REVIEW: Lydia Ainsworth - Darling of the Afterglow

Laura Kerry

Background information about Lydia Ainsworth always resembles an introduction to the keynote address at a conference; you can’t talk about her music without discussing her musical accolades. The daughter of a musician in Toronto, she learned the cello at 10, trained in classical music at McGill, got a master’s in film scoring at NYU, and scored the 2011 film The Woods. Her first album, Right From Real, earned impressive critical attention and a nomination for a Juno award (the Canadian Grammys).

When you listen to Ainsworth’s music, though, all external factors fall away. In her new full-length, Darling of the Afterglow, the artist entices with rich atmospherics and catchy pop. Throughout the album, she sings of different places—a dusty road (“The Road”), “whispers [echoing] from the ceiling” (“Ricochet”), and “the world of the square inch of the heart” (“Nighttime Watching”)—fitting images for music so dense and dreamy that it seems to exist in its own space. Ainsworth often sings with a whisper effect, sounding eerie and disembodied over the pulse of dark electronic bass and the echo of reverb-heavy synths.

Some of the unearthly qualities emerges through Ainsworth’s baroque pop sensibilities. In songs such as “Afterglow,” “Ricochet,” and “WLCM,” the melodies borrow from classical music, even as the underlying compositions use the vocabulary of contemporary synth pop. Resembling Kate Bush or Bat for Lashes, her voice leaps and darts through carefully crafted lines, sounding both beautiful and theatrical. In other places, the instruments follow suit. An orchestra darts in and out in “Nighttime Watching”; a string arpeggio and acoustic bass lead the way through “Spinning”; and a banjo adds texture to “What Is It?” Ainsworth’s music is not only out of this world, but out of time, too.

Despite its spectral tone and baroque touches, though, Ainsworth’s latest LP is also her most straightforwardly poppy. Throughout Darling of the Afterglow, she has planted clear pop earworms that cut through the ethereal haze. Though it has weird touches, the opener, “The Road,” is essentially a piano-driven pop ballad; atmospheric in its verses, “Into the Blue” features a chorus that lodges deep in the mind; and behind the banjo and other detailed and surprising layers, “What Is It?” builds on top of a recognizable piano chord progression. The album even has a cover of Chris Isaak’s “Wicked Game,” but it's stripped down, slow, and vulnerable—unlike both the original and most of Ainsworth’s other tracks. Even when Darling of the Afterglow approaches the familiar, it does so through an ethereal scrim. The resulting pop is uncanny, warm, and beautiful: an afterglow indeed.

REVIEW: Vundabar - Gawk

Laura Kerry

About a year ago, I saw Vundabar play live by accident. They were opening for Palm and Mothers at Baby’s All Right in Brooklyn, and I came in halfway through their set while they were in the middle of “Oulala.” The Boston band immediately won me over (I remember remarking to a neighbor in the audience that it was one of the best things I had seen in a while), and I looked them up and listened to their sophomore album from 2015, Gawk, until it naturally fell out of my musical rotation.

With the reissue of Gawk at the beginning of this month comes a reminder of why I was drawn to Vundabar. Much of the energy and precision of their live show comes through on an album that cycles through dense moments of noise and quiet tension. When I saw them, Vundabar fit the bill with Palm and Mothers, the former of whom plays fun and unhinged experimental rock, and the latter who is equal parts angular and aching. The band, though, is as suited to the other bands they’ve opened for, including PWR BOTTOM and Diarrhea Planet, both different shades of noisy and wry. Vundabar can resemble all of those elements and many others—a touch of jangly, a touch of slackerish sludge, a bit of glam—making them sound at once familiar and entirely new.

Underlying all the different sounds in Gawk is a sense of playfulness. Vundabar likes to shift—from quiet guitar to fuzzy and loud; from nonchalant, low vocals to a crisp falsetto; and from weird, off-kilter verses to perfect indie-rock choruses and vice versa. In “Bust,” they jump from a finely tuned, isolated three-part harmony to a swell of distorted noise; in “Allen Blues,” they transform rhythmic, hard-hitting repetitions of “na” (think Weezer) into a quiet, fluid version of the same; and in “Desert Diddy,” a subdued first part of the chorus gives way to an explosive second half. Vundabar switches tones throughout the album, manipulating moments of suspense and release that is completely gripping.

Similar shifts happen in the lyrics, primarily along an axis ranging from don’t-give-a-fuck nonsense to earnest and confessional. “The sun is fun / The land is dandy / I only talk to dogs because they don't understand me,” they sing in “Allen Blues,” creating a kind of pop-punk nursery rhyme. The end of the verse takes a turn towards the direct, though, with, “I need to purge my urges, shameshameshame / I need an alibi to justify and somebody to blame.” In “Bust,” they turn philosophical: “I know enough to know I don't know anything.”

There’s charmingly comic swagger, too, particularly in the final song, “Shuffle,” a fuzzy bonus track added for the reissue, which includes the refrain, “I just want to hear my own voice” (sung with effects that render the singer’s voice the least clear of any vocals on the album). It’s impossible to predict where Vundabar will take the listener next in Gawk, but it’s a pleasure to have a second chance to try to find out.

