Brew is from the beachside community of Venice. It’s easy to detect a slight difference in the tone of these artists, simply based on their being born a few miles closer to the beach.Despite the hyperlocal loyalty that pervades L.A. hip-hop, many of these rappers are putting the pieces in motion to move beyond the borders of Greater Los Angeles. Cozz has signed with J. Cole’s Dreamville Records. Hugh Augustine landed a feature alongside Jay Rock on Isaiah Rashad’s The Sun’s Tirade. Bricc Baby’s “No Smoke” features Young Thug. And though Earl Sweatshirt, Vince Staples, and YG are already popular enough that they probably don’t need to be on this list, they’re good enough (and still young enough) that they deserve to be.Although New York is the birthplace and Atlanta is the current epicenter of hip-hop, these artists prove that the west coast is continuing to push the genre in creative directions. Soon, the rest of the country should recognize the music being made in the nation’s second biggest city. And if they don’t like it, then—as YG says on his track with Sad Boy, AD, and Bricc Baby—“Don’t Come to L.A.”
I don’t have the analytics to prove it, but my gut tells me that not a whole lot of folks outside of gnarly hardcore punks fuck with British label La Vida Es Un Mus. Which is somewhat understandable, seeing as how the scene is something of a subcultural island, one perfectly comfortable with not trying to amass converts. But still, more weird-ears should be tuning to the London-based label, founded back in 1999, as they’ve been unleashing some of the year’s toughest and most engaging records not just in hardcore but across the DIY spectrum. Via a steady stream of releases, the label’s founder, Paco Mus (who it should be noted cares nothing for press attention), has expanded the parameters of hardcore punk to include all manner of underground hybrids. From repressing Aussie post-punks Constant Mongrel’s Living in Excellence—an album packed with suffocating riff-smudge, political unrest, and mutant sax screech—to releasing Spanish band Rata Negra’s Justicia Cósmica, buzzing melodic punk flaked with new wave synth-action.LVEUM are decidedly globally-minded. Of the roughly 20 full-lengths, cassettes, and singles dropped in 2018 (frantic pace, right?) they managed to chronicle thriving underground scenes in Singapore (Sial’s throttling Binasa EP), Australia (Priors’ flailing eponymously titled full-length), and the good, old United Kingdom (Snob’s irrepressibly eccentric self-titled slab). At a time when nationalism and xenophobia rip across the West, LVEUM’s championing of anti-establishment music and grassroots community from around the world doesn’t just feel refreshing but downright necessary. When digging into our playlist you’ll encounter tons of tracks from La Vida Es Un Mus’s 2018 releases, but you’ll also hear a smattering of older stuff (vital reissue-work included) from the imprint’s most beloved bands, like Es, Nailbiter, and the mighty Limp Wrist, who have been pivotal figures in the modern queercore movement. Press play and be prepared to trash shit Paris-style.
Its not entirely surprising that the British artist Powell once sampled Big Blacks Steve Albini; the Chicago noise-rockers volume and in-your-face attitude go to the heart of what Powell does in his own music and with his label, Diagonal Records. Co-founded with fellow Brit Jaime Williams in 2011, Diagonal pulls together an unlikely mix of sounds: the lurching rhythms of rockabilly, the clang of post-punk, and the eviscerating feedback of the contemporary noise scene, all of which get hammered into a lumpy approximation of techno. (Youll also find Hall and Oates samples, Autechre remixes, and reissues of early avant-rappers Death Comet Crew in the mix; Diagonals vectors are nothing if not far-reaching.) The overall effect is a little like gargling broken glass with a manic grin on your face.
Lana Del Rey promised us everything from the start: "Its you, its you, its all for you / Everything I do," she sang on 2011s "Video Games." Since then, shes remained completely committed to that line, doing everything in her power to continue to shock and seduce us with her purrs, her pouts, and her pen. As a songwriter, Lana Del Rey is utterly fearless. Some have even suggested she may just be the American Morrissey. Sure, shes just as romantic and melodramatic. But shes also crude and brash, sexy and sincere, and her sardonic side is vastly underrated. Though her tragic tales may be rife with clichés, her evocative telling of them remains her most intoxicating trait. Her fantasies and failures come alive in every vivid color, but what keeps us coming back for more is her unabashed openness: Shell tell you exactly what she wants, when she wants it, and how shes gonna get it. Here are 10 of Lana Del Reys sultriest, most biting lines.
