December 2025 - Sometimes It Just Gets Messy
Albums
Water From Your Eyes - It’s a Beautiful Place
As a rule, I don’t find “math” in music inherently interesting. Sure, there are countless cases in which it is interesting, like Battles’ Mirrored, Otim Alpha’s Gulu City Anthems, Dave Brubeck’s “Take Five,” Minoru Muraoka’s cover of Dave Brubeck’s “Take Five,” or Tito Puente’s cover of Dave Brubeck’s “Take Five,” but if you spend enough time hanging out with musicians, you’ll also spend time listening to some dude in a beanie gushing about shit like Animals as Leaders. Like any musical element, it can be interesting, but just because something is difficult to play doesn’t make it interesting to listen to. Fairly or not, I tend to come into anything mathy with one eyebrow raised.
So I was surprised how much I liked Water From Your Eyes’ Everyone’s Crushed. Something about the wrongness of “Barley”’s main riff took the polyrhythm idea somewhere new for me. It’s not trying to impress you, it’s almost like it’s trying to annoy you, and as more layers are added through the course of the song, it becomes a creaky, jangly structure all its own.
When I say that It’s a Beautiful Place is cut from the same cloth, I mean it literally. Well, not literally — it’s music, not fabric — but almost all of it was written in the same period of time between roughly 2019 and 2022. That was a difficult period for both Nate Amos and Rachel Brown. Both were underemployed or unemployed in NYC, and Amos in particular was “in a really horrible apartment, was super broke, and constantly drunk,” or later, fighting a rocky battle toward sobriety. Everyone’s Crushed was, as they’ve said several times, a “particularly nihilistic representation of the way we felt,” whereas It’s a Beautiful Place is “praying for optimism.”
According to them, It’s a Beautiful Place puts a different spin on the same musical ideas, emphasizing the humor rather than the angst. It’s interesting that they see it that way — “Barley” is hilarious — and I think that nihilism is, generally speaking, a pretty funny way of looking at the world. To me, though, it’s a much smoother album stylistically. Not that Everyone’s Crushed wasn’t cohesive in its approach, but It’s a Beautiful Place feels like it’s intended to be heard from beginning to end and that builds to something in a way that Everyone’s Crushed felt kind of (intentionally?) scattered.
If you don’t like it on the first listen, I’d recommend putting it on more than once, on more than one sound system. There are days when I find it brilliant, and other days when I wonder why I hearted it to begin with. If you still don’t like it, at least give “Playing Classics” a listen. It’s a tonal departure from the rest of the album, and might be hilarious in a more accessible way.
Greentea Peng - Tell Dem It’s Sunny
The title of Tell Dem It’s Sunny deserves some attention. Right off the bat, the contrast between the title and the album cover is striking. As she says, “Initially, … having the black and white artwork was almost sarcasm. Like, ‘Yeah, tell dem it’s sunny. Everything’s blessed.’ But everything’s not fucking blessed.” It wasn’t until later, after recording “Glory,” that she started to own it as a philosophy: “It is sunny, no matter how much shit they spray in the skies to block out the sun. I travel the depths with the sun in my chest.”
The album is a bit of a departure from what she’s done before. If you listen to MAN MADE, you’ll hear the same psychedelic vocals and guitars, but Tell Dem is much sparser and darker, and it’s much less “sunny” lyrically. On the title track of MAN MADE, she takes a defiant position:
I don't need your
Man-made seeds to grow
Everything that I need
Maa's put here to know
whereas on “One Foot” of Tell Dem she’s much more despairing:
Is it too late for me?
Is it too late for me?
Have you deserted me?
Is it too late for me?
It's too late for me
In interviews, she frequently talks about her life-long commitment to politics and activism: “I was very young when I attended some of the largest protests in London, marching against the invasion [of Iraq] … I remember watching the destruction on TV, fully aware of my Iraqi heritage. I have never met that side of my family, but knowing that some of my ancestors, or perhaps even living relatives, were still there made it all the more difficult.” This album, though, is more introspective: “I’ve started to recognise a pattern within myself and the projects, going inward, outward, inward and outward again. This one’s definitely inward. A lot of the songs are addressed to myself. I like to think that I’m engaged in sonic journaling.” She describes it instead as being “self-political,” touching on themes like mental health and motherhood.
It’s interesting that the turn inward coincides with the darker musical tone of this album. I’m tempted to psychologize it, but after all I only know her music.
MIEN - MIIEN
MIEN is something of a psych-rock supergroup, made up of Rishi Dhir of Stone Elephant, Alex Mass of The Black Angels, John Mark Lapham of The Earlies, and Robb Kidd of Golden Dawn Arkestra. Like a lot of bands that were formed in the last few years, they were heavily impacted by lockdown. Since they’re geographically dispersed, it meant that they could only collaborate over Zoom or by sharing clips of their own recordings digitally.
I think it’s interesting, though, that the sound on their second album is so much more cohesive. From interviews, it doesn’t sound like they see one another in person any more than they used to, but MIIEN doesn’t really sound like any of their individual bands anymore. It’s something new. And “Evil People” is a total banger.
bassvictim - Basspunk
Skip track 1.
I listened to Basspunk cold, not knowing anything about the musicians, and when I read about bassvictim later, my assumptions about them were so perfectly validated that I doubted whether the whole thing was an act. Take this reddit thread, following a series of IG posts. You could take all of this — whining about their “treatment” at Berghain, then saying it was a joke, then taking the opportunity to make fun of their own fans on Reddit — as divaism, as internet posturing, or as people just not knowing how the industry works. Or maybe just as what happens when people who are young and troubled become famous.
At any rate, their persona does indeed match the chaotic energy of Basspunk and Basspunk 2. The albums are loud and unsubtle, like a huge messy party.
In the time since I put this on my shortlist of albums to write about, bassvictim released a new one, Forever, which is a very different, more complicated sound that I’ll have to spend some more time with. What I’ve heard is pretty interesting. It reminds me a bit of Dan Deacon’s Bromst or sometimes Jockstrap’s I Love You, Jennifer B.
I want to take a moment to talk about the album art because I went through a whole loop wondering what the deal is with those hand gestures. I had an inkling of how messy they were as humans and started to worry that maybe it had something to do with the “OK sign” being co-opted by white supremacists. As far as I can tell, though, it’s not that. The best theory I’ve seen is the first one listed on this thread: it’s supposed to be “b” and “p.” As in, “BassPunk” as in, the name of the album. As that redditor commented “OMG I feel so dumb.”
Chuck Johnson - Basalms
My partner recently turned me on to ambient country, a mini-genre which can be traced back as far as Bruce Langhorne’s soundtrack for the 1971 film The Hired Hand, then made into a thing by Ry Cooder and (who else) Brian Eno.
To my ear, a lot of the albums you’ll find on “A Beginner’s Guide” type posts are a little heavy on the “ambient” and light on the “country,” but the general idea is to capture the beauty (and perhaps loneliness) of a wide empty landscape. This album does that well, with a drum-less pedal steel instrumentation that lets you imagine a desert just stretching on and on.
According to Johnson, he made the album to calm a dog with a spine injury.
[Bubbles] has very specific musical tastes … She lets you know if she doesn’t like it.
I started playing around with looping the pedal steel with a tape loop approach, where you just let the length of the tape loop determine the loop, rather than trying to sync it to anything. And then, over time, a tape loop degrades, and that affects the sound and frequencies, certain resonances build up and it gets more lo-fi over time as it keeps looping.
I think I’d appreciate this music if I were a dog with a spinal injury. It’s unobtrusive and beautiful. And what dog doesn’t want to be outside, right?
Tracks
Welly - Big in the Suburbs
It’s impossible to avoid thinking of “Our House” or a few songs by The Clash. And as an American, it’s a nice reminder that people are making fun of the suburbs all over the world.
Patty Griffin - Back at the Start
I don’t think I need to do a whole lot of introduction for Patty Griffin. She’s a bit of a legend at this point. One piece of information that was new to me, though, was that she got her start playing coffee shops in Boston in the 90’s. I get the feeling that coffee shop music played a little differently in the 90’s? Or maybe I’m just in the wrong coffee shops.
