The Music Box.
Entries about the music I like.
Helena Deland — Someone New
The basics of rock kind of remain the same. It's 🎸 + 🎸 + 🥁+🎤 = 🎶. That simple. But there's so much that can happen with those raw materials. Perhaps it's because my rabid love of music coincided with my discovery of post-punk, but I'm always blown away by simple evocative music. Drawing a bath and settling in for my nth listen-through of Canadian indie gold: Helena Deland’s Someone New.
Molchat Doma — Stairs [Молчат Дома — Этажи]
Is the world going to end? Is there no hope for us in the face of all the challenges we’re no doubt going to face in the coming years? But then this: at what other time of human civilisation could an Indian find it this easy to get his hands on a British-post-punk-inspired Belarussian coldwave album first released by a German label, then reissued by an American label?
The Upsetters — Super Ape
Lee "Scratch" Perry was instrumental in making reggae dub. His studio band was the Upsetters. Their best album is believed to be Super Ape. Whether or not it's the best, it's certainly very nice.
Neil Cicierega — Mouth Dreams
Every one of Neil Cicierega’s mashup albums is delightful. And the recently released Mouth Dreams continues this trend. Cicierega’s music is comical, dripping with references to (American) pop culture, and always surprising. In Times Like These (TM), it feels good to have a few laughs and listen to happy-happy music.
Treble Puns — Sounds Like Treble
The other day, this guy asked me, ‘so you support local artists and all, huh?’ I said yes I do, then for some reason felt the need to justify that I support good art no matter where it’s from; it just so happens that a fair bit of it is from India. The justification’s purpose: to give due respect to the likes of this Bengaluru-based instrumental rock band, Treble Puns, whose debut EP, Sound Like Treble, I’ve really enjoyed. It’s loud/soft/loud instru-rock that stands out from other post-rock acts because of Abhimanyu Roy’s Indian-folk-inspired scales and Sohini Bhattacharya’s hard-hitting robotic drums.