Indiecast - The Best Sleeper Albums Of 2020

Episode Date: August 7, 2020

On the second episode of Indiecast, Steven Hyden and Ian Cohen dig in on the 2020 albums they think are accessible and easy-to-like, but might not have the big promo push that other records from big-name artists might get. These are albums that thrive on Bandcamp and in the underground, filling basements, but perhaps never get above-board. With their podcast, Hyden and Cohen seek to right this wrong by sharing their best finds from this year. Artists discussed include: Stay Inside, Rose City Band, Ben Seratan, Ezra Feinberg, I’m Glad It’s You, 2nd Grade, Peel Dream Magazine, Wares, Weave, and I Break Horses.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Indycast is presented by Uprox's Indy Mix tape. Hello, everyone, and welcome to Indycast. On this show, we talk about the biggest indie news of the week. We review albums, we hash out trends. And in this episode, we're going to be giving shopping recommendations for Band Camp Friday. My name is Stephen Hayden, and I'm joined by my friend and co-host, Ian Cohen. Ian, how are you? Yeah, shout out Band Camp Friday.

I like it a lot more than Soul Seek Thursday and Skour Wednesday. So, you know, helping out bands a little bit besides the usual, oh, if I'm listening to their music, it doesn't matter how I get it. I mean, I've used that one for a while, but I think Band Camp Friday has just been one of the few, you know, upsides of the total collapse of the music industry as we know it. Yeah, and for those who maybe don't know what we're talking about, Band Camp Friday, of course, Band Camp is a site where bands can post their records. and if you buy your music from that site,

you're pretty much guaranteeing that the artist is going to get more money than they would if you were to stream on Spotify or any other streaming platform. And the great thing about Band Camp Friday is that on this day, if you buy music, the band gets all the money. So this is really the best day to buy music. Now, if you happen to hear this episode after Friday, you should still go to Band Camp because even if it's not Band Camp Friday, it is still the best way to make sure that the artist that we,

love are getting compensated for their efforts. Not to guilt you, but like if you wait a day to buy anything you hear on here, you're just basically taking food out of their mouths, you know, no pressure. Now, on this episode, we're going to be focusing on, I guess what we're calling sleeper albums. And these are records that Ian and I both love. Maybe we've talked about them in social media or we may have even written about them at some point. And the records that we love and we feel like they deserve more attention.

attention, not only because they're great, but we feel that if there was just maybe more coverage of these records, people would get into them. They're all accessible. They're all really easy to like, I think. And it's important, I think, in this moment in time where it feels like even in indie culture, huge pop stars have taken up so much of the oxygen of coverage and conversation that you have to remember, you know, the upstarts too and give them a little attention. And I think, You know, besides like pop stars taking up the attention, and I think we're going to look back in five years and see 2020 as like a 2000 or 2010 where there's just like a consensus of like kind of instant classics that have also kind of taken up a lot of the oxygen as well, which is, you know, it's great to have things that people are excited about. But I mean, for so many reasons, it's profoundly difficult for albums like this to really make any sort of sustained noise. So I think that's what this episode is really focusing on.

Yeah, and, you know, all the indie artists that you love, all the great legacy acts, at some point, they were unknown. You know, it took people to check out their music and start talking about them for them to become the artist that we know and love today. So maybe the legacy artists of the 2020s are going to be among the artists that we talk about in this episode. So. No pressure. No pressure at all. Ian, why don't we get started? What is your first choice today? All right, so we're going to start out with like the deepest of sleepers.

So this is easily the most obscure band we're going to talk about today for a couple reasons. One, they're an emo band and two, they're an emo band from Japan who's been around since 2007. It's not a band like one of these like new acts which you might see band camp folks on as like a scene report. There are a band called Weave and if you are able somehow to find them on spot their biggest song has about 2,000 plays. Like, this is a band you might have heard of if you follow like two or three of the bigger figures on like deep emo Twitter. But and the reason that a lot, they're pretty hard to find is that one thing I've learned

from Friendship International. My friend Kegan does that, does that, you know, does that article for Get Alternative, crucial if you want to learn more about Asia's hardcore emo scene. is that the Japanese music industry is still very much based on CD sales. And so they were very wary of streaming up until now. So we've put out their new album, The Sound 2, in April. And only recently could you find it on YouTube or even Band Camp, for that matter. It, like, just got on Band Camp a couple weeks ago.

And I think with this album, like, if you look at the cover, it reminds me of when I worked for this, like, really terrible comedy record label where we would just like sign up acts and like put out their albums. And I would have to like take their headshot and just do a little Photoshop text on it. Like that's what the album cover looks like. And the thing about this album is it makes me wonder if it's like one of those reply all podcast sort of things where imagine like you think about like all the bands that got like demo deals in the major label days like of 2002 and just kind of amounted to nothing. this sounds like a band that DreamWorks or V2 could have signed in 2003 thinking they're the next Jimmy Eat World and it just never happened and all of a sudden this, you know, Japanese band discovers it and a used CD story. It's like, oh yeah, this is ours.

This album is like a really kind of underappreciated sound now in Emo where it's like that pre-My space but like post-Midwest emo kind of arena sort of sound like Jimmy E. mentioned, jealous sound, knapsack, you know, related, or even like promise ring. And, extremely well produced and, you know, great hooks. And the problem with like an album like this is like, you want to see them succeed, but how can a Japanese emo band succeed in 2020, you know? And like this is where I wish, like, maybe they do an American tour. Maybe American football goes to Japan and like has them open. And so episodes like this is really all they got. So I'm really stoked that we have a venue to talk about it. Yes, the Weave Revolution in America begins with Indycast.

So hopefully, definitely check out their record today. Go on Band Camp, buy it as soon as you get done listening to this episode. The first album I'm going to be talking about is called Atchaprop Alterna. It's by a band called Peel Dream Magazine. And it makes me think about how in the last episode you talked about the band Radio Department and how Summer for you is a good time to listen to Dream Pop Records. And I think that applies for me with this album, because it is like the, I guess, greatest tribute album that I can think of, released in 2020 to like the Dream Pop Giants of the Past.

If you're going to make a criticism of this band, I think you would say that they're, like, pretty derivative. Like, you're going to put on this record, and you're going to hear very strong shades of bands like Stereo Lab, early Yola Tango, early My Bloody Valentine. You know, there's lots of drone, boy girl vocals, really gorgeous pop melodies that are smothered and a lot of noise and fuzz. You know the drill with this kind of record. But I tend to be forgiving of bands that are derivative when they can come up with really great songs. You know, because even if you are a band that wears their influences on their sleeve, I think it's always difficult to write a really good pop song.

In this band, by the way, they're from New York. They are a new band. They were formed in 2017. and this is their second record. I just think that they execute this sound really well. And this record to me, it's just compulsively listenable. It's a record that I tend to put on at least for like 15 minutes every day because it goes down very easy.

And I always love when I hear it. And again, I think it kind of speaks to what you were talking about last week with radio department that there's something about summertime where everything is so beautiful and sunny. You're in San Diego, so it's always beautiful and sunny. But like for me in the Midwest, this is like our time to be outside. There's just something great about that juxtaposition of like beautiful weather and like sad music. And I think this record really delivers in that regard. So again, the band is called Peel Dream Magazine.

The record's called Adiprop Alterna. I definitely recommend picking it up. Yeah. For everything you mentioned, like I was very skeptical of this album for a while because, you know, the band name, the fact that they're from New York, like the reference point. I'm like, if these guys had an uncool day in their lives, it just seemed like the most like New York thing imaginable. And, you know, of course, then I listened to it. I'm like, oh, like, you know, content prior to investigation.

I was completely wrong about this. Yeah, it's a sort of album that like I won't put up as a classic, but I'll probably listen to it more than the albums that are in my top 10 by the end of the year. Yeah, absolutely. Speaking of Brooklyn, the next one I'm going to talk about is a band called Stay Inside. Now, the fact that they're from Brooklyn is interesting for two reasons, which is opposed to the usual zero reasons. Well, for them, it's like they're a straight up post-hardcore emo band, like not emo-flavored indie rock or what have you. And there's literally been, at least up until now, no major emo bands from Brooklyn.

And even New York City is like kind of been dry for this. It's just not very amenable to that style of music. And, you know, what's also interesting is that I, you know, I would expect that, you know, New York would be kind of overcompensating, you know, the way they sometimes do when bands, like, come up in their own area. It's like, oh, yeah, this is like the best, like, post-hardcore band out. But that didn't happen either, which is really, I guess, more indicative of, like, what, you know, New York music writers are into these days or maybe it just doesn't have

the power it used to. But, um, this band stay inside. Uh, they're out waiting. It's been, you know, they've been around for a few years. Barty's strange used to be in this band. I think he's a guy we're probably going to talk about at some point later. year. And what happened is they were going to self-release this album beginning of the year. And then out of nowhere, they get signed by No Sleep. And they're just going to digitally distribute

it, you know, nothing big. And then the quarantine hits. And all of a sudden, they're a band called Stay Inside who's making this very antisocial, like angry post-hardcore album. And people are like, oh, whatever, man. They're just trying to like, almost like trying to like jump the trend, but it was just like a coincidence. The thing about this is they're a band who, you know, it's been an incredible year for Screamo in 2020, but like I can't recommend that stuff if you're not already into Screamo. This band has the same sort of aggressiveness and like that's just dirty, just nasty sound, but the vocals are clean and they also have like, you know, kind of co-ed vocals, but it's not like the Lemoria Tigers Jaws sort of thing. In a weird,

