Author: Eric Saeger

Hiss Golden Messenger, Wise Eyes: Live at The Neptune, Seattle, WA, 2/25/22 (Merge Records)

This Durham, North Carolina, quintet has been a part of the Merge Records stable since 2014’s Lateness of Dancers, after releasing pretty much all of their first six LPs on bandleader MC Taylor’s own Heaven & Earth Magic imprint. Often compared to indie-folk/alt-country acts like Will Oldham, these guys are fedora-rock all the way, appealing to Deadheads probably more than anything (in fact a cover of “Bertha” ends this 17-song live excursion with an appropriately hooting and hollering crowd response). This performance is said to be one of the best from the band’s shows so far, and I’ll take their word for it for now, as they now have something called the “Hiss Mobile Recording Unit” and this collection is the first in a series of live releases recorded on it (I told you they sound like the Dead, right?). Merle Haggard’s “Mama Tried” gets a hayloft treatment here, but other than that it’s the band’s own stuff, including deep cuts and as little as possible from their last full-length, Quietly Blowing It, which got a lot of negative press for its redundancy. B

Matthew Fries, Lost Time (Xcappa Records)

This jazz pianist’s journey started in Selinsgrove, Pennsylvania, his birthplace as well as the city where his father served as a piano professor at Susquehanna University. His deck fiercely stacked, Fries earned his Master of Music degree at the University of Tennessee and eventually won 1997’s Great American Jazz Piano Competition in Jacksonville, Florida. His output is moving into who’s-still-keeping-track numbers at this point, which does help to explain the rather remarkable level of expertise and deep musicality Fries not only wrings out of himself in this tinkly-adamant-tinkly set of originals, but also his two sole cohorts, drummer Keith Hall and bassist John Hebert. The occasion here is the death of Fries’ mother and stepfather (“not from Covid” I’m told), but sad passages are few and far between on this one; mostly it’s colorful, cohesive, upbeat; technically whiz-band. The title track is the one Fries dedicated to his mom; it does stick out as a rather sad but very artful, determined paean. B

Playlist

• The next batch of CD releases drops this Friday, Aug. 26. Like every week, there will be albums that should be taken very seriously, albums that should be taken kind-of seriously and albums from bands like Muse, whose new album Will Of The People is on our docket today! Do you know anyone who loves this band and their sort-of-rock-but-come-on-that’s-not-really-rock music? Heh heh, the first time I heard them was way back in 2006, when they sent me their Black Holes and Revelations LP. Ah, memories, I had no idea what I was doing back then, like, I just wanted these famous bands to like me, if I recall correctly, so I was probably really nice to it when I reviewed it, even though its single, “Starlight,” was a ripoff of ABC’s hauntingly bad 1985 hit single “Be Near Me,” during the mercifully short era in music history when ABC and Spandau Ballet were trying to start a craze where yuppies danced waltzes to bad songs written in 4/4 (non-waltz) time. Music never really recovered from that catastrophe, obviously, and even worse, like we’re talking about, Muse never got the memo about never trying that nonsense. And so Muse went on to become a defective version of Killers, part rock band, part practical joke, and the only reason I’m talking about them at the moment is that there’s no way that they could still be that awful, it’s simply impossible. But now’s when we find that out for sure, as I’m at YouTube, about to listen to — well, I don’t know which song yet. The record company says “the album is not of a ‘singular genre,’” that the title track is a “glam rocker” and “Kill or Be Killed” is “industrial-tinged.” I suppose I’ll have to go with the latter, here we go. Yep, starts off kind of industrial-y, more like Korn-ish, but then it turns into a Raspberries-esque bubblegum-pop song from the 1970s or something, with whatsisname doing that dumb singing. Ha ha, what a weird and stupid band these guys are, seriously.

• One of the dumbest band names of the Aughts was Pianos Become the Teeth, the name of an alt-rock band from Baltimore. I hated those Aughts-era band names, because way too many times the bands were just as dumb, like Philadelphia band Clap Your Hands Say Yeah, South Dakota folk-pop crew We All Have Hooks For Hands and whatever others, sorry, I’m really trying not to think of them right now so I won’t get upset. The only good thing about those band names was that it let me know beforehand that the music was going to be really awful, and for that I sort of thank them. Aaaand we’re moving, one tune on their new album, Drift, is called “Buckley,” a rather cool jangle-drone thing redolent of, say, Jeff Buckley (oddly enough) meets chill-mode Smashing Pumpkins, I don’t mind it.

