I made a deliberate decision to jump start 2023 by listening to the first great alternative songs new to January.
That’s what you’re going to hear below. While the first couple weeks of the year always seem to be catchup mode on Best Of lists for the year before, you will 100% fall in love with the new music already dropping in 2023.
Let’s have a listen!
Alternative songs new for your January playlist
Each of these songs shot out of the cannon in the first four weeks of the new year.
I haven’t finished listening to all the indie songs new to January, but these are the ones that caught my immediate attention. Each tune comes with a link to buy the song or album and support the artist. Make that a new year’s resolution in 2023! Support independent musicians by paying them for their art!
1. “Dark Moon” – GRMLN (Dark Moon)
We were just four days into the new year when Yoodoo Park of Kyoto, Japan, released Dark Moon and its tasty title track. Park’s GRMLN has been at this for a decade and doesn’t find these dream pop guitar lines by accident. I didn’t hear an entire album of these hooks on Dark Moon but the title track is one of the promising alternative songs new to January 2023.
2. “Mile Marker 29” – The Bad Ends (The Power and the Glory)
You know who you don’t hear a lot about in the year 2023? REM drummer Billy Berry.
Bill’s been taking it easy – the royalty checks probably still clear. After a health scare in the 90’s, Berry has been hay farming outside Athens the last 25 years. A chance meeting with Mike Mantionelead to new band The Bad Ends and Berry’s return to music. Have a listen to “Mile Marker 29.”
The Rills have a super dancy Franz Ferdinand thing happening.
It was especially clear on “Landslide,” which The Rills released last fall. Two weeks ago, they dropped “Falling Apart.” The Rills’ second EP, depending on where you get your info, will be available in February.
4. fine. – “New Skin/Good Life” (Love, Death, Dreams and the Sleep Between)
What I really dig about Boston’s fine. is this grade school choir sound they’ve perfected.
Bubblegum pop songs by Alice Kat and Liam James Marsh will wake you from your winter doldrums and get you dancing again. Although I’m including fine. in my January list of tunes…Love, Death, Dreams came out three days before Christmas, so sue me. Hit play and fall in love!
The Murder Capital don’t care if search to find the melodies in Gigi’s Recovery. But the Dubliners are also so good at what they do, they can’t keep the hooks from bursting through the dissonance.
You’ll hear TMC winking at James Murphy’s masterpiece “All My Friends” in their drooping cacophony, “Ethel.” It’s a slow build, so don’t give up on this one.
Let me tell you what I know about The Spooky Boys, which is close to nothing. They’re billed as “Portland’s premier indie/surf rock group featuring jangly dripping wet guitars, relentless driving rhythm, and insatiable catchy melodies.” Admittedly I didn’t know “jangly wet guitars” was a thing, nor that The Spooky Boys were Portland’s exemplar.
I DO KNOW superior power pop when I hear it. So check out one of the best indie songs new to 2023, “Past Tense.”
If Priestgate look miserable, their single “White Shirt” is a delirious balance of pop sugar and darker 80’s Cure vibes. I’m looking forward to hearing Priestgate’s second EP due on March 3. I have to say I love the rhythm and vocal desperation of “White Shirt.”
I get it, a band with a name and sound like Toronto’s FU is not going to appeal to everyone reading this post, and that’s a shame.
The arrangements and (honestly) melodies underneath Damian Abraham’s vocals are second to none. It is remarkable hardcore guitar rock. Hang with it for two minutes and think about what songs like “Huge New Her” would sound like with actual singing.
My FU collection goes back, if not to their origin, to their remarkable David Comes to Life. Abraham sang a bit more on David than on One Day. So, for context, a bonus track: “The Other Shoe” from 2011’s landmark David Comes to Life.
On no planet was I going to suggest a batch of my favorite alternative songs new to January without some of the best Spanish-language indie pop (*makes note to subscribe to Rosetta Stone). “Cuchillos” is the fourth single from LISASINSON’s pending full length. I’ve already started following Elefant Records to make sure I don’t miss the album by the Valencia, Spain art students.
10. “Skeleton Boy” – Strange Neighbors (Party of None EP)
Let’s stick with the power pop sound. I bet Strange Neighbors are a fun show. Just look at them, having fun with a camera like good self-entertaining kids. The Party of None EP came out two weeks ago, and I recommend you download and inject one of the indie songs new to January that will get your party started.
This month Chicago singer-songwriter Maria Jacobson released her second album, Leaving. It’s sweeping acoustic folk with song titles like “Winter” and “God.” Those feel like difficult motifs to live up to. Much of this rests on Fran’s voice and lyrics, like Weyes Blood striped bare of the chamber orchestra.
Kelley Deal, Kim’s twin and most famous sister, delivers on R. Ring with partner Mike Montgomery.
Deal is involved in a ton of stuff in addition to R. Ring, including Breeders reboots and Protomartyr. I love Kelley’s comeback story, the Breeders’ icy cool baked into R. Ring and her indie rock confidence. Check out the payoff halfway through War Poems’ lead, “Still Life.”
I confess, another 2022 song but – come onnnn! — Denmark’s appleseeds! dropped this song on December 31. You were probably already asleep, so it’s officially one of the alternative songs new to January in my book. Too Good to be True Records indicates appleseeds! will release æblefrø on February 3.
Check out “Hungry Mouth” and get set for what promises to be an album of jangle pop perfection!.