weird way, this is a real centrist kind of album in that it's referential of maybe like early Thursday or cursive. As a matter of fact, cursive and Thursday are doing this like virtual festival and it's like, oh my God, this would be the perfect band to open for them. I think this is an album that would have been much more powerful live, even though like the production is incredible. And this is an album like people weren't really checking for it because no sleep. The label is mostly more kind of pop punky, but like everyone who would like this album has just like been like, yeah, this is the one right here. So if you're kind of looking for like more of a harder edge sort of post-hardcore emo, like maybe Touche Amore or Thursday when they were first getting

started, stay inside waiting. Like they just completely killed this album. And I will say I have not heard this record yet. Like you were introducing me to it. And the way you're describing it, It makes me excited to hear it because with Screamo records, like, all the screaming tends to be a turn off for me. The vocals kind of turn me off. So like a band that has that same kind of muscular guitar, like aggressive sound, but like maybe it has vocals that are a little bit more palatable. It sounds like it'd be definitely in my wheelhouse. Can you give me Screamo without the scream? Yes.

How about, you know, just aggressive singing? Let's call it aggressive singing-o, not scream-o. I'd like Fish if it wasn't for all the guitar solos. Oh, touche, touch. My next record is called Survival. It's by a band from Vancouver called Wares. That's spelled W-A-R-E-S. And this is one of my favorite albums of the year for anything,

not just like Sleeper record, but like I put it on my mid-year, I think, top 20 list. And I actually wrote about this record last month. I did call it like my indie Sleeper album of the year so far. And it's a record, this record in particular, I am really surprised that it hasn't had more of an impact because not only is it really good, but it seems like the kind of record that critics would get behind, but for some reason it hasn't really been talked about a whole lot. I think it part maybe because it came out in April. You know, again, this has been sort of a weird year because obviously people have a lot of other things on their mind other than like, you know, indie records that come out on small labels. I think especially like in March and April

is very easy for people to get distracted and I think a lot of really good records kind of got swallowed up by the pandemic. But again, survival I think is like among the best albums from that period that people ought to go back to. Wares is a band. The focal point is a 27-year-old singer-songwriter named Cassia Hardy.

And she's been pretty prolific in recent years. This is the second proper album, but there's four EPs that Wares have put out. To me, this is by far the most fully realized album that wears has done. This is like a big sounding rock record. Just a beautiful guitar orchestra in the tradition of like records that I know we really like. Bands like Titus Andronicus have often come up in reviews of this record.

It reminds me a lot of like Daydream Nation era Sonic Youth. I hear some shades of like Siamese Dream era smashing pumpkins, some of the Hussger Do energy from like, I guess their later records when their albums got a little bit more polished. Lyrically, it's something of a concept record. It's about a person overcoming trauma, which I think is something that a lot of us can relate to at this moment in time. Hardy happens to be a trans woman who transitioned in the early 2010s, though. When I interviewed her, she was very careful to say that this is not a record specifically about transitioning. for her this is a record that is more broadly speaking about people coming out of isolation and

trying to form a community and again it's a record that I feel like a lot of people like whenever we talk about records now people always want to tie it to the pandemic in some way and there's always some sort of hackneyed uh you know connection and that's what we're going to do right now but I think in this case you know this is again a specific uh record that addresses that idea of needing other people in your life and not self-isolating even if you have to socially distance, I guess, at these moment in time. But even beyond all that, again, this is just a beautiful guitar rock record. And I feel like this is going to be probably an ongoing

theme in this episode, but this is definitely an album where I'm sad that I can't go see Where's live. Like, this is definitely a record I think that would be great live. But it's pretty great on record too. So again, it's called Survival. The band's called Where's. Definitely should check it out. A point of clarification. They're from Edmonton, not Vancouver. Oh, my mistake. I'm sorry. Edmonton's like, they really, they probably really need the, you know, the shout out. Because Vancouver's got so many good bands.

But, yeah, this is an ugly American. I'm an ugly American. Yeah. I mean, this is a record that it took me a little while to get into, because like it was pitched to me as like the cure meets destroy them. It meets against me. And I'm like, oh, shit, I got to hear this. But, you know, there are points where I kind of wanted to step on the gas a bit more. But otherwise, I think this is one that, yeah, if they were playing live right now, there was no way this would be on a sleeper list. Like, this would be straight up, like, best albums of the year.

So I think, you know, with the theme of, like, meeting people, it kind of goes into the album I'm going to talk about next, the guy named Ben Saritan. Now, you know, it's episode two. I can talk about my girlfriend now. We didn't want to scare people on the debut But she grew up in kind of the evangelical church And before her and I met

This was a subset of America Which I had just like no real concept of And now that we've been together for a while Like I kind of see it in everything Particularly with like a lot of bands that I'm into You know like Pedro the Lion Me Without You Arcade Fire has a lot of that going on

The entire catalog of Sufion Stevens And, you know, this album in particular, she heard it and she cried. This is about a guy who, you know, grew up in the evangelical church in Southern California. And this is about him, you know, breaking up with God, you know, just breaking up in a relationship and rediscovering himself in an artistic community in Brooklyn and, like, going out to all night dance parties. And he made an album, which was 24 hours of field recordings, like split up into 48, half hour tracks. But despite like kind of all this high-minded stuff going on, it's still like a

it's still like kind of a singer-songwritery kind of album. Like stuff that like Steve would definitely be into, you know, it's got that kind of Jason Molina, kind of rangy Neil Young sort of porch rock vibe, but also like orchestral Sufion Stevens thing. It's got like the flutes trilling. And, you know, what what this is? album kind of speaks up to me is it I think of it is like almost the inverse of waxahatchy St. Cloud. They came out around the same time.

