WIBLT: Recommendations For Fans of Good Music
WIBLT: Recommendations For Fans of Good Music
What I've Been Listening To, 4/14/21
Earth Day is next week, do you have your ~earthy vibes~ playlist ready?
The simplest way to keep up with these posts is to follow the WIBLT playlist that updates with the 8 standout tracks from each one:
TV Baby - PONY
10 tracks, 30 minutes
Released: April 9th, 2021
From: Toronto, Ontario
Genres: Alternative, Pop, Pop-Punk, Grunge
Recommended For Fans Of: Charly Bliss, Miss World, Best Coast
PONY makes pretty grunge music, or ✨g l i t t e r✨p o w e r✨p o p✨ as they call it. TV Baby is the group’s first album following scattered releases of singles and EPs dating back to 2015. The group is lead by vocalist/guitarist Sam Bielanski (who additionally hosts a TV podcast and runs an Etsy shop) and is rounded out by Lucas Horne and Matty Morand (who fronts his own group called Pretty Matty). Bielanski has always had a knack for writing about isolation and valuing independence. Though the themes may hit closer to home now because of quarantine, the project was finished in early 2020. From start to finish, this album is fun as hell, and a beautiful ode to the mundane: freaking out on WebMD, cleaning to procrastinate other tasks, bedrooms, and the TV’s that raised us.
“It doesn’t have to be sad to be alone. I love being alone. You can do anything in the world you want, and you don’t have to answer to anyone. It’s nice.” - Sam Bielanski for Audiomack
Standout Track: Sometime Later
Indigo - Jordan Occasionally
8 tracks, 25 minutes
Released: February 3rd, 2021
From: Memphis, TN
Genres: R&B, Soul, Disco, Pop
Recommended For Fans Of: Syd, The Internet, VanJess
Indigo is Jordan Occasionally’s first album, having only started releasing music in 2019 (though they’ve been performing and songwriting since an early age). Jordan can switch up between groovy dance tracks (Issaparty, Feel the Groov, Don’t Stop) and moodier jams (Don’t Wait Up, Set The Mood, Whatyouwant) effortlessly. It takes a great talent to create an album like this while balancing life as a college student. In addition to the music, Jordan won the University of Memphis’s first Student Communicator of the Year Award for protests organized in honor of Breonna Taylor last year. There’s a lot to like about this album, but Issaparty is an incredible opening track that immediately feels like you just walked into an off the wall house party.
Standout Track: Issaparty
Bodies of Water - Moontype
12 tracks, 42 minutes
Released: April 2nd, 2021
From: Chicago, IL
Genres: Alternative, Indie Rock
Recommended For Fans Of: Slow Pulp, Adrianne Lenker
Margaret McCarthy started Moontype as a solo act, but after moving to Chicago, she brought in musicians Ben Cruz and Emerson Hunton (they’re all graduates of the Oberlin Conservatory of Music) to add more depth to her sound. Bodies of Water is the group’s debut album, and the band uses it to highlight all sides of their musical abilities. Throughout the tracklist they are quick to switch between quaint/tender tracks and louder, in your face rock songs. It’s been a long time in the making, as McCarthy wrote most of the songs on this album before graduating from Oberlin. The album focuses on changing relationships, highlighted by the track Ferry, which was described in more detail in its Fader write up.
“The album is a product of moving and feeling how relationships change because of that. I’m at a point in my life where a lot of friendships have been evolving and changing and fading out and fading in” - Margaret McCarthy for Paste Magazine
Standout Track: Ferry
A Different Me 2 - Traptize Ky
13 tracks, 31 minutes
Released: March 31st, 2021
From: Richmond, VA
Genres: Hip-Hop/Rap, Trap
Recommended For Fans Of: Moneybagg Yo, BlocBoy JB, Young Nudy
Traptize Ky has the kind of sound that makes you wonder how he isn’t bigger than he already is. This is the sequel to his EP A Different Me that dropped back in 2018. That was Ky’s debut solo project, as he had previously been a member of the duo Ward Boyz (referencing the Jackson Ward district of Richmond). Ky was born and raised in Richmond, then had a brief stint living in North Carolina, before returning to the city that raised him after family disputes forced him out of NC. On the project, Ky says “When you listen to me, I want you to notice a different mindset, different flows, different styles, different energy, and a different part of me. Everybody talks about the streets. I give it to you the Richmond way. It’s a new me. It’s better. It’s elevated. It’s authentic. It’s real.” A Different Me 2 shows his different sides as Ky hits you with bangers like Operation and No Hook, as well as introspective tracks that illuminate struggles he’s been through (Hope, Streets vs. Amerika).