• Australian indie rock singer-songwriter Stella Donnelly released her first album, Beware of the Dogs, in 2019 and a lot of people really loved it, including famous music critic Robert Christgau, who praised it as a “musical encyclopedia of [male jerks].” That’s all well and good, but her new full-length Flood will street on Friday, and the title track is like Lomelda but with a lot more “what me worry” charm and listenability.

• Finally let’s look at All Of Us Flames, the sixth collection of tunes from Ezra Furman, who came out as a transgender woman in late April 2021. The latest single is “Lilac And Black,” a droopy, woozy alt-ballad. No tour stops in our area from what I can see aside from Fete Music Hall in Providence, Rhode Island, on Sept. 19.

If you’re in a local band, now’s a great time to let me know about your EP, your single, whatever’s on your mind. Let me know how you’re holding yourself together without being able to play shows or jam with your homies. Send a recipe for keema matar. Message me on Twitter (@esaeger) or Facebook (eric.saeger.9).

Sampa The Great, As Above So Below (Loma Vista Recordings)

Commercial African music isn’t strictly relegated to Afrobeat, a fact that this Zambia-born, Botswana-raised rapper-singer wants to bring to light through this debut album. This is a really rangy record, running a full gamut of feel, from torch to Lil Kim badassness and far beyond. There’s plenty of tourist-trap chill on board, for instance, such as when she tries Sade on for size in the lush, lazy singalong-powered “Never Forget,” but this isn’t yacht-rock joint by a long shot: Breakout track “Bona” is inspired by kwaito and amapiano, dance music styles Sampa grew up with in Botswana, but the vibe itself is pure club, hearing-test bloops trying to pop your woofers like bubble-wrap, doong-ing in rhythm as our heroine raps along at scat speed in a really impressive display of bravado: She owns the place, is the takeaway. That’s fine by me, for what it’s worth, Sampa’s ’tude is absolutely righteous. A+

The Sons of Adam, Saturday’s Sons: The Complete Recordings 1964-1966 (High Moon Records)

Big package here celebrating the first-ever release of this Los Angeles garage-pop quartet’s complete collection of recordings, isn’t that cool. Oh, you’re wondering who these guys are/were? Well, obviously they were around during the first wave of British rock, when the Beatles, Stones and Who first took over the planet. But Sons Of Adam were working out of L.A., as stated above, led by guitarist Randy Holden (touted as one of the era’s great unsung guitar heroes, he eventually wound up with Blue Cheer, considered by most rock historians to be the fathers of heavy metal). “Everybody Needs Someone To Love” is really fun, think an alternate-universe collaboration between the Stones and Jet, and yeah, the guitar sounds fantastic for its time. “Mr. Sun” has a definite Black Crowes feel to it, brandishing another four-chord guitar riff that’s a bit more advanced than the average Kinks joint, much like everything else on board. A true historical artifact, great stuff. A+

