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.
It’s now April which means 2023 is already one-third over. How did that happen? This has already been a great year for music — BrooklynVegan already published its 31 Great Albums from 2023 (Q1) and now here’s the Indie Basement list. I had no problem picking 25 albums released through March that I consider great. I kept it to full-length albums only — sorry Heartworms and other makers of great EPs — and probably could’ve expanded this list more but that number seemed right for just three months.
Head below for my 25 favorites of 2023 so far in alphabetical order, plus a Spotify/TIDAL playlist featuring a song from each, below…
You can also check out the Indie Basement archives for lots more great stuff from this year.
Belle & Sebastian – Late Developers (Matador)
Belle & Sebastian recorded 2022’s A Bit of Previous at their Glasgow HQ – the first time they’d made a record entirely in their hometown in ages – writing tons of material and whittling it down to 12 songs. Instead of relegating the unused songs to b-side status (not that that would be a bad thing, as comp Push Barman to Open Old Wounds shows), the band decided to release them as a second album that was only announced a few days prior to being released. In addition to songs written during the Previous sessions, Late Developers also features songs by Stuart Murdoch that have been kicking around for decades. Yet Late Developers plays not like a leftovers comp but a career retrospective sent from an alternate universe.
Billy Nomates – CACTI (Invada)
As Billy Nomates, Tor Maries made one of 2020’s most striking debuts, transforming herself from folk-pop artist into a brash original who wasn’t afraid to speak her mind and defied easy pigeonholing. It helped that she found mentors in Sleaford Mods and Geoff Barrow (Portishead, Beak>) who encouraged her to find her own voice. It’s been tough, though, relaunching a career just as the world shuts down, and all the fears, self-doubt and anger that have come with the last three years play into into her excellent second album. She still sounds like no one else. With her warm voice and way with melody and harmony, these songs sound like they could’ve been twangy new wave hits for Juice Newton or Kim Carnes in 1980, or pop-country chart-toppers in the ’90s — except Tor’s DIY production and arrangements, full of weird synthesizers and post-punk touchstones, pull them in other directions.
Constant Smiles – Kenneth Anger (Sacred Bones)
As Constant Smiles, Ben Jones makes swirling, hooky minor chord pop that is pleasingly mopey, but tends to switch up the methodology from album to album. Paragons from 2021 was led with acoustic guitar, but for his second album on Sacred Bones, keyboards are at the forefront, giving things a much different feel. Arpeggiated synths dance around his melancholic melodies, while the driving basslines feel right out of the ’80s goth heyday. These arrangements are a more natural fit for Jones’ songs and whispery vocals, and Kenneth Anger — named after the experimental filmmaker — comes off a bit like The War on Drugs by way of M83, The Church and Disintegration.
Death & Vanilla – Flicker (Fire Records)
Does seeing the words “RIYL: Stereolab, Broadcast” stop you in your tracks? You may already know Malmö, Sweden’s Death & Vanilla who have been making icy, groovy, baroque psychedelia for over a decade now. I would never confuse their music for the bands I listed here but they are clearly from the same solar system and probably own a lot of the same records and vintage gear. On their third album, Death & Vanilla favor gently strummed guitars and whispered melodies, flecked with mellotron strings and flutes, and even when things get noisy, they stay polite. Flicker is full of moments of placid, hypnotic beauty, making the simple sublime.
DEBBY FRIDAY – GOOD LUCK (Sub Pop)
After a decade as part of Canada’s underground music scene, having spent time in Montreal, Vancouver and now Toronto, the Nigerian-born artist DEBBY FRIDAY comes into her own on her full-length debut. As on her EPs Bitchpunk and Death Drive, DEBBY defies easy categorization, mixing rap, electro, post-punk, industrial, techno and more into a glitchy, bruising and bitcrushed blend that is fiery, magnetic and all her own. Working with Holy Fuck’s Graham Walsh (found below in this same column with Noble Rot), GOOD LUCK is loaded with high drama, light and heat, noise and beauty, not to mention many killer jams.
En Attendant Ana – Principia (Trouble in Mind)
With a fondness for jazzy melodies, shimmering guitars, and cheery trumpet, not to mention Margaux Bouchaudon’s sunshine glow vocals, Parisian band En Attendant Ana are decidedly winsome. But they’re not wimpy. Those jazzy chords are played with confidence, the rhythm section lays down a serious groove, and Margaux is no wallflower and can really belt it out when needed. The band are all serious players, capable of dramatic tone and tempo shifts that are unexpected but never jarring. Principia is En Attendant Ana’s third and best album, their most assured and appealing statement yet.
Fever Ray – Radical Romantics (Mute)
“We don’t come with a manual,” Karin Dreijer sings on “Looking for a Ghost” from their third album as Fever Ray, in a voice mutated by effects overtop ticking percussion, like a wind-up mechanical doll. Love is strange and it takes a lot of work to keep it aflame, a theme that runs through the entirety of Radical Romantics. If 2017’s Plunge was Dreijer, newly out and embracing the wonders of the heart, then this is the tough job of keeping it going after passions have cooled and the realities of life seep back in. Reality is a loaded word in Fever Ray’s world, full of distorted voices and unsettling characters (even moreso in their videos), but for all the creepy noises, Radical Romantics presents a lot of recognizably human emotions at its core. Love, anger and everything in between, all filtered through Dreijer’s distinctive style.
Gina Birch – I Play My Bass Loud (Third Man)
“The album distills my years of musical, political, and artistic life with these genre-breaking songs,” says The Raincoats’ Gina Birch of her first-ever solo album. “It’s a personal diary using sounds and lyrics, full of fun, rage, and storytelling.” That about sums it up. Producer Youth has a way of coaxing the best out of artists, creating a comfortable atmosphere that allows them to be themselves, and it’s clear that he and Birch hit it off. I Play My Bass Loud is terrific, funny, whipsmart, angry and never less than entertaining — a protest album that doesn’t forget to dance. Songs play like signboards, but feel more inclusive and defiant than didactic, even on a JAMC-ish, hissing force-of-nature song like “I Am Rage.”
Ibex Clone – All Channels Clear (Goner)
Ibex Clone are born out of Memphis’ garage punk scene, and the trio includes members of Ex-Cult and NOTS. Their debut album is out via Goner, home to lots of garage rock, but Ibex Clone don’t sound like what you might expect given all that. All three members were in angsty post-punk group Hash Redactor, but with guitar wiz George Williford leading things here, Ibex Clone make soaring, anthemic rock that feels inspired by a whole swath of mid-’80s underground/alternative groups. There is the nervy jangle of early R.E.M., The Feelies and The dB’s, the shimmer of The Sound and The Chameleons, and they would’ve fit right in on Bruce Lischer’s Independent Projects label (For Against, Savage Republic, etc). There is growl and tension, but there is also real beauty, and some seriously impressive guitarwork.
John Cale – Mercy (Domino)
Mercy is Velvet Underground founding member John Cale’s first album in a decade and one of his least obtuse. This album is elegant and very modern sounding, and not just because it features contributions from Animal Collective, Weyes Blood, Sylvan Esso, Laurel Halo, Tei Shi, Actress, and Fat White Family. In fact his collaborators mostly are doing subtle under-the-hood work on this album that feels seamless in concept and execution, like a drop of mercury gliding across polished stainless steel. If tracks didn’t say “Featuring” you probably wouldn’t ever wonder if there were guests at all. It’s Cale’s show all the way, with a spotlight on his still soaring, sonorous voice, backed with lush electronics, taking current hip hop and R&B production and bending it to his will.
Meg Baird – Furling (Drag City)
Meg Baird’s featherlight voice and equally delicate guitar style is more than enough to carry albums, and has done so in the past, but on Furling she really lets her abilities as a multi-instrumentalist shine. Working with her longtime collaborator and partner (and Heron Oblivion bandmate) Charlie Saufley, Meg plays a wide range of instruments — drums, vibraphone, loads of keyboards of all shapes and sizes — making for one of the most immediate, inviting albums of her rich and varied career. Furling doesn’t change the core of what Meg has always done, it just makes it all shine just a little more.
Model/Actriz – Dogsbody (True Panther Sounds)
Model/Actriz have actually been part of the NYC fringe for the better part of a decade but sound like they could’ve actually held their own in 2003, with a fierce strain of arty technopunk that sounds like it was forged in an abandoned flame-cut steel factory. Drums fire like jackhammers, a machine gun of kickdrums, guitars shear off slices of metal like a hot knife through butter, and singer Cole Haden wails lines like “I remember thorns shredding my palms!” Dogsbody, their debut album, is fueled on twitchy, relentless energy that rarely lets up over its intense, dark and deadly serious 38-minute runtime.
The Murder Capital – Gigi’s Recovery (Human Seasons)
Dublin band The Murder Capital have lightened up considerably since their release of their 2019 debut, When I Had Fears. That album trafficked in dour indie rock not too far removed from Interpol. early Editors and other groups who got compared to Joy Division a lot. While derivative, it had good songs played with conviction, and frontman James McGovern had a magnetism that could be felt even through the cheapest of earbuds. Four years later the band are back, and while it would be wrong to say they seem more comfortable in their skin, Gigi’s Recovery feels more the product of a band who have figured out who they are. Songs and performances are more nuanced and showcase a whole range of emotions and colors, not just black and grey.