Dont fall for it. Shes not unhinged—this girls completely in control.
This is our "gangsta Nancy Sinatra" playing it coy.
Lana 101: Anytime you want to tease and provoke, you can always debase religion…
…or patriotism…
…or multinational corporations.
We wonder if she recommends dosing daily?
The femme fatale finds her weakness.
She knows self-denial is never a good look…
…neither is holding on to a low-down loser.
Only Lana can get away with tying you up then setting your hot summer fling on fire.
Subscribe to Bill Brewsters Spotify playlist of the best San Francisco disco tracks here. Or, better yet, check out the full YT playlists here, which includes tracks not available on Spotify.Bill Brewster ranks among the world’s most learned musical selectors. Having started his career in the ‘80s with UK football fanzine When Saturday Comes, Brewster moved to New York in the mid-‘90s to run DMC’s US office back when the DJ remix label published dance music’s reigning magazine Mixmag. Having realized most British DJs didn’t know their own history, Brewster and pal Frank Broughton wrote 1999’s key club culture tome Last Night a DJ Saved My Life and fathered the popular website DJHistory.com to share their outtakes. Since then, he’s compiled countless club collections while DJ-ing, co-authoring books like How to DJ (Properly), and writing scholarly liner notes to For Discos Only, a splendid 30-track collection that skims the disco cream from Berkeley’s Fantasy and New York’s Vanguard labels. We spoke to Bill in his Bedford home office 50 miles north of London via Skype’s free transatlantic magic.What did you learn while writing your notes? I got to dig into the careers of people who Ive never had the opportunity to write about before, like Bobby Orlando. For me, hes a kind of fascinating and iconic character and so archetypically New York as well. Theres something very hustler-y about him, but also talented. American musicians, they do have that hustle British musicians often dont, and I admire that. Theyd see a kind of gap in the market somewhere and they’d fill it; all these little Jewish mom and pop organizations out of New York and other big cities where theyve been working out of one little studio, and end up building a mini-empire.The downside of that hustle is that Orlando spread himself so thin that within a few years the quantity of his output dwarfed the quality of much of it. Youre absolutely right. I think it was [Vanguard engineer] Mark Berry who told me Bobby Os aim was to produce a song every day. Thats admirable, but also completely insane. He made some great things and kind of under-produced them, and made loads of other things that he shouldnt have bothered with.British disco tastes tend to favor small jazz-funk ensembles, like the Players Association, who even had a UK Top 10 hit, as opposed to huge symphonic things, like Boris Midney. I was amazed to read in your notes that Alphonse Mouzon looped a Boris Midney drum track forPoussez!It makes sense because Midneys kick drums are unbelievably huge. Our club scene revolved around the straight crowd; blacker-sounding records, jazz fusion. Roy Ayers was always much bigger in the UK than he was in the US, and the Players Association fit into that.Fantasy had a natural entry into disco with fusion acts like the Blackbyrds and Pleasure, which werent quite disco, but people danced to them. Once Sylvester hit, Fantasy ran with disco, even if many of their marquee signings failed – Martha Reeves, the post-Teddy Pendergrass Blue Notes, Ike Turner. Even jazz drummer Idris Muhammad bombed on Fantasy before he recorded something in the same league as "Could Heaven Ever Be Like This." Im so glad For Discos Only includes "For Your Love."I actually like that more. Its got that big orchestral swell and really works as a set opener. So many jazz guys were clearly doing disco for money and because some of them were great musicians they could probably get away with it.Youve been putting together compilations and writing liner notes for a couple decades now. How has that changed after a shift away from physical product? Ive always had a great deal of affection for compilations because they were so important when I was 11, 12, 13, and didnt have a lot of money. I put the maximum amount of effort and love into them because Im hoping there are kids who start investigating the artists on them they like the most. Plus there’s an age group who still wants to own something tangible. I love when youve got a compilation, and theres a half-hour’s reading on the sofa while youre listening. I cant get enough of it.We had TV-marketed labels like K-Tel and Ronco in the ‘70s, but compilations have