January 2024 is starting off with a damn bang! I wasn’t prepared for so many good releases in January, but here we are. Just living the music obsessive’s dream right out of the gates. I choose to believe this means we are in for an all-time great year of music.
This is Cool Stuff For Cool Lifeforms: January 2024!
BZDET- W PRACY
I’m a sucker for egg punk, and BZDET is one of the best in the biz. These songs sizzle and move with logic all their own, randomness, chaos, and unpredictability is the glue that ties the songs together. That and a bass that seems to weave through the album like a string connecting every song regardless of its tone or intent. Fast or slow, loud or soft, silly or sad, BZDET’s bass lines bounce through these songs like a deep, menacing, fun metronome. I can’t say for certain that this is the best BZDET album — that would be like choosing your favorite child, something generally frowned upon. But this might be the best-sounding one, and a great place for egg punk fans to start.
PACKS – Melt the Honey
If you live in the southern hemisphere, right now is the absolute perfect time of year for this album to release. Melt the Honey is perfect for those fabled hazy summer days. Melodies come at you sideways and then claw their hooks into you. The guitars are crisp and burn. The rhythm section seems to exist as two heavy pendulums, swinging in sync with each other, adding weight to each song lest they float away. As far as this brand of slacker rock goes, it’s pretty easy to put a layer of fuzz on everything and half-ass it and if you’re moderately talented, it’ll come out okay. But what sets this group from the pack is the level of care and craft that went into these songs. They could have done that, but they didn’t, and this shit is a cut above the rest of the stoner crowd because of that.
Saint Luk – Bientôt Enfin
The use of space on Bientôt Enfin is often breathtaking. Saint Luk has mastered the precise moment of when to drop out certain instruments to highlight a vocal harmony or synth line before everything comes crashing back in, grooving together before something entirely different drops out of the mix. These ebbs and flows give the album a life of its own, an inhale and exhale, breathing and pulsating. It’s a post-punk album with the soul of a trip-hop album, probably best suited for late-night drives through sleeping cities. I considered this for Coolest of the Month.
MOP – Secrets
I absolutely adore how Secrets moves. Much like the cover art for this album, it feels like a house quickly being overtaken by root and fire, devoured in every possible catastrophic way. The guitars, while anthemic, are filled with doom and then churn in pace with the vocals. Every song seems to burn into the next, almost like one long track cut into nine separate movements. While something like this can drag down other albums, here, it only serves to build and keep momentum across these nine relatively short, powerful songs.
Marika Hackman – Big Sigh
This is a decidedly different Marika than we’ve heard in the past — the bravado not necessarily shattered but cracked with heartbreak, and sadness. The youthful, careful, haphazard lyrical and song structures have given way to a darker soul bursting with deeper hurt and searching for maybe a little more. That’s not to say her earlier work was shallow or that pain is more meaningful than the swagger Hackman carried herself with when she was younger. But this shows a different side of her, and taken with the rest of her work, helps show a more complete picture of a fascinating, talented artist. On a musical level, these songs resonate with a beauty not yet seen in her work without dragging or becoming boring or cliche.
Bloody Head – Perpetual Eden
Yeah, this band is loud and full of doom and chaos. They’re the self-proclaimed most chaotic noise rock band in Nottingham. I won’t argue that point. For one, I don’t fucking know. And for B, they very well might be. Listen to the front half of this album, and everything is swirls of chaos like the universe after the Big Bang, but with one psychotic prophet named Dave shouting at you the entire time. But I will say this — as wonderful as all that frontloaded energy and chaos is, the best part of this album is when we get to the middle and end of the album and things slow down just a tinge, and moments of beauty poke through all those swirls of noise. The noise is still there. The music is still heavy, but Bloody Head lets their guard down just enough to allow some beauty to seep through the cracks and empty spaces.
AUS – Der Schöne Schein
AUS has put out three frightening, claustrophobic post-punk songs here that sound like the end of the fucking world. There are only three songs, so I don’t really have much to say except I can’t wait to hear what they put out next, and I hope it’s something a lot longer because holy shit.
Elena Setien – Moonlit Reveries
And here is our Coolest of the Month. Simply a beautifully crafted masterpiece from a musician and singer who has to be considered one of the premier talents in music right now. Her voice is commanding, her arrangements are haunting, and her musicianship is captivating. And to round it all out, Glenn Kotche of Wilco-fame perfectly compliments her mood and style here, following her down musical mazes with restraint and cunning. He must have considered it an absolute treat to work on these enigmatic compositions with her. Setien has created a triumph of art-pop.
RADICAL KITTEN – Uppercat
Frantic, spastic, and unapologetically in your face, RADICAL KITTEN is also an absolute delight. Their seething, direct lyrics almost taunt their subjects with how much fun the band seems to be having while doling out their grievances, concerns, and general shit-talking. All of this is backed up with a kick-ass post-punk rhythm section and some of the weirdest, gnarliest, coolest guitar figures in punk. I gave very strong consideration to this album for Coolest of the Month January 2024. It didn’t get it, but it was 100% worthy.
ULTRA LOVER – FAITH HEALER/ABSOLUTE FUTURE
Now for a masterclass in chaos, ugliness, and fun. You get two EPs here packaged together for what essentially plays like a kickass noise rock LP. Seems like a great entry point to get into ULTRA LOVER, no?
Before I go, girl, two things:
1. If you are a band or label with a newer, lesser-known band with music similar to the kind of music I typically highlight in this column, shoot me a line at pizzafriendsrc at gmail.com and I’ll check out your tunes. Will it make this article? Probably not, but I’ll check it out.
2. Here are some honorable mentions from the shortlist of January 2024: