Merpire
Milk Pool
Written around the end of a long-term relationship, the second album from Melbourne musician Rhiannon Atkinson-Howatt centres on the process of reclaiming joyfulness, as well as her physical and emotional selves, while shedding the anxieties that fuelled her debut.
From the outset, this is an unflinchingly honest, exhilaratingly anthemic set. Its big, darkly gleaming songs recall 90s US alt-rock and punk-pop whilst largely dodging specific comparisons and showcasing its author’s lustrous knockout voice.
Atkinson-Howatt recognises that you can’t expunge the past, only acknowledge and accept it. It’s an idea that runs through several tracks, from ‘Leaving With You’, about the uncertainty of a crush, ‘Cinnamon’, about an old memory stored in smell, and the celebratory ‘Fishing’, which reflects on her experiences of finding comfort in a community of peers during tough times.
There are faint echoes of Sharon Van Etten’s highly charged pop, of Garbage and Alanis Morrissette, but Atkinson-Howatt’s desperate yearning also has an edge that is all her own. Milk Pool is only partly a break-up album: mostly, it’s a soaring affirmation of the will to thrive. As she wisely notes in ‘Retriever’, “life doesn’t wait on tables”.
Label: Merpire
Wet Leg
Moisturizer
Wet Leg’s self-titled debut album was a rare overnight hit, earning its creators two GRAMMY awards, two Brit awards and a UK No. 1, as well as a strong fanbase in the US. This kind of instant success can bring a great deal of pressure when it comes to writing follow-ups, but if Wet Leg felt any trepidation, they haven’t let it show. Instead, their second album Moisturizer powers forward into terrain so fresh, confident and dynamically charged, they barely sound like the same band.
The group’s expansion (founding members Rhian Teasdale and Hester Chambers now share writing with a bigger lineup) has certainly played a part in this evolution, along with a strong desire to have fun performing tracks live.
Grubby post punk, noughties electro, shoegaze, ’90s indie and alt-metal are all in the mix, and there’s a sense of playfulness, raw energy and sonic subversion that runs throughout. Its tracks are inspired by Teasdale’s experience of new love, but romantic giddiness hasn’t dented her scathing wit and sense of the absurd. “You think I’m pretty, you think I’m pretty cruel/ You say I scare you?/I know, most people do/This is the real world, honey, bienvenue” from track ‘Mangetout’, for example, feels like a typical Teasdale zinger.
Label: Domino
Ryan Davis & The Roadhouse Band
New Threats From The Soul
The phrase ‘roadhouse band’ conjures up country-blues rock of a familiar, very basic kind, knocked out in non-descript bars on the outskirts of towns across America. Though the idea of community holds with his simpático players, Ryan Davis’s music is anything but basic.
The Louisville singer/songwriter’s roots lie in country and Americana, but his idiosyncratic style shows him as a kindred spirit of the late David Bergman (the frontman of both Silver Jews and Purple Mountains), sharing a dark humour and poetic realism, and with a voice that recalls Bergman’s languid baritone.
Davis’s Roadhouse Band is a shifting assembly of musicians and singers, who provide a perfectly understated accompaniment to its expansive virtuosic songs.
The album’s centrepiece is ‘Mutilation Springs’, a 12-minute portrait of despair built from prog-ish folk, psychedelia, artful skronk and pastoral electronics, with a glint of glam. The droll ‘Better If You Make Me’ offers a very different sound: over pedal steel, organ and strings, Davis’s character promises: “I’d be willing to change for the better, I bet I could, baby, I’ll be better if you make me change”.
Label: Tough Love
Rebecca Schiffman
Before The Future
Singer/songwriter and producer Rebecca Schiffman makes deeply autobiographical music in which she ruminates on everything from long car rides to antique objects and dark fantasies.
Existential thoughts connected to memory, loss and the experience of time have always been at the core of her songs, and this remains so on her fourth album. However, there are some changes: songs are more dramatic, playing out like micro-films, and Schiffman’s vocal style has changed. Once naive and Kimya Dawson-like, it’s become elegantly matter-of-fact – a great foil for the wide range of instrumentation and consummate arrangements. Joining Schiffman is a vast cast of musicians on Wurlitzer, trumpet, harpsichord, Moog, cello, vibraphone and piano, as well as the usual guitars/bass/drums, while four co-producers bring different authorial perspectives.
Before The Future is a singular listen from start to finish but highlights include the reverbed, 60s country-lounge forlornness of ‘Rudy’s Song’ and the closing ‘Beach Vacation’. Here, Schiffman recalls a powerful childhood thought of walking into the sea (“Who knew that that was the most ‘now’ now would ever be?”) against a backdrop of airy, hypnotic grooves with a luminous beauty.
Label: Self-released
