A STREAM IN SOUND: If you’d like to revisit the celebration of life that was held for the late Will Cullen Hart at the 40 Watt Club on Mar. 29, you’re in luck. The entire show is now uploaded and available for viewing courtesy of the team behind the Athens GA Live Music channel. This includes performances by A. J. Griffin, Laura Carter, Midget and Hairs, Heather McIntosh, Belly Bamboo, Scott Spillane, Elf Power, Lorkakar, Giant Day, The Rishis, Dottie Alexander and Jamey Huggins, Robert and Max Schneider, The Apples In Stereo, Marshmallow Coast and John Kiran Fernandes with Arianna Petersen and Franklin Russell. Find these under the playlist titled “Will Cullen Hart” at youtube.com/@athensgalivemusic.
BREEZIN’: New-ish band Jazzmyn just celebrated the release of its self-titled debut album. The band, which describes its music as the weaving of “the elegance of Chinese classical music with the vibrant energy of jazz fusion,” accomplishes exactly this. It opens with the dreamy “Jasmine Flower,” then slides immediately into “Rainbow Cloud Chases The Moon.” Despite that second track’s introductory and repeated Allman Brothers-style swell, the rest of the track is fairly folky in its own way. There’s an ambitious cover of “When the Saints Go Marching In,” which works quite well in this style. The closer, “Woman Flower,” is the most perfectly realized piece here, and if you listen to this, be certain not to skip it. The whole album is very unobtrusive and, indeed, is kind of like musical wallpaper—which is to say, upon close inspection, there are multiple, specific details showcasing skill, talent and creativity. But without this close analysis, it slips into the background quite easily and nearly immediately. It is very much a musician’s album, and its members’ bona fides are pretty unimpeachable. You can find this on major streaming services, and find out more via instagram.com/jazzmyn_official.
THE WIZARD: Songwriter and multi-instrumentalist Chris Ezelle released his brand new, full-length album named Supper Songs a couple of weeks ago. It just may be the grooviest collection he’s ever released because of, in all actuality, the way it grooves. His lead instruments are particularly punctuated on this, and his riffing is sustained but generally pronounced conservatively. Check the intros to both “The Show” and “Rue” for evidence. Also check the Black Sabbath-style, albeit much quieter, blues on “Consumption.” Also particularly compelling is his “Rock n Roll Girls,” which is not a cover of the John Fogerty song of the same name but, rather, probably the best song here. I’ve really enjoyed watching Ezelle develop as a songwriter the past several years and, if you’re unfamiliar, this is a great place to start. Find it at chrisezelle.bandcamp.com, and for more information, please see facebook.com/chrisezellemusic.
IN TRIBUTE: Decades-long Athens hip-hop artist DK (aka Dedric Knowles, Dropping Knowledge) returned to the mic for the first time in many years to record and release the single “Losing Pops.” It’s a sad but resilient track exploring what DK describes as “basically me processing internalized grief and resentment as my house became a safe space following the murder of my cousin, which occurred in 2020.” The beat, which hinges on a jazz sample I’ve wracked my brain and record collection trying to identify, is close or identical to the beat used by Milwaukee’s Alan Ward on his 2020 track “Lemme See.” It’s lyrically intense, which is to be expected given its subject, but I won’t get into those here. I will, however, point you toward droppingknowledge.bandcamp.com and encourage you to check this out, along with Knowles’ entire catalog.
NIGHT CREATURES: New group Quiet Lux, composed of Cameron Kelly (Hunger Anthem) and Micahel Andrews (Triads, Michaelandroid), just released its debut self-titled EP. The four songs showcased here reveal a band that has a rough outline of what it wants to sound like, but is still new enough to stretch out a little without coming across as having no personality. Generally speaking, Quiet Lux is an indie rock, guitar-centric band not unlike those who were born in the initial wake of, say, Superchunk’s success. Opening song “Laughing Gas” exhibits this quality more than the others, though. “Rotary Phone” skews darker with its processed vocals and urgent passages. My favorite song here is the last one, “The Wrong Kind.” This fairly laid-back item has a lot of layers to chew through, but its melodic instrumental interplay is really well displayed. Find this on Spotify and, presumably, other major streaming services.
RIDE THE DARKER WAVE: The new seven-track album by Foreign Dots, both self-titled and its eighth release overall since 2023, has been on-deck here at ‘ol T&P headquarters for a few weeks, so if you’ve been waiting to read anything about it here’s your chance. The rawness of these sparse recordings is a feature, not a flaw, even though I have no idea how intentional or necessary this was. This harkens back to the time when indie rock was influenced by entire oceans of artists instead of some neatly prescribed collection of U.S.-based power-pop groups. Indeed, the opening song “In The Night We Hide” and the fourth track “Garden” each have at least one foot solidly in goth and darkwave. The shambolic and sonically blown-out “Scarps” is really the only song here that could land on a college radio playlist slotted right next to, say, Preston School Of Industry due to its melodic sensibility and Neutral Milk Hotel for its extra-fuzzy execution. Just a fine collection of things here that you can find at foreigndots.bandcamp.com.
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