Brooklyn-based musician Frances Chang’s second album, “Psychedelic Anxiety,” is a metaphysical take on experimental indie pop that’s about navigating the psyche — bringing complex, and oftentimes, clashing emotions to the surface.
It’s a slow burn of an album with diametric contrasts; Chang’s etheral vocal melodies float around kaleidoscopic rhythms while a lurking specter of existential dread hides in the peripheral.
The sonic offerings on this eight track album are diverse; grungy pop, psychedelic-infused indie folk, self-described “slacker prog” as well as ventures in lo-fi experimental improv and sound poetry. And through this tapestryof musical stylings, Chang reinforces the idea to listeners that you never quite know what to expect next.
Released on Feb. 16, Frances Chang (guitar, synths, vocals, programmed drums, voice memo) primarily spearheaded the album via home-recorded tracks. The project was partially engineered by Andrea Schiavelli (Eyes of Love), who also mixed the album.
The rhythm section is composed of Liza Winter (Birthing Hips) on drums and Schiavelli on bass, while other contributions include Michael Sachs (woodwinds on “First I Was Afraid”) and guitarist Nick Llobet on “Rate My Aura.”
As the opening track on Psychedelic Anxiety, “Spiral in Houston ” is unexpected; it’s not a sweeping grandiose opener that’s meant to impress. Chang’s vocals are wispy, but densely layered; paired with an acoustic guitar, electronic drums, and experimental sound textures, building tension to carry across its surreal foreboding narrative. It evokes the feeling of being stuck in an old memory that you try to shut out of your mind.
“What’ve I done?/ In a sagging bed in Houston/ on the highway/ next to a psychic’s house/ lit up in yellow possibility/ I call you … exactly when you’re least mine/ It’s telepathic/ I know just how to find/ all the airy knives.”
Meanwhile, “Eye Land” is an example of Chang’s excellent use of contrast. There’s a dichotomy of loud and soft musicality at play. Quiet introspective moments are shaken back to reality with catchy grunge riffs, and then settle down to become contemplative once again.
This song was written while Chang was on tour; traveling through the Irish and English countryside with a friend, according to her Bandcamp page. It’s a love song that’s pining and nostalgic, complicated by an uncertain relationship.
“I may not see Rose again for a long time/ But I won’t go swimming/ Today I’m bathing in music/ lying around your spare room/ sky is cloudy here in June/ waking up under a sandy moon/ you fall out of your tent/ saying my blindness wrung you out.”
But the memory turns painful and moves with a devastating turn: “I can feel ya here with me, like oily water/ subduing me – I think maybe you’re/ thinking of me too/ It doesn’t feel light …/ It’s ugly, clawing at my gut.”
“Ya A Mirage,” is a song about being interrupted with intrusive thoughts while trying to meditate. With a slacker rock/ grunge pop sound, it’s a window into the subconscious that relies on a stream of consciousness style lyricism.
A departure point on the record is, “Sci Fi Soap Opera”, a sound poem where Chang’s spoken words blend with a dream pop synth wall of sound.
It transports listeners to a dream within a dream; full of ruminations on relationships: “I struggle to fix the problem in you that is really in me/ I confess, I take full responsibility.”
“First I Was Afraid” takes pieces of its melody from the soul classic “I Will Survive,” made famous by Gloria Gaynor. It’s a dark reflection on past childhood trauma manifesting in present day relationships. Chang’s singing is heartbreaking and plaintive while accompanied by a backing chorus of woodwinds.
“Body of the Lightning” takes homemade field recordings of thunder and rain from Schenctady, NY and melds it with feelings of longing amidst expansive layers of wave-like synths.
And on “Rate My Aura,” an impromptu jam of synthesizers, electronic drums and poetry that was recorded on an iPhone voice memo closes out the record. This moment in time was captured during a morning in an empty house to an audience of one — a cat named Grayson — and encapsulates the searching and improvisational nature of Psychedelic Anxiety to find some semblance of peace of mind.
“I’m all for trying as best you can …/ It’s all there is to do/ that and try to find it within yourself/ to wish love upon you and everyone/ and everything there is.”
Throughout her second album, Chang pairs otherworldly sound textures and bedroom pop hooks with surreal lyrical imagery to contrast with mundane everyday moments. There’s a magical realist approach to her songwriting that’s like a funhouse mirror — reflecting reality back through a distorted view to gain new perspectives. Sometimes strange. Sometimes beautiful. But always enlightening.
Every Wednesday, the ugly hug shares a playlist personally curated by an artist/band that we have been enjoying. This week, we have a collection of songs put together by Hong Kong/UK artist and experimentalist, Eva Liu of mui zyu.
As a project, mui zyu has molded an expansive, yet incredibly intimate soundscape into something that is both hauntingly stunning and neurologically addictive when ingested by earthlings. To celebrate the release of her sophomore LP, nothing or something to die for, out this Friday, Liu has created a sonic theme revolving around the album’s artwork, sharing:
“the theme is imagining what the cave-dwelling characters in Waffle Burger’s painting for my record would listen to in the morning. this is how i think they’d soundtrack their days, from waking up in the damp stoney cavern, to swimming in the hot broth, doing their group meditations and roasting the heck out of their marshmallows.”
nothing or something to die for will be available everywhere this Friday (May 24) via Father/Daughter Records. You can preorder the album now on bandcamp.
Every Friday, a staff member at the ugly hug curates a list of their five favorite new(ish) releases to share with us all. This week, our photographer, Will, put together a list of distorted hugs, tin can stunners and loveable bedroom pop tunes.
