2021 Album Highlights:
Written by Dave Konstantino
Paul Jacobs - Pink Dogs On The Green Grass
Paul Jacobs latest release is Pink Dogs On The Green Grass is out via Blow The Fuse Records. With just thirteen tracks, this album follows 2020’s outtakes/demo collection Portrait of George (Demo & Songs I Forgot About) and 2018’s EASY. Already having several albums in his discography (and two releases as part of post punk group Pottery), Pink Dogs On The Green Grass shows Paul Jacobs branching out by finding a new way of approaching his music. Musically, references have been made to Cass McCombs, Kurt Vile, early Beck, but you can also hear the influence of 60s psychedelia and bands such as The Byrds and Lou Reed. Lyrically, Jacobs words are at times surreal. They are sometimes about different characters or observations and often take on cryptic meanings. While some have said that the lyrics reveal unwanted moments that stick with you, Pink Dogs On The Green Grass is much more than that. With Pink Dogs On The Green Grass, Paul Jacobs reveals that the grass sometimes turns yellow on the other side and that sometimes the green grass can be found in the every day moments we find ourselves in.
The Garrys – Get Thee To A Nunnery
Get Thee To A Nunnery is the fourth full-length album by Saskatoon’s The Garrys. This three-piece sister trio features Erica Maier (guitar/vocals), Julie Maier (bass/vocals) and Lenore Maier (drums/vocals). They first started appearing on underground music radar with 2017’s Surf Manitou, which brought their prairie inspired surf dynamics and combined them with folk-like tales of Manitou Beach, SK, a family vacation spot that the Maier’s visited when younger. They also sung of sea monsters that lurked those parts. In 2020, The Garrys released their score to the 1922 silent film Haxan: Witchcraft Through The Ages, which was performed and recorded live as the film played in a theatre. They describe their music as “dreamy blood harmony surf rock doom-wop on morphine.” Surf, psychedelia, doo-wop, garage and cinematic sounds of composers such as Ennino Morricone influence the music, but it is so much more than that description. Produced by Dallas Good of the Sadies, Get Thee To A Nunnery presents The Garrys capturing that nostalgic feeling that they do so well, that exists both in the past and the present, as it questions topics relating to family roots in Saskatchewan, isolation and decay of rural life, worldviews and faith in different generations and oppression. It doesn’t just address the past saying everything is great because that isn’t how it was. While also taking influence from Shakepeare’s Hamlet, Get Thee To A Nunnery goes further in The Garrys’ songwriting abilities. It explores new and old themes placing them in larger contexts that drift out beyond the borders that we once knew.
Chad VanGaalen – World’s Most Stressed Out Gardener
World’s Most Stressed Out Gardener is the follow up to Chad VanGaalen’s 2017 album Light Information. If we are counting the two outtake albums that were released in 2020 (Odds & Sods 2, Lost Harmonies), it is his ninth studio album. Released in March 2021, World’s Most Stressed Out Gardener is an eclectic collection of songs from VanGaalen. The music that he creates while it is sometimes folk, sometimes psychedelic, sometimes indie rock, sometimes strange, is really its own thing. The universe in which the songs of Chad VanGaalen belong is a strange, wonderful, kind of messed up, cosmic place at times. As we enter these worlds we find ourselves absorbed by the sounds and stories that he produces. World’s Most Stressed Out Gardener offers more variety musically than ever before on one of his albums, but still has the same feel of the best of Chad VanGaalen’s work. Like his illustrations and animations, the songs that Chad VanGaalen creates capture a sense of something of the unknown, the otherworldly, visually and sonically. With World’s Most Stressed Out Gardener, Chad VanGaalen digs deep to show us a world that is dark, multifaceted and sonically captivating.
