Fire Talk Rock & Indie 51 Items

“Bitter Melon” is a new zine housing a flexi single of the same name by Fire Talk recording artist Cola. Flip the pages to reveal a new world, symbols both modern and ancient, just a taste of what’s to come. “Bitter Melon” creates a trance-like atmosphere of repetition and lingering, falling in and out of form. With roots in Montreal, Cola was formed by ex-Ought members Tim Darcy and Ben Stidworthy, and Evan Cartwright who had played with U.S. Girls and the Weather Station, among others. From their inception, they brought together the spartan d.i.y. ethic of Dischord or SST working punks with an ear toward the modern.

into a pretty room — lots of hands’ debut on Fire Talk Records — exists in the tear-stained early mornings of adolescence, just as the sun makes its first appearance over the horizon and thoughts of the night before begin to subside. A collage of reworked demos, freewheeling session standouts, and swatches of instrumental electronics, into a pretty room offers a touching rumination of grief and loss, growing up and letting go.

Billy Woodhouse and Elliot Dryden, the core duo behind lots of hands, first connected in a Newcastle school music program at age 16. Following years of cultivating a dedicated fanbase across 3 self-released records, into a pretty room marks the duo’s first truly collaborative effort, with Dryden often trekking the vast northern English countryside to write and record in Woodhouse’s bedroom studio. Between pints of beer and rounds of Fortnite, the two slowly chipped away at into a pretty room.

Newly relocated from Leeds to their current base of Newcastle-upon-Tyne, lots of hands is anchored by the duo’s friendship, which emanates across the album’s 14 tracks.

‘Crispy Crunchy Nothing’ puts to rest any notion Madeline Link had about finding the end. Burnout, dead-end jobs, bike theft, stress dreams, heartbreak — Packs move forward through them all one line, one lick, one beat at a time, equal parts Alex G’s whimsy and Helvetia’s thunderous dynamics. Sticking together songs written in Toronto, Ottawa and Mexico City (while Madeline completed a papier-mâché residency), Crispy Crunchy Nothing revisits the fuzzy alt-rock of 2021 debut Take the Cake and adds some folksy twang to the mix for an album that explores the tension between independence and isolation, between living life to the fullest and feeling like you’re wasting your time. Influenced by country-tinged contemporaries like Renee Reed and Angel Olsen and Madeline’s lockdown-era listening sessions with her dad, of albums by Hank Locklin and Hank Williams. Crispy Crunchy Nothing is heavy, and Madeline makes little effort to hide the depths of her feelings. But after the rain, flowers peek up from the soil. “Laughing Till I Cry,” a reject from a commercial, recalls fond memories of spending time with her sister: “Sometimes, I feel like life is on my side.” And “Always Be a Kid,” jangling and swaying with the Nashville guitar in the foreground, keeps her chasing those smaller Matryoshka dolls, looking for companionship but settling for herself in the meantime. “So now, I feel alive,” she repeats, over and over again. And by the end, it sounds like she’s starting to believe it.

The Sublime Sculpture of Being Alive,' the new album from Los Angeles-based Media Jeweler, is a three-dimensional reckoning with the contradictions of life in all its manic altitudes and claustrophobia. Recorded over three chaotic weeks in Omaha, the band's elaborate sonic infrastructures carry the same sense of studied experimentation as Palm, Guerrilla Toss or Deerhoof, rollicking across an energetic spectrum that parlay the band's post-punk roots, jazz rhythms and art punk choruses into something greater than the sum of its parts. The most fully-fleshed release yet, a myriad of musical collaborators were enlisted uniting a finely-tuned sense of adventurousness that roves between the personal and political to frame an acute portrait of modern day societal revelation. 'The Sublime Sculpture of Being Alive' is out on Fire Talk (Dehd, Deeper, Mamalarky).

Sometimes we can only come to know ourselves best when we let others in. Such can certainly be said of NYC multi-instrumentalist and artist Andrya Ambro, and her band Gold Dime, on the eve of their second full-length My House. See, she's played these instruments and crafted these songs her entire life, having honed her decisive sit/stand style of transfixing drumming and provocative singing to a degree of perfectionism. Coming from her previous, highly acclaimed noisy rock duo Talk Normal, Gold Dime's first release, 2017's Nerves, was the first time Ambro has had no one to answer to but herself. My House sees a new, more collective effort being made, with Ian Douglas-Moore on bass and John Bohannon (Ancient Ocean || J.R. Bohannon) on guitar. And it very much shows. Walking a tightrope between unapologetic art rock and disarming intimacy, she integrates triumphant doubled guitars whose distorted fuzz winks at the mayhem of Les Rallizes Denudes, deep floor toms that quick pivot to galvanizing beats on a bed of dead spinning cymbals, to sometimes spoken, sometimes sung Laurie Anderson-esque words that uplift into a many voiced choir. And the warm bass lines, well they would make Holger Czukay from CAN very proud.

