Ya know, I’m gonna go ahead and choose to focus on how spring is in the air this week and not… current events. Spring is in the air. The tree in my front yard that has beautiful pink flowers for about one month out of the year is looking fuckin’ dope as hell. And this was an absolutely amazing week for music.
Yeah, we had two French noise rock bands as finalists (W!zard and UHM KATAM) for Coolest Album of the Week. We had a Haitian-American New Orleanian (Leyla McCalla) folk artist/guitarist as a finalist, and it should be noted that both Haiti and New Orleans have a huge French influence thanks to colonialism. So I’m staying somewhat true to my brand here even if the winner this week is an English band called English Teacher, who most definitely sing in English. But more on that later.
This is one of my more varied menagerie of recommendations, and I’m absolutely giddy about that because it’s not often you get a group of albums that span so many genres, moods and styles and still feel like they all belong together. While many of these albums differ in style or tone, this was a very experimental week. It was inventive. Exciting. And all without being off-putting. My favorite music is weird with just enough to hook me. Or hooky with just enough weird to challenge me. And that’s what we have here.
So let’s spring into action and check out…
The Coolest Stuff of The Week | April 17th
W!ZARD – Not Good Enough
Genres: Noise rock, post-punk, post-hardcore
Pastry – Voices
Genres: Shoegaze, indie rock, alternative
Avalanche Kaito – Talitakum
Genres: Post-punk, alternative, experimental
Throwing Bricks & Ontaard – Oud Zeer
Genres: Post-hardcore, screamo, post-metal
9T Antiope – Horror Vacui
Genres: Experimental, Electroacoustic, abstract
Prince Istari – Meets Erik Satie Inna Heavy Dub Encounter
Genres: Dub, electronic, classical
Work Wife – Waste Mangement
Genres: Pop, bedroom pop, indie pop
Boca Catapulta – S/T
Genres: Punk, noise rock, hardcore
blue heron holy ghost – teressa
Genres: Shoegaze, slowcore, grunge
Tina Fey – In Living Memory
Genres: Grunge, punk, rock
BODEGA – Our Brand Could Be Yr Life
Genres: Post-punk, punk, new wave
Amalie Dahl’s Dafnie – Står Op Med Solen
Genres: Avant-garde, free jazz, experimental
crossbite – Nothing To Present To You
Genres: Post-hardcore, Post-punk, emo
Kinbote – Hemisphere
Genres: Alternative, bedroom pop, samples
Leyla McCalla – Sun Without The Heat
Genres: Folk, alternative
Dog Date – Zinger
Genres: Garage punk, punk, rock
PALOMA FLASH – Bed Songs
Genres: Experimental, dub, bedroom pop
UHM KATAM – S/T
Genres: Noise rock, punk, alternative
Neutral Shirt – Egg Time
Genres: Indie rock, emo, indie pop
METZ – Up On Gravity Hill
Genres: Noise rock, grunge, punk
English Teacher – This Could Be Texas
Genres: Post-punk, alternative, indie rock
How rare and utterly spectacular for a band to come out with their debut album so fully formed and un-fucking-believable, but English Teacher has done it. Perfectly balanced and drawing from a cavalcade of post-punk touchstones, This Could Be Texas sounds like the work of a band that has several LPs under their belt. It’s a self-confident statement that draws upon its inspirations while having a voice of its own. Any seasoned artist can tell you how difficult that can be. For a new band? Nearly impossible.
While I would love to credit each individual band member for their contributions to this album, English Teacher has made the frustrating decision to not actually list anywhere who does what in the band. A quick scroll through their Facebook page tells me Douglas Frost is most likely their drummer. Singer Lilly Fontaine seems to also play guitar and piano. That leaves Nicholas Eden and Lewis Whiting on bass and guitar, but who does which, I have no fucking clue. And I have a life, so I’m not about to spend an hour looking through a bunch of articles trying to stalk my way into the answer.
Then again, perhaps this instrumental ambiguity has a greater point.
Much like prior Coolest Album of the Week winner NO MAN, no instrumental performance particularly stands out to me because the arrangements are so immaculate, the musicianship so flawless that everything flows as a single unit. There’s a natural beauty to This Could Be Texas where the music washes over you, and you become part of it and it a part of you.
Everything about it feels light to the touch. As if you would break it if you could touch the music itself. A piano phrase or drum roll might dissolve if you breathe on it wrong. A bass line that bubbles beneath the surface and then comes up to the surface for a gasping breath of air can only stay there for a moment before sinking below the surface again. A charging guitar riff is a radical imposter who can only be allowed to exist for a few brief moments before giving way to airy lightness.
But these moments are just yarn woven into a big, beautiful blanket.
What’s really cool is that while no particular instrument or musician specifically stands out — because nobody is given enough thread to do so — everyone is given little moments to shine throughout every single song. It’s just written within the song structures, those perfect arrangements. And these moments don’t seem to exist to, say, give the guitarist a moment to show off. If a riff gets a moment, it’s because that’s what is best for the song. If a piano melody gets a moment where everything else drops out, that’s because that’s what is best for the song. If everything but the drum fill drops out, that’s because… you get the idea.
This is what amazes me so much about what English Teacher has done on This Could Be Texas. I have to keep reminding myself this is their debut LP. The attention to detail is remarkable. The patience and lack of ego needed is commendable. My biggest gripe with so many bands is their arrangements stink, but this band plays with tension and space and dynamics in a way that is far beyond bands that have been together many, many years longer than they have. They work with a composer’s command, and holy fuck, at times I swear there really is an entire orchestra up in these songs.
Oh, and I forgot to mention these arrangements happen to heighten Lilly Fontaine’s singing, who is simply one of the best vocalists in post-punk already.
Beyond simply having a beautiful voice, Fontaine has a command of her instrument few vocalists ever do. She’ll go from singing to dramatic spoken word to sing-speaking to full-on singing again within the space of a minute, and it is all transfixing and lyrically captivating. The drama and passion she culls from the depths of herself feels like a genuinely moving, heartfelt Broadway musical (Yeah, that’s right — I said Broadway. Eat shit, West End.). This is all the more true the way the music moves with her, attempting to squeeze every last drop of emotion, of feeling, out of her stunning performance here.
It’s truly shocking how good This Could Be Texas is, but those bastards in English Teacher have done that shit. Amazing album. They’ve only set the bar unreasonably high for themselves for the next one.