Orbital – Optical Delusion (London Recordings)
Inspired by the remixes and reworks on last year’s Orbital 30 retrospective compilation, Orbital conceived their 10th album with guests on nearly every track. They’ve had vocalists on previous records — good (Goldfrapp) and less good (David Gray) — but Optical Delusion is their collab-iest record yet. Albums like this often sound good on paper but come off lackluster in the finished product, but Paul and Phil Hartnoll sound genuinely inspired here and, despite the remote nature of the album’s creation, neither they or their collaborators (Sleaford Mods and Penelope Isles among them) could be accused of ever phoning it in. Optical Delusion is easily their best record since 1999’s The Middle of Nowhere.
The Reds, Pinks & Purples – The Town That Cursed Your Name (Slumberland)
“Is it too late for an early grave?,” Glenn Donaldson asks on the opening track on his latest album as The Reds, Pinks & Purples. It’s his wistful, glum spin on the “too old to die young” trope that epitomizes RPPs’ feelin’ gloomy MO: bitter tales of musicians who dream of escaping heir humdrum town and finding fame but never quite make it, set to ridiculously catchy minor chord melodies delivered in a style that’s not so much sung as sighed. It’s such a perfectly realized world, right down to the artwork (apartment facades for albums, flowers for singles), that every new dose of strummy disappointment is welcome.
Robert Forster – The Candle and the Flame (Tapete)
Robert Forster has never shied away from using his own life as the basis for songs, be it with The Go-Betweens or his solo career. But The Candle and the Flame is the most deeply personal record of his 40+ year career. It was recorded after his wife, Karin Bäumler, was diagnosed with stage four ovarian cancer and features his whole family, including son Louis (formerly of The Good Sax) and daughter Loretta. The Candle and The Flame became a way for the family to bond and for Karin to fight. No song is overly adorned but the care given to them is apparent. The circumstances around it could not be more difficult and personal, but the result is effortless and universal.
Shana Cleveland – Manzanita (Hardly Art)
As much as I enjoy La Luz’s albums — their 2021 self-titled fourth album is wonderful — the spectral folk bandleader Shana Cleveland makes on her solo albums is even better. Her debut, Night of the Worm Moon, was one of 2019’s more underrated albums and she’s now followed it up with the equally bewitching Manzanita. Named for the evergreen shrub that grows in California and is known for its medicinal properties, the record was made while embracing motherhood and beating breast cancer. “This is a supernatural love album set in the California wilderness,” Cleveland says. These 14 songs are alive with mellotron strings, otherworldly pedal steel, desert wildlife and insects, big skies and bigger hearts. Cleveland’s breathy voice is the perfect delivery device for it all.
Sleaford Mods – UK GRIM (Rough Trade)
Somehow, defying all music industry logic and the normal rules of rock and pop, UK duo Sleaford Mods — Jason Williamson and Andrew Fearn, both over 50 and on album #8 — just keep getting better. Maybe it’s their metier; as long as there are idiots in charge to rail against, Williamson will never run out of bile, and Fearn will never run out of beats. Their home country is often the subject of their ire, but this time it’s specifically focused on the state of the nation, from the title down. England has been on metaphorical fire since at least Brexit, but so are Sleaford Mods who are at their hilarious, angry and profane best on UK GRIM. “In England no one can hear you scream,” Williamson spews. “You’re just fucked, lads.” Sleaford Mods seemed like a novelty, a gimmick to some when they started over 10 years ago, but have continued to persevere and evolve through tenacity and exasperation. With the world not running out of idiots in charge, probably ever, don’t expect Williamson and Fearn to go away any time soon. Thank fuck.
Steve Mason – Brothers & Sisters (Double Six / Domino)
The Beta Band broke up nearly 20 years ago but bandleader Steve Mason has kept going, plowing much of the same baggy groove as a solo artist, whether under aliases like Black Affair and King Biscuit Time or his own name. And while Mason’s music has always been pretty chill, he has not mellowed with age. Brothers & Sisters is a protest record, but done in an “all are welcome” good-vibes way, with warm, anthemic choruses, and swaying beats. It’s one of his best ever albums, solo or otherwise.