Sabrina Teitelbaum is LA’s Blondshell, who writes about her toxic relationships with a candor that couldn’t care less. Dark indie rock echoing influences like PJ Harvey and Courtney Love. Some of it is sexualized, some of it is just dysfunctional emotion like “Sepsis.”
15. “Anglepoise” – The Happy Somethings (A Gathering of Sorts)
Let’s finish this list with 90 seconds of fist-pumping guitar rock. England’s The Happy Somethings roll the rhythm from Bow Wow Wow’s “I Love Candy” under bubblegum guitar fuzz and twee Bangles vocals.
You’ll be singing “Anglepoise” all day, and you’re welcome.
A bit more than a baker’s dozen, here are 22 alternative songs in 2022 out of a few thousand that I listened to this year. Most have streams of the full songs that you can play right from your phone. I hope you fall in love with them and buy them!
First things first, these are in no real order other than what I can readily find on my Best Songs list on Evernote and scrolling through downloads or discs I’ve already bought. It’s a mess, frankly, but I’m going to try and bring some order to the chaos. And for you, that means curated top shelf listening. Most, not all, are not from albums that will end up on my Top 10 or 20 list. But they’re all amaze.
These 22 alternative songs in 2022 are numbered, but just help me keep track of when I get to 22 tunes. They are not in order of preference or awesomeness!
1. “Wild” – Spoon (Lucifer on the Sofa)
How many bands can compare to Spoon, album for album, for almost 30 years? It’s rarified air. Having said that I liked, didn’t love, Lucifer on the Sofa. Several bangers, and Spoon remain an American original. Here is early single “Wild,” which I cannot be on drugs, is an absolute straight-up tribute to INXS.
I can’t imagine a better way to start a list of the best alternative songs in 2022.
2. “(Wishing I Had) Tickets for Saint Etienne” – The Photocopies (Holiday Romance EP)
Michigan-by-London songwriter Sean Turner has released probably 100 songs as The Photocopies since the start of the year. They come in batches of singles, b-sides, EP’s, full-lengths and remixes.
I’m feeling guilty enough not including the Holiday Romance EPamong my favorite EP’s of 2022 — an oversight — that I want to highlight “Saint Etienne” from that EP. Fuzzy jangle pop without fuss or needless ambition. Just a perfect pop song, like almost everything Turner does.
3. “Wrong Side of the Sun” – Best Bets (On An Unhistoric Night)
Voted by me the #1 song to see live in 2022, I present Best Bets‘ “Wrong Side of the Sun.” They must call the riot police and water cannons when the kids hear this insanely catchy chorus. Growing out of New Zealands’ Transistors, Best Bets rockin’ On An Unhistoric Night belongs on the shelf of every post punk fan of TheRamones or Replacements.
Has to be one of the catchiest alternative songs in 2022. Hit play and rock.
4. “Dressed in Black” – Ezra Furman (All of Us Flames)
I ultimately didn’t put All of Us Flames on my list of records to buy this year. You can’t own everything.
But I love this musky 60’s love song, “Dressed in Black.” Transgender woman Ezra Furman’s lyrics throughout reflect darker tensions of love, sex and gender. The album is sometimes distorted and menacing but still frequently reinterprets AOR.
5. “End of the Empire IV (Sagittarius)” – Arcade Fire (WE)
Arcade Fire’s 6th album WE adds to the Montreal legends’ nearly 20-year legacy since the influential Funeral, Neon Bible and The Suburbs. It will also inevitably be conflated with the allegations of sexual misconduct by founder Win Butler. When looking for top alternative songs in 2022, WE has moments, if not the consistency of their early records.
The instrumentation and art rock arrangements, like the 4-part “End of the Empire” sound very much like The Flaming Lips here.
“End of the Empire IV (Sagittarius)” – Arcade Fire (WE)
6. “Old Picture of Ourselves” – The Boys with the Perpetual Nervousness (The Third Wave of…)
Next, a multi-continent jangle pop supergroup of sorts, The Boys With the Perpetual Nervousness may actually end up on my best album list. But I had to share one of their songs from The Third Wave of… TBWTPN are Scotland’s Andrew Taylor, also in Dropkick…and Spain’s Gonzalo Marcos, who plays in El Palacio de Linares. (Note to self: check out El Palacio de Linares.!)
For fans of Teenage Fanclub and lovers of all things jangle.
7. “Sick of Everything” – Gorgeous Bully (Am I Really Going to Die Here)
Daniel Johnston, exemplar of melodic sincerity to Kurt Cobain and Yo La Tengo, grew up in West Virginia and is revered in many circles as an Appalachian prodigy. An acquaintance of mine actually gave him a place to live in the late 80’s. This was either before or during some of Johnston’s drug use and increasing mental health struggles, which eventually saw him committed.
Does Manchester’s Gorgeous Bully mimic Johnston’s arch low fidelity cassette recordings? Mostly, no. GB builds more traditional song structures of bedroom pop. The lo-fi soundscapes and lyrics are relatively dynamic compared to Johnston’s arrested development.
And Thomas Crang recognizes a pop hook when he finds it. “Sick of Everything,” originally a 2021 single, is a cleaned-up version of Gorgeous Bully that leads off 2022’s Am I Really Going to Die Here. Just 90 seconds makes it one of the top alternative songs in 2022.