My House, according to Ambro, is intended to be something of a gruff father's declaration at dinner, fist slamming on the table, but rather than the stubborn, undying manners that would come with 'living under my roof,' she only demands that everything be done with the same degree of tireless dedication and authenticity. 'I want every beat to be played with intention. 'Cause why play if you don't mean it?' Every moment of this album acts as just that'a demand to own something, whether it be self or art or place in this world. We have no choice but to listen, to respect it. This is her house... well Gold Dime's house.

Produced by Andrya Ambro recorded and mixed by Ernie Indradat, mastered by Sarah Register with artwork and layout by Eric Copeland.

Brooklyn via Denver psych warlocks return with their 3rd LP. Texturally conjuring the usual psych concepts, connecting the dots & filtering
them through a new lens. Mixing shamanistic circular guitar patterns with steady shifting drum beats. 40 minutes of zoned out instrumental jammers, think Torotise meets Wooden Shjips & Spacemen 3.

Pressed to vinyl for the first time it's Wombo's shapeshifting and genre defying "Slab" and "Keesh Mountain" EPs. In a generation where pop has come to be defined as anything but, Wombo have spearheaded their own definitive sound that avoids genre classification but is impossible not to tap your foot along to. “Usually if the babies like it, we like it”, admits singer Sydney Chadwick, and it speaks to the band’s bass-driven song structures that pivot through a whirlwind of instrumentation at rapid speeds that they are still able to land on a winning formula that strikes the sweet spot between effervescent overload and razor sharp intention. In a careful balance where no one instrument overwhelms, Chadwick’s vocals are the cherry on top of a decadent dessert that explodes with personality and ingenuity.

On Pure Music, Strange Ranger’s new album out on Fire Talk, the band indulges an obsession with Loveless, but they infiltrate any comparison to shoegaze with overtures to disco, house, and experimental pop. The Talk Talk inspired pean to isolation “Way Out” features a moody saxophone, while “She’s On Fire” is only a rock song until just after the midway point, when the drums throb, the snare skitters then snaps, and suddenly, you’re in a sweaty pit of swaying bodies dancing as dual vocals harmonize, “I would have thought the rhythm of the club might lead me somewhere. Pure Music embodies that manic state through interstitial interludes laced with YouTube samples that connect each track to the next so as to submerge the listener in its world, one that rewards catharsis. The alienated might gaze through panes of glass eternally, without breaching the gap between the self and the destabilizing chaos of the world beyond. Riding the train across the East River in the early morning, one witnesses thousands of individual stories, each contained within a glowing square of light, and it's a comfort to know that soon, those strangers will emerge from their solitude to rejoin the city. “Music makes us transcend the feeling of being alienated from or trapped by the world,” the band says. “I want the experience of listening to Pure Music to be euphoric.” Recorded by the band, mixed by Al Carlson and mastered by Joe LaPorta.

‘Crispy Crunchy Nothing’ puts to rest any notion Madeline Link had about finding the end. Burnout, dead-end jobs, bike theft, stress dreams, heartbreak — Packs move forward through them all one line, one lick, one beat at a time, equal parts Alex G’s whimsy and Helvetia’s thunderous dynamics. Sticking together songs written in Toronto, Ottawa and Mexico City (while Madeline completed a papier-mâché residency), Crispy Crunchy Nothing revisits the fuzzy alt-rock of 2021 debut Take the Cake and adds some folksy twang to the mix for an album that explores the tension between independence and isolation, between living life to the fullest and feeling like you’re wasting your time. Influenced by country-tinged contemporaries like Renee Reed and Angel Olsen and Madeline’s lockdown-era listening sessions with her dad, of albums by Hank Locklin and Hank Williams. Crispy Crunchy Nothing is heavy, and Madeline makes little effort to hide the depths of her feelings. But after the rain, flowers peek up from the soil. “Laughing Till I Cry,” a reject from a commercial, recalls fond memories of spending time with her sister: “Sometimes, I feel like life is on my side.” And “Always Be a Kid,” jangling and swaying with the Nashville guitar in the foreground, keeps her chasing those smaller Matryoshka dolls, looking for companionship but settling for herself in the meantime. “So now, I feel alive,” she repeats, over and over again. And by the end, it sounds like she’s starting to believe it.

