Artists starting with A

Autoclave

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Autoclave, “Autoclave” (Dischord/Mira, 1997; original release 1991-2)
First band of Helium/Wild Flag/s Mary Timony and Slant 6/s Christina Billotte doesn’t sound much like any of their other stuff – more like early-‘90s post-punk/HC proto-“math rock” stuff if it was played with the lightness and whimsy of K-style naïve strum-pop, for playground twists and turns and surprises.
Try 1, 2, 3
10/13/11

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The Bird of Music

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Au Revoir Simone, “The Bird of Music” (Our Secret Record Company, 2006)
A lost treasure of indie rock, this trio makes austere, electronically driven pop that hits with the warmth and mystery of trippy-yet-pristine Laurel Canyon folk-rock. Imagine the Marine Girls backing Stevie Nicks, with Brian Eno producing on a $500 budget, and you might come close.
Try 2, 7
10/13/11

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Asobi Seksu

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Asobi Seksu, “Asobi Seksu” (Friendly Fire, 2004)
Veteran indie band’s first and best, simultaneously more shoegazy and poppier than their later stuff. When it’s not stretching out into gorgeous guitar haze, it’s bopping along a melodic pulse.
Try 1, 2, 4, 7, 9
1/13/13

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Who’s Afraid Of . . .?

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Art of Noise, “Who’s Afraid Of . . .?” (ZTT, 1984)
British “new pop” theorists and musical engineers get together for their own “super-group” that combines new-romantic synthiness, early-hip-hop bats’n’scratches and Dad/Futurist-inspired sound-collages. Fun stuff.
Try 2/2, 2/4
1/23/14

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Vee Vee

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Archers of Loaf, “Vee Vee” (Merge, 2012)
These guys had quite likely the worst name ever for an otherwise first-rate group, which may be why they didn’t quite get their due when this originally came out in 1995. So here it is again, and it still sounds mighty fine to me – dueling angular guitars drill forward in a sound like (their contemporaries) Pavement with extra muscle, songs that echo prime Replacements in their humor, desperation and warmth, plus a nifty regional aftertaste, like stumbling out of the bar into a summer night full of crickets.
Try 1, 2, 4, 9
4/30/12

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Funeral

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Arcade Fire, “Funeral” (Merge, 2004)
I know, this is seen as kind of old hat, but I had a copy lying around, so here it is. The bottom line is, this is a good record now that all the hype-dust has cleared. Velvets-via-REM indie-pop strum naturalized into a warm, seamless groove (powered by a strong drummer) that almost seems like a “roots-rock” in its way, the VU being the “roots” here. And it has an empty-community-theater-in-a-snowstorm grandeur and pathos that’s all its own.
Try 2,4, 7
4/7/19

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If Only There Was A River

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Anna St. Louis, “If Only There Was A River” (Woodsist, 2018)
The Woodsist label has a much lower profile than it did a few years back, but it still puts forward outstanding work in its folk-psych ambit, and this is a case in point. The trancey, diaphanous melodo-trippy singer-songwriterisms here evoke Laurel Canyon wraiths from Hope Sandoval to Jessica Pratt, but there’s a gently rootsy, matter-of-fact quality that makes St. Louis’s stuff distinctive and as quietly exhilarating as waking up to a summer sunrise with nobody else around.
Try 3, 4, 10, 11
4/7/19

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Angry Angles

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Angry Angles, “Angry Angles” (Goner, 2016; original recordings 2005-2006)
Now that this wave of garage-punk (the 4th? The 5th?) has been going for well on a decade, it’s worth tracing where it began, and Jay Reatard is a prime candidate. This is the previously missing link between Lost Sounds and his last solo works before his untimely demise, and it’s like a Rosetta Stone containing every strand in evidence in today’s scene – alien-assault robo-postpunk, bubblegum-zombie powerpop, Detroit-damaged street-punk rattle-and-roar, all forged into a coherent whole that kicks major ass.
Try 3, 5, 9
10/21/16

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I Don’t Wanna,

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American Ruse, “I Don’t Wanna,” 7” (Sympathy, 1990)
French garage-punk, very influenced by the poppier side of the ML5 of NY Dolls. Fleet-footed fun, sharp but not too heavy.
Try A/1
1/23/14

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European Heartbreak

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Amber Arcades, “European Heartbreak” (Heavenly, 2018)
Similar controversy here as with the transition from Best Coast’s first to second records a few years back. The first Amber Arcades filtered the dream-pop tune-clouds of Brits like the Sundays through the drone-strum US guitar sound developed from the Velvets to the Feelies to Real Estate and beyond. So here’s the follow-up, and the drone is turned way down so as not to drown out more deliberate and convoluted song-structures that owe something to earlier female singer-song-writers (particularly Joni Mitchell) but with a foot still firmly in contemporary Indie-garage-punk. And like Joni, the theme is aging while not being able either to belong to your generation or wash your hands of it, and the melancholy yet acutely present-to-life vibe is Joni-like as well. Verdict: still great, if anything even better.
Try 1/1, 1/ 4, 2/1, 2/3
4/7/19

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