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E M B R A C E D The number of records wholly EMBRACED by Outsideleft Writers in January was 17

E M B R A C E D

The number of records wholly EMBRACED by Outsideleft Writers in January was 17

by OL House Writer,
first published: February, 2025

approximate reading time: minutes

"It's great to have Miki Berenyi back making music." - Johnathan Thornton

The number of records our writers wholly embraced in January was 17. We were calling them endorsed for most of the month but I'm not so into that with hindsight, so for now these are the records our writers really embraced in January. A word too about the demise of the LoveHearts, the system OL devised as a shorthand to make it easy for PR people to get down in an instant to scratching out letters that scratched our eyes out. We missed the shorthand for about a week. It's actually harder to write about music than to dick around by sticking LoveHearts on it. We missed them for a week and now we don't. Instead here are the recordings our writers embraced in January.

E M B R A C E D.

BRIGID MAE POWER
Songs For You
(BMP)

by Alex V. Cook

I am a sucker for haunting female vocal plaintive indie-rock-infused cover records and my heart already runs on Brigid Mae Power so this is an easy win. Opening with Roy Orbison's "In Dreams" and forgoing the "candy colored clown" part is audacious and brilliant, straight out of the Cat Power playbook. To follow it with Television's "See No Evil" feels like she's installed spyware on my pleasure center. Bert Jansch's "Fresh as a Sweet Sunday Morning" establishes her folk cred and doing Slim Whitman's "Rose Marie" is a MOVE. Ending with a ghosty "You Don't Know Me" is a coy conceit, bc obvs she does.


BROTHER LEE
Kiss The Sky/Winter Sky
Dime Records)

by LamontPaul

Let's begin with Winter Sky and it's crazy origin as an instrumental recorded for a documentary about an Isle of Wight based skateboard company. Here a 30 second drum break introduces a piece of lackadaisical and fulsome all at once funk and psychedelia. You won't find finer. Recorded in 2012, the legend has it the Lee was paid in boxes of sneakers. So many boxes of sneakers he' still working his way through them now. The track eventually wound up on Kiss The Sky" b/w "Winter Sky" 7" released by Funk Night in 2022. Recorded in one afternoon on a Tascam 8-track cassette recorder, with Lee playing all of the instruments, now we get the welcome imperfections of tape drop out and distortion. It's a melodious joy. The sound of Brother Lee delighting in the "first take intensity" here, is tangible. I'm gonna circle back to Kiss The Sky next week so y'all have something to look forward to.


GUMSHOES
Bugs Forever
(Self-released)

by Cassie Thomas

Only two days in and 2025 has already been gifted its first great album. It is, naturally, a one-person Birmingham-based bedroom-recorded chamber pop concept album about bugs surviving the apocalypse. If that sounds like your cup of tea and not too twee, you'll find herein a batch of thoroughly charming and indelibly catchy indie pop gems. Hooks abound, layers of quirky and whimsical instrumentation are stacked on top of each other, and the lyrical conceits are oh-so endearing. Highlights include "Little Things", a bittersweet little nugget about the learned helplessness of tiny critters in the face of humanity ("my playing dead's just practise for reality, a colossus too monstrous to notice when we fight"), and "Playing Pretend", which ruminates on what remains in a post-human landscape.


IGGY POP
Modern Day Rip Off
(Ear Music)

by Alan Rider

There is nothing more I can say about how great Iggy (should we call him 'The Ig'?  Maybe not) is on this live album that I didn't say previously here in my review of that wonderful album.  This has all the hallmarks of a great Iggy song, and his performance too.  Expletives, no shirt, boundless energy.  It's all there.  Granted, the band look a bit too clean and cherubic really.  A bit more grease and sweat certainly wouldn't come amiss, but they are a bunch of session musicians after all, and they do a fine job here of backing the great man.  And a great man he most certainly is.


LILY SEABIRD
Trash Mountain 1pm
(Lame-O Records)

by Lee Paul

There's an early hours version of Lily Seabird's Trash Mountain (1am)—the piano there I think reflects the hour, the mood, the light. But this I think, while you're listening to the terrible news with Sarah Montague on the World at One, the exquisitely named Lily Seabird is all extemporising about a  her Trash Mountain (1pm) home. It begins with the spit and polish the Harvest Neil Young, or the Failer Kathleen Edwards applied. That's the shape and the fit. It's the map and the territory of course, but really it's only the fragments of that are required by Lily Seabird to evoke a rurality you're unsure that you can truly belong in. And aren't even sure you should try. This song is like a Kerry Hadley-Pryce short story. Lily's voice aches perfectly.  "It started with thinking about touring and then, late stage capitalism, technology, climate change, my shortening attention span, but also shifting relationships and our ability to deal with the past and move forward,” she explains, “I kinda just ended up at my house feeling really grateful for my friends. The house I live at has been referred to as Trash Mountain because it's on top of an old landfill on the edge of town." 