VLURE, Psweatpants - Something Real
Curiously, the album Escalate has a Wikipedia page, but the band VLURE does not. If you find this kind of 90’s rave revival appealing, the album is all about that sound, and although it’s a bit much for me, it is pretty consistent, at least.
KeiyaA - stupid prizes
The album hooke’s law rightfully gets nearly universal acclaim. It’s a complex, experimental take on R&B, weird and beautiful. Also check out “i h8 u” and “take it” to get a taste of what’s here.
Sophia Kennedy - Rodeo
Gotta love that piano vamp. Squeeze Me has a number of good tracks (see also “Nose for a Mountain” for something a little more unexpected). I’ll be keeping an eye out for her next one.
ALT BLK ERA - My Drummer’s Girlfriend
I have to say, some of these lyrics are a little judgmental. “She’s snorting cocaine every other weekend?” I mean, she’s young and in the music scene. It sounds like you’re saying that she keeps her partying to the weekend — it’s not even every weekend — and the rest of her time — what, just goes to work every morning like everyone else? Maybe she’d pour you a drink if you weren’t so judgey of her “gothic black dress.”
Even so, it’s a catchy track.
The Limiñanas, Bertrand Belin - J'adore le monde
I have the feeling that if I lived in France, Bertrand Belin would be a much more familiar name for me, since he’s got 8 albums and acted in a number of films. He’s got a beautiful voice, though. This Limiñanas album, Faded is pretty great 60’s psych throwback stuff, but I like this one for being a little more unexpected.
Sir Chloe - Forgiving
Aa-ah, aa-ah.
Flyte - Emily and Me
I’ve been on a bit of a kick with this Crosby and/or Stills and/or Nash and/or Young sound. I haven’t found a ton of other Flyte stuff that I liked, although I may have soured because the first thing that came up from googling them was a far-inferior cover of ALVVAYS’s “Archie, Marry Me.”
Panic Shack - Girl Band Starter Pack
Panic Shack’s self-titled album is pretty great. There’s nothing wrong with a little shouty pop-rock once in a while. I also really like “Lazy” and “Pockets.”
Grails - Silver Bells
Grails is another kind-of supergroup, with Emil Amos (Om, Holy Sons, Lilacs & Champagne), Alex Hall (Lilacs & Champagne), AE Paterra (Zombi, Majeure), Jesse Bates, and Ilyas Ahmed (I wasn’t familiar with the last two). The rest of this album is a little too post-rock for me, but this is a beautiful crescendoing track that works on its own.
Perennial - Art History
I do love a concept album. This one — Art History — also features songs like “Action Painting,” “A Is for Abstract,” and “B Is for Brutalism,” and they certainly don’t wear out their welcome, keeping all their tracks to a brisk 2 minutes or less.
Oh and it’s post-punk. Kinda goes without saying. It would have to be.
Camilla Sparksss - Backflip
I like a lot of Camilla Sparksss stuff, but this one is one of the funniest and grooviest.
ALEXSUCKS - Worm in the Sun
One redditor commented that ALEXSUCKS is “basically a Strokes cover band,” and while that’s not completely fair… well, ok that might be why I like it.
Ric Wilson, Nic Hansen - America Runs on Disco
Do you think that America would be a better place if it really ran on disco instead? Although I guess you’d just be trading out coffee for cocaine, so maybe it’s just as well.
Lucrecia Dalt - cosa rara
According to her bio, Lucrecia Dalt’s early work was rooted in electronic music and got gradually more experimental. Not that I don’t believe her, but you have to look pretty far back to find anything that isn’t pretty weird. Her latest album, A Danger to Ourselves is pretty universally beloved, brimming with quiet (and weird) menace. I like this track particularly, which puts the weirdness over a latin beat.
Girl Group - Yay! Saturday
I like a few songs on this EP, Think They’re Looking, Let’s Perform. This track is a fun little alt-pop bop with a messy side — metaphorically, and also the part where the guy pisses on her at the end.
Vendredi sur Mer - Tout résonne
Who doesn’t love a peppy little song about crippling depression? For me the worst part is when she talks about the days getting longer, and the experience of spring coming in but you’re still sad.
King Princess - RIP KP
Most of this album, Girl Violence, isn’t really for me, but I love the swing on this chorus.