A couple of weeks I'd never heard of The Lovely Eggs (Lancaster, England). "Eggistentialism" is the 7th full length album from this duo and the 3rd to feature artwork from Casey Raymond and production from Dave Fridmann (The Flaming Lips).
The cast of collaborators over their years of existence is frankly mind-boggling: Ian Mackaye, Gruff Rhys, Cate LeBon, and Jad Fair (many of these collabration are on their YouTube series, Eggs TV - Casey Raymond also worked with them on this).
While the band releases most of their work on their own label, they did release their debut LP on Happy Happy Birthday To Me. The band consists of Holly Ross (formerly of 1990s band Angelica) and David Blackwell (3D Tanx).
It's pretty hard to find comparisons to this. At times I would say Art Brut and Super Furry Animals, at others it feels like the attitude and sneer of Sleaford Mods (listen to other releases) - but really the music is all over the place and fairly uncategorizable.
Nearly 9 years into this blog and I can't believe that The Wedding Present (Leeds, UK) hasn't gotten their own post. There are many bands that have pulled off a 40 year career, but only a few that can still sound this good after all that time - The Bats and Yo La Tengo immediately come to mind.
David Gedge has really worked and reworked ideas. "24 Songs" is yet another example of a band that was as much a singles band as an album band. Hard to believe that Hit Parade 1 & 2 are 30 years old, but "24 Songs" hearkens back to that. The only difference I can tell is that they don't seem to do as many covers - "Felicity" by Orange Juice, "Box Elder MO" by Pavement and "Cattle and Cane" by The Go-Betweens immediately come to mind [EDIT: The last LP side does have a wonderful cover of "White Riot" by The Clash]. If you want to hear an outstanding cover of "My Favourite Dress" listen to "My Favourite Mess" by Thatcher on Acid.
This is a 3 LP behemoth and I've been enjoying every single song. Happy Happy Birthday To Me released the LP version of "24 Songs".
Is/Ought Gap were part of the vibrant Athens, Georgia scene in the early 80s. And, really, once you know that you can really hear it. Pylon, The B-52s and R.E.M. In fact, Michael Stipe said they were the best bar band in the U.S. There is a bit of punk here and there that reminds me of the intensity of Fred Cole's early band The Rats.
But all in all, Is/Ought Gap would not have sounded out of place on the Athens, GA soundtrack (in fact, members of Is/Ought Gap were in bands on the soundtrack - Time Toy and Kilkenny Cats). I'm not at all surprised to see Happy Happy Birthday To Me (HHBTM) Records release this. While this is a new release, HHBTM did release the collected works of Oh Ok, another Athens band whose members included Lynda Stipe.
Given how long The High Water Marks (Grøa, Norway) have been around and how much I'm loving their discography, I'm surprised I'm just now learning about them. This is sweet jangle rock in the tradition of fellow Norwegian bands The No Ones (with non-Norwegians Peter Buck and Scott McCaughey) I Was A King or New Zealand band The Bats.
The High Water Marks were formed when Hilarie Sidney (Apples in Stereo) and Per Ole Bratset combined forces. There is a definite Elephant 6 sound here, but maybe with less swirling psych sounds.
Various labels have released The High Water Marks over the years. At the beginning it was Happy Happy Birthday To Me Records (HHBTM) and now it is Minty Fresh.
On another note, I love the artwork on their releases. In fact, they have a new LP due this year, and the artwork for the cassette and Bandcamp singles is great - in the tradition of Hamish Kilgour or John White (if you haven't heard Mogwash...do so)
“Outer World” has a powerful momentum, bass grinding, synths popping, guitars clanging, as Tracy Wilson’s singing surges over it. “I love the music,” she declares repeatedly, joy bubbling out of every syllable, until she asks, “Who does the music love?” It’s a hands-in-the-air, hips-on-a-swivel psychedelic bop along the lines of Os Mutantes’ “Bat Macumba,” and the best song on Outer World’s debut EP. Though, not by much, this is groovy, exuberant stuff.
It starts with the bubbly, bouncy, woo-woo space-shot of “The Drum The Beat,” a cut that hops up and down like the B-52s and buzzes and hums like switched on Stereolab. “Flower Gunpowder” runs slower, but still buoyantly, a hard, slapping beat pushing witchy new age mysticism through a Peter Max lens. It is brightly colored, playful and vibrating with spirit. “Forms of Knowing” again abuts Stereolab’s sonic world, an underlying drone of organ connecting airy vocals and puncturing, rackety percussion. “Loteria,” the one track you might not want to dance to, is a dreamlike astral projection with interleaved vocals and whooshing atmospherics.
It's all just a gas that you might be surprised about the backstory, which involves coming back from considerable adversity. In the 1990s, Tracy Wilson was the big brassy vocalist for the NJ hardcore band Dahlia Seed. Later, she served that same outsized role with the more lyrical Positive No, this time with Kenneth Close on guitar. Sadly, Wilson caught a bad case of long COVID, which destroyed her lung capacity and diminished her outsized vocal presence. Outer World grew out of Close and Wilson working with her post-pandemic voice, not as powerful now but still stirring. It’s a testament to perseverance and struggling to do what you most value, even when your body isn’t cooperating, and it makes Wilson’s declaration, “I love the music/Who does the music love?” even more triumphant. Wilson may not be as loud as she was, but she’s a riveting presence all the same.
