Further Listening:

5. The World Is Coming Around To Gabriel Birnbaum

A regular on the always thriving Brooklyn music scene, Gabriel Birnbaum is known for his production/performance work with the likes of Mutual Benefit and Katie Von Schleicher, as well as for his role as the frontman of the acclaimed experimental rockers Wilder Maker. In between that, and a day job as a music PR, Gabe has also found time for a burgeoning solo career, focusing on “economy and direct emotional resonance”, as showcased on 2019’s rather excellent, Not Alone. For his next move, Gabe decided to channel the spirit of Neil Young and Crazy Horse, recording quickly with none of the players having heard the songs before they arrived at the studio, and the result is his wonderfully titled new record, Patron Saint of Tireless Losers. With the record set to arrive at the end of June, this week Gabe shared the latest single from it, The More They Come Around.

Discussing the track, Gabe is full of praise for his fellow musicians, in particular their ability to create on the fly, “the recording process we use with this project makes so much room for spontaneous inventions becoming essential parts of a song, and these amazing players are the reason it all works“. Musically the track is Birnbaum at his most searing and confrontational, as the lithe aqueous qualities of the opening, give way to an explosion of blue-collar rock, resplendent with driving drum splatter and the bouncing melody of the bass. If the music is fizzing with intent, that intensity is certainly matched in the lyrics, as Gabe dissects political malaise and the danger of thinking you can’t do anything about the world around you, “the less you care for the little things now the more they come around, a finger warms the trigger and there’s racists in the streets unafraid“. The sound of an ever-changing artist, once again looking like he’s found a new groove, The More They Come Around suggests Patron Saint of Tireless Losers is every bit as intriguing as everything else Gabriel Birnbaum has put out into the world, and with his back catalogue that’s high praise indeed.

Patron Saint of Tireless Losers is out June 28th via Western Vinyl. For more information on Gabriel Birnbaum visit https://linktr.ee/gabrielbirnbaum

4. Was It Something nathy sg Said?

Now while you might not know nathy sg, regular readers of this site are probably well aware of Nathan Stephens-Griffin, founder member of Onsind, drummer in Fortitude Valley and one-quarter of DIY-punk heroes, Martha. Not content, or too busy, with all those projects, in October last year, Nathan launched nathy sg, a sort of solo-with-friends project, who have already released two blink-and-they’re-gone 7″ singles. With Nathan and the band hitting the road later this month for their first UK tour, this week they shared their latest single, Something You Said.

Discussing the inspiration behind the track Nathan describes it somewhat non-committaly as a song about, “making jokes. Having a laugh. Workers struggle. That kind of thing”. If its themes are a little unfocused, the final product, recorded by Supermilk’s Jake Popyura and mixed by Amos Pitsch, is anything but, as bombastic guitar solos, meet clattering drums and passionate vocals, like a blend of everything Nathan has shared with the world before that’s both reassuringly familiar and deliciously fresh. Lyrically the track seems to touch on the vital process of finding like-minded individuals in a world that can feel bleak, whether you’re creasing up a voice note they left you, or standing arm-in-arm on the striking frontline. Here Nathan seems to know that even at your lowest ebb when you feel broken by the world around you, “they had crushed us with their cunning killed the optimist inside this jaded fuck”, there’s little left to do but pick yourself up, laugh with your friends and keep on trying to make the world worth living in.

Something You Said is out now. For more information on nathy sg visit https://linktr.ee/nathysg

3. Hamish Hawk Tattoos His Name Into Music History

Something of a break-out star in 2023, Edinburgh’s Hamish Hawk released the critically lauded Angel Numbers early in the year and spent much of it watching the plaudits, and gig opportunities, pour in. For his next move, Hamish, in his own words, “opened up my closet, and a skeleton came out”. The result is his upcoming album Firmer Hand, a series of tracks linked by, “a sense of the unsaid” and the realisation, “I am going to say these things, and not all of them are going to make me look good”. While the record won’t arrive until the end of the summer, this week Hamish shared the first taster in the shape of his new single, Big Cat Tattoos.

