Another week, another list of things that I enjoyed or consumed and felt strongly enough to talk about. To be frank, I often feel strongly enough about things to talk about them. I’m a talkative dude! That’s why I have a newsletter! I’ve given letter grades to some of the things I’ve reviewed here. I don’t wish to assign number values and a grade feels better than a number. If you’d like me to review your album in this weekly newsletter that goes out to hundreds of people, feel free to send a link to listenupnerds@gmail.com. All submissions welcome, regardless of genre or level of success. Everything will be heard.
Deathcrash - Less
The English are so good at making slowcore. The London band has returned for another full length with Less, a record about doing less than they did with their previous effort, Return. How did they return after Return with more but the album is called Less? I’m not sure. It’s almost designed to be a tongue twister for music journalists. Anyway this is another melancholy record from good ol’ Grey Britain (no Gallows). It sounds like the sun poking through on the ugliest day of the year. There’s a lot to love when it comes to lush and evocative guitar tones on here, as they whimper compared to some of the throbbing and bloated bass lines on it. I don’t want to compare them to Mogwai, whose mastery of loud-soft dynamics changed my life. Hearing “Like Herod” when I was 17 sent me down a post-rock path I’ve never quite strayed from, looking up guitar pedals and amps and gear and humbuckers and coils upon hearing any racket that can only be described as “Infernal.” There are some moments on Less that remind me of the Scottish band’s prettiest moments. I listened to this record for the first time while walking from my apartment in Bed Stuy to see the Denver Nuggets play the Brooklyn Nets at Barclays Center. It was a pretty great game but I think the writing is on the wall when it comes to the Nuggets. I predict another Western Conference Finals trip but I think they bow out before the Finals. Michael Porter Jr.'s statlines look great but his style of play is forced and frustrating the rest of the team. Aaron Gordon’s return to earth after his meteoric rise at the beginning of the season reminds us that we’re all human when it comes down to it, and that redemption is never eternal. On a long-enough timeline, we’re all doomed. And yet, sometimes, a little light sneaks in through the clouds. Maybe that’s just the Deathcrash record talking. B+
100 Gecs - 10,000 Gecs
The girls who get it, get it. The girls who don’t, don’t. If you’re a Gecs fan, you will love this record. If you’re not a Gecs fan, I’m not sure this will convert you. I do think you’ll find something to love. There’s a line in the Pitchfork review of this record where the author says that listening to it is “Like being hit in the face with a pie for 26 minutes straight.” That is, without a single doubt in my mind, the best summary of this record. It’s a fun listen where Laura Les and Dylan Brady are less “doing a bit” and more telling you some jokes for a half-hour. Contemporaries in bands like Cheem are doing sketch comedy or even making a sitcom out of their records, operating within a set of boundaries and half-winking at the camera. The Gecs are telling standup jokes in the form of music for 26 minutes straight, unwavering from having fun. This isn’t to say that these kinds of bands are insincere, but to say there isn’t absurdity is to see the forest of freedom for its trees. A
Scream 6
I went to see Scream 6 last week on a whim because I’m unemployed and this is what unemployed people do. We apply to jobs and then say “Now what? Guess I better do something good for myself and for my substack.” I got a sandwich (The Macho from Court St Grocers in Williamsburg, a sort of bbq pork and jalapeño situation with a few other accoutrements) and then I hit the theater. This movie was two hours of the most inconsequential drivel I’ve seen in horror in years. I’ve tried to be diplomatic in talking to friends about it because I think everyone should make up their own mind, but it sucked. It's a streaming-level schlockfest designed to pack out a theater for exactly one night. None of the characters were redeeming, everything felt hollow, and the one cool moment where this Ghostface proves how different he is from the others is never revisited. Everything promising about New York as a “scary backdrop” is forgotten save for one set piece. Even something like Friday the 13th Pt VIII: Jason Takes Manhattan has more New York in its blood and that movie is only in Manhattan for the last 20 minutes or so. At one point, Ghostface blusters, “Who gives a fuck about movies?” to a victim. The writers of this movie don’t give a fuck about this one. D+
Oneohtrix Point Never - Replica
Earlier this week, I downloaded a virtual replica of an Akai MPC 2000XL. It’s a somewhat unwieldy little plugin that I had to remap in a few ways to feel comfortable with it. I’m not much of a musician and even less of a percussionist, so the results were less than spectacular. I will not be headlining Rolling Loud any time soon. After I played with that, I spent a solid amount of time revisiting my favorite 0PN record. Replica is a remarkable achievement in Making Cool Noises. It’s hard to find something that tickles my spine in a similar way. There’s something in the blips and tinks of the sampler on this album that makes me shiver. People who have spent more time with this record can say some more profound things about it than I can, but 0PN’s ability to loop and sample the same things over and over and over again until you find new meaning amongst the rubble of sounds he just clipped and destroyed is beautiful. Even if that’s not your bag, I defy you to hate on the sound of this record through airpods at 8 AM while eating a bagel smothered in cream cheese and drinking some of the most robust and offensively strong coffee you can find. It’s a full sensory experience that I replicate at any chance I get.
Glen E Friedman on The Nine Club
I’m not a regular listener of The Nine Club, but I pop in from time to time if the guest is good. This guest is good. Well, to say Glen E. Friedman is a “good podcast guest” is to say that Randy Johnson was a “good bird hunter.” It’s purely incidental but it’s still factual. Friedman is an incredible photographer who was around some very cool scenes as they started. His work has graced iconic album covers and the walls of teen bedrooms throughout the country. There are two diametrically opposed roads to success that meet in this podcast. Friedman’s dedication to making good art and staying true to yourself is one road, and the other road is that if you do something consistently enough, everyone else will fall by the wayside, and that’s The Nine Club. They’re not a good podcast but they’ve been doing it forever so they’re The Podcast when it comes to skateboarding. Usually, The Nine Club is good about giving guests enough rope to hang themselves if they say something stupid. When you have someone articulate and smart like Friedman, the show becomes a pulpit where he can preach for two hours. It rocks. It’s so refreshing to have someone be a little less than humble about their work because it means they were truly invested in it. It’s also refreshing to have someone live by their own rules and be truly convicted. Worth a watch even if skateboarding minutiae isn’t your thing but much more rewarding if it is your thing.