‘Crispy Crunchy Nothing’ puts to rest any notion Madeline Link had about finding the end. Burnout, dead-end jobs, bike theft, stress dreams, heartbreak — Packs move forward through them all one line, one lick, one beat at a time, equal parts Alex G’s whimsy and Helvetia’s thunderous dynamics. Sticking together songs written in Toronto, Ottawa and Mexico City (while Madeline completed a papier-mâché residency), Crispy Crunchy Nothing revisits the fuzzy alt-rock of 2021 debut Take the Cake and adds some folksy twang to the mix for an album that explores the tension between independence and isolation, between living life to the fullest and feeling like you’re wasting your time. Influenced by country-tinged contemporaries like Renee Reed and Angel Olsen and Madeline’s lockdown-era listening sessions with her dad, of albums by Hank Locklin and Hank Williams. Crispy Crunchy Nothing is heavy, and Madeline makes little effort to hide the depths of her feelings. But after the rain, flowers peek up from the soil. “Laughing Till I Cry,” a reject from a commercial, recalls fond memories of spending time with her sister: “Sometimes, I feel like life is on my side.” And “Always Be a Kid,” jangling and swaying with the Nashville guitar in the foreground, keeps her chasing those smaller Matryoshka dolls, looking for companionship but settling for herself in the meantime. “So now, I feel alive,” she repeats, over and over again. And by the end, it sounds like she’s starting to believe it.

"Leaving,’ the sophomore album from Fran, finds the band at a crossroads of loss and possibility, forged through Maria Jacobsen’s preoccupation with the climate crisis as well as newfound contemplation of the intertwined nature of theology and religion. There’s an overarching spirit of home that overlays these heavy themes, however, and both gently intentional and evocative, her deliberate musings convey a type of music that feels tactile to the touch. On “Leaving” Jacobson’s sharply wry anecdotes feel astutely impactful, with effortless melodic guitar and string arrangements creating a heartrending backdrop that showcases Fran as another force to watch in the constantly evolving Chicago music scene. Angular, precise and filled with melodic entanglement, this spirited culmination of modern indie folk songwriting, strings and electric guitars highlight the potential release and joy of Jacobsen’s apt storytelling."

Pocket Fantasy, the sophomore album from Mamalarky is an instant-classic sunny-day record, imaginative and introspective, an enveloping listen of skyhigh hooks and keyboards that soar with joyful abandon. Its twelve kaleidoscopic tracks shapeshift aesthetically and thematically, through ideas about death and impermanence; love and gratitude; nature and technology; humor and hope. Heralded by Billboard, Nylon, The Fader and more, the new album expands on the unique sound of their self-titled debut which Pitchfork called “tenderly tangled indie rock”. On Pocket Fantasy some of the band’s purest pop tendencies collide with more warped and weird strains of quirky psych. It’s a treasure trove of playful grooves and zigzag riffs, a phenomenal album from a young group poised to carve their own place in the bins of your favorite record store.

Deep in View is the debut album from former Ought members Tim Darcy (vocals, guitar) and Ben Stidworthy (bass) alongside Evan Cartwright (drums). Titled after philosopher Alan Watts' anthology of the same name, the record is built on a foundation of elegant guitar grooves and knotty rhythms, offering commentary on modern life and technology through curious lyrical vignettes, where quotidian objects and scenes are never just as they seem. Deep In View is equally a product of introspective songwriting as it is a consideration of the abstract landmarks of an increasingly media-mediated society. It also presents the most concise and melodic songs Darcy and Stidworthy have written to date.. The album sounds streamlined and intentional, as the rhythms of the punchy and exuberant guitar parts, urgent basslines, and unexpected drum patterns all tangle with each other in an elegant dance. At the center of all these elements is Darcy, whose characteristically wry voice shifts from detached to decisive to distressed, throughout the album's course. Both enigmatically dense in meaning but precisely intricate in sound, Deep in View is an album that sparks novel interpretations with every listen, like an art object that takes on new shape with each angle from which you hold it.