8. “Watercolours” – Neil Brogan (Things Keep Getting in the Way)
Irish musician, host of this year’s new music podcast Brogan’s Run and former Sea Pinks lead Neil Brogan writes perfect, economical guitar pop on his new album Things Keep Getting in the Way. Brogan will take you back to pristine 90’s indie pop like The Lucksmiths and Trash Can Sinatras.
9. “Our Songbird Has Gone” – The Chesterf¡elds (New Modern Homes)
Let’s stay in this tasty indie pop space for a moment so that I can share one of my very favorite songs of the last year.
Cult favorites The Chesterf¡elds reunited in 2022, despite the untimely death of their band mate Davy Chesterfield in 2003. This delightful tribute to Chesterfield namechecks and evokes everything about C86 bands that birthed The Chesterf¡elds nearly 40 years ago.
Clearly one of the best alternative songs in 2022. I have probably sung the chorus to “Our Songbird” in my car more than any other this year.
10. “Pana-vision” – The Smile (A Light for Attracting Attention)
In the winter and spring of 2022, I bought a clutch of new releases by well-known artists sight unseen. I rarely do that — I sample almost everything. However, a few artists I will buy on faith. As it turned out, I was unimpressed by many of them…including The Smile’sA Light for Attracting Attention.
This summer, a friend persuaded me to revisit The Smile and some of my other impetuous purchases. I can report, of the 4 or 5 discs, I was most glad to return to The Smile. I had listened to Attention probably a half dozen times on earbuds. This is a terrible way to consume dense production, particularly a Radiohead side project.
In the end, however, the sum is less than the parts.
Thom Yorke is one of the two or three most influential songwriters of the last 50 years, so I think it’s fair to hold him to a high standard. Attention is front-loaded and musical ideas are hit or miss after the first five tracks. Attention reminds me of Yorke’s debut solo The Eraser in some ways. Tom Skinner’s complex syncopation is a revelation and it is rewarding to hear Jonny Greenwood playing guitar again for God’s sake.
Ironically, though, my favorite songs are keyboard numbers…”Open the Floodgates” and April single “Pana-vision.”
Don’t let the absence of blog coverage of Maccabee’s singer Orlando Weeks dissuade you from buying his second solo, Hop Up. Brimming with the joys of fatherhood and watching his young son emerge as a new personality, it is far too loving and un-ironic for beat hipsters to tolerate. The album has been criminally ignored.
Light as air and irrepressible with new life, it is impossible not to hear Roxy Music’sAvalon on songs like “No End to Love.”
My favorite show of the year, not even close, was Cincinnati’s Arlo McKinley playing This Mess We’re Inat Salt Lake City’s Urban Lounge. One of several highlights was “I Wish I,” as McKinley narrated the eternal tension between the comfort of known things and the progress of growing old.
“I Wish I” lyrics
Thinking about settling up, Kicking off the dust, Removing all the rust that keeps me still. I think it’s my time to go. Say goodbye to everyone I know And I hope someday I’ll be forgiven For the bonds that I broke.
I wish I could take you with me, But this road I must walk alone. I gotta get out of the city. Good God, I gotta lose myself just to find my way back home.
Every song, like “I Wish I,” on This Mess We’re In is genuine and moving.
I’m a little late to the Perfume Genius party but was quite enthralled by his 5th album, 2020’s Set My Heart on Fire Immediately. For fans looking for relatively simple song structures after that album, Ugly Season may not satisfy. The album is a score to the dance performance The Sun Still Burns Here. Much of it reflects the abstraction of dance.
I try to post only audio streams but here you’ll need to rely on the video. The brittle melody and especially Mike Hadreas’ delicate falsetto are a marvel that place it among the top alternative songs in 2022.
San Francisco’s gazey power pop outfit Aluminum released the Windowpane EP about two months ago. Their guitar pop and electronica is smartly interspersed with pedals worthy of My Bloody Valentine. For examples, listen to “Solar” and early single, “Windowpane.”
15. “Celebran Por Nosotros” – Mañana el Espacio (Casi Nada es Para Siempre)
How have I gotten this far into my list of alternative songs in 2022 without a Spanish language tune? This is like my signature thing now, and I speak barely a word of Spanish beyond “carnita.” Stupid American.
This year I’ve absolutely fallen in love with bands like Mañana el Espacio (South America) and Torres Satélite (Spain). It is so connecting and universal — and something needed right now — to know that Mañana singer Ricardo José Vergara is creating these pop gems, possibly raised on the same Sonic Youth records as you and me.
“Celebran Por Nosotros” lyrics
Ricardo is a gifted lyricist and has been kind enough to send the translation for his lovely album Casi Nada es Para Siempre. He plans to post them on Musixmatch and Spotify as well. The translated opening of “Celebran Por Nosotros”…
We watch the stars mutliply. The city looks peaceful from here. The moment is unforgettable But I’ll have to wake up.
Color gets all over our faces. I’m sure better times will come And meanwhile, I ask myself,
Do they celebrate for us? Is that why they’re lighting the city up? Or is it my imagination? Is that why they’re lighting the city up? Or is it my imagination?
Okay I’m going to cheat on my 22 songs and drop an extra Mañana song here, because they range way outside of shoegaze to the most delightful indie pop. Check out the crazy flanged guitar at the end of “Yo No Ma Haces Falta,” (“I Don’t Need You Anymore.”)