“Angel Like You” by Nick Harley
In what has quickly become one of my favorite albums of the year, Nashville-based Nick Harley delivers a perfect blend of Appalachian folk and low-fi indie. “Angel Like You” introduces the album with melancholic nostalgia with a simple instrumentation, just a couple of well-picked guitars, and some drums. The sentimental songwriting, about the purity and optimism of the beginnings of love, is captured on the warm fuzz of analog recording. The entire album creates the ideal soundtrack for driving through the Appalachian mountains after a spring rainstorm. For now, I’m settling for a post-rain walk on the streets of New York, and it’s just as good for that.
“Gulf Shores” by Merce Lemon, Colin Miller
Continuing with artists hailing from Appalachia, “Gulf Shores” by Pittsburgh-based Merce Lemon and Asheville’s Colin Miller has been a part of my rotation since its release in January. One of two covers by Will Oldham (who I only recently really dove into the discography of, and it’s a must listen to for fans of Songs Ohia, MJ Lenderman, etc.) and the song is truly done justice. A beautiful and melancholic song, sonically and lyrically, Miller takes the lead of the duet with the floating sounds of steel guitar (my absolute favorite instrument) behind him.
“Dotted Line” by Why Bonnie
Their first single after signing to Fire Talk, “Dotted Line”, proves Houston’s (now Brooklyn’s) Why Bonnie, led by Blair Howerton, has picked up right where she left off. The single maintains the grit of the band’s past work, rounded out with a more polished sound. The song juxtaposes the all too common frustrations of making music as an indie musician over an energetic instrumentation. After getting the chance to catch their live show at Baby’s All Right this month, their upcoming album is definitely something to keep an eye out for.
“Julia” by Crate
New York’s Crate has a single line description on Bandcamp; “like a warm hug”. This description rings true with their debut single “Julia”. After a slow build of synth and drums for almost a minute and a half, it comes crashing down when the guitars come in, and you are enveloped in a sea of warm distortion. After being lucky enough to see them open for A Country Western at Trans Pecos, I was blown away by their sound and can safely say it’s one that is only better live. Here’s to hoping that more music is coming on the way from them soon!
“Trudy” by One Wheel Fireworks Show
To finish on a sadder note, Ashville’s Will Cole, releasing music under the title One Wheel Fireworks Show, delivers a full album of songs as devastating as they are beautiful. “Trudy”, a tribute to the all too relatable despair of an aging dog, the song’s namesake also being who the album is partially dedicated to, and just might be the best of both. Cole sings softly over a steady hum of fuzz with a single guitar before a short slide guitar solo finishes the song. The song reads like a page from a diary with its heartfelt sincerity which is driven home by a minute of audio clips about dogs and Asheville that extends the melancholic feeling of the track.
Meredith Lampe: I think there’s a 20% chance that Isaac [Stalling] pulls up in the van as we’re sitting here. He borrowed the van because he’s on tour with Greg Freeman.
We were all curious as to if the universe would allow such a coincidence to occur – to see the Hot Wheel emblemed Work Wife van pull into town on this dreary New York afternoon.
A few weeks ago, Brooklyn-based band, Work Wife released their latest EP, Waste Management off of Born Losers Records. Started by Lampe as a creative bedroom project back in 2021, Work Wife has found its fullest, most collaborative form yet. With the edition of Kenny Monroe (bass) and Cody Edgerly (drums) for 2022’s Quitting Season, Isaac Stalling (guitar/banjo) is the most recent addition to the Work Wife business.
I met up with Lampe and Monroe recently at a café in Brooklyn, New York, to catch up and discuss the new EP, writing love songs and indie-rock basketball.
Photo Courtesy of Work Wife
SR: So you guys just released your second EP, Waste Management, a few weeks ago. This is also your first release as a fully formed group. Can you tell me about the recording process a bit?
ML: This time Cody and Kenny were much more involved, because I always forget to show them the songs before we record them. The way that the Toledo guys operate is they don’t want to hear anything beforehand – they work more like, ‘let’s just get in the room and then we’ll do whatever we feel like’. This time they had actually rented a studio space in the Navy Yard in central Brooklyn and Kenny, Cody and I went there together for a full weekend before we recorded and we worked the songs out and learned them.
KM: Yeah, a little bit. Not too much though.
ML: No, not too much. But yeah, this time there’s a couple more collaboratively written songs. I feel like Kenny wrote a lot more of the guitar licks. This thing will happen where Kenny will come up with a bass part that’s super sick and then Dan and Jordan, our producers, will be like, ‘oh we’re gonna actually play that on the guitar,’ and I feel like your bass part gets stolen. It’s the melodic stuff, he can hear it – that’s your superpower, Kenny. But I wrote most of the lyrics and structure for all the songs, and then they wrote the parts.
KM: Arranging the songs is a very fun process after Meredith writes them.
ML: I think that writing is more fun than arranging. Arranging feels like work to me.
KM: Then it all works out in the end. I think Dan, Jordan and Cody like arranging equally. They seem like they’re really in their bag when they’re arranging.
ML: The way they record is we’ll be working on a song and everyone will kind of have something that they’re messing around with, and then when Dan hears something that he likes and he’ll yell, ‘TRACK IT’. So, Jordan will be playing the guitar and I’ll be turning all his guitar pedals and Cody will be shaking something weird and then Dan will yell, ‘TRACK IT’, and then we run to put the mic over there and then we track it. It’s kind of stressful.
