5 Charms 02.25

LINE - The Making Room (Madison, WI; 2024)

And you’re leaving town in October, I
Don’t know how to ease my mind about it

For a long time, I couldn't figure out what a "making room" was. It sounded mysterious, secretive. But making room is the opposite of that, it's an opening of your space to welcome something or someone new. Songwriter Maddie Batzli has made a name for themself in the Madison music community as an advocate for queer artists, offering space to various musicians to participate in their LINE project. "The Making Room" is their first collection of songs since 2020's "Choosing Sides," and it is full of the same great jangle-pop of their first record, with some light Americana additions. Batzli's songwriting continues to shine, and it's a joy to listen to this lean, 4-song EP of new songs. First track "No Clarity," about the time it takes to understand the past, is mostly acoustic, with a sweet little banjo plonk carrying it along. Album closer "Show Me the Way," has an early-90s college rock vibe with a fun guitar solo and anthemic singing. With so many bands making dark music full of existential dread, it's nice to hear serious music by serious artists that is inspiring, danceable, and fun.

LINE is:
Lead vocals, guitar, keys, midi programming: Maddie Batzli
Bass, backing vocals, guitar, trumpet, midi programming: Austin Lynch
Backing vocals: Esther Chun
Drums: Will Ault [live drums by Emily Mills]

Amelia Courthouse - broken things (Green Bay, WI; 2024)

Keep your arms, keep your head on, baby
Cast your grievance to the sky

How do you feel about loops and ambient noise? What about hymns being stretched to the breaking point? Field recordings? Leah Toth is an English professor at St. Norbert College in Green Bay. Her alter ego, Amelia Courthouse, creates droning organ/keyboard/synth songs to transcend your daily life--wordless, formless, gossamer. "One Fine Morning" and "Vihangi" creep along meditatively before dissolving into "Keep Your Arms," which features Toth on vocals and her husband, James Toth of Wooden Wand, on ebow'd guitar. Then you can settle in and enjoy Toth pulling apart the hymn "Nearer, My God, To Thee" into a 17-minute soundscape, a meditation of electroacoustic beauty that we don't hear nearly enough of in the indie world. This surely ain't pop music, but music made for reckoning with yourself. Sit in the relative calm of the songs and experience this record from beginning to end, watch the snow fall.

Buena Cara - Buena Cara (Milwaukee, WI; 2024)

I've been like this since I was young
I let the smoke fill up my lungs

The debut album from Milwaukee's Buena Cara is full of the twists and turns of midwest emo, the beautiful amp sounds, the shouting, the weird, spidery guitar riffs, the drums that power the floor-sweeping dance party, the breakdowns, the slacker verses. Young people have been making music like this for a long time, each wave crashing on top of the one before it. In this case, it's the waves on Bradford Beach, where you can stand under the gray clouds and squint across Lake Michigan to watch the freighters move from port to port. Although it's changed a lot since The Promise Ring, Maritime, Decibully, and Hey Mercedes played at the Cactus Club, Milwaukee still provides a home for working class emo and punk songwriters. Buena Cara is part of the new generation of these artists, creating sad and powerful songs for a new generation of fans who are looking for someone to put their 21st century existential angst into catchy tunes. "Untether Me" is typical of the big sound and energy Buena Cara produces, also of note is the somber acoustic song "St. Cloud".

Buena Cara is:
Vocals/Guitar: Ricky Bravo
Bass: Alex Cavalco
Drums: Josh Ehlke

Elk Startled by Thunder - Overdue (Stevens Point, WI; 2023)

Nothing ever happens, in this small town

Broke farm kids lamenting the environmental collapse of the midwest ecosystem. Flannel-wearing beardos yelling about the cult of celebrity. Yes. Even the rurals get to be pissed off at the world. And yes, punk and hardcore is not just the domain of big city art school drop outs. Elk Startled by Thunder's 2023 EP is a fallen tree after a storm, a glacial erratic in the middle of cornfield. Sure, you can go around it, but you can't ignore it. We need more "cowpunk" like this--no banjos or fiddles, just noisy and fast guitar punk from the middle of nowhere. As we move into this new era of defunded infrastructure projects and the erosion of LGBTQ rights in rural spaces, there's a ton to get mad about. I grew up in a small town, and sometimes turning your amp up and shouting into a mic is your only available form of protest.

ESbT is:
Atticus Plonsky - Bass/Vocals
Baily Sexton - Guitars/Vocals
Nathan Klink - Drums/Vocals
Zac Gajda - Guitars

Heather the Jerk - not very motorcycle (Madison, WI; 2024)

I wish that I was cool as you were

Heather the Jerk writes great little lo-fi, garage pop gems. "Motorcycle" is 8 songs that fit on a single side of a cassette tape, with the most epic song being just over 2 minutes of fuzzed out guitar, vocals, and drums. Some of my favorite things about these songs: dope keyboard riffs, loud drums, no space to catch your breath--8 noisy punk songs in a row, "one lady band." It's hard to write songs, sing songs, and play instruments, Heather does everything in the recorded version of this band, and she does them with great skill and energy. She's no jerk. She's no nerd. She's cool. Pick up the tape if you have a chance, or go see her band in action. You can also grab her full length "Cable Access TV" on vinyl, if you are so lucky!

Heather Sawyer - does mostly everything