Dhed's 'Flower of Devotion' was one of the most critically-heralded releases of the year, named Best New Music by Pitchfork who called the record 'an effortless, elegantly rumpled strain of indie rock', a triaumphant statement crowinging Dehd one of the most exciting voices in Indie today. 'Flower of Devotion Remixed' sees Dehd surrounded by a myriad of close collaborators (Lala Lala, Protomartyr, Freak Heat Waves, and more) and points a shining spotlight on the Chicago music scene the band still calls home, staying true to the trio's earnest melodies while creating an amorphous blend of experimentations in mutated beats and danceable hooks that feels like a personal mixtape for the friends that know them best.

Toronto's Packs make music that's like leafing through a diary entry of a time without visible movement, a subtle beauty that appears only when paying close attention. The band's debut is a collection of songs that marry the loose but incisive jangle of early Pavement with the barbed sweetness of Sebadoh and the wide-eyed wonder of the first Shins LP. Written in two different settings, between the city limits of Toronto where Link was living in 2019, and the Ottawa suburbs where she was quarantined with her parents in the spring 2020, both remain complementary emblems of self-reflection and wry observation of the mundanity of daily life. "Take the Cake" is out on Fire Talk (Dehd, Deeper, Mamalarky) on July 9th 2021.

Spirit Tamer' is the debut album from Mia Joy available on limited edition Bright Pink and Classic Black vinyl and compact disc on Fire Talk. A member of the Chicago Children's Choir at a young age, the record sees Joy's dual backgrounds in music and poetry evolve into a juxtaposition between soaring emotional synthpop and introspective devotional harmonies. Past press has referred to Mia's music as 'warm, ethereal, endlessly layered, and beautifully expanding'. Filled with heady atmospherics and vulnerability that abounds through the shapeshifting sonic palette, fans of Ana Roxanne or Hand Habits will find much to love in this painstakingly crafted, endearingly intimate universe.

Spirit Tamer' is the debut album from Mia Joy available on limited edition Bright Pink and Classic Black vinyl and compact disc on Fire Talk. A member of the Chicago Children's Choir at a young age, the record sees Joy's dual backgrounds in music and poetry evolve into a juxtaposition between soaring emotional synthpop and introspective devotional harmonies. Past press has referred to Mia's music as 'warm, ethereal, endlessly layered, and beautifully expanding'. Filled with heady atmospherics and vulnerability that abounds through the shapeshifting sonic palette, fans of Ana Roxanne or Hand Habits will find much to love in this painstakingly crafted, endearingly intimate universe.

Toronto’s Packs make music that’s like leafing through a diary entry of a time without visible movement, a subtle beauty that appears only when paying close attention. A series of intriguing, lo-fi singles trickled out on Bandcamp, and on the strength of these demos alone the band began sharing stages with artists such as Odetta Hartman. Less a band that is a product of the internet than one whose quiet and acute observations make them impossible to be ignored, the quartet led by Madeline Link has carved out a growing space past the Canadian country lines where their initial demos were born. Written in two different settings, between the city limits of Toronto where Link was living in 2019, and the Ottawa suburbs where she was quarantined with her parents in the spring 2020, both remain complementary emblems of self-reflection and wry observation of the mundanity of daily life.

“The album is a meeting of old and new,” says Link. “Old songs from a year ago where I'm having really horrifyingly awful days at work, getting doored while biking in Toronto and flying into the middle of the street, or going on dates with guys who I'm either instantly in love with, or who end up creeping me out a bit. Those songs are more packed with that feeling of hurtling-through-time-and-space-at-breakneck-speed, manic energy. The newer songs are infused with a foggier, slower-paced disillusionment, and deal with the strangeness of a reality morphing before my eyes every day. I still try to be optimistic obviously, but these songs are really glorified coping mechanisms.”

Initially a solo songwriting project of Link’s that she pursued between gigs as a set dresser for commercials, the band blossomed into a four piece, composed of Shane Hooper (drums), Noah O’Neil (bass), and Dexter Nash (lead guitar). Anchored by Link’s voice, which brings such an easy charm to her songs that it’s easy to miss her keen ear for acrobatic vocal lines, together they turn Link’s melodically adventurous and introspective songs into the purest and brightest kind of indie rock. The band’s debut is a collection of songs that marry the loose but incisive jangle of early Pavement with the barbed sweetness of Sebadoh and the wide-eyed wonder of the first Shins LP. It will be released in partnership with buzzy Brooklyn label Fire Talk (Dehd, Deeper, Mamalarky), and Toronto mainstays Royal Mountain (Alvvays, Wild Pink, Mac Demarco).