And I think this is what I was referring to in the beginning where you have like a lot of records from legacy artists that kind of suck up the oxygen. This one is about, you know, whereas St. Cloud's about like getting sober and getting into like really rootsy, you know, formative material. This is more like kind of explosive and celebratory and more about like, not. being sober about like kind of going all night and partying and discovering yourself that way. And yeah, I mean, if this was 2004 and like I hate that I have to frame it through this nostalgic sort of lens because I think it's a very powerful album in 2020.

But, you know, this guy might have been, I don't know, up there with the Venture Banhart or something like that. But, you know, in 2020, it's it's an album that I think if people, you know, just kind of, if it had a little more momentum going into its release. and a little more momentum coming out of it, like the ability to like tour with some bigger bands, you know, like on like a Dead Oceans style band. I think that this would also be something that would set the coordinates for,

you know, like people would really be hyped for his next one. Yeah, I like this record a lot. I think I heard this a couple months ago the first time. And it definitely strikes me as the kind of record that people are going to discover in the ensuing months and maybe even years. It seems like one of those records that is describing a very specific experience. And if you have had that experience,

it sounds like your girlfriend, this applies to her, that it's going to connect with you in a very deep way. It just strikes me as that kind of record that people, like, if you love this record, you will become obsessed with it. It kind of has that quality to it. And Ben's a very infectious guy

like on, in social media and such as well. So it makes you just really want to kind of root for him as well. Yes. Which I think is another major component of it. If I haven't mentioned the name of the album yet, it's Youth Pastoral. Yes, Youth Pastoral. Ben Saritan, definitely go check that record out. The next record I'm going to be talking about is I'm guessing not Ian's bag at all.

This is very much my bag, but I love this record a lot. It's called Summer Long. It's by band called Rose City Band. And look, this has been true for me. Maybe it's true for a lot of you out there. I've been spending a lot of time in my backyard this summer. Obviously, you can't go to bars. You can't go to restaurants.

So I am barbecuing all the time. I'm enjoying cocktails underneath my trees in the backyard. And it's very nice. And the kind of music that you want to listen to, at least for me when I'm in that environment, you know, I mentioned dream pop earlier. I also like a little bit of chugel, if I could call it chugel. C-H-O-O-G-L-E. Of course, a term invented by...

It's your show, Stephen. Call it chugel. It's your show. Well, we know this term from CCR, of course. They invented the term. And to me, what it means is really kind of groovy rock music has a chunky groove to it. That it's rocking, but it's not too rocking. It's like pretty laid back where it just kind of strikes that great middle area of great backyard barbecue music. And to me, that's what summer long is.

Roe City Band is a project headed up by a guy named Ripley Johnson. You might know him from the band, Wooden Ships. He's also half of Moon Duo. And in those groups, he tends to make this, like, sinister, evil-sounding psych rock. It sounds like, you know, Hell's Angels at Altamont type music. But in Ro City band, as I said, he's making Chugal music. It's very vibe. It's very laid back.

Lots of really cool guitar solos. Lots of, again, happy, sunshiny vibes. I would be remiss if I did not mention the Grateful Dead in context with this band, because I think there's some obvious dead influences, although if you're scared of jam bands or, like, jaminess or, like, really kind of long songs, Roe City Band avoids all of that. Their songs are all very compact and melodic and tuneful.

I would like them, too, like, a crunchier real estate. Like, if real estate were, like, we're a little looser, I think they would be, like, Rose City Band. So, again, the record's called Summer Long. Band is called Roe City Band. I think you check this out for like a couple minutes, right? Yeah, I found this because, like, I just been desperate for new music. And I saw off, like, for a while, this had, like, a 95 on Metacritic or something like that,

which is what you see with, like, Fiona Apple or, like, pop punk bands that were reviewed by three albums. And it's like, I listen to it for, like, three minutes. And I'm like, okay, this is, like, the most Stephen Hyden album imaginable. And I can respect that. And I mean, Wooden Ships, I liked one of their songs, like one of the cornerstones of remembering some guys, like right up there with gauntlet hair. Like when I see a Wooden Ships joke on Twitter, I am going to like and retweet that. But I mean, yeah, I imagine this is. And also, I don't know, I'm just trying.

