Top8 - 10/13/24

October 13, 2024 - 10:06 PM

Welcome back to Top8 where we ask you to top at least 8. If you're into that anyway.

This is a week where I had way more tracks that I could include in this space, so you are just getting the things I loved the most. This is the Indian curry of new music. And just like a curry, it's HOT baby! Please send all recipes to WTSQ.org/contact

Before we even get started today, I want to mention WTSQ's 2024 Member Drive taking place October 19th - 26th. This year we are asking you to keep WTSQ from becoming a Spirit Halloween location by becoming a sustaining member and keeping us on the air. Sustaining members kick in just a few dollars a month. This support plus 

The Dare - Girls
A mea culpa here. I really meant to include this in the last Top8. And, to be honest, the one before that. I just forgot. And I really can't explain why, because I have been listening to this non-stop. Maybe it's because there were no radio edits of The Dare, and I just got around to making one myself this week. We are taking a listen to the song "Girls". 

Before we go any further, let's get this out of the way – The Dare sound like LCD Soundsystem. A lot. A whole lot. So much so that I have mistaken them for LCD more than once. So much so that certain clever and snarky corners of the internet have taken to calling The Dare "STD Soundsystem." A fitting sobriquet given The Dare's comically exaggerated horniness. Just this year, Smith produced the gigantically successful Billie Eilish remix of Charlie XCX's "Guess'; itself quite a coarsely bawdy bop.

"Girls" marries the 2000's post-disco, dance-punk production of James Murphy with the charisma and presence of LCD contemporaries like The Strokes or The Rapture. Lyrically, Smith is pulling off a bit of a magic trick here. His ode to girls is lusty without really being objectifying or demeaning. He just likes girls… apparently any sort of women from "girls with degrees" to "girls with dicks" to "girls who have a bone to pick with [him]." And honestly, who can blame him? 

Check out the whole album, "There's Something Wrong With New York", there's not a bad track on it. That said, there is quite a lot of froth here, and not as much substance as LCD Soundsystem. That is likely an aesthetic choice. Dance music is often more than a little bit shallow. LCD is an outlier in that sense – party music for depressed, introspective people. There's nothing about The Dare that offers the sort of profound, soul-shattering moments that a track like "Dance Yrself Clean" or "I Can Change" can drop on you at 3am, screaming along in the back of a car desperately seeking a Sheetz. Nothing as funny or ironic as "Losing my Edge" or "Daft Punk is Playing at My House." Smith does come close on "All Night" or the album closer "You Can Never Go Home", but it's not the same. 

And that's fine. It's not 2004. We still have LCD Soundsystem. And now we also have The Dare.


Geordie Greep - Holy, Holy
Remember Black Midi? Well, they are dead. Apparently while we were happily over here listening to "John L" for the millionth time, the band flamed out and are no longer talking to each other. This is a real shame. However, our comfort is a little better than cold. Front man Geordie Greep announced a solo album at the same time as revealing Black Midi's demise.

Being honest here, I listened to "Holy, Holy" right when it came out and I completely forgot about it. It just didn't really leave an impression. WTSQ alum Harley Wince encouraged me to give it another shot. 

"Holy, Holy" has a lot of the frantic jazz energy offered by Black Midi. Greep hasn't created something radically different from his old band. He has, however, found some new and interesting colors to fill in the lines with. The track has a chorus and moments of salsa rhythm mixed into a proggy post-punk blur. If you locked an AI in a room and fed it a steady diet of Tex Avery cartoons, and King Crimson, it might emerge sounding like Geordie Greep. The moral? Listen to your kids.


The Smile - Bodies Laughing
I really thought I'd talked about The Smile in Top8 before this, but a search of my Google Docs assures me otherwise. In a nutshell, The Smile is made up of the two most visible parts of Radiohead, Thom and Jonny, and a drummer who was not in that band. They have, rather shockingly, released three studio albums, a live recording, and a bushel basket of singles in only about two years. 