It’s an enchanting record with a transportive quality. The songs communicate Link’s perspective acutely, with details that stand out in their specificity yet feel naturally at ease with melody and a loose charm that make the album feel timeless, like one that could have emerged from any of a number of “golden ages of indie rock.” Packs’ songs have a way of creeping up on you, and showing new depth with each listen. Be it a subtle harmony, a zig-zagging melodic turn, or Link’s lyrics, which wring a commandeering poetry out of every-day building-blocks as she navigates the growing pains that linger beyond adolescence — finding your bearings after a breakup, feeling directionless, processing loss. “My guts are wrapped in clingfilm / my guts are wrapped up tight / and if you’re going to put me in your backpack I will putrefy” goes a particularly arresting lyric on “Clingfilm,” articulately describing in Link’s own incisive language the alienating experience of dating after a break-up Each razor-sharp nugget of wry wisdom depicts its own scene of sonic touchstones: on the dreamy “U Can Wish All You Want,” she sings about moving in with her sister and struggling to adjust to living in the city around a neatly subverted butterfly metaphor, where on “Two Hands” she poignantly describes the eeriness of walking around the neighborhood she grew up in after the world has changed around it, while in the same turn referencing the Simpsons.

Recently completing an artist residency in Mexico, Link’s aptitude and enthusiasm for a myriad of multidisciplinary subjects all trickles back to her overarching approach towards the subject matter she ruminates on in her songs. “While in Mexico, I constructed paper maché objects and documented myself destroying them. I also wrote and presented PowerPoint presentations juxtaposing the most disparate chain of research/ideas together to activate that part of your brain that’s constantly trying to make logical connections where there are none.” Call it world-building on a miniature scale: a more apt way to describe it would be a careful collaging, making sense of catastrophic loss and tiny signposts that point to something greater than the sum of its parts.

Throughout the chaos of everyday life, it’s impossible not to feel charmed by Link’s innate understanding of the little things that make the universe tick, and her sonic accompaniments make the simple task of getting from point A to B a journey that lends a little more spring to your step. Most daydreams feel less realistic; in Packs’ world the two are just what you make it. As society begins to open back up, Take the Cake is a reminder that sometimes a little gentle introspection is all we really need to get by.

Mamalarky spent two years working on their self-titled debut album (out via Fire Talk on November 20th). Raw and cerebral, the LP looks to a range of influences from their collective musical nerdiness. ''We might have a vocal melody that sounds like the lead steel guitar from Santo & Johnny, played over production that aims to be noisy and weird like Deerhoof or Sheer Mag, all the while steeped in the greats like Stevie Wonder or The Four Seasons,' explains Livvy. The album itself was cobbled together in a mix of DIY ways: home recordings with Livvyâ''s roommate Joey Oaxaca (White Reaper, Mo Dotti), singles with Daniel McNeill (White Denim) and a â''final wrapping-upâ' with engineer Jim Vollentine (Spoon, Skating Polly). The result is an album thatâ''s as musically fun and explorative as it is catchy and sweet. Or as Mamalarky puts it â''We want to provide an experience that's

The Gloss is the second album from Cola. From their inception Cola have expanded on the d.i.y. ethic of the Dischord and SST eras, creating potent sounds from a minimal palette of drums/bass/guitar and lacing their songs with winsome one-liners and societal commentary. What’s another word for commentary? Gloss, apparently. Never basic, the lyrics reward repeated listening for deeper meanings. David Berman’s poetry-via-garage light pennings are an inspiration, as equally so are the lighter side of UK first-wave New Wave and the Dunedin sound. The results are in the pudding: at times sparse and poetic, at others a thrilling, hook-laden good time, as with the cheeky romantic sketch of a one-night stand that is so overflowing with innuendo-cum-journalism talk that it almost teeters over into self-parody. But the results are the right combination of lightheartedness and sincerity. Romanticism is never far from laughter, and equally never far from righteous anger in the music of Cola: “Pulling quotes now in the dark/Our outlook is restrained/Your tongue might weaken to be-fit your smile/Til nothing ill remains.” ‘nuff said. It's an album bursting with energy and wit and ideas–filled to the margins. Out June 14th 2024 on Fire Talk.

