Welcome to August! It’s a very good week in Indie Basement, with two of my favorite records of the year so far (Girl Ray, Activity), plus reissues of Ride‘s final two ’90s albums for Creation Records (Carnival of Light and Tarantula), Holy Wave, Annie Hart (Au Revoir Simone) and Art School Girlfriend.
Over in Notable Releases, Andrew reviews the latest from Florry, Chris Farren, Grupo Frontera, and more. If you still need catching up, check out the Indie Basement Best Songs & Albums of July 2023 roundup.
More Basement-friendly news from the week: Drop Nineteens announced their first album in 30 years; The Replacements are finally rectifying Tim‘s shitty sound with a new mix of the album; Eggstone’s Per Sunding is playing his first-ever US shows this fall; and Stars are giving their debut album its first US vinyl pressing (and we’ve got an exclusive, limited edition colored variant).
We lost Paul Reubens this week and I paid tribute with 12 Great Pee-Wee Herman Musical Moments. Au revoir, PW.
Head below for this week’s reviews.
ALBUM OF THE WEEK #1: Girl Ray – Prestige (Moshi Moshi)
London trio evoke breezy ’80s UK disco on their danceable, very enjoyable third album. A total delight.
It’s been a treat to follow the trajectory of London trio Girl Ray over the last seven years. Started as teenagers, Poppy Hankin, Iris McConnell and Sophie Moss originally made folky, earthy, jangly indiepop, but with their 2019 sophomore album Girl pivoted to synthy nu-style R&B pop which was a surprise but also turned out to be a good fit with Hankin’s songwriting and voice. Their Hot Chip-produced 2021 single “Give Me Your Love” pointed the way to their next pivot, which is somewhere in between the sounds of their first two albums, staying on the dance floor but steering more towards classic UK indie.
Girl Ray cited the 2020 nu disco boom of Roisin Murphy, Dua Lipa and Jessie Ware as influences, and while you can hear that, Prestige more recalls early-’80s disco, both the heavy hitters like Donna Summer but also the sleek British New Wave that co-opted disco for their own means. It’s more Haircut 100 than current Billboard Hot 100, an album packed with breezy, fun, danceable earworms that plays like a Greatest Hits album, or at least one of those records where most of songs ended up being released as singles. It kicks off with three absolute bangers: “True Love,” “Up,” and “Everybody’s Saying That” all fill out the trio’s solid, in-the-pocket grooves with strings, funky, clavinet, kitschy synths and clever percussion touches. It’s all wonderfully 1982 — think Bananarama, Culture Club, Orange Juice, ABC, Tom Tom Club — and this is the perfect delivery device for Poppy’s breathy vocals, harmonies and sweetly romantic lyrics.
As for those lyrics, someone (Poppy) is truly, clearly in love here. “Baby, the sun sets differently now,” Hankin sings on “Hold Tight,” later rhyming “Your light is as warm as the sunshine” with “talking shit in the grass would be just fine, my baby.” This is one of those songs people like me say woulda been a hit in [name a year] and really should be now. It’s a little George Michael, a little KC & The Sunshine Band, and all pop perfection with a giant irresistible harmony-laden chorus …seriously why isn’t this a massive hit?
Things stretch out on the second half of the album, which they made in Atlanta of all places with Ben H. Allen who’s worked with everyone from Cristina Aguilera and Gnarls Barkley to Deerhunter and Belle & Sebastian. They keep things varied without skimping on the hooks, with slow-jams (“Begging You Now,” “Wanna Dance”), electro-disco (the stomping “Tell Me”), and gorgeous cosmic balladry (“Space Song”), all while maintaining a high level of sunny charm. The unabashedly positive, in-love love song is one of hardest things to do in pop without sliding into syrupy treacle, but these three do it 11 times on Prestige. Girl Ray have arrived.