The home of Firmer Hand’s album title, Big Cat Tattoos is a track Hamish describes as, “all talk”, as the song’s narrator, “gets a few barbs in nice and early, and lands a couple of clumsy jabs, but in the end we’re witness to nothing more than a petty diatribe”. As with a number of Hamish’s recordings, Big Cat Tattoos seems to transport the listener into the kind of setting in which Noel Coward or Neil Hannon would happily swill a brandy and don a smoking jacket, “I tire of you honestly when you swan around the room, how I used to like to watch you fixing me a drink, ’til manhandling the crystal wear became your kink”. What really makes the world he inhabits intriguing though, are the moments where the façade cracks, and the fact he’s not some billionaire stately home owner crashes into view, he’s just backstage with a dull man wanting to escape, “you vetoed every one of my miserabilist movies, you bored all of my friends from out town with the virtues of shoegaze”. While Hamish’s lyrics being as sharp as ever is certainly no surprise, the musical evolution here is entirely welcome, Hamish’s deadpan vocal now accompanied by shimmering Television-like guitars, and the sort of bassy-bounce that wouldn’t sound of place on a record by Devo or Orange Juice. Hamish has spoken of how making this record made him feel uncomfortable, yet in doing so he found new drive, “that’s exactly how it should feel. That’s a really strong position”, and one I can’t wait to see him make the most of.

Firmer Hand is out August 16th via So Recordings/Fierce Panda. For more information on Hamish Hawk visit https://hamishhawk.com/

2. Max Blansjaar Is A Name I’d Start A Fire For

Max Blansjaar is perhaps the definition of an international artist, born in Amsterdam, he was raised in Oxford, where he started his musical dabblings in 2018, when aged just fifteen, he began promoting shows in all-ages venues and releasing his early EPs via the Beanie Tapes imprint. For his debut album, he left Oxford behind, for the altogether more musically familiar territory of Brooklyn, spending two weeks with Katie Von Schleicher and Nate Mendelsohn, as they helped him expand his intimate demos, into transatlantic clarion calls to a world ready to fall in love with this special musical talent. While the album won’t arrive until June, Max recently released the rather brilliant new single, Burning In Our Name.

The track was written in a single sitting, “a stream-of-consciousness kind of thing“, as Max laid out his feelings about the world he inherited whether he wanted to or not, “from the moment we’re born, how many fires have already been started in our name? Politics is personal, and what seem like huge, sprawling issues can affect our lives in small, everyday ways“. Listening to Burning In Our Name, I’m instantly put in mind of the great-and-good of indie-pop’s past, a place where the breeziness of The Magnetic Fields collides with the guitar-shimmer of Cate Le Bon, and the lyrical playfulness of Tullycraft. I’m particularly fond of the bait-and-switch lyrics, the way we’re treated to absurdist imagery like spiders doing a Paso Doble and then suddenly hit between the eyes by something really quite profound and political, “putting all our faith in devils in disguise, just trying to escape when everything’s on fire and burning in our name”. It’s these remarkably subtle moments that lift Max’s music beyond just a really good songwriter and into the realms of something really quite magical.

False Comforts is out June 21st via Beanie Tapes. For more information on Max Blansjaar visit https://linktr.ee/maxblansjaar.

1. Loma Are Just Getting Started

Following the release of their quietly brilliant second album, Don’t Shy Away, Loma, not for the first time in their relatively brief time as a band, found themselves at something of a crossroads. The three members were scattered by their other activities, Jonathan Meiburg left the US for Germany to research a new book, Emily Cross took advantage of her UK citizenship to set up shop as a Death Doula in Dorset, while Dan Duszynski remained in his studio in central Texas, working on a good chunk of my favourite records of the last few years. With all that life stuff threatening to get in the way of the band’s future, Emily decided to roll the dice, the band gathered at her place of work, a former coffin-makers workshop, in the midst of a chilly winter storm, and in a makeshift studio, with a woven willow coffin for a vocal booth (and yes you did read that correctly) – they got to work. As Jonathan recalls, “sitting in our heavy coats around a little electric radiator, we realised how much we’d missed each other—and that just being together was precious”. The results are precious too, in the shape of their new album, How Will I Live Without A Body? The record will arrive in June, and the band recently shared the fittingly titled first single from it, How It Starts.

Now I’m always a sucker for the influence of place on music, yet listening to How It Starts, it’s quite ludicrous to imagine this is a song Loma could ever have made in Texas, even on a warm spring day, it is music that feels distinctly chilly and distinctly verdant, like a snowdrop peaking out of the frozen ground in search of a sign of spring, all reflected in the songs central message, “this is how is starts to move again”. Musically, the track is fascinating, all purposeful scatters of piano keys and contrastingly driving percussion, that feels like it’s dragging the whole thing forward, the ray of sunshine chipping away at the ice, daring it to crack. The whole thing feels almost elemental, as if routed in something far more ancient than petty human quibbles, only briefly stepping into the human realm in the closing verse, as Emily sings, “bodies only know how to fall together and as you go, go lively, you knew me well should have known you better”. From a woven coffin to a stunning rebirth, Loma are back and on this evidence might just be even more vital than ever.

How Will I Live Without A Body is out June 28th via Sub Pop. For more information on Loma visit https://lomatheband.com/.

Header photo is Loma by Emily Cross.