More 2021 Album Highlights:Written by Adam Peltier
The Weather Station – Ignorance
Tamara Lindeman's past albums have displayed keen observations into human relationships, but her latest offering shifts the songwriter's insights to the relationship between people and the world around them. It would belittle Ignorance to think of it only as a “climate change” album; its exploration of complex themes and the intricacies existing between personal and ecology trauma refuse such a simple interpretation. Take the opener “Robber” - it may be about man-made environmental devastation, but it also evokes ideas of colonialism, capitalism, and meritocracy. However, there is no denying Lindeman's identification with nature on this album, from the pleading “Wear” to the cathartic closer “Subdivisions.” There is an artfulness to how Lindeman handles such themes, which in the wrong hands could be ham-fisted or pedantic. Instead, she offers an emotional vulnerability to her performance and lyrics, while never falling into fragility. In fact, the Weather Station has never sounded more confident or emboldened than on this record. Part of the album's charm is easily the band Lindeman assembled, whose performance incorporates elements of folk, baroque pop, and jazz, a combination which has led to many mid-70's Joni Mitchell comparisons. Certainly, Ignorance shares a lot of the warmth of albums like Court & Spark and Hissing of Summer Lawns, but distinguishes itself through its propulsive grooves and the immediacy of its lyrics. Rather than wallow in the environmental collapse of our world, Ignorance offers a passionate response to the societal apathy (and “ignorance”) that has led us down this path.
Dry Cleaning – New Long Leg
“Do everything feeling nothing.” Is there a greater distillation of how 2021 felt than this line? Florence Shaw's deadpan intonation is the perfect vessel to deliver this and the dozens of other quotable lyrics on New Long Leg, the debut album from the much hyped UK band Dry Cleaning. Unlike majority of other great white hopes touted by the British music press, Dry Cleaning delivered not only a solid album of grunge-tinged post-punk, but introduced the world to one of rock's most understated intense performers in Shaw. Her laconic delivery and dry observations imbue her lyrics with a mixture of dread and humour, reflecting the burned-out ennui felt by so many during the thick of these late-era capitalist pandemic years. Whether riffing on casual misogyny, Brexit, or eating Twix, Shaw should go down as one of the most unique and timely voices of the year.
Black Country, New Road - For the First Time
Long-associated tour mates of black MIDI (another band who released a fantastic album this year), the debut album by Black Country, New Road offered a breath of fresh air to the often hegemonic world of post-rock. While comparisons can be made to recent releases from Swans or Slint (who are name-checked on the track “Science Fair”), For the First Time is also indebted to klezmer music, free jazz, and noise. There probably isn't a greater crescendo this year than on the track “Sunglasses,” while the reserve of “Track X” shows the band also knows how to wring intensity from quieter compositions. Black Country, New Road have given listeners one of the most eclectic guitar rock releases of the year, and with a forthcoming sophomore album promised for 2022, continue to entice fans with wonders of where their sound will go next.
Show 916 (Originally Aired On January 8th, 2022)(Albums of 2022 Part Two):
1. King Khan Unlimited - Narcissist (Opiate Them Asses - Bargain Bin Records - 2021)
2. Visibly Choked - Third Time’s The Charm (Visibly Choked EP - Mothland - 2021)
3. La Luz - Watching Cartoons (La Luz - Hardly Art - 2021)
4. Bonnie ‘Prince’ Billy & Matt Sweeney – My Popsicle (Superwolves - Drag City Records- 2021)
5. Snail Mail – Automate (Valentine - Matador Records - 2021)
6. Leanne Betasamosake Simpson – OK Idicts (Theory of Ice - You've Changed Records - 2021)
7. The Weather Station – Robber (Ignorance - Fat Possum - 2021)
8. black midi – John L (Cavalcade - Rough Trade - 2021)
9. Black Country, New Road – Sunglasses aka The Guest (For the First Time - Ninja Tune - 2021)
10. Motorists - Surrounded (Surrounded - We Are Time - 2021)
11. TUNS - Double Down (Duly Noted - Murder Records - 2021)
12. Anxious Pleasers - Suck (Anxious Pleasers - Neon Taste Records - 2021)
13. Mononegatives - Living In The Age (Apparatus Division - Big Neck Records - 2021)
14. Jesse Fellows - Mail Bomb (The Four Oranges EP - 2021)
15. Ty Segall - Waxman (Harmonizer - Drag City Records - 2021)
16. Godspeed You! Black Emperor – Fire at Static Valley (G_d’s Pee AT STATE’S END! - Constellation Records - 2021)
17. Low – Days Like These (HEY WHAT - Sub Pop - 2021)
18. Nick Cave & Warren Ellis – Hand of God (Carnage - Goliath Records - 2021)
19. Chad VanGaalen - Nightwaves (The World's Most Stressed Out Gardener - Sub Pop/Flemish Eye Records - 2021)
20. Parquet Courts - Homo Sapien (Sympathy For Life - Rough Trade - 2021)
21. The Garrys - Sintatula (Get Thee To A Nunnery - Grey Records - 2021)
22. Viagra Boys -Ain’t Nice (Welfare Jazz - Year0001- 2021)
23. Paul Jacobs - Day to Day (Pink Dogs On The Green Grass - Blow The Fuse Records - 2021)
24. Paul Jacobs - Your Last Words (Pink Dogs On The Green Grass - Blow The Fuse Records - 2021)
DOWNLOAD/LISTEN TO THIS EPISODE HERE.