never been as big in the US as they are in the UK. Do you think thats to do with the general nerdiness of British music collectors? There are just more slightly insane people in the UK who end up living in a shed just so they can put out compilations of music they love.I do think theres some truth in that. The UK had those obsessive Street Sounds compilations of funk, electro, and early hip-hop, which must’ve countered the expense of US import 12-inches in the ‘80s, when the pound was weak. Street Sounds was an incredibly important compilation label when I was in my early 20s. So many people who ended up being house music DJs got their start buying those compilations. [Founder Morgan Khan] put on concerts in London’s Wembley Arena where thered be like 7,000 kids all going mad to electro. We never had the disco crash that happened in the US. Disco in the UK was probably at its biggest in 80, 81, 82 when all of the weekenders were happening, where there were 2-3,000 people regularly.Living in New York, I never felt an anti-disco backlash because you would still hear it everywhere in the ‘80s, even blending in with new wave. The big dance stations KISS-FM and WBLS would pay things like [ex-Buzzcocks] Pete Shelleys "Witness the Change" or the Clash’s “The Magnificent Dance” and kids would breakdance to them.The UK held onto that black music snobbery for quite a long time, and that didnt break down until house music arrived. I preferred what was happening in New York, although I didnt realize it at the time – things like Kid Creole & the Coconuts, Ze Records, 99 Records; that mishmash of styles. How has this eclecticism shaped your DJ sets? I try to play one or two new tracks every week. Ive never felt there was one era that was so amazing that you couldnt pick from other eras to make your set better. Its exciting when theres a great new band Ive never heard of. You have to dig through a lot of stuff to find things you love, but they do come up, like an Australian band called Mildlife. Theyve got one album and its a bit like jazz-funk, but really good. British music fans were traditionally very tribal. Right back to the late 40s, you could absolutely tell what kind of music someone listened to by the clothes they were wearing. I look on the streets now in [London’s trendy] Shoreditch, where there are loads of young students, and Ive got no idea what they listen to. I think thats a bit of a shame, but the fact that theyre open-minded means you can play a lot of different music and theyll go with it. I played a very electronic festival last Sunday with "Coming Up" by Paul McCartney as the last record, and it went over well. And the great thing about For Discos Only is that the production and musicianship and remixing on many of these records is top-notch. Its music that can be current.
A wide-ranging combination of Latin folklore and Anglo alt-rock form the crux of Latin alternative music. As inventive players paved paths to niche subcultures that shifted further from mainstream pop, rock and Latin regionalism over the years, they also opened up an immense portal of global yet Latin-minded formations. Whether artists pulled from radio-friendly pop (e.g. Paulina Rubio, Mariah Carey) or their parents’ classic rock (e.g., Los Locos del Ritmo, Elvis), this bicultural/multicultural recipe inspired game-changers to create a like-minded identity, with plenty of attitude.From vintage-synth-loving Chileans like Javiera Mena, Gepe, or Alex Anwandter producing rosey-tinted indie-pop, to electro-folkloric producers in Argentina (Chancha Via Circuito), Colombia (Bomba Estéreo), Ecuador (Nicola Cruz), and Peru (Dengue Dengue Dengue) ushering in a new digital cumbia enigma, the ever-elastic art form is essentially without boundaries.So what does it mean for brown-eyed soul troubadours like Chicano Batman to grow up on low-rider funk and Motown-style oldies at an L.A. swap meet? Or Mexican charro-clad rockeros Mexrrissey finding kinship with melancholic Manchester pop icon Morrissey? Or even Cuban/Puerto Rican soulstress Xenia Rubinos displaying an affinity for ‘50s-era jazz chanteuses and open-mic MCs alike? From hip-hop to electronic to folk and urban, this Latin-rooted concoction continues to flourish and take unprecedented shapes throughout the Americas and Spain.By no means is this a comprehensive list of the scene’s countless configurations, but instead a starting point for newcomers to explore Latin alternative’s numerous stylistic configurations, and to familiarize themselves with the compelling works of Latinx artists of Latin America, the diaspora, and beyond. (Heads up: you won’t find any Shakiras, Romeo Santos, or J. Los here.)