16. “Dreamin of the Past” – Pusha T (It’s Almost Dry)
Kids I have to tell you.
As I wind into my 50’s, it is harder to find hardcore bands or rap music that I authentically connect with. Possibly, just possibly, I’m not the target audience. But I did find a few hip hop releases that I liked which specifically DID NOT include Kendrick Lamar. Both Radiohead and Lamar could publish 50 minutes of fax noise and the bloggers swoon.
I did super enjoy Pusha T’s “Dreamin of the Past,” which he did on Fallon in the spring. Hiphopdx recounts Pusha T’s story to Charlamagne Tha God about how he persuaded Kanye West to let him release Ye’s beat on King Push’sIt’s Almost Dry instead of last year’s Donda.
“I begged for the beat,” he said. “It was just one of those ones that I kept going back to and was like, ‘Listen, man, I need this. I need this record.’ And I was like, ‘You know what? You should be on the record too.’ That’s the compromise.”
Here is “Dreamin of the Past” featuring a few bars of Kanye at the end as “the compromise.”
17. “Coke Jaw” – Infinity Knives and Brian Ennals (King Cobra)
Let’s establish up front that by posting two hip hop songs in a row, I am in no way implying I have street cred in urban music. But I really did sample a good bit of rap this year. Infinity Knives & Brian Ennals is one I want to spend a little more time with before the end of the year for my favorite albums list.
These guys have all the buzzy descriptions, experimental hip hop…fusion. It’s a bit hard to categorize but I kind of dig it. Infinity Knives (NPR’s Tariq Ravelomanana) provides the electronics and Baltimore’s Brian Ennals brings the rhymes. If there is a bridge too far, it is incorporating Infinity Knives’ orchestration into the album and not hearing them simply as interludes.
“Coke Jaw” is a good example of the mashup that makes them so different.
“Doers” is the maddeningly catchy portrait of modern life by Brooklyn punks Bodega. I bought Broken Equipment early in 2022. It was such a joy to come back to it tonight and hear the ramped intensity in “Doers,” the extension beyond sprechgesang.
If “this “Doers” doesn’t encapsulate work life in 2022, I don’t know what does:
“Doers” lyrics
Ten minutes : calendar 10 minutes : Bandcamp Ten minutes : wiki browse 10 minutes: planning my next ten minutes It’s all about auto bio of Benjamin.
Ten minutes: Ted talk 10 minutes: Notepad Ten minutes: Amazon 10 minutes : planning my next ten minutes To thine own shelf be true.
This city’s made for the doers. The movers. shakers. Non-connoisseurs. This city’s made for the doers. The humors. Tubers. entrepreneurs.
You didn’t know you needed Bodega until you heard “Doers.” An angry song for angry times, as we explore the best alternative songs in 2022.
Look, I’m not entirely crazy about the arrangement on “Backseat Politic” but behold Mike Ness fans, the locomotive of fun that Leeds’ post punk bank Eades creates on Delusion Spree. Give them just. one. minute. and dig the groove. More mathy than Social Distortion but HOLY CATS what a churning beat on that chorus!
Her songs are indie perfect, cagey and cynical. On Sometimes, Forever she has sharpened her hooks and her knives. Both “newdemo” and “Shotgun” show off the singer-songwriter who has emerged since 2018’s Clean. “Shotgun” also displays Allison’s sweeping hooks and Soccer Mommy at her most accessible.
21. “Fatal Folly” – The Silent Boys (Sand to Pearls, Coal to Diamonds)
A late entrant on my best music dashboard this year, Sand to Pearls, Coal to Diamonds came out November 4. Richmond, Virginia indie pop veterans The Silent Boys’ ninth album is getting tons of recognition that it rightly deserves. A little twee, a lot of jangle, The Silent Boys hit on just about every song here.
If you don’t fall in love with the simple joy of “Fatal Folly,” then we have nothing further to discuss.
Finally, my last song for you is a bit of a cheat. I found out this weekend it was originally released a decade ago.
Still, I could listen to this November single by Semiwestern 1,000 times and still feel teary about it. The haunting guitar on the chorus to “Velvet Sea” hearkens to Dean Wareham’s post-Galaxie 500 luminaries Luna. The transcendent line hits at 1:15. It is guaranteed to be the best five minutes of your 2022.
That said, I learned from The Google that this is a remix of an earlier “Velvet Sun” released in 2012 by Austin’s The Vliets. Semiwestern is the new incarnation of The Vliets(pronounced VLEETS).
I’ll touch on two things. First, by any measure this remix is a superior, more mature and elegant version of the original. BUY IT! Second, ten years later, it begs the question: Why now? Should we look forward to a longer release from Semiwestern soon? No word yet from California lo-fi label Spirit Goth but I will let you know!
Before I post some favorite songs from 2022 or rank my top albums, let’s spend some time with the little-appreciated category of EP’s. If there are too many songs for any human to listen to in the modern world, there are also too many EP’s, extended singles and “mini-albums” (WTF?). But you’ll miss some serious tunes if you don’t at least sample some of the releases on my list of 2022 best alternative EP’s.
A couple of caveats, the EP is not my preferred release — ultimately, to me, too short for a sustained musical statement. Also my batting average finding great EP’s is not great. Possibly terrible. So my list is just that, a list. Only roughly catalogued in order of badassery. There are just too, too, too many EP’s out there that I didn’t or couldn’t take the time to sample. I don’t presume here to rank the very best.
