Dig ‘in: Melenas, Lower Plenty, Hidden Eyes
Check out what the No Wristbands team is listening to and what’s in our show calendars this month on our latest Dig ‘in.
INCOMING
Melenas - Ahora (Trouble In Mind LP)
Melenas’ 2017 self-titled debut held promise of an upstart garage band with pop harmony inclinations that was learning on the go. Chicago’s Trouble In Mind took notice and signed the group for the subsequent Dias Raros album, which furthered their progression with layered textures elevating their previous skeletal framework. Ahora completes the transformation taking the band’s initial basic beat to a motorik zone while the electronics ebb & swell, gurgle & grind to interactive effect.
“K2,” “Bang” and “Tú Y Yo” come off like a Spanish take on the French-influenced vibes of Stereolab. Melenas’ pop sensibility remains firmly intact; “1986" is a finger-snapping pleasure bomb with an insistent organ riff and a sugar-coated melody. The group continues singing all their material in Spanish, perhaps a nod to their strong Basque heritage. Often times the varied vocals function as another sound element in the overall resplendent tapestry. Ahora translates to now in English and judging by this record I would safely say that Melenas are living large in the moment. -Bruce Novak
Lower Plenty - No Poets (Bedroom Suck Records LP)
Melbourne’s Lower Plenty has a way with fusing indie folk and pop that reveals a spontaneity that keeps their work sounding fresh and endearing. Listening to the group feels like pulling up a chair and dropping in on an intimate fireside conversation where everybody is lending their thoughts and no single person is dominating the discussion. While No Poets is their fifth LP, all four members of Lower Plenty continue to play in other Australian indie bands that highlight their versatility and also indicates their willingness to be deferential to the project at hand. The group functions as a collective with each member contributing to the songwriting process and vocalization. Acoustic guitar strum coupled with brushed percussion makes for an unfussy presentation with a tangible directness of a passed along musical language that doesn’t require intense deciphering. Some of the more sublime moments come about when Lower Plenty employ their tag team vocal approach on numbers like “Cold Room, Shut Blinds,” “The Great Pretender” and “Back to the Foldout.” No Poets is loaded with inornate charm doled out in casual fashion, inhabiting a comfort zone that encourages you to give way to its enduring pleasures. -Bruce Novak
Hidden Eyes - Too Small (self-released LP)
One of the wonderful aspects of the decentralization of music distribution is the opportunity for artists of all stripes to have their work heard. And so it is for Hidden Eyes, a sibling duo from the town of Market Harborough (population of approximately 25K) situated in the Midlands territory of England. Too Small may signify their stature in the music industry, but it more accurately reflects a cozy intimacy born out of a passion for pop songcraft and emotionally-delicate lyrical observations. They’re well-suited for the home recording process, starting out last year with minimal gear and a smartphone to capture their work. Dylan, the brother of the pair, delivers the instrumental backing via diamond guitar tones and lean percussion while his sister Lou sings tenderly and wistfully, capturing the mood of the violet hour. Hidden Eyes may go gentle into the good night, but clearly not unnoticed. -Bruce Novak
UPCOMING
The Bug Club
Where: Sleeping Village / Directions
When: November 10, 9:00 PM
The Bug Club have a deft manner of transforming banal situations into bemused observations. On “Cheap Linen,” guitarist Sam Willmett declares “I’m the only / one winning / Making love / on cheap linen / I’ve got a tattoo / just for you / In Japanese / like you.” Non sequiturs abound in their songs like this verse from “If My Mother Thinks I’m Happy”: “Even though my pants are looking old / You can’t ignore the best material / I ever wrote, no no / I’ve got something even better to show.” Perhaps there’s an attention deficit disorder at play here or a divided attention span at the very least. The Welsh trio, that includes Tilly Harris on bass/vocals and Dan Matthews on drums, has just unveiled their second full-length album, Rare Birds: Hour of Song, a sprawling 47 track effort split between songs and narrative interludes. The songs themselves are loosely-structured and compact in nature as the band profess that each creation is carried out in the window of time from when a cuppa tea is poured to before it sits too long and becomes cold. All of which is to say that a leisurely affair is probably not in the offing. -Bruce Novak
Babehoven
Where: Thalia Hall / Directions
When: November 11, 6:00 PM
