Josiah and I are both away this week and considered skipping the newsletter, but because there’s a part of us that still longs to be tethered to a task, we decided to forge ahead with the vacation special. I’m assuming Josiah won’t have anything important to write about here, so I’ve decided to share this disturbing still from one of those Duracell ads with the scary family that has been entering my thoughts, intrusive-style, over the past week. Because of this, I know they were actually called the Puttermans, and they were created by the same guy who made Slimer and the aliens from The Abyss! Horrid shit. This is why I exclusively use Amazon Basics for batteries, and also some items of clothing. Nothing evil or unsettling there.
Here’s some stuff we’re listening to this week.
Jimmy Montague “Tell You That You're Right”
Sam: I simply cannot get enough of Taking Meds, whose Dial M For Meds might be my favourite album from 2023 that I can play in the house without getting divorced. Turns out the bass player has this swell solo project whose vibe perfectly matches the early mid-summer weather that has settled over Toronto this week (two weeks ago for you, so maybe this is actually dogshit music for whatever weather you’re dealing with now). It’s hot, it’s slow, let those keys tinkle and tangle! Several different keyboards aflutter here, along with some HORNS??? I’m in summertime heaven. Goodbye!
Jos: This is pretty cute. But why is this style of music always relegated to side projects hahaha. Like if I hadn’t have read what you just said, I would have probably been able to tell from context clues that this slinky little ‘70s power pop tune is some guy’s side project. The album art is also a tell, but I can’t quite figure out why. There’s just something side projecty about the whole thing.
Taylor Acorn “High Horse”
Sam: I was going to put the new White Reaper here, but I’ve written about them before and you already know the vibe is perfect and Josiah is a simple hater. So imagine that little back and forth. Then I thought about the new cumgirl8 song, but I’d be doing that to seem cool and I don’t even know if that would BE cool and I’d never listen to it again. But you know what I’m going to bang the shit out of (throwback to twenty minutes ago for me, last week for you) this summer? My new favourite artist Tyler Acorn and this delicious Avril-adjacent slice of country-inflected massive mall punk. This is the song that John Feldmann spent eight garbage Blink albums trying to write and Tyler Acorn did it with one single (no clue how many albums Tyler Acorn has, this isn’t accurate but I’m not becoming overly invested in the career of Tyler Acorn at this time)!
Jos: I like that you know so little about this person that you changed their name from Taylor to Tyler halfway through the blurb. Yup, we’re doing pure blurb policing from now on, bitch!!! It’s crazy how Christian Avril Lavigne style music sounds when it’s performed by someone with so much less star power. No disrespect to Tiara Acorn, you’re killing it. But you’re making music that sounds both like The Hills and Hillsong, and both of those things are trending very downward. Wow there’s some kind of new YouTube feature that shows “Shorts” that have remixed this song. So uh, check out this 40-yr-old nostalgia gamer:
Loukeman “Real Life Man”
Jos: Since Sam insists on shoving updates about Toronto’s weather patterns down our fucking throats, I thought it’d be nice to share a Toronto artist I’ve been loving for a while. Loukeman makes awesome electronic music that kinda feels like a more lowkey Caribou or Four Tet, which is nice because both of those guys have become a little too highkey in their own respective ways. My brother (the normal one not the glass glove one) hipped me to the first Loukeman album last year, and the newer one Sd-2 felt a little slight in comparison at first. But I keep coming back to it and sipping from its delicious cut-up pop vocals, synths, and drums. In fact, I’ve fav’d so many of these songs on Spotify that it was hard to pick just one for the newsie, but “Real Life Man” really does build in such a nice way. It does kinda feel like a nice sequel to Rush Limbaugh’s favourite Caribou song.
Sam: Caribou rocks so much. I remember buying Up in Flames in the Manitoba era and honestly I wonder why I never became a cooler guy. I really made an effort in high school, out here buying Meshell Ndegeocello albums when I mostly just wanted to listen to Blink 182. This is music that I like and the cooler version of me would play all the time, where as I will add it to my Apple Music library and in six months wonder what it is. I wonder what the cooler version of me is like outside of his Apple Music library. I bet he’s a fucking asshole.
Chanel Beads “Urn”
Jos: “Chanel Beads” seems like it could be Tyler Akron’s alter ego, but it’s actually a modern-day buzz band that hails from the much-maligned lower Manhattan micro-neighborhood of Dimes Square. Yes, it’s hard to believe, but it’s 2024 and there are indie buzz bands coming out of NYC. What’s even weirder is this particular buzz band sounds a lot like the kind of buzz bands that existed in the late 2000s, like Deerhunter or Animal Collective or Grizzly Bear. The album is pretty interesting, especially just to hear young bucks offer their take on what is now old-head hipster culture. Sam won’t make it that far but there’s a nice guitar at 2:57. Anyway what’s really funny about them is that people love talking about the fact that they’re from the much-maligned lower Manhattan micro-neighborhood of Dimes Square. Everyone loves talking about the much-maligned lower Manhattan micro-neighborhood of Dimes Square.
Sam: This one will be staying out of my precious library. Snooze! Sleepy time! The only good thing about the last few minutes of my life was seeing the phrase “sexy bricolage” which is pretty good. Going to work that into next week’s newsie. I was waiting to have something else to say about this but I see what Josiah has planned next and I’m moving on with great heaviness in my heart.
Super American “Hopefully Pitchfork doesn’t hear this”
Jos: I had my annoying third thing ready for this week, I just wanted to put it after that Pitchfork screen shot. I found this song a few weeks ago when it first dropped, and I shared it with Sam to make fun of it and he told me he loves this band. Calling your song this, and then having it be a song that sounds like this, is a level of out-of-touch that feels quaint at this point. Not only does Pitchfork barely exist, but they definitely don’t write about this kind of garbage. I don’t think people who like this kind of music are even capable of writing. Also there’s a moustache guy doing Tom Delonge vocals in the chorus. Do you realize how much it hurts to have a moustache at this point, with the way we’re represented in media?
Sam: I’m being misrepresented here so I would like to make it clear that what I said when Josiah first sent me this was “loooool siiiiick band” and then “they had a song that was like ‘soul coughing but emo’ and i really liked it.” That was the extent of my praise! This is too bad even for me! And I like garbage! I have no self respect!
Sam: Speak of, it’s promo time. Chayne and I are back at Dundas Video next Friday for our monthly excuse to rent a fog machine and hang out with each other. Last time was genuinely a very sick party and when I see photos of it I am forced to concede that I’m not really kidding anymore and we’re actually having a lot of fun playing a mix of really good songs and absolute dogshit.
Jos: I also asked Sam if he had plans for his vacation and I’m not kidding, this is what he said:
