Whoastanderson Music List
The jamz I can't stop listening to
Shoegazey, grungy, and melodramatic as hell, I met Greet Death's New Hell by way of their nearly 9-minute track, "You're Gonna Hate What You've Done," with a powerfully simple music video where you watch a little praying statue catch on fire. The band boasts two vocalists, whose calming and/or nasal tones contrast with the "heavy slowcore" of it all. And, like, the album art kicks so much ass that I bought a print of it to hang on my wall.
Cry to it. Rage to it. Primal scream on the highway after you've been feeling weird for the last two weeks. You'll feel better, I promise.
If you thought Greet Death was the right amount of grunge but you wanted something faster-paced, let me introduce Florida diy-emo band Home is Where and their second LP The Whaler.
The album captures the prevalent Zeitgeist of acting like everything is okay even though the world is falling apart in an unquantifiable number of ways outside of the average civilian's control. If I had to put a thesis on the album, it would be buried in the track "whaling for sport," when vocalist MacDonald croons "An all knowing God doesn't know what it's like / To not know anything at all." When coupled with fun tracks like "yes! yes! a thousand times yes!," and abrasive tracks like "everyday feels like 9/11," the existential crisis unfolds.
Listen. If you know me, you know I would take a bullet for this album. Genuinely. Origami Angel's entire discography is standout after standout, but you have to start with Somewhere City.
A common critique of diy emo/pop punk-adjacent music is narrators' tendencies to self-flagellate and be weird about women; happy to report that there is none of that present in Somewhere City, because it's the city that never lets you down. This album is unlike any other in its dedication to finding confidence in yourself and uplifting the people around you -- without taking a minute to breathe between INCREDIBLY TIGHT tracks.
The Beths - Expert In A Dying Field
I had the opportunity to stand at the front of the bow to see The Beths in Baltimore August 2023, and I might have enjoyed their talking about sea creatures and aquariums just as much as the show (but then I also am a #aquariumluvr). Maybe I was charmed when talking to the band about the horseshoe crab exhibit in the Baltimore aquarium.
But maybe Expert In A Dying Field pins down the very specific circumstances of free-falling at the end of a relationship, feeling caught between the world that used to exist and the one that's about to with sharp self-awareness and self-reflection. And then the tunes are good and catchy, too.
Speaking of horseshoe crabs, I have to shout out the song that forever changed how I see horseshoe crabs (and also myself and how I processed a sizeable breakup). Vocalist Leah Wellbaum has no right writing the lyrics she does, underscoring emotional images of loneliness and vulnerability with rock music toeing grunge and blues and sanctity.
Kishi Bashi - String Quartet Live
It was hard to decide which Kishi Bashi album I'd want to plug, since so many of his albums land wonder and whimsy perfectly, with genre-dabbling from symphonic folk to Brazilian jazz to '70s funk to Japanese city pop... and more. But, if I had to pick, String Quartet Live! captures both Bashi's on-stage energy and the deep beauty of his music. Trained as a classical violinist, Bashi's musical experimentation has led him to working with the likes of Regina Spektor and of Montreal. He kicks ass.
If you like this: catch even fuller arragements of Bashi's music the Nu Deco Ensemble. He also has a new album coming out August 2024 that I will be keeping a close eye on :)