Author: Nathaniel FitzGerald

Record #977: Men As Trees – Weltschmerz & Sea of Ice Songs (2023)

/ Nathaniel FitzGerald

As I’ve written before, I have mostly ignored skramz until I just recently discovered that there’s actually a lot of skramz that I really, really, really, really like. My ignorance of the subgenre was so strong though that I even missed some of the excellent screamo that was happening in my own backyard.

Exhibit A in the case against me is Men As Trees, who would later become Locktender—who I have known and loved for the last few years, but haven’t dug too deeply into their former project (I blame guitarist Andrew Kallicragas’new projects Pack Sounds and JAGALCHI for distracting me). That is, until this reissue, which combines their 2008 LP Weltschmerz with the later EP Sea of Ice Songs (the latter of which was based on the same painter as  Locktender’s Friederich).

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Record #976: Maus Haus – Lark Marvels (2008)

/ Nathaniel FitzGerald

For one brief and wonderful period in the early days of the Millennium, indie rock merged together with ’60s psychedelic and ’90s lo-fi to create a fearless and fresh sound that lived somewhere between synthpop, jangle pop, and dance punk. MGMT were certainly the standard bearers of the movement, but its territory stretched from Grizzly Bear to Animal Collective. Heck, even Battles flirted with it for a while.

Around this time, a group of local artists opened a space called LangLab: an old factory renovated to house artist studios, gallery space, and a performance arts venue. One of the early shows I saw there was the Bay Area act Maus Haus, who nailed this sound to a tee. I couldn’t afford a copy of the album they were touring at the time, but I happened upon it a local shop recently and had to have it.

And it’s just as fresh as I remember. Continue reading →

Record #974: Miles Davis – Jack Johnson (1971)

/ Nathaniel FitzGerald

Jazz is a difficult realm for completionists—especially when you’re dealing with cats like Miles Davis. Jazz players were notorious for recording everything, and almost all of those records have something notable to justify collecting it. But there’s so much to sort through.

While my own jazz collecting has mostly focused on Davis’ electric period and the work his band members (e.g., Herbie Hancock, John McLaughlin, Chick Corea…) were doing, there’s one important piece that had escaped my collecting until recently.

That is Jack Johnson, a celebration of Black Excellence originally commissioned as a soundtrack for a documentary about the titular champion boxer, who famously shrugged off threats from the KKK to lay down to white opponents.

But perhaps my own interest in it is that this is the only time that Davis collaborated with Sonny Sharrock, my favorite jazz guitarist—even of Sonny was uncredited.

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Record #973: Kvelertak – Endling (2023)

/ Nathaniel FitzGerald

“Rock and roll don’t come from your brain, it comes from your crotch.” Thus spake James Franco’s Daniel Desario on Freaks and Geeks, and though I might disagree with the universality of that sentiment, there’s no denying that rock and roll emanates from a primitive place deep inside of us (how else do you explain the success of Limp Bizkit?).

While there’s no shortage of subgenres taking themselves too seriously, perhaps the biggest offender is black metal. Through all the corpse paint, church burning, and inter-band homicide, it often seems like there’s no room for levity in the scene. Even in the less purist offshoots like blackgaze, everything is delivered with complete sincerity.

Then there’s Kvelertak. Dubbing themselves “black ‘n’ roll,” the Norwegian sextet takes the blistering sonic assault of black metal and injects it with a heaping dose of crotch-thrusting rock and roll.

You might as well call it Blue Öyster Kvlt. And if there’s any question, it rules.

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Record #972: The Knife – Silent Shout (2006)

/ Nathaniel FitzGerald

Music is very tied to memory for me. Records dot my memories like snapshots of specific times and places. However, since I do most of my listening through physical media—which costs money—I can’t memorialize all of those snapshots. Invariably, some of the stuff I’m listening to at any given point ends up slipping through the cracks of my limited record budget.

But occasionally, a forgotten record will rear its head years after the fact. In this case, that record is Silent Shout by Swedish brother-sister duo The Knife, a record that was included in the deluge of new music I was exposed to by my roommates in Chicago. While I loved the record from first listen, it was crowded out of my to-buy list by bands like Neutral Milk Hotel, Kraftwerk, New Order, Deerhunter, Grizzly Bear, and so much more.

Then this past year, my dear friend Bryan ordered me a copy for my birthday, rectifying its absence on my shelf.

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Record #971: Emma Ruth Rundle: EG2:Dowsing Voice (2022)

/ Nathaniel FitzGerald

Among the broad expanse of Emma Ruth Rundle’s oeuvre, you’ll find psychedelic tinged shoegaze, Pink Floyd-y post rock, no-holds-barred art rock, dark folk, doom metal, and more—not to mention her expansive visual work.

Even as far-reaching as her catalog is, nothing can prepare you for EG2: Dowsing Voice, the second of her experimental, instrumental records released under her name. But where Electric Guitar One still mostly stayed within the realms of post rock, this record is positively feral.

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Record #970: Hopesfall – The Satellite Years (2002)

/ Nathaniel FitzGerald

Let me offer up a disclaimer: there are tons of people for whom this is a foundational record. I am not one of them. My introduction to Hopesfall was 2018’s Arbiter, but their back catalogue was rife with prohibitively high vinyl prices (my Achilles’ heel). When I saw them at Furnace Fest in 2021 though, it made me a believer. It might have taken a bit for me to pull the trigger on this (pricey) reissue, but I’m glad I did.

Where much of the Christian-adjacent early 2000’s metalcore has not aged very well, The Satellite Years might actually look better in the light of hindsight, thanks to a generous amount of HUM style space rock punctuating their riffs and breakdowns (and yeah, Matt Talbot even produced it).

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Record #969: Emma Ruth Rundle – Some Heavy Ocean (2014)

/ Nathaniel FitzGerald

I’ve been going through a massive Emma Ruth Rundle phase lately. It all started when I revisited On Dark Horses and realized that it’s probably in my top fifty records of all time. In the couple weeks since, I’ve revisited the many, many other projects of hers I have.

When that wasn’t enough, I took to Discogs to fill the gaps in my collection. Most glaring of these was Some Heavy Ocean, her first outing as a solo singer-songwriter (as opposed to her proper solo debut, Electric Guitar: One, which was a series of instrumental improvisations). And while Some Heavy Ocean doesn’t have as much metallic heaviness as her later solo records, it’s hardly straightforward folk either. The sonic palette borrows a lot of atmosphere from her time in post rock and shoegaze bands. Continue reading →

Record #968: Downward – The Brass Tax (2022)

/ Nathaniel FitzGerald

Looking back, the marriage of grunge and shoegaze should have been a little more obvious. At first blush, it might not seem like the unwashed, clenched teeth noise rock of the Seattle Sound would have much in common with the dreamy, mumbling walls of noise of the Scene that Celebrates Itself. After all, what kinship can Slowdive have with Soundgarden?

But if you look further from the center of each scene, you start running into bands like HUM, Failure, and Swervedriver—or even, I don’t know, The Smashing Pumpkins. The ’90s were filled with bands that found a middle ground between each scene’s love of huge guitars and hiding pop structures under noise and atmosphere.

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