KM: It’s loose, you know, kind of chaotic. But there’s definitely a method to the madness. We have great chemistry, though. Especially when young Isaac joined us – we became a full unit.
SR: Yeah that’s one thing that I wanted to ask about, because your performances, and the song structures themselves on Waste Management feel looser, like you are all just having fun with it. Are you feeling more connected as a collaborative and creative project?
ML: Actually, Cody and I were just talking about this recently, because we’re at the stage where some opportunities we’re saying yes to and some we are saying no to, versus the beginning where we would do anything. But with the previous bands I played in it felt like we were very goal oriented, always pushing to get the record deal and having to grind until we get there. And in my math brain, I always thought the probability of us doing this is so low. So if we are not having a good time, then that is the worst bet we’ve ever made. So when I started this band, I thought, number one, we just have to have a good time and not do things that make us feel bad, and then everything else can come after.
SR: Has that made having to make creative choices easier?
KM: Well, for “Downtime”, Meredith had a demo that was really cool. It was in a weird time signature and it was really disjointed and had a very strange melody and we really wanted to make it a full song. So what happened was we took that demo, which was like one verse and like half a chorus, and then we recorded an entire instrumental that had a bunch of new parts. And then we gave it back…
ML: Well, then I thought you wanted me to rewrite the entire song! So I rewrote the entire song with completely different melodies and lyrics. Then they were like, “no, that’s too much, go back to the beginning!” And I had this whole other song with the “Downtime” instrumental that actually says waste management, and there’s this whole thing around taking your trash out and emptying your brain and I was like ‘oh, it’s so cohesive!’ Then they were like, ‘no no the other one was better.’ Someday I’ll take that melody and slap it on a different piece of toast I guess.
KM: That was a funny multi-step process.
ML: It felt more like what it’s like to write with a band, as opposed to me just being like, ‘this is what the song is.’
KM: Yeah, it felt like an experiment. It sounds like an experiment too.
ML: That song is so polarizing. People either love it or they never address it. They just don’t bring it up.
SR: And you were okay when they approached you, when you thought they wanted you to rewrite the whole song?
ML: Yeah, well, the song wasn’t done in the first place, but, yeah, it’s way more fun that way. It’s way better to have the input. Writing by yourself is boring. It’s lame.
SR: Waste Management deals a lot with, not necessarily loneliness, but solitude with yourself, which is an interesting juxtaposition when compared to the harsh magnitude of the city that you use as a backdrop. What were some ways you worked through this theme and were there any feelings that came out in the process?
ML: When I was writing these songs, I think it was shortly after I had moved back to New York. I think I was just, at that point, having to rebuild my whole social circle. I wasn’t playing in Coltura anymore, and I kind of got tired of the scene I was in. But I think what I was trying to figure out was when growing up I was surrounded by people a lot and have never established an independent routine that felt good. I think it’s because when I was younger my parents put me in a lot of stuff – playing sports, piano lessons, and doing homework – I was just a highly productive child. So I never really learned how to have a fulfilling home life. It’s like the curse of the American productivity complex, but we’re all just trying to figure out how to relax a little bit – and I’m still dealing with that. So, “Downtime” and “Control” are about that, and “Strangers” a little bit, too. The thing that I’ve found that’s been really grounding is just creating lots of routine. You get so much decision fatigue, especially here in New York, about what to do with your time.
SR: One thematic step that I really resonated with on Waste Management is the focus on other relationships beyond just the romantic kind. Can you tell me a bit about that choice?
ML: Yeah, I mean, they’re more important than romantic relationships. I go back and forth about this a lot with all the songwriters here, about love songs and like, should we keep writing love songs or not? Fenne Lily, who’s one of my closest friends, will always say, ‘there’s a reason that the best songs are love songs. You have to continue writing love songs because that’s when you have the strongest feelings.’ But I get really tired of it after a while, you know? I think that writing about other relationships has a lot of nuance, and oftentimes, the relationships are much longer. I’ve been trying to write a song about my best friend Natalie for years. And I can’t figure out how to even begin to describe all the different facets of it. But I think it will be a much more interesting song, perhaps, than a love song about someone who I just met and feel interested in or something. Or like with “Something’s Up”, which is about my best friend’s mom, it’s like that is someone who’s known you for your entire childhood, so I think it makes for a more interesting song. Maybe not quite one that has so much depth of feeling, like extreme sadness or extreme happiness, but there’s more to say.
SR: Yeah of course, can you tell me more about “Something’s Up” and that relationship with your best friend’s mom? It’s such a unique lens to write a song from.
ML: Well, one year I had gone to Dallas for Christmas with my ex, which is where he’s from. One night, we went over to his best friend’s house. I think for him, growing up, he would go to his friend’s house as an oasis. The woman who I ended up hanging out with was his best friend’s mom. They just had this crazy year and were sitting around in the sun room smoking cigarettes as a celebratory thing. I think I wrote that song right when I got back to New York, because it was just a really impressionable conversation I had that night. And when a parental figure gives you a cigarette, something happens in that moment where you’re like SHIT – this is kinda cool. I sort of took that, and then the verses are more about my actual childhood friends and their parents.
SR: Was your friend’s house an oasis for you when you were growing up as well?Was that an environment you resonated with?
ML: I feel like this family that I’m writing about is really fun to be around but has some really intense shit going on. There are always fights because there’s a lot of kids and there are always random people staying over at the house. In my house it was just me, my sister and my parents and everything was very calm. There was never a lot of action, so whenever I went over there it was like, this is life! This is crazy!
SR: Can you tell me a bit about the matching EP artworks and the idea behind those photos?
