Indie

Original photography by Tuyara Mordosova. Subscribe to the playlist here.The deceased LA artist Mike Kelly did something amazing in his art. Throughout much of his work, and most notably in his Memory Work Flats, a series two-dimensional sculptures that he created from 2001 up until his suicide in 2012, he grafted modern American bric-a-brac -- buttons, bottle caps, keys, coins, and pendants -- onto larger, wall-hung surfaces. As with the abstract expressionism of Jackson Pollock, the overall effect of these is initially overwhelming and cacophonic -- the viewer struggles to find a focus -- but a rhythm inserts itself eventually, and the collection of junk (there’s no other way to describe it) gains a more ethereal, transcendent form. Kelly has taken objects that ostensibly have little relationship to one another -- that were built to decay in trash dumps and street corner cracks -- and transformed them into a cohesive modern American, high-art sacrament.

In their patchwork, low-hi-art approach, Deerhunter provide a sonic counterpart to Kelly’s artwork. Over the past two decades, the Atlanta band has stitched together elements of ambient, Krautrock, shoegaze, lo-fi electro, post-punk, warped rockabilly, and classic pop for a sound that is, at turns, explosive, defuse, ugly, and ethereal. The songs are full of sex, noise, drugs, screeching feedback, Russian porn stars, wheezing vocals, detuned guitars, and tiny deaths. It’s ugly until it isn’t -- when the dissonance coalesces into melody, and the characters emerge from their chemical cocoons to search for forgiveness, redemption, or, at the very least, empathy. Like Kelly, they tend to build their own iconography from the minutiae of suburbia’s spiritual dissolution, and it’s both revolting and beautiful.

Deerhunter was formed in 2001 in Atlanta, Georgia. It included Bradford Cox, Moses Archuleta, and others who are no longer in the band. The band’s first album, 2005’s Turn it Up Faggot, is more or less unlistenable for those not attuned to the more noisey end of the punk rock spectrum, but the band quickly pivoted, bringing on guitarist and longtime Cox friend Lockett Pundt, who would serve as the band’s other primary songwriter and provide a more trad-rock ballast to Cox’s experimental, kitchen-sink approach. The sophomore album, Cryptograms, was recorded over two days in late 2005, but it took nearly 14 months for their new label, the venerable indie Kranky, to release it. When fans finally heard Cryptograms, many were taken aback. The album was a fairly drastic departure; the jagged, lacerated guitar work of the original was replaced with atonal ambient textures, dadistic pop tunes, and nods towards a Southern Gothic strain of shoegaze. Traces of their earlier, noisy sound remained though, and the overall effect was that of a e listener fine-tuning the dial of a old radio knob, slowly bringing clarity and a bit of pop refinement (if not exactly polish) to the band’s lurking, free-range noise sensibilities. 2008’s Microcastle/ Weird Era saw the group continue to focus their aesthetic. There were actual songs, for one thing. The jangly “Agoraphobia” remains one of their most catchy and tender tracks. There’s a wisp of Sonic Youth’s no wave guitar fuzz, but largely the album is dedicated to taut, post-punk jams like “Nothing Ever Happened” or the great “Never Stops.” As you’ve probably been able to pick up, Deerhunter’s career has a certain arc, beginning with noise bedroom and blog jams of their early years to the learner, more traditionally structured indie rock of Microcastle. It’s not that their more recent work is without value -- 2013’s Monomania traffics in Krautrock and psych to bleary and occasionally beautiful results; while 2015’s jangling, Southern-fried Fading Frontier is the hangover from Monomania’s ridiculous affectations -- but 2010’s Halcyon Digest remains the group’s high-water mark. It’s an album were the band finally boiled down their disparate, oftentimes contradictory influences into a sound and emotional palette that felt uniquely theirs.The album title is a bit of a put on; in Cox’s telling -- it’s meant as a dig at the temptations of nostalgia -- but, otherwise, the album is emotionally and sonically accessible. The gorgeous “Helicopters,” with it’s chiming, elegiac melodies and plees for prayer, is probably the closest the group ever got to pure pop, while “Revival” is a swamy, garage blues burner.But the album’s centerpiece is “He Would Have Laughed.” That song manages to shift movements and melodies without seeming overly cluttered or fussy, and while the lyrics and Cox’s vocal performance is dark and tinged with death -- the track is a tribute to the recently deceased garage punk icon Jay Reatard -- the track is vulnerable and mournful; at one point, Cox muses that with “sweetness comes suffering.” There’s still a whiff of the anger, neurosis, repression, and self-destruction that swirling beneath the surface, but Cox is able to synthesize this into a voice that is tender, honest and revealing. The pain is still present, but it has transformed and taken the shape of art.

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.

It’s tempting to frame 2018’s explosion of dark, industrialized sounds as a reaction to the election of Donald Trump, Brexit’s passing, and the waves of nationalism currently rippling across the West, but ultimately it’s inaccurate. After all, strains of mechanized dystopianism were emerging as early as the beginning of our current decade (perhaps as a response to the global failings of authoritarian neoliberalism, of which Trump himself is but an outgrowth). The early ‘10s were when we saw the first brooding recordings from Noah Anthony’s Profligate project, as well as key technoid murk from Silent Servant and Dominick Fernow’s more rhythmic cuts under his Vatican Shadow alias. Yet there can be little doubt that what started off as isolated pockets of activity has spread across experimental noise, avant-rock and -metal, and techno and coalesced into a full-blown movement. In terms of productivity and sheer inventiveness, this boom can rightly be compared to its predecessor scene of the late ’80s, back when industrial seeped into club music, ambient, folk, rock, and beyond.Indeed, many of 2018’s most vital underground records come caked in industrial grime. First and foremost, there’s Hiro Kone’s Pure Expenditure. Released on Dais Records, arguably the label most responsible for documenting the modern scene, Kone collapses dark techno and DIY electronics in on themselves, resulting in shattered groove research that’s both intensely complex and unapologetically visceral. Back in March, Dais also dropped Castration Anxiety, the debut full-length from HIDE. Featuring howler Heather Gabel, known for her unpromising stage performances, and Seth Sher, formerly of noise-rockers Coughs, the Chicago duo specialize in a slowly hammering take on rock-oriented industrial that, according to Gabel, transforms the illnesses plaguing modern society into violent catharsis.Falling somewhere between Kone and HIDE in its balance of brute force with psychic despair is Lana Del Rabies’ Shadow World, released on Deathbomb Arc, a California label that manages to document trajectories in both weirdo noise and outsider hip-hop. It’s an apt album title as the musician’s work seems to be forged inside a shadowy, liminal space that while informed by industrial also draws in elements of electronic music and an echo-drenched angst commonly associated with older styles of alt-rock. In fact, a lot of the artists found on our playlist share this very quality to varying degrees. If their ’80s counterparts pledged allegiance to industrial as though it were a political movement, their 21st-century descendants tend to avoid labelling themselves so vociferously—an anarchist’s devotion to Individual autonomy rather party solidarity, so to speak.Another big difference between the current industrial/industrial-leaning scene and its forebears in the ’80s is the sheer number of female artists now exploring these sounds. Back then, shit could get absurdly macho. (Strands of industrial rock even devolved into straight misogyny.) This time around, however, the most thrilling music is being made by women. In addition to Kone, Gabel, and Lana Del Rabies, there’s Puce Mary, Boy Harsher’s Jae Matthews, and Anna Schmidt of Milliken Chamber.Add to them to key cuts and remixes from JK Flesh, The Soft Moon, Imperial Black Unit, Uniform and The Body, and you’re definitely in for one hellishly immersive listening experience-- yet liberatory, too. Yes, a lot of this music is despairing, but through its thick, gauzy bleakness you’ll hear fresh, new voices burning with defiance and nonconformity, and that can only be an uplifting thing in the end.

There’s no pain exactly like losing a musician you love. Partaking in good art can’t help but feel like a communion between oneself and the work’s author, so even if we never get the chance to meet our favorite creators in real life, the loss of one feels deeply personal. Not to mention the collected weight of all those songs that will never be written, and concerts never performed. Add to this the complicated nature of mourning a public figure — whose private life and struggles are often known only to their family and friends — and, well, it’s just brutal.That’s why posthumous songs, while so often a source of strife between labels and artists’ estates, can be so soothing to us fans. They give us a chance to remember the musicians as they were (consider Sublime’s “What I Got”) or as they might be right now (Avicii’s “Heaven”). They let us feel grateful for what we had (Bob Marley’s “Give Thanks & Praises”) or pissed off over what we lost (Joy Division’s “Love Will Tear Us Apart”). Sometimes they play like a final missive from beyond (John Lennon’s “Woman”). Often they’re prophetic (Tupac’s “To Live and Die in L.A.”). And occasionally they’re just big, beatific shrugs (Mac Miller on “That’s Life”).Some of these songs were released within days of the artist’s passing, and most came within a year. But all of them feel imbued with some extra meaning, from the sad irony of the opener, Hank Williams’ “I Ain’t Got Nothin’ but Time,” to the hard-fought optimism of the closer, Sam Cooke’s “A Change Is Gonna Come.” Music heals, so grab a tissue box and hit play.

An homage from Dowsers founder Sam Chennault: I’ve never written an obituary, and I’m not entirely sure where to begin, but I’ll start with what I know is true: David Berman is dead. Berman was a poet and the leader of the band the Silver Jews and, more recently, Purple Mountains. I’ve spent thousands of hours over the past 25 years listening to his songs and reading his poems. To say that his words and voice were beautiful, poignant, clever, funny, or any of the usual adjectives that I’ve used over the years to describe music feels wholly inadequate. More than anything, they were unflinchingly human and startling honest. They provided a window into a journey and a life that was difficult, and oftentimes incomprehensible and cruel.Maybe he described it best: “Songs build little rooms in time/ housed within the songs design/ is the ghost the host has left behind/ to greet and sweep the guest inside.”Berman was born in Virginia, not far from where I lived for a period of my life when I was younger. He was the son of an infamous Republican lobbyist, and he began making music in the early ‘90s. His first songs felt like a lark — the music equally appropriated noise rock and country, and they were ramshackle, disheveled, and sometimes formless. They oftentimes sputtered out without warning. But it was clear that he had a gift for conjuring images of liminal, ancient spaces. An early jewel: “Sin and gravity/ drag me down to sleep/ to dream of trains across the sea.”Over the years, his songs took on more concrete forms. The track “Pretty Eyes” from the 1996 Natural Bridge was a turning point where he first understood the power he wielded. The song is a surrealistic, trickster slice of Americana that tells of “little forest scenes and high school Halloweens.” In it, Berman declares “one of these days these days will end,” and relays a story of hosing down elephants in his backyard. These elephants are “ashamed of their size,” so he comforts them by telling them that they have “pretty eyes.” It’s a silly image on some levels, but there’s also an underlying tenderness to it, as there is with so much of his work. The last verse begins: “I believe the stars are the headlights of angels/ Driving from heaven to save us/ to save us/ Look in the sky/ Theyre driving from heaven into our eyes.”Berman was also a deeply troubled person. He spent many years addicted to crack cocaine, and, in 2003, he tried to kill himself in the same hotel room in Tennessee where Al Gore was holed up on election night 2000. He declared he wanted to die where the presidency died. In 2009, he temporarily quit music, saying that his father (the Republican lobbyist) was "a despicable man ... a human molester ... an exploiter...I thought that through songs and poems and drawings I could find and build a refuge away from his world...There needs to be something more.”He would return from his self-imposed exile in 2019, recording under the moniker Purple Mountains. His work had become progressively darker — his voice grew warbly and broken, and he conceded that he’d been “humbled by the void.” Even more alarmingly, was his line that “the dead know what they’re doing when they leave this world behind.”It’s all very bleak, but there was always a hardwon hope. One of my personal favorite songs of his is “The Wild Kindness.” To an extent, the song is about entropy and decay. He relays that “Grass grows in the icebox/ and the year ends in the next room/ It is autumn and my camouflage is dying.” But the song ends with this image: “Four dogs in the distance/ Each stands for a silence/ Bluebirds lodged in an evergreen altar/ Im gonna shine out in the wild kindness.../And hold the world to its word.”He was always fighting, trying to find an escape route from his family’s history, from his own addictions and mental issues, and from a world that was, at turns, absurd and cruel. I identified with this, as did many of the people whom I love and care deeply about. I thought that if Berman could negotiate these dark alleyways, and still produce works of such startling beauty, maybe there was hope for the rest of us. When I met him, I told him as much. I hope that meant something to him.On August 7th, 2019, we found out that the worst had happened. Berman, in his own words, had been “playing chicken with oblivion,” and, this time, no one flinched. His last video was for a song called “All My Happiness is Gone.” It’s lonely and ecstatic, and begins with Berman and his friends entering a cave. The last verse of the track will always be devastating:

Its not the purple hillsIts not the silver lakesIts not the snowcloud shadowed interstatesIts not the icy bike chain rain of Portland, OregonWhere nothings wrong and no ones askingBut the fear is so strong, it leaves you gaspingNo way to last out here like this for long

My friend texted me to let me know the news at 7:52 EST. Four minutes later, another person, someone who is one of the most important people in my life, also texted me, “I’m having such a hard time. Life is painful.” She’d never heard of Berman or the Silver Jews; life doesn’t always require a specific tragedy or death to be crushing.I called her partner and found out that she was curled up, crying, mumbling that she wanted to “meet Jesus.” I asked to speak to her, and told her that she should get professional help, that a therapist would help her unpack and understand her past. She replied that her past — consumed with a dead child and lost dreams — was too heavy, and that she had no desire to revisit it. I asked to speak to her partner, and told him to hide the sleeping pills. Sometimes, this is the best advice you can give.As I mentioned when I first began writing this, I’ve never written an obituary. You tell me, but maybe they should have a happy ending, or at least some nod toward redemption or celebration. I’ll try to provide that here. About a month ago, I lost someone whom I cared deeply about. They didn’t pass away, or disappear into drugs or alcohol; they simply stopped caring about our relationship and exited my life. I consoled myself with the knowledge that there was a new David Berman album, and this album contained more than just new songs from a master. It held 10 new friends, friends who would help carry the weight of mass shootings, dead children, failed relationships, and lonely bars, and they would go on and on and on. They will live forever.

Like R&B, indie rock is a genre whose current iteration bears zero aesthetic relation to its original incarnation. In fact, indie rock holds the rare distinction of being perhaps the only genre that has gradually mutated into the complete ideological inverse of everything it once stood for, while still retaining its name. As an alternately tuneful and experimental offshoot of hardcore, indie rock began as a fuzz-blasted assault on both the sleek veneer and materialist values of glossy 80s mainstream pop, but these days, its sometimes difficult to tell the difference between modern indie rock and the smooth sounds emanating from your parents favorite Lite-FM station. So how the hell did we get from the circle-pit fury of Black Flag to the artful adult-contemporary pop of Bon Iver? This playlist attempts to chart a linear, song-by-song course through three and a half decades of knotty aesthetic evolutions.Each track here is a link in a chain, one that built upon the innovations of its immediate predecessor and subtly pushed the ball forward into new directions. The leap from the snow-blind squall of early Dinosaur Jr. to the delicate pop of Elliott Smith isn’t quite so dramatic when you consider the ways Pavement, Sebadoh, and Guided by Voices squeezed melody from noise in the interim. And likewise, the chasm between the orchestral pomp of Arcade Fire and the gleaming synth-pop of M83 seems less daunting when you look at how bands like Animal Collective and Dirty Projectors melted down indie rock’s molecular structure with digital textures and R&B beats.These days, the term "indie rock" has effectively been rendered meaningless on both a musical and philosophical level, given that once-rigid aesthetic divisions have dissolved and every artist on the totem pole is now a slave to streaming stats. So let this playlist serve as a lifeline and anchor to an era when a band could really be your life, and not just an algorithm-generated background soundtrack to one.

Whats This Playlist All About? One of indie rocks rawest and realest wordsmiths updates her mix of new and old faves with a breezy, brand-new song of her own, "Need a Little Time."

What You Get: A mostly woman-powered show of badass babes whove mastered sultry funk (Janelle Monae); crunchy, cathartic grunge (The Breeders); angelic, irreverent folk (Neko Case); and enchanting futuristic pop that no one could ever possibly replicate (Bjork). She does give a nod to a few notable men as well, sprinkling in a Bowie classic, heady jazz from Kamasi Washington, and an assist from Roger Waters on a cuddly, old-timey blues standard with the frontwomen of Lucius.

Greatest Discovery: Lots of goodies to discover here, but if you like Barnett, check out TT, the new solo project from Warpaint singer and guitarist Theresa Wayman. First single "Love Leaks" is a syrupy slice of trip-hop-infused hypnotic pop.

Is This the Best Indie Mix Youll Hear This Year? So far, no competition. As much as were looking forward to CBs new album, Tell Me How You Really Feel, out May 18, we kind of wish shed start her own radio show—her tastes are impeccable.

Unlike most hyphenated sub-genres, soul-punk isn’t really a collision of two different musical forms. It’s not so much a modification of punk as a reassertion of what’s been embedded in the music all along——do-or-die, preacher-man passion, pulpit-shaking intensity, and floorboard-smashing backbeats. After all, when you strip down the sound of proto-punk legends like the MC5 and Stooges, you’ll find an engine powered by Motown spunk and James Brown funk. And that emphasis on rhythm certainly wasn’t lost on future generations of garage-rockers—from the New Bomb Turks to Make-Up to The Bellrays—who liked their rama-lama with a little fa-fa-fa.But soul-punk is more than just revved-up guitar carnage loosened up with hip-shakin’ moves. The conversation works both ways: In The Jam and Dexys Midnight Runners, you had bands that retained the formal qualities of classic ‘60s soul, but updated them with a working-class punk perspective. In the Afghan Whigs, you see the two forms fuse and explode into a cinematic maelstrom. And in the gospelized post-hardcore of the Constantines and the drum-machined manifestos of Algiers, you hear more modern variations that violently shake off soul-punk’s retro, party-hearty associations to forge a new kind of protest music for the here and now.

Whats This Playlist All About? The LCD Soundsystem mastermind and pals David & Stephen Dewaele of Soulwax and 2ManyDJs got back to spinning vinyl (and only vinyl) at their 2018 Despacio party residency at Queens Knockdown Center. If you were there, you may have enjoyed the set while sipping on wines from Murphys restaurant, Four Horsemen. If you werent, Brooklyn Vegans Arielle Gordon graciously compiled this mix featuring highlights from the first of three nights.What Do You Get? A whole lot of classic disco, New Wave, and house, all on the headier end of the dance spectrum. It kicks off with one of Paul McCartneys weirdest (and best) synth experiments ("Check My Machine"), then digs into classic Bowie, Byrne, and Carly Simon, alongside a few Soulwax remixes of French artistes Charlotte Gainsbourg and The Peppers. In between, theres just enough dance-floor cheese sprinkled about (including some "Jungle Boogie") to keep the mood pleasantly lighthearted.Greatest Discovery: The 1983 collaboration between French composer Hector Zazou, Congolese singer Bony Bikaye, and electronic duo CY1, who mixed analog synths, krautrock, funk, and African influences into entrancing tracks like "Lamuka."Guiltiest Pleasure: Lyn Christophers slinky, sexy funk-pop sizzler "Take Me With You."Best Surprise: Black Sabbaths psychedlic slow-burner "Planet Caravan." It glues together the surrounding disco beats and funky grooves surprisingly well.Toss Up: James Murphy Spinning This Mix or an All LCD Soundsystem Set? Were going to go with the former here, if only because were getting a little older and hearing these classics alongside a couple glasses of that wine sounds pretty nice right about now.

Whats This Playlist All About? Unknown Mortal Orchestra frontman Ruban Nielson carefully curates a funky, groovy, sometimes paranoia-infused mix that serves as an excellent companion to his bands brand-new fourth album, Sex & Food.What Do You Get? A thoughtful blend of new and old sounds that swings between hypnotic and heavy—kind of like Rubans own music, which seamlessly sneaks into the mix every now and then. The older stuff is equally eclectic and edgy, from worldly disco treasure "Space Talk" by Indian polymath Asha Puthi to the Hendrix-conjuring magic of Funkadelic, and the unrelenting rhythms and riffs of NEU!. The newer stuff offers just as much out-there sounds with a slightly cannier sense of restraint, like Parquet Courts jittery garage rock and Grizzly Bears woozy harmonies.Greatest Discovery: Scottish producer Makeness doomy, dance-y, Matrix-like melodies.How Does This Playlist Match Up with Sex & Food? Exceptionally well—Ruban clearly found influence in every one of these artists. In tracks like "Major League Chemicals" and "American Guilt," you can taste hints of Sabbaths chugging, proto-metal and Fuzzs fuzzier translation of it. In the warped soul-funk of "Ministry of Alienation" and "Now in Love Were Just High," you can hear a touch of Sly & the Family Stone along with the groovy psych-jazz fusion of Toro Y Mois Chaz Bundicks recent collaboration with jazz duo Mattson 2.