It can be tough to focus on new music releases when you’re mired in the hell of aches and pains. I’m lucky to have been almost entirely free from it the vast majority of my adult life, but as I descend into the dreaded middle age (gagged a little bit writing that), the looming fangs of discomfort have begun to gnash out in ever-increasing acuity. I’ll spare the details, but the section of the Venn diagram where the below three albums overlap is something like the ebb and flow of pain as it’s affected the past month or so of my waking (and, newly, sleeping) hours. The introspection of Freddy Trujillo’s latest solo album, the debauched turmoil of tankerlow’s sophomore LP, and the hypnotic smorgasbord of Dabda’s new offering have been little lifelines amongst the suffering fits, radiating their magic through my ears and gifting me a little of the stuff I need to get through it.
Aside from that diagnosis, the albums featured in this edition of Spin Cycle are just great new tunes worthy of your attention, your attendance (as applicable with album release shows and tour stops), and your dollars as they’re available. Happy listening!
Ave Trujillo – Freddy Trujillo
For fans of Caguama, DeVotchKa, Calexico
The fifth solo album from Portland’s Freddy Trujillo holds a lot of double meanings, composed of songs with various birds as their spiritual guides and their literal focal points, depending on the song. Trujillo is an avid birder, and though the song titles are represented by birds, their contents and lyricism is delivered through collaborative interpretations and poetic license, using the ornithology as a prism through which a strong sense of identity, struggle, and beauty emerges.
“Black-capped Chickadee” kicks things off with a fiddle-harmonica led ditty, reminding us that this album was originally intended for children before the darker Americana turns of Trujillo’s oeuvre grabbed hold. Still, the tune’s sunny homage to the songbird is a fitting intro to the album’s conceptual focus. On “Common Loon,” Trujillo uses a Chicano-soul patina to color a tale about a failed singer enamored by the titular bird, but who ends up somewhat loony on the streets after succumbing to his demons. Here, Trujillo most clearly articulates the lens through which the bird allegories are expressed throughout Ave Trujillo, leaning on a formidable croon to round out the ballad’s inherent oomph.
Birding requires patience and paying attention, two attributes that thrive in Ave Trujillo, allowing the characters of the songs flight through nurtured writing and the capturing of fleeting moments. On “Blue Jay,” Trujillo laments the neighborly presence of the notoriously loud avian friend, driving the point through sax-heavy boogaloo. Later, he favors slow-burn rock on “Crow,” wherein the narrator pines over an absentee love interest with crow tattoos. Throughout, audio snippets of bird calls quilt the audio patches together.
Trujillo mines the grab bag of Americana instrumentation and utilizes its downhome reaches to great effect, leaning on his guest collaborators when needed (like Delines bandmate Willy Vlautin on “Canyon Wren”), but always rooted in his honest reflections of Chicano identity.
Ave Trujillo drops September 25 via El Cortez Records. Trujillo is celebrating with an album release show Sunday, September 27 at Mississippi Studios, opening for his other band, the Delines. Doors at 7, show at 8. For ticket info, visit mississippistudios.com. If you can’t make the release show, Ave Trujillo can be purchased on CD here.
SLAGROOM – tankerlow
For fans of Swans, Jesus Lizard, These Arms Are Snakes
SLAGROOM, the sophomore album from Los Angeles trio tankerlow, coaxes unhinged muses into one of the most unsettling records of the year, ready-made for brow-furrowing alone in headphones, or listening at safe distances from strangers out in the wild.
Opening with an extraterrestrial repetition of the album title, tankerlow segues into “Din” with a whisper like a hostage voice-recording in the throes of despair. In the background, a throbbing drone looms over vocalist/guitarist Guy Azulay’s monologue, faux-sirens echoing the line “Somebody sound the alarm!” before a cascade of post-rock intensity swarms like a hive of pissed-off wasps. This explosive track leads into the dissonant maelstrom of “Plasticine,” featuring deranged vocal narration atop a disjointed marriage of broken guitars, spacious art-rock atmospherics, and creepy lyrical wormholes.
On the single “Ergo/Ogre,” a tempo acceleration teases sunnier turns, with a mid-song spoken-word romp whose cadence trips over a steady rhythmic beat of drums and bass before the wheels fall off again and the spiralic clamor returns to remind you that no song is safe from becoming undone.
Elsewhere, “Formula Baby” boasts ominous piano tinkling that flanks a stuttered drumbeat, with a heartbeat bass line that clears a trail for a song about capitalism sickness. In “Yes I Am An Animal,”experimental chaos is occasionally balanced by cathartic moments of post-rock bliss, leading into the LP finale, “Sanguine,” which includes the first real singing from Azulay, and a strummy verse that sounds like pleading, insisting “I’ve tried everything” as a ghostly warble descends over the haunting track.
SLAGROOM is a challenging listen, brimming with cinematic squalls of tormented, echoed screams and horror-film audio aesthetics that help grind the listener down. Whether you can recover from the avalanche of monstrous discordance is up to your sensibilities. But for those willing to take a trip down to the gutter to slosh around a while, this album holds copious auditory booby traps to satiate your despondency.
SLAGROOM drops September 25 from Danger Collective Records. You can purchase the digital album through the tankerlow Bandcamp.
ON – Dabda
For fans of Deerhoof, Tera Melos, Palm
South Korean quartet Dabda have lassoed their affinity for math-rock bluster and expansive musical earworms on their second full-length, ON.
Starting with “Tongue,” the band articulates a manic instrumental math-rock funhouse that gives a glimpse of the aural technicality and surprising hooks of the remainder of the album. The opening track acts as a palate cleanser for the wide-frequency attack heard on “Choo Choo,” an audio discharge of odd-timed, high-energy jigsaw-punk that sizzles with just the right balance of prog noodling and melodic interplay.
Jazzy funk is shoehorned into the groovy din of the title track before rolling out arcade mood music that prickles stadium-pop proclivities, even as it deconstructs the math-rock milieu. Across ON, Dabda sounds like a band comfortable switching musical lanes—from calculating blasts of post-rock pandemonium to contemplative prog soundscapes to punky blast beats—often within one song. New guitarist Jungwoong Park helps to open unique avenues of shred here, too, with fret work that might make thrash metal diehards raise a crusty eyebrow. The whole thing is anchored by vocalist Jiae Kim’s pensive singing, which grounds even the most musically varied tracks on ON.
Later, “Circle” chops up the nebulous Dabda script with thoughtful atmospherics and a more restrained technical attack, Kim’s harmonies wrapping around bass harmonics that propel the song into dreamier environs.
With little warning, Dabda’s songs become a firehose of tones that cover wide swaths of sonic real estate, creating infectious dynamics with every new turn.
ON was released September 17 on Electric Muse. You can purchase the digital album via the Dabda Bandcamp. Dabda comes through Portland on their very first North American tour November 6 at Holocene. More details are available here.