ALBUM: The Wants – ‘Container’

Formed by Madison Velding-VanDam and Heather Elle from New York art-punk band Bodega, The Wants‘ debut album Container is a punchy, defiant, riot of a record that simultaneously reflects and resists anxiety, on both a personal and wider scale. With its swaggering beats, techno influences, and to-the-point lyricism; it flows seamlessly from track-to-track demanding uninterrupted listening from the offset.

The Wants began taking shape when drummer Jason Gates and Velding-VanDam met in New York in 2014, but became fully formed while Velding-VanDam and Elle were working together under the Bodega moniker years later. Realising they all had a passion for electronic music, the three began writing together, and Container is the result of this collaboration.

Instrumental opener ‘Ramp’ commands attention with its thudding kick drum, while eponymous track ‘Container’ pulses with brooding bass lines and deadpan lyrical delivery. Pounding instrumental ‘Machine Room’ bleeds in to ‘Fear My Society’. “Will you love me if I’m a failure?” agonises Velding-VanDam, over funky beats and surprisingly buoyant synths. It feels odd to dance around to a track that’s fueled by anxiety and alienation, but it’s a natural response to The Wants driving rhythms.

Making space to individually review each of Container‘s tracks feels odd, as the record is such a cohesive creation, where each track transitions smoothly in to the next. Instrumental ‘Aluminium’ blends in to the unsettling ‘Ape Trap’. “I will stay a deviant, or else I die of boredom” Velding-VanDam sings, desperate to escape his metaphorical cell. Instrumental ‘Waiting Room’ builds on this tension, until its relieved by the confessional ‘Clearly A Crisis’. “I have no intimacy, I’m never vul-ner-able” – Velding-VanDam takes care to repeat, and speak this line with intense clarity.

The funky beats on ‘Nuclear Party’ float around as the cute threat of “kiss my bombs” ricochets between your ears. The bouncy ‘Hydra’ follows, before eerie instrumental ‘Voltage’ closes the record on a somber note. It’s a striking offering, with each scratch, pulse, and echo captured clearly. The band recorded the album in their bedrooms and their rehearsal space — a re-purposed HANJIN shipping container situated in the middle of a dumpling factory parking lot — so it’s a testament to their personal, and joint production skills that these elements can be heard in the mix.

With their myriad of influences – including the literature of Jenny Holzer, the sounds of The National, and a love for techno –  The Wants have created a sonic space on Container that’s somewhere between the catchy electronics of Depeche Mode, the angsty lyrics of early Sonic Youth. It’s a distracting record, in the best possible way, and deserves your undivided attention.

Listen to Container in full here. Follow The Wants on Spotify and Facebook for more updates.

Photo Credit: Madison Carroll

Kate Crudgington
@KCBobCut

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ALBUM: Post Louis – ‘Descender’

From the office to the tour bus, Stephanie Davin has spent every spare moment of her time writing what would become Descender, the debut album from Post Louis. Alongside her responsibilities as lead singer and one fifth of this experimental art-rock band, Davin worked endless hours in the corporate world; eventually breaking away from the machine to push the boundaries of her creative expression in a remote cottage in Wales.

Accompanied by songwriter/co-founder Robbie Stern, and without the distractions of working life, Davin would craft the foundations that would become Descender. When their material was presented to the rest of the band, each song structure would be meticulously deconstructed and reconstructed within the walls of the Sjømannskirken in Rotherhithe, becoming a kaleidoscope of angular guitar riffs, scuzzy pop melodies, and breezy soundscapes.

Opening track ‘Fishwife’ begins with Davin asking “How do you stop an overflow?” The uncertainty felt in the midst of a “bad patch” cresendoes into a cacaphony of surf guitar, pulsating basslines, and thunderous drum beats. “The angler man is sinking and the walls are rusting through and through and my love is green as the sea is blue because all I had I gave to you”

‘Stress Fracture’ features tenor saxophone, courtesy of Alex Hitchcock, tumbling over the backing vocals of guitarist Andy Stern – paralleling Davin’s emotional songwriting and off-kilter lead vocals –, whilst ‘Little Jack’ studies the pain caused by loneliness (and the wolves loneliness can create when mixed with sexual desire – “She says you’re gonna be a wolf some day”).

Don’t let the breezy intro to ‘Janaskie Pt I’ fool you… Adam Turner-Heffer’s punk rock basslines are as infectious as Mattis Moviken’s meticulous drum strikes, resulting in a thrashing big instrumental tidal wave that had me reaching for rewind. Its companion piece ‘Janaskie Pt II’, and the instrumental track ‘Labyrinthitis’, lead into the title track ‘Descender’; reflecting on the exhaustion of working long laborious hours and the effect this can have on your life – “I’m working now from evening till dawn / Sun rises up and then you are gone…”

The poetic lyrics of ‘Like Bad Dreams’ are followed by ‘Ghostwriter’ – an anomaly on Descender – which sees Andy take over lead from Davin with the opening line, “How did you stop that overflow?” However, it is ‘Winter Pollen’ that hits me hardest in the gut. When Davin was constructing this particular song, the Me Too movement was beginning to open many eyes to a world most of us were ignorant of. This bravery was followed by anger, exhaustion, but ultimately empowerment. ‘Winter Pollen’ reflects the urgency of this movement with a heavy guitar sound that provides the backdrop for Davin’s frustration. “I make music with my brothers and I love them so / But it’s hard not to be angry, hating all the time / When Brock Turner spends three months in prison for his crime / When somebody spikes my mother’s drink at our first show…”

Both ‘Angular Man’ and ‘December’ close the album; each track incorporating contrasting instrumentation. As Davin sings the final line of the album – “In my darkest hour I fear I’m not strong” – the underlying theme of the Descender becomes more apparent. A reflective and poignant collection on the exhaustion that comes with living. 

