Indie Basement is a weekly column on BrooklynVegan focusing on classic indie and alternative artists, “college rock,” and new and current acts who follow a similar path. There are reviews of new albums, reissues, box sets, books and sometimes movies and television shows, not to mention lists like this one.
I say this every start of July: somehow half the year is over and look at all the stuff it has given us. Musically, I would say 2024 has been a very good, often surprising year so far. Many of the records which are on this list I was not expecting, whether it was a veteran artist I hadn’t heard from in a long while (including a couple who dropped a stunner out of nowhere), someone who I’d previously not paid that much attention to, or some young whippersnappers who made me do a double-take with their debut album. There are also some veteran artists who reliably release an album a year (or, you know, three a year) and deliver the goods, and some new artists who followed up their great debut with an even better second album this year. If the year ended now, I’d be happy with this list (and probably add another 10 albums), and I’m excited to see what the next six months bring.
Keep in mind this is not a definitive, all-encompassing list of the year to date. For something more along those lines, head to BrooklynVegan’s 40 Favorite Albums of 2024 So Far.
The Indie Basement list is below, along with a playlist featuring two selections from each of these 30 albums (minus one, which is not on streaming).
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+/- {Plus/Minus} – Further Afield (Ernest Jennings Record Co)
NYC indie rock vets +/- {Plus/Minus} have been together since 2001 and James Baluyut has another decade on top of that with Versus, but on their first album in 10 years they sound like a band of 20-somethings, full of youthful spark and wild creativity. Take opening song “Borrowed Time,” a song that is actually about getting older but is the kind of hyper-jangle indie rock that could’ve been out on their old label Teenbeat Records in 1995. The rest of Further Afield is just as memorable: the “ooooh”-filled “Gondolier” is laid-back and very dreamy; “Driving Aimlessly” leans toward danceable synthpop; “Calling Off the Rescue” could almost be the Moody Blues (not a criticism); and “The Pull from Both Sides” flies on gossamer wings of shoegazey guitars and glitchy electronics. Some of the pep in their step comes via drummer Chris Deaner, who is one of the best to do it (and played for Kelly Clarkson in the mid-’00s), but everyone here sounds energized and at the top of their game. Bands who are trying to come back after a decade — this is how you do it.
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Astrel K – The Foreign Department (Tough Love)
Rhys Edwards has just delivered three great albums in as many years. 2023 saw the release of Compact Trauma, the first album from his band Ulrika Spacek in five years, and surrounding that are two solo releases as Astrel K. The first of those, 2022’s Flickering i, was made during the pandemic after Edwards had moved to Stockholm to be with his partner. It felt very much like a solo project, almost accidental and decidedly homemade as he explored musical ideas outside Ulrika Spacek’s world of guitars. The Foreign Department, made in the wake of a breakup, seems entirely intentional, with a clear point of view and sounds like, if not a new band, then a solo album made with one. The Foreign Department is 11 big swings, featuring Edwards’ take on sophistipop with swaying, swaggering songs filled with grand piano, brass and string sections, swoony melodies, soaring falsetto, and more than a few waltzes. The touchstones are still the same: ’60s sunshine pop, Jacques Brel and Scott Walker’s early ’70s records, Stereolab, Saint Etienne and the nostalgic whimsy of the first Avalanches album, but this time applied to ambitious, fully orchestrated studio recordings that sound thoroughly modern. The Foreign Department is a melancholy wonderland that has room for pure beauty (“Daffodil,” “By Depol”), dizzyingly ambitious leaps (“A Rudderless Ship”) and ornate orchestrations (“Brighter Spells”). All of it lands. Add to that a perfectly conceived and executed album sleeve, and The Foreign Department is the total package. As great as Ulrika Spacek are, Astrel K may be Edwards’ true purpose.
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The Bevis Frond – Focus On Nature (Fire Records)
Not unlike Robert Pollard with Guided by Voices, Nick Saloman has been leading London’s The Bevis Frond since the mid-’80s, with dozens of albums and lineup changes in his wake. He’s got a signature sound too: a stormy brand of indie rock that’s steeped in folky ’70s British psychedelia, windswept melodies, and ragged guitar solos. Saloman is not quite as prolific as Pollard, but Bevis Frond records feel a little more fussed over. Depending on how you count, Focus on Nature lands somewhere around Album #26, and is a sprawling, 19-song, 75-minute double LP that is awesome in scope. Saloman just turned 71 but you’d never know it with songs like “Jacks Immortal,” a hooky ripper complete with a killer twin-lead riff. Every detail seems considered, even if Nick sometimes sounds like he just woke up. The basslines are fantastic, as are the minor key harmonies, and Saloman possesses a full house of choice guitar tones — see the wonderful, Big Star-ish “Maybe We Got it Wrong” as one of many pieces of evidence. Focus on Nature might benefit from some editing — save a few of these for an EP, perhaps? — but I’d be hard-pressed to tell him what to cut. Saloman has earned the right to indulgence, and his is the sweetest kind.
