NEW ADDS: Lake Street Dive, Viagra Boys & more!
Lake Street Dive - Obviously
I grew up listening to LSD. My household was full of classic jazz and jazz-influenced sounds. But Lake Street Dive’s newest album, Obviously, takes jazz-inspired melodies to a whole new level. I know it’s still early, but I’m willing to bet this will be one of my top 5 albums of 2021 when Spotify releases all those stats.
It had been a few years since the quintet had released an album, but the first track on Obviously, “Hypotheticals,” proves they have not lost their magic. The slow-burning intro warms you up for lyrics that may hit too close to home with one of their catchiest tunes yet. The integration of smooth soul vocals and rock & roll percussion throughout the album is the perfect combo we didn’t know we needed. “Same Old News” brings the R&B tones to the forefront. Nothing can compare to “Being a Woman” with a chorus perfect for belting out in the car and lyrical discourse on gender inequality. With relatable lyrics and vibrant harmonies, this new album will be replayed all year.
- Ilana Cohen, General Manager
RIYL: The Dip, The Suffers
Recommended Tracks: 1, 3, 4, 8
FCC: Clean
Viagra Boys - Welfare Jazz
My first introduction (as it was for many others) to the Stockholm-based post-punk group Viagra Boys was in the form of the breakout music video for their track “Sports.” In the video, frontman Sebastian Murphy stumbles shirtless around a tennis court, simultaneously slouching and screaming into his microphone about “getting high in the morning” and “buying things off the internet.”
But that was in 2018 - the song was from their debut album Street Worms. Since then, the group have released an EP and, as of January, their sophomore full-length album. Welfare Jazz, a release the band describe as being about “love and redemption,” arrived to much anticipation - helped by the release of punchy singles like “Creatures.” The album holds much more than the sheer charisma and power of Murphy’s Beatnik-esque delivery, which is really saying something when one considers just how brilliantly that charisma shines through.
Welfare Jazz attempts many things: on one hand, it’s a farcical lampooning of societal structures like masculinity, chauvinism and classism while on the other it’s high-powered, head-banging escapism. The album exceeds at finding (and occasionally reveling in) the sleaze and grime coating the bottom of society.
The album opener, “Ain’t Nice,” is a sendup of shitty boyfriends everywhere. Murphy proudly sings about the collection of “vintage calculators” that he plans to store at his new girlfriend’s apartment and then proceeds to ask her to make him a snack, completely aware of his own ass-hattery but without the slightest desire to change it. “Ain’t nice,” he says simply, “I ain’t nice.” It’s in that grotesque complacency (if not pride) that the razor-sharp nature of Viagra Boys’ wit comes through. The topic, a miserable relationship, is a well-trodden lyrical area - but the delivery is wholly unique: a washed-up loser tries to impress you with his collection of old electronics and threatens to leave if you aren’t into them.
The front half of the album is loaded with barn-burners, from the insistent bassline of “Toad” to the danceable drum loops on “Creatures.” The lyrical content stays just as focused. On “Toad,” Murphy covers up hard-headed, self-destructive stupidity with the guise of self-reliant independence as he explains to his latest sexual conquest why she’ll be unable to make him a better person after their tryst. “Creatures,” meanwhile, allows Murphy to operate in his element; describing the seediest underbellies of society. Once again, his wit is subtle as Murphy paints a picture of “the creatures down at the bottom.” It’s a portrait of decidedly mixed dichotomies - it celebrates the group while mocking the situations and systems that have allowed it to develop the way it has. There’s a heavy air of irony throughout the track.
It’s not all hyper-focused wit, though. Some of Murphy’s humor verges on the bizarre: the first time I heard him sing “Shrimps, ablublubblub blub blub blub” in the middle of “Girls & Boys,” I genuinely laughed out loud.
Certainly, however, there’s more to the album than jokes. On “Into the Sun,” a woozy, spaced-out track, Murphy takes a moment to reflect on past choices and mistakes. It evokes the feeling of walking into a bathroom at 3 AM and staring at yourself in the mirror while the party’s music rumbles on through the walls. “To the Country” offers another sober moment - Murphy sings about a girl who he wishes “knew she didn’t have to party to hang out / you know I do other things than rambling around” over an instrumental which is a lot closer to “In A Big Country” than “Anarchy in the UK.”
Musically, the textures on the album are fantastic. Guitars whirl by the listener, sometimes sounding more like a starting car than any stringed instrument. Snippets of saxophone float by as well, and I often found myself wondering things like “Was that a melodica just there?” and “Wow, a full brass section and a flute solo?” The grooves are always consistent, and no track overstays its welcome. Murphy’s delivery is as energized and impassioned as ever, alternating between intimate mumbling and washed-out screaming which could’ve been mixed through a bullhorn. There are a couple moments on the album where things devolve almost entirely into sheer noise and energy, with eerie synths and canned sound effects to boot.
The album concludes with a cover of John Prine’s classic we-ain’t-perfect-but-that’s-alright love song, “In Spite of Ourselves.” Murphy and Amy Taylor (of Amyl and the Sniffers) go back and forth over an instrumental that sounds like what country music would be in the world of Mad Max. Even with that touch of dystopia, there’s still something strangely calming and reassuring about hearing about the undying love between two very real and very flawed characters brought to life so beautifully by Prine’s lyrics (RIP). She thinks all his jokes are corny and he’s a “whacked out weirdo and a lovebug junkie,” but that’s ok. A very fitting selection, philosophically speaking, to accompany the Viagra Boys originals that make up the rest of the album.
You might feel a little dirtier after listening to Welfare Jazz, but as the Viagra Boys know; there’s a whole lot of beauty on the grimy side of things, too.
- Sam Feehan, DJ
RIYL: IDLES, Sleaford Mods, the punk-ish songs in the Scott Pilgrim movie with Michael Cera
Recommended Tracks: 1, 3, 5, 6, 11, 13
FCC: Explicit (Tracks 1 & 11)
Stray Fossa - With You Forever
Opposing artistic tastes, divergent creative processes and yet a shared obsession with melody define the Virginia-based indie band Stray Fossa.
Stray Fossa’s first full-length record, With You For Ever, was written and recorded entirely in the first half of 2020, a period of time that the world will collectively remember. The songs do not so much play into the zeitgeist as accompany it – weaved in and out of the record are themes of social isolation, anxiety and dissolution; inter-independence; restlessness; nostalgia; and collective memory, the last of which, given the band’s lifetime of friendship, has long underlined their writing process.
Coultrain - Phantasmagoria
Coultrain’s Phantasmagoria is firmly embedded in the Soul tradition, built on muted keyboards and overlaid with his assured, smooth voice—but departs with re-worked percussion and fresh, electronic experimentation.
It will be available on vinyl LP, CD and online on April 9, 2021.
RIYL: Al Green, Madlib, Stevie Wonder, Betty Carter, Mulatu Astatke, Outkast, Jay Electronica
Naia - "I Can't Let Go"
Naia are a latin-jazz band based in South London.
Their upcoming single, "I Can’t Let Go" is being released on Friday, April 2nd.
Aidan Selene - "Reflection"
Aidan Selene is a college student and songwriter in L.A.
Her new release, "Reflection" is out April 2, 2021.