It’s Friday, which means the weekend is nearly here, and much rejoicing will be done all round. It also means it’s time to survey the best new music released in the last week, which this time around encompasses Joanna Gruesome doing an excellent Galaxie 500 cover, the first taste of the new Against Me! record, a new project for Grouper’s Liz Harris, the return of Xeno & Oaklander, and David Lynch proving he still does “creepy” like no one else. All this action is streaming for precisely $0, so click through and have a listen.
Joanna Gruesome — “Tugboat”
Well, this is many kinds of excellent — the much-hyped Joanna Gruesome covering Galaxie 500’s ode to Sterling Morrison, and doing a fine job of it indeed. The song starts out sounding not unlike a distortion-drenched version of the original, but things get darker and weirder toward the end. It works a treat.
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Against Me! — “FUCKMYLIFE666”
The first taste of the new Against Me! album. It’s fair to say a great deal has changed since the band’s last record — the most dramatic change, of course, is Laura Jean Grace’s transition to living as a woman, but there’s also been the departure of two band members. You’d never know it listening to this, though — “FUCKMYLIFE666” is exactly the sort of catchy, anthemic punk rock Grace has always done so well. Huzzah.
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Raum — “Blood Moon”
I’m always happy to hear anything new from Liz Harris, and this track — from her new project with Jefre Cantu-Ledesma — essentially sounds like a Grouper track layered over the sound of an amp melting (like the one on Sonic Youth’s “Providence”). It’s great.
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Xeno & Oaklander — “Par Avion”
Xeno & Oaklander headlined a killer bill in New York last night — with Azar Swan, Eraas, and Soviet Soviet — and your correspondent is kicking himself for missing it. From the sounds of this new track, too, Xeno & Oaklander are in excellent form. This fine example of their trademark icy neo-coldwave bodes well for their new album, which is out next year via Ghostly.
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David Lynch — “Bad the John Boy”
And finally, this is terrifying. The ceaseless Twin Peaks mania of the last couple of years means that we may well have reached peak David Lynch, but the great man still retains his power to conjure some decidedly sinister and evocative atmospheres in whatever his chosen medium of the moment might be. This track is actually better than anything on either of his albums, for what it’s worth.