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Beak> – >>>> (Invada / Temporary Residence Ltd)
Beak>, the trio of drummer Geoff Barrow (Portishead), bassist Billy Fuller (Robert Plant’s Sensational Space Shifters) and keyboardist/guitarist Will Young (Moon Gangs), surprise-released what is easily the group’s best record yet which A) plays great as a seamless album experience, yet B) has plenty of standout cuts, and C) sports what will surely be my Album Cover of the Year when December comes. (That’s Barrow’s dog and band mascot Alfie, who passed on during the making of the album. RIP, Alf.) This trio have had a very distinctive style since day one — a murky, rhythmic mix from a wide variety of ’70s head music — but they have never sounded more in the zone than here. While the group wouldn’t be Beak> without Barrow’s drumming and vocals, and Young’s woozy synths and arpeggiated guitar-work, it’s Fuller’s amazing bass lines that lift this one to the top of the heap. There’s a fungal, peat moss vibe to what they do (Fuller says Beak> sound like “we were coming out of the ground”) that carries across the variety of sounds found on >>>>, be it folk (“Hungry Are We”), Can-style grooves (“The Seal,” “Ah Yeh”), doomy prog (“Windmill Hill”) or claustrophobic synthwave (“Secrets”). Then there’s awesome closer “Cellophane” that starts off as a bad trip and ends in near-metal acid rock freakout. What they do is not for everyone, but if your brain is wired this way, put on some good headphones and get ready for Beak> to crack your egg.
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Beth Gibbons – Lives Outgrown (Domino)
It’s been 16 years since Beth Gibbons made Portishead’s Third, her last studio album, and a lot has happened since, especially in the last decade as she entered her 50s. “It has been a time of farewells to family, friends and even to who I was before,” Beth said. Lives Outgrown, Beth’s first record solely under her own name, puts all those ruminations on aging and mortality front and center. It’s heavy and you feel every gram. Of course, this is also what you want in a Beth Gibbons record, tracing all the way back to “Sour Times” and “Roads.” But this is not Portishead. Beth said she wanted to “draw away from breakbeats and snares,” and working with producer James Ford and longtime collaborator Lee Harris of Talk Talk, she has made a record of autumnal chill and color, the sounds of the last leaves falling off the trees as rendered in exquisite beauty and earth tones. It is closest, sonically, to Out of Season, her 2002 collaborative album with Rustin Man, but it’s more expansive than that record, full of unexpected touches.
One thing that hasn’t changed since Third is Gibbons’ voice, which still has the power to wreck you with a single phrase and her facile delivery electrifies every song, every lyric, every “ooh.” For all the dwelling on death and pain, Lives Outgrown never wallows, and a few songs offer a sense of hope and metamorphosis. “Now I’ve come out of the other end, I just think, you’ve got to be brave,” she says. Or, as she sings on “Floating on a Moment,” with a children’s chorus behind her, “all we have is here and now.”
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Bibi Club – Feu de garde (Secret City Records)
Some records feel instantly transportive, tapping into old memories or hitting an emotion center that you didn’t know you had. The second album from Montreal’s Bibi Club does that for me. The music singer/keyboardist Adèle Trottier-Rivard and guitarist Nicolas Basque (of Plants & Animals) make has a nostalgic melancholy running through its veins, warbly in all the right ways. To call it sad would not be exactly right, but there is a wistful breeze blowing through these 11 songs that make you want to close your eyes, sway and feel it blow across your cheek. Some are danceable, some folky, and some evoke ’60s French pop by way of early-’80s post punk. At the center is Trottier-Rivard’s voice, breathy and inviting, that is especially good at “oohs” and “ahhs” that convey as much feeling as any words (though half of the record is in French so I’m admittedly missing a lot of top-level intent). The arrangements on Feu le garde are minimal yet very cinematic and recall early-’00s output of Morr Music (The Notwist, Lali Puna). From the autumnal “Parc de Beauvoir,” through the spring bloom of “Rue du Repos,” it’s an album for all seasons, at least for anyone with a taste for the bittersweet.
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Bill Ryder-Jones – Iechyd Da (Domino)
“I’ve always railed against it when people ask if making a record is cathartic,” Bill Ryder-Jones says of his fifth solo album, “but I’d have to admit that this one really was.” The Coral co-founder, who’s been a solo artist longer now than he was in a member of that band, had a rough pandemic, including a bad breakup and close calls with substance abuse. He’s come through the other side, though, with one of his best-ever records. Iechyd Da, which is Welsh for “Good Health,” is one of those albums that seems to process joy and sadness as the same emotion, not unlike Mercury Rev’s Deserter’s Songs, The Delgado’s The Great Eastern or pretty much everything Spiritualized or Sparklehorse have ever done. Whether he’s singing “It’s noone’s fault, there’s sometimes nothing to be done / I just don’t see myself getting past this one” (“Nothing to be Done”) or “There’s something great about life” on the very next song (“It’s Today Again”), they all hit with a massive wave of beautiful sadness. There are some wonderful pop moments, too, including “If Tomorrow Starts Without Me,” that bring on the warm-n-fuzzies while still keeping a dark cloud in the blue sky. The whole album washes over you with orchestral grandeur, swooning strings and choral backing (more than once via a children’s choir), and in lesser hands these towering creations would topple from schmaltz. But Ryder-Jones has such a sure grasp of tone, in all senses of the word, so that the songs never wobble. He’s got a soft, fragile voice that could carry the emotional weight of these songs all on its own but is also the perfect center for exquisite heartbreak he’s wrapped himself in.
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Camera Obscura – Look to the East, Look to the West (Merge)
It is really good to have Camera Obscura back. Their previous album, Desire Lines, was released 11 years ago and in that time the band has gone through a lot. Keyboardist Carey Lander died in 2015, and Tracyanne Campbell lost her brother and also became a mother. (Plus: covid and everything else 2020 had to give the world.) The grief and joy are all present on Look to the East, Look to the West, the Glaswegian band’s wonderful sixth album which is a return to form in many ways. After two albums for 4AD they are back on Merge, home to their best albums (Underachievers Please Try Harder and Let’s Get Out of This Country), and they are reunited with producer of those, Jari Haapalainen. Recorded mostly live-to-tape at Rockfield Studios in Wales, there’s an energy to these songs, even the saddest, sparest of them, like the dreamy “Sleepwalking,” which is one of a few about Campbell’s brother. (The wonderful “Liberty Print,” which opens the album, is another.) As usual, Campbell brings empathy and that Scottish wit to her lyrics, cutting the bitter with the sweet, instinctually knowing when to lighten the mood with a sly joke. Camera Obscura have never lacked in tunes, but the melodies are especially memorable this time while taking some surprising turns with inspired arrangements, including well-deployed pedal steel that underlines the band’s long-present country tendencies. (The guitar playing is, across the board, understated yet spectacular on this album.) All these elements are present on instant-classic “We’re Going to Make it In a Man’s World,” where the melodies, arrangements, vocals and lyrics all come together in that winsome way that few do like Camera Obscura. “The birds and the bees, they’ve been so sweet to me,” Campbell coos, facing off against an insurance adjuster, as bells chime around her words, then adding, “Take your report, shove it right down your throat.” It’s heartening that this group, which is rapidly approaching their 30th anniversary are still making music, this good, this vital.
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Cindy Lee – Diamond Jubilee (Realistik)
Patrick Flegel hasn’t released a Cindy Lee album since 2020 (when they released three albums) but has clearly been busy. Diamond Jubilee is a two-hour and two-minute magnum opus that encompasses a wide variety of styles that showcase Flegel’s many talents as a songwriter, musician and producer. It’s a lot to take in. The album was originally announced as triple album Darling of the Diskoteque to be sold on tour, but then last weekend dropped as a pay-what-you-can download on Cindy Lee’s geocities site (and on YouTube), renamed and resequenced as a theoretical double CD (wav files). I’m really only beginning to digest everything, but am also very wowed by it all. While still very much in the Cindy Lee lo-fi dreamworld of early-’60s pop, country and rock n’ roll, there are less weird-for-weird’s-sake sonic tapestries and instead a parade of memorable song after memorable song.
Lyrically these are mostly straightforward tales of longing, love and heartbreak — “Dreams of You,” “All I Want is You,” and “Always Dreaming” all come within a few tracks of each other on the first disc — which fit perfectly with Flegel’s love of Everly Brothers and Phil Spector productions. Though there are plenty of what I call “Lady in the Radiator” moments, Flegel is not singing all high falsetto this time, and the variety makes Diamond Jubilee a richer, more listenable experience and the daunting runtime sail by. It’s also the most guitar-oriented Cindy Lee album yet, and a real showcase for Flegel’s skills in that department; there are moments with gorgeous filigree throughout that are not that far from what you might hear on a Khruangbin album, just used to very different ends. Diamond Jubilee is a world that is easy to give yourself over to, despite length, and is peppered with amazing moments even very deep into its 32 songs, like the elegiac, stunning “What’s it Going to Take?” I have a feeling more sonic revelations will present themselves as this incredible record stays in my rotation throughout the foreseeable future.
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Ducks Ltd. – Harm’s Way (Carpark)
No other artist is currently doing more for the cause of janglepop than Toronto duo Ducks Ltd. Evan Lewis and Tom Mcgreevy have majored and minored in the genre, and are well-versed in classics from around the world — from Dunedin to Glasgow, Hoboken and beyond — and have used that knowledge to craft their own undeniable earworms. Harm’s Way doesn’t really mess with the formula of their 2021 album, Modern Fiction, but it’s improved upon in every way. The songs are better, the production shimmers more brightly, and the arrangements are more ambitious (piano, strings), with assists from Ratboys‘ Julia Steiner and Marcus Nuccio, Dehd‘s Jason Bala, Finom’s Macie Stewart and more. Most notably, they’ve added real drums to augment their arsenal of drum machines and that adds real punch to these breathless, pop nuggets, and ups their replayability. Effortlessly tuneful songs like “Hollowed Out,” “The Main Thing” and “Deleted Scenes” (there’s not a bum track here) may invite comparisons to The Go-Betweens, The Wedding Present, The Verlaines, and others, but they also hold their own against them.
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Elbow – AUDIO VERTIGO (Polydor/GEFFEN)
After nine albums, you’d think you’d know exactly what to expect from Elbow on their 10th: big, open-armed, open-hearted anthems perfectly suited for festival crowds. But AUDIO VERTIGO doesn’t sound like any Elbow album before it while somehow retaining all the things that make the band’s music so rewarding. The soaring melodies and the warm, inviting voice of frontman Guy Garvey are distinctly Elbow, but the way they get there — the arrangements, the instrumentation — feels new and exciting. It’s not often you get a band three decades into their career making music this bold, creative and fun.
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English Teacher – This Could Be Texas (Island)
When Leeds band English Teacher first garnered attention in North America it was for their single “The World’s Biggest Paving Slab” and between that title and the band’s name it seemed like they were the next in the line of talky British post-punk groups. If that’s what you’re expecting from their debut album well…you’ll get a bit of that. But, apart from being on the same label as Yard Act, they don’t have much in common with them, Dry Cleaning or IDLES. This Could Be Texas may be their first LP, but the band have been together since 2016 (formed at Leeds, University) and in many ways it represents that near decade of growth. I would say it feels more like a third album where you hear a band growing out of their original sound into something grander, where a few jagged post-punk numbers sit alongside sweeping, string-filled ballads and widescreen rock. The youthful spirit is still there, though. At the center is singer and keyboardist Lily Fontaine whose warm voice can handle both Life Without Buildings-style sprechgesang (the wonderful “Nearly Daffodils”) and belt-it-out numbers like the album’s gorgeous, orchestral title track. With their debut out in the world now, showing so much range, the possibilities seem endless for where they’ll go next.
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Four Tet – Three (Text Records)
Kieran Hebden has been doing it so long and so well as Four Tet, having carved out a distinctive sound from the jump, that it’s easy to take him for granted. But what makes Four Tet records so consistently great is that whatever he does, whether it’s albums on his own or collaborations with Thom Yorke or Skrillex, everything seems to stem from personal curiosity. He makes music for himself and remains at the top of his game on Three, his 12th Four Tet album and first in four years. Hebden is still working with the same threads he always has — downtempo beats, jazz, folk, shoegaze, techno, house, dub — but the tapestries he weaves are always unique, beautiful and distinctly his own creations.Three is a smorgasbord of what Four Tet does best, from downtempo mood pieces (“Loved,” “Storm Crystals”), to ethereal dance tracks (the techno-tinged, harp-laden “Daydream Repeat” and skipping “31 Bloom”), dalliances with dreampop (“Skater” owes a little to Cocteau Twins and The Durutti Column), and pure shimmering atmosphere (“Gliding Through Everything”). The album closes with “Three Drums,” Four Tet’s masterful single from last year that here ties the whole record together. Powered by a loping, 96 bpm beat, it’s an end-of-the-night send-off, eight minutes of bliss where majestic, airy synths crest, washing away the drums entirely, leaving a slow fade of warm ambience as the day breaks and you head home.
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Good Looks – Lived Here for a While (Keeled Scales)
“I’m not totally sure what heartland rock is,” Tyler Jordan, who is singer, songwriter and guitarist for Austin’s Good Looks, told us, “and I’m not totally sure we’re a heartland rock band.” I’m not sure Good Looks are a heartland rock band either but there are definitely elements of that genre in what they do, including warm melodies, anthemic choruses, and down-to-earth, relatable, ripped-from-his-life lyrics. But give their terrific second album more than a cursory listen and the differences become apparent. For one thing, lead guitarist Jake Ames clearly has a fondness for atmospheric early-’80s post-punk that puts a unique sparkle on songs like “Broken Body” and “Day of Judgement,” taking them somewhere between Manchester, England and Manchester, TN. (I realize that drops a pin somewhere in Atlantic Ocean, but I’m talking the metaphorical sonic mid-point.) Along with Jordan’s uniformly great songs, those unexpected arrangement touches lift Lived Here for a While out of “truck/beer commercial music” territory and make the album more rewarding and replayable. (Also Jordan is an unabashed leftie with lyrics that would not work for selling Chevys.) That said, Good Looks have crafted an album full of sun-baked earworms (“If It’s Gone,” “Self-Destructor” especially) that are custom built for blasting out of car stereos while blazing down the highway with the windows open, or watching the sun set with a frosty cold one in hand.
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Guided By Voices – Strut of Kings (Rockathon / GBV Inc)
First things first — what number album is this? Their last, Nowhere to Go But Up (released in December 2023) is listed as “their 39th overall” on Guided by Voices’ own Rockathon Records website, but press materials refer to this, their first since then, as #41. Did they secretly drop a record over the holidays that only Martin Shkreli has heard? Or did they do enough celebrating in 2023 with their 40th anniversary celebration and are now trying to skirt the pressure. It doesn’t really matter and I’m sure if I had as many releases as Bob Pollard, I’d have trouble remembering how many records I’d put out too. A title like Strut of Kings certainly befits such a landmark as 40.
Perhaps even more astounding, Strut of Kings is GBV’s 18th album since 2016 (!!!) and one thing I’m sure of is it’s the latest fantastic LP from what is an incredible late inning hot streak. Pollard turns 67 later this year and he shows no signs of running out of steam, high kicks or indie rock earworms. At 11 songs and 36 minutes, this one isn’t quite as ambitious an undertaking as Nowhere to Go But Up, but it doesn’t need to be with great, gloriously titled fist-pumpers like “Olympus Cock In Radiana,” “Cavemen Running Naked,” and instant-classic “Serene King.” All hail Guided by Voices, and I’m looking forward to the next 40 albums, which at this rate could all come by Bob’s 75 birthday.
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Helado Negro – PHASOR (4AD)
Roberto Carlos Lang’s latest as Helado Negro was partially inspired by getting to visit Salvatore Matirano’s SAL-MAR synthesizer at the University of Illinois. “I was enthralled by it,” Lange says. “It’s like sailing; you set a destination but how you get there always changes.” This one of a kind “organic sound creation device,” as one of the synth’s caretakers puts it, is perfect for Helado Negro’s earthy, vibrant and highly empathetic universe. Underlining this, he also made it in his new home of Asheville, NC, a place known for rolling hills, abundant wildlife, and Moog synthesizers. PHASOR bubbles with life, nine gorgeous creations swimming in electronic primordial ooze but in a very organic way, floating alongside acoustic instruments and Lange’s warm, inviting, distinctive voice. It’s like a spaceship glimpsed from the forest floor, making diodes, patch-cords, and oscillators seem like wonders of nature.
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High Llamas – Hey Panda (Drag City)
Sean O’Hagan has carved out such an instantly identifiable High Llamas sound over the last 30 years — a mix of Brian Wilson, Steely Dan, Ennio Morricone, Caetano Veloso — that it’s been hard for him to escape his own gorgeously constructed cage. There aren’t any bad High Llamas records, but even big fans like this writer would admit that since 1998’s Cold and Bouncy, you pretty much know what you’re going to get: two or three very catchy songs and lots of meticulously crafted aural wallpaper in their signature style. Not so with Hey Panda, the group’s 11th album that majorly shakes up the formula while still being very much a High Llamas record. Thank the pandemic and O’Hagan’s kids, who were constantly playing Tyler the Creator and Tierra Whack in the house during lockdown; O’Hagan became obsessed with the sound of their music. The seeds were first planted with Bonnie ‘Prince’ Billy and Bill Callahan’s 2021 cover of Billie Eilish’s “Wish You Were Gay,” which O’Hagan produced and which allowed him to experiment with the modern hip hop and R&B production (minimal, herky jerky beats, twinkly keyboards, sub bass, autotune) that he has now used all over this new album. Will Oldham also provides lyrics and lead vocals for two songs, “How the Best Was Won” and “The Hungriest Man,” and he brings a welcome new warmth to the proceedings. He’s not the only guest either: Rae Morris sings lead on the album’s best song, “Sisters Friends,” and provides vocals on two others, while O’Hagan’s daughter, Livvy, sings on six others. O’Hagan is still all over this, though often he’s just on backing vocals, and mainly through his unmistakable chord phrasing and way with nylon-string guitars, string arrangements and harmonies. In someone else’s hands, this could be awkward and ham-fisted but he’s such a master of sound, it all flows out naturally. The High Llamas’ music has always been verdant and bucolic, but Hey Panda positively glows.
IDLES – TANGK (Partisan)
TANGK‘s mix of melody, menace and heart is the key to the album, which may win over people who didn’t take to IDLES’ output through 2020’s Ultra Mono. Call it “Resistance as an Act of Joy,” this is their most accessible collection of songs to date, still with lots of bruising energy but also overflowing with heartfelt lyrics. The combo really works, and it’s probably no accident the album came out the same week as Valentine’s Day. IDLES hinted at this direction on 2021’s CRAWLER, a real chrysalis of album, but they emerge as a fully formed butterfly on TANGK. A Muhammed Ali type butterfly, mind you, that can still sting like a bee.