Show 915 (Originally Aired On January 1st, 2022)(Albums of 2022 Part One):
1. Dry Cleaning – Scratchcard Lanyard (New Long Leg - 4AD - 2021)
2. illuminati hotties – Knead (Let Me Do One More - Hopeless Records - 2021)
3. Julie Doiron – The Letters We Sent (I Thought of You - You've Changed Records - 2021)
4. Andy Shauf - Spanish On The Beach (Wilds - Anti- - 2021)
5. Courtney Barnett - Sunfair Sundown (Things Take Time, Take Time - Mom + Pop - 2021)
6. Bill Jr. Jr. - Renaissance Man (Homebody - 2021)
7. Snake River - High Rides (The Lost Album - 2021)
8. Sunshiny Daze - The Night Knows (What The Day Don’t) (Clouds Melt Away - 2021)
9. Neil Jarvis - Time (Get The Band Back Together - On the Grind Records - 2021)
10. Danny Kroha - Come Out The Wilderness (Detroit Blues - Third Man Records - 2021)
11. Daniel Romano’s Outfit - Nocturne Child (Cobra Poems - You've Changed Records - 2021)
12. Hot Garbage - Sometimes I Go Down (RIDE - Mothland - 2021)
13. PONY - Couch (TV Baby - Take This To Heart Records - 2021)
14. Souvenir - Circles (Collapse - 2021)
15. Squid – G.S.K. (Bright Green Field - Warp - 2021)
16. Idles – When the Lights Come On (Crawler - Partisan Records - 2021)
17. Iceage – Dear Saint Cecilia (Seek Shelter - Mexican Summer - 2021)
18. Ryley Walker – Axis Bent (Course in Fable - Husky Pants Records - 2021)
19. PRIORS - VideoDrome (My Punishment On Earth - Brain Gum Records - 2021)
20. Wine Lips - Get Your Money (Mushroom Death Sex Bummer Party - Stomp Records - 2021)
21. Matt Ellis - My Neighbourhood Is A Dump (Full Moon Fever - Surfing Ki Records - 2021)
22. Amyl & The Sniffers - Security (Comfort To Me - Rough Trade/ATO Records - 2021)
23. Kid Congo & The Pink Monkey Birds - (Are You) Ready Freddy (Swing From The Sean DeLear EP - In The Red Records - 2021)
24. Packs - Cling Film (Take the Cake - Fire Talk/Royal Mountain Records - 2021)
25. TEKE::TEKE – Barbara (Shirushi - Kill Rock Stars - 2021)
26. Kiwi Jr. - Maid Marian's Toast (Cooler Returns - Sub Pop - 2021)
27. Ducks Ltd. - 'Twas Ever Thus (Modern Fiction - Carpark Records/Royal Mountain Records - 2021)
DOWNLOAD/LISTEN TO THIS EPISODE HERE.
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