Tag: Aldous Harding

Dillinger Four would like you to close your eyes and imagine an anxious world.

Bring your surfboard and get ready for a big fat middle finger to the man from The Lemon Twigs.

It’s the first night of the year where I arrive at the station in daylight. Also, it’s been unseasonably cool. But neither of those things is as notable as a new album from Toadies which brings up more of that brutal precision fuzz pop that made my ears perk up the first time I heard them over 30 years ago. Elsewhere tonight: a phone call from PJ, on the road, and middle-cased keyboards.

Exploding out of upstate New York, The Bobby Lees have returned with a their third outing, titled Bellevue, and it delivers more of that biting, can’t-you-see-I’m-in-the-middle-of-an-episode post-rock blues energy. Tonight’s Mixtape closes out with Escape Mechanism’s “Being,” sampling William S. Burrough’s unmistakable reedy voice into an existential mantra.

Coming straight outta Dublin, Fontaines DC have an insistent and incisive sound that carves anthems out of marble using only guitar strings and a chiseling voice. No particular theme seems to emerge tonight, although we will be closing with Angel Olsen’s “Go Home.” Go home, it’s midnight.

Nothing to do with Peggy Lee’s sultry standard, this particular “Fever” comes from Aldous Harding, whose unique marshmallows-and-razor-blades sensibility makes for songs that leave you bleeding but which you crave again and again. Also tonight and also from New Zealand, a track from Garageland, one of my favorite underrated Kiwi bands of the ‘90s, which isn’t saying much because they were all underrated and they are all my favorites.

I always thought Kurt Vile was a play on the name of the German composer that gave us “Mack The Knife,” but that seems to be his given name (bonus: middle name is Samuel). Sonically, he’s more in line with Lou Reed than Weill, topping his awkward nouveau folk with a voice that may not be the most musical but is actually the perfect medium to express this particular malarkey.