Last we heard from Young Heart Sparks Fire was in 2017 with the full-length release of Manifesto! – a blistering dose of rock and roll with big riffs and anthemic choruses. That’s worth noting because the newest single – “I’m Dumb (But I’m Not as Young as I Used to Be)” – takes things in a much different direction.

Awash in reverb-y guitars and shoegaze style vocals, this is a much more subdued Young Heart Sparks Fire (aka Tim Thompson). Unsurprisingly, it’s also a bit of a melancholy love song with lyrics bemoaning “love or control, you can’t have both.” A song about losing a love that also provides a reinvention of sound for the artist could be a very telling experience; even if that is reading far too into it.

The b-side, “Love is Suicide,” continues the re-invention of the outfits sound by providing clearly programmed drums, borderline 80’s goth vocal delivery and a mesmerizing dose of keyboards. It’s unclear if this overhaul in sound is a natural progression of experimentation and growth or a knowing redefinition of self but, whatever it is, it’s working.

Safari Room has been steadily releasing new music since June of 2018. They put out the “Antelope” single, followed by the Actual Feelings EP in July, which was followed by “Around the Bend” in November and, now, “One Day Here” has been released into the world. It’s unclear if the band is leading up to unleashing a full-length album or if they’re just doing a great job of reminding you that you should be keeping them on your radar.

The trick with Safari Room is that if you’re one of those listeners that gives a song 30-seconds, and only 30-seconds, you’re going to miss out. “One Day Here” starts softly with a head bobbing beat and reverb-y guitar lick but continuously adds layered elements throughout that prevent the song from registering as just a gentle ebb. Harmony highlights with soaring guitar beneath them give way to an unfurling of layers of round-robin vocals.

There’s a deceptiveness to the Safari Room catalog of goods that should be approached with care. Judge too quickly and you’ll miss out on the best parts.

Love You Later, aka LYL aka Lexi Aviles, is an emerging pop artist that claims residency between both Nashville and LA. While this may roll some eyes for the hardened Nashville old-timer, it makes a great deal of sense for the kind of music she’s creating. Her most recent single, “Harder on Myself“, contains the kind of slick production you’d hope for on a pop song but not without some legitimate emotional heft, both lyrically and musically.

The single is catchy – repeating the familiar refrain “Maybe it’s not my fault this time” – but legitimately melancholy. Aviles delivery is fragile, introspective and believable. What’s most interesting is that the relentless repetition allows the song to transition from a remorseful feeling of regret to a self-confidence mantra. It’s a song to listen to when pining for someone or struggling with a break-up but leaves you with a feeling of positivity, not loss.

On a previous episode of the WOTT Music podcast we played a track from the new Anchor Thieves release, Havoc Siren, but the entirety of the EP is a noteworthy experience that should be indulged in full.

Anchor Thieves has been releasing records at a consistent pace since 2011, with this latest being their sixth overall. As one would expect, the first few releases refined a particular sound; in this case, a bit of anthemic rock cut with melancholy. There’s always been an early Sunny Day Real Estate vibe to the band, largely due to the vocal qualities of Cayce Keller. It’s rock and roll but it’s also never been afraid to be sensitive. That is not a derogatory observation, it is a compliment.

With the release of The Havoc Siren, the band has made a tectonic shift in their approach. It’s certainly the same band with the same refined skills of memorable songwriting but the pieces have shifted. Where the 2017 release, An Echo Thrives, has plenty of big, crunchy, guitars and fist-in-the-air moments, The Havoc Siren has saxophone and flute flourishes led by a haunting piano line. “Ipso Facto” is the most different of the tracks – in comparison to their entire catalog – but tracks like “Siren” and “Trapezoid” are both more subdued, more nuanced and more cathartic when they do lean back into their familiarity territories of a soaring guitar solo.

This is only an EP but it shows a major change for the band, not only in their willingness to dabble in richer compositions but in their ability to execute on them. If this is all we hear from the band in 2019, I’ll be satisfied to know that the seeds have been sown for something equally as entrancing for the future.

Before embarking on listening to In Circles with Self from Abstract Black, you must prepare yourself for a bit of a meditative experience. These are longform, looping, compositions that build upon themselves through saxophone, clarinet, bells, percussion of various varieties and repetitive vocal clips.

The history of the record is revealing of this intentionally focused experience:

After witnessing the Sun Ra Arkestra in Memphis October 2018, I used the month of November to create these compositions, quick mantras really, which focus on using the sound circle (loop), to reimagine an ensemble, in the tradition of Great Black Music ensembles like the aforementioned and the Art Ensemble of Chicago, yet comprised of self solely. This recording stands to document my adherence to the practice of sonic improvisation in the out of doors.

It’s a refreshing break from the world of rock, indie rock and pop structures. Clearly there’s a bit of Jazz Thinking underlying some of this but the influence goes back much further. These songs, at their most skeletal, harken back to drum circles and communal music making experiences but the usage of modern instrumentation, samples and the occasional squelching keyboard (see “E(WI) Ring“) make for a more contemporary experience.

Speaking personally, albums like this can be a hard sell with the blinders I generally wear for the rock world but it’s an enjoyable experience to step outside of that realm and immerse yourself into a world of slower, building, changes.

David Mead recently announced his first new solo album in eight years, entitled COBRA PUMPS (all caps). Along with the announcement, he provided a little insight into the hardships he encountered in trying to figure out how to release it. Here’s a snip:

When it came time to figure how to release COBRA PUMPS, I needed money and, out of habit, approached a few different music business people for help. After a few slightly bizarre meetings in which algorithmically-induced metrics and social media compliance were discussed with a ferocity once reserved for killer hooks and Led Zeppelin, I deduced that I simply don’t fit into the industry anymore, if I ever did. It now requires very different skill sets than the ones I have spent my life attempting to master. And that is OK with me…

Along with that insight is an announcement that he’s releasing the album for free, track-by-track, starting tomorrow. If you want to get in on it, you can simply sign his mailing list on his website and you’ll receive them via email.

But here’s the thing. The first released track, “Bedtime Story“, is not some oddball outlier. It’s a full-on rock track with a pleasant hook carried by Mead’s distinct voice, making it a memorable offering. I’m not sure what level of berating he has undergone to perceive his music as being a bad fit for music listeners but this track simply doesn’t fit that narrative.

Time will tell what the rest of the album holds – which we’ll discuss here once it’s released – but I’m actually more intrigued now than I may have been otherwise.

I’m a sucker for many many things when it comes to music but if you’re album art is a highly stylized illustration of some celestial realm and your album title is some ambiguous reference to The Next Something or Other, I am going to be immediately intrigued. With that in mind, upon seeing the latest release from doo. with a cover depicting a saturated warrior type against a spacey background entitled AstroBeing The Next Aion, I was locked in.

Within the EP are four tracks of instrumentals pulsing along hip-hop beats and lathered in drawn out space-y keyboards. It’s certainly the kind of soundtrack you could put on for zoning out but it manages to be peppered with just the right amount of samples and somewhat ominous flourishes to keep it from being complete background noise.

If there’s an accompanying epic tale that goes with this, I wouldn’t be surprised but, for now, we’ll just have to leave it to our imaginations.