I can't front like I'm not jealous of people who have like backyards and those sort of things. You know, as cool as it is in California, like, what, one of my like guilty. pleasures in the quarantine is like looking up what houses cost in the Midwest, like places like Omaha or you know Tennessee and just like I just becoming like what am I doing with my life? So maybe that's why I don't get this record. Well, what's your next choice? So my next choice is this is definitely a Southern California record. So I'm glad it's you.

Every sun, every moon. It's the classic sophomore level up emo album about someone who died. And I mean, I'm joking. But like it's a very heavy record about like, you know, usually when, you know, emo records or even, you know, most records talk about death. It's like, you know, apparent or they see it coming or it's a little abstract. But this one, Kelly Bader, the vocalist for this band, he was at the wheel of the van that they got into a van accident and their friend Chris Avis died. Like the rest of the band like pretty much walked away with minor injuries. This guy, Chris Avis, he was a friend of the band.

he was a documentarian of the SoCal DIY scene. Just someone who, whose death, like, really was just a terrible thing for, like, the community as a whole. And,

you know, this record struggles with the survivor's guilt of it all. Now, one song, it just says, you know, how come him and why not me? But otherwise,

it's more, like, trying to figure out, like, how the universe works. But also, like, if you're an artist, if,

like, how do you move on? Like, do you continue making music after this? Is it respectful to the artist? Is it disrespectful? Like, what are you supposed to do? And I think when I interviewed the band, they just said, like, you know, what would Chris do? And Chris, obviously, one of them to continue make the record.

And it's, I want to just more focus on, like, how it's the leveling up, you know, because I'm glad it's you as a band that, you know, they were a pretty good band. Like, they had a couple of songs that were all right. nothing can really really all that like special but now with this one you know they had the inspiration they had j robbins producing guy who did nothing feels good um this memberment plan and the songs are just so much bigger and um you know more cathartic and it kind of sits it for all how dark and gripping it is it still sounds something a little between the promise ring and gym blossoms um like if you heard a big sound in like a supermarket, you would think, oh, did I remember that from the late

90s? But, you know, when you listen to the lyrics, it's just very dark reckonings of just like most utmost tragedy. And, you know, this isn't the sort of band where I'd be like, oh, I need to see the slide because like they rock super hard or that there's a type, you know, it's a singer-songwriter who has formed the band around him. But nonetheless, I would just, this is a sort of like thing where if someone connects with it, they're going to connect with it super duper hard. And I think one thing that they also brought up when I interviewed him is like, do we put this album out during the quarantine? Because obviously it was done long beforehand.

But, you know, it's like, do people want to hear this album about death when they're just struggling with whatever it is they're going through? And at the end of the day, they're just like, yeah, we got to do what we got to do. Let's just put the damn thing out and roll the dice. And I think that, you know, that alludes to the thing we were talking about earlier. If a record came out in like March to May or even in June once the protest started, I mean, like, is it like are people really doing themselves a service by listening to an indie rock record that's not a part of the major discourse rather than like, I don't know, doing anything else? So yeah, it's kind of a bummer.

This album didn't quite get the attention. it might have in any other year, but also, like, maybe it wouldn't have gotten that attention in any other year. It's still kind of a poppy emo record. You know, those things aren't really known for, you know, being part of the zeitgeist. Yeah, yeah, this is a record that I've heard. I really liked it. I mean, this tends to be, like, the emo record, the kind of emo record that I respond to the most, where, as you said, this is a record that is drawing on, like, 90s alternative rock influences. It has, like, really good guitar tones. It's basically the kind of record that like, I guess mainstream indie bands don't make anymore. And you could even say that

it's looked at as being passe in like mainstream indie circles. So like you have to go to the emo and like punk side of the of the spectrum to like hear records like this. And so I always appreciate like when bands can deliver that kind of like shiny, catchy alternative rock influence guitar record. Yeah. One of the things that I think I need to mention that like you're You'll probably appreciate it. I mean, like, I think he also was raised in, like, kind of a, like, kind of a, a very, a secluded youth. And he just, like, now discovered Bowie and Zeppelin.

And, like, that's what, like, he discovered that in, like, his 20s. So I think that's where this record kind of gets its, like, grandiosity. It's like, oh, wow, like, you can make big rock now. Right. Well, yeah, exactly. The kids need to be reminded of the big rock. Sometimes it's not, because it's not. not as like up front as it used to be. So it's nice when that can be discovered by the kids.

My next record is much different from the record you just talked about. And again, I'm guessing that this is not Ian Cohen music, but it's definitely Stephen Hayden music. I love this record. It's called Recompan Speech. It's by a guy named Ezra Feinberg. He's a guitarist and composer. I think he's in New York. I knew him from his old band Cete. I know them. Yeah, they were They were a band from the a band from the aughts. They made this sort of jammy, psych rock that had like really cool, like soft rock and even like New Age touches to it. And Satay was always to me like this really fun kind of guitar music for heads, essentially.

Well, on his own, he goes even deeper in that direction, much more into sort of the ambient and New Age style with, again, some really great. kind of psychedelic aspects to it. This record recumbent speech, it's made up of just these sprawling instrumental tracks that remind me a lot of like the Prague records and, again, like the ambient records that I love from the 1970s. So, you know, records by people like Brian Eno, for instance, or like the early Pink Floyd, you know, like metal era Pink Floyd or Mike Oldfield of like tubular Bell's fame, you know,

people like that. Also reminds me at times of like the spacier. parts of the Virgin Suicide soundtrack by Air, which is like a huge album for me. I love that record. Also, Jim O'Rourke, if you're familiar with his, I guess, for him, his more pop-oriented records, he has an album called The Visitor, which is like a 38-minute composition, which is just a great, great record. I think recumbent speech is definitely reminiscent of that as well. And yeah, on this record, you're going to hear like traditional rock instrumentation. You know, there's guitar bass and drums, but then there's also like flutes and like vintage synths and

all that kind of stuff. And again, like as someone like me, like I really respond to cool instrumental tones. Like if you have cool sounding instruments, I'm with you like 80% of the way. And this record just sounds fabulous. Also it has like some really great support players, including John McIntyre of the band Tortoise. There's also a pedal steel player named Chuck Johnson, who, put out some of his own records that are really cool. So again, this is like a record that you put on,

and it seems like pretty chill. It's very soothing. But I think the deeper you get into it, there's also like some really kind of spooky and even like haunting aspects to it. It's definitely, again, like to tie it into the moment that we're in, to make another hackneyed connection to the quarantine. This is definitely the kind of album

that if you're in your apartment or your house by yourself and you're putting on the headphones, you're going to venture deep into yourself when you listen to this record and maybe that's a scary thing for some people at this moment in time but I don't know for me the meditative quality of this record

makes me come back to it all the time so again it's called recumbent speech the artist is Ezra Feinberg and yeah definitely recommend checking it out yeah Chuck Johnson the pedal steel player not like the BuzzFeed plagiarism right wing guy that's such an unfortunate name

yeah nah me there's nothing I hate more than cool sounding instruments. Oh, man. No, this is an album I would probably check out because, you know, I like Jim O'Rourke. I like Virgin Suicides. But, you know, you're right in that like instrumental kind of jammy sort of things and like Sitae.

I mean, that is like deep remembering some guys. Like to that, like comparatively like wooden ships might as well be like, you know, war on drugs. But anyway, speaking of synthesizers, another incredible segue. We're going to remember some guys. If there's anything we do here, it's particularly remembering some guys from the early 2010s. Now, you would think this would be a Stephen Hayden choice because they're a band called I Break Horses, which is a reference to a smog song. And yet they're a Swedish synth pop band that sounds absolutely nothing like Bill Callahan.

They were around in the early 2010s, kind of doing like an arena rock synth style, like indie rock that, you know, not like the way you would think of it with like purity ring and churches, but more like School of Seven Bells or M83 prior to Midnight City. And they opened for M83. So they put out an album in 2011. First three songs are incredible and then the rest of it just completely forgettable. same with the second record. I found I reviewed those albums and you know, you forget a lot of albums you reviewed

if you do this for long enough. But, you know, when they came back in 2020, like six years after their second album, I mean, I still spent hours of my life listening and considering the band I break horses. So, I mean, I owe it to myself to see what they've been up to. And also, what the heck do I have better to do?

Well, any horses band, you're on board with, right? I mean, it's like, oh, it's like, I love band of horses. This is like the opposite of band of horses. This band breaks horses. Yes, exactly. So, you know, I got to check this out. Yeah, so, and there's like a trick that gets played on me sometimes where if I get far enough from the time when a new album comes out, I start to reconsider.

It's like, oh, maybe I should check that out. Like, I've had that impulse with, like, maybe I should reconsider like parquet courts or Mac to Marco, you know, maybe now that like their moment is sort of kind of past, I can like, you know, dig into them with new ears. And when I first heard the first single from I Break Horse's new record warning, it's like, wait, this sounds like actually, it's like, does this sound good? Because it's completely sounds nothing like the zeitgeist of indie rock or is this like actual good, good, you know? Is it my own nostalgia at play or have they just like completely leveled up and just made a great record when no one expected. And I think it's the latter now that I've

heard the entire record. They've made an album that like kind of perfects what they've been trying to do on the earlier ones, which is do the kind of beach house sort of thing where the vocals are very like kind of passive and gauzy. And there's a shoegaze element to it, but it's not really shoe gaze, but also throwing in like some of the craftwork, RPGated synths and, um, dance, adjacent, but not really.

Um, it's the sort of, it's the sort of album that like, I would love to see a laser light show if they were able to have a laser light show nowadays, um, you know, playing that like 7 p.m.

festival slot or just playing, you know, the thousand cap room. Um, and what this record, you know, what stands out of, to me not just like how it's a great record that sounds like very little else in 2020, but it

just makes me think about like how much momentum is, you know, comes into play when we're talking about like whether or not a band gets recognized because, you know, if this was their second album put out in 2014, after their kind of fuzzy 2011 album, I think it would, you know, just no way it would be on a sleeper list. But I just think about like all the bands that were maybe. you know, around in the early 2010s who people kind of forgot about. And, you know, what if they're really making their masterpiece? But like, you can't, like, drum up that excitement, you know, leading up to it. Like, what if tennis is out there making a masterpiece? They're actually, their new record's actually pretty good. But maybe a bad example. But it just, it just makes me

think of, like, how many bands, like, may have been buzzy for a moment. And then, like, they get better with time. I think we saw that with, say, Simblesi guitars, you know, like they had their buzz moment. People kind of forgot about them and they were making these incredible records. But people like, yeah, that's not really what we're into nowadays. But for, you know, not just for people who, you know, want to be nostalgic for the early 2010s. This album is, you know, it's different than anything else on this list. But it's just this massive out of time record that makes you think about like, being in a planetarium, which maybe that's the way you want to deal with, you know, the quarantine.

Like, if you want to, like, escape, then I think this is a great record for that. Yeah, and this record, too, I don't think I really listened to I Break Horses before this album. I saw some people talking about it here and there on Twitter as probably, you were probably one of those people. And I definitely checked it out. And, yeah, like, for all the reasons that you talked about, like, the reference points, the M83, the sort of like arena synth sound of this record that I really get into. I tend to really like records like that.

I've really responded to it. Also, just to follow up on something you said before, but how do you uncover these like underappreciated masterpieces? Well, that's why we have this show. And hopefully, you know, with critics, I mean, that is our job, is to find records that are not being talked about in the larger culture and to give them a bit of a boost. That's news to me.

Because again, you know, when it's the same record being talked about everywhere, you know, we kind of get the point. Like we know that that record exists. And if it's a record by someone who's extremely famous already, you know, they don't really need critical help to get the word out. So, you know, hopefully other people are field and boldened to lift artists up. Like the last band that I'm going to talk about today, which is a band called Second Grade, and their record hit to hit. Now, this is a band from Philadelphia, and I've seen them described as a supergroup, but I think you have to be, like, you have to be, like, pretty familiar with, like, Philly's DIY scene to qualify second grade.

Supergroup means, like, two bands that have been reviewed in pitchfork, you know? Right, exactly. Yeah, but, like, if you are a Philadelphia rock stand, though, you might recognize some of the members from groups like remember sports or friendship. But for me, like, second grade is my favorite thing. thing to come from these musicians. And hit-to-hit specifically, I think, really marks like a high watermark for them as a band and as songwriters. I will say that like hit-to-hit, it definitely pushes like a lot of my aesthetic buttons. This is like definitely like a record that is designed for

people like me. It clocks in at 24 tracks, which take up only 41 minutes of space. So most of the songs only lasts about a minute or two. And, you know, that kind of track list that immediately brings to mind one of my favorite bands of all time guided by voices. And there's definitely like some similarities between second grade and GBV. You know, you have the short song links. A lot of these songs are, you know, they sound like they were recorded very quickly and maybe even written very quickly. But then they're interspersed with these just wonderful pop songs that sound like they're inspired by, you know, some of the greatest classic rock ever, you know, like the Beach Boys, big star.

I detect, like, some Being There era Wilco in some of the more countryish songs on this record. It's just one of those albums that, like, it feels like it's sprawling and it feels like it's bursting with ideas, but it's actually at the same time pretty breezy and it, like comes and goes, like I said, in just about 40 minutes. And again, it just covers a lot of ground. in that amount of time. So again, like, if this is the kind of record that you think you would like, you know, again, like a record with a lot of songs that are loaded with, like, pop culture references

from any, from, you know, referencing everything from like David Foster Wallace to the film Easy Writer, you know, really funny lyrics, but again, just great melodies. And just like enough noisiness to balance out some of the, again, just like the shiny poppiness of some of the other tracks. This I think, again, is just like another kind of great summertime record. So again, it's called hit to hit. The band is called second grade. And, yeah, I can't recommend it highly enough.