KM: I can’t remember when I shot the winter one, but it was just in my archive and we needed artwork for Quitting Season. It was taken at my parent’s place up in rural Wisconsin.
ML: You take the best photos, Kenny. Most of the things that Kenny does, he’s very good at and no one ever knows.
KM: Jack of all trades, master of none. But yeah, I have a pretty good archive of cool photos. So I sent like 20 or so photos for single art and cover art and everyone liked the truck. The truck was the winner. And then I thought, ‘I’m going to go take that same truck photo in the summer for the next EP.’
ML: Yeah, you nailed it
KM: It was the same day the truck went to the dump. The truck is gone now.
ML: It went to the dump?
KM: It went to the scrap. It wasn’t really working, and our neighbor came over to maybe buy some of the parts off of it, so he and my dad were there talking about stuff and looking in the hood and that’s what I took the picture. Took a bunch of photos of them doing that and then that dude scrapped it.
Photo by Justin Buschardt
KM: Do you know about Indie Basketball? It’s a podcast from Chicago where your favorite indie rock musicians talk about the NBA. If you ever meet these guys, tell them Work Wife really wants to be on it.
SR: I haven’t, but I definitely will, that sounds incredible! You started your own basketball music fest/fundraiser, didn’t you?
ML: Bandsketball!
KM: I’m working on getting the venue right now! I’m trying to get the parkour gym to do it, because they have this huge parking lot with hoops. But they have their concerns.
ML: Isaac maybe had the worst day of his life at last year’s Bandsketball. Well, first off, we were all hungover for some reason, but it was also really hot and we were not dressed appropriately for it. We got smacked by this band called Monograms who brought their own matching jerseys and had their own plays that they were running.
KM: Yeah, Isaac was playing in boots and overalls.
ML: He actually thought he was going to die, like he thought he was going to have a heart attack. And then we had to play our set after and I knew he was fucked up, but it was hard to tell because he was still shredding. But he was dead in the eyes.
SR: How many bands participated in it?
KM: We had 16, but there were a lot of people who were interested. This band called Henry Flower won. His record came out the same week and he said it was the greatest week of his life.
ML: It was a big deal. He said he and his band had not been having band practice because they were practicing basketball.
SR: Off the record, which band had the worst team?
KM: Probably Work Wife, you can leave that on the record, we were terrible – just awful. But we were only our band. For a while we were going to play with Helenor, but Dave [DiAngelis] fielded his own team, which was probably good for him.
ML: We talked a pretty big game, but we were shockingly bad for how often we play basketball on tour. But I still love the game.
SR: How was this past headlining tour you just finished?
ML: It continues to amaze me that anyone wants to come to these shows. Before we started doing these headlining tours, I was thinking that I really don’t want to do this. You hear so many horror stories of these bands playing headlining tours that are just like empty show after empty show. But the tours have been great! A bunch of people show up to every show. I don’t know who they are but they know who we are and it makes it feel like we can do this. Touring is highly inefficient, though. Hauling around all these humans and equipment to play for like 30 minutes, sometimes to an empty room, you think, is this really the best way to do this? But I think we’re the type of band where the live show is a big part of what we do, so we’ll keep doing it. But we are going to take a touring break and then start playing shows in the summer again.
SR: Does Work Wife have anything coming up that you are excited about?
ML: We’re working on a full-length now which I think will be a little bit different than the old stuff. Now we have Isaac, so the stuff that we’re writing I think has a bigger influence coming from his country rock and blues stuff. He’s just been sending me a ton of music and I feel like my taste is slowly changing for the better.
KM: We recorded demos. There’s like one electro-pop kind of thing which we’re doing as well.
ML: Yeah, the thing I can’t figure out is where to put it. It’s kind of like folk-rock, but there’s some electronic stuff as well. It’s a continual journey of deciding how much to incorporate that, because I always love pushing two things that don’t belong together and trying to make it work. But I don’t know, we will keep trying. Once the summer hits then it’ll be back to the bangers.
Brooklyn-based project Helenor emboldens the sensations of grief on the new music video for “Bad2”, out today. Conceived by visual artist Indie DiMartino, you can watch the video for “Bad2” now premiering on the ugly hug.
Helenor is the creative DIY project of David DiAngelis, who, last month released his sophomore record, A public place, off ofMtn. Laurel Recording Co. After dropping everything and moving to New York as the pandemic let up, A public place is representative of this wandering – a buffer between where he’s been and where he’s going as the world seemingly blows by.
Opening A public place, “Bad2” grows from a mellow haze – an episode of brain fog reluctant to part as DiAngelis feels fated to grief’s plot. Though his life appears to be static, the song presses onward with a blend of grounded acoustic guitars and revitalizing synthesizers.
“This song is a soundtrack for pretending you have the ability to be present, so for the video we wanted it to feel like an erratic playback of memory,” DiAngelis says.
The music video consists of an impressive and sensory fulfilling array of filming techniques and artistic mediums, as DiMartino, the video’s creator, explains:
“The film for Bad2 exists as an erratic playback of a memory. To portray this feeling of messy dissociation, its process pulled from an array of experimental analog compositing practices and mediums. The project’s footage and titles were shot to 8mm film, with some shots relying on in camera mattes and rear projection. Just as well, some of these film scans were manually scrubbed through and reshot on an old LCD the width of a thumb. A quarter of the project’s runtime was physically printed and rescanned frame by frame. A technique was implemented to further distress these selected sequences by “hand-blooming” the highlights with paint and charcoal.”
