April/May 2026
applying his booming, gravelly vocal gravitas to dizzy 90s Eurovision Eurodance
I’ve been a busy little burqa this last month or so (programming www.mammothlakesfilmfestival.com) and man oh man I’ve neglected my blogging responsibilities — my responsibilities to myself ultimately, but here I am and I wonder if I can just vomit out a whole post without belaboring every bon mot? Well let’s first of all bring up the most 90s style growly guitar with perfectly berasp’ed vocals demi goddess since Jennifer Herrema. She’s from the boring Bay Area which maybe isn’t so boring after all inasmuch as her albums slap me with delicious, Come-evoking bittersweetness like “Commit.” I’m sure I’ve drooled ink over her before — her name is Kathryn Mohr.
Put your money where your mouth is
Screw it up to fit in
Vomit love I bleed presence
Choke on air, just give in
No, I can't
I can’t commit to anything, or remember anything
No, I can't
I can't commit to anything
I’m running around with my head cut off
Shadows longer as the day goes
Climbing ivy getting tired
Horsepill earache from the ocean
Smile, you’re on camera
Back in ‘22 I was in so much adoration of chubbilicious Brooklyn babe Grace Ives — I went to see her at the Moroccan Lounge and it was one of those super minimal no-budget shows with one artiste, one laptop and a snarl of cables, but (besides the fact that a cute and interesting masc-presenting person tagged along with me and my steady concert lady-buddy) La Grace has plenty of riz and turned it out, particularly on a twinkly, slowed-down “On the Ground” which sort of made the whole room levitate. It seemed like someone was grooming her for Robyn-sized indie-pop stardom — she had expensive-looking hair and fashion going on, more Hollywood than Brooklyn. And then four Grace-less years went by; I guessed I was wrong. When she finally resurfaced I was a little skeptical, not really feeling the first track or two, but I kept giving her chances and it turns out the new album Girlfriend is, yes, more produced and polished than before — but it bangs hard and sweet, time after time, and yes she is proving to be the Cyndi Lauper of her generation.
Trouble in the air tonight
I’m caught in your stare tonight
Broke what’s yours and mine
I pray you’ll look me in the eye
Trouble on the mountainside
Gave her the love I set aside
Left you out to dry
I’ve done the worst I ever might
Trouble want a little more
You found me wrecked upon the shore
I’m not your sea of love
I’m just a spill we’re cleaning up…
How have I still not talked your tits off about Bassvictim? They started bringing me pleasure at the end of last year but I don’t know, I guess at first I had a hard time pinning down their sound. Maria Manow and Ike Clateman are Polish and American respectively and English collectively and they’ve definitely spent some time in Crystal Castles school; they feel both futuristic and all-too-human, electro/hyper clash/poppy and anthemic, girly and and shouty. I kept Basspunk 2 on my to-blog-about list for so long they’ve ended up releasing another album called ?, their fourth in two years. Dazzling production btw, and sweet Jesus do they bring the tunes…
This should be forever salty,
after the fizz up, I’m getting seized up
Walk on the fence, and my face facing vision
Yo, and my fist feeling frisson
This should be forever salty,
your bad decision, your wrong decision
You move insane, and you’re lost in your vision
Your face in Wildenstein season
Somehow Electrelane completely passed by me in their mid-aughts heyday, but they turned out to be one of the great discoveries passed on to me by my ex Luis (let’s call him Luis) whom I still sometimes complain about even in these pages. Verity Susman has/is one of the great rock voices, and managed to be quite experimental while still rocking oh so hard. The Lane’s best song IMO is oddly one of their least streamed:
I know you had it hard
I know you had it hard
I know you had it hard and you wanted to tell me
That you’re the man
That you’re the man
That you’re the man, you’ve got all of the answers
Oh I don’t think you do
And that one came out in ‘04, well before man-bashing became a genteel social convention.
In any case the venerable Verity is back with a band called Memorials with Matthew Simms, a guy with a youthful appearance and lovely long brown hair who gets touted as a member of the seminal new wave band Wire. It’s all a bit confusing, but it turns out he did join Wire in 2010. Who among us hasn’t done a bit of resumé padding? Plus technically it isn’t.
Memorials are pretty great in any case; they sound like melancholy royalty and rock out 60s-80s style or melt into Nico-flavored ballads. “Bell Miner” riffs on “Come Together” by the Beatles, then merges into the fast lane. A bit cheeky to use the word “miner” in a song title when you’re a late addition to Wire, n’est-ce pas?
Do you believe in what you see in dreams?
Knowledge is experimental
The language is breaking down
Do you believe in possibilities?
Naturally occurring histories of
Recurring memories
There is a question turning in my mind
The coast is coming into view
Nothing lasts but it can happen again
The slow descent into you
Norwich’s Brown Horse is not the kind of band I want my friends to know I’m into — they’re earnest, manly, red state red meat rock, the kind of thing that got David Brent going in The Office. In their press materials they namecheck Cat Power and The Breeders, but I’m sorry, I don’t see it — more like Bob Seger, and very much of the dreaded “Americana” genre godhelpus. I’m doing my best not to mention a certain Bruce. Perhaps we could be charitable and suggest a Screaming Trees lineage? They do have a song called “Oblivion.” I really don’t know, but they’ve got tunes and heart and just between us I kinda love ‘em.