Maya Bon writes from a deeply personal perspective that she’s sometimes unnerved by the confessions she shares with her listeners. Having to overcome the trauma of long-festering family estrangements, her music is often her best means of therapy. Fortunately she’s found a sympathetic partner in Ryan Albert, who frames Babehoven’s songs with considered instrumentation that leaves Bon’s singing in the forefront but hardly disappears into the background. Their first extended album, Light Moving Time, released a year ago reflects their adopted home in Hudson, New York after relocating from LA with images of raw beauty and the hope of settling into a simpler existence. -Bruce Novak
Beach Fossils
Where: Metro / Directions
When: November 15, 7:30 PM
Before making the move from North Carolina to New York, Dustin Payseur had failed to find a like-minded music community so he set about learning to play multiple instruments and started writing and recording songs on a home 4-track. His arrival to Brooklyn dovetailed nicely with the emergence of Captured Tracks and Beach Fossils’ 2010 debut for the label was entirely recorded by himself. His introspective songwriting and recording knowledge have carried forth throughout the band’s tenure and Bunny, released this summer, marked their first studio album in six years following 2017’s Somersault. Because of the stasis induced by the pandemic, the core four members (including Tommy Davidson—guitar, Jack Doyle Smith—bass & Anton Hochheim—drums) switched gears when they reconvened to work on Bunny, opting for a more uptempo and poppier sound than the initial minimalist retreat. Beach Fossils have a knack for creating enveloping and immersive sonic treasures that unfold and unwind in purely pleasurable ways. -Bruce Novak
UNCOVERED
Oister - Pre-Dwight Twilley Band / 1973-74 Teac Tapes (HoZac Records 2-LP)
When Dwight Twilley died this October from a vehicle crash while experiencing a stroke, he went down as much of a cult artist as anyone could be with two top twenty hits to his name. Along with Phil Seymour (who passed in 1993 from lymphoma), the pair put Tulsa on the pop world map after meeting in line for a screening of The Beatles’ A Hard Day’s Night in 1967. That fateful encounter launched a home recording partnership that was a harbinger for the DIY approach that’s now prevalent in indie circles. Starting out with an Akai 2-track deck, they eventually graduated to a Teac A-3340 4-track unit with multi-channel recording being exclusively the providence of professional studios prior to then. To further their DIY cred, Twilley and Seymour went so far as pressing up acetates of conceptual albums that they would then sell to schoolmates.
Fittingly they choose the name Oister as the perfect metaphor for a clamshell-like partnership of two equals. When the band signed with Shelter Records in 1974, it was label executive Denny Cordell who pushed for renaming them the Dwight Twilley Band, which never sat well with Seymour and contributed to his premature departure in 1978. The 20 tracks on the HoZac archival release were the ones used out of nearly 100 recorded to sway the signing to Shelter. Despite finite recording restrictions, what’s immediately apparent in listening to the material is how seamlessly the duo’s voices function together with each capable of carrying the lead or providing spot-on backing. The arrangements also belie so-called demo conventions; a factor of their skill of bouncing down individual tracks to provide room for additional sound enhancements. “You Were So Warm” and “Release Me” would get re-recorded for their debut album, but the structure of what would make them so addictive was firmly in place from the get-go. A Sun-soaked rockabilly influence also surfaces on “Hot Mama” (as it would later on in their hit single “I’m on Fire”). The self-recording knowledge that Twilley and Seymour gained with the Teac would later be put to use on the extravagant “Sincerely,” a masterstroke of reverb-laden vocals and backwards guitar produced under the luxury of a forty-track console.
Despite the immediate success of “I’m of Fire,” which reached number 16 on the Billboard’s single charts in 1975, Twilley and Seymour didn’t earn the recognition they were due (discounting Twilley’s other top 20 hit “Girls” off of his 1984 solo release, Jungle, which benefitted from backing vocals from friend Tom Petty). A rift between Cordell and partner Leon Russell halted Shelter’s record distribution and by time Sincerely was released a year-and-a-half later the momentum had been squandered and the album failed to chart in the top 100. The follow-up, Twilley Don’t Mind, peaked at number 70 and Seymour left the following year effectively bringing to an end one of the most perfect pop pairings that ever existed. -Bruce Novak
We recommend listening along over at our Spotify page. Here’s this week’s content: