January’s always a slow month. I like that, because it’s a reprieve from the fast-paced nature of the rest of the year. It’ll be May before we know it, and then September, and then 2013. So I’ve been relishing the slowing down of time, setting myself up for the inevitable fast-forward of the next months. It’s early days, but, already, this year looks set to be a promising year for music.
John K. Samson
Better known as the brainchild of Canadian indie-folk-punks The Weakerthans, John K. Samson has just released his debut solo album. It’s a beautiful, erudite collection of songs that are both gentle and raucous, beguiling and bewitching. There aren’t many people who could write a song (partially) about the violent computer game Grand Theft Auto and turn it into a stirring, beautiful elegy to lost love and failed aspirations. Hopefully, this will be the first of many.
www.theweakerthans.org
The Twilight Sad
The Twilight Sad aren’t a new band – their stunning third album, No One Can Ever Know, comes out this year – but they deserve more of a following than they currently have. Intensely Scottish and full of intense doom and gloom, they’ve taken a slightly more electronic route with their new record, channelling the disturbed spirit of Depeche Mode at their most glum. You’ll be hard pressed to find much humour in their music, but for pure cathartic release, it doesn’t get much better.
www.thetwilightsad.com
Worship
These guys are soaking up the hype right now in England. Hailing from Reading, the four-piece are rising steadily in profile thanks to their dark, fractured, shadow-shifting songs. Imagine if Radiohead hadn’t become the most pretentious band on the planet with their emotionless, electro-rock drivel and Thom Yorke refrained from caterwauling like a kitten in pain, and you may be close to the sonorous, soothing sounds of Worship. I’m not one for hype usually, but it looks like they’re going to explode in the very near future.
www.facebook.com/worshipuk
Three Trapped Tigers
If it’s instrumental insanity you’re after, then look no further than this London-based trio. Over the last couple of years they’ve mastered the art of writing the most wonderfully disjointed, angular songs that careen and twist and twitch and spasm over a flurry of guitars, synths and drums. So far, their discography consists of a series of EPS with chronologically numbered tracks and one proper album, with proper song titles. Challenging but catchy, they’re truly pushing boundaries.
www.threetrappedtigers.believeband.com
Cloud Nothings
The alter-ego of Dylan Baldi, a 20-year-old from Cleveland, Ohio, Cloud Nothings, in their short existence, have released two full-lengths and a compilation of previously released tracks. Whereas his/their early output was confined to brash, scuzzy, lo-fi bursts of noise that sounded like they’d been recorded with a broken Walkman, new album Attack On Memory, which was recorded by the influential Steve Albini, completely turns on its head the Cloud Nothings sound. It’s still abrasive, but more adventurous and intriguing than ever before.
www.facebook.com/cloudnothings
Mischa Pearlman is a music journalist living in London, who writes for a bunch of music magazines such as The Fly, Kerrang!, Clash, Record Collector and Alternative Press. He does this purely for the love and less frequently for the money, and is always hoping to fall in love with his next favourite band so he can tell you about it.
Contact [email protected]
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