ALBUM: Bodega – ‘Broken Equipment’

Sardonic New York art-punk collective BODEGA have an insatiable appetite for philosophy, and with their latest LP Broken Equipment, they have interrogated their own identities – and the external technological influences that shape the band – with self-aware pretentious wit, techno-scepticism and scathing social commentary. The result is a wordy concept album of sorts set in NYC; a collection of cynical anti-establishment post-punk.

Following the dissolution of their previous band Bodega Bay and BODEGA’s formation in 2016, Ben Hozie and Nikki Belfiglio’s satirical musings – like those pondered on their 2018 debut Endless Scroll and 2019 extended play Shiny New Model – never shy away from self-critique. Opening their sophomore album with a dance-punk ode to identity, Hozie tries desperately to understand himself and the constant challenges NYC flings his way on ‘Thrown’. “My molecules change yet I remain / I weave and unweave my image.”

Atop an infectious twangy bassline courtesy of philosophy professor (and ‘de facto’ leader of BODEGA’s philosophy book club) Adam See, and Tai Lee’s percussive strikes, Hozie sneers at NYC’s culture of never-ending productivity in ‘Doer’, spitting out a Daft Punk-esque mantra that the city is maybe making him “bitter, harder, fatter, stressed out!” BODEGA’s sarcastic humour shines throughout their anthemic Beastie Boys/Run-DMC-style throwback (“Innovation waits for no man / Unless I lose my dongle!”), providing us with a New York slice of relatable satire.

Belfiglio takes on lead vocals for ‘Territorial Call of the Female’, dissecting female competition “because you know when the man is around / that’s when I’m putting you down.” Alternating between snarky and sweet with ease, Belfiglio’s expressionist vocalisation is complimented by Daniel Ryan’s angular new wave lead guitar lines and tone (referred to as the “insectoid” sound). This melodic sensibility continues on ‘NYC (disambiguation)’ with BODEGA taking a softer direction that is often at odds with their lyrical anger and disappointment; an honest look at NYC’s history.

Released in multiple languages prior to the LP’s release, ‘Statuette on the Console’ is another Belfiglio-sung highlight that ponders “anyone who puts their reality on your back and forces you to carry it around,” followed by the hip hop bounce of ‘C.I.R.P.’; Belfiglio and Hozie tag-teaming lyrics and wrestling media elitism whilst See, Lee, and Ryan provide ringside support with pulsating bass grooves, driving beats, and propulsive riffs.

The Cult-like love song ‘Pillar on the Bridge of You’ and The Velvet Underground inspired ‘All Past Lovers’ continue Hozie and Belfiglio’s journey of self-discovery in NYC, tackling relationships new and old, whilst ‘How Can I Help Ya?’, ‘No Blade of Grass’, and ‘Seneca The Stoic’ allow BODEGA to show off their rock and roll chops; Ryan shredding his way through the band’s ceaseless punk energy. But it is Broken Equipment’s closer, ‘After Jane’, that will leave a lasting impression.

Picking up the acoustic guitar, Hozie reflects honestly on his relationship with his mother for the album’s heartfelt final track; an emotionally raw realisation that after her death, her grace and pain now reside within him – “I’m channeling your hurt when I sing my songs” – It’s a sombre ending to an otherwise biting social satire, told through the ethos of punk rock.

BODEGA is a philosophical project and Broken Equipment is their latest thesis; an analysis of the changes occurring around us at an accelerated pace that directly inform our life experiences. Perhaps we’re the broken equipment.

Follow Bodega on bandcamp, Spotify, Twitter, Instagram & Facebook

Photo Credit: Pooneh Ghana

Ken Wynne
@Ken_Wynne

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ALBUM: Perennial – ‘In The Midnight Hour’

Connecticut art punks Perennial capture the spirit of post-hardcore with their ambitious sophomore LP In The Midnight Hour; an infectious, relentlessly noisy record, oozing ever-perennial punk energy and inspired by the eclectic sounds of their cultural New England surroundings. From watching post-hardcore arts-college/rec-centre gigs, like Q And Not U and The Blood Brothers, to indie record store discoveries like Nick Cave, Perennial absorbed and integrated an assortment of ideas, exploring and expanding their sound to deliver an unpredictable, complex punk album.

