Innholdsfortegnelse for Issue 67 i Under the Radar

“I think we’ve got a really good freakout record in us…. We want to put out an imaginary film soundtrack.”– Jimi Goodwin One of the most exciting music announcements this year centered around the return of Doves and the imminent release of a new album, The Universal Want. The Manchester, England-based band’s first for 11 years since 2009’s Kingdom of Rust, The Universal Want comprises 10 songs that stands proudly alongside the trio’s other works. Singer, songwriter, and multi-instrumentalist Jimi Goodwin takes up the story of how he reconnected with his bandmates, brothers Jez and Andy Williams. “We got together in 2017 to hang out as friends. We hadn’t seen each other for a little while. Certainly not the full 11 years; we’d been at mutual parties and seen each…

The women of Hinds just needed some time to themselves. For the last few years, Ana Perrote says that she and the rest of the Spanish quartet (Carlotta Cosials, Ade Martín, Amber Grimbergen) have made their music on the fly, with short stints for songwriting in their native Madrid between various tour legs. They’ve lived out of suitcases for years on end, and after two full album cycles of full-on global tours, the members of Hinds were ready for some personal space (this was before the pandemic made such space necessary). If you’re new to Hinds, they have generated significant buzz since their inception. The band were already playing all over Europe before their debut album (2015’s Leave Me Alone) was even released thanks to instant acclaim on their first…

Five years ago when Paul Banks (Interpol) and Josh Kaufman (Bonny Light Horseman) gathered in a Woodstock studio at the behest of Matt Barrick (The Walkmen), it was hardly surprising that the trio (now known as Muzz) would get on like a house on fire. Banks and Kaufman had met as teenagers on an exchange to Madrid, Spain. Throughout the fecund New York scene of the aughts they had remained good friends and occasional collaborators. Barrick was Banks’ touring drummer on his Banks & Steelz hip-hop project with Wu-Tang Clan rapper RZA, and had separately spent time in the studio with Kaufman. For all their camaraderie and accomplishments, it was no forgone conclusion that the three friends could indeed make music as elegant, elegiac, and at once as soothing as…

According to Emily Kempf of the Chicago-based trio Dehd, emotions are like flowers. But like any living thing, they need to be nurtured in order to grow. And within her garden, the hands that tend the flowers are of all different shapes and sizes. The hands can be rough while tending to the flowers, but most of the time, they’re gentle; shaking nervously, trying to refrain from disturbing the flowers’ maturation. If you search through the vegetation, you’ll find the “Flower of Devotion” blossoming with potential: the potential for a newfound friendship, love, or even forgiveness. And like the metaphorical garden, Dehd’s third album, also named Flower of Devotion, finds them blooming. Although members Kempf (bassist, vocals), Jason Balla (guitar, vocals), and Eric McGrady (drums) have been together for over…

Madeline Kenney didn’t recognize herself—or at least her work. The latest album from the Oakland, CA-based artist, Sucker’s Lunch, is every bit as mesmerizing as her acclaimed first two albums (2017’s Night Night at the First Landing and 2018’s Perfect Shapes), but thematically speaking, Kenney herself is a bit surprised by the final results. That’s because, contrary to what she’d like to be writing about, the album is full of love songs. “I fell super in love,” says Kenney about life between album releases. “To be quite honest, I was just really smitten in a way that I hadn’t been before. When you realize you can actually be in a good, healthy relationship, you’re like, ‘Holy shit! What? Is this possible?’” Sucker’s Lunch isn’t so straightforward, of course. Anyone familiar…

“I feel like I used to be a funnier person? And now I feel like, I don’t know...I’m just a bummer. Maybe that’s where we’re at.” The Beths’ lead singer Elizabeth Stokes laughs and Jonathan Pearce, the lead guitarist, assures her she is not a bummer. That self-effacing humor is exactly what made The Beths’ debut, 2018’s Future Me Hates Me, so gratifying. Witty writing, four-part harmonies, and power pop energy formed the backbone of the New Zealand band’s sound. That consistency was an intentional choice, Stokes says. The debut was meant to be a record “that is just top to bottom, fast and tight.” Fans of the band’s debut might then be surprised to hear the changes on the sophomore record, Jump Rope Gazers. The band’s rhythm section—bassist Benjamin…

