Woodhouse Interviews

Existentialism usually isn’t this catchy. Nor are songs about Virginia Woolf, black holes and the process of the body destroying itself to create a new form. But Sofia Freire finds and tempers the horror and wonder of each subject with aplomb. The Brazilian multi-instrumentalist has made one of the finest progressive pop albums in recent memory on Ponta Da Lingua. And we talked with her below.

The end of the world is bigger than love. But only by a little. acloudyskye took the outsized sound, low end and emotions of EDM and, in his newest album, has paired them with scintillating indie-rock. The choruses rise to the rafters, even as the narrative of There Must Be Something Here descends into a post-apocalyptic world tinged with heartbreak. We chatted with Skye below.

We are haunted. By what? We’re not supposed to know. Our past, our uncertain futures, ghosts of dead possibilities—all swirling in the background. Knoll summons but doesn’t exorcise them, it exercises them. The vicious Tennessee outfit engages in a fusion of metal styles that borders on outright warfare. The pitched sorrow of doom, the lacerating speed of grind and the drama of black metal all combine in their newest As Spoken. And we spoke to them below.

There’s beauty in desolation. Any drive through west Texas can teach you that. The sunlight is harsh, trying to dry and burn everything it touches. The trees are lonely sentinels, standing watch alone. But that alien landscape can conjure up the sublime through its emptiness. And Houston’s Shallowater evokes that hollowness well. The trio plays a mix of ‘90s looking grunge with a twist of country and shoegaze. If you were ever into Denton cult heroes Lift to Experience, Shallowater’s ragged, psychedelic understanding of Texas music history will entice and hold you. We talked to them about their debut album There is a Well, below.

The tambourine player will usher in the apocalypse. Or so hoped fictional punk band Cacophony. According to Gumshoes maestro and lore master Sam Sparks, the fake 9-piece band he created were the dregs of the ‘90s bands grabbing record label deals as cocaine-fueled executives desperately tried to find the next Nirvana. Cacophony (the album) follows the band in the aftermath of their implosion, each of them putting their faith in a new music avenue for deliverance, whether that be searching for cold hard cash, an alien abduction or summoning the rapture. If that all sounds a bit too heady for you, don’t worry, it’ll worm its way into your subconscious thanks to the absurdly catchy tunes delivering the tale. “Nobodies” is like Bell and Sebastian at their most ragged, following the pyromaniac guitarist as he builds a bonfire out of his own songs. Meanwhile “Low Fantasy” grooves like a Mario Kart backing tune. Chamber pop bliss, with rapturous consequences. We chatted with Gumshoes below.

In HP Lovecraft’s The Outsider, madness comes from reflection, an understanding of the self. Iravu inverts the fear that made Lovecraft so detestable into acceptance. Through progressive, in all senses of the word, metal, Iravu soars through a sci-fi concept album that shreds with Van Halen-esque guitar solos over blistering drum fills. Acceptance through transcendence. We talked with Iravu below.

What’s lost is found. And what’s found is beautiful. Chandan Narayan has explored musical, natural and colonial history through 78s, the great discs of shellac that predated vinyl. His collections bring light and sound to an era of Carnatic music from southern India. There is a history here that’s rich as it is deep. We talked to Narayan below.

Satisfying, but never self satisfied, Germany’s Conic Rose blend together a sumptuously smooth mix of nu jazz, electronica and lo-fi hip-hop that still never strays away from moments of startling virtuosity, or sudden left turns. The ever spiraling patterns of “Gleisdreieck” sigh into the cutesy bop “Heller Tag” while “Miranda” soars like suped up Arve Henriksen. Sexy, adventurous, comforting.

Yonder; it’s over there somewhere. Or over when, either way, it’s just ‘round the corner. There’s a pleasantly surreal implication to Yonder, the word, and Yonder, the album. The same could be said for the merry band of rabble rousers who gesture you yonder. Atlanta guitar gardeners Arbor Labor Union play rapid psych country like the Grateful Dead with a stopwatch, ripping through post-punk flavored twang. There’s no Cheshire Cat smirk to their reality-bending notions, just a grin and a high dive into a labyrinth of intwining guitars and dime-turn tempo shifts. So, let’s follow them. Yonder.

Life is short. Recovery is long. The peak of the COVID pandemic reduced most of us to a half-space, limbo between reality and absurdism. And those who dealt with the ravages of long COVID, their bodies thrown into flux by the longtail effects of the virus, feel even further into the liminal. Composer Nyokabi Kariũki contracted COVID, then felt her body stammer. Over months of recovery, her life came to a standstill, even as the world demanded she move forward. Endless emails, friends who no longer asked how she was doing, her own internal doubts all flooded her mind. But, part of her recovery was FEELING BODY, an avant-beauty primarily composed for voice that sifts through the haze COVID, and society, encased Kariũki in.