Although these styles transition and blur, creating a feeling of disconnection between settings and sensations, the one thing that remains consistent through it all is DiAngelis’ presence, no matter how disorienting it may appear.
Helenor will be playing a Palestine Benefit Event along with Katy Kirby and Jules Olsen on May 21. You can stream A public place on all platforms as well as purchase it on vinyl or CD.
Today, Feller, the Chicago-based post-rock duo, share two new singles from their forthcoming debut EP, Universal Miracle Worker(due May 28 via Angel Tapes/Fire Talk). Both tracks are accompanied by a visualizer made by Brady Sheridan, and you can listen to “New Cotton” and “Air Mail Tablet” premiering on the ugly hug.
Feller is composed of drummer Ethan Toenjes (Sleepwalk, Old Coke) and guitarist/vocalist Pete Willson (Cafe Racer), whose concise, far-reaching and captivating sound has found a comfortable home in Chicago’s expansive DIY scene. Making no sacrifice to their individuality, though, Feller stands out in their unique disposition; heavy, eccentric, patient, volatile – and every which reactionary pleasure that they feel fits in the moment.
“Air Mail Tablet” and “New Cotton” showcase Feller as a rock n’ roll assemblage; embodying the most endearing parts of post-punk, post-rock and post-hardcore that still feels fresh in delivery and irresistible in nature. “Air Mail Tablet” is a fever dream, energized by an instrumental groove that floats between loose guitar layers, haunting vocal manipulations and Toenjes’ snug and propulsive drumming. “New Cotton” demonstrates the duo’s natural ability to shift and build around a centralized idea. As patterns melt and mold, showcasing the duo’s extensive knowledge of rock music structures – and lack thereof – the song always returns to its melodic, and often restorative, center.
Universal Miracle Worker will be available on limited edition orange cassettes via Fire Talk’s extension, Angel Tapes.
Dallas based musician, actress and visual artist Tex Patrello is an anomaly in many ways. After the release of 2017’s short EP, yellow curse, her musical career has flourished in the celestial outers – but once you discover it, her artistry becomes impossible to look away from. Expanding our comprehension of what a bedroom musician can be, brandishing her own style of dysfunctional and twisted pop music, Patrello has always pushed the boundaries of what we consider capable by an individual.
Last week, Patrello finally released her highly anticipated debut full-length, Minotaur, off of Texas label, View No Country. After spending seven years in the making, Minotaur was conceived with the mindset of a musical, accumulating characters, thematic squirmings, suggestive imagery and the sheer magnitude of interpretations that make for a project of grand proportions. Overt patriotism, body objectification, attentive despondency – the world that Minotaur exudes feels obsessive, sinful, and sexy, yet utterly revitalizing at the same time. Patrello, who embodies herself throughout the album, encounters various characters that direct her decisions; Ricky the football player, Lou the matured suitor, and The Beast. Minotaur, as a whole, is a manipulation of reality, a mere delusion that Patrello has manufactured herself for the pure purpose of understanding where and what she is truly connected to.
Photo by Tex Patrello
With ten engaging songs, some creeping over the six minute mark, Minotaur is reluctant to let up. With a continual build of haunting avant-pop contusions, waltzing, hollowing lows and high spiritual frenzies that fluctuate with Patrello’s throbbing heart, Minotaur squeezes out as much expansive, and oftentimes charmingly offensive, production styles as possible. At its core, songs like “Panda Express”, “Wichita Falls” and “Anything Goes” still seamlessly flow with whimsy over shifting patterns and arcing instrumentation that Patrello bundled into the prog-like folk style of yellow curse. But beyond that, Minotaur is magnetic, clinging to new sounds of ravaging orchestrations, acrobatic vocals and electronic decays as Patrello’s posture wavers through song structures, molding from one idea into the next with such strategic thought and execution.
Breaking down her process, Patrello is patient when shaping melodies. “I find whatever makes me feel a high at that moment. I extract that, and I end up joining those extractions together.” As far as the individual songs go, she continues, “I tend to keep building upon them – making sure I love every corner and turn in it. I just didn’t want to have anything I didn’t love in this album.” In its full construction, “I would say that there is no song on this album that’s under 50 tracks. And there’s some, I think, that are 400 tracks.” She recalls, “it’s two different projects, because it wouldn’t even work if I had it in one. My computer wouldn’t work.”
Spending seven years endlessly working through these configurations, flexing through instrumentations and concepts as well as learning to mix and master on her own, this magnitude of time and intensity is vital in the name of Patrello’s artistry. There are multitudes of shifts and changes, blending patience with needs, as personal tribulations sway her perception of reality. “I knew a story I wanted to tell, but I didn’t want to push anything. I wanted to write a musical, but have every song come naturally – as if I wanted to make a movie, but every scene happens to me before I put it in.”
Patrello’s world is strikingly unique and personal, pulling us in with cartoonish characters and tropes that only further intensify the situations. These characters are structured within convoluted juxtapositions that feel distressed within her own being as she experiences them in real time. “I feel like one of my biggest sources of inspiration comes from things that I have no interest in,” she confesses, something that feels oppositional to what we are often told – “write what you know”. “I don’t know anything about sports but I’ve written like 5 songs about football,” and yet, football becomes a symbol of power, sex and eventually hostility as Minotaur unfolds into its climax.
