The cover for the EP, via https://sv-1.bandcamp.com/album/fizzy-drink-lathe
I love music. I love when two obscure artists with different styles collaborate. I love this EP, which is only two songs (which to me is single territory, but whatever.) I know that most reviews are for albums instead of something this short, but I don’t care. It’s good.
Both artists do strange, ethereal atmospheres, but the execution is very different. Outback leans more into the EDM sphere, most often breaks-adjacent, while sv1 does glitch with more than occasional trap influence. So: what do these songs actually sound like?
Paramount+ and MTV Poster for "LOLLA: The Story of Lollapalooza"
I am a firm believer that 95% of festivals are no longer cool.
The market is oversaturated, the bar for small bands is too low and the commodification and democratization of stardom has made big bands seem blasé.
Plainly stated, music doesn’t feel important any more.
I’m not seeing many, if any, baby bands that feel like they’re going to set the world on fire – and I am certainly not seeing many big artists that will go down in the annals of history.
And festivals feel the same.
Coachella is a ‘wannabe influencer’ petri dish, Reading & Leeds have pop acts gracing their stages and Glastonbury is now Coachella with more mud.
And worst of all, there’s Lollapalooza…
What was once a haven for everything alternative has become yet another destination, Coachella-lite festival.
But it wasn’t always that way – once, it was a bright, shining beacon of transgression in a sea of country-club, khaki approved pop.
MTV Time Machine
Streaming on Paramount+, “LOLLA: The story of Lollapalooza” charts the rise, fall, and rebirth of Lollapalooza from Perry Farrell’s Glastonbury inspired dream to the multi-million dollar Chicago festival.
It’s a long and bumpy ride that stretches from equipment frying heatwaves that enraged a baby-faced Trent Reznor to stuffed shirt meetings to introduce collaboration with the Austin City Limits team.
But narratively aside, the footage of yesterday’s Lolla was what I fell in love with.
From Body Count to Ben Folds Five, the early days and death knells of Lollapalooza were diligently captured by MTV camera crews and Fans alike.
I grew up hearing my dad’s Lolla-land adventures from the 90s, a former festival devotee, and I so badly wanted to step foot in that sea.
And while time travel certainly isn’t an option, it was an option to sit down and watch this with him – courtesy commentary provided.
We’ve all seen the videos of Eddie Vedder monkey bar-ing it across the stage, but it’s different to see that video with live feedback from your old man who was there.
So, not only did I get my trip in the way back machine, I got to know a little bit more about my dad during his 20-something-ne’er-do-well heyday.
Speaking of Dads…
Jane’s Addiction comes to Red Hat:
2024 Tour Poster for Jane’s Addiction supported by Love and Rockets, from Live Nation
Do you have a reformed alternative parent?
Does said parent need a kick in the ass to remember they’re still alive?
Do you have the music taste of a middle-aged man?
If so, I have wonderful news for you:
In what I can only describe as an alt-rock wet dream, Jane’s Addiction’s original line up of Perry Ferrell, Dave Navarro, Eric Avery and Stephen Perkins are returning to the stage supported by Love and Rockets.
So, if you’re looking to kill time on a Tuesday Night with your Ma and/or Pops, watching them revert back to whatever college delinquents they were, this is the show for you.
Besides, what’s more rock-n-roll than ignoring the looming 9-5 Wednesday morning wake-up call to go to a show?
album cover for "Street Faerie," by Cree Summer (1999)
If any album can convince you to get a belly button piercing, it’s going to be this one.
Most of us know Cree Summer as the raspy-voiced woman behind our childhood cartoons as “Numbah Five” from “Codename: Kids Next Door,” or Susie Meyerson from “Rugrats” amongst many others.
My Gen X-ers know Summer as the ever-spunky Freddie on “A Different World.”
However, my favorite incarnation is the scratchy and soulful singer of the here-and-then-gone 1999 album “Street Faërie.”
Summer’s lyrics walk the line between fresh and cynical, intimate and erotic, poetic and plainspoken in a way that feels almost reminiscent of Erykah Badu’s work.
She effortlessly weaves that earth-mother-barefoot-beauty with a decidedly tough, no-nonsense sensibility.
“Street Faërie” was produced by Lenny Kravitz, whose fingerprints are sonically all over the album.
From lush arrangements to backing vocals, he added tangible shape and color to Summer’s vision.
Forget Don Henley and Stevie Nicks; Kravitz and Summer create auditory leather and lace together.
Her vocals are equal parts delicate and forceful, uniquely free of her signature spoken rasp, whereas his guitar has that tell-tale driven ’90s crunch laced with powerfully ’70s swagger.
While the album reeks of what I can only imagine is Lenny Kravit’s spicy cologne, it feels like a disservice to dismiss it as his pet project as some reviewers have.
As far as content goes, it’s all Summer – from “Curious White Boy” to “Naheo,” she pulls from her reality to find the beauty in mundanity.
Her songs run the gamut from interracial dating to period sex, each one handled with a deeply personal intimacy that brings the listener deeper into a wonderland entirely of her making.
Despite what the title may suggest, the whimsical “Street Faërie” keeps both feet firmly planted in reality.
We here at WKNC have been searching far and wide for music venues to partner with. But at the end of the day, sometimes the best partnerships come from those you already know. That’s why we’re collaborating with Neptunes in Raleigh to bring you a new monthly event called Locals Only!
Woody
Album cover for “Sardine King,” an EP by Woody.
Much like the hit cowboy toy of the same name, the Charlotte-based band Woody brings you comfort and some good ol’ fashioned fun through their songs. In particular, songs like “Neon Lights” and “World Book Reader” off of their “Sardine King” EP recreate the carefree nature of childhood without sacrificing an interesting sound in the often oversaturated indie rock landscape.
I find it very difficult to believe that you won’t want to groove along during their live performance, though I suppose you could say that about both of the other two bands attending this show too.
Long Relief
Album cover for the “No Growth” EP by Long Relief.
Where Woody sits in a more soothing, soft-spoken tone, Long Relief cranks up the dial on their latest EP, “No Growth.” Lyrically, their music spends more time lamenting the woes of contemporary society for young adults, especially regarding our economic prospects and mental health struggles.
Sonically, Long Relief brings a very comforting-yet-engaging alt rock palette to their music that I hope they continue — or even ramp up — with their new music, some of which they may even be playing at this show.
Good Deal
Album cover for “Probably Not,” an EP by Good Deal.
This show will also have something in store for those of you interested in a more folk and country-inspired sound. Good Deal brings some cohesive storytelling to songs like “Dirty Plates,” which I personally enjoy in music, while complementing lyrics with an organized arrangement of twangy guitars and soft drumming.
In Essence
The concert starts at 8pm on July 11th, and I must say that I’m really excited for this show — and I hope you are too, of course.
The underground rock scene of the late 90’s and the early 2000’s has always been a charming era to me. Bands like Hum, Bowery Electric, Southpacific and many more brought the space rock genre back to life in many ways. Whether it be combining the genre with midwest emo, post-rock or shoegaze, the result almost always ended up sounding great.
This “space rock revival” scene captured the glory of outer space and the joy of humanity’s monumental achievement in exploration. Bands attempted to match the feeling of the temporally appropriate film, “2001: A Space Odyssey” with its grandiose and horizon-widening perspective. This narrative was pushed to the absolute limit with the album “In Stereo” by Nemo.
“In Stereo”
Darrell Simpson, Patrick McGuire and Todd Harapiak made up the band Nemo, which released its only work as a band, “In Stereo,” on June 8, 1999. The album consists of 8 songs, totalling 66 minutes in length, with the last song, “Space Suit,” taking up almost half of that runtime.
“In Stereo” combines space rock, shoegaze and metal in an extremely satisfying fashion. This album feels like you are strapped to the side of a rocket engine as it propels into deep space. The album has some very artful additions to it that make it feel all the more atmospheric. Some examples are the beeping electronics throughout the album, which resemble spaceship modules, and the playful reverb on some brighter guitar parts that sound like satelite dishes sending out signals to space. Also, in “Bleary-Eyed Me,” the distortion on the vocals resembles the radio between mission control and the team onboard the spacecraft.
Songs
Not only are the band members geniuses at nailing the atmosphere, but they do a pretty good job of making some solid, earwormy riffs. For example, “King Valley 55” sounds like the combination of Blur’s more poppier side, and Have A Nice Life’s cathartically heavy instruments. “Bedhead” is a groovy, jumpy song that sounds like if Spiritualized listened to Primus. “Hyperdrive” feels like it is a child of the 2020’s emo/shoegaze revival scene twenty years before it was supposed to happen.
“Space Suit,” the closing track, is my favorite song on the album. Starting with mountains of reverb, the song slowly builds into a masterpiece of density, with one of the most gut-wrenching guitar tones I’ve ever heard. After continuing on for six minutes, the riff dissolves into a heavy, intoxicating drone, with more off-kilter guitars leading. I would like to imagine this as a spacecraft losing contact with the rest of humanity and slowly inching into deep space. The drone fades out after about fifteen minutes, and we are left with silence for the remaining runtime. Whether or not the silence at the end is intentional, no one knows. I like to think this represents all contact with the Earth being lost, the craft succumbing to the silence and blackness of space.
Conclusion
Nemo’s “In Stereo” shows not only the wonders of space travel with its depth-defying highs, heavy and glorius riffs and soaring vocals, but also the horror of having your back face humanity’s reality, facing a universe that no human has explored as deep as you will.
The album cover, via https://sintel.bandcamp.com/album/top-ten-most-epic-fish-of-all-time. Yes, this is a real album.
Hello internet, and welcome to my album review of “Top Ten most Epic fish of all time” by Sintel! It’s a pretty unique album, with its silly gimmick belying some genuinely beautiful fish in it. That out of the way, let’s dive right in!
