The Monthly Playlist selection of choice music, plus our Choice Albums list from the last month.
We decided at the start of the year to change things a little with a reminder of not only our favourite tracks from the last month, but also a list of choice albums too. This list includes both those releases we managed to feature and review on the site and those we just didn’t get the time or room for.
All entries are displayed alphabetically.
Meanwhile, our Monthly Playlist continues as normal, with all the choice tracks from May selected by Dominic Valvona, Matt Oliver and Brian ‘Bordello’ Shea.
CHOICE RELEASES FROM THE LAST MONTH OR SO:
A Single Ocean ‘S-T’
Review
The Balloonist ‘Dreamland’
(Wayside & Woodland) Review/Piece
Black Liq & Dub Sonata ‘Much Given, Much Tested’
The Bordellos ‘Liam Gallagher’
(Metal Postcard)
Cumsleg Borenail ‘It’s Your Collagen Not Your Conversation I Desire, My Pretty’
Famo Mountain ‘For Those Left Behind’ – This month’s cover art
Fir Cone Children ‘Gearshifting’
(Blackjack Illuminist Records) Review
LIUN + The Science Fiction Band ‘Does It Make You Love Your Life?’
(Heartcore Records) Review
Neon Crabs ‘Make Things Better’
(Half Edge Records) Review
SAD MAN ‘Art’
(Cruel Nature Records) Review
Staraya Derevyna ‘Garden Window Escape’
(Ramble Records/Avris Media) Review
Tomo-Nakaguchi ‘Out Of The Blue’
(Audiobulb Records) Review
Zavoloka ‘ISTYNA’
AND NOW, THE MONTHLY PLAYLIST::
LIUN + The Science Fiction Band ‘SPEAK TO ME’
SISTER WIVES ‘YnCanu’
Neon Crabs ‘J Spaceman’s Blues’
Fir Cone Children ‘Madness!’
A Single Ocean ‘White Bright Light’
Your 33 Black Angels ‘Your Sickness Solution’
Dabbla, Ghosttown, Dubbledge ‘Karate Good’
Black Liq & Dub Sonata ’10 Black Commandments’
Homeboy Sandman & Brand The Builder ‘Infinite Pockets’
Milena Casado ‘Yet I Can See’
Wildchild ‘Change For 2 Cents’
The Strange Neighbour & L One ‘625’
Pan Amsterdam & Leron Thomas ‘Evening Drive’
Famo Mountain ‘My Struggle To Survive’
Orain ‘Tangerine’
Smashing Red ‘Dark Eyed Girl’
Meggie Lennon ‘Running Away’
Dyr Faser ‘Sinister Dialogue’
Battle Elf ‘Stops Pretty Places’
Violet Nox ‘Strange Remix by Jonathan Santarelli’
Tomo-Nakaguchi ‘Indigo Line’
Tom O C Wilson ‘Better Off’
The Mining Co. ‘Treasure in Spain’
Oliver Earnest ‘Directionless’
The Bordellos ‘Cabbage Patch Doll Kiss’
Mama Oh No ‘Samba De Janeiro’
Zavoloka ‘Vesnianka’
Cumsleg Borenail ‘Signus Vectors’
OvO ‘Scavo’
Fatboi Sharif & Driveby ‘Swim Team Audible Function’
Cosmic Ear ‘Father and Son’
Staraya Derevnya ‘Tight-Lipped Thief’
Operation Keep The monolith Cocktail Afloat:
Hi, my name is Dominic Valvona and I’m the Founder of the music/culture blog monolithcocktail.com For the last 15 years both me and the MC team have featured and supported music, musicians and labels we love across genres from around the world: ones that we think you’ll want to know about. No content on the site is paid for or sponsored, and we only feature artists we have genuine respect for /love or interest in. If you enjoy our reviews (and we often write long, thoughtful ones), found a new artist you admire or if we have featured you or artists you represent and would like to say thanks or show support, than you can now buy us a coffee or donate via https://ko-fi.com/monolithcocktail
Our Daily Bread 634: Guided By Voices, Oopsie Daisies, Neon Kittens, Scott Robertson…
December 6, 2024
BRIAN ‘BORDELLO’ SHEA’S REVIEWS ROUNDUP – INSTANT REACTIONS.
COVER STARS THIS MONTH: RYLI
$T33D$_uv_LÜV ‘The Glory of Love’
Album (Metal Postcard Records)
Let’s be honest $T33D$_uv_LÜV is by far the worst band name ever in the history of rock ‘n’ roll, but luckily the music is rather quite excellent indeed. If they changed their name to something DJs can say or blog writers can be arsed to type out (I actually copied and pasted the name from the Metal Postcard Bandcamp, yes I am a lazy fucker I admit, but my one fingered typing style is not really up to a name that gives temp passwords a run for their money) their music might reach further than their front step.