There is a deep call, from the bottom of the river, from the gleaming brass of a trumpet, from the soul of a stand up bass. Mali Obomsawin has heard it and grasped it with both hands. The bandleader, singer, upright bassist and general polymath’s most recent album, Sweet Tooth, was a beguiling and haunting trek through free jazz freakouts, curdled hymns and unscripted beauty. Obomsawin is from the Abenaki First Nation at Odanak, and the longing and reflection that shimmers out from Sweet Tooth reveals a lineage of genocide, colonialism and a slow death of wilderness. It’s not easy listening, but Sweet Tooth, and Obomsawin’s, mastery of jazz’s revolutionary sound and history makes it necessary listening. We talked with Obomsawin below.

Ferociously catchy–or just plain ferocious? Indiana’s Perfect Angel at Heaven have cleaved off a fine slab of post-punk, with hints of jangle pop and post-hardcore embedded in their debut EP. The dueling strengths at the core of the work are the hard-edged, headknocking muscle they play with and the charming knack for hooks they slather across the EP. Casey Noonan’s soaring, near operatic vocals might be the perfect fodder for sobbing strings, but instead they add an anthemic procession to a gritty, mosh-pit inducing frenzy. This is one of the most deliriously catchy EPs released in recent memory, but isn’t afraid to kick your teeth in. Near perfection in four songs, and enough promise to salivate over. We talked to Perfect Angel at Heaven below.

Who is the man behind the curtain? The shadowy figure behind the throne? Well, in the case of Not One, Not Two, there’s a duo of playfully baffling artists tinkering at the fringes. Turkey-based mystery drummer Yumutar and London occupying, Turkish born polymath Y Bülbül. The collaborations started when Yumutar sent over hours of drum loops and recordings to Bülbül and he dutifully begun to mutate the sounds. Taking inspiration from ambient, dub and progressive electronic, Not One, Not Two, is a giddy, mischievous record that bounces between genres, tickling the brain with each turn. We interviewed Bülbül below.

The crossover no one asked for. Foolish Baseball is one of the finest sports channels in existence. The2010s is the nerdy music roundup site you’re currently visiting. What’s the overlap? Well, Foolish Baseball, run by the esteemed Foolish Bailey, has never made it a secret that music is a throughline on his work. To sneaky bits of music samples to underline his video themes to his excellent interview with Braves pitcher Spencer Strider over the music of The Strokes, Bailey is right there in the trenches of music nerdom with us. And we sat down with him to shoot the breeze.

Empathy training, through country music. Hootin’ and hollerin’ Philly outfit Labrador play a ragged version of alt-country, indebted to the wistful nostalgia of Wilco and the lean rage of The Jayhawks. And they follow a grand tradition of pulling their heart right out of the chest cavity for their music. Ex-cult members, serial killers’ spouses and a pissed off heavenly bureaucracy act as the colorful cast, each of them going through frustration and trauma that underline the attempted growth and reach for empathy that serves as the throughline of Hold the Door for Strangers. Read the rest at the2010s.

Somewhere, a wizard has a panic attack. It’s not an image that fantasy often uses. It feels too close to reality, the terror too mundane to grapple with. But mui zyu doesn’t just wrestle with it, she revels in it.

We know what water sounds like. But what about its absence? Through a bruising mix of chamber, electronica and unfathomable physical sound work, composer William Ryan Fritch has hammered out the feeling of a drained, empty world. Polarity, his score connecting the trials of a world both heating and evaporating are as captivating as they are disquieting, a profound ecological statement through blistering music.

My email was titled “getting artists paid.” There’s never been an era where getting your art to turn into money has been easy. But the COVID-19 pandemic and growing corporate greed have crafted a brutal trap for modern musicians. Stories of major artists like Animal Collective canceling tours, venues stripping bands of profits by demanding cuts from merch sales and Spotify paying vanishingly little towards the artists that make their business thrive have all crashed down at once to create a bleak future.

Preoccupations reinvent themselves through death. First there was the death of their old band, hallucinatory psych-rockers Women. Then came “Death” the monolithic song that defined their debut album Viet Cong. Then they shed their name, becoming Preoccupations. And, now, comes the “Death of Melody.”

Obey your narrator. New York City has been a character in its own right for nearly as long as it’s existed. And from Sinatra to Nas, musicians have sliced out portions of the sprawling metropolis and molded it into a setting, a myth, a sonic background. But few, if any, have done what Imperial Triumphant do: turn New York into an eldritch abomination.