Genius #6: Jun '24

Hello hello my brainiacs it is time for the newest Genius Dot Com. I successfully moved all of my shit down I-95 just one week ago and am just barely getting this one out the door. I didn’t listen to that much music in June (just 70 albums!) and tbh not all of them were winners. My loss is your gain because I did not include any of the duds in my list! I listened to a lot of classic albums that I’ll throw into the scrap heap in 2 weeks.

Let’s get into it

Table of Contents:

• Capitalism
• Album recommendations
• Replay
• Garbage Corner
• Scene Report & Upcoming I-95 Corridor shows*

*Epicenter is Baltimore, with select DC/Philly/NYC shows as well

Capitalism:

I popped into Normal’s Books & Records in my new neighborhood & found a couple of gems including the weird Phil Ochs LP Tape From California and this wild noise album from Ceylon Mange titled The Maiming Path (which is seemingly not streaming anywhere):

Album Recommendations:

Angélica Garcia - Gemelo (Partisan, Jun ‘24)

Experimental pop, RVA-style Bjork

RVA’s Angélica Garcia’s first release that’s (mostly) in her 1st language Spanish and she covers a ton of sonic ground. Her songwriting is a blast, she has a knack for big choruses, but her emotive voice is the key to this album‘s appeal. Whether she’s cooing, singing at the top of her lungs thru a megaphone, self-harmonizing, running through a pitch shifter, whatever — her voice is fluid like water and wraps its way around the chord changes and merges with the instrumentation perfectly. Big hip hoppy drums and some cool sound design complement perfectly. This one flew under the radar, thanks to a different massive pop album coming out the same day — if you’re looking for something new, I can’t recommend this one higher.

Thou - Umbilical (Sacred Bones, May ‘24)

Heavy as fuck

I listen to like every 4th Thou release (they have so many), but I’m so glad I flipped this one on because IMO this is the best they’ve ever sounded. Opener “Narcissist’s Prayer” sounds like it wants to tear a hole in your speaker. “The Promise” is practically a hardcore beatdown song that nearly approaches catchiness. Final track “Siege Perilous” congeals into one massive sludge riff. The whole thing sounds absolutely massive. Really heavy and really nasty. Brian Funck’s vocals have never sounded so ferocious.

Joyce Moreno - Natureza (Far Out, 2022)

Expressive samba & bossa nova unearthed from the 70s

This forgotten recording from Brazilian singer/songwriter & guitarist Joyce Moreno is wonderful. Shelved after its original recording in 1977 (possibly due to the political climate in Brazil), these breezy songs sound like they’ve been waiting to be played for 40+ years — and they simply fly off the record player/Spotify window/Zune/Pono/etc. Opening track, “Feminina” sets the tone with 11 minutes of staccato guitars & percussion, Moreno finds space for her deft vocal runs and, of course, there are some classic bossa nova flute sounds — apparently the band just couldn’t stop and so they played on and on. It’s really infectious. The original tapes were slightly damaged, so not every track is mixed, which makes for an interesting listen. Perfect timeless summer playlist stuff.

Cola - The Gloss (Fire Talk, Jun ‘24)

Loose minimalist rock (feat members from Ought)

Montreal trio Cola’s sophomore release is more interesting release than their first, they finally sound like their own band outside of the shadow of their previous bands (vocalist/guitarist and bassist are both ex-Ought, drummer from US Girls). A very cool minimalist rock sound with chiming guitars, blasé vocal delivery, driving bass guitar, and loose jazzy drumming. While I would say that it doesn’t quite reach the highs that Ought reached, this record has a few really great songs, especially the quieter and more tender songs like “Nice Try” and “Bitter Melon” at the end of the album. Quality night listening record.

Chris Corsano - The Key (Became The Important Thing [& Then Just Faded Away]) - (Drag City/Palilalia, Jun ‘24)

Wild free-jazz with handmade instruments

2024 is the year of the solo drummer magnum opus. And when I say solo, I mean a truly & remarkably solo effort: not only was each song fully written, recorded, and mixed by Corsano, but he even made the album art, built the tonal string-drums used on some these tracks, and played the accompanying guitar parts for these noisy post-punk inspired free jazz songs. The rhythms that he accomplishes will be rattling around in my head for a while, this is a special record from an artist with a unique vision.