Following their debut EP Early Sounds for Night Owls (2015), their debut LP The Symmetry of Autumn Leaves (2017) and EP Food for Hornets (2019), multi-instrumentalists Chad Jewett, Chelsey Hahn and drummer Wil Mulhern – with encouragement from The World Is a Beautiful Place & I Am No Longer Afraid to Die’s Chris Teti – began deconstructing hardcore punk; maintaining their intensity, but emphasising a greater degree of creative expression. Opening with ‘The Skeleton Dance’, Perennial are loud enough to wake the dead, conjuring a whiplash-inducing combination of electronic instrumentation before diving headfirst into hardcore dance-punk anthem ‘In The Midnight Hour’, a worthy title track where the kinetic guitar riffs bite as hard as Hahn and Jewett’s haunting lyrics.

The angular art-punk attack continues with rambunctious groove on ‘Soliloquy For Neil Perry’, leading into the propulsive slam-punk-poetry of ‘Lauren Bacall In Blue’, an infectious, unapologetic track as alluring as its namesake. ‘Food For Hornets’ allows for further experimentation, with Hahn and Jewett trading screaming vocals over scuzzy post-hardcore guitar-hooks and aberrant effects. As Hahn chants “cut up the pattern, yeah,” the band do just that, descending into rumbling idiosyncratic melody.

Catch your breath during ‘Hey Eurydice’ because you won’t get another chance for the remainder of In The Midnight Hour. Conjuring the spirit of poet T. S. Eliot with abrasive, crushing rhythm and punishing percussion, ‘Tooth Plus Claw’ ends with a bang but not a whimper, whilst ‘Melody For A New Cornet’ follows with an equally aggressive performance from the atypical noise-rock trio, pounding basslines leading to the propulsive rhythm of ‘Hour Of The Wolf’. Narratively, ‘Perennial In A Haunted House’ is the ghostly quiet, long after the midnight hour has concluded, the haunted house of our own making. But musically, Perennial’s scrappy lead single couldn’t be louder! ‘I Am The Whooping Crane’ follows with an experimental blend of jazz-infused punk groove, poetic storytelling, and Motown flirtation (during its final seconds) before ‘Absolver’ closes the album with sonic ferocity.

12 songs, 22 minutes of erratic art punk for the nocturnal! Perennial’s unpredictable sophomore LP – “a punk album that doesn’t operate like a punk album” – rewards repeated spins, each track layered with enough weirdo punk energy and reckless abandon to keep the needle dropped.

 

Follow Perennial on bandcamp, Spotify, Twitter, Instagram & Facebook

Photo Credit: Omari Spears

Ken Wynne
@Ken_Wynne

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ALBUM: SEA CHANGE – ‘Mutual Dreaming’

Equally as inspired by the club music of LA and Berlin as she is by her current quieter surroundings in the southern coastal town of Kristiansand in Norway, Ellen A. W. Sunde aka Sea Change’s sounds ebb and flow with an altruistic spirit on her latest album, Mutual Dreaming. Released via Shapes Recordings, her new offering reflects a deeply primal desire to move through intense feelings that escape verbal or written articulation, and provide a soothing antidote for over-thinking minds.

On her previous album INSIDE (2018), Sunde navigated a personal metamorphosis through her heady electronic ruminations and club-inspired beats. Teaming up once more with co-producer and mixer Andrew Murray Baardsen, on Mutual Dreaming Sunde reflects on quieter spaces and the power of a moment, allowing both to flood the senses and then be released into the ether just as quickly. Created during a global pandemic, her new electronica ripples with emotion without ever feeling weighty or over-thought, reflecting the way she feels about music in general. This approach to songwriting gives Mutual Dreaming its wonderfully searching, yet reassuringly vacant quality, reflecting the unusual time that it was made.