Yeah, when I was looking for candidates for this, like, I didn't know you had this on the list, but I kind of thought like, second grade, I've heard things that might make this a good candidate. And I listen to it and I'm like, this is the second most Steve Hyden album. I've heard a 2020 next to Rose City band. Yeah, I think that this, you know, I enjoy it as well. I think that if I were, you know, as you say, like a Philly indie rock stand, like if I were the, I just think of like someone who may have like been super, like they're just kind of getting out of being super into bands like modern baseball and they're in college now and kind of getting into more indie rock. Like they might think like this is the greatest record I've ever heard in my life. And I think it really is like a gateway to, you know, some of the stuff that you've mentioned like,

Wilco, like early Wilco, guy to buy voices. It just kind of proves that there's still like a resilience and a relevancy to this kind of music amongst the kids, even if it isn't like at the center of what indie rock is considered in 2020. We've now reached the point of our episode that we call Recommendation Corner, where Ian and I talk about one thing that we're really enjoying this week, it might be a book, might be an album, might be a film. And you might be asking yourself, like, didn't you guys just give a bunch of recommendations?

recommendations in the body of this podcast. And he's like, yeah, you're right. But you know what? We still like forcing our preferences on people even more. So we're going to give one more recommendation each. I'll go first. A book I've been reading this week is Remain in Love by Chris France. Chris France, of course, is the drummer of the Talking Heads. Or I guess I should say the former drummer of Talking Heads. And this is a memoir where he writes about his life and his marriage to bassist Tina Weymouth. Of course, she's a member of Talking Heads as well. But I think the bulk of the book and the reason why people are going to want to read it is that he's talking about his experience in Talking Heads. And specifically, the struggles that he had with

the lead singer of that band, David Byrne, you know, I feel like when we talk about Talking Heads now, 90% of the conversation is about David Byrne. And people look at him as the autour of that band, as the genius of that band. And Chris Franz in this book, and I think he makes a convincing case that, like, talking hits were actually much more of a collaborative effort than people might think. And the reason why David Byrne gets so much credit

in Chris Francis' estimation is that David Byrne actually takes a lot of the credit from his bandmates, even for things that they contribute. Like, he talks about the song Warning Sign, for instance, and how he said that he wrote the majority, or maybe even all the lyrics to that song. And then it ended up on the second Talking Heads record, more songs about buildings and food.

And it says, written by David Byrne. And apparently this happened many times throughout the band's career. It's an old story. You know, we've heard this about other bands as well. But the thing I like about this book is not only because I'm a big talking heads fan and I'm curious about how the band worked. But I think Chris Fants, he's able to balance, I guess, the more gossipy elements of this book with like an authorial,

voice that is like pretty warm and engaging. Like it'd be very easy for him to come off as bitter in this book, but I, he doesn't come off that way to me. Like he seems like a pretty nice, well-humored guy. And he's a very engaging host, you know, to come along with as he tells this story. I should also mention that like I was the co-author of a book written by a drummer who talked about how crazy his lead singer was. So I may just be very amenable to books like this.

But if you're a Talking Heads fan or you just like Good Rock Books in general, I would recommend Remain in Love by Chris France. Ian, what's your pick? Yeah, I mean, in the annals of like drummer-written gossip-dishing, it's not quite the one that you did, but I would still recommend it as well. But as far as mine, now I wrote a newsletter, Ian Cohen.com, about like what it was like writing about the emo revival for like pitchfork, spin, stereo, gum and you know i mentioned that i was i wasn't there in like 2006 to 2012 where the stuff was like actually happening and what that prompted uh some of my friends like laris gotrich and also david anthony he wrote a piece about like actually being there at fest and being there in the die y scene like essential essential essay and one of the bands he talked about was good luck now

they put out a couple albums they were from bloomington Indiana. And at the time, they were like a very exciting band for people who were like really ensconced in the emo scene. It's like, and I basically had not really, I mean, I kind of knew of them, but I hadn't really listened to them. And Dave's point was that in the kind of retelling of the emo revival, a lot of history gets changed. Like all of a sudden, Alginon Cadwell Otter is like this like a godlike band. But what he was saying is that, the time like something like bridge and tunnel and good luck were actually what was popping and I listened to their debut into Lake Griffey and I'm just sort of shocked that like how is this

not seen as canon? It's a bit more folk punk. It's a bit, there's some songs that could almost be considered ska, but it's still that very energetic like co-ed vocals, screamy, but poppy sort of sound that like like, like People consider like, yeah, 2008 emo right there. And I think with this album, besides being just like an incredible record that hasn't gotten anywhere near as much attention it deserves, it really makes me consider like how history gets rewritten by people, you know, such as myself and Steve where it's like, you know, like are we doing it a service by not like talking about to the people who are actually there. And like what would it be like if good luck were the ones topping all these lists as opposed to the ones that are? because, you know, Algernon, Tiger's Joth, they stuck around.

But good luck. You know, all that stuff was lost to, you know, was on like message boards and websites that have just completely disintegrated because that's what happens on the internet. Like sites go down. So good luck until like Griffey. Also on band camp, highly recommend it. So we just gave you tons of recommendations out there, tons of albums, one book. Hopefully one of these things at least will be a.

appealing to you and it will help make your weekend and beyond a little bit better. And if you're looking for more music recommendations, sign up for the Indie Mixedape newsletter. You can go to uprocks.com backslash indie and I recommend five albums per week and we'll send it directly to your email box. As it is, that is the end of this episode. So thank you so much for listening to this installment of Indycast. We will be back with more indie rock talk next week.