Upcoming July albums to look forward to:

• LA ambient jazz supergroup SML (Featuring Jeremiah Chiu, Anna Butterss, Greg Uhlmann, Josh Johnson, and Booker Stardrum) has their autological debut Small Medium Large out on International Anthem on 7/9
• Another LA jazz release & another genius drummer — Mark Guiliana is also releasing a reflexively named album. MARK is out on Edition Records 7/12
• CDMX R&B artist Girl Ultra has a new EP with Big Dada out on 7/12 called Blush and the singles absolutely slam.
• Austin country singer Carson McHone follows up her fantastic 2022 album with an EP of Odes on Merge Records on the 19th.

Replay:

The Weakerthans - Reunion Tour (Epitaph/Anti-, 2007)

In the past week, I have endured the indignity of moving. Not only that, but it’s back to my home state. Oh god! I have been revisiting my favorite records from my teen years and and man — The Weakerthans are an incredibly special band to me. In the past 20 years, I’ve listened to their 4 records on repeat so many times that each lyric is etched into my stupid heart.

The band started in Winnipeg by singer/songwriter/guitarist John K Samson (hereon JKS) as a side-step from his bass playing (and occasional songwriting) in steady-state punk legends Propagandhi. His folky rock/punk songs have dense lyrics that focus on the disconnects between people and their cities and between each other. His wordplay is chocked full of references to Marxism and to his home city, and his reedy vocal style emanates earnestness. The rest of the band is perfectly solid; big guitar solos, melodic basslines, and varied masterful percussion that extends past punk or rock.

Reunion Tour was the 4th and last Weakerthans album before JKS started releasing solo material & focusing on community activism in Winnipeg. The W’s 2nd and 3rd releases are already known classics — Left & Leaving got a retrospective piece from punk rock historian Dan Ozzi and the 20 year anniversary of Reconstruction Site was written up in Stereogum and Bandcamp. So let’s hear it for their underappreciated final album.

I’m going to devote a chunk of time to the lyrics, so let’s start with the music itself: bright guitars and deceptively complex drumming hold together the rock songs, while the sparser abstract songs push into some interesting experimental ideas and give amazing shape to the poetic spoken words tracks. Fewer guitar solos (mixed). The band really came alive in performance — their live album & DVD from The Burton Cummings Theatre in Winnipeg is a great watch.

Almost every song’s lyrics tell a self-contained story: the bus driver whose route dregs up difficult memories, the amateur curler who stays out with the crew to avoid problems at home, the bigfoot truther who only sees his quarry when the news crew isn’t around, and more. Standout ballad “Hymn Of The Medical Oddity” offers a touching ode to Winnipeg trans-man David Reimer after his suicide in 2004:

And if they remember me at all
Make them remember me as more than a queer experiment
More than a diagram in their quarterly
Make them remember me

Two are named after and inspired by Edward Hopper paintings, which makes sense: much of JKS lyrics reference Hopper directly and the ones that don’t still paint a picture with thick oil textures and bleak depictions of alienation. “Night Windows” is a bass-driven darker song that describes loneliness and loss while living in a city.

In the stick-count for the song of knowing you’re gone
Glancing up at where you lived when you lived here
I see you, suddenly alive and nearly smiling
Stop and hold my breath and watch the way you used to be

The other, “Sun In An Empty Room,” replayed in my head over and over while boxing up my Brooklyn apartment last week. This was one of Hopper’s last paintings and JKS took the empty room to be an empty apartment after the tenants had everything boxed up to move— with dishes wrapped in last week’s newspaper, furniture all returned “to its Goodwill home.”

If I were going to offer an analysis of what makes this record less beloved than their others, I would say that Left & Leaving has way more of the punk pedigree that you’d expect from ex-Propagandhi members and Reconstruction Site makes great use of a single threaded story. Plus both those records have more guitar solos.

Reunion Tour is simply an album of songs, including 2 spoken word poetry pieces and tbh a couple of misses: neither “Relative Surplus Value” nor the title track are their best work. Plus, some of the clever lyrical wordplay can be a little eyeroll-inducing when it doesn’t land. But I think that, overall, with the sound they went for on this one (and later on JKS’s solo Winter Wheat), the band found a more mature sound that suits the vocal.

