Tag: Tune-Yards

Thick Paint has a sound you just want to slather and spread on.

There’s a whole new album from Wreckless Eric, a whole album, but tonight’s selection resonates for the simple fact that this is the third reference to the radium girls I’ve heard this week, all from very different sources. As we say around these parts, it’s a real plate ‘o shrimp. Also worth noting tonight is n-th track from the Bug Club’s Rare Birds album, which has so many good songs on it you’ll be hearing from them for months to come, and that’s even with not playing the ones with bad words.

It’s a formula as old as time — take four Japanese ladies, dress them up in color-coordinated dresses and makeup, and have them play aggressive earworms featuring kawaii harmonies and the lethal precision of a veteran death metal band. And yet somehow Otoboke Beaver rise above the rest of the entrants in this crowded field. Who am I kidding, they are one of a kind, and if you’re not listening to their latest album on repeat, you are missing out on a lot of endorphins.

As individuals, Jay Som and Palehound each have their musical quirks and unique style. Together as Bachelor they plot a strange new course through the realm of dream pop.

It’s been 45 years since Chrissie Hynde initially hit her stride with the Pretenders, and she hasn’t slowed down for anybody since.

Angular compositions and Merrill Garbus’ distinctive vocals, glued together in strange uncomfortable ways, but it all works.

Funky urban hip hop and soul is not something you expect to come from North of the Border, but here we have Grand Analog, who does it all and does it well.

Even obscurists get to form supergroups, and Filthy Friends is one of the top entries in that category, with membership from Sleater-Kinney, the Young Fresh Fellows, the Fastbacks, and more.

Kate Stables is a one-woman tour-de-force, and this John Parrish production brings her talents to the front. Weird time signatures, off-kilter melodies, and quite inventive arrangements.

It’s a hard turn to the left from Mexican funk pop to electronic soundscapes, but Sara Valenzuela has made the transition well.