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ALBUM OF THE WEEK #2: Activity – Spirit in the Room (Western Vinyl)
Brooklyn band head further into the unreal, surreal, and beyond on their darkly compelling second album
Activity released their debut album two weeks into covid lockdown in March 2020, a record with a weirdly prescient title, Unmask Whoever. The music also fit the time: mysterious, alien, sinewy, cautious paranoia. Aka a good time! Despite the less than ideal time that the first album dropped in, Activity survived, mutated (new bassist Bri DiGioa), and actually got better. Spirit in the Room, made during peak pandemic isolation — “to keep from losing our minds,” frontman Travis Johnson says — takes all the best parts of their debut and condenses it like a white dwarf star, and then expands upon it. Synthesizers, samples and programmed beats take a much larger role this time and make for great companions to play against, taking things from the surreal to the unreal. Keyboards are layered with swirling guitar lines, real drums pound alongside loops, and slinking bass and Johnson’s whispered vocals bring menace. The result is somewhere between peak 4AD and the early days of Bristol trip hop — Tricky produced by This Mortal Coil? — but minus any of the obvious signifiers that might take this into Remember The ’90s territory. Spirit in the Room is not nightmare fuel nor a bummer, but a perfectly realized mood piece, creepy in a good way, thick with atmosphere and melody. It’s also not pop but “Careful Let’s Sleepwalk,” “Icing” and “Heaven Chords” are as vivid and memorable as your most lucid dream. (Hummable, too.) The quiet songs are the most affecting: “Where the Art is Hung” is windswept and ghostly, featuring lead vocals from the band’s other guitarist, Jess Reese, as well as some understated but spectacular guitar tapestries; while “Ect Frag” makes eerie use of obscure folk samples from a crackly piece of vinyl. It all enhances the heavy sense of grief that hangs over the record, a true spirit in the room, a shadow just out of reach but felt deeply and that stays with you.
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Ride – Carnival of Light / Tarantula reissues (Wichita)
Ride’s reissue series of their original Creation-era output wraps up with these new pressings of their final two albums. One of them is better than it gets credit for.
The mid-’90s were hard on shoegazers. The fickle UK music press — weeklies NME and Melody Maker in particular — were well known for overhyping early and abandoning soon after, especially, when a new scene comes along that sells more issues. In this specific case, that would be Britpop; to many, the praised hazy psychedelia of just a year prior seemed like an insomnia cure in the face of Blur, Oasis and Pulp. Some groups, like The Boo Radleys and Lush, successfully pivoted, but most faded into obscurity. Ride seemed poised to weather the storm well, though; they were already better “classic” songwriters and singers than almost any other band in the original shoegaze scene, and 1992’s great Going Blank Again was already heading out of the noisy murk and into pop territory. But something went pear-shaped when making their third record — probably a bit of the band and a lot of the label, Creation, who were seeing dollar/pound signs thanks to Oasis and paired them with producer John Leckie (Radiohead, Stone Roses).
Ride + Leckie sounds good on paper but the band headed deep into jangly folk-rock territory with lots of hammond organ. It was too far from shoegaze for the old fans and not as instantly hummable as the Britpop groups, basically pleasing no one. Including Ride themselves who just a year later were calling the album “Carnival of Shite.” Listening to it now though, it actually sounds pretty good and not a million miles away from the band’s first two albums. “Birdman” is classic Ride, and opener “Moonlight Medicine” (both by Andy Bell) is sweeping, prime grade psychedelia, albeit with a misting of patchouli. The poppier material, like “Magical Spring” and “Crown of Creation,” meanwhile, are instant earworms, though the lyrics feel like they were written two minutes before laying down vocals. Mark Gardner’s “1000 Miles” has those signature Ride harmonies and melodies but could’ve used just a little amps-at-10 power. The most traditional-sounding Ride song actually comes from drummer Loz Colbert, whose “Natural Grace” is sonically in the right place even if it’s not the strongest, melodically, on the record. Carnival of Light is worth a second look and this repress comes on glow-in-the-dark transparent green vinyl.