This last offering from The Weakerthans ends with the beautiful country-tinged “Utilities.” After JKS takes a rare guitar solo himself, he prays: “make me into something somebody can use / make this something somebody can use.”

Garbage Corner:

The 20 minute set: A Recommendation

This is not a dig at anyone, this is simply a recommendation.

Picture this: you arrive at the basement venue. It’s a 6 band bill. All of the bands have names like “Dad Problems” and “Ruminator.” A band of 20-somethings sets up and starts their set. They play three 4-minute songs. In between each song, both guitarists tune for a long time and the bassist stares at their feet. After several more songs and some stage banter — you realize that they have been on stage for 28 minutes. The band announces they have 2 songs left. If I’m not completely blown away at this point, then I can’t help but check my watch.

Listen: 30 minutes is simply way too long if you are not a headlining band playing a mid-sized club. Family and friends love seeing you in the spotlight, but everyone else at the gig is waiting for their turn to play friend’s band to go on so they can leave before the next band’s set (boo!! stick around!).

If you’re in a new band, try keeping your set under 25 minutes, preferably sticking closer to 20. It demonstrates confidence in your material and it’s exactly long enough to keep the audience interested without overstaying your welcome. Plus, if you have a 30min slot, it leaves room for error if your guitarist breaks a string. In 20min, you should be able to: 1. Open with an attention-getting song, play 2-3 meat-and-potatoes songs, and close on a high note.

It can feel silly to take off work, drive all the way to the venue, set-up your amp, and play for just a short period of time — but I guarantee that it results in more interest from the audience.

Of course there are exceptions. If you’re playing in a club, you can safely ignore all of this. Bruce Springsteen can play as long as he wants. But I’m not the boss and neither are you — our bands aren’t playing clubs (or in my case, anywhere else tbh). You and I only get 20 minutes on stage to convince the audience that they should go to bandcamp dot com if they want to hear another song.

Scene Report:

Melt-Banana & The Flying Luttenbachers at Elsewhere (6/8)

A thoughtful four band bill where the first 2 were younger new bands and the second 2 were veterans of the scene. Some kid punched me in the kidney at this show for some reason. First opener Providence’s babybaby_explores were a goofy art-rock trio with some interesting songwriting based around synth bass & effected vocals, with some choreographed stage maneuvers. Second opener Baltimore’s Tomato Flower sort of reminded me of Stereolab with more noise influence, I was kind of puzzled at first by them, but I was won over by the end of the set.

Noise rock trio from Chicago (now Brooklyn?) that I’ve been into since high school, The Flying Luttenbachers go for full on sonic assault via blastbeats & shredding guitars. Also, Weasel Walter is apparently now the guitarist? He plays drums on all of the records as far as I know, but his playing was nuts, jumping around and switching from big chunky chords to pseudo-random soloing. The replacement drummer was serviceable, but he dropped his sticks kind of often trying to hold those minutes of blastbeats. Every time I thought that they were all just free improvising on stage, they would lock in for exactly 2 beats before returning to the insanity. Sick stuff.

Tokyo’s Melt-Banana might be one of the best live bands out there. Frenetic duo work from Yasuko Onuki (vocals, Ableton live triggering) and Ichiro Agata (guitar, pedals) with sets that have the perfect balance of bouncy fun punk & aggro harsh noise. They did an incredible cover of Uncontrollable Urge by DEVO. I’ll say that at this show I had a realization that the kids don’t know how to safely mosh & someone should take it upon themselves to teach them — or else every heavy show is gonna be like Woodstock 99. WOOF. Anyway if you get a chance to catch Melt-Banana live, you won’t regret it — every one of their songs sounds basically the same, so you don’t even need any familiarity with the material. Just go and mash your head.

