Listen Up, Nerds: The Week of February 23, 2024

Ok so welcome to a VERY rapid-fire version of the newsletter this week due to being mad busy all of a sudden. Sometimes it’s like that. Consider this the powerviolence version of the newsletter but in terms of writing instead of what I’m covering. Lots to talk about!

Mary Timony - Untame The Tiger (Merge)

I feel like a straight up fool for not getting into Timony’s work before this hit my inbox. It’s her first solo record in 19 years, but Timony hasn’t been dormant. Rather the opposite, but this is a record that feels much more raw and personal than the other music I checked out after hearing this. Even as she wraps into high fantasy on her lyrics, you can easily find her at the core of it all. Shouts out to friends of the newsletter Arielle and Devon for writing abt it better than I could!

Devon’s review of Untame The Tiger for Paste

Arielle’s interview with Mary for Stereogum

Shallowhalo - "You Are My Religion Now" (Fools Gold)

When I lived in Brooklyn, I had the pleasure of throwing some parties with my friend Leigh that tried to capitalize on the indie sleaze moment. That being said, I really wish this song was out when we threw those parties! Shallowhalo’s a NYC-based act of modern indietronica that sounds like it’s cut from the same cloth as those American Apparel ads from the back of Vice Magazine. The video is great, equal parts fun and spooky to the point where I’m not sure if it’s ok to laugh because I’m freaked out. The song rocks and makes me think of that offputting vibe from Black Mother Super Rainbow mixed with Autolux and Chromatics. If that’s your sort of thing, check it out above.

Sexpill - In Dust We Trust (Beach Impediment)

Last year, I wrote about a lot of punk rock that I could really only call Evil Punk. It was scary music about doing scary drugs or people’s faces melting off, which made it like ‘80s metal with more danger. The ‘80s metal version of “zombies and skeletons and blood and guts” is like going to a Haunted House where you know it can’t hurt you because you signed a waiver. This Evil Punk stuff is more like the reality of Mad Max where it’s not real but it COULD happen. I imagine music like this made in an atomic desert by two guitarists fused together, three arms between them. This is for the freaks.

Public Acid - Deadly Struggle (Beach Impediment)

A second Beach Impediment release has hit this week’s newsletter. Public Acid is back with another classic punk/d-beat/hardcore release in the “Evil Punk” catalog. If you like this newsletter, you’ll like this record. 

Glitterer - Rationale (Anti-)

Ned Russin’s once-solo post-Title Fight project has been maligned from the jump by the kind of people who didn’t see Title Fight play a show but post “I wish Title Fight would come back :(“ on social media sites once a week. It has to be exhausting for both sides. Imagine listening to songs like “I Thought A Lot” from Not Glitterer and saying “I wish Title Fight was still here.” Everything you like about the band is right here! Sure, it was strange at first to see a guy playing his songs alone with no instrument during hardcore festivals. Today’s audiences may call it “cringe” but they didn’t know what to call it in 2019. The band has evolved and has real, full-time members now, adding to the spectacle of the live show that is always a crucial component of hardcore and hardcore-adjacent bills. That being said, the now-full band’s first full record is out as of yesterday and boy howdy, it’s a banger. I don’t think previous Glitterer efforts are thin by any means but more people in the room means more collaboration, less need for Russin to do everything. The man is clearly a skilled songwriter but the expertise from other instrumentalists allows for a fuller, more lush sound than ever before. There was a playfulness on prior records that may have sounded amateurish but it’s not on this record. This is killer. I’ll have it on repeat for the rest of the year, I’m sure.

Old Record Of The Week: Amnesia Scanner and Freeka Tet - STROBE.RIP

Not exactly old but a record I missed out on last year. Amnesia Scanner’s rave-oriented chaos feels like crawling on the ground of a club to find your phone, screen certainly cracked, but the phone keeps getting kicked further and further away until you grab it and it turns into a million glass triangles. Sonic mayhem for the dance floors and the headphones.

Ok see you soon! Free Palestine, RIP to Flaco the Owl 🫡