Anyway, onto the music. It’s rather splendid in a Lou Reed/Velvet Underground kind of way, with a fine post punk attitude, and if Joy Division has a sense of humour and were from Texas and not rained soaked Manchester, they could have sounded like $T33D$_uv_LÜV (copied and pasted again).
Guided By Voices ‘Fly Religion’
Single (GBV Inc.)
Well guess what. Guided By Voices have released a new single in lieu of their new album; yes, their 41st in Feb next year. And it sounds like GBV. Is that a good thing. I guess that depends on your opinion on GBV: if you like them, you will like it, if you don’t this will not change your opinion on them. Personally, I like it.
Oopsie Daisies ‘In The Rain’
Single (Metal Postcard Records)
What can I say but another beauty from the Oopsie Daisies. Yes, another bedroom pop gem of subtle fragility, the sought of pop song that Sarah records used to release in those good old days when pop songs appeared on beautiful 7 inch vinyl and were physical works of art you could hold and cherish, and it didn’t cost you a arm and a leg to purchase it. “In The Rain” is not on 7 inch vinyl but you can still cherish it though a true treasure of pop splendidicity, and it won’t cost you an arm or a leg.
Lo-Fi Melancholia For Kids ‘Because, everyone is wrong about everything all the time’
(Astrodice Records)
As anyone who reads my reviews will know I have a love of home recorded DIY music. I love the simple drum machines, the one fingered keyboard lines and the jangly or distorted guitars and the quite not sure of themselves vocals, they have a soul and innocence and that is quite often lost in the studio. And that is what I love about this album by Lo -Fi Melancholia For Kids, it has all these qualities and at times comes across, if you can imagine it, the demos for the 1st Strokes album, especially on the opener “Energetic Midfield Player” and “The Arrow”.
“Because, everyone Is Wrong About Everything All The Time” is an enjoyable album, and should be enjoyed by all who like the DIY indie pop/rock aesthetic.
Neon Kittens ‘Radio Sick Music’
Album (Metal Postcard Records)
Any album that kicks off with an Eddie Cochran-like guitar riff nine times out of ten is going to be an album I’m going to enjoy. And when that album is by the Neon Kittens there is no doubt that it is going to be an album I’m going to enjoy.
Once again the Kittens have supplied us with another 12 songs of a debonair stylish post punk fury, songs that twirl and curtsy whilst secretly burrowing into your head and heart running slapdash over the idea of existing without the pure no wave seduction that the Neon Kittens kindly soundtrack our everyday life with, supplying us with the tales of the ordinary in the most extraordinary beguiling way. There is no-one quite like the Neon Kittens, which may explain why they are not sitting at the top of the poppermost, as on the whole the general public are an unadventurous lot and like their art with the art safely removed and replaced with a shiny facsimile with all the sex and danger removed. Maybe Metal Postcard could supply a downloadable sofa with every Neon Kittens album for people to hide behind whilst listening.
Scott Robertson ‘How Not To Live’
Album
What’s up with record labels today I ask you. Scott Robertson had to just shove this fine album out as a pay if you like download release just so he could move on with his new recordings, as he could not find a label to release it. Which speaks volumes for the state of the industry as Scott is a fine songwriter who has released an album of verve, art and skill and really deserves the extra push a label can sometimes give.
“How Not To Live” is an album filled with songs of fine guitar chime and melody ala Teenage Fanclub and the Lemonheads and Brendan Benson, with the touch of alternative American guitar bands and the such, as lovely and good as this all sounds there is a darker and more melancholy deeper undercurrent going on that keeps Scott at arm’s length from all those other artists with similar influences. I await Scott’s third album to see how this talented young chap develops.
Ryli ‘I Think I Need You Around’
Single (DandyBoy Records)
“I Think I Need You Around” is a rather jangly twangy guitar pop boiler of a song, another indie pop dream of love and want, as is the other side of this forthcoming seven-inch single release “When I Fall”, a rather sweet and bewitching little pop strum along which I might actually prefer to the A-side, but both are fine and dandy.
Brian ‘Bordello’ Shea’s Roundup Of What’s What
SINGLES/TRACKS
Gillian Stone ‘Amends’
This is a beautiful and moving single; a ballad of lost horizons and forgotten hopes, the folk bewitchery that indeed bewitches a long float down an aural river of despondency and regret but offers brief glimpses of the nature of life in all its ugly beautiful full-frontal explosion of sex love and lust. A song that tickles the chin of death until it smiles and bares its rotting teeth. A true example of the art and magic of music.
Hal Cannon ‘Thirty-Six Miles’
(Okehdokee Records)
Thirty-Six Miles is a beautifully written song taking in the magic and pure nostalgia of all the old country music, just like my dad use to play as I was growing up. A song that takes in the simplicity and wonder of discovery and peace; a song that demonstrates the purity and power of the simply written poetically inspired word framed by a lone picked banjo and tinkling piano. Truly beautiful.
