indie Archives - Page 10 of 12

“Literal Dad-Rock”: Swale Talks Laundry, Trump, and Aging in New Album Track-By-Track

Jul 282017

Back in 2005, guitarist Eric Olsen termed Swale “Vermont’s premiere slo-core band.” Twelve years later, this label has proven ludicrously inadequate. But it’s hard to come up with an equally pithy tagline to replace it. The quartet’s journey has taken them from their origins as a burlesque show house band recording EPs of ambient slow-burns to the sort of rock-soul-funk-pop-country hydra that can credibly cover both Sonic Youth and Tom Jones.

Not only will Swale’s third full-length record There’s No One Here easily be one of the best Vermont-made albums of the year; it’s sure to be one of the best albums period. A sprawling double-LP calls for an equally in-depth look behind the scenes, so we reached out to the band members to talk about every track. Continue reading »

Jinxbox Sings Upbeat Dreampop About Downcast Depression

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Jul 192017

A few months back, Vermont songwriter Tyler Daniel Bean released a music video that uses haunting imagery to show what it feels like when depression takes over. The heavy music matched the mood, loud and unrelenting like it was closing in on all sides.

New Middlebury dreampop trio Jinxbox tackles similar themes on their new album Relief, but through a very different genre. The sun-drenched melodies deliver earworm after earworm, but the lyrics stem from a much darker place. Nine Inch Nails could easily have written the opening lines of the song “Static”: Continue reading »

Vocal Fry Inspires New Feminist Garage-Rock Song

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Jul 172017

If you’ve ever heard anyone end a sentence sounding like haunted house door creaking open, you’ve heard “vocal fry.” A viral Guardian article in 2015 argued young women employing the verbal tic wouldn’t be taken seriously – the same argument used against other supposedly ditzy tics like “like” and ending every sentence as if it’s a question? Half the titles on YouTube explaining vocal fry include the word “Kardashian,” which gives you some idea of the speech pattern’s reputation.

Inevitably, people criticizing the way young women speak inspired a backlash. Then a backlash to the backlash. Etc. All of which figures into the debut single by Vermont-Massachusetts “gravecore” trio Jessica Rabbit Syndrome titled, appropriately, “Vocal Fry.” Continue reading »

Dancing Through Recovery in Wild AA-Themed Music Video

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Jul 142017

Alcoholics Anonymous meetings aren’t an obvious music-video setting; people talking in a circle hardly screams “dynamic visuals.” But most Alcoholics Anonymous meetings don’t feature an interpretive dancer.

In Vermont rock band Swale’s song “Drug Laws,” off their fantastic new album There’s No One Here, songwriter and singer Eric Olsen looks back on a darker chapter in his life: drugs, theft, jail time. But a whiff of nostalgia colors the regret. “I used to break drug laws, but now I make in-laws,” the song begins. “You wouldn’t know by looking at me that I did time for forgery and larceny. That was an awesome me.”

“I don’t think I initially started writing like a laundry list of my personal drug incidents,” Olsen says. “Where I started was talking about being older and being different. The joke of the song is that back when you were a mudslide of a shitshow, you might have been cooler. It’s nostalgia for a time that fucking sucked. Like the lyric ‘You should have seen me then / Don’t look at me now.’ Now I’m a good citizen. No one wants to write about that. They want to write about a hot mess.”

Translating that idea into a music video proved tricky. Rather than going full Trainspotting with a bunch of druggie-debauchery set pieces, director Nate Beaman conceived of a surreal AA meeting where an interpretive dancer leaps out of the circle. Continue reading »

Bernie Sanders Data Breach Inspires Post-Punk Song

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Jun 272017

It feel like a million years ago now, but try if you can to remember back to the halcyon days of the 2015 Democratic primary. At one point, due to a DNC security glitch, a Bernie Sanders campaign staffer downloaded some of the Hillary Clinton campaign’s proprietary data. This scandal seems quaint compared to everything that happened after, but at the time this was a big deal.

