Have you ever been at a wedding and the band starts to play and you immediately think about how corny they are? Then, fifteen minutes later, you find yourself indulging in the sincere performance and letting go of your indie rock baggage to just enjoy yourself? There’s elements of that in this single from newcomers The It City.

There’s something undeniably delightful about the song and video. Despite being posted a year ago and having over 100,000 views, I’d never heard tale of it. That may be because the song is intentionally… fun? It’s R&B / funk inspired number with some “smooth grooves”, great horn parts and enjoyable, occasionally, falsetto. The video features the band members acting a fool around an elementary school as the kids, donned in superhero costumes, watch from afar. On paper, you’d likely scoff at the idea. In execution, it’s a treat.

As a hippie at a concert once whispered to me, “Let It Go.” All your pretension about music, just let it wash away and enjoy this first song. Maybe even allow yourself to smile a little bit.

I hesitate to post this as it’s not entirely clear that All Them Witches is even a Nashville based band anymore. I’m hedging my bets here though that at least one of them still lives here, making this appropriately relevant to post.

The desert rock / psychedelic group has announced a new album due September 28th via New West. The LP, entitled ATW, is a self-produced undertaking that intentionally steers the band in somewhat new directions. The first available track, “Fishbelly 86 Onions“, is much less of the slow burn we’ve come to expect from the band and more of a roar out of the gate. Obviously, not much is known about the rest of the record yet but it’s going to be a double record, so it’s safe to assume the runtime between the eight songs allows some of them to stretch out into the meditative state the band has honed over the years.

Pre-orders of the album are available here and I’m sure we’ll see a video or two in the not so distant future.

The Flowerss EP from Halfnoise was released back in May with the “All That Love Is” single preceeding it in April. While the track may have been around for a minute, it’s not lost any of its luster. In fact, this official video for the track makes it even more enjoyable.

A woman prepares herself in a tackling position as a man rolls away down the hill. Another woman turns her back as a man tries to greet her from the beach. Intercut images of an egg, a clothespin, a handful of ice. What’s it all mean?! Maybe it’s just enjoyably random images or maybe, just maybe, there’s a vague hint at the “dance” of a relationship; both the courtship phase and the longterm maintainable. The 70’s color palette, the camera zooms and overall presentation are engaging and well worth multiple views.

Openly citing The Strokes, Tame Impala and Radiohead as your influences is a quick way to earn a massive eyeroll from any potential new listener. One false move and you’ve gone from skeptical intrigue to flat-out miserable mockery. Fortunately, East Nashville’s Cave Mode Shack manages to not fuck it up.

The debut EP, Time Traveler’s Party, clocks in around 15 minutes. There’s very little room for filler and they make great use of it; exploring some breezier lighter pop with the likes of “End of Days” and even some more upbeat, fist-pumping, fair with “Good Girl.”

It’s certainly a promising first offering and well worth keeping an eye out for live shows and a future full-length.

Z is, as far as I can tell, the new project from Mom & Dad’s Zach Prosser. Their Instagram has only a handful of posts and a Bandcamp account has two songs posted from late in 2017. All that is to say, it feels pretty new.

The Window Light Show video for “456” starts with a bit of deceiving techno but kicks right in to an infectious bass line and skewered guitars. The dueling vocals bounce back and forth between anthemic joy and an almost sinister style. On paper, this might look to be all over the place but in execution it pulls together the variety of styles flawlessly. I’ve listened to this no less than 20 times already.

Comparisons to his former band are sure to come up but what’s wrong with that? This is clearly a natural evolution from the previous undertaking with a few of the same enjoyable tenants. There’s supposedly an album called BarbedWire.org on the horizon and I can’t wait to hear it.

David Swick has undertaken a work-in-progress / work-in-public endeavor he calls DoomFolk StarterKit. The gist of the project is as such:

DoomFolk StarterKit is an on going sketchbook series where I write and record a song on my iPhone in (about) one hour and then post it in whatever form it has taken on band camp. It’s a discipline of displaying publicly and frequently the unfinished and rough versions of myself.

In the wrong hands, this kind of experimentation could lead to unlistenable drivel. Fortunately, Swick’s hands are the right hands and the results are legitimately listenable and, more importantly, interesting. On the whole, there’s a vibe akin to The Microphones – soft vocals paired with minimal guitar and light additional instrumentation floating through. It’s calming and a bit melancholy but sometimes that’s just the right medicine to get through the day. Not too shabby for an hour long experiment.

Bonus, this edition of the Sketchbook includes a cover of “Knotty Pine, a Dirty Projects / David Bryne collaboration from the Dark Was The Night compilation record from 2009.

My neighborhood is absolutely covered in flyers for a long past Davy Crotch Rockett show. Literally every telephone pole down my street has their name emblazoned on it. So, upon stumbling on this brand new SPLIT, there was already an established appreciation for their absolutely perfect band name and their ability to promote.

What remained an unknown was what the band actually sounded like? Diving into this None Intended Records release provided a treat that was well beyond my imagination. What greeted my ears was a dark, fuzzed out, foreboding… cover of the Miami Sound Machine song, “Conga.” Yes, that one. There’s little resemblance between the original and Davy’s version but that’s exactly what makes it so compelling.

The b-side, from the equally unknown Leisure Horse, is an equally pleasing re-imagination of a different kind of classic. The band takes on The Misfits “Last Caress” and turns it into a bit of a murder ballad. It ambles along peacefully, juxtaposed with the often violent and macabre lyrics.

All and all, pleasing returns from any time invested here.

Chalk this one up to the power of compelling album art. The Actual Feelings EP from Safari Room depicts some gorgeously simple collage work from Abby McGuire that accurately sets the tone for the music within. That sounds like a stretch because the image itself is actually a diver falling through space in front of the moon but the music itself has an lightness and airy nature that would surely be required to float past the moon.

In all seriousness tho, the four song offering is filled with falsetto voices, often layered delicately, set against a wall of building guitars. It’s a deceptively simple presentation of pop songs with much more going on than one would expect in such a short run time; including but not limited to drum machines, samples, dance-y bass lines and space-y guitars. There’s that moon reference again.

If you’re going to dive in, start with “Antelope“, the track that the band deemed worthy of releasing as a single back in June, preceding the album.