In the opening track we are introduced to the all-American football star’s son, Ricky. It starts with a white flash, an intense heat, as Patrello demands the car come to a stop, when Ricky first appears and this delusion begins. Changing out of his football pads, she sneaks a look at his perfect athletic body. “I crouch/ It’s some hunk in his backseat now/ He’s undressing/ He lifts his jersey/ It’s Ricky”, she croons, struck with instant infatuation. “Ricky is real in a way. He’s a bunch of different people that I’ve lived with these last seven years,” Patrello admits. He lives on a pedestal in her mind, being the only one who can satisfy her lust for perfection – perfect image, perfect smile, perfect body, perfect lover, perfect sex.
When writing Minotaur, Patrello was very intrigued by the Nelson Family, who, crossing decades, held a looming level of adoration in American culture throughout the 1950’s during their long running sitcom, The Adventures of Ozzie and Harriet. “They were the perfect family of the time,” Patrello says. “The show is literally just about their family,” consisting of Ozzie and Harriet, and their two sons David and Ricky. “The episodes aren’t very interesting. The stories they tell aren’t interesting at all,” but this TV family was meant to portray the very real Nelson family as the perfect, All-American, white picket fence – true patriots of the middle class mirage – that the American narrative forced at the time. But on the contrary, blending this level of perfectionism with real people who were very much not, brought out the inevitable, and quite public, destruction of what was reality to them.
Photo by Tex Patrello
As the most interactive character, Ricky holds a level of control over Patrello, whether he is aware of his powers or not. “I’m kind of using someone as my muse for [Ricky], but most of the time the person I’m writing about is apathetic or rude or uncaring. And so I think that in my head Ricky has a lot of highs and lows in this album.” As Ricky lives his life, strongly on his own terms, Patrello’s relationship to him always feels to be trailing behind in whatever capacity Ricky will allow. “My fluctuations are probably just responses to Ricky’s fluctuations. He’s sort of calling the shots on what I’m thinking and what I’m feeling.”
For as much as the album revolves around Ricky, the real focal point that drives the story is the way that Patrello interprets the distance of their relationship and her own autonomy. “I think in Ricky’s world, I’m not as much of a concern to him. So I think it’s more about my progression than his.” The song “Long Lost Pimp” trails a brief moment of liberation as Patrello tries to push Ricky away, seeking out the compassion of an older man named Lou. “Wichita Falls” feels like a holy communion as Patrello sees Ricky finally committing to her. “That trip to Wichita Falls, I think, is like a baptism for me in that lake. My yoke is being loosened. My sin is being drowned.” Songs like “Slick-Dick’s Baby” show violence in the same vein as sex and passion, as Patrello watches Ricky dominate his football game, becoming unwieldy and lascivious by her love for him. “Love me like you love America/ And when you choke that fucker, call me wife/ And when he’s out, my god, I love my life.” As her character’s direction feels fated from the beginning, “I think I’m just responding to Ricky most of the time,” Patrello admits.
“I would say that The Beast is the opposite of my relationship with Ricky”. To Patrello, The Beast, or for namesake, The Minotaur, can be a culmination of a lot of different things in her day to day surroundings – the things that she overlooks in the name of casualty and routine, though they always offer some supportive ground below her feet. “I feel like I was trying to have Texas speak through me a little bit. When I’m more connected to The Beast, I’m more connected to the Earth and I’m more low to the ground and present in this land – in Texas specifically.” Unlike the uncertainty that Ricky excretes, The Beast, and its many possible representations, feels comfortable in his presence and actions. “I feel as though I’m more a resident of my room than of any city, because I’m not out super often, but when I am, I feel very connected to Texas and this land surrounding me.”
Photo by Tex Patrello
In a lot of ways, Patrello utilizes the Greek origin story of the Minotaur, one of lust, conquer and betrayal, as a source of direction and relation for her own story. As it goes, Theseus is sent from Athens on a mission to slay the Minotaur that lives in the Labyrinth, but arrives wildly unprepared. Ariadne, the mistress of the Labyrinth, sees Theseus and quickly falls in love with him. Fearing that he will be killed in this fateful battle, Ariadne equips him with the tools he needs, but only on the premise that if he succeeds, he must marry her. “I’m connecting myself to Ariadne,” Patrello asserts, mirroring her own story with Ricky – falling helplessly in love until he, almost predictably, abandons her on a whim.
In the end, Patrello is filled with the guilt of neglecting, forfeiting, and having a hand at slaying The Beast – not until he is dead does it become clear the significance he has on her life. The second to last song “Pony Meat” plays as a memory, spent “reconnecting to a past life where I might have been Ariadne,” as she sings,” “Animal, you animal/ So sweet to me/ I didn’t know, how could/ I know/ Just what you mean?” There is desperation in her voice, each line more sobering than the next. Ricky is gone, The Beast is dead, the world she has built is crumbling and her true reality has succumbed to darkness. In its stillness, Patrello admits her realization – “it’s wanting what you can’t have. The Beast is what I’ve had, and it’s hard to see that comfort or beauty in him with how enthralled I am with Ricky.”
In her process of accumulating inspiration, choosing to write about things that she has no interest in, such as Ricky’s All-American football career, there was a distance between Patrello and Ricky from the beginning, where Ricky was always going to be more idolized than truly loved. “I think when writing [“Pony Meat”], the whole time I felt more connected to the Minotaur and that sort of like dirty or freaky side of me that I wouldn’t allow to be seen by Ricky,” Patrello admits, continuing, “I feel that I’m not putting something on as much anymore.” That is where the difference between Ricky and The Beast becomes gripping – in whose claws does Patrello feel most connected and grounded to be her true self.