O ceanator’s Elise Okusami can’t predict the future. But the songs on Oceanator’s debut LP Things I Never Said, which were written mostly in late 2017 and early 2018 but some date as far back as 2012, eerily mirror the chaotic present. In numerous tracks, Okusami sings about the end of the world including on the album’s pummelling lead single “A Crack in the World” where she paints a very familiar scene: “You know it keeps getting harder and harder every day when you see the news on the TV, on the radio.” “I wrote [‘A Crack in the World’] two years ago,” Okusami says over the phone from her home in Brooklyn, “and it’s weird how much more accurate it is. I didn’t mean to have so many songs…

Being discovered by the same reps who signed megastar Adele, being profiled by major publications as an artist to watch, and garnering critical acclaim for his debut album, Your Hero Is Not Dead, should all be points of pride for Will Westerman. And yet, it would be an understatement to say the West London-based indie pop rookie’s newfound success hasn’t gone to his head. If anything, when interviewed, Westerman (who uses his surname as a stage moniker) sounds modest to a fault, even occasionally insecure. When asked about his writing process, for instance, the soft-spoken songwriter applies some plucky self-deprecation while describing the obstacles involved. “Most of the music I write, nobody ever hears. I end up discarding a lot of it, before finally reaching a place of honesty, and…

On April 9, 2020—the day she announced the then forthcoming release of her sophomore album, Punisher—Phoebe Bridgers took a brave first step into pandemic album promotion. What was originally supposed to be a performance of second single “Kyoto” in front of a live audience for Jimmy Kimmel Live! was now reduced to a solo rendition from the bathtub in her Silver Lake apartment in Los Angeles. Clad in black pajamas covered in moons and stars and pawing at a Suzuki QChord synthesizer, she sings into a bright red children’s microphone that’s crudely taped to a mic stand. It’s a devastating song, full of references to being depressed on tour and anger toward her estranged father, made even more so by the subtle ache in her vocal. “I’m going to kill…

When Manchester, England-based band PINS’ original rhythm section decided to move on it left founding members Faith Vern and Lois MacDonald (plus Kyoko Swan) with a conundrum in terms of how to move things forwards. “We had to figure out a different way of making music without a traditional drummer,” explain Vern. “Lois was really getting into all the drum machines and synthesizers, so it was getting a little more electronic at that point anyway.”  The trio decided that rather than recruit new permanent members they’d work with a rotating cast of collaborators. It was a bold move but it certainly paid off as their third album Hot Slick is arguably their most cohesive work to date. The band sound bigger and brighter than ever and they have crafted an album that…

When Zane Lowe was announced as one of the DJs for Apple Music’s upstart Beats 1 radio show in 2015, there was little reason to assume that his most notable work was still ahead of him. Having earned widespread notoriety in England as a DJ—spinning records both on festival stages and from behind the mic for 12 years at Radio 1 on the BBChe remained largely unknown to American audiences at the time of his move. Five years later, he is arguably the most relevant radio personality in American music media, his show having become the go-to stop for the biggest names in pop music. With everyone from Kanye West and Justin Bieber to Trent Reznor and Thom Yorke stopping by to appear on his show, Lowe has pioneered a…

As Ben Gibbard of Death Cab for Cutie walked around Seattle’s Capitol Hill neighborhood in the prelockdown days of the pandemic it was eerily quiet, like that week between Christmas and New Year’s when most of the city’s tech industry transplants have gone back to their home states. Stores were starting to get picked over, businesses were shifting to remote work, and people were scared. Death Cab for Cutie’s manager, Jordan Kurland, suggested that since everyone was home with nothing to do, Gibbard might as well do some livestream concerts to raise some money for local charities. “It just seemed like with everything starting to hurtle out of control, I was in a unique position to provide the one skill that I have to people who were fans of the…

Judging by the big bright hooks, breezy melodies, and guitar riffs that rev like top down, joy riding convertibles, it would be easy to peg a number of the cuts from Rolling Blackouts Coastal Fever’s new album as contenders for “song of the summer.” And yet, a closer listen to the lyrics of the warmly inviting power pop songs on Sideways to New Italy, the Melbourne Australia five-piece’s second full-length album, reveal multitudes that aren’t immediately apparent for anyone wowed by their vibrantly splashy playing upon first listen. As vocalist/lead guitarist Joe White puts it: “We continue our style of writing vignettes, of focusing on a small part of a character’s life” on Sideways to New Italy. Case in point: closing track “The Cool Change.” White recalls how vocalist/guitarist Tom Russo…

It was the 2016 death of David Bowie and his masterful swan song Blackstar (released only two days before his passing) that provided the fresh impetus to inspire French artist and Savages frontperson Jehnny Beth to record her debut solo album, To Love Is to Live. “There was an urgency within me to do something new as an artist, and not worry about the normal fears attached to it—of how other people might perceive it,” Beth explains, speaking from Paris. “You have to trust your instincts and Bowie’s death certainly had an impact. I think any death makes you question your own mortality and place in the world and who you are. They are very much ‘moments of exposure’ as Robert Fripp called them, and it’s what you do with…

Maria Lindén has been making electronic shoegaze music under the moniker I Break Horses for over a decade. A self-confessed perfectionist when it comes to recording music and someone who says she struggles “with a huge amount of stage fright,” Linden’s output so far has resulted in two critically acclaimed long players—2011’s debut Hearts and the follow-up three years later, Chiaroscuro. Now six years after the last I Break Horses release, Stockholm-based Lindén is back with a new LP entitled Warnings, arguably her finest collection of songs to date, even though Lindén admits, “I didn’t even know if I wanted to make another album.” The album itself has been ready for a year. “I was just waiting for it to be released,” says Lindén. “The first sketches actually came together…

After 25 years of making music, The Dears know how to adapt to an altered landscape. Husband and wife Murray Lightburn and Natalia Yanchek, the core duo of the Montreal, Canada rock band, have navigated twists and turns across a music industry landscape that looks nothing like it did when they released their first album—to say nothing of the disastrous year 2020 is. Into this nightmare landscape The Dears dropped Lovers Rock, a twisted, melodic return-to-rock record with poignant lyrics aimed squarely at the human condition. Lovers Rock offers a balm to a beleaguered, distant world.    “I think that’s what every Dears album starts to do,” Yanchek says. “Whether it’s a pandemic or your life is falling apart for another reason, that’s just what we do.” “I know a lot…

The debut album by the London-based band Sorry, 925, has been picking up rave reviews since its release earlier this year and yet the band’s creative nucleus—Asha Lorenz and Louis O’Bryen—remain modest and self-effacing, very much aware it’s a very strange time to be releasing music, during a global pandemic. “For us the thought of not being able to tour the album is obviously a sad one,” explains O’Bryen, “but we hope that the album can bring people some solace and comfort during these unprecedented times.” O’Bryen and Lorenz met at secondary school, eventually becoming friends over a shared interest in music, despite not coming from overtly musical backgrounds. Lorenz recalls her parents weren’t particularly avid music fans. “Although I remember my dad was really into Earth, Wind & Fire and also…

It was a late night TV performance viewed as a teenager that confirmed to Bartees Strange, an emerging singer/songwriter based in Washington, D.C. whose birth name is Bartees Cox Jr., that his only path forward would be a musical one. “There weren’t a lot of Black kids, or people of color I was seeing in bands until I saw TV on the Radio on Letterman, and everything clicked,” he says. Strange was born in England but moved to Oklahoma City with his parents in his early teens. “My mom is an opera singer, and my dad is a big-time collector: music and hi-fi stereo equipment,” he says. “So I grew up around a lot of music. And my mom always had us singing in different places—church, opera camp, and musical…

In early March, shortly after the South By Southwest festival was cancelled, Rev. Moose could see the clouds gathering. During Independent Venue Week—a yearly gathering of independent venues and promoters that he organizes and promotes through his music marketing firm, Marauder—a panel of guests discussed the possible implications of a pandemic hitting the live music industry. One panelist, an event producer from the UK, had been watching what COVID-19 was doing in his country for the previous three weeks. His message was chilling. “Really bad things are on the horizon, and you need to be prepared for them. Whatever you think is going to happen, it’s going to be that bad,” Moose recalls. “And it has been. We are talking about a complete and total cessation of business. We are…

Making music is a privilege. It’s also a poison. Katie Stelmanis, who fronts the band bearing her middle name Austra, is well-acquainted with both sides of the creative coin. The Toronto-based composer and songwriter has earned a sizable following on the strength of inventive, chilling electropop releases like 2011’s Feel It Break and 2013’s Olympia. Unfortunately, the shadow side of touring demands, personal isolation, and financial instability culminated in a crossroads for Stelmanis in recent years. Following the supporting cycle for 2016’s Future Politics, she wasn’t sure there would be another album. “I questioned if I wanted to keep doing it,” says Stelmanis. “Every artist will say that making music is a privilege, but it’s also really hard. It’s difficult because financially you never know if you’ll be able to…

Despite 30 years in the game with The Charlatans and as a solo artist, Tim Burgess’ sense of wonder and enthusiasm for making and discovering new music remains undiminished. When we discuss the 5-star reviews for his latest solo album I Love the Sky, he’s full of gratitude. “Even The London Evening Standard gave five stars,” he recalls with genuine enthusiasm, “and they aren’t easy to impress.” The album was slowly put together rather than Burgess cramming in solo projects between working with The Charlatans and touring. “This time I felt had all the time in the world,” he reflects. “It felt very natural and unrushed, almost casual but also thoughtful. I started just strumming away and began recording some voice memos.” The first three songs Burgess wrote for the…

“Like a lot of people, I went through phases,” explains Jarvis Cocker, when asked about his first reaction to the closures and quarantining which occurred in the outbreak of COVID-19. “At first I thought, ‘Oh, this is going to be like going on some sort of meditation retreat, where you go and look at a wall for, like, three weeks, and it’s supposed to clear your consciousness.’ But then as it goes on, you change…I don’t think there’s been another time where the world has had the pause button pressed on it. Everybody’s in this state where you can’t really help but evaluate the way that you live, and figure out what’s important to you.” Our conversation happened days before Cocker’s latest record, Beyond the Pale, was originally due to…

COVID-19 may have put paid to most of 2020’s live music events, but one of the surprise hits of the lockdown has been Tim Burgess, frontman of The Charlatans, and his Twitter listening parties. It’s a simple premise—meet at a predetermined time on Twitter, play the designated album from start to finish, and tweet in real-time with Burgess and his guests, usually the artists behind the album. When you talk to Burgess his enthusiasm for music is infectious. As well as hosting #TimsTwitterListeningParty, he’s also found time to release his fifth solo album, I Love the New Sky. It’s an album that has been universally praised and Burgess sounds genuinely blown away by the reviews. “I’ve just seen all these four- and five-star reviews everywhere, I feel forever indebted. It…

Bob Mould’s last album, 2019’s Sunshine Rock, was a string-laden guitar album that found the artist, who had recently relocated to Berlin, actively pursuing brighter, more positive upbeat songcraft. But one song written during that time, “American Crisis,” was an antithesis to the others. The track, the first released from his new album Blue Hearts, was a rage-filled two-and-a-half minute screed that tackled current events back in his home country, with lyrics such as, “Wake up every day to see a nation in flames,” and “World turning darker every day in a fucked up USA.” “The intent was to have it on Sunshine Rock, but the lyrics were so heavy, I thought I’d just hold on to it,” says Mould from his current home in San Francisco. “Then I came…

Be it the hell’s gate clang of their post-punk musicianship, or frontman Joe Casey’s apocalyptic PSA speak-singing, the sound of Detroit’s Protomartyr has always been nothing short of singular. Given that, why did the band invite a handful of varied collaborators to join the sessions for their new LP, Ultimate Success Today, and alter the sound that helped them crack so many year-end best-of lists with their previous LP, 2017’s Relatives in Descent? “Repeating yourself is very easy and fun, leading you to think: ‘Let’s keep on doing what we’re good at!’” says the slyly wry Casey. He’s hyperbolically recalling the temptation dangling over Protomartyr prior to recording Ultimate Success Today at a reconfigured 19th century Upstate New York church. Thankfully, they didn’t give in to that urge. Instead, Casey upped his lyrical…

All options were exhausted. Jónsi knew he needed help. Ten years after the release of his first solo release, Go, Jónsi (full name Jón Þór Birgisson) admits he was stuck. The Sigur Rós frontman says some of the songs that comprise his new album, Shiver, go back more than a decade. He knew something was there, a diamond waiting in the mine, but he was unable to unearth it. He was also exhausted from the effort. Jónsi has remained busy despite being on a bit of a musical break, so it’s not as if all of his creative efforts have been stifled. After moving to Los Angeles two years ago, Jónsi found himself venturing further into other artistic interests, including his long-held fascination with scents. Along with an exhibition at…

There is a one-of-a-kind, universally intriguing musical product that is generated when Khruangbin’s guitarist Mark Speer, bassist Laura Lee Ochoa, and drummer Donald “DJ” Johnson come together. A student of the world, Ochoa is a cultural anthropology enthusiast. It was her learning Thai that led to the band’s name, which loosely means “airplane.” It was her interest in Afghani art that sparked her connection with Speer, who was watching a documentary on the music of Afghanistan when they met through his roommate. Speer directed Ochoa’s attention to the cross-pollination in music. His approach to Khruangbin’s amalgamation of sounds is not so much to be authentic to the styles he is inspired by, but to appreciate them. Instead of trying to become an expert on indigenous instruments, he internalizes the way…

It’s Friday evening as a long week draws to an end and Porridge Radio singer/songwriter and guitarist Dana Margolin is in the middle of baking a cake. “Yeah I’m quite the baker,” she says, laughing as she checks the oven before we begin discussing her band’s new album Every Bad.  The British band—which also comprises of keyboardist Georgie Stott, bassist Maddie Ryall, and drummer Sam Yardley—began as a DIY project; before stories of their intense live performances quickly spread around their Brighton base, gaining them a loyal following. Having released a string of demos and a self-produced album—2016’s Rice, Pasta and Other Fillers—their new release Every Bad is the their first for Secretly Canadian and is certainly a huge sonic leap forward for the band. “I guess you could say we’ve…

To conclude, we ask Jenn Wasner of Wye Oak and her solo project Flock of Dimes some questions about endings and death. Wasner has a lot on her plate right now. This summer Wye Oak, her famed indie rock project with Andy Stack, released a new EP, No Horizons, that was made in collaboration with the Brooklyn Youth Chorus. And, she also recently released a new solo EP, Like So Much Desire, under her moniker Flock of Dimes—her first release with Sub Pop. Plus, she sang guest vocals on a new Future Islands song, “For Sure,” and with Stack she produced Madeline Kenney’s new album, Sucker’s Lunch. But while she’s busy living her dreams, she can’t help but wonder what a world without Jenn Wasner would be like. Our answer:…

There was nothing even remotely resembling a sophomore slump for Moaning as the Los Angeles trio entered the studio for a second go-around. The clichéd line that an artist has his/her entire life to make their first album often leads to issues on the follow-up, a process marred by timelines, demands, and expectations. Hence another cliché—the sophomore slump. For Moaning’s second LP, Uneasy Laughter, frontman Sean Solomon says “if anything the opposite was true.” A carefree band with nothing to lose suddenly became serious about their craft. The result wasn’t about pressure but excellence. “I don’t think we had any sort of sophomore slump,” says Solomon. “Our second record is a lot better because we had the label covering things. We tried a lot harder to make something unique. We…

When Shamir’s “On the Regular” was released in the fall of 2014, it seemed to announce the arrival of a new pop star. Full of earworm hooks, deliriously clever boasts, and Shamir’s otherworldly countertenor vocals, it was easy to dream about the 19-year-old becoming the sort of artist who would soon be collaborating with the hottest Los Angeles producers and setting up camp on the Top 40 pop charts. That, in fact, was more or less what XL Recordings, his label, had in mind for him. But Shamir had other plans. Shaking off the dance-pop template he had used on 2015’s Ratchet in favor of rawer, more DIY sounds, he soon found himself without a label and free to make whatever kind of music he wanted. Since then, he has…