There’s a tricky balance to achieve when wearing your influences on your sleeve. Lean too far one way and you’ll find yourself cast as an unoriginal take on well tred territory but too far the other way may result in being shrugged off as not-as-good-as when the originator did the thing you love. The latest from Palm Ghosts finds the band walking that razor wire and finding just the right balance of instantly familiar yet notably original.

Just a few moments into “Wide Awake And Waiting” and you’ll be reminded of the likes of Joy Division, Bauhaus or The Jesus and Mary Chain (of which they have a highly enjoyable cover). While plenty of music has space-y guitars, melodic bass lines and forelorn baritone vocals, it’s hard not to instantly make the comparison when all three are presented at once. Fortunately, there’s not a lot of music being made in 2020 within this genre, so it’s instantly a highly repeatable treat to have new music incubated from a period some 30-years old.

The accompanying video is an appropriately black-and-white affair filled with glitching static transitions between a mind-numbing variety of scenes that include stop motion nature, people and places from another time, artistic squibbles, cells and even the occasional haunting specter. If you encountered this being projected at a high class art gallery, you’d sit and stare for a spell, no doubt. There’s a very subtle transition near the end that begins to incorporate color footage, hinting either at a future sequel to this piece or simply a metaphorical emergence from the darkness. Either way, we’re in.

Palm Ghosts have been crafting post-punk, shoegaze, quasi-goth style tracks since as far back as 2014 and it’s quite evident that they’ve refined their techniques quite sharply here in 2020.

Back in November 2019, Jonie reset all his social accounts and started promoting a new EP on the horizon for January 2020. The producer / alt-pop musician has made good on that promise by releasing the first of the three tracks in the form of “All the Time,” now streaming on all the obvious platforms with the second two songs coming at the end of the month.

There’s plenty to say about the blossoming Nashville Pop Scene (much of which is far better articulated by several articles over at The Scene) but I’d surmise that Jonie sits on the fringes of that scene. As exemplified by this newest track, he composes highly infectious tracks filled with joyous samples and danceable beats in a manner that you would completely expect from a “Pop” artist but he subverts that backdrop with a vocal track cut with sincere melancholy, both lyrically and melodically. Surprisingly, this functions as a means of empowering the tracks emotional impact, rather than detracting from the feel good feeling.

Jonie has had a steady stream of singles trickling out since 2017 but a more cohesive grouping of them has been rare; if not non-existent. “All the Time” is just the first peek at a more cohesive whole to be released before the end of the month and I, for one, couldn’t be more excited to hear how they all work together.

The EP release will be celebrated over at Tempo Coffee on Nolensville Road on January 18th with Patzy. Tickets are available now.

“Hi, do you send nudes?” is a helluva way to start a conversation but, sadly, probably not an altogether rare one for anyone using a social network capable of Direct Messages. Local EDM and Pop artist Freak Daddy recently encountered this exact conversation (coupled with an additionally disparaging follow-up) but decided to make something great out of this overstepping, rude and downright facepalming human behavior.

“Understand (How Bout No)” is the full-fledged track and music video based on a prior TikTok video calling out the DM sendee. The video is set in Freak Daddy’s hotel room with some ridiculous dance moves and direct-to-camera mugging, coupled with footage from a recent photo shoot with Jess Williams. Everything about the offering is filled with levity, unbridled optimism and a confidently defiant message – a sort of rallying anthem for the denial of such lurid behavior. The chorus asks “why do humans still do this?” – a question that is unfortunately impossible to answer but at least Freak Daddy provides a means to empower those that are subject to these requests.

Until recently, I was among the uninitiated to the works of Freak Daddy but this song served as a fantastic gateway to several other catchy tunes done in a wide variety of styles and an Instagram account and podcast (Impurity) that regularly speak on topics generally seen as taboo in the South (i.e. gender identity, atheism, mental health). In this case, ignorance was certainly not bliss.