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Loma – How Will I Live Without a Body? (Sub Pop)
As Loma, Emily Cross, Dan Duszynski, and Jonathan Meiburg have always worked in watercolor, but How Will I Live Without a Body? is their most subtle, sublime album yet, despite being their most difficult to make. “Somehow, out of the chaos, we made something that sounds very relaxed,” Cross says. Relaxed, for sure, and at times bordering on ambient but also frequently thrilling, thanks to wonderful songs, expert performances, and arrangements / production that envelop you like a planetarium. Is that a guitar solo? No that’s a clarinet (via Cross, who also plays viola on the album) and is typical of their sideways but perfectly realized sonic approach that favors atmosphere over flash. Tinkling piano, fluttering brass and woodwinds, brushed drums, simmering feedback and synths that lie just below the surface, those are Loma’s weapons of choice, all of which are used to lift Cross’ crystal clear voice that, even if the music had you drifting off, could jolt you awake with its beauty. Even her background vocals, like on “This is How it Starts,” send shivers. There are a number of standouts here — “Pink Sky,” “Affinity,” “Broken Doorbell,” “How it Starts” — but How Will I Live Without a Body? is a record you really need to devote some time to sit down with. “The quiet’s what he needs,” Cross sings on another of the album’s highlights, “A Steady Mind.” You might need the quiet too, even if you don’t know it yet. But Loma do.
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Mary Timony – Untame the Tiger (Merge)
While Mary Timony has stayed musically busy since the late-’00s with Wild Flag and Ex Hex (and as a guitar teacher for the likes of Snail Mail’s Lindsey Jordan and other DC-area residents), new album Untame the Tiger is her first record under her own name in nearly two decades. This is a pandemic work and Mary had an especially rough last four years, losing both parents (and being their sole caregiver), and going through a bad romantic breakup. The latter seems to have informed this album the most as Mary questions her decisions and her inability to get out of her own way. But it’s dealing with the former that seems to have inspired a new worldview where things are taken in stride. “The dead leaves are blowing around in my mind,” she sings on “No Thirds,” which opens the album. “We only know this one life at a time.” There’s a lot of well-traveled insight here, leavened just enough by well-placed dashes of cutting humor. Great music too. Mary is a skilled musician with a love of British folk and prog that can really be felt this time; Fairport Convention/Steeleye Span drummer Dave Mattacks plays on half the songs, and there’s a lot of chewy, interlocking guitar leads and modal drones that give things a very earthy feel. At the same time, these songs are still obviously coming from the same person who gave us ’90s classic, Dirt of Luck. Not unlike Steve Gunn, Mary flashes her guitar prowess in controlled doses, keeping things focused on the songs which are across-the-board great, topping it all with just a little tasteful jam. Ex Hex are a lot of fun, and I look forward to their next record, but Untame the Tiger sticks to the ribs.
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Marika Hackman – Big Sigh (Chrysalis)
“Big Sigh” is not only the name of Marika Hackman’s wonderful fourth album, it’s also a pretty perfect two-word descriptor for it. There’s a haze of melancholy that infiltrates everything on the album, from the lyrics, to the melodies, arrangements and Marika’s breathy vocals which are probably the biggest sigh of them all. It also plays like a comedown from 2019’s Any Human Friend, an album that was fun, extremely sex-positive, and found Hackman very comfortable in her own skin. Big Sigh feels like a hangover, or at least waking up with a shock wondering “what have I done?” Strings swirl around her like 1000 doubts on tracks like “No Caffeine” where she tries to distract her way out of tailspin: “Take a day off work / Call your mum / Have a glass of wine / Stay away from fun / Pretend like you don’t care.” At first glance Big Sigh is most like her first, 2015’s We Slept at Last, windswept and atmospheric, but with the skill, confidence and nuance that comes with nine more years of life. Marika played every instrument on the album — apart from brass and strings — and clearly learned a lot making her previous records (including 2020’s Covers). You can hear echoes of her second and third albums’ sound here even if it’s employed in very different ways, including subtle electronics that bubble under many of the songs. For those missing the zesty, carnal delights of Any Human Friend, there is “Slime” — “Stranger I wanna rearrange you / Climb your spine and shake your mind / Slide back and feel your bones crack / So sublime, turn to slime” — but these two albums make for a satisfying meal, expertly pairing the bitter with the sweet.
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METZ – Up On Gravity Hill (Sub Pop)
After more than a decade of pummeled punk fueled by noise, bile, and sheer volume, Toronto trio METZ have let a little sunshine in on their fifth album. Up on Gravity Hill is METZ’s most melodic, nuanced record to date, packed with earworms that may still induce tinnitus. Edkins’ guitars remain shringy, Chris Slorach’s basslines are as flinty as ever and drummer Hayden Menzies still sounds like he’s trying to bash his kit through the floor, but there are big hooks at the heart of all these songs, from the insistent harmonies of “99,” to the massive sing-along chorus of “Entwined (Street Light Buzz),” the swirling miasma that is “Superior Mirage,” and the towering, anthemic “Light Your Way Home” that, mood-wise, is unlike anything they’ve ever done before. Even a song titled “Wound Tight,” which is an apt description for the band’s sound up to this point, has a pop center. That added use of melody and harmony has the effect of taking METZ further into (heavy) shoegaze territory. It’s a natural fit for these three, moving from anger to catharsis, not mellowing or maturing, but evolving.