The Legless Crabs ‘I Wanna Be A Cult Musician’
(Metal Postcard Records)
I cannot have a round up without an offering from the wonderful Metal Postcard Records, and this month’s chosen track is the new single by the Legless Crabs. A couple of minutes of adrenalin pulsating weirdness with a guitar solo that one should write home about, and I am renowned for my distrust of the guitar solos, but when one happens to sound like it is disgusted with itself for being a guitar solo – if it is in fact one, it could well be a heavily distorted keyboard – it is indeed a thing of rock ‘n’ roll legend and off kilter brilliance, a bit like the Legless Crabs themselves: off kilter brilliance.
Beija Flo ‘Waiting For The Sun’
I like a little deranged angst in pop music. Sometimes it is a good thing, and I enjoyed this little angst-ridden pop song of heartbreak and want a great deal; plus the video has the added attraction of a dead clown, who does not like a dead clown, especially on a nice sunny day, which it is today as I type this. An ideal way to start a review session: the sun an egg roll and a dead clown lying on the pavement dead whilst the songstress emotes anger and heartache. If only all pop music could be as entertaining.
ALBUMS/EPS
A.D Luck ‘WORMWOOD’
(Submarine Broadcasting Co.)
Exploration into the unusual psych of adventure is the perfect description of yet another off-kilter release from Submarine Broadcasting Company.
A.D LUCK has offered us here a captivating delve into the land of experimental electronica but with a pop edge, which at times reminds me of The Art Of Noise but without the annoyance. And I can imagine many an alternative radio show featuring a number of tracks from this fine album, and can well see it being all over the wonderful Dandelion radio station. For this is pop music Jim, just not how we know it.
It has melody, humour, romance and sex, or am I just a little strange? Whether I am or not there is no denying that to these ears the track ‘NICFITNIC’ is pure cartoon addiction pop brilliance, so much so I have just spent the past thirty minutes listening to this strange beguiling number over and over again. THIS IS PURE POP FOR NOW AND AGAIN PEOPLE.
The Doomed Bird of Providence ‘A Flight Across Arnhem Land’
(10 To 1 Records)
If you can imagine the Wicker Man set in the Australian outback instead of the Scottish Isles, than this could well be its soundtrack. For this album of 16 slightly gothic sounding folksongs has an eerie and wonderfully disturbed texture, the songs being vocal driven pieces using text from Australian Newspapers from the 1920/30s.
The songs start to merge into each other, and you start to think have I not already heard this one, which only adds to the strangeness and unsettling nature of the album. To my mind only a good thing and it is lovely to come across something a bit different and a band that isn’t a Woolworths Beatles/Byrds/Nirvana. This is an album for those who want to dip into something a little bit unusual.
The Meltdown ‘Its A Long Road’
(Hopestreet Recordings) 29th July 2022
This is a very mature sounding album; one that is very well produced and has the old sixties country soul vibe about it, which is to be honest something I normally avoid like the plague as I normally put on immature badly produced pop for my listening pleasure, and if I am in a soulful mood I will put on some 60s/70s soul, when soul to my ears was at its finest, and I think The Meltdown will completely agree with that statement as they have just produced an album filled to the brim, brimming in fact, with the inspiration from 60s country soul.
You hear the Stax horns and blue eyed soul melodrama which when done badly and uninspired can be as exciting as watching paint dry, and not even your own paint but someone else’s, maybe a neighbour’s or a recently renovated public house that has lost all its old charm and is now frequented by people in white shirts and short skirts who support Liverpool or Man U or whatever team at the moment is doing well. But Meltdown avoid that by sounding like a pub that has been given a new coat of paint but has managed to keep the charm and authenticity of the original, and of what the people found so appealing in the first place, so will attract new customers but keep the old regulars perfectly happy. So not all 60s inspired soul bands have to sound like The Commitments, it can sound like The Meltdown, and thank Little Richards 60s soul recording pants for that.
The Burning Hell ‘Garbage Island’
Garbage Island is an enjoyable romp of poptastic glee taking in the influences of Lou Reed, They Might Be Giants, XTC, early Costello, The Modern Lovers and even Steely Dan and mashing it into a stew of musical hits. There is certainly something enjoyable losing yourself in the wash of the many lyrics and fine pop melodies.
It’s nice to come across a band that isn’t scared to be intellectual and witty. I come across far too many bands that write the trite and the obvious; who use one word when ten is obviously better. I call it the Oasis syndrome. The Burning Hell I am happy to announce have not succumb to the syndrome and are happy to paint beautiful pictures of a not too beautiful world promoting the joys of the magical different pop song.
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