2021 in Review

2021 proved to be a perhaps even more challenging year for me than 2020. Music has hardly been my focus lately, and Covid restrictions and anxiety prevented me from seeing many concerts. I had tickets for a twice-rescheduled Jesus & Mary Chain concert, but didn’t go, and after purchasing a ticket for Synästhesie in a fit of summer optimism, I returned it when things turned worse. In the end I only saw few outdoor concerts, most notably the Ich brauche eine Genie songbook release party, and one indoor show of Ian Fisher. I only managed a single other review, although I also released one more song of my own work. I didn’t even listen to music at my normal rate; I bought fewer records than I had in any year since 2002, which is before I had a job, started recording, or could drive myself to a record store.

Nonetheless, I did listen to some music. Here are my favorite releases of 2021:

• Cremant Ding Dong - assorted singles - I’m so thrilled they’ve kept going. Many of their songs are still amusingly pandemic-related, but they’ve branched out, too, as with “Zu faul für’n eigenen Garten” (“Too Lazy for My Own Garden”). They write great lyrics and the cat still appears in every video.
• Falsetto Boy - People Crying in Cars - Falsetto Boy has released a string of singles, EPs, and splits (to say nothing of his excellent releases as Cup Collector, among other projects), but this is his first album under this banner in ten years. It’s a double, and it’s his strongest and most cohesive work yet. The guitars are splendrous and the lyrics and vocals are affecting. He also released “I Can’t Do That Anymore” from a Snappy Little Numbers compilation as a single, which is a little burst of upbeat energy with appropriately downbeat lyrics.
• Godspeed You! Black Emperor - G_d’s Pee at State’s End! - Have they released a bad album? No. They haven’t. The general pattern of post-apocalyptic ensemble rock and drone just gets refined with time as the rest of the world catches up to what they’ve been saying for 25+ years.
• Lightning Bug - A Color of the Sky - Hazy dreampop of the best variety. I’d just found their earlier albums at the start of the year before this was even announced, and I couldn’t be happier. They’re all pretty similar, but this one sounds the best. It's got less noisy shoegaze and more wistful synth folk. I think the radio-static compression effect is overdone, but otherwise I love the production.
• Nation of Language - A Way Forward - Their basic technique hasn’t changed since last year's Introduction, Presence, but they continue to churn out great synthpop. The drama has only heightened, though, and this album is actually slightly more upbeat and complex.
• St. Vincent - Daddy’s Home - Still can’t beat Strange Mercy (2011), but I prefer the 70s pastiche to the drug-addled electro mayhem of Masseduction (2017). The gender politics speak to me (or at least amuse me) better, too.
• Stereolab - Electrically Possessed: Switched On Volume 4 - It’s hard to compete with the first two editions of this series, but it’s still a gift that they finally caught up with the missing years. A few tracks feel like insubstantial filler, but most is high-quality, and the wide variety makes for a more captivating listen than any of their latter-day albums from the same era (well, except maybe Margerine Eclipse).

Again, a few additional honorable mentions:

• The Besnard Lakes - Are the Last of the Great Thunderstorm Warnings - This is such a strange band. I love their grandiose vision, but I have trouble holding on to the individual songs. They went even harder into the long form, including a long closing drone at the end of the album. I’m not sure they used the time wisely. They also released the “Superego” single, which is a little poppier and more direct.
• Kikagaku Moyo - Live at Levitation - I literally heard this band’s KEXP session playing at a tea store and knew I had to hear more. I caught the name and now I’m hooked. There’s a degree to which this sort of deeply psychedelic jamming gets predictable and redundant, but I love it anyway. It was pure coincidence that I hadn’t already caught wind of them via Levitation, and when I found this album, I had to have it.
• Monta at Odds - Peak of Eternal Light - I hyped this Kansas City space rock band’s music last year, too, and it doesn’t seem that I’m gonna stop soon. This album didn’t immediately pull me in the way Argentum Dreams did, but it’s just about as good. Your Friend makes another appearance, too!

