Slipped Discs May 2017

Discs You May Have Missed
by John Noyd

Hoop

Hoop

Initial Thoughts

What’s in a name? Whether elevating or denigrating, praising or hazing, May album titles look at name-calling, both good and bad. Consider soft, lofty ghost-whisperers HOOP’s precious messages and hesitant sentences in the super-fine, “Super Genuine,” tireless yarn-spinning archivist and stoic old-time revivalist BONNIE ‘PRINCE’ BILLY’s country-blues revue, “Best Troubadour,” or wild-eyed metaphysical jam-wizards HELIOCENTRICS’ organic trances and mytho-poetic mantras, “World of Masks,” and discover hyped stereotypes surrounding disabled labels. 


Disc Reviews


Fake Shark - Faux Real

Fake Shark - Faux Real

Fake Shark

Album title: Faux Real
Record Label: Light Organ Records

Non-stop power-pop frolics in hyperbolic gimmick-rich shtick, uncorking Fake Shark’s ultra-catchy packages of spring-loaded ear-worms and hook-riddled rock-outs. From crunchy funk shot out of a cannon to auto-tuned struts flushed with cheeky pleads keen on creamy harmonies and glitch-inflicted party-rock, “Real,” squeals in wicked wit, indulging endless remedies for an audacious mental vacation booked with smarmy charm and kinetic cool.

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Deb Talan - Lucky Girl

Deb Talan - Lucky Girl

Deb Talan

Album title: Lucky Girl
Record Label: Nettwerk

Gentle ballads dabbling in sad absences alongside boppy folk-pop cocktails anchored in hidden wisdom; Talan’s talent for enriching simple instances and reaping deep emotions makes her songs stellar testaments to perceptive, independent spirits. Very much a solo endeavor, “Lucky,” assigns lyrical reminders inside restless blessings, lighting life’s common longings and unmanageable challenges with glowing social revolt and warm, cozy counsel.

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The Mountain Goats - Goths

The Mountain Goats - Goths

The Mountain Goats

Album title: Goths
Record Label: Merge

Opening momentary microcosms littered in descriptive images, semi-fictitious reminisces and surprising rhymes, “Goths,” criss-cross dreamy sax, casual lounge-jazz accents and earthly pearls plucked from teeming streams of a novelist’s consciousness. Rich, suggestive hearsay plants information-packed narratives inside episodic tunes to sow knowing poetry; The Mountain Goats coast over draughtsman characterizations in ruby-slippered elocution, undressing life’s undercover essence with semi-urgent mercy.

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The Mountain Goats online:
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Hollow Everdaze - Cartoons

Hollow Everdaze - Cartoons

Hollow Everdaze

Album title: Cartoons
Record Label: Deaf Ambitions

Rockin’ cosmopolitans, over-the-moon psyche-pop crooners and fab gentlemen tripsters, Australia’s Hollow Everdaze indulges in nostalgic pageants soaked in Sixties mystery, injecting hallucinogenic benders sprinkled in continental splendor and cat-burglar nerve. Touched in lush xylophone and champagne strings, “Cartoons,” draws curious augmented chords while artful guitars melt melancholy melodies into fuzz-pedal buzz and furious indie-rock exhaustion plunges into chronic symphonic sonnets. 

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Juana Molina - Halo

Juana Molina - Halo

Juana Molina

Album title: Halo
Record Label: Crammed Discs

A primordial courtship between sultry synthesized slithering and limber South American rhythms, “Halo,” percolates in balmy cyber-samba calm, looping smoky jungle fugues around languid sleepwalker tangos to color galactic tapestries with eerie delirium. Soothing computer voodoo spawned from quirky circuitry, Molina’s sleek creatures oscillate between aqueous gymnastics painted in exotic polish and savvy electro-folk magic rooted in woozy spooky sensuality.

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She-Devils - She-Devils

She-Devils - She-Devils

She-Devils

Album title: She-Devils
Record Label: Secretly Canadian

Chiffon bombs ticking in double-edged pleasures offer scintillating lust-encrusted invitations from vixen-commissioned dream-pop laced in swirling subversions; She-Devils’ groovy girl-group subterfuge hides contagious stalker-rock dangers inside bewitching pinafore choruses. Weaving steamy seductions in waltzing subterranean sock-hops and purring black-widow pillow-talk, the duo’s self-titled debut’s brooding duels wrestle suppressed affections threatened by schizophrenic tensions into irresistible temptations deploying coy post-modern decoys.

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Final Thoughts

Where’s it at? Spring albums zero in on places. Portuguese alt-pop chameleons THE GIFT team up with Brian Eno for sumptuous beat-sweetened ballads and exuberant Krautrock concoctions in, “Altar” while bright, Simonized harmonizers GIRLPOOL plug direct, electric connections into, “Powerplant.” Find free-spirited story-teller WOODEN WAND’s meta-folk lullabies, “Clipper Ship.” then discover nomadic pop-naturalist CHRIS BATHGATE’s expansive, thoughtful, “Dizzy Seas,” before surveying supernatural appetites from voracious psychedelicists MOON DUO’s lava-lamp jams, “Occult Architecture Vol. 2,” and traversing multi-genre jazz-guitarist BILL FRISELL and ace bassist THOMAS MORGAN’s, gentle, scenic, effervescent, “Small Town.”