 

Descender is out now.

Ken Wynne
@Ken_Wynne

Photo Credit: Maya Sacks

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ALBUM: Duck – ‘There Are No Normal Conversations Any More’

Reading Duck‘s description of themselves on their Bandcamp would make you think they were trying to eschew any sense of artifice. And, okay, “wonky DIY synth/guitar queer noisepop” might give you some sense of where the group are coming from: after all, they did call their first EP sLaCk gOb. But, whilst sophmore effort, There Are No Normal Conversations Any More, does demonstrate elements that could be termed wonky, it’s a far more well-rounded piece than that sobriquet suggests.

For a start, in the vein of many of the great long-players, its tracks all mesh, following directly into each other like some kind of orchestral suite, rather than sitting as disparate moves in one direction or another. Sure, they all feature synths – but there’s range, in the squelch of opener ‘R*ck St*r’, the lightning strike electropunk of ‘C/Rage’ and the cold clinicism of Millennial torch song, ‘Meta’. The guitars too, can give you C86 on ‘New Super Power’ with its overdrive and squealing, the driving post-punk of album standout ‘Rabbit Hole’ or the surf rock of the album’s title track.

The only thing that doesn’t really change here, and arguably Duck’s not-so-secret weapon, is Sarah Griffith’s Moyet meets Corin Tucker harmonies and heft. Sometimes the voice sticks out – the double-meaning pun of ‘Sirens’ is a case in point – and at others it’s allowed to drop back into the mix. There are screams and hollers on some tracks, but by the time the album hits an ’80s power-pop stride on ‘I’m Alive’ and ‘Sweetheart’, the vocals come encased in honey.

Perhaps the most unexpected element to the album is its outwardly pop sensibilities. There’s bits and pieces of DIY, but also aspects that wouldn’t sound out of place on records by Cocteau Twins or Soft Cell, not least the hand-claps in ‘New Super Power’, the Vince Clarke-y electronic harmonies found throughout and the occasionally sombre tone to the album’s slower songs.

Duck make extensive use of found sounds too: applause and giggles at the end of ‘New Super Power’; the garbled speech on ‘There Are No Normal Conversations Anymore’ (which makes a sort of sense in the context of its title) and, most prominently, the crowd noise on ‘Mouths Move’ which was recorded at Fuck It Why Not, a DIY festival in Leeds’ Hyde Park. For a release on a tiny indie label, this is stunningly well-produced and put together.

In a Sound Sphere interview from 2018, Duck list their band’s ambitions as “to work with people we want to work with, play with bands we want to play with, to a fun, appreciative audience, free of dickheads. Also, to never be part of an otherwise all-male line-up again…”  Having just spent some time listening to this bravura effort, it’s almost strange to see that two years ago, Duck were merely happy to have a space to play. It probably says a lot about the times we’re in that, all of a sudden, self-described ‘wonky queer noisepop’ is the best response. Thank fuck, then, for Duck.

 

There Are No Normal Conversations Any More is out now via Hell Hath No Fury Records.

John McGovern
@etinsuburbiaego

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ALBUM: Wilsen – ‘Ruiner’

A collection of thoughtful songs that allow space for reflection and growth; Wilsen‘s latest record Ruiner is a deceptively quiet listen. Released via Dalliance Recordings, the album is soft in terms of volume, but lyrically it speaks loudly about overcoming and accepting inherent introversion, and self-doubt.

“Making this record was somewhat of a coming of age process,” guitarist & vocalist Tamsin Wilson explains. “We’re getting older and becoming more deliberate, less precious, less measured, trusting [our] instincts more.” Perhaps it’s this trust that led the band to partner with acclaimed producer Andrew Sarlo (Big Thief, Bon Iver) and mastering engineer Sarah Register (Protomartyr, U.S. Girls) on their new record.

“I can be a ruiner…” confesses Wilson on the album’s eponymous opening track. Written in a moment of “self-sabotage”, her vocals float beautifully over Johnny Simon Jr’s atmospheric, shimmering guitar sounds, belying the negativity that informed the song’s context. The gently tumultuous ‘Align’ follows, with more layered guitar and meandering lyrics about having the guts to go steady with someone.

The catchy refrain and Drew Arndt’s bass lines on ‘Down’ stick in the memory, while the gentle acoustics on ‘Wearing’ compliment Wilson’s lyrics about being worn down (“like a bag stuck in a tree / I’m helplessly clinging on”). ‘YNTOO’ flows in the same vein, before the guitars slowly swell for the final minute of the track.

The brief ‘Birds, Pt.1’ and the thoughtful, extended ‘Birds, Pt.2’ beautifully bookend each other, with the poignant ‘Wedding’ sitting in between. The infectious, full-sounding ‘Feeling Fancy’ celebrates the power of inherent shyness. As Wilson states in the song; “Everybody’s got a story”, and regardless of the volume it’s told at, it deserves to be shared and acknowledged.

The penultimate ‘Fuse’ looks forward with reassuring confidence, leaving you “ready to disco, baby”, whilst closing track ‘Moon’ is the most stripped back on the record. Tentative and delicate, it reiterates the idea that shyness and confidence can exist comfortably side-by-side.

A subtle, but powerful record that speaks to those who are trying to find the balance between being comfortable with themselves, and trying to refrain from being a Ruiner; Wilsen’s latest offering is a poetic, reverb-strewn, dreamy affair.

Listen to Wilsen’s new album Ruiner on Spotify.
Follow the band on Facebook for more updates.

Photo Credit: CF Watkins

Kate Crudgington
@KCBobCut

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