Not so much for Tarantula, though. Ride broke up while making the album and the air of no one giving a shit hangs heavy over everything. There are boogie rock jams, bongo-fueled Charlatans knock-offs, distorted sound (not in a good way), and almost none of the old magic that made you like them in the first place. Also not giving a shit were Creation Records who deleted the album from their catalog one week after it came out, making it near impossible to find at the time and over the next two decades nearly everyone involved acted like it didn’t exist. I have not actually heard the new reissue which features “reworked and refined” audio, along with three bonus tracks and slightly reimagined artwork. Maybe it’s better! But it can’t be that much better.
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Annie Hart – The Weight of a Wave (self-released)
Au Revoir Simone member makes the peppiest, poppiest record of her career
Over the last 20 years, both with her band Au Revoir Simone and solo, Annie Hart has made quiet music. Even at their most poppy, ARS leaned toward placid ambience, with only the most subtle of vintage rhythm boxes providing a beat. Which is what makes her new solo album The Weight of a Wave so surprising. The album opens with a swelling keyboard, putting you in familiar Hart territory, but then comes rapid fire 16th notes on a hi-hat followed by crashing drums and driving bass. This is indie rock! And it looks good on her, from anthemic numbers like “Crowded Cloud” and “Stop Staring at You,” to more gentle songs like “I Never Do” and “While Without.” (It’s actually not too far from the sound of her late-’00s group Uninhabitable Mansions which featured members of Radical Dads.) What really strikes you on much of the album is the bass, so prominent (shades of New Order) that it feels like a major source of inspiration for this new sonic approach. The spring in her step also makes a nice counterbalance to the vulnerable lyrics which often find Hart doubting herself while trying to stay strong. Annie gets support from Alexis Taylor of Hot Chip, The Antlers, Drew Citron (Beverly), and Madeline Kenney, but the best songs are the ones that sound like she made them on her own, like “What Makes Me Me” that is brightened, DIY-style, with handclaps and melodica. While I love the more hushed, minimal records of her past — and probably future — it’s good to put on your dancing shoes sometimes and in the case of The Weight of a Wave, they fit perfectly.
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Holy Wave – Five Of Cups (Suicide Squeeze)
Austin psych band expand their sound even further from the garage into lush exotica
When you see the words “Texas psych band” you might think “Black Angels” or “Roky Erickson,” but Austin’s Holy Wave don’t sound like they’ve ever stepped foot in a garage. The band’s sixth album is their most sophisticated yet, drawing from a variety of lush ’60s influences: lounge, Phil Spector, Morricone, Brian Wilson and tropicalia. Vibraphones cozy up against distorted guitars, vintage electronics and fill-heavy distorted drum patterns, while melodies are derived from unusual chord shapes and progressions. Five of Cups sounds stately and grand, but very lived in, like the morning after a very wild party at palatial estate where revelers decided to rearrange all the books in the library by color. The band cite The High Lamas and Can for this one, which sets off a few Indie Basement alerts and can totally be heard on these energetic but laid-back grooves. It could use a few more memorable melodies but Five of Cups still makes for lovely technicolor sunset listening.
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Art School Girlfriend – Soft Landing (Fiction Records)
Second full-length from Polly Mackey is smart, sophisticated downtempo pop
Some artists hook you just with their name. Seeing “Art School Girlfriend” had this writer thinking of Pulp (specifically singles “Common People” and “My Legendary Girlfriend”) and was enough to hit play, but the music Polly Mackey makes is more in line with other ’90s music. Specifically, the sleek world of downtempo electronics, from trip hop to Kruder & Dorfmeister to, especially, Everything But the Girl. Her debut album, 2021’s Is the Light Where You Are, showed a lot of promise and her second album delivers on that and then some. “‘Soft landing’ showed up to strike me when things were falling into place,” Polly says. “I was at that typical moment where you’re leaving your 20s and realizing you don’t have to work toward this concept of future happiness. Going to the pub with your mates can be the ultimate. Lying beside the person you love, watching the sun come in, can be it.” Soft Landing is a winning combination of vibe, songwriting and production — featuring contributions from her partner, Marika Hackman — making for a sumptuous, satisfying, and memorable listen.
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