Standout Track: No Hook
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Antonioni - Antonioni
10 tracks, 38 minutes
Released: March 26th, 2021
From: Seattle, WA
Genres: Indie Rock
Recommended For Fans Of: Oceanator, Mamalarky
This self-titled debut album by Seattle band Antonioni comes in the wake of singles and EPs dating back to 2017. In a Facebook post, lead singer Sarah Pasillas shared the album’s themes of, “self compassion in the face of absurdity and embracing the strangeness and sadness of life.” Pasillas had been a solo musician for years before she started playing with brothers Austin Dean (guitar) and Kyle Todaro (drums), which lead to the formation of the four-piece band they have today with Ben Dorcy on bass. The album encompasses everything, with uptempo jams like Mouth Breather and Mary Bell, to melancholy cuts like Shiver, and tender tracks like the closing Bramble. You’re sure to find something you like with this album.
Standout Track: Mouth Breather
Saccharine - Pinkshift
5 tracks, 14 minutes
Released: April 2nd, 2021
From: Baltimore, MD
Genres: Punk, Rock, Pop-Punk, Hard Rock
Recommended For Fans Of: illuminati hotties, My Chemical Romance
Pinkshift has been trickling out the five songs that make up this EP over the course of 2020, with Mars being the final single released (despite being the first song that the band ever worked on together as early as 2018). The singles that makeup Saccharine are their first songs as a group, many of which were made during quarantine. “This EP is really a pandemic project. [It] carries what was still good before we knew any better and hopes for a brighter future tomorrow,” lead singer Ashrita Kumar told Alternative Press. The project was recorded, mixed, and mastered by local producer Hansel Romero, but once producer Will Yip (credits for Panic! At The Disco & Citizen) came across the music, he ended up remastering all the tracks for the vinyl release. Mars is easily a standout track, but this one has too good a title to pass up on highlighting.
Standout Track: i'm gonna tell my therapist on you
2 - CMMND
7 tracks, 24 minutes
Released: April 2nd, 2021
From: Los Angeles, CA
Genres: Alternative, R&B, Indie
Recommended For Fans Of: Raised By The Internet, Spillage Village
CMMND is a music and art collective made up of Seiji Oda, okay coleman!, and Sleepyboybryan that formed in 2018. They’re a self-contained unit that handles all their production, mixing, mastering, and graphics between the three of them. This is their second EP following up the debut self-titled in 2019. The bright synths, smooth chords, and excellent vocal performances intersect rap, bedroom pop, soul, and R&B to create their original sound. In addition to their own performances, the group brings some friends along for the ride, including a standout feature from Atlanta singer Asi Kemera. The project release comes complete with a clothing line and zine that are available on their shop.
Standout Track: Nothins Free
Looking Through Tears - Billy Uomo
4 tracks, 12 minutes
Released: March 26th, 2021
From: Los Angeles, CA
Genres: Indie, Bedroom Pop, Alternative
Recommended For Fans Of: Triathlon, Gus Dapperton, Pink $ock,
Billy Uomo is back with is fourth EP, Looking Through Tears. Since leaving the band Babes, Uomo has been working on a series of forty tracks over 10 EPs, that this is the fourth installment in. He feels this strategy has allowed him to grow as an artist, refining and changing his sound from EP to EP. “I don't think I could make the music that I'm making right now unless I set those preceding goals…I think that I would probably have stuck more to my wheelhouse,” Uomo told The Luna Collective. Still present are Uomo’s signature high-passed vocals and old-school (almost doo-wop like) harmonies, but new this time around it feels like he’s stepped into another level of production with great layering and depth in the instrumental mix (particularly on Tears I & Tears II).
Standout Track: Looking Through a Teardrop
A Song
Natural Light - Tomberlin
Something keeps bringing me back to this song lately, maybe it’s being home again, idk. Though the lyrics are quite personal, it’s actually a cover of a song by Casiotone for the Painfully Alone. I prefer this version though that trades Casiotone’s keys and drums for tender acoustics and ambient synths. The cover was produced by Tomberlin and Ryan Hemsworth.
A Video
Cold Blood - Junior Varsity
I was thinking about Junior Varsity a few weeks before this video dropped, wondering how they we’re doing. I knew the pandemic had to have hurt them especially hard. In 2019 and early 2020, they had been growing a lot of word-of-mouth hype through stellar DIY live shows and short Instagram snippets. None of their songs had been released, it was all live. They seem to still be going strong though with this video, their first official release, that came out last week. Get familiar with the song while we wait for the chance to see them kill a live set again.
Thanks for coming!