Gold Soundz: May 10, 2024

This week's suggested new music, curated by omg!nyc

May 10, 2024

Eulogies are tough, especially when the person who has passed away is a public figure. It’s easy to have a sense of knowing a person through their work and Steve Albini was a person whose work has been so deeply woven through my life that his passing feels like a tremendous loss. As the outpouring of tributes began to circulate following the news of his death this week, it was almost unfathomable to me that such a legend could really be gone. I don’t think there’s anything I can add to the praise and admiration of Albini that hasn’t been said, but it’s impossible for me not to recognize the impact his work has had on me and the way I hear music. I’m not sure there’s another person who leaves behind a body of work that means more to me than his and I’m forever grateful to have been alive at the same time as him.

“I like noise” isn’t the most surprising quote of his to read. Over time, his sound became synonymous with dry, raw percussion and razor-sharp guitar tones that slammed over thudding bass. The close mic vocals made his recordings feel up close and personal, intimate and in your face. An tight, crisp sound and style that made it very clear as to why so many chose to seek out his talents.

While he preferred the term “recording engineer” instead of “producer,” his name appears on the credits in some fashion or other of seminal albums by the likes of Pixies, Nirvana, The Breeders, Slint, PJ Harvey, Page and Plant, Cheap Trick, The Stooges, Fred Schneider, Urge Overkill, Veruca Salt, Smog, Bush, Silkworm, Brainiac, Joanna Newsom, Godspeed You! Black Emperor, The Jesus Lizard, Mogwai, Songs: Ohia, Neurosis, Low, Bedhead, Cloud Nothings, Screaming Females, METZ, Sunn O))) and so many more.

All of those credits represent more of his day job efforts in the studio, but they’re in addition to the time he spent in bands like Big Black and Shellac (the latter of whom I was fortunate enough to see on two occasions), it’s hard to imagine the sonic landscape of indie and alternative music over the last thirty-five years without him. According to Rolling Stone, by 2014 Albini had contributed his efforts on over 2,000 albums. “Every day, I get up and make a record, go to bed, get up the next day and make a record," he told the magazine. "It's normal for me.” Infamous for never taking royalties and working with anyone, regardless of genre, who would pay his fee ($900 per day), he was an icon of the scene who believed in doing the work and getting paid for it accordingly.

The epitome of a punk rocker and true DIY enthusiast, Albini not only talked the talk, but lived those virtues as well. Over the years, he morphed from a know-it-all shit talker who was raised with a fair amount of privilege into someone who came to understand their surroundings and the truths of others. He became a person who could admit their wrongs and was someone who sought the good in others.

Next week, Albini’s band Shellac is set to release a new album, their first in a decade, and had subsequent plans to tour which makes his untimely death at such a young age feel so shocking and difficult to process. Thank you for everything, Steve. Icon and legend don’t seem to do him the justice he deserves.

Shellac at Primavera Sound in Barcelona, 2019

After six long years, Amen Dunes finally returns with a new record that contains stunning moments of guitar pop with experimental twists. Always creating a world of sound that is uniquely his own, the singles that have proceeded Death Jokes unveil new pathways through his sonic landscape.

Over a decade since the breakthrough of post-R&B and dubstep set the blog world aflame via the likes of Autre Ne Veut, Kindness, Twin Shadow, and others, How to Dress Well is back with a new album that comes through with brighter melodies and more of a pop focus through engaging electronics and bountiful rhythms.

Later this year, Knocked Loose will open for nu-metal titans Slipknot, but today the hardcore unit slaps back with their new album full of rage and primal energy that is sure to boost your heart rate with its accelerated velocity and brutal intensity.

Indie shoegaze act Dehd are getting primed to play some of the biggest shows of their career and it’s being propelled by their new album, Poetry. Taking big guitar sounds and dreamy melodies, the band is geared up to take on their new level of popularity. Orville Peck teamed up with Willie Nelson to cover Ned Sublette’s “Cowboys Are Frequently Secretly Fond of Each Other” earlier in the year and that track is included on his new release Stampede Vol. 1, a duets album featuring Elton John and Noah Cyrus.

At the beginning of the aughts, Kings of Leon were described as the southern version of the Strokes in the great rock and roll revival scene which was gloriously detailed in the oral history of Meet Me in the Bathroom. In the two decades since their rugged, rusted debut EP and following full-length, the family band has shifted towards an over-produced sound of radio-friendly mega-pop songs that are glossed over with layers of sheen that it’s almost impossible to recognize them as the same group. Their new album is called Can We Please Have Fun, a funny question to ask by a band who has shifted further and further from that idea and closer towards generic and uninteresting sounds.

The Smile drummer Tom Skinner was previously known for his time in bands like Sons of Kemet and as a leading man behind the kit in London’s sprawling jazz scene. Today he’s shared a live recording that features songs from last year’s meditative album Voices for Bishara.

Featuring the likes of yeule, Frances Quinlan, Caroline Polachek, Bartees Strange, Jay Som, L’Rain, and more, the soundtrack to A24’s I Saw the TV Glow is aiming to be one of the greatest ‘90s mixtapes that never happened and with a line-up so strong, it’s hard to skip it.

Breaking the record for the most Tony nominations by a new play, Stereophonic is a fictional story that is largely based on Fleetwood Mac’s experience recording the landmark album Rumors and features music written by Will Butler (formerly of Arcade Fire). While not a musical, the play focuses on a fictitious ‘70s classic rock band recording an album and today you can stream the soundtrack.

As the hottest battle in rap music for quite some time has started to reach concerning heights, Kendrick Lamar’s evisceration of Drake made headlines last weekend as he continued to land knockout punches with the tracks “meet the grahams” and the seriously intense “Not Like Us,” that latter of which is set to break all sorts of records and debut atop the Billboard charts.

Earlier this year, jangle-pop duo Ducks Ltd. released their excellent sophomore record Harm’s Way and this week they shared a one-off single that was written early on in the album’s recording process, but failed to make the final cut. Despite that status, it’s another explosive pop of hyped-up indie rock that comes with a rush of high notes and backing vocals from Julia Steiner and Margaret McCarthy.

Super-charged shoegaze act Parannoul remains a bit of a mystery, but on their latest track, “Gold River,” the project wastes no time getting into the deep grooves of blown-out sonics and instantly drop us into the cacophonous sound featuring towering walls of guitar and hammering percussion.

Sludge metal greats Thou will release their new album at the end of the month and this week they shared the second single which they described as “physical deterioration by way of psychological disarray.” This is an abrasive and punishing tune that hits with utter urgency and unrelenting blasts or pure power.

After spending time as a tour manager for the likes of Four Tet and Hot Chip, Hagop Tchaparian released their own record in 2022. This week they returned with a follow-up single called “Treacle” which “was heavily inspired by watching Four Tet play at Warung club in Brazil.” It’s a percussive-heavy jam that goes hard on beats and pulsing rhythms.

This fall, Animal Collective will release a twentieth anniversary edition of their classic album Sung Tongs. Back in 2018, Panda Bear and Avey Tare played the album in-full on tour and in addition to the reissue, they’re also releasing a live recording of the performance of the album at Los Angeles’ Theatre at the Ace Hotel (I caught them when they played Town Hall in NYC) for the first time. You can get a taste of that now with the live version of the song “Kids on Holiday.”

If you’re a Spotify user, you can listen to these songs (and more from 2024) here!

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