Having said that, dear reader, these EP’s are absolutely worth your music dollar this Christmas.
Shoken Boys – The Shoken Truth EP
Something about Shoken Boys being an indie band from Israel seems super-exotic AMIRIGHT?!
The truth is, Tel Aviv is a city/metro of almost 4.5 million people. So rock is probably pretty urban and looks not unlike a show in LA. What are the chances Shoken Boys grace our shores playing this delicious shambolic jangle they’ve been putting out since 2019? A tour or supporting role in ‘Merica? Maybe not great. But what a treat to know kids 6,968 miles from Utah are falling in love with the same Shoken Truth EP as you and me.
Not a little akin to 90’s ikons Lush, CIEL crushed it with their 2022 Not in the Sun, Nor in the Light EP. From Brighton, England — but also all over Europe — CIEL mixes Michelle Hendriks’ voice with gorgeous power pop, lite shoegaze and moments of four-on-the-floor beats. Invite your friends over, crank Not in the Sun and remind yourself 2023 only gets better from here!
Here is the bangin’ title track, “Not in the Sun, Nor in the Dark.”
Can someone help me with Theo Tudor’s exquisite voice here? I cannot quite place the Manchester band Tudor takes me back to. From Christchurch, Senica is 100% at the top of my EP list this year. I love everything about Senica’s evocative, desperate sound. And they’re shape-shifters. Although I’m dropping “Now Crystalline” here for you to sample; other songs from the Passing Tide EP are dystopian indie Radiohead.
Like almost every year since…oh, 1993 or so…2022 wasn’t a real triumph for the shoegaze movement. How about a light in the darkness, Healees from Paris, France. They’re not doing anything terrifically groundbreaking here. Just creating tight harmonies around a wall-of-sound that make you want to cry. Also I would cynically note this EP is like 33 minutes long, so basically an album.
London’s indie pop The Sundries turn up the sunshine on September’s Full of the Joys of Spring EP. Full of pop nuggets and indie handclaps, The Sundries’The Joys of Spring EP four songs burst with life. Their breakout in 2022 was the sardonic “David Letterman,” speaking to 80’s kids everywhere.
“I stopped taking my pills. They told me I was ill. What did they know? They were just making me fat. David would not like that, He likes me just so.”
Still, the title track “Full of the Joys of Spring” best encapsulates The Sundries sound.
Don’t be fooled by the “EP” label from a band that you’ve fallen in love with. Even if it’s not a full album, it may still top your list of 2022 best alternative EP’s. For good measure, here are three more EP’s that you can’t go wrong with!
The Black Watch – The Neverland of Spoken Things EP
I like to envision The Wends, those cutie-patootie Italian grad school-looking kids, trading cease-and-desist nastygrams with Radiohead. It devolves into a tense battle for ownership of the name, The Smile. Until this unwelcome legal drama, the Italian band formerly known as Smile had been happy since 2020 to channel Michael Stipe and Peter Buck. After all, there are so many bands similar to REM, albeit not many from Turin, Italy. But now they’re in deep.
Thom Yorke’s high-falutin’ Manhattan lawyers are papering Smile until they break under the pressure of Harvard-educated trademark attorneys. They finally agree to change their name, paving the way for Yorke’s new side project. Plenipotentiaries for each band meet in a non-descript French café in Châlons-en-Champagne to sign the deal over muttered insults.
In truth, there’s not a ton of evidence for that drama in the public record, and The Wends are entirely too affable looking for confrontation. They may have just wanted to avoid being swallowed in an ocean of Google searches for Yorke’s The Smile and opted for a new moniker. Still, they continue to use the cheeky e-mail username thenameofthisbandissmile. It was also the title of their October 2020 debut and it remains the web address for their band website.
Yes there are a lot of bands similar to REM – but listen to The Wends in this outrageous Husker Dü stomper
Much of The WendsIt’s Here Where You Fall EP released last month is a straight-up tribute to Athens, Georgia. That doesn’t detract at all from the punch of lead track “What A Heart is For.” It is a jangle werewolf, half-REM and half-Bob Mould.
On other cuts, vocalist Michele Sarda seems almost to impersonate Michael Stipe. This might be a bother if the tunes weren’t so dang good.
Whither do The Wends wander from here?
We’ll let posterity decide what happened behind the scenes of the titanic struggle for the Smile trademark. Whatever the outcome, you should buy The Wends latest EP. Support a fictional legal defense fund that may or may not exist. I was on the fence about paying for the full EP, but I’m purchasing the It’s Here Where You Fall EP tonight to support the underdogs of rock!
Was democracy REALLY on the ballot, or was it some diabolical plot to trap us in political season until Christmas? Never you mind…I have just the tonic to wake you up from this political fugue state. Here is a bunch of terrific November indie music you can read about and listen to all in one convenient, non-partisan package.
Let’s do this!
“Ricochet” – Preoccupations (Arrangements)
It is an indisputable law of physics that rock and roll suffers from a lack of drum solos. At what time have you ever heard someone rage on the kit and thought, “well that was loud and excessive.” NEVER, that’s when, because drum solos are self-justifying. They don’t need your permission.