The Tubs – Dead Meat (Trouble in Mind)
Terrific debut album from former Joanna Gruesome members Owen Williams and George Nichols with vocal assistance on much of the album from former bandmate Alanna McArdle. Williams and Nicholls have not lost their touch one bit writing thrilling two-minute guitar earworms that mash together a few different sympatico genres: punk, post punk, power-pop and British folk. There’s a lot of snarl and angst here — mental health and its burdens / complications are recurring lyrical themes — but never without an emphasis on hooks and melody.
Ulrika Spacek – Compact Trauma (Tough Love)
In London band Ulrika Spacek’s hands, guitars swoop and soar, sneak and creep, caress and roar. Frontman Rhys Edwards and bandmates Adam Beach and Joseph Stone are cut from the same cloth as Doug Martsch, Bradford Cox, Thurston Moore/Lee Ranaldo, and the Radiohead of your choice, working within rock and pop boundaries but still finding new things to do with their instrument and excited by the possibilities. Compact Trauma, the band’s first album in six years, plays off the promise of their 2018 Suggested Listening EP and is a glorious guitar record where even the two-minute songs feel epic, loaded with inventive riffs and clever filigrees.
Unloved – Polychrome (Heavenly)
Unloved, the noirish trio of Jade Vincent, Keefus Ciancia and David Holmes who provided much of the soundtrack for Killing Eve, are back with a new record, coming a mere six months after releasing double-LP The Pink Album. Both were recorded during the same sessions and what was just supposed to be just one album turned into two distinct works. Polychrome is leaner and meaner, darker and weirder than Pink, but also somehow bigger in scope. There’s more of an emphasis on rhythm, as well as ballads that go gloriously widescreen into an oversaturated sunset. Polychrome may lack the big pop songs and big name guest stars (Jarvis Cocker, Jon Spencer) of Pink, but its concentrated, bad-vibes glamor hits harder.
U.S. Girls – Bless This Mess (4AD)
This may be the funkiest U.S. Girls record to date, and is absolutely packed with bangers, from the electro-fueled tale of urban flight, “So Typically Now,” to the loping, cockeyed strut of “Just Space for Light,” the ’80s lite Greek mythos groove of “Daedelus,” the pure disco of “Tux (Your Body Fills Me, Boo),” and album closer, “Pump,” that uses a sample of Remy’s breast pump for its bassline. While Meg remains a razor-sharp lyricist, motherhood and the pandemic has shaped her outlook here, with a strong undercurrent of fatalism. “Nothing is wrong, everything is fine,” Remy sings on the album’s Springsteen-eque centerpiece “Future’s Bet,” before adding, “This is just life.”
The WAEVE – The WAEVE (Transgressive)
The musical pairing of Blur guitarist Graham Coxon and former Pipette singer Rose Elinor Dougall is unexpected, as is the music they make together as The WAEVE, which doesn’t sound quite like anything either have done before. Prog and British folk does feel like the bedrock of The WAEVE’s self titled debut album, though for a duo that includes one of the most innovative indie guitarists of the last 30 years it is not a “guitar record.” Graham Coxon’s weapon of choice here is actually saxophone, the first instrument he learned, which he plays all over the album. There’s some skronky sax, a little ’80s-style sax, and a whole lot of moody, atmospheric sax that colours the background of lush, swoony creations like “Sleepwalking,” “Drowning” and “Can I Call You.” Drumming tends to be motorik, with bass lines pulsing up and down the scale in arpeggiated precision. More often than not Coxon and Dougall share lead vocals and it’s peanut butter cup alchemy, with the clear, pure qualities of Dougall’s voice a perfect foil for Coxon’s more ragged style. Working with producer James Ford (Arctic Monkeys, Florence + The Machine), the album sounds fantastic — graceful but never glossy. And though the record was born out of lockdown and has “one-off” written all over it, they’re already talking about the next record. Some things were just meant to be.
Yo La Tengo – This Stupid World (Matador)
Yo La Tengo doesn’t throw any curveballs on This Stupid World, but they don’t need to. This is nine examples of a band still in control of their sound, still within its bounds, but still finding new inspiration and corners to explore. It’s a refinement of everything that’s come before, but it also plays like a calling card. What does Yo La Tengo sound like? This Stupid World. There are the jagged, fuzzy pop numbers, krautrock inspired one-chord groovers, feedback-laden slow-burn rippers, hazy shoegaze, and especially pretty songs sung by Georgia. Lyrically, as usual, they mix thoughtful ruminations on life, peppered with pop culture nonsequiteurs. This Stupid World may not offer any big swing innovations, but it’s top tier Yo La Tengo. The real revelation is considering just how consistently great they’ve remained over four decades.
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