VIDEO PREMIERE: The Pinc Lincolns - My Horse Is Blue

Kelly Kirwan

Dan Colussi stitched his third solo album together between cities and hotel rooms, traveling throughout Ottawa, Vancouver, Toronto and Winnipeg, with an electric guitar and bare essentials for recording. The former bassist for The Shilohs is no stranger to independent pursuits, assuming the name The Pinc Lincolns once again to deliver his latest single, "My Horse is Blue."

The ninth and final track off his new work, Joy to the World, crinkles with a signature static. It opens with Colussi’s voice, mimicking the staccato guitar to come, a dut-dut-dut-dut that fades into the background as razor-sharp strums come storming in. It’s a song that swings between pensive pools and bouts of white noise that suggest we’ve stumbled onto an abandoned frequency. It’s a flirtation between hard and soft rock, and both elements get their say. 

Horses, naturally, serve as the focal point for the song’s video. But before they make their appearance, we’re given a shot of a cerulean ocean and crashing waves. It soon progresses to the grainy footage of a herd running across the plains, and it’s as if we found the reel tucked away in a forgotten archive, the film strip taking on an overexposed look with age. The images of the horses become cloudy, with an almost smoky filter coming into the foreground. Towards the end, we’re left with a single horse, running across the dry landscape, as Colussi’s low-toned vocals ring in your head, “My horse is blue…”

It’s like a ‘70s version of Planet Earth, with Colussi taking us on a trip that’s intermittently relaxing and charged with a scorching electric current. It's a compelling and beautiful dynamic to dive into. 

REVIEW: Arthur Moon - Our Head

Kelly Kirwan

Lora-Faye Ashuvud describes the moment in which her musical moniker came to her in a dream, with an apparition from an admired artist’s alter-ego. If you're familiar with Marcel Duchamp, then you may already be aware of his feminine persona, Rrose Selavy, who was reincarnated in Ashuvud’s subconscious to offer this insight: her music came from her “inner Arthur Moon.” And when your mind’s eye gives you that kind of message, you listen.

So, Ashuvud adopted the pseudonym for her musical pursuits, which has led us to the here and now—more specifically, to her debut EP, Our Head. Rounding out her sound is vocalist Aviva Jaye, Marty Fowler on bass, Dave Palazola on drums, Rachel Brotman lending her voice and keys, and Nick Lerman offering support on guitar. Together, they create a world askew. In an interview with Audiofemme, Ashuvud described their music as disorienting and “pleasantly uncomfortable.” It’s a characteristic that reflects part of Ashuvud’s personal life: she suffers from migraines that induce aphasia, hindering her ability to speak. When these migraines take hold, Ashuvud’s words jumble into incoherent sentences. It’s an odd sensation, and one that’s trickled into other facets of her creative expression. Her lyrics are often inspired by splicing magazine clippings together, finding meaning amidst the scramble.

It’s no wonder, then, that art—particularly the surreal and abstract—serves as a recurring motif for Arthur Moon. The accompanying video for their single, “Room,” is an homage to artistic expression, featuring Ashuvud and a backdrop that doubles as a canvas. Deep reverb rumbles across the melody as the portrait bends and inverts, with both the visuals and beat in an ever-evolving, continually warped state.

The remaining four tracks that comprise the EP are equally idiosyncratic, but have a softer touch. "Wind Up" features a breathy soprano and soft, meandering instrumentals (at least at first). A male voice is interspersed, as if it were being played over an intercom, a blunt and monotone listing of society's harsh realities. We hear lines like, “The rat race is mistaken for productive work,” or musings on civilization's production of both “artifact things” and “artifact people.” Towards the end the beat surges, as the vocals, in their smooth, far-off pitch, take on a certain urgency.

The album then finishes with a cover of the Beatles classic “While My Guitar Gently Weeps,” which is simultaneously alluring and haunting. A slow, delicate simmer coats the lyrics, as a skittering synth swirls in the background. As it reaches the end, everything goes haywire. It’s raucous, like a record skipping and replaying the last ten seconds on a constant loop, this sense of crossed signals bringing us to a climactic end. It effectively sums up Arthur Moon’s aesthetic, evoking feelings of unease and then just as quickly a fleeting tranquility. Arthur Moon is out to rattle, and they succeed.

PREMIERE: Fauvely - Break

Laura Kerry

Fauvley is the project of Chicago-based singer-songwriter Sophie Leigh, who melds folk with dream pop and a touch of shoegaze in music that feels deeply personal. The title of her forthcoming EP, Watch Me Overcomplicate This, speaks to the confessional tone of songs that range from delicately self-effacing to hauntingly sad. Leigh cites Mazzy Star, Angel Olsen, and Lykke Li as influences, and the comparisons are apt; in her last single, the EP’s title song, and in her latest, “Break,” she combines the dreaminess of Mazzy Star with Olsen’s smoky sadness and Lykke Li’s fragile pop.

In “Break,” Leigh also follows the legacy of those three artists as she captures a large swatch of emotional ground with simple gestures. Beginning with a quiet duo of guitar and vocals, the artist is vulnerable as she sings, “I think I need a break from all these voices in my head.” As the song builds to the chorus with an increasing density of guitar strums, it picks up speed and momentum, eventually introducing a full band with an oscillating rhythm that simultaneously adds a sense of release and an added nervous urgency. Leigh’s words over this new rise are direct and strangely powerful: “Sometimes I feel too much / Sometimes I don’t feel enough.” As the song swings between animated refrain and sparse verse, it’s impossible not to feel along with Fauvely.