Normal Love, “Survival Tricks” (ugEXPLODE, 2012)Quirky noise-rock attack, featuring twitched-out rhythms, scattering guitar shards, nasal, almost inhuman hollering from the female vocalist, and cocktail-jazz-like tinkling percussion thrown in just for fun. Genuinely adventurous and inventive stuff, if not for the faint of ear.Try 2, 47/19/12
Nots, “We Are Nots” (Goner, 2014)Debut from four-woman combo playing wiry/twitchy postpunk with garage-punk raw abandon and chorus-hook song-structures. In fact, it’s catchy and atonal all at once, a neat trick, and one partly facilitated by the way it shakes to the beat even as the songs careen into the wall with their stinging guitar […]
NY Loose, “Year of the Rat” (Hollywood, 1996)This will probably go down as the only album released on Disney’s label to glamorize heroin use, and probably the best. Pure Dolls/Stooges glitter-gutter punk rock with heavy ‘90s sound, whip-lash-vicious performances and hooks that kill like Sid’s last fix.Try 4, 7, 1110/4/14
Hazel O’Connor, “Broken Glass” (A & M, 1980)Actually the soundtrack to a rags-to-riches movie about a female punk-type singer (think Mariah Carey’s “Glitter” with safety pins), this is actually more like Bowie’s glam-rock work (“Ziggy Stardust,” etc.) fortified with a cold, hard postpunk edge (“Ziggy” producer Tony Visconti produced this too). Excellent songs by O’Connor, […]
Offspring, “Offspring” (Nitro, 1995; original release 1989)Yes, it’s the same band responsible for all those late-‘90s radio duds, but this is their debut, raw, raging and released in a tiny pressing to near-total indifference at the time. Today it sounds great – classic dark, melodic L.A. hardcore in the mold of TSOL/CH3/Agent orange et al., […]
Oh No Ono, “Eggs” (Morningside, 2009)Danish collective working in the lush, Orch-punk style of Siouxsie, Björk/Sugarcubes, 4AD stuff etc., but this is considerably more twisted with song structures kaleidoscopically collapsing or disappearing into a hall of mirrors. This is what “TRL” would have sounded like in a colony of schizophrenics on Mars.Try 1/3, 2/21/12/11
Oh-OK, “Complete Recordings” (Collector’s Choice, 2002; original recordings 1981-84)This pioneering Athens new wave/post punk band featured Michael Stipe’s sister as one of its two frontwomen, but the only qualities it really shared with early REM were a propulsive minimalism and a soft-spoken, ironic but almost mystical sense of the texture of everyday life in a […]
Angel Olsen, “Strange Cacti” (Bathetic, 2011)This cool record creates a veil of mystery over Ms. Olsen’s blurry, strummed acoustic music – reminiscent of acid folk but more abstract. But the really distinct calling card is Olsen’s wailing, near-atonally frayed vocals on some of the tracks. In an alternate universe where Jandek was Garth Brooks, Olsen […]
Angel Olsen, “Half Way Home” (Bathetic, 2013)Continues in the vein of Olson’s lunar, quavering psych-folk magic. Doesn’t quite reach that fever pitch of almost form-destroying solitary intensity her last one had, but the songwriting extends even wider and deeper this time.Try 4, 6, 77/29/13
The Organ, “Grab That Gun” (Mint, 2004).Mesmerizing indie-rock with girl-group beats driving a moody (86/ Smiths melodic sense and a general vibe of anxiety that sums up its moment in time very well indeed.Try 1, 3, 102/14/13