Playlist

• Yowza, we’ve actually got a pretty impressive lineup of releases coming out this Friday, Aug. 19, or at least releases from bands and whatnots that people have actually heard of, for a change. I mean, don’t think I’m unaware that some of y’all are all like, “I’ve never heard of this band, why does he write about them” about some of the acts covered in this space, because after all, some of you people actually just walk up to me and say it. But see, you have to take into consideration that we hit the tipping point of too many new bands putting out records somewhere in the late ’90s, probably, and now there are definitely way too many bands and albums and snobby vinyl versions and box sets coming out all the time. Every week it’s a million new albums from bands you and I have never heard of, mostly bands that sound like other bands, and I have to investigate them, because that’s what this award-winning column is for, after all, isn’t it? I know, it can be annoying, reading about bands you’ve never heard of, but I think we have a special thing going, you and I, don’t you? Here, I’ll even be nice this week and talk first about an album from British synthpop that all you Aughts kids will know about, unless of course the only things you were just listening to were Lil Kim or Evanescence. Yes, I’m of course speaking about British synthpop group Hot Chip, whose new LP, Freakout/Release, is on its way! Of course, the band started out as a sloppy, barely listenable indie-tronica mess, which was what they still were when I first had the misfortune of encountering them in 2008, upon the release of Made In The Dark, an album that was inspired by Prince’s Sign O’ The Times LP and the Beatles’ “White Album” or at least that what they said. MITD was probably the most difficult review I’ve ever written, because it was considered genius by most hipsters, but I really hated it and struggled to find kind things to say about it so that I wouldn’t look like a rock ’n’ roll Luddite. In the end I was vindicated, as most hipster writers finally admitted it was quite noticeably flawed, but anyway, that brings us to now, and Freakout/Release, with its single, “Down,” a stompy, funky-ish number that’s a lot more like Prince than any of that earlier trash I had to listen to. It’s got an ’80s vibe, just like everything else today, but it’s not bad, so let’s just leave it at that.

• Panic! At the Disco is of course one of the world’s top emo bands, basically a solo venture for Utah-bred singer Brendon Urie. If you ask me, he won’t rest until he’s all the members of My Chemical Romance in one body, and, like Hot Chip, all his old music is pretty dumb, but he’s got a new one coming out right now, an album called Viva Las Vengeance. The title track is straining so hard to be a Killers song that I feel obliged to be nice to it, so here it is: It’s acceptable.

• Here we go, California indie-folk band The Mountain Goats are cool, I already said so before these guys got really big. Their new album Bleed Out includes the single “Training Montage,” a classic example of their ability not to suck, it’s half hayloft-indie and half midtempo rockout, quite decent.

• We’ll wrap up this week with Heartmind, the latest from rather innovative indie-mishmash songwriter Cass McCombs. “Unproud Warrior,” the single, is boozy blues/country-drone a la Kevin Morby at Chris Isaak speed. It’s got enough going on layer-wise that it’s not a complete waste.

If you’re in a local band, now’s a great time to let me know about your EP, your single, whatever’s on your mind. Let me know how you’re holding yourself together without being able to play shows or jam with your homies. Send a recipe for keema matar. Message me on Twitter (@esaeger) or Facebook (eric.saeger.9).

Jackboy, Majorly Independent (1804 Records)

I do make a constant attempt to cover all musical genres in this space, and yeah, it’s made me a jack of all trades and master of — OK, not all that many, especially indie hip-hop records that sound like I’ve heard them before, a ton of times, and break no new ground. Like this one, which does, for its part, come with receipts: JackBoy — real name Pierre Delince — spent the first six years of his life in Haiti, then wound up in Florida, where he became part of Sniper Gang with Kodak Black, with whom he has (of course) beef nowadays. I won’t get into why I’m convinced this guy’s “fame” is largely generated by a bot swarm, nor will I bother rattling off a list of very similar-sounding artists, since you know the drill by now: smack talk and savings account fables delivered via “clipped cadences and pained operatics,” as one rap wiki observed (in a review snippet that could describe, well, nearly every rapper ever), while the beats explore basic trap, polite neo-crunk and whatnot, nothing too crazy. You see, folks, albums like this don’t want actual music reviews, they want sets of biographical drama bullets on the artist. My DMs and PMs are wide open if you disagree, but I can’t imagine anyone would. As is, sure, it’s tight and whatnot. And absolutely disposable. C+

Rusty Santos, High Reality (Lo Recordings)

This Los Angeles-based producer/musician has worked with tons of bands and artists, usually in the space occupied by purveyors of wetwork tuneage of pretty high quality: Chui Wann, Gang Gang Dance, Animal Collective (since you likely have no idea what those acts sound like, just think pretty layers, electronically tweaked/pinched vocal lines, things like that in general). By my count, High Reality is Santos’s sixth solo album, his forte a guitar/vocal thing with varying levels of roughness on the sample side. Opener “Dream In Stereo” is throwback Beck, for sure; it starts with a really woozy, wobbly sample that, it turns out, is a template for most of the songs that are aboard this thing. It’s kind of dated in that regard; in the press materials for this one he yammers about learning all kinds of stuff, which would be natural, given the collaborations in which he’s figured, but after many minutes of wobbling and slow-trilling and whatnot it feels like the work of a one-trick pony who should probably stick to remixing and things like that. B-