For a week or so, that is. Then the news cycle moved on. But some people didn’t get to move on with it.

Singer-songwriter Charlie Hill was not one of those people. But at the time, he was roommates with a Bernie campaign staffer. And while most of America was indulging in schadenfreude, he saw how the episode impacted real people on the inside. With the media and Clinton’s people out for blood, the staffer’s entire team got summarily fired by the Sanders campaign. Many of them were blameless, but heads had to roll.

The incident inspired Hill’s band Bison’s rocking new post-punk song “Everything You Say and Do.” Lines like “All a sudden they’re all laid off, everything becomes undone” and “Everything you say and do has got to be locked down” directly come out of this political drama. Continue reading »

Punk Trio Belly Up Face Death Through Storming Shoegaze

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Jun 062017

Loss is a heavy thing to title your debut EP. But heavy fits just right for Belly Up, a new trio out of Vermont blending shoegaze and punk in a swirling storm of sound. And “loss” is indeed the watchword on this powerful debut. As the final line of the first song puts it, “No matter what, my mind returns to death, and the grave can’t tear it away.”

“This record addresses loss in the context of death quite a bit,” says singer and drummer Ben Lau. “In January I lost my childhood best friend to suicide. So for me personally, ‘Loss’ has been a large part of the healing process and coping with Tanner’s death. So the title refers both to one specific loss, as well as loss in general as it pertains to death.” Continue reading »

In a Just World, This Would Be the Song of the Summer

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May 262017

We’re at that point in the year where music critics start handicapping the Song of the Summer. What will be 2017’s “One Dance,” “Fancy,” or “Blurred Lines”? Well, we’ve got an under-the-radar contender to throw in the ring. It might not be the Song of the Summer, but it could be your Song of the Summer.

It’s “So Good (I Could Die),” the infectious new single from Vermont quintet J Bengoy. The track has all the traits of a perfect summer song: Catchy, poppy, upbeat, and with a feel-good message to boot. Continue reading »

Ferry Job and Hank Williams Inspire Some Hollow’s Debut EP

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May 192017

There must be something in the water. Earlier this week, we posted a song inspired by Wren Kitz’s job at a sewage treatment facility, and now we have another killer track inspired by water work.

The song is “Via Champlain” (as in Lake Champlain, on the Vermont-NY border) by new Americana trio Some Hollow. Band frontman and songwriter Jason Lee used to work as a deckhand on the Grand Isle Ferry, shuttling passengers and commuters back and forth across the lake. Continue reading »

The Best Vermont Artists at Waking Windows (And In General)

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May 032017

We normally don’t do concert previews here. My goal with this young blog is to spread the gospel of Vermont music to an audience beyond the state’s sometimes-confining borders. And writing about regionally-specific events generally goes against that mandate.

This weekend’s Waking Windows festival is an exception.

Waking Windows is the Vermont music scene in microcosm. In some respects the Burlington equivalent of SXSW, Waking Windows surrounds a few bigger names (Real Estate and Dan Deacon this year) with dozens of the state’s best local bands. Naming the best Vermont artists playing the festival almost doubles as naming the best Vermont artists period. And that is exactly our mandate. Continue reading »

A Song Celebrating Vinyl That Marc Maron Would Appreciate

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Apr 172017

Anyone who listens to Marc Maron’s WTF podcast knows he is a vinyl obsessive. And anyone who follows him closely on Twitter will knew he is also a fan of Vermont quartet Swale (he’s shouted out both of their first two albums). So Swale’s newest track “Release Your Records” – sort of a theme song for the vinyl revival – will be right up his alley.

It will also be up the alley of any other vinyl aficionado, or really just anyone who cares passionately about music. However, Spotify users might not spot all the plays on words singer Eric Olsen packs into the lyrics. Here’s three puns in as many lines: “Spin the story of your life / Roll your sleeves and show your stripes / Deep cuts aren’t made with knives.” Continue reading »