July upcoming shows:

Baltimore:

• 7/2 (Tue) The Make Up @ Ottobar
• 7/11 (Thu) Sinister Feeling @ Ottobar
• 7/13 (Sat) HIRS + a bunch of bands @ Ottobar
• 7/13 (Sat) Husbandry @ The Crown
• 7/15 (Mon) Snooper @ Ottobar
• 7/19 (Fri) Locrian @ Metro Gallery
• 7/25 (Thu) Blind Girls, Heavenly Blue @ Metro Gallery
• 7/26 (Fri) Tomb Mold @ Metro Gallery
• 7/28 (Sun) Fiddlehead & Gel @ Zika Farm
• 7/28 (Sun) Reverend Kristin Michael Hayter @ Baltimore Soundstage
• 7/30 (Tue) Spaced @ Holy Frijoles
• 7/31 (Wed) SeeYouSpaceCowboy @ Ottobar

DC:

• 7/1 (Mon) of Montreal @ 9:30 Club
• 7/3 (Wed) Cortex @ Howard Theatre
• 7/4 (Thu) Powerwasher @ DC9
• 7/6 (Sat) Jeremy Young, Guillermo Pizarro @ Rhizome
• 7/15 (Mon) Cola @ Songbyrd
• 7/18 (Thu) HIRS & .gif from god @ Songbyrd
• 7/18 (Thu) Dosser @ Atlas Brew Works
• 7/24 (Wed) pageninetynine, Blind Girls, Heavenly Blue, Euclid C Finder @ Songbyrd
• 7/27 (Sat) Todd Marcus @ Takoma Station Tavern

NYC:

• 7/6 (Sat) Pharmakon @ Mayday
• 7/13 (Sat) Facet, Chaser @ Gold Sounds
• 7/14 (Sun) Lifeguard @ Union Pool
• 7/14 (Sun) Bark Culture + Malaby/Berne/Helias/Rainey @ Property Is Theft
• 7/20 (Sat) Irreversible Entanglements @ First Unitarian Church

Philly:

• 7/2 (Tue) standards, Countdown From Ten, Moondough @ Milkboy
• 7/3 (Wed) The Make Up @ Johnny Brendas
• 7/12 (Fri) HIRS & Gre/ay @ PhilaMOCA
• 7/15 (Mon) Lifeguard @ PhilaMOCA
• 7/16 (Tue) Cola @ Johnny Brendas
• 7/17 (Wed) Snooper @ Johnny Brendas
• 7/20 (Sat) Locrian @ Kung Fu Necktie
• 7/24 (Wed) Your Arms Are My Coccoon @ Ukie Club
• 7/26 (Fri) Bill Nace & Samara Lubelski @ PhilaMOCA
• 7/27 (Sat) Reverend Kristin Michael Hayter @ Milkboy
• 7/27 (Sat) Fiddlehead & Gel @ Union Transfer

Beyond:

• The Body & Dis Fig - 8/1 (Thu) Songbyrd (DC) = 8/3 (Sat) @ LPR (NYC) = 8/4 (Sun) @ Johnny Brendas (Philly)
• 8/9 (Fri) Pretty Bitter/Fowerbomb Split Release @ Black Cat (DC)
• 8/9-11 (Fri, Sat, Sun) Breakin' Even Fest @ Pie Shop (DC)
• Krallice - 8/12 (Mon) @ Underground Arts (Philly) = 8/14 (Wed) @ Metro Gallery (Baltimore)
• 8/15 (Thu) Big Brave @ Metro Gallery (Baltimore)
• 8/15 (Thu) Dan Licata (comedy) @ PhilaMOCA (Philly)
• 8/16 (Fri) Big Brave @ Pie Shop (DC)
• 8/17 (Sat) Chameleons @ Black Cat (DC)
• 8/17 (Sat) Big Brave @ Milkboy (Philly)
• 8/20 (Tue) Gaslight Anthem & Joyce Manor @ The Anthem
• 8/23 (Fri) Pissed Jeans @ Metro Gallery (Philly)
• 8/23 (Fri) Korchfest (Monument reunion) @ Black Cat (DC)
• 9/6 (Fri) Dismembrment Plan @ 9:30 Club (DC)
• 9/9 (Mon) Marika Hackman @ Elsewhere (NYC)
• 9/20 (Fri) Chanel Beads @ Songbyrd (DC)
• 9/22 (Sun) Yo La Tengo @ Rams Head Live
• 10/13 (Sun) Xiu Xiu @ Metro Gallery (Baltimore)
• 10/24 (Thu) Boris @ Baltimore Soundstage (Baltimore)
• 10/29 (Tue) Drinking Boys & Girls Choir @ Songbyrd (DC)

Cheers,
LM