Playlist

• Aug. 12 is here, homies, here it comes, we may as well just call it September, fun-time’s over. But since the 12th is a Friday, there will at least be some new albums, if that’s any consolation (I know, I know), so let’s pull up the barnacle-covered lobster trap, toss the bewildered-looking starfish back in the water and see what albums wandered into my crafty little device for capturing albums before they can swim away and not have to face my mightily eloquent blah blah blah. We may as well start with movie soundtrack dude Danny Elfman, whose new album, Bigger Messier, consists of a bunch of remixes from his 2021 artist album, Big Mess. Right, so just to clear up one of the questions that always comes up about Danny Elfman: He is the uncle of actor Bodhi Elfman, who is married to actress Jenna Elfman, so they’re not siblings or whatever, he’s just — you know, whatever an uncle-in-law is called. Now, you also may not know that Elfman was in a really awful band called Oingo Boingo in the ’80s. They were like Devo but basically 200 percent less funny, but one interesting thing is that there’s been a lot of confusion around one particular actor who appeared in Oingo Bongo’s video for their really terrible single “Little Girls”: Tons of young people are clogging internet boards proclaiming that they’re convinced that the actor is indeed Peter Dinklage from Game Of Thrones. However, some smarty-pants on LinusTechTips.com set the entire internet straight in one post, so the question will never be posed again, ever, by anyone, because the internet is a perfect, self-maintained mechanism. To wit: “Peter Dinklage was 12 when that song was released, so it’s very unlikely that the person with a mustache who looks nothing like Peter Dinklage is him.” So there’s that; and remember, Elfman’s pretty dumb-looking; he played the parts of all the Oompa Loompas in the Willy Wonka movie that starred Johnny Depp, and, cutting to now, I wasn’t that impressed with anything I heard from the Big Mess album, like, it kind of wanted to be an edgy rock album but wasn’t interesting; however, the Squarepusher remix of “We Belong” turns the original tune, a morose, funereal droner, into a dubstep tour de force. It’s fine, but has nothing to do with the original. Let’s just leave that here.

• Yikes, look, folks, it’s Japanese stoner/psychedelic-metal masters Boris, with their new album Heavy Rocks 2022; this is probably awesome! The trio usually gets lumped in with Seattle’s plodding drone-meisters Sunn(((O))), mostly because they collaborated on a (rather unnecessary) record; you should ignore any such nonsense and go check them out if you’re into Jack White’s retro-hard-rock and that kind of thing. But wait, maybe I spoke too soon, because I haven’t even listened to the new advance tune “She Is Burning,” so for all I know they’re horrible now, let’s go check it out. OK, forget it, this is wicked cool, hyper-thrash hard-rock with dueling guitar riffs, why aren’t these guys 100 times bigger than they are now?

• Oh, how adorable, San Francisco borderline punk outfit OC’s have changed the spelling of their band name to Osees, just to make sure their fans won’t be able to find their new album, A Foul Form, on the internet (again). Isn’t that special? Too bad, because the title track is hardcore no-wave, thrashy, really bad-ass, love it.

• We’ll wrap it up with 1980s-famous synthpop duo Erasure, whose new LP, Day-Glo (Based On A True Story) is broken up into “chapters.” The tune “Chapter 2” is krautrock-ish roller-rink techno that immediately made me think of aughts-era Haujobb. I can deal with it.

If you’re in a local band, now’s a great time to let me know about your EP, your single, whatever’s on your mind. Let me know how you’re holding yourself together without being able to play shows or jam with your homies. Send a recipe for keema matar. Message me on Twitter (@esaeger) or Facebook (eric.saeger.9).