When rock made its entry into Latin America many moons ago (notably around the time Elvis Presley debuted in the continent during the ‘50s), it spawned a bevy of “refried Elvises” or imitators replicating The King’s style but with Spanish lyrics. Most Latin American bands spent decades aping the rock aesthetic coming out of America and the U.K., until the ‘80s. An unprecedented approach to the style took shape and musicians began to finally embrace their roots, fusing anything from brass melodies to boleros to cumbias and sones—all against traditional rock instrumentation—thus acquiring their own musical identity. Groups like Argentinean dance-punk agitators Todos Tus Muertos, Spain’s New Wave provocateurs Radio Futura, and Mexican dark-wave cumbieros Caifanes are among the slew of innovators to unflinchingly mix regional styles with rock arrangements.
While the rock en español forefathers of the 1980s laid the groundwork for the south-of-the-border movement (Spain included), it took until the following decade for the scene to explode globally. Each project stood as its own original fusion: Mexico’s Maldita Vecindad, armed with a boisterous sax, adopted pachuco swagger; Chile’s Los Prisioneros made rebellious synth-punk; Argentina’s Los Fabulosos Cadillacs created rowdy murga-driven ska; and Spain/France’s Manu Chao spreaded lover’s-rock bohemianism. The foundations, however, were similar: Each rebellious outfit delivered their own socio-political agenda while commanding the dance floor, or mosh pit.
As the scene reconfigured approaching the new millennium, acts who showed insatiable lasting power (like Café Tacvba, Babasónicos, Zoé) branched out of the then-tiresome rock en español category, and joined the new cohort of Latin alternative iconoclasts. Labels like Nacional Records, the forward-thinking U.S.-based Latin alternative imprint, helped to solidify this new movement. They housed luminary groups like Nortec Collective, a DJ/producer crew from Tijuana who mash-up norteñas and techno; the feisty Bomba Estéreo, who took electro-cumbias outside of Colombia; and French-Chilean rapper/poetess Ana Tijoux, who brought silky smooth rap verses that resonate across the diaspora. Others like ZZK Records—the Buenos Aires digital cumbia collective that began as an underground party—gathered electro-folk-minded DJ/producers like Chancha via Circuito, Frikstailers, and Lagartigeando. Santiago’s Quemasucabeza capitalized on the aforementioned rising electro-pop scene of Chile. And Monterrey, Mexico had its own alternative boom called la avanzada regia (a scene the channeled a similar spirit as Seattle’s grunge movement). It birthed the wild dance rock of Plastilina Mosh, Control Machete’s vicious rap-punk, and the electro-rock brilliance of Kinky.
With the Latin alternative ethos well established, the ever-elastic umbrella continues to mold, expand, and morph into further subgroups. This decade, spectators have witnessed the rise of the singer.songwriter—through Carla Morrison’s wounded confections, Ximena Sariñana’s heartbreaking jazz-pop, or Natalia Lafourcade’s rustic pop elegance. And while Latin trap, reggaetón, and all-things urban keep topping the mainstream charts, underground rap prodigies like Princess Nokia, cholo-goths Prayers, and R&B soulstress Kali Uchis formed a resistance to commercialism, adopting an unflinching mindset that’s on par with the Latin alternative philosophy. Cumbia-gothics (La MiniTK Del Miedo), indie-mambo prodigies (Orkesta Mendoza), Brooklyn baile funk (Zuzuka Poderosa), and unruly punk norteños (e.g. A Band of Bitches, Juan Cirerol)—the beauty of Latin alternative is that it will never be restricted to one beat or style.