At times shadowy and sparse (‘I Put My Hand Into A Fist’, ‘That’s Us’, ‘OK’, ‘Rituals’) and other times heady and uplifting (‘Never Felt’, ‘Is There Anybody There’) Mutual Dreaming is full of captivating soundscapes. Tracks like ‘Never Felt…’ and ‘Night Eyes’ compliment each other beautifully, the former blossoming from a need to separate the body from the mind, whilst the latter is a pulsing, atmospheric offering that taps into the need to do the opposite. Both are evocative reminders to loosen up and surrender to the beat when life is pressing down on you. The dreamy transition from ‘Mirages’ into the album’s title track ‘Mutual Dreaming’ further enhances the flowing feeling that permeates the record.

Sea Change’s fluctuating sounds on Mutual Dreaming provide the backdrop for a gentle aural catharsis, allowing the stresses of life to melt away into the background. An intoxicating blur of soft vocals, lush beats and ambient electronics, it’s a welcome tonic in a time of disconnection and restlessness.

Listen to Mutual Dreaming here

Learn more about the music that inspired Sea Change’s album in our Five Favourites feature

Follow Sea Change on bandcamp, Spotify, Twitter, Instagram & Facebook

Kate Crudgington
@KCBobCut

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ALBUM: Cate Le Bon – ‘Pompeii’

You awake, eyes wild, dreams of Pompeii still flashing through your mind. It’s dark outside, what time is it? A rhythm shuffles over the horizon, an unidentified pulse of percussion and a shambling couple of wind instruments. Pompeii, Cate Le Bon’s sixth album, has begun, with ‘Dirt on the Bed’.

Yet again, she has created a remarkable, singular work. Pompeii is continuously rewarding, an album to return to again and again until it swallows you into its world. Like its artwork, a version of the Tim Presley painting that served as the central inspiration for the entire project, it possesses an aged, grainy feel in spite of its fresh originality. The sound is science fiction. As if from a parallel 80s, it is drenched in synths while evading the worn conventions of synth pop, instead assimilating those sounds into the Cate Le Bon style.

The brilliant ‘French Boys’ is punctuated by a beautiful steel pan hook that is mechanical and melancholy, creaking with the sad nostalgia of an abandoned oil rig in some post-apocalyptic landscape. Later tunes like the momentous ‘Cry Me Old Trouble’ develop walls of synths that provide epic and strange backdrops to the lyrics, complementing their tone perfectly.

Le Bon’s writing builds on the vocabulary of the ancient and the spiritual which she introduced to her work on her previous album, Reward. It constitutes perhaps the best example to date of her ability to create affecting lyrics out of abstract emotive language. Lines like “cry me old trouble”, “my heart broke a century”, “raise a glass in a season of ash and pour it over me”, they have that Symbolist combination of familiarity and mystery. Like a dream, her writing makes some unconscious sense even when individual elements evade comprehension.

Recent Cate Le Bon albums have felt terrestrial in their experimentation, each album conveying a kind of landscape. Crab Day was shingly, coastal, Reward was mountainous and sublime. By comparison, this album feels like it takes place on a swampy exoplanet, with thicker air and a slightly stronger gravitational force. In other words, Cate Le Bon has broken loose from Earth and is operating from a world of her own, free from any obvious external reference point and working according only to her original logic.

The closer, ‘Wheel’, provides a cyclical end to the album, an approximate reprise of ‘Dirt on the Bed’ with a palette expanded on the basis of all that we’ve gained through the 9-song track list. Only Le Bon can bound this sound-world, can make sense of it and condense it into an ordered and beautiful album. She is yet to make a bad record, and this might well be her finest work yet.

Order your copy of Cate Le Bon’s new album Pompeii here (released 4th February)

Follow Cate Le Bon on bandcamp, Spotify, Twitter, Instagram & Facebook

Photo Credit: Cate Le Bon

Lloyd Bolton
@franklloydwleft
@lloyd_bolton

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