JoVia Armstrong, Antidote Suite (Wild Kingdom Records)

The term Afrofuturism — referring to a “cultural aesthetic and philosophy of science and history that explores the intersection of African diaspora culture with science and technology” — was coined by culture critic Mark Dery, an on-again/off-again friend-acquaintance who’s been mad at me for like a year because I clumsily made fun of him on Twitter for his nerdy distaste for sports. Speaking of clumsy, the genre definition offered above — can’t we just say Afrofuturism is Black cyberpunk culture? no? — is a bit misleading as pertains to this album, which, if it’d come from anyone whose musical career hadn’t been borne of a, well, too-academics-driven approach to a life’s mission of spreading awareness about Black struggle in the Information Age, would be immediately classified as chilly, often beautiful but not earth-shakingly original soundscaping. Guests include bassist Isaiah Sharkey, guitarist Jeff Parker, vocalist Yaw Agyeman and rapper Teh’Ray Hale. There’d be no earthly reason for me not to recommend this to anyone; lots of interesting genre-mixing here. A+

Sator, Return of The Barbie-Q-Killers (Wild Kingdom Records)

Here we go, just what I needed right now, an old-school punk band from Sweden. And I do mean old-school; they’ve been together since 1981, originally under the moniker Sator Codex, which points to the Throbbing Gristle/Cabaret Voltaire niche they cite as an influence. Other than that, the record collections of the members’ youth were pretty standard: Motorhead, Chuck Berry, Ramones, Clash and such. Doesn’t matter, though. There are 24-count-’em songs crammed into this release, with most of the songs clocking in at around two minutes, which put it at an A grade before I even listened to any of it. The music is a blur of Misfits/Ramones gloriousness, opening with a punkabilly-tinged “Get Out Of My Way”; a Lords Of The New Church-sounding “Shimmy Shake,” even an obvious nod to New York Dolls in “Pumps, Purse And A Pillbox Hat.” From my seat there’s nothing wrong with this album whatsoever. A+

Playlist

• Gross, it’s freakin’ August already, it’s just going to be hot and insane out and then we’ll have those perfect September days with blue skies and a tinge of autumn in the air. So pleasant and nice, I hate it so much, but it’s on the way, and our first order of August business is to talk about the albums that’ll be in the stores and Pirate Bays and virus-slathered darkweb cubbies on Aug. 5. I usually try to get the least pleasant stuff out of the way first, and this week that’s definitely overrated Scottish club DJ Calvin Harris’s new album, Funk Wav Bounces Vol. 2. No, I’m not saying I mindfully loathe Harris; it’s just that when my journalistic beat was the velvet-rope techno-club scene, Harris was one of those tedious funk guys, and he bothered me the same way Steve Aoki did. Not enough progressive house in his mix, is what I mean; I really prefer progressive house over regurgitated Chicago-style house, which is too heavy on the disco (think Madonna’s “Vogue” for reference’s sake). OK, you’re staring at me wondering what I’m talking about, as if I even know; suffice to say that I’d rather listen to a deep house genius like King Britt than a lowbrow slob like Calvin Harris. And now that I’ve gotten that off my chest, you know what’ll happen next, I’m going to go listen to Harris’s new single “Potion” and it’ll actually be OK. But I doubt it; guest vocalists for this album include ridiculously overexposed lummoxes like Justin Timberlake, Halsey and Snoop Dogg, and — wait, here’s the video for “Potion.” It features corporate-pop diva Dua Lipa with Young Thug, and — yup, there it is breezy after-party music that’s too loud and in-your-face for an after-party. Yuck, it’s too disco-ey, possessed of basically no class. My God, my life would have been so much easier if I’d been born the type of imbecile who’d prefer this over Oscar G or whatever. No one should listen to this song, period. It’s got the vibe of the typical soundtrack to a 1970s porno movie. Barf barf barf.

• Uh-oh, look sharp everyone, it’s British sort-of-tech-metal heroes Kasabian, with The Alchemist’s Euphoria, their new album! If you’re wondering, yes (I just found this out for sure), they were named after Linda Kasabian, the former Charles Manson groupie, isn’t that special, and for the record, everything I’ve heard from them to date has been pretty cool. That brings us to the here and now, with a new song called “Scriptvre,” a noisy, trashy joint that’s a cross between Rage Against The Machine and Red Hot Chili Peppers’ “Give It Away.” Definitely something of a ’90s-rock-revival persuasion, which, let’s face it already, isn’t the worst thing that could happen, being that the current ’80s rebirth is well past its sell-by date.