Corridors, rambling capillaries
Gaping hell mouth by the door
Takes all day for the tears to start falling
When they hit the ground become nothing at all
You spoke a new word that rhymed right with the feeling
I watched my face change in the mirror by the bar
Lights flash and rain drips from the ceiling
I hope a whip of lightning cuts me right in two
I remember Laibach from the 80s as this sort of monstrous industrial operatic force from some unlikely corner of Eastern Europe. I suppose there’s always been a camp element to what they do but nothing to prepare you for their new single “Allgorhythm” — Milan Fras applying his booming, gravelly vocal gravitas to dizzy 90s Eurovision Eurodance. Not that the song isn’t dark and political, in fact the whole thing, including its vertical TikTok-ready video, is quite meta and dripping in delicious, pounding irony.
There's a lot of talking when Laibach drops a song
Because we do it raw, ignoring every law
We're shattering the rules, we're tearing down the walls
(Hey) Go and do the dance
(Hey) Fall into the bubble trance
(Hey) This is our last chance
(Hey, hey) We all go rhythm
Breakups have their own soundtracks as much as falling in love does, and one of the songs that seared itself into my achey aorta back in ‘16 was “Morris” by Tim Presley — “Let me know when… Let me know when… / Make the most of it / When you tell me that I’m ugly / Don't ever put me on the moon again / Don't ever see the moon again...” Presley is of course AKA White Fence, and has a new one out called Orange that’s maybe not as formally deconstructed as his previous stuff but it’s oh so lovingly crafted with its McGuinn Rickenbacker jangles and George Harrison-adjacent vocals. It sounds like rock music that somehow believes it can get played on Top 40 radio.
So yeah, all in extremely good taste, and this is probably a good place to pivot. The kind of awesome thing about Sexxy Red is the sex goddess presentation paired with her grizzled longshorewoman voice. Here’s a bit of iambic pentameter from the lady bard herself:
Don’t be scared, better come prepared
I can tell I’m not a nerd, you know me, I never cared
I love him, I swear, fuck him good on chair
Fuck him good on couch, big dick like “ouch”
Big dick like a tower, how you fuck me for hours
And I keep that dick hard
’Cause this coochie got powers
When Miss Grit released her debut Follow the Cyborg in ‘23, slowgraffitti was there on the scene to raise a manicured thumb. She’s back with Under My Umbrella, still delivering the best in arty indie dream-pop. I get Blade Runner vibes from the way she layers autotune onto her vocals — like the heartache of a replicant suddenly discovering human feelings from a place of blank-slate innocence. Her production is très bold — from cinematic to clubby to futuristic torch.
Start here
Then start to understand your fear
Forget before your eyes have cleared
Then start it over, snail in my ear
I’ll say it all again this time a little different now
Just when my tourist mind comes back from your head
I’ve never wanted to be so alone
It’s safe
To let your shadow run away
Forgive the animals you’ve made
Your friends are over calling your name
I’ll say it all again this time a little differеnt now
Just when my tourist mind comes back from your head
I’ve never wanted to be so alone
Kneecap are an explosively political Northern Irish hip hop trio who have gotten into all kinds of trouble with various governments for supporting Palestine and Irish Republicanism. Political doesn’t mean dour — they give as good as they get, wise-ass like the Beastie Boys, party-starting and mowing down their critics with precocious wit whilst launching banger after banger like Molotov cocktails. According to Wikipedia, “The name Kneecap is a word play, referring to both the practice of kneecapping, a punishment of gunshots to the knees […] and the Irish phrase "ní cheapaim" (which sounds like "kneecap him"), meaning "I don't think so." If this is what the revolution sounds like, let’s dance please.
Níor chóir glacadh leis, níl maitheas ar bith
[It shouldn’t be accepted, there’s nothing good]
In their politics for you and me
Níor chóir glacadh leis, belly of the beast
Ocras orm arís, [I’m hungry again]
Fenian overseas
Tá mé tinn de bheith i gcónaí [I'm sick of always having to be]
switched on
How come It’s always on me
To be sorting everything, run along fuck sake
I’m sick of you cunts
That’s it I’m going off the grid
faoin tuath chuig Rath Chairn ghlas na Mí [Out in the sticks to the green city of Meath]
Má fheiceann tú sa tsráid me [If you see me in the street]
there’s nothing to see I’m going for a chowder and a dip in the sea
Agus pionta leann dubh [And a pint of stout]
that’s a little bit of me
Indie freaks like you and me can easily get pale and bony and and experts agree that we need more sugar in our diets. So here’s a parfait of Sally-Shapiro-style pop melancholy from Oakland’s Hannah Lew.
In a light beyon
On a snowcapped peak
I saw your face in analogue
Shame was on the other side
Everybody's waiting for the lights to change (Start all over again)
Don't call me by my name (Start all over again)
A little love and a little pain (Start all over again)
I feel the ache on Sunday (Start all over again)
A distorted call (I was calling from afar)
In a distant rage (There's no other in your place)
I didn't miss you at all (Squinting at a blur of light)
I was acting strange (From the backseat of your car)
Oh, you like your pop even girlier? Let’s say goodbye for now over a pink tights and tiara ballad from Australian pop princess Peach PRC. Are her lyrics in some way riffing on the philosophy of the great Joan Osborne? Nah, that’s a stretch.
Eucalyptus, I've never done this
Heard you'll take my grievance, do you really mean it?
I could use it
I know that I said all that shit about God
I think it probably pissed him off
But I've never done this before
I was raised by atheists
Forgive me, I don't know how to pray
Never seen it done
I don't know what to say
I've come to talk, I thought you could be God
Here on this walk, I stopped, stood in the moss
So can you touch me? I know I'm just a wandering spirit
But if you want, this forest can be my religion
Eucalyptus