Thom Yorke is 56 years old. Most dudes from 90s bands are doing pathetic tours where they promise to play all of that one album you really liked back when you were young and still thought your life might work out. Nostalgia is an opiate. In small doses it can offer comfort, but chronic use leads to addiction. Thank god Yorke and Greenwood are not stuck in the past. All three Smile records are great. They show a side of the duo's creativity that leans more toward Can than Kraftwerk. While still strongly rhythmic, The Smile is much looser than Radiohead.

"Bodies Laughing" is a song from the new album "Cutouts". Like many Smile songs, it reportedly first appeared shortly after its composition at a live show. This element shows. The looseness I mentioned leans in the direction of songs composed by a band just vibing with each other. Lyrically, this seems to be a moody memory of being at a party with friends, laughing and falling down drunk. Leave it to Thom Yorke to make this sound dark. 


Maruja - Break the Tension
Maruja are another European rock act combining post-punk with jazz and a blast of brass. This combination will always remind me of West Virginia's own Scroungehound (a band whose frontman Gabe Smith left far too soon).

"Break The Tension" combines the gloom of The Murder Capital with foreboding brass in the low end. This a mirror universe of ska that grew up listening to The Cure instead of The Specials. 


Touché Amoré - Goodbye for Now (ft. Julien Baker)
Touché Amoré is a post-hardcore act from LA. There was a pretty big wave of these bands back in the 2010s. That sound crossed over with and cross-pollinated the punk, emo and screamo bands of the day. Which is to say that you hear a lot of influence from this era on modern acts like Soul Glo.

"Goodbye for Now" does what you expect. This is a band who knows what they are doing. With a vocal that repeats lines over and over, the track builds to the an emo catharsis. They rage and lean into the screamo sound before leaning back and letting Julien have a verse.

Julien Baker is no stranger to emo and adjacent genres. She previously guested on the Touche Amore track "Skyscraper". Also, way before she was a huge star in Boygenius, she played in emo bands herself. Her addition here suits the track quite well. I kinda wish she'd release her own post hardcore album.


Sink Deeper - The Other
Sink Deeper is a post-punk act out of Clermont Ferrand, France. The songs are not in French. "The Other" is a single from an EP released about a week ago. This band reminds me a lot of Savages and that's a good thing. The intensity of the drums and the swirly, feedbacking guitars are relentless. Sink Deeper only has one other EP out right now, so we may be catching a good thing on the upswing. 

Blue Smiley - The Pond
The Blue Smiley story is a sad one. The Philly band was formed around Brian Nowell, an interesting guitarist and vocalist. Early on, the band found a signature sound blending a little noise pop with a lot of jangling, reverbing guitars. The result actually reminds me a lot of our own Mediogres. Sadly, Nowell died in 2017, leaving the band, not to mention his life, undone. Fast forward a few years, and the band's old recordings are finally picking up considerable attention. Nowell had intended to release more music anyway, so his bandmates and family have decided to let the world hear this music. 

"The Pond" spins out from an energetic instrumental intro eventually becoming a little thrashy. The band layer shoegaze vocals on top of a series of changing musical colors, tempos, and moods. The result feels like several songs somehow condensed into 2 and a half minutes. 


La Femme - Venus
I know enough French to know how to pronounce La Femme – "Laa Fah-m". But you don't need to know that. Since 2013's "Psycho Tropical Berlin" the band has released a steady stream of often insane synthpop. A typical La Femme song is darky erotic and possesses a sorta campy menace.

Which is not to say that they are not serious about the music. Songs like "Venus" bounce through cascades of synths to carry along a heavily manipulated vocal. Yet, somehow through that artiface, through all the dark, death-obsessed lyrics, there is a warmth here. I find La Femme comforting. They are one of the few bands my partner will plainly admit to loving, so this one goes out to Amelia.


And this week's extra innings, a few related or older tracks. 

Blossom Dearie - Manhattan

LCD Soundsystem - North American Scum

Savages - City's Full

And a playlist with everything -

 

Thank you for reading and listening. 

-emily