• Blah blah blah what else — ah, here’s one, a new album titled All 4 Nothing, the second album from Lauv, a.k.a. Ari Staprans Leff, a San Francisco-born singer-songwriter! With a title as stupid as All 4 Nothing I’d expected the title track to dredge up memories of Marky Mark or something equally hideous, but it’s not quite that bad, that is unless the thought of an Auto-Tuned Peabo Bryson makes your stomach a bit unstable. Nothing to see here, folks, just a smooth bedroom beat, a millennial whoop thrown in to stupid-check Leff’s target audience, etc. It’s listenable.

• We’ll end with a new live album from ancient folk-pop mummy and dreadful singer Neil Young, Noise & Flowers, I can’t wait, can you? All I know right now is there’s a live version of the tune “From Hank To Hendrix” that’s pretty good if you can get past that wounded-possum voice of his, ack ack.

If you’re in a local band, now’s a great time to let me know about your EP, your single, whatever’s on your mind. Let me know how you’re holding yourself together without being able to play shows or jam with your homies. Send a recipe for keema matar. Message me on Twitter (@esaeger) or Facebook (eric.saeger.9).

NoSo, Stay Proud Of Me (Partisan Records)

Abby Hwong is L.A.-based non-binary Korean-American singer-guitarist NoSo, whose debut album — this one here — had a successful launch on Soundcloud. Seems to me they’re big into epic indie-techno like M83, but their trip is more of a songwriter thing, and what first struck me was Hwong’s vocal likeness to Sarah McLachlan. The songs are big and lush, pretty much yacht-rock but with a lot of blooping percolation running along the lowest deck; I know there’s been a big Kate Bush resurgence of late owing to Stranger Things, and that’s fortuitous for Hwong, who sets their sights on the usual targets that strike dread into the hearts of differented people trying to make peace with themselves: of course there’s a song called “Suburbia” here, steeped in mellow Goldfrapp steez. Beautiful stuff here, folks. A+ — Eric W. Saeger

Trashed Ambulance, Future Considerations (Thousand Islands Records)

Today I learned that when Barenaked Ladies recorded the theme song to the TV show The Big Bang Theory, there were actually several other verses in the song, and most people have never heard them. I’m not suggesting you run right to YouTube and start memorizing those lyrics; it’s certainly not required listening for die-hard fans, and the rest of the song isn’t that great anyway. This album — from an Alberta, Canada, punk crew that’s been around for eight years, if I’m reading their sloppy press materials correctly — is the same kind of stuff as that, geeky Hoobastank-splattered nerd-punk that couldn’t hurt a fly if it wanted to. But point of order, they’d probably prefer I leave names like the Barenakeds and They Might Be Giants out of it: They’re actually “inspired by the likes of Pulley, Face to Face, and The Flatliners,” names that I could have dug up with a little luck, but since you have no idea who those bands are, to save us all time, just expect a bunch of tunes in the vein of the Big Bang Theory theme song, and they’re mostly good. All set? B+