At the turn of the millennium, it seemed unlikely that an aging record nerd hollering about his favorite bands could possibly become the vessel for an entire angst-ridden generation—but that was before we had Sound of Silver. When James Murphy released his second full-length as LCD Soundsystem 10 years ago, he revealed the deeply sentimental roots behind all the dance-punk chic, the hopelessly melancholic critic who, no matter how many albums he might amass in his enormous collection, still can’t escape the simple truths of getting older and saying goodbye to all your friends. Though their short-lived retirement is now over, with the arrival of their first new album in seven years, it wouldn’t be LCD Soundsystem without gazing longingly towards the past. So we’ve taken the occasion to unpack James Murphy’s shining moment, the weepy behemoth of a dance record that is Sound of Silver.Murphy’s influences are as vast as they are easily traceable (all one has to do is look up the lyrics to the climactic band-listing outburst of “Losing My Edge”), yet the real magic of the album is how confidently it inhabits its own skin, effortlessly mixing the mechanic rhythms of Kraftwerk, the starry-eyed synth-punk of New Order, and the reckless rock worship of Lou Reed into something as comfortable in the club as it is at home on a turntable. Its endlessly looping electronics nod to the simple majesty of Detroit techno as well as the prickly brain-funk of the Talking Heads, yet what’s fascinating about Murphy is the way that he turns his love of these disparate artists into his own defining quality. LCD Soundsystem is a band of fanboys and fangirls playing for devotees of their own, celebrating the act of loving music and creating something entirely theirs in the process. Sound of Silver was the moment where Murphy’s band ceased to be a loving tribute to the many shapes of punk and New Wave, and became a fully-armed dance unit for the 21st century. Without further ado, we present our mix of the many sounds the fuelled one of our era’s most distinguishing voices.
In the 10 years since London’s enigmatic Burial released his boundary-breaking sophomore LP Untrue, the face of electronic music has changed dramatically. Not only have new arenas opened up for ambient-leaning producers to bring their experimental soundscapes into the spotlight, but the divisions between such typically at-home forms of listening and more club-oriented sounds have continued to blur. Though his releases seem to come less and less frequently, Burial’s thumbprint still courses through dance music today, whether in his haunting, intimate use of vocal samples, his brisk, tactile beats, or his free wandering into the kind of ethereal abstraction usually reserved for avant-garde composers.Part of what made Burial’s sound on Untrue so inspiring was his willingness to tackle original rhythms, without regard for what scenes he might be breaching. At turns reminiscent of house, garage, dubstep, and hardcore, Untrue is as bracingly pulsing as it is forlorn and relaxed, capturing the sounds of dance music at their most provocative, enveloping, romantic, and pain-ridden all at once. You can hear his influence in the dark nightclub ruminations of Dean Blunt, the grimy bass sculptures of Andy Stott, the ethereal beatmaking of Jamie xx, and even the minimal rhythms of latter-day Radiohead—all of whom have taken his blueprint for emotional, mysterious dance music and carried it valiantly forward into the future. Burial left an undeniable mark on music with Untrue, and with this playlist, we explore the many ways that his vision lives on today.
Subscribe to this playlist here.On “Suzanne,” the first song from Leonard Cohen’s debut album, Cohen positions Jesus Christ as a “broken” and “forsaken” figure who watches “drowning men” from a “lonely wood tower.” Cohen’s messiah is a cypher for longing and solitude — a totem for the lovesick and desperate. As a metaphor, it might seem bizarre, or even blasphemous, but twisting the sacred and profane into odd, interloping configurations became Cohen’s modus operandi for the next five decades. His most famous composition, “Hallelujah,” refashions the biblical story of David and Bathsheba into a tale of sexual obsession and, ultimately, spiritual transcendence; while the late-period classic “Show Me the Way” is a meditation on mortality that is addressed to either a savior or a dominatrix (or maybe both). For Cohen, faith is a complicated thing, but it’s ultimately humanistic and forgiving; it doesn’t seek to judge the transgressions of the sinner as much it attempts to understand our failures by chipping away at our ideals of divinity. It interjects tragedy into the holy order, and adds a whiff of squalor to the sacred spaces. It bridges the gap between heaven and earth. -- Sam Chennault
The ’90s have never sounded better than they do right now—especially for modern-day indie rockers. There’s no shortage of bands banging around these days whose sound suggests formative phases spent soaking up vintage ’90s indie rock. Not that the neo-’90s sound is itself a new thing. As soon as the era was far enough away in the rearview mirror to allow for nostalgia to set in (i.e., the second half of the 2000s), there were already some young artists out there onboarding ’90s alt-rock influences. But more recently, there’s been a bumper crop of bands that betray a soft spot for a time when MTV still played music videos and streaming was just something that happened in a restroom. In this context, the literate, lo-fi approach of Pavement has emerged as a particularly strong strand of the ’90s indie tapestry, and it isn’t hard to hear echoes of their sound in the work of more recent arrivals like Kiwi jr. or Teenage Cool Kids. Cherry Glazerr frontwoman Clementine Creevy seems to have a feeling for the kind of big, dirty guitar riffs that made Pacific Northwestern bands the kings of the alt-rock heap once upon a time. The world-weary, wise-guy angularity of Car Seat Headrest can bring to mind the lurching, loose-limbed attack of Railroad Jerk. And laconic, storytelling types like Nap Eyes stand to prove that there’s still a bright future ahead for those who mourn the passing of Silver Jews main man David Berman. But perhaps the best thing about a face-off between the modern indie bands evoking ’90s forebears and the old-school artists themselves is the fact that in this kind of competition, everybody wins.
It may be that 2019 was the best year for ’90s metal since, well, 1999. Bands from the decade of Judgment Night re-emerged with new creative twists and tweaks: Tool stretched out into polyrhythmic madness, Korn bludgeoned with more extreme and raw despair, Slipknot added a new drummer (Max Weinberg’s kid!) who gave them a new groove, and Rammstein wrote an anti-fascism anthem that caused controversy in Germany (and hit No. 1 there too). Elsewhere, icons of the era returned in unique ways: Nine Inch Nails’ Trent Reznor scored a superhero TV series, Primus’ Les Claypool teamed up with Sean Lennon for some quirky psych rock, and Faith No More’s Mike Patton made an avant-decadent LP with ’70s soundtrack king Jean-Claude Vannier. Finally, the soaring voice of Linkin Park’s Chester Bennington returned for a moment thanks to Lamb of God guitarist Mark Morton, who released a song they recorded together in 2017.
Taking a look at the playlists for my show on Boston’s WZBC might give the more seasoned college-radio listener a bit of déjà vu: They’re filled with bands like Versus, Team Dresch, and Sleater-Kinney, who were at the top of the CMJ charts back in the ’90s. But the records they released in 2019 turned out to be some of the year’s best rock. Versus, whose Ex Nihilo EP and Ex Voto full-length were part of a creative run for leader Richard Baluyut that also included a tour by his pre-Versus outfit Flower and his 2000s band +/-, put out a lot of beautifully thrashy rock; Team Dresch returned with all cylinders blazing and singers Jody Bleyle and Kaia Wilson wailing their hearts out on “Your Hands My Pockets”; and Sleater-Kinney confronted middle age head-on with their examination of finding one’s footing, The Center Won’t Hold.
Italian guitar heroes Uzeda—who have been putting out proggy, riff-heavy music for three-plus decades—released their first record in 13 years, the blistering Quocumque jerceris stabit; Imperial Teen, led by Faith No More multi-instrumentalist Roddy Bottum, kept the weird hooks coming with Now We Are Timeless; and high-concept Californians That Dog capped off a year of reissues with Old LP, their first album since 1997. Juliana Hatfield continued the creative tear she’s been on this decade with two albums: Weird, a collection of hooky, twisty songs that tackle alienation with searing wit, and Juliana Hatfield Sings the Police, her tribute record to the dubby New Wave chart heroes (in the spirit of the salute to Olivia Newton-John she released in 2018). And our playlist finishes with Mary Timony, formerly of the gnarled rockers Helium and currently part of the power trio Ex Hex, paying tribute to her former Autoclave bandmate Christina Billotte via an Ex Hex take on “What Kind of Monster Are You?,” one of the signature songs by Billotte’s ’90s triple threat Slant 6.
