November/December 2025
actually more post-punk, with a nice tang at the treble end of things
I feel like I’ve been all business in this blog — knocking out review after capsule review with the precision of a BMW engineer, but in the process of migrating my back stories from Wordpress to Substack I realize I used to also make a point of oversharing about my life. For better or for worse I’m off the dating apps atm, so not a lot of interesting love foibles to share… I have however been to some concerts I should tell you about.
Back in September, Goon at the Echo was an oddly mixed bag — we got there a few nanoseconds late and found the band playing with a truly awful sound mix — like you could only hear the lead singer and the way too loud drums, so their heavenly harmonies were totally lost! Eventually they made some adjustments, and I did at least get to swoon properly to “This Morning Six Rabbits Were Born” and “Patsy’s Twin.”
A few days before Halloween Ela Minus played the same club, downstairs in the Echoplex where, oddly enough, the sound was sensational. She had her elaborate equipment on display, facing the audience to accommodate the gearheads, and made a spectacular entrance, stepping into a cluster of converging light beams. But after that it was basically one of those shows where a solo electronic musician has to create some kind of visual impact, and Ela hasn’t quite cracked the code; she sort of just repeated a back and forth across the stage pretty person dance — with supreme confidence to be fair — but it was a bit of a let down considering how much I’ve worshipped the goddess energy on her DÍA album. Kind of similar to the Bolis Pupul show at El Cid a few months earlier, which felt more like a DJ set.
Best of all was Melt Banana at Teragram a few days before my birthday. I wish I had brought good quality ear-plugs because they were hellaciously loud; in fact the hellacious opening act was already deafening the children when I got there. I asked for a pair from the woman behind the bar and she looked ready for a fight as she informed me that “they’re TWO DOLLARS!” The Bananas were everything punk rock has ever aspired to be and also way more than that — practically an art form unto themselves. I was convinced it was two women, I guess because the guitar player’s name is Agata, and I marveled at her boyishness, but later I found out Agata’s his last name; Ichiro Agata is a zero body fat for life XY. In any case I knew I was in the presence of one of the great guitar gods, annihilating planets and galaxies with his riffs from behind a COVID mask. Not to mention magical banshee frontwoman Yasuko O. I can die happy knowing I got to experience “Shield for Your Eyes” live.
But we have some recorded music to catch up on before 2025 starts to shrink in the rear-view mirror. If you’re in the mood for minimalist, manly music for less-than-manly men, you’re probably a. me, and b. in need of the new one from Bruise Blood, alarmingly titled You Run Through the World Like An Open Razor. Apparently London’s Mike Bourne was inspired by the stuffed parrot that has a curse on it that’s immortalized on the album cover. There’s quite a bit of pummeling on offer, sometimes with a side of gothy and corroded dream pop, and it wraps up with an 8-minute Philip Glass-esque texturescape — with more pummeling. A lush and lovely nightmare.
LA’s Henry Laufer, aka Shlohmo, did a bit of world-rocking for me back in the early teens but was firmly off my radar until like yesterday — his new one Repulsor is end to end grunge and goosebumps, applying rough textures to a spectrum of genres from moody electronica to Black Metal-adjacent, mauling listeners into meaty delirium. It’s like Nine Inch Nails meets the Pixies meets Godspeed You! Black Emperor, with the sweetest chord changes buried under all the racket à la My Bloody Valentine. Our little genius incidentally has the good taste to feature Angelyne in his “Chore Boy” video.
Silvia Jiménez Alvarez, aka JASSS, broke out of Asturias, Spain in ‘17 with a rather severe techno-industrial sound and made a moody and more melodic follow-up in ‘21, but her new one Eager Buyers is on another level, seeming to grow from the earth, muddy and magnificent. It’s music for cruising, music for sex; its darkness is alive and hungry. Alvarez unfurls luxurious carpets of tone and texture, bringing to mind Massive Attack circa Mezzanine, but casting an even wider net. On “Sand Wrists” she shifts from a vaguely Elizabethan motif to squalls of abrasion and then electronic dissonance. Prosaically titled “It’s a Hole” serves up what it says on the tin, all irresistible siren coos and moans over a shuffling, gem-encrusted beat.
Straight out of Beirut, SANAM have created a brilliant hybrid of traditional Arab and Lebanese song and experimental noise rock. Sametou Sawtan starts with a series of gasps, followed by front-woman Sandy Chamoun taking the reins and moving through dramatic maqam melodies with astonishing power and control, against the band’s bold, theatrical arrangements, from exquisitely delicate to harsh and pummeling. Nine and a half minute show-stopper “Hamam” is quite the little rock opera. “Habibon” is a seduction hidden inside a delicious lament.
Wow, why so serious this month, Paul? Is black how you feel on the inside? No, you’re right, we need a little party break, and fortunately I just came across this little 1984 vocodered gem from the early Brooklyn hip-hop scene and the extended universe of Kraftwerk and Egyptian Lover. As my clued-in comadre Larry pointed out, “Computer Age (Push the Button)” is not the big hit off Newcleus’ debut album, but that just makes it extra-special. Its lyrics are also very 2025.
Are we under their control, or are they under our control, or what?
Push the button
Computer age is now
Everyone must have a machine
They say it’s gonna make life easier
Well, I can’t stand it
They say we should put them in control
Well, maybe next we’ll give them a soul
I guess we must now think that we’re gods
While we’re less men than ever (ever)
Montréal’s Hélène Barbier serves up a bit of 60s yé-yé vibe with her honeyed/breathy vocals, but her guitar-bass-drums sound is actually more post-punk, with a nice tang at the treble end of things. Her sharp angles and diagonals remind me a bit of Wombo. She seems to run 80s urban angst through a languorous contemporary filter, spiked with jolts of espresso.
Finally going out
I’m wearing cactuses
I know I just arrived
But I’m ready to leave
I’m ready to leave
Such a lovely sight
The park and its greenery
If I see a streetlight
I know it’s time to sleep
I know it’s time to sleep
Milquetoast, Milquetoast, Milquetoast, Milquetoast
Palooka 5 bill themselves as a sci-fi surf band inspired by the B52’s; they’re middle-aged and based in Somerset, far from any cool scene. But their new one Metrokino is all shimmering, kinetic soundscapes with cascades of retro synths and theremins and autotuned lady vocals. It was created as a modern score to Fritz Lang’s Metropolis, and actually has a kind of 80s soundtrack vibe, with lavish, up-to-date production. But it’s also a party record, particularly when the band’s surf roots start growing in.
I was doing some research trying to figure out which 80s soundtracks exactly Palooka 5 reminded me of, and spent some time with Slava Tsukerman’s score for Liquid Sky, which doesn’t fit the bill but is a splendid thing in its own right. “Me & My Rhythm Box” goes without saying, but the whole record captures an archly scary and slightly ridiculous tone, somewhere between the Residents and a caricature of olden-time horror movies.
Steve Gunn has been loping around the indie cosmos for a good 15 years, but he just got slowgraffitti’s attention with his vaporous Daylight Daylight album. There’s a remarkable quietness to the album: turn up the volume and it doesn’t seem like it actually gets any louder. It’s like an eddy, or a folk-infused miniature; it makes you want to get closer and look inside. There’s a bit of an Amen Dunes vibe to opener “Nearly There,” which seems to describe sweet longings for a lovely death.
Now come along (sky), keep on
Distance is growin’
We’re nearly there
Now come along (sky), beloved
And soon we shall be there
Then we’ll have some good rest
And sleep there
Already the sky is singin’
Already the bells are ringin’
Already the story’s written
Your name up there
Hilary Woods’ dark expressions of spirit have been haunting my stereo since her 2018 debut Colt, and her new one Night CRIÚ is maybe her weightiest yet — slow, sweet, mournful, resigned to the strange patterns of fate. It has a feeling of bones buried in rich, damp soil; cold and fog; midnight mass; death and resurrection. Delightfully Irish in other words. Her lyrics carry the weight of oceans, and on “Faults” she builds to a kind of angelic evocation:
I had wanted you to hold my hand
Hear my footfall reach out, understand
I could not form into words these things
I could not find ways to make them seen
Take me, Lord, oh, as I am
Faults and all, I’d live again
Do you know the way another moves?
Do you know the way that I’ve attuned?
Can you feel the rose inside the thorn?
Gifted in these arms that I have worn
Take me, Lord, oh, as I am
Faults and all, I’d live again