Playlist

• Well isn’t that special, it’s July 29 already, how can this even be happening? Before you know it the summer will be gone, I mean, why don’t I just put all my winter stuff in my car, like my snowshoes and parka and my emergency survival bug-out bag with bear repellent and extra rations of Fritos and Devil Dogs in case I slide off the road and need rescuing from some crazy enchanted remote witch-filled forest in deepest, darkest Meredith, New Hampshire. OK, fine, I’m riffing mindlessly, and trust me, you’d do the same thing if you were supposed to be writing about Beyoncé’s new album, Renaissance, which comes out on Friday the 29th. Everyone knows that the only reason a critic of eclectic art would even mention the new Beyoncé album at all would be to demonstrate that said critic hasn’t been hiding under a rock, much as I’d much prefer that to trying to talk about an album that will instantly inspire one of only two possible reactions in people: They’ll either instantly decide to buy it, or they’ll yell “LOATHE ENTIRELY” like the Grinch and hope they never have to hear it playing at the Food Court. I’m sort of stuck in the middle myself, like my days of humming along to sexually baffling pop music ended when I turned 10, but in the meantime I still have to see what’s going on with Bee’s new single, “Break My Soul,” a tune she, ahem, “wrote” with like five other people, including her husband, Jay-Z, who’s credited as “S. Carter.” You know, I’m way too much of a punk to take royalty seriously, especially fake-royal cultural icons du jour, but since there are probably five of you who’ll actually buy this album just to irritate me, I’ll give this stupid song a whirl, why not, maybe it consists of more than the usual three notes that can be played on a Fisher Price toy xylophone. Nope, there’s only two notes, but the beat is kind of ’60s-James Bond-y overall but nothing more innovative than a ripoff of Young MC’s “Bust A Move” from back when Fred Flintstone drove a brontosaurus crane. Regardless, the success of that song gave her the distinction of being the first woman to notch at least 20 top 10 titles as a solo artist and at least 10 top 10 tracks as a member of a group on the Billboard Hot 100 chart. Yay, super-lucky famous people, aaand we’re moving.

• Ack, ack, it’s Groundhog Day, it has to be, wasn’t I talking about some other “Elephant 6 musical collective”-affiliated band last week (Austin group Elf Power, if I recall correctly) (yes, that was it), and saying how much I dislike that stuff? Well, no matter, because Of Montreal are here with a new album, the first two words of the title being Freewave Lucifer, whatever that means, and I have to go listen to their new single, “Marijuana’s A Working Woman.” Bulletin: There are festive, childish watercolors in the video. Oh boy, it wants to be Flaming Lips meets The Shins or some such, unlistenable analog-ish console noise and a barely discernible hook. Holy crow, folks, people are still listening to this kind of thing?

• If you ever wondered where Billie Eilish got the idea to use barely-there techno bloops to build songs like “Bad Guy” around, it safe to say she was at one point really into the song “Alaska” by googly-eyed Maryland anti-diva Maggie Rogers, whose new LP Surrender will be out Friday. I like the teaser track “That’s Where I Am” a lot better than anything I’ve heard from Billie; her yodel-y singing goes well with the punk no-wave-ish groove. It’s cool, you’ll like it.

• Finally it’s American singer-songwriter and fiddle player Amanda Shires, who’s in the country supergroup The Highwomen. Her new full-length, Take It Like A Man, features a title track that’s torchy and depressing if you like that sort of thing.

If you’re in a local band, now’s a great time to let me know about your EP, your single, whatever’s on your mind. Let me know how you’re holding yourself together without being able to play shows or jam with your homies. Send a recipe for keema matar. Message me on Twitter (@esaeger) or Facebook (eric.saeger.9).

Svvarms, Adaleena EP (Hilltop Records)

It would appear that this East Bay, San Francisco-based duo have designs on a more or less newfangled genre that might be best described as “yacht rock indie.” This isn’t to imply that a lot of indie bands haven’t tried their hands at chilly pop music that grandmothers might like, but this is pretty straightforward stuff, not a bunch of tunes that are by turns gloomy and awkwardly pretty. And besides, if there’s anything these guys would love for me to say about them, it’s that they’re yacht-rock-ish, you can just tell. Like Vampire Weekend on ketamine or Luke Temple with designs on classic radio, the tunes aren’t as kludgy as you might expect from a band that sounds heavily influenced by Wilco and Radiohead, not that I might not be wrong about that. Whatever, the bottom line is that there’s something mildly Simon and Garfunkel about them, but there’s nothing cringey about that aspect. Some good, unique experiments in sound really help to flesh this out. A

Randal Despommier, A Midsummer Odyssey (Sunnyside Records)

Barely-there jazz to peel grapes by. This album is composed of stripped-down rubs of the music of Swedish baritone saxophonist Lars Gullin, a child prodigy who, like so many mid-century jazz players, had something of a cursed life. His first stint as a bandleader ended after a car accident (nobody died, but it apparently prompted the band to quit or something; Gullin was a long-time methadone addict when he died in 1976, so, you know, it’s not too mysterious). Despommier heardGullin’s “Danny’s Dream” and found it quite epic, which takes us to this, a duo project between Despommier and guitarist Ben Monder in barely plugged mode. It’s very light stuff, and to be honest, at first blush (“Toka Voka Oka Boka”) it feels a bit too much like an academic exercise for my taste. That’s not to say the principals didn’t enjoy putting this together, but if I had the capabilities of these guys, I certainly wouldn’t have. B-

Playlist

• July 22 is our next general-release Friday, when the new CDs hit the streets, all of them hoping to get some love and props from all the young homies and coolios who flock to the record stores to get down to the rock music. My favorite is when you go into Barnes & Noble and all the homies and peeps are test-listening to all the new and ill and groovy rock music on test headphones, and once in a while some grandmother will put on a 1950s Jerry Lee Lewis album and start twerking like a boss right there, while the homies and coolios and skater punks and crazily pierced goth-industrial Draculas all look on and elbow each other, blissfully ignoring the fact that one day their own grandchildren will laugh at them behind their backs for listening to Bruno Mars and having a Hello Kitty tattoo on their butt, nice and safe and out of sight, where totally no bosses would ever see it and fire them. It comforts me to see that people still care about art, even though it peaked when Gallagher smashed his first watermelon on live TV in the 1980s, back when you’d tune into MTV and they’d say, “Hey folks, you’re watching MTV, and we’ve got Simple Minds!” OK, old joke? Perhaps, perhaps, but you young kids weren’t there, you never had to watch videos from Phil Collins and Spandau Ballet, so if I feel the need to make a rusty old joke, I’ve earned the right to it, OK where were we. Oh no, it’s Zooey Deschanel, a.k.a. The Queen Of All Druggie Moonbats, in her vanity rock ’n’ roll project with M. Ward, She & Him, but guess what, this isn’t going to be the duo’s normal level of horribleness, it’s 100 times worse, because this new album probably has a lot of obscure Brian Wilson cover songs on it, if the title, Melt Away: A Tribute To Brian Wilson, is any indication. Good grief, do I really have to do this? Trust me, I sure wouldn’t, if there were just one album being released on the July 22 by a band that at least five of you people had ever heard of, but no, sure, I’ll go listen to their stupid rub of “Wouldn’t It Be Nice,” but if I have to do that, it’s a drinking game, and you people have to participate in it. Rules: one shot if there’s a crummy Postal Service lo-fi techno part that sucks completely, and you have to drink the whole bottle if there’s ukulele. Ready? Ack, ack, this is awful, no Postal Service and no ukulele, but Zooey’s voice is worse than it’s ever been in history. Why does Zooey hate music so much, seriously?

• Hamburger jokes ahoy, mates, looky there, it’s famous pudgy gastronome Jack White, with his latest effort to revive arena rock, the Entering Heaven Alive album! Say, did you know that this Stay-Puft guitar monkey took Meg’s last name when they got married? It’s true, his given last name was Gillis. Aren’t weird rock ’n’ roll facts interesting? I think so, because usually they’re a lot more interesting than the albums put out by weird rock ’n’ roll people, especially in the case of this guy, who hasn’t met a Led Zeppelin riff he didn’t want to steal, but like Steve Harvey once famously said, “Wait a minute!” because this is a folk album, not a Zep album with a chick singer! Teaser track “If I Die Tomorrow” is sort of like if Bowie’s “Major Tom” got super-glued to Lynyrd Skynyrd’s “Free Bird.” No further comment.

• Alt-rock band Sports Team is from London, England, and their first album, Deep Down Happy, went to No. 1 in Scotland and no place else. Gulp, their second LP, includes the song “Cool It Kid,” a pub-rock holler-along tune that’s awful except for the chorus.

• Lastly we have Canadian alt-country The Sadies, a band composed of all guys. “All The Good,” the single from Colder Streams, their newest full-length, sounds like a 1960s Rolling Stones ballad, but with banjo, and thus concludes our descent into the abyss for this week.

If you’re in a local band, now’s a great time to let me know about your EP, your single, whatever’s on your mind. Let me know how you’re holding yourself together without being able to play shows or jam with your homies. Send a recipe for keema matar. Message me on Twitter (@esaeger) or Facebook (eric.saeger.9).