5 Charms 2.24
loveblaster - the way things work (Madison, WI; 2024)
the language of love is a language with no words / but closing the door is making it worse
I don't know where loveblaster came from or where they're going, but I love this album. The slowest of slowcore with everything you'd expect from that: chiming guitars, crackling cymbal hits, brushed snare, duet vocals, warm piano. It's that big empty room, lonely with only your chair and the wallpaper. It's a birthday cake when everyone goes home and you collapse on the living room floor. Beautifully recorded and mixed in a hi-fi minimalist style, loveblaster is:
Marley Van Raalte Lyrics, Vocals, Guitars
Abby Self - Vocals, Drums, Piano
Neal Jochmann - Bass, Vocals
Lunar Moth - In the Mourning (Madison, WI; 2022)
Round and round and round we go
I saw Lunar Moth down in a cellar. Ideally, Lunar Moth should be on a big stage playing to moshing kids, slick with mud in the cicada-buzzing summer air. Sunshine Veins? It's a big soggy cinnamon breakfast cereal of a grunge song. They got that big snare hit, they got that distorted bass. Verse. Chorus. Feedback. "In the Mourning" is a small little EP that stomps around and does not care if you are in the room and you have a headache. Lunar Moth is:
Amber Moth - Guitar & Vocals
Mac Moth - Bass
Gage Moth - Drums
Long Mama - Poor Pretender (Milwaukee, WI; 2022)
I promised my family / I promised my friends / Made a deal with myself / I’d keep it together after our story ended
“Poor Pretender” doesn’t sound much like an album made in Milwaukee, with its swinging drums, sliding guitar solos, and the subtle bowing and thumping of the upright bass. It feels like what singer/songwriter Kat Wotdke calls in a Shepherd Express interview: “misfit country.” Live, the band cranks up the “misfit” and becomes a droning, cosmically raucous roots rock band. Sometimes you walk down the highway until you get to a forest, blue in the creeping dusk. You turn off the road and onto a path, move along the dirt until you come to a sandy spot, a clearing amid the pine trees. Staring up at the sky, the stars become tiny bright regrets. Long Mama plays songs about that, and more. Long Mama is:
Kat Wodtke: vocals, acoustic guitar
Andrew Koenig: electric guitar, 12-string guitar, banjo
Samual Odin: upright bass
Nick Lang: drums
Eva Nimmer: backing vocals
The Nile Club - Wake Up With a Sense of Pride (Milwaukee, WI; 2023)
One more year of hanging around
Eating and forcing out
The sound of my voice when there’s no one around
The Nile Club, like the mythical dining spot it was named after, rises out of cornfields and parking lots, strip malls and farms. A bunch of lonely folks who found their people, found some guitars, found an audience on the mid-sized stages of stupid bars and the basements where joyous dancing erupts from the feet of tired working class punks. They answer the question: what if Nirvana, but the Beatles? What if Dinosaur Jr., but My Chemical Romance? No one asked these questions, but we were all ready to hear it. Loud, good stuff, mixed and recorded by The Nile Club:
Samuel Walters: guitar, vocals, synth, bass
Marcellina Star: guitar, vocals, trumpet, french horn
Samwise Baker: drums, vocals, trombone
Jack Lusk: bass
MQBS - Dead Languages (Madison, WI; 2023)
I have never been that good with grammar
All my inclinations are wrong
I mistranslate and I stammer
I come on too strong, never quite belong
Sigra DeWeese, local artist, entrepreneur, and songwriter, leads collective MQBS with her operatic vocals and bass playing. Sigra has previously released a library of solo singles and EPs, including 2023's "Scavenger," centering on her voice and a variety of electronic and acoustic instruments, all performed and recorded by her. Dead Languages is something different--a tangled maze of loud guitars and crescendos. Sigra's voice is still what draws you on in first listen, but as you dig your way through the layers, you find yourself hypnotized by the production, the lyrics, and the density of the song. Also, I'll just be honest: best guitar solo I've heard in decades. I can't wait to hear what MQBS does next, there is no one like them in any corner of the Wisconsin scene. MQBS is:
Quintin, Beatrice, Sigra and Jack
Independent music and culture writing from around Wisconsin:
Jason Fuhrman
Milwaukee Record Staff
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