An Acute Case: 6 October 2023

Lighting a match just to f-freak you out

Felo Le Tee, Mellow & Sleazy: The III Wise Men
Apparently, this iteration of amapiano—which trendy South Africans have started shortening to piano (unhelpful)—incorporates bacardi, though decent explanations of what that is are rare. Here’s Sleazy’s: “If you come from Pretoria, you know that sound. You hear it and then you lose your morals.” Easy for him to say. What I hear is a mite too slick, with what weirdo elements remain blended into compositions that develop carefully rather than devouring themselves and reemerging as jittery abstractions. But the yips, gasps, coos, and chirrups still augment a pulse that’ll keep you dancing, if not committing crimes against humanity. *** (“Easy” “Gorgeous”)

The Front Bottoms: You Are Who You Hang Out With
Other than the top two, nothing shouts “this is unequivocally a Front Bottoms song” as loudly as the title shouts “this is unequivocally a Front Bottoms title”, which is a problem while they’re playing this close to generic pop-punk even if they do make it look easy. To quote Brian Sella: "I am not impressed anymore / ... / Or any less." ** (“Emotional” “Outlook”)

Margaret Glaspy: Echo The Diamond
“Act Natural” is dodgy poetry/good lyrics, “Irish Goodbye” odd idiom/clever conceit, “Turn The Engine” just about does, her “Female Brain” is as gorgeous as she says, and “People Who Talk” don’t say a thing, but you knew that already. The penmanship is deft, understated, and even deeper once you take her sketches of rapid infatuation, aborted romance, infected memory, and inner-child reunion as a complete portrait. Her voice continues its on-off relationship with being in key, which drives home the fragility of the words. As does her guitar, which is denuded and instinctive, feeling its way from chunky riff to pained warble with nothing interfering in the brain-hand neurotransmitter relay but her response time. Given all the sports references, I’m guessing that’s pretty good. A MINUS

Homeboy Sandman: Rich
You shuffle to the fridge, find you’re out of milk, slip on some shoes, and head out. As you descend the stairwell, you hear music: a light fanfare of horns, unobtrusive basslines, some jazzy guitar work—all looped into themes if not exactly songs. Not much stick-on-skin action, but they’re unmistakably beats. Which must mean.... yep, it’s neighbourhood oddball Angel Del Villar II doing his morning rap routine. He nods. Maybe to you, maybe to the music. He seems mellower than the last time you bumped into him. Trance-like. Reeling off a critique of New York’s organic stores. Goya passes muster, so that’s where you buy your milk (not Brad’s, who allegedly mix water in with their olive oil). When you return, he’s reminiscing on a break-up. Fondly at first, then self-critically. Back upstairs, you open the window to listen while you eat, both stimulated and soothed by his complicated metre and on-the-beat precision. He’s still vaccine-sceptic. A shame. Worse still, he permits two-letter words in Scrabble. Then you hear it. “I’m a keeper / Seasoned public speaker / Know vas deferens from urethra / Eureka.” You google it to make sure, chuckle to yourself, and chew it over for the rest of the day, dendrites tingling a little bit more. A MINUS

ICECOLDBISHOP: GENERATIONAL CURSE
Latest output from the Kendrick cottage industry is a reinterpretation of the great man’s funk moves and high-register anxiety voice that’s as inhospitable as it is unrelenting. ** (“D.A.R.E.” “CURSED”)

Lori McKenna: 1988
No better or worse than her best, which is a level of consistency listeners would do well not to undervalue. She deploys her oldest and most potent tricks as artfully as ever: fairytale melodies inflected with twinges of sadness; songs that start out porch-step-strummed and end up shaking arenas; a concern for life’s ultimate essences over its fleeting moments; all carried by a voice just resonant enough to bear the weight of her profundities. Maybe she’s spotlighting simpler feelings instead of trading in big metaphors. Maybe she’s showing more confidence developing songs with just her phrasing. Or maybe I’m noticing those features because I’ve noticed the others before. As the electric guitars draw out the sharp edges on her themes, as she delivers life lessons gained by sticking out tough situations, as she effortlessly slips the metaphysical into the homely, I realise that making such distinctions feels like splitting hairs, and that I’d rather just bask in her decency and wisdom. A

Palehound: Eye On The Bat
Short and taut singer-songwriter-plus—and maybe demo-plus too, because I can’t help feeling that with a bigger band this would hit harder. As it is, the basic rhythm keeps things moving behind neatly differentiated guitar lines that stick around longer than most DIY pretenders manage. Also unlike most DIY pretenders, El Kempner’s lyrics are insightful, literary, and efficient, either as one-liners or stacked into narratives. "I don't wanna see the other path” is post-break up. "I didn't wanna talk shit and find more reasons to keep this up" also post-break up. “Suckers will all tell you to keep watching for the ball / But we know better than that / Keep your eye on the bat" about ostriches, pissing behind the van, and headbanging to “Paranoid”. There are traces of Lisa Walker in Kempner’s just-above-talking-voice. Sure, it doesn’t contain the same grain or power, or even another level beyond just-above-talking, but in the fourth year of the current Wussy drought, I’ll take what I can get. B PLUS

Ratboys: The Window
After more than a decade as a duo, Julia Steiner and Dave Sagan finally hit on the novel idea of adding a permanent bassist and drummer, then spent their first two years as a quartet conceiving and rehearsing new material. Consequently, it sounds phenomenal. Imagine Waxahatchee, The Beths, Wednesday, and Big Thief in a BODMAS configuration of your choice and you’re halfway there: guitars wide awake and barking; chant-a-long hooks emerging from buttery tunelets; each song distinct yet unmistakably part of a complete set; and all generating the ambient warmth of a hug. While Steiner isn’t a force of nature like Lenker or Crutchfield, her mellow, well-enunciated drawl is the perfect match for a sound that rolls as resoundingly as it rocks, with big musical gestures that don’t sacrifice momentum or legibility at the altar of ambition. Nor do they fail to sonically enhance her themes, most of which concern a still fragile autonomy that feels related to the socially distanced final meeting that denied her grandparents a proper farewell, as described on the title track, even if I haven’t yet figured out how. “Sue, Sue, you’ll always be my girl,” she sings, sorrowfully but also beautifully. Which can also be said for everything else here. A