Calgary’sPreoccupations, née Viet Cong, released Arrangements in September. It includes a mad percussive walkaway on the shimmering “Ricochet,” not unlike Terry Chambers violent hammering on XTC’s “Travels In Nihilon.”
All things considered, summer 2022 is still miles ahead of 2020. No corona…just a divided country, peak anxiety and climate change. Good times! So, for the balance of July and the torpid month of August, here are some of my top indie songs of 2022 to bump until Labor Day.…
“Carl Sagan” – Torres Satélite (Mundos y Estrellas)
I haven’t tracked down a ton of information about Spain’s Torres Satélite. Their latest, Mundos y Estrellas has been on my “Must Buy” list since I heard it last month. At the least, here is a review of 2020’s La Ventana Discreta when Torres Satélite first popped onto the scene with the Discos de Kirlian label. And who needs much more background? Everything you need to know is wrapped inside the 2 minutes and 52 seconds of pop bliss that is “Carl Sagan.”
“The Sir Tommy Shovell” – Robyn Hitchcock (Shufflemania!)
A couple of things about Robyn Hitchcock.
First, he is British rock royalty. Robyn isn’t David Bowie but he is absolutely an extension of the same conversation. Why haven’t I heard of him, then?” you ask. Fair question. He came of age in the late 70’s leading The Soft Boys, whom you also haven’t heard of. I honestly can’t recall if I’ve actually bought the Soft Boys‘ Underwater Moonlight, so I guess we’re all in the same boat. Suffice it to say, 22 albums later, REM and bunch of other musicians you enjoy today grew up listening to his eccentric catalogue.
Second, I had the occasion to meet and be gently accosted by the legend. Hitchcock, Billy Bragg and REM played NPR’s “Mountain Stage” in 1991. I don’t have a super clear memory of seeing REM that day, so I don’t recall if I was manhandled by Hitchcock after that show or a later concert. But the story goes like this: I was holding and possibly reading from a textbook at an afterparty. Hitchcock grabbed the book from me and began reciting from it and embarrassing me/secretly delighting me. Also I will never forget looking up at him, he must be seven feet tall.
Shufflemania! came out about three weeks ago and includes this delightful song you need to hear today, “The Sir Tommy Shovell.”
Finally, have you forgotten where you know the name Billy Bragg? He revises the lyrics of “The Great Leap Forward” about every two years, not always to great effect. The shared humanity is in the audience sing-a-long with the chorus. Here is the post-performance of “Leap Forward” on Mountain Stage in 1991 after the national broadcast has ended. Michael Stipe makes a cameo.
“Ships in the Night” – Anthony D’Amato (At First There Was Nothing)
Let’s stay on this Mountain Stage theme, shall we?
Two weeks ago, Anthony D’Amato released At First There Was Nothing. D’Amato had moved from New York to Utah to record his fifth album with Joshua James. He appeared on Mountain Stage in October, where I got to see him in an after-show performance at Charleston’s Empty Glass pub.
At First There Was Nothing is a collection of disparate styles from folk to soft rock and, a little strangely, 70’s Blue Oyster Cult-style AOR. Here is D’Amato at his strongest, in the straight-forward American folk tradition of “Ships in the Night.”
We’re still following a thread here, even if it isn’t obvious. I picked up on Death’s Dynamic Shroud out of Los Angeles as a recommendation from the kids at my college radio station in October. Kids these days.
I didn’t get all the way with September’s Darklife, but enjoyed the warm harmonies and Panda Bear theater-of-the-mind of “Neon Memories.”
We’re at that point of the night where I could just keep going and going. Need to bring this home.
What November indie music post would be complete without a review of the first week of blog buzz about Special Interest?! The New Orleans group has earned band-of-the-moment status with the terrific no-wave Endure. They’re like an angry B-52’s but with darker, roiling political statements. Original single “(Herman’s) House” tells the story of Black Panther Herman Wallace, who died three days after decades of solitary confinement for a crime he claimed he did not commit.
If it only sounds like house music (pun intended, sorry not sorry), don’t be deceived. “(Herman’s) House” is an angry song for angry times.
“Greatest Hits” – Jockstrap (I Love You, Jennifer B)
Yes, I understand this band decided to name itself Jockstrap. I need to write an entire post on awful band names. But suspend disbelief for this delight.
London’s Jockstrap are Taylor Skye and violinist Georgia Ellery, who have been putting out music since 2018. Ellery in particular keeps busy. Besides finishing art school, she also performs with Black Country, New Road and Goat Girl.
Their full-length debut is I Love You, Jennifer B, on which Ellery layers sung and whispered PG-13 lyrics over the top of a fairly complex concoction of ambience, EDM, and jazz. If challenging, it is more accessible than the neurotic, halting beats of earlier Jockstrap experiments like 2018’s “Charlotte.”
Standouts for me are “Greatest Hits” and first single “Glasgow.”
“Dressed in Black” – Ezra Furman (All of Us in Flames)
How about some wistful American glam rock as a closer?
“Dressed in Black” by Ezra Furman has all of the things you want from a girl group condensed into a torchlit piano ballad. Her August album All of Us in Flames is a slow burn but gets better with each spin. Furman has been at this for 15 years, but at least not on my personal radar. Furman reached greater audiences as she expanded from her solo work to the soundtrack for Sex Education on Netflix.
Here is “Dressed in Black,” and the 50’s love songs it updates in such a muscular and confident way. Love this.
The election is still going, and so is a great month of November indie music
The Republic will survive and at the end of this long year you’ll want to appreciate the best she has to offer. Spend a little money, love your kids and listen to the best music mankind has ever produced. It gets better year after year, if you only have the patience to find it.
November indie music is just the latest chapter….maybe we’ll do this again before the new year and another election cycle!
What is it about me and South American jangle pop?! I honestly don’t understand it, specifically the words they’re singing. Stupid American. But I love the spirit from the continent and of course, the songs are brilliant. Even if you tend to be parochial or intimidated by foreign language lyrics, YOU NEED TO HEAR the debut album by Mañana El Espacio. I’ll even throw in a full translation of the album’s delightful lead track. And read on for a reminder of a gem from Argentina in 2021!
South American jangle pop savants, Mañana El Espacio
Caracas band Mañana El Espacio has been dropping singles from this year’s Casi Nada Es Para Siempre since July 2020. Now wait. Before you check out because you’re seeing too many Spanish words that you don’t understand — let me translate to the world’s International Language: Jangle pop.
Jigsaw Records nails it with their description of Mañana El Espacio: “…a subtler Pains Of Being Pure At Heart (what, did he fly Peggy down to add those magical twinkling keyboards?) and its associated dreamier off-shoots (particularly The Depreciation Guild)…”
Specifically you hear the POBPAH in leadoff track, “Alguien Más.”
No matter your language, that is jangle pop perfection!
But what is Mañana El Espacio singing about?
I probably listened to this album four times, completely ignorant of what Ricardo Vergara was saying. A friend of mine translated “Alguien Más” (or “Someone Else”) and the lyrics are borderline endearing!*
“Today you’ll come across my door But I’ll already be someone else. I’ll already be someone else.
We’ll go visit the same old places But I’ll already be someone else. I’ll already be someone else”
Here is the complete lay translation of “Alguien Más.”
It’s not just the leadoff track. So much about the record is memorable. Ever wondered what Sonic Youth would sound like if they played jangle pop and sang in Spanish? Wonder no more.
The jangle pop scene in Argentina
Let us not forget the lovely singles released last year by Argentina’s Un Día Soleado. The songs were bundled together this year, along with a few covers, as “y todo sigue igual...” Highlight “Skate 3,” is simply a marvel of indie jangle pop. No translation needed for so perfect a pop song.
Whether you speak English, Spanish or Portuguese…rock crosses all boundaries. Let your mind wander and buy these jangle pop releases from south of the Grenadines!
* I am 55-60% sure this photo is not copyright infringement
In the summer and fall of 1987, I was in no position to sample the first two albums by The Chesterf!eldsThe Kettle and Westward Ho! When I started college in the Boreman South dormitory at West Virginia University, I was in a deep — and I mean DEEP — classic rock wormhole. On their first records, The Chesterf!ields band was jangly, but still New Wave-adjacent. Meanwhile, I was buying tickets for Pink Floyd’sMomentary Lapse of Reason tour.
I say this to my shame.
I wouldn’t intersect with The Chesterf!elds music or their descendent acts, including The Blue Aeroplanes, for another four years. Now The Chester!elds have released a single from an upcoming album that makes me excited to go back in time.
New Chesterf!elds album leaps from 1988 to 2022
The Chesterf!elds released three albums in 1987-1988 with a rotating cast of characters. They’re not easy to track and the sound that was not perfectly indie pop. At times they hit C86 notes; at others they toggled between ska and a more angular, reformed New Wave. Their 1988 single “Blame” is a good example of how the band defied easy labels.
However in the middle of July 2022, fully 34 years later, The Chesterf!elds band previewed their upcoming album New Modern Homes with the single “Our Songbird Has Gone.”
“Our Songbird” perfectly updates The Chesterf!elds’ sound while lovingly name checking 20 or more indie pop luminaries. It’s a tribute to the 2003 death of Chesterf!elds founder Dave Goldsworthy, their songbird, and I can’t imagine anything more lovely.
The Chesterf!elds band is back and they’re beautiful!
Honestly, what hasn’t changed since 1987? The Chesterf!elds offer a touching tribute to a late friend and update their sound overnight. It is welcome, and I’m excited to hear New Modern Homes when it’s released on September 23.
A few more suggestions for top indie songs of 2022, summer edition!
“Holiday Romance” – The Photocopies (Holiday Romance EP)
I don’t know how there could be more perfect jangle pop for the summer. Fuzzy guitars, a bubblegum hook and shimmering harmonies. The Photocopies’ “Holiday Romance” is Teenage Fanclub playing from your neighbor’s garage in a fever dream. Download “A Holiday Romance“ from exiled London artist Sean Turner and play at top volume.
“One Easy Thing” – TV Priest (My Other People)
Next, TV Priest has moved into more melodic territory with their second release, My Other People. Charlie Drinkwater’s bellicose Johnny Cash baritone grows into the opener “One Easy Thing” as he bellows the terrific refrain, “I am waaaaiting.”
“Blood in the Wine” – Aurora (The Gods We Can Touch)
At a certain age, you start to care a lot (okay, a little?) less about what people think about you. I am clearly not the target for Aurora; I honestly don’t care if she appears on the Frozen 2 soundtrack. Any woman in 2022 who is the President and CEO of her music and personal brand deserves the world’s respect.