“The Minotaur is a human body with a bull’s head, of course, and I think that that’s why I’m most connected to him,” she conveys. “I feel similarly, in a way, where I feel like I’m a pretty face on a beast’s body or the other way around.” This duality, half man/half beast perfectly interprets human nature – sinful, lustful, rabid, violent, egregious animals who can put on pants and a tie and call it civilized. Like the Nelson Family, blinded by the lights of Hollywood, the paparazzi and their own ego, their show acted as their own pair of pants and tie (for as silly as that sounds), creating a false and conflicting image of who they truly were, winding up to be their own tragedy.
As an album that grows out of a delusion, fluctuating between realities, worlds and personalities, the finale, “DeKalb” flourishes in its ability to be present. “Dekalb is when I’m really the most lucid, and not only do I feel the most lucid, I feel like that’s the first time I’m lucid in the whole album and the most connected to where I am,” Patrello reflects. “I guess I’m connected to where I am, and I feel like I’m less delusional about things – things like Ricky.” Patrello doesn’t shy away from how much her character has faltered trying to be something that she is not – its her own modern day Greek tragedy, one to be reiterated over and over again in time.
“The conclusion of the album is that I’m still petty,” she says with a slight laugh. “There’s like no lesson really learned, but I think I’m just kind of waking up a little bit in the end.” Although there are moments that feel full circle, there is no clean conclusion, leaving us listeners with some unease. But to its credit, that’s the point. “‘Dekalb” is very aware that I don’t feel like I’m in a resolved place in my real life,” Patrello states with full honesty, firm in the artistic choice she has made. “So with what’s happened in this album I wasn’t gonna end it in a perfect way.” Minotaur is a starting line, the culmination of events that Patrello felt were necessary to experience before real change, growth and sobering realization can begin. And who knows, maybe seven years down the line we will get her next chapter – in the way that only Patrello sees fit.
Tex Patrello has a few shows in Texas that will be announced in the coming weeks. You can stream Minotaur on all platforms now and purchase a CD or tape of the album.
Grief is a needle and thread that weaves its way through the seven tracks of Chicago-based singer-songwriter Hannah Frances’ third full length album, Keeper of the Shepherd. Soft and contemplative moments burn as solitary candles in the dark, while rising tides of emotion reverberate to carve out a lasting impression.
This is a record that buries itself into the subconscious mind. It’s like recalling a dream, only to discover deeper meaning upon closer examination. Keeper of the Shepherd reveals its truths slowly with patience and insight. Simply put — it contains multitudes.
Frances — a vocalist, guitarist, composer, poet and movement artist — draws upon a mélange of influences ranging from avant-folk to progressive rock and jazz. This is evident on the album’s opening track, “Bronwyn,” a song with a vocal melody that wraps around itself — an ouroboros with teeth of angular guitars and haunting strings.
There’s a Whitman-esque quality to Frances’ lyrics on “Bronwyn” with its sing-song sense of rhythm and cadence. It evokes longing and loss as a timeless element of the human experience:
“Bronwyn, I lost the way home where I knew/ the ground smokes as it burns to hell/ release me from this sweltered land I stand/ holding to the shepherd’s hand/ the man praised and punished me too/ bronwyn I lost the song/ gone when I sang/ bronwyn, I lost the way home where I knew how to love you and/ be loved too.”
The album’s title track is where Frances’ vocals shine – soaring to magnificent heights on the chorus, while a driving and folksy waltzy guitar rhythm is paired with unearthly pedal steel. The song takes a hard left turn towards the end with an avant-garde breakdown that sounds like Syd Barrett era Pink Floyd meets John Coltrane.
“Woolgathering” is a song that’s like a paper origami boat gently meandering across deep dark and mysterious waters. There’s stark grief hidden behind Frances’ heartachingly beautiful vocals.
“Meet me where the heart beats/ where the shadows shade the heat/ love me wounded/ hold me where my edges soften/ give me time to free my lungs/ the ribs are loosening/ the life breathes in/ the life breathes in.”
She evokes the best of folk singer-songwriters such as Nick Drake or Connie Converse, with a subtlety and nuances in her vocals that grabs hold, bringing a bevy of emotions to the surface.
Meanwhile, “Floodplain” blends folk melodies with avant-garde string arrangements for a pairing that’s like Joan Baez with Radiohead’s Jonny Greenwood as composer.
There’s a subtle dark humor at play here that draws on morbid imagery to exhume the corpse of a relationship. “The birch tree bark stripped bare/ the bones and the bodies decay there/ naked as the moss grows over in time/ as the loss goes through the dam to loosen you in my heart.”
“Husk” is a stark place — a meditation on death with only an acoustic guitar and Frances’ bittersweet melody on display at first. Vocal harmonies swirl around this once bare soundscape, growing the song into an apex complete with lush strings. It’s one of the highlights of Keeper of the Shepherd, and it’s easily one of Frances’ most soul stirring songs.
An example of perfect contrast is found with “Vacant Intimacies,” an anthemic folk song that transforms grief into emotional release. It’s almost a shame that this wasn’t the closing track, as it feels like a final chapter of the album’s emotional trajectory.
But with “Haunted Landscape, Echoing Cave,” Frances takes all of the musical elements that preceded it to close with a song that digs up the ruins and unflinchingly re-assembles the bones. “I laid down as the field burned/ quarry of origin stories born before me/ i listen for voices vanishing/ life in petrified wood.”
On Keeper of the Shepherd, Frances is an artist at her peak. This is an album of evocative imagery, themes with emotional depth, and musicality that’s unique and wondrous to behold. It’s a supernova — finding the pain and the beauty in death; with the hope to begin anew.
Last Friday, Brooklyn based labelHATETOQUITand the band Hiding Places teamed up to release a compilation titled Merciless Accelerating Rhythms: Artists United for a Free Palestine. All proceeds made from sales on Bandcamp and streaming royalties will be donated directly to Palestine Children’s Relief Fund (PCRF) and Palestine Legal.
The compilation features 55 contributions from artists across the U.S. and U.K., spanning genres from ambient electronic to jazz. Artists featured on the compilation include Mount Eerie, Little Wings, John Andrews & The Yawns, Magnolia Electric Company’s Jason Evans Groth, Mipso’ Libby Rodenbaugh, and more.
Cover art for the release was created by Rebecca Pempek, who has organized a print sale of the cover art and other pieces for release the same day on their site.
Based on anti-apartheid artist, leader and poet, June Jordan’s poem, “I Must Become A Menace to My Enemies,” dedicated by Jordan to Agostinho Neto, former President of The People’s Republic of Angola, the album’s title “Merciless Accelerating Rhythms” encapsulates a form of political organizing beyond “walking politely on the pavements,” and emphasizes “becom[ing] the action of [our] fate,” acting in a form of “retaliation.”
“I plan to blossom bloody on an afternoon
surrounded by my comrades singing
terrible revenge in merciless
accelerating
rhythms”
We as Artists United for a Free Palestine see retaliation as a diversity of tactics; as mutual aid; as solidarity with the people of Palestine; as direct action, if necessary; as an immediate end to the Israeli Occupation Force and a Free Palestine, forever; as a liberated world. Our duty as artists has – and always will be – radical acts of care; the least we can do is send aid to those facing/fighting genocide in Palestine, and those organizing access to lawyers and legal support for those who need it.
Aunt Ant is three-piece Asheville, NC post-rock brainchild of members Lauren Hewer, Sean German, and Jonah Ileana. Today they’ve released a new song called “8theist,” with an accompanying music video, which you can watch below.
I had the opportunity to conduct a Q&A with Lauren about the dynamic song and its meaning; one of many full, vulnerable tracks on the Aunt Ant live setlist (which you can watch here), “8theist” features everything from soft moments with sparse notes to explosions of noise and incredible overdriven tone.
Audrey Keelin: Lauren I am just so pumped to be writing about you for an on-the-record account of your freaking artistry! I have so many questions for you and I’m honored I can ask about it.
Lauren Hewer: Hi, Audrey ヽ( ´ ｖ｀ )ノ thanks for asking to do this! You’re awesome.
AK:Can you tell me about the birth of this song from the beginning until now?
LH: I forgot that I sent a demo of this song in for a compilation you made in 2021 until you reminded me, but I just listened to it and it’s wildly different from what I remembered! The song sounds a lot different now. The structure had already changed a lot by the time we started playing it with Jonah [our drummer] in 2022 and I think overall it has become heavier over time.
AK:What kind of song-making process do you enjoy the most/ what works best for you?
LH: I personally find the most exciting songwriting to be in moments where we have no expectation or parameters to create something. I think this is where the most honest and beautiful music comes from, but it can be a lengthy process to reel in that kind of energy to create a cohesive song structure.
AK:Why did you write “8theist”?
LH: 8theist was a poem I wrote a very long time ago. I don’t really remember writing it, but I think I was just reflecting on being a kid. It’s mostly about growing up in the South in an area with a large Baptist presence with English (and very atheist) parents.
Photo by Ezra Earnhardt
AK:How did taking a break from releasing music and playing a bunch of local shows in Asheville prepare you to release music again?
LH: This feels like our first real release because it’s the first song we have recorded since the three of us started playing together a couple years ago. We have some old demos on different sites but they’ve mostly been iPhone recordings of ideas we’ve had before we really started playing live music as a band. We took a little break from playing shows mostly so I could finish school, but I was also feeling very overwhelmed by the state of the world and didn’t know how to show up in a live performance setting. It always feels good to play our songs for the first time after a break because they feel a lot more fresh and exciting to us that way.
AK: Live performance is complex. How have you been relating to it recently? What have you learned about live performance within the past few shows you’ve played?
LH: Right now I think I have the most fun performing live when we are playing new material. It’s always nice being able to play in a space where we can be really loud and not worry about neighbors and it’s also really cool to be exposed to new music through playing shows!
AK: Why did you write the first song you ever wrote? What moved you to start writing songs and making music?
The first song I wrote was called “Beach Party” and I wrote it with my friend Melina because we wanted a really good and relatable kids song about beach parties and having fun at the beach. But now music helps me say things I don’t know how to say otherwise.
Photo by Ezra Earnhardt
AK:Tell me about the influences you drew from for this single. Why and how did you draw this influence from them?
LH: I think I was listening to a lot of Cursive at the time and they have this really harsh dissonant guitar tone that I love. Sean showed us this band called The Festival of Dead Deer around that time also that we all got really into. I’ve also always loved the band Tall Friend and how they write about childhood, so I’m sure that subconsciously had an influence on this song.
AK: Any local bands that have been inspiring you recently?
Run Over By a Horse + Studda Bubba have been inspiring me recently! Last summer we toured with Dish and have always been extremely inspired by them. We also love Tombstone Poetry and would highly recommend Pagan Rage, Nostalgianoid, Trust Blinks, Mary Metal, Convalescent, Basilica, Terrordome, Landon George, and ORRE when Audrey is in town. 🙂 There are so many!
the ugly hug 