‘words from a wishing well’ is the debut record from Shower Curtain, the New York quartet fronted by Brazilian-American artist Victoria Winter (vocals/guitar), alongside Ethan Williams (guitar/vocals), Sean Terrell (drums), and Cody Hudgins (bass). Self-produced by Winter and Williams, words from a wishing well sketches early adulthood experiences in swirling layers of guitars. Winter wrote its tracks across her first few years of living in New York City, and they exist within a conversation between one’s own intuition and that of the universe. Channeling the sludgy distortion of 90s shoegaze and grunge, words from a wishing well establishes Shower Curtain as a standout in the city’s latest crop of bands.

The Gloss is the second album from Cola. From their inception Cola have expanded on the d.i.y. ethic of the Dischord and SST eras, creating potent sounds from a minimal palette of drums/bass/guitar and lacing their songs with winsome one-liners and societal commentary. What’s another word for commentary? Gloss, apparently. Never basic, the lyrics reward repeated listening for deeper meanings. David Berman’s poetry-via-garage light pennings are an inspiration, as equally so are the lighter side of UK first-wave New Wave and the Dunedin sound. The results are in the pudding: at times sparse and poetic, at others a thrilling, hook-laden good time, as with the cheeky romantic sketch of a one-night stand that is so overflowing with innuendo-cum-journalism talk that it almost teeters over into self-parody. But the results are the right combination of lightheartedness and sincerity. Romanticism is never far from laughter, and equally never far from righteous anger in the music of Cola: “Pulling quotes now in the dark/Our outlook is restrained/Your tongue might weaken to be-fit your smile/Til nothing ill remains.” ‘nuff said. It's an album bursting with energy and wit and ideas–filled to the margins. Out June 14th 2024 on Fire Talk.

There are one million ways to approach love, one million ways to experience love, one million ways in which love shapes both the course of our lives and how we choose to navigate that course. On her second album, Bnny’s Jessica Viscius looks love square in its many eyes and describes, with self-awareness and humor, not only what she sees, but what it makes her feel. Deep romantic love, breathy lust, generous self-love—and their opposites, self-loathing, resentment, disappointment—all make appearances. Like a sheet being draped over a clothesline, channeling Mazzy Star and mimicking the soft, gauzy, fresh feeling of realizing you’re able to begin it all again with a new person. Recorded in Asheville at Drop of Sun and produced by Viscius alongside Alex Farrar (Wednesday, Indigo De Souza, Snail Mail), One Million Love Songs is Bnny’s revelatory second album.

There are one million ways to approach love, one million ways to experience love, one million ways in which love shapes both the course of our lives and how we choose to navigate that course. On her second album, Bnny’s Jessica Viscius looks love square in its many eyes and describes, with self-awareness and humor, not only what she sees, but what it makes her feel. Deep romantic love, breathy lust, generous self-love—and their opposites, self-loathing, resentment, disappointment—all make appearances. Like a sheet being draped over a clothesline, channeling Mazzy Star and mimicking the soft, gauzy, fresh feeling of realizing you’re able to begin it all again with a new person. Recorded in Asheville at Drop of Sun and produced by Viscius alongside Alex Farrar (Wednesday, Indigo De Souza, Snail Mail), One Million Love Songs is Bnny’s revelatory second album.

The weird world of Wombo is a kaleidoscopic journey of sharp turns and surprising visions, a melting pot of influences with a cheeky cheshire-cat grin that coalesce into a trippy but infinite universe of the band’s own, and a portal into their unique vantage point without limitation. Already committed to living outside the traditionally-heralded country sound of the music scene in their hometown of Louisville, Sydney Chadwick (vocals) and Cameron Lowe (guitar) had previously played in punk pop band the Debauchees, and with the addition of Joel Taylor (drums) in 2016 they found a winning combination of more straightforward indie rock combined with Chadwick’s pitched up, oscillating vocals and unpredictable shifts in melody that see the band moving forward at an impressive pace. Their 2020 Blossomslookdownuponus LP is a snapshot of Wombo’s wide-ranging aspirations that careen across avant pop, post punk and warbly indie interludes with a sky’s-the-limit approach to translating the mundanity of regular life into their own high-frequency language.