The title of
Those Pretty Wrong's second LP,
Zed for Zulu, is a nod to something known as the
NATO phonetic alphabet (which in 2002 Wilco finagled the same cultural reference to their
Yankee Hotel Foxtrot album, but I digress). The music enshrined within the record is decidedly less esoteric however. The Memphis by way of L.A. duo TPW was initiated in 2012 when ex-
Big Star drummer/Ardent Studios figurehead
Jody Stephens and ex-
Freewheelers frontman
Luther Russell worked on the Big Star documentary,
Nothing Can Hurt Me. The collaboration on the movie inadvertently parlayed into a music outlet of their own, Those Pretty Wrongs, and an album of the same name followed in 2016. Despite their setup as a duo, TPW subscribe to an insular aesthetic, one which often angles in the vicinity of forlorn, loner folk more than angsty rock.
Abundant throughout this album
, Stephens and Russell can't help but echo Big Star's quieter traipses (think
#1 Record's "Watch the Sunrise,"on
Zed's "Tonight, Tonight, Tonight). In fact, "Tonight..." even evokes shades of Chris Bell's "You And Your Sister," but generally speaking, the Wrongs opt for a discernibly genteel and straightforward tact, more in tandem with say, early CSN&Y and even Nick Drake than Chilton and Bell's idiosyncratic calling cards. In fact, the going on
Zed has a tendency to veer a little
too plaintive, flirting with songwriting so linear that it's hard not to predict the latter half of certain couplets. If anything else, Stephens and Russell compensate with alternating tempos and moods imbuing somber tones to the doleful "Hurricane of Love," and "Life Below Zero," while applying comparatively lighthearted strokes to buoyant "Undetow," and even manage to flex some power pop musculature on "You and Me."
Zed for Zulu's benign tenor lends itself to a breezy, afternoon sway in the hammock, providing the pillow to comfort our collective aching heads in the Trump-era. You can pre-order it straight from
Burger Records or
Amazon.
People are fickle about singer-songwriters, especially ones they're wholly unfamiliar with. This is precisely why so many of them get lost in the shuffle. Hopefully that isn't the case with
Rob Laufer, who actually isn't a newcomer, rather he's taken an extended coffee break (since 2010's
Excruciating Bliss to be exact). His belated latest,
The Floating World is his fifth album, and whether virgin ears mistake it as a debut or otherwise, it makes for an often stunning introduction.
Bearing a vocal aplomb that's passable at times to Fountains of Wayne's Chris Collingwood, Laufer's music isn't the stuff of topical, white-collar power pop. More to the point, he's a sophisticated songsmith with musical chops and an arranging acumen that's anything but everyday. You won't find much in the way of extremes wafting through this
Floating World, though there are nuances aplenty. "Bolt of Blue" and "Space and Time" are a pair of deftly crafted, up-tempo numbers, bustling with brisk rhythms and substantive prose that split the difference between groove and infectiously melodic prowess. The denser "As Long As You Belong" richly channels George Harrison by way of Laufer's equally proficient contemporaries Rhett Miller and Jason Falkner, while the pedal steel accented "Highway Machine" is contemplatively bittersweet. And if it's a consoling comedown you're craving the piano-ballad title track is the type of catharsis this beleaguered world should all get on board for.
The Floating World drops on August 23rd, and will be available from
Bandcamp,
iTunes, and
Amazon.
Yet another cold case, a Canadian one to be exact. Despite the noir album jacket, Rarefaction were relatively conventional practitioners of snyth-n-guitars modern rock. More new wave than indie, but despite a lack of mystique still pretty appealing. At their most stimulating this five-piece resemble what the Comsat Angels were attempting around the same time (think, 7 Day Weekend-era). "Open Up Your Heart," "All the Broken Seams," and the title cut are all fairly exemplary, and even when they stumble occasionally on Modern Man, I can't think of anything egregious enough going on here to dissuade you from giving this a whirl or two.
Of all the records I've shared that I don't possess a physical copy of this is certainly one of the rarest. Tappi Tikarrass was the band Björk Guðmundsdóttir's (yes she has a last name too) joined before going onto international renown in the Sugarcubes. If you've ever wanted to hear her as a wee little tyke, or at least in her mid-teens, dive in. Singing entirely in Icelandic, Björk wasn't TT's original frontwoman, but to my knowledge she sings on all recordings made with the group. Not as avant as the Sugarcubes or even nearly as shriek-y, Tappi Tikarrass were surprisingly diverse - not straight up punk (albeit borderline at moments) or boilerplate new wave, yet defiantly left of center. There's nervy aggression aplenty (e.g. "Skrið" and "Drek-Lek") but just as much, if not more residing on the opposite side of the coin with "Íþróttir" and "Get Ekki Sofið" damn-near approaching the tenor of ballads, particularly that first one. Personally, I prefer this coed troupe when they stake out a middle ground (or sorts). "Beri-Beri" and "Kríó" are the choicest specimens in that realm, the first being a delightful stab at disco-lite wave pop, with "Kríó" angling in the vicinity of the B-52s of all things. Wow. The first 13 tracks comprise the Miranda album proper while the remainder are derived from unknown sources. Found a fairly spot-on critique of this record here with more background details than what I've revealed in this relatively paltry write-up. There also a batch of early 'cubes demos that I offered way back when that you're welcome to revisit. 
An ingenious covers album that just may encourage you to check out some of her originals.
Debut from 1993. I've never been able to figure out why, but it seems as if everything this band ever committed to tape has been lauded in one circle or another...except this album. No complaints here.
Damn where had this band been my whole life? Um, try Perth, Australia circa the late '70s/early '80s before I was really paying attention to music. All legit rationale for ignorance aside, the co-ed Dugites were a better-late-than-never discovery, who I just happened to stumble upon while browsing someone's file list on my fave peer-to-peer, Soulseek. Lynda Nutters straddled the mic for this ace new-wavey quintet over the course of three records, this being the first. She conveys an ever so faint hint of '60s girl-group kitsch to the Dugites formula, but writ large they struck a delectable merger of synth and power pop. Blondie are an obvious (and frankly lazy) comparison, but Nutters and her compatriots (including keyboardist Peter Crosbie, whom she was married to for a period) were not tarted up, nor was the band particularly in-your-face, so to speak. At least for this particular record, the emphasis was on tunes, and immaculately catchy ones at that, chockablock with indelible hooks, buoyancy and charm for kilometers. "In Your Car," "Goodbye," and "Mama Didn't Warn Me," are all par excellence examples of The Dugites chosen pop niche for their now bygone era, and the land down under was all the richer for it. Am really grateful to have encountered this one. Rock on Vinyl blog provides a more exhaustive diatribe on this record than I have, and are even offering a lossless FLAC rip of it. 
A recent reissue of a 1993 classic, though I think I appreciate the original mix more. 