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Mount Kimbie – The Sunset Violent (Warp)
Despite being signed to Warp Records, having participated in the acclaimed DJ Kicks mix series and regular appearances on electronic music festivals, London’s Mount Kimbie have never been ones to be pinned down. They’ve long collaborated with King Krule, and since 2017’s Love What Survives they’ve sounded more like a band than other UK electronic duos of which there are many. For their fourth studio album, founding members Dominic Maker and Kai Campos have, with the addition of Andrea Balency-Béarn and Marc Pel, turned Mount Kimbie into an indie rock band, albeit one that is still very interested in all manner of electronics; The Sunset Violent is one of the more unique, surprising, and memorable pop records of the year. What makes this album so special is the way Mount Kimbie blend guitars and electronics into something that doesn’t quite sit in either world, as gleaming chords sheer off into distorted fragments and melt into the keyboards. The very best songs here, “Figure in the Surf” for example, are an android-like hybrid that owe a little to early-’80s proggy art-pop practitioners like Bill Nelson and Japan. Elsewhere, songs like “Yukka Tree” have more than a whiff of shoegaze to them, but Mount Kimbie fold it all into the distinct sound of this fascinating, engrossing album.
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O. – WeirdOs (Speedy Wunderground)
Remember when there were lots of guitar/drums duos in the late-’90s and early-’00s? Well now it’s all about sax and drums duos. Australia’s Party Dozen got a head start but here come London’s much less googleable O. (that’s their period, not mine) who also are defying what you might expect from a combo like this. Working with in-demand producer Dan Carey (whose label, Speedy Wunderground, they’re signed to), their debut album WeirdOs sounds more like it was made by a full band and not just baritone saxophonist Joe Henwood and drummer Tash Keary. Amazingly, this record, which incorporates everything from doom metal and blast beats to jungle breakbeats and free jazz freakouts, was recorded primarily by Joe and Tash live to tape. (I imagine that must’ve involved a ton of effects pedals and on-the-fly loops, but still.) “We’re just two people making a big sound, unafraid to give it our all when we play,” Joe says. “We’re interested in taking it to the limit – it’s something that comes naturally to us.” That’s an understatement and even if this was made by a King Crimson-sized band, WeirdOs would still be impressive, jaw dropping at times, with its precision, oomph, and joie de vivre. You gotta love the album art too, riffing on sugary kids cereal and suggesting it’s “the weird way to start your day.” Sugar free, WeirdOs are a blast without the sugar crash and definitely stay crispy in milk.
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Omni – Souvenir (Sub Pop)
For a band whose sound is based on taut, precise and prototypical “angular” post-punk skronk, Atlanta trio Omni exude nonchalant charm on their fourth album. Maybe it was the time off — Souvenir is their first record in five years and is easily their best, with their stickiest batch of songs to date while keeping those edges razor sharp. Speaking of, the album opens with “Exacto,” a nervy pop song that details a bitter breakup, with singer/bassist Philip Frobos singing “Come here and cut me out / There’s no dotted line,” and sounding resigned in the dejected chorus of “your paperdoll / exacto, de facto, concise, quite right.” Frobos, who released a novela during the pandemic, has an eye for detail and a way with words and these songs play like character vignettes set to music. We visit Russian oligarchs whose yacht life is not as luxurious as it may seem (“INTL Waters”) while the possibility of new romance sparks on “Plastic Pyramid,” a duet between Frobos and Automatic’s Izzy Glaudini. This is also the first Omni album with drummer Chris Yonker as a full-time member and this new configuration clearly sparked something; they’ve never sounded more alive and fun, with Frankie Broyles adding a little power-pop swagger and flash to his well-honed arsenal Devo-esque licks. While this is Omni at their most relaxed, there is still not a second wasted and even with the occasional solo it clocks in at a tight, very enjoyable 30 minutes. This Souvenir is definitely a keeper.
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Ride – Interplay (Wichita)
Along with their Oxford friends Slowdive, Ride are having one of the best second acts in recent memory. Their third album since reforming a decade ago, Interplay, is the sound of an older, wiser and more comfortable in their skin group who are no longer worrying about being part of a current scene and just making music for themselves. Really, really good music. Andy Bell, who leads the band alongside fellow singer/guitarist Mark Gardner, has intimated that this was not the easiest album to make, but Interplay sounds effortless, with some of their Ride-iest songs since the early ’90s and their best swerves away from their signature sound to date. As to the former, “Portland Rocks” is blissed-out shoegaze perfection and pure Ride, from the “ahhhhs” and harmonies to the roaring, soaring guitars and Loz Colbert’s ever-powerful drumming. Similarly, “Midnight Rider” is armed with a shuffling beat that dares you not to bob your head, and a rumbling low end via bassist Steve Queralt, as well as the band’s signature guitar swirl; “I Came to See the Wreck” lays out a slowly building, beautiful maelstrom. They’ve also got pop songs for days, from the joyous “Peace Sign” to “New Frontier” that owes more than a little to New Order (and The Lightning Seeds), and swaying ballad “Last Night I Went Somewhere to Dream” which is definitely new territory for Ride. Unlike the “Hey we’re Britpop now” move of 1994’s Carnival of Light or whatever was going on on 1996’s Tarantula, all of this sounds natural for Bell, Gardner, Queralt and Colbert, with styles that support a uniformly excellent batch of songs. I already proclaimed 2019’s This is Not a Safe Place their best album since Going Blank Again, which was true, but this one is even better. Interplay is the third great album of Ride’s career.
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The Smile – Wall of Eyes (XL)
The Smile, aka Thom Yorke, Jonny Greenwood and Tom Skinner, did a magical thing in 2022: they reignited my interest in Radiohead. Perhaps they also reignited Yorke and Greenwood, too, as The Smile’s debut album was to these ears the most engaged they’d sounded since maybe In Rainbows, and seeing them live in 2023 made it clear they were having fun. At that show they played a handful of songs that are now on The Smile’s second album, Wall of Eyes, which is a much subtler but no less sophisticated record than the first. This is also the first album from Yorke and Greenwood to not feature Nigel Godrich in some capacity since Radiohead’s debut, but hard to tell if that has anything to do with that. Nothing here calls attention to itself the way “Thing Thing,” “You Will Never Work in Television Again” or “The Smoke” did, but these eight songs hang together better as a whole and grow on you. The most immediate number is probably “Bending Hectic,” which has a misnomer of a title though the strings get very intense (shades of Jonny’s film composition works) before the afterburners kick in for a Big Rock Finish. It’s the only song that might have you looking up from the book you’re reading — the slow-rising “Friend of a Friend” is great too, actually — but the rest of the album is engaging “back to mine” music, and Skinner’s syncopated drumming style pulls everything together in new directions. Wall of Eyes is also a “late night” album that deserves to be played loud. Go ahead, wake the neighbors.
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Trent Reznor & Atticus Ross – Challengers (Orignal Score) (Milan Records)
Luca Guadagnino‘s new film Challengers, the most talked-about new film starring Zendaya not to feature giant sandworms, is out in theaters today. The steamy tennis drama — also starring Mike Faist and Josh O’Connor as the rest of the love triangle — gets additional heat from Trent Reznor & Atticus Ross, whose techno-fueled score would go over well in clubs as well as the court. The Boys Noize continuous mix, released earlier this month, is great, but so is Reznor & Ross’ original, which seriously thumps and sparingly, cleverly works in some tennis sound effects for added pop. Most of all, it’s hard to imagine this movie with any other score. Game, set and match for this one.
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The Woodentops – Fruits of the Deep (Little People Big Music)
South London band The Woodentops have been around since the mid-’80s, having set their sound — anthemic melodies, sunshine positivity, acoustic guitars, clattering percussion, manic tempos — on their debut single “Plenty” which was released 40 years ago. (They were Rough Trade labelmates and contemporaries with The Smiths and also unexpectedly a piece of the ecstasy-fueled Second Summer of Love rave scene.) As someone who holds their 1986 debut Giant in very high regard (one of my all-time favorite albums) I’m happy to report that their first album ina decade is pretty wonderful and has all the signature Woodentops elements intact, and adds some new twists, too. McGinty’s voice sounds the same as it did in 1986, warm and inviting, and there’s just something magical that happens when it mixes with the acoustic guitars and driving rhythms. Like the best Woodentops records, Fruits of the Deep welcomes you with open arms but isn’t afraid to get a little weird, and Rolo and the rest of the band seem to be doing this for themselves (the album is self-released), a motivating factor that often results in the best art. Welcome back!
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Yard Act – Where’s My Utopia? (Island/Republic)
Where’s My Utopia? Is brimming with confidence, ambition, wit, fun, and big hooks. As to the latter, they are not ashamed to write catchy songs which is the subject of “We Make Hits,” a meta bit of bragging, statement of intent and Yard Act origin story all in one dance floor filler. “We make hits…but not hits like Nile Rodgers,” Smith sings, knowing they probably won’t be displacing Taylor Swift on the charts, then rhyming it with “just that we ain’t hook dodgers.” Yard Act’s choruses are massive and instantaneous, and working with Gorillaz drummer and producer Remi Kabaka Jr. they’ve expanded their palette well beyond the post-punk signifiers of their debut. They’ve embraced disco (the ABBA kind), lush ’80s new wave sophisti-pop (the Wham! kind), and hip hop rhythms (the ’90s kind), while still keeping those groovy basslines and angular guitars (the Gang of Four kind). Where’s My Utopia? is a rare beast, an album packed with bangers that has the flow and scope of “an album”; a party record that knows not to overstay its welcome. It may even give them the chart success they’re openly dreaming of, but they’re prepared in any case. “If it’s not a hit, we were being ironic.”
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For more, check out BrooklynVegan’s 40 Favorite Albums of 2024 So Far.
Here’s a playlist with a song from every album on the Indie Basement list except Cindy Lee (you’re gonna have to listen on YouTube or download it):
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Check out BrooklynVegan’s 40 Favorite Albums of the Year So Far list.
Looking for more? Browse the Indie Basement archives.
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