MIKI BERENYI TRIO
8th Deadly Sin
(Bella Union)

by Jonathan Thornton

It's great to have Miki Berenyi back making music. As one of the vocalists, guitarists and songwriters in Lush, she's made some of the most enduring music to emerge from the shoegaze scene of the late 80s/early 90s, and then with the perennially underrated Piroshka. Following the release of her excellent memoir Fingers Crossed, she has been touring with her new band, Miki Berenyi Trio, with her partner and former Moose guitarist K.J. "Moose" McKillop - so you get two shoegaze legends for your money - and guitarist Oliver Cherer. They released their debut single last year, and their debut album Tripla is due out in April. In anticipation, here is single '8th Deadly Sin'. It's a marvelous song, a classic Berenyi melody with fuzzing guitars and burbling electronics creating an instantly appealing dreampop atmosphere. Berenyi and her band are in top form, and it should make everyone excited to hear the album when it drops. [Miki Berenyi interview in Outsideleft, here]


MILLICENT CHAPANDA
Chipindura Changu
(Bandcamp)

by Ancient Champion

It's no secret the Millicent Chapanda is loved at Outsideleft. She headlined an early iteration of the Outsideleft Night Out at Why Not Coffee Shop, and returned when we were working out of Corks. On both nights Millicent was literally nothing short of mesmerising. There are precious few studio recordings available though and 2025 gets under way with her Chipindura Changu EP, in addition to Millicent's achingly beautiful intonation, her gorgeous mbira playing, the sound is bolstered by... percusion. If there's a more uplifting sound in our record box this week I don't know what it is.


MOVIELAND
Then & Now
(604 Decades)

by Jonathan Thornton

Vancouver label 604 Decades has been set up as an offshoot of 604 Records to rescue obscure and forgotten music from the city's alt-rock scene in the 1990s and 2000s. Movieland were a cult shoegaze band from Vancouver in the 1990s, led by guitarist and singer Alan D. Boyd. They played a bunch of shows and landed a local cult following and recorded a series of demos, which make up Then & Now, but never managed to breakthrough. On the strength of these recordings, it's a bit of a shame. Movieland were never going to revolutionize fuzzed-out guitar rock, and the band wears its influences - mostly UK shoegaze greats like Slowdive, My Bloody Valentine, Jesus and Mary Chain - very much on its sleeve. But if you like this stuff - and I am absolutely a sucker for this stuff - it's hard to resist Movieland's charms. Blissed out guitar distortion, tuneful melodies and mumbled vocals are the order of the day. Tracks like 'Hello' and 'San Francisco' burn through with vigorous energy and an admirable ear for pop  melody, an aggressive Canadian take on Spacemen 3 at their most blistering. 'I Relate' anchors its detonations of wobbling guitar noise with a melodic bassline. And the dreamy epics 'Everything' and '(A Sort Of) Icarus' show a strong grasp of dynamics and flow over their 9 and 7 minutes respectively, hinting that, given the opportunity, Movieland might have become something truly special indeed. Then & Now won't convert shoegaze non-believers, nor will it rewrite the history of the genre, but for those of us who are already fans of the genre, it's an enjoyable listen and a fascinating glimpse at what might have been. 


NIGHTINGALES
The New Emperor's New Clothes
(Fire Records)

by Ancient Champion

Oh well. This is thick. Meaty you might say.  Quite a totally astonishing wall of noise from beginning to end except fpr the part that isn't. From the forthcoming LP 'The Awful Truth' (is there any other kind?) which will be out from Fire Records in March. I have The New Emperor's New Clothes on, on repeat. Missing appointments. Forgetting to put my eye drops in. Generally not taking care of myself. Wondering how they did it? Like, I often have a pretty good idea about that stuff, but this is too beautifully blistering a sound for me to fully comprehend. Oh and the pretty viola just makes everything more swoon-ery. These Nightingales are GOAT's, I'm saying so.


SEUN KUTI & SAMPA THE GREAT
Emi Aluta (Zamrock Remix)
(Record Kicks)

by David O'Byrne

Fresh from touring UK late last year to promote his seventh studio album, 'Heavier Yet (Lays the Crownless Head)', Seun Kuti is back with a new single - a remix of the album's standout track, 'Emi Aluta', produced by and featuring Zambian poet, rapper, singer, songwriter - Sampa the Great. Dubbed a "Zamrock Remix", the re-imagining takes the heaviest and most up tempo Afrobeat number from HYLtCH which already featured vocals from the self styled "new African Queen". Re-imagined by her production team of Mag 44 and Solomon Plate, and with overdubs from  from her Zamrock backing band, the result is, