The Lacking Permanence

There is something familiar yet quite subversive in the way Sneaks assembles their synthetic layers and stream-of-consciousness vocalizations into a collage of desperate modern living.

The Shilin Night Market had seemed to grow even more chaotic in the intervening years, yet the vendors and customers still retained their preternatural calm, as if the events happening all around them were due to forces completely out of their control. As the skeptic checked the status lights on the Stinky Tofu Containment Device for the seventh time that mission, the inspector pinged the jetpacks they had secured under a table of bejeweled phone cases to make sure they were primed for a quick getaway. Their progress came to a sudden halt as they considered the sign before them: “Small Sausage In Large Sausage - $120”

A new collection of covers from Yo La Tengo is not unusual, but their frequency does allow for some measurement of the band’s current mood, and the songs are always trailheads for musical exploration.

Spooky and unhinged, this single plods along with the menacing tone you might expect from the title. The flip side is more interesting, with call-and-response vocals, a bad attitude, and a woozy organ.

There are many two-genre combos that will fit on Blitzen Trapper like a tailored suit, but my current favorite is “country psychedelia”.

Kurt Vile’s surgical lyrics and out-there guitar playing overshadow the fact that he is a bona-fide troubadour, a distinctive voice and presence that hangs out in your head and strums out their weird tunes from an armchair in the corner.

Posthumous releases are always a tricky proposition, but Sharon Jones was a talent literally larger than life, and the combination of her of deep rich voice slathered over the funky Dap Kings has yet to fail.

With its Byrds-inpired jangle, harmonized “whoah-oh”s, and overflowing nervous energy, this could very well be an unearthed recording from the liminal era between “new wave” and “alternative”.

It’s been a while, but Elvis Perkins’ songwriting chops remain as lush as ever, an unexpected oasis of skewed harmonies and surprising arrangements in a dry sandy desert of plinky singer-songwriters.

Sneaks uses electronic layers and a disaffected delivery to create something that lives in the past and in the future and only circumstantially in the present.