Aurora’s hooks are undeniable. Kate Bush would be proud.
“Blood in the Wine” by Aurora (from The Gods We Can Touch)
Counting both Vol 1 and Vol 2 of my top indie songs of 2022, we’re at least ten songs in without a real shoegaze tune. Obviously that has to be remedied: I downloaded PEEL by happy accident last year, so I direct you to their criminally ignored EP from 2021.
The PEEL EP is a filthy marriage of Ride and The Stone Roses. Maybe you chanced upon “Memory Loop” in the last year or two? It is all top shelf. You can’t listen to “Silver Spring” or “DYNA” too often or too loudly.
I don’t know a ton about Alex Cameron, something of an iconoclast and provocateur. But “Best Life” is about as summery as summer gets, from Cameron’s fourth album Oxy Music, which you can find here. His ironically titled, Oxy Music marries a bit of the 80’s with some of the social conflict of the 2020’s.
Hey it’s getting too serious in here. How about some post-punk with brainy lyrics from Oakland’s Neutrals. The very best part of “Gary Borthwick Says” is the picture it draws of someone we’ve all known from our past, and a part of ourselves we may not want to admit to. Garage band entry for one of the top indie songs of 2022.
Let’s take a trip back in the hot tub time machine to the fall of 1991, shall we, when little-known grunge rocker Kurt Cobain said he wanted to write a Pixies knockoff. I can still remember taking the yellow vinyl promotional 12″ of “Smells Like Teen Spirit” and cranking it in our college radio station’s production room.
THAT is what I hear in multiple spaces when I listen to Crows engrossing Beware Believers. Something very atmospheric and Interpol-y is happening, along with the knockdown of early 1990’s grunge. “Wild Eyed and Loathsome” also ends with a tasty little walkaway during the last ten seconds.
“Goodbye Mr. Blue” – Father John Misty (Chloe and the Next 20th Century)
Finally, let’s wrap with a delightful song for a summer evening. I have no real prior history with FJM, though he keeps good company with Fleet Foxes and Damien Jurado. Chloe and the Next 20th Century is charming from start to finish but “Mr. Blue” has particularly delicate vocal touches to highlight the sweetest lyrics.
All things considered, summer 2022 is still miles ahead of 2020. No corona…just a divided country, peak anxiety and climate change. Good times! So, for the balance of July and the torpid month of August, here are some of my top indie songs of 2022 to bump until Labor Day.
Just Mustard – “Seed” (Heart Under)
Ireland’s Just Mustard is routinely described as noisy, dark shoegaze. Honestly I don’t hear the gaze but OHHH THE PEDALS. I can’t think of a song that better reflects Salt Lake City’s 107 degrees this month than Katie Ball competing with the undulating throb of “Seed.”
…and now for something completely different. Kikagaku Moyo channel a bit of desi pop from their studio in Tokyo for a perfectly loopy and carefree song from their May release, Kumoyo Island.
“Sick of Everything” – Gorgeous Bully (Am I Really Going to Die Here)
“Dear Claire” – Love, Burns (It Should Have Been Tomorrow)
Okay, now I’m getting on a roll. I could do this all night but it’s after twelve, so just a couple more. At about 2:30 into “Dear Claire,” Phil Sutton of Love, Burns lays down the loveliest jangley Jazz Butcher guitar line since Mr. Fish himself passed away. So roll down the convertible car top and let the organ of “Dear Claire” bless your entire neighborhood. Hat tip to Janglepophub for flagging the new release.
Ignore the ill-conceived cover art and you’ll absolutely be smitten by the horns and Mattiel Brown’s triumphant reflection of Chrissie Hynde on “Lighthouse.” BTW Chrissie is 70 this year. Yes, that makes me feel old — but Mattiel is all youth and Southern vim.
“The Dripping Tap” – King Gizzard and the Lizard Wizard (Omnium Gatherum)
I feel like I’ve reached an age where I shouldn’t have to type the words “King Gizzard and the Lizard Wizard,” much less say them out loud. However the epic scorched earth hooks of “The Dripping Tap” are impossible to ignore. If you play just one 18-minute prog anthem this summer, it should be this banger from Melbourne’s King Gizzard. Definitely one of the top indie songs of 2022. Listen to King Gizzard’s masterful Butterfly 3000 or Omnium Gatherum here.
At one time. I confessed these music reviews wouldn’t be about DISCOVERING new music. Well today we’ll do exactly that — exploring together the wonderful world of Argentina jangle pop.
Argentina jangle pop, from a bedroom in Viedma
Last year, the mostly unknown members of Argentina’s Un Día Soleado released four singles and a live EP. In March 2022, they bunched those together in the promising release, y todo sigue igual... It includes last year´s singles, the live cuts and a few covers. Tremendous bedroom pop for all.
Fast foward to this week, KEXP challenged Twitter to volunteer acts to perform for a week of live performances in Buenos Aires. I had been listening to Un Día Soleado just 30 minutes before, thanks to a mostly-random post I read on Janglepophub. This seemed like fate — how could it not be? — and I added Un Día Soleado to the Twitter wishlist.
What are your favorite Argentinian bands? Who are the most slept on Argentinian artists?? Who should be on the KEXP Live from Argentina lineup???
The band wryly notes on their YouTube page that some indie label should pick them up. Yes — and ahead of that — a scrappy, up-and-comer spot with KEXP in September, please.