And lastly, a couple excellent albums (and a single) from recent years that I missed before but caught up with this year:

• Sharon Van Etten - Are We There (2014) - After hearing her name for years now I finally gave her a proper listen. I get lost in the beauty, power, and finesse of her voice every time regardless of where I’m at. The music is a perfect match, too, even if the lyrics don't always do it for me.
• Hallogallo 2010 - “Blinkgürtel” / “Drone Schlager” (2010) - Two great kosmische songs from a collaboration between Michael Rother of Neu! and Harmonia, Steve Shelley of Sonic Youth, and Aaron Mullan. I don’t really know what the history of these tracks was, but it doesn’t matter. They’re on par with the classics.
• TENGGER - Spiritual (2017), Spiritual 2 (2019), and Nomad (2020) - I’d wanted to see them at Synästhesie in 2019, but I missed my chance. I finally dug into their music, and I find their latest three albums utterly entrancing. They are kosmische drones without much of a melody, but I can put them on in the background and always end up feeling better.

Who knows what 2022 will bring. I’m just trying to find some peace and stability. Stay healthy!

2020 in Review

In this strange year without much live music, my writing here has obviously suffered. I still saw a few shows early in the year, and one during the early autumn lull, but nothing big. Last year was a record number of concerts and reviews for me, and I had no hope of matching that this year. However, I released my first solo song in 9 years and an album from my old band in Austin, and I’m about to release some more music, too. But like any other year, I’ve spent a ton of time listening to music, and like I did last year, I’ll share a few of my favorite releases from 2020.

Here they are, in alphabetical order:

• The Asteroid No.4 - Northern Songs - The obvious Beatles references are well-done, but so are the Isn’t Anything-era My Bloody Valentine bits. This is a wonderful psych rock adventure.
• Cremant Ding Dong - assorted singles - Great lyrics, great videos, great music, prominent cute cat. Hard to beat that.
• Cup Collector - Cordum Hominum Renovatio and Morning Cofee and Tea - The former might be CC’s best electric guitar-based drone yet, and the latter is a successful experiment with layers of nylon-string guitar. I hope it’s not absurd to say that Cup Collector has become my favorite artist to listen to while doing lockdown yoga.
• Elephant Stone - Hollow - Is this an album about the end of the world released before the pandemic reached full fury? Doesn’t matter, the music is rich and the storytelling is prescient. This is my favorite Elephant Stone album yet. The more explicitly pandemic-related “American Dream” single is also good, albeit a bit precious.
• Holy Wave - Interloper - Their live shows were always great, and now they finally have an album that equals them. They’ve grown far from their garage roots and have embraced a wealth of new sounds, naturally mostly psychedelic in nature. The lyrics are a huge leap, too: “Maybe Then I Can Cry” hit me hard.
• Hum - Inlet - Is this another album about the world ending, again presumably written and recorded before the pandemic? This album sounds huge and simultaneously vibrant. It’s their best yet.
• Ian Fisher - American Standards - This adopted Austrian sure seems enamored with Nashville, but the music is tellingly much wider in scope than mainstream country or even the classic 70s pop hinted at in “AAA Station”. The lyrics are even more powerful and self-aware than Ian’s already-high standard. I can read the excellent title track five or six different ways, and I love that I don’t know which is right.
• Melange & Jacco Gardner - “Ashokh” - It’s such a shame they only recorded this one song and that the band broke up. It’s a superb, spritely, groovy jam on par with their wondrous Viento Bravo from 2017.
• Monta at Odds - Zen Diagram and A Great Conjunction EPs - Both are majestic kosmische space rock from my hometown of Kansas City, and the former successfully covers a great Tones on Tail song.
• Nation of Language - Introduction, Presence - Is this pure 80s nostalgia? Yes, probably. But is it a crime to want to sound like Simple Minds or OMD? Certainly not!
• Pia Fraus - Empty Parks - This sounds like an Estonian blend of Slowdive (especially their self-titled album from 2017), Stereolab, and Loveless, and obviously I rather enjoy it. I wish it was a bit punchier, but sometimes soft and warm is nice, too.

A few additional honorable mentions:

• Khruangbin - Mordechai - Khruangbin seem incapable of making bad music, but this album is merely pleasant. It actually sounds more derivative than their previous albums, and some parts are a touch too silly. Their collaborative Texas Sun EP with Leon Bridges from earlier in the year was also an interesting aside, but where Bridges’ vocals shone, the lyrics didn’t.
• Mietminderung - Tatsächliche Verhältnisse EP - Their tagline of “rock music in bureaucratically-inflected German generally about interpersonal relationships” really undersells them, but it hits a certain type of dry German humor on the head. The vocals are indeed a bit stiff, but the music is more adventurous. This is the last and best of the three EPs they’ve released this year.
• Neil Young - Homegrown - The Archives Volume II collection is almost too big to handle, but this forgotten record is a condensed version of the best of the unreleased content. It’s not exactly great and I understand why he shelved it. Then again, it’s also idiosyncratic and emotionally complex, so it’s a shame that it took 46 years to release it. (I’m almost considering buying the box set anyway just for the wonderful CSNY versions of “Human Highway”, though.)
• Perlee - Slow Creature EP - It starts slow and doesn’t really pick up much at all, but “Charlie’s Song” is quite good. The early-era Beach House vibes are heavy, but the harmonies are a nice extra touch.

And while I don’t like being rude, there were a few high-ish profile releases that I have to admit I was a bit disappointed by. Here are those:

• Einstürzende Neubauten - Alles in Allem - I love Neubauten, but not this album. It lacks the creative energy and unpredictable spark of their finest works. It’s weirdly restrained and dour. I like the requiem for Rosa Luxemburg, though.
• Sufjan Stevens - The Ascension - This seems like a retread of The Age of Adz, but with less variation. Some of the lyrics are nice, but I don’t really get it.
• Other Lives - For Their Love - I really like the idea of this band, and I still think Tamer Animals is excellent, but this one sounds a bit stale. Much like Rituals from 2015, it sounds huge and cavernous, yet lacks anything memorable.

Lastly, there were again some excellent albums from (relatively) recent years that I missed before but picked up this year. Here are some of the best:

• Lush - Blind Spot EP (2016) - Their only new music after reuniting, and it matches their classic sound in all the right ways.
• Monta at Odds - Argentum Dreams (2018) - More great space rock with lovely 80s synth sounds, but also featuring Lawrence artist Your Friend!
• Tocotronic - K.O.O.K. (1999) - Tocotronic took a while to grow on me. The lyrics are subtle and yet evocative. Musically, I think this is their album that’s most closely tuned to my tastes.

With any luck, live music will be a viable option again at some point in 2021!

Cremant Ding Dong - "Es muss nicht immer alles wachsen" (2020)

It’s rare that I come across a new song where the individual elements of the music, lyrics, and video all blow me away. Cremant Ding Dong only have four songs to their credit so far, but they’ve already found their stride. Their new single “Es muss nicht immer alles wachsen” is their best yet.

First, the music: it’s solid synthpop with loads of great sounds and angular guitar bits. It’s upbeat and energetic with a well-constructed arrangement. Even better are the lyrics. The whole thing is a humorous takedown of capitalist arguments in an era of big business obliviousness to human suffering. The title and chorus translates to “not everything has to always grow”, and the rest of the lyrics describe things that don’t really need to grow forever (businesses, markets, power, toe nails, capital) as well as a few things that should keep growing (flowers, children, hair, love, trust). It’s clever, playful, and insightful all at once.

And then there’s the video! It’s pure joy. The most notable feature is an adorable cat, but it’s also full of whimsical visual effects and colors. The band is present, but focus more on grooving and playing around than on showing off their individual looks or expensive equipment. A synthesizer makes a brief appearance, and a few shots appear to be from a performance on a stage (such a foreign concept!), but the emphasis is more on movement and color.

The single is available on Bandcamp here and the video can be seen here. The rest of the band’s songs are in a similar style and are also quite good, in particular “Testergebnis”, a song about waiting for Coronavirus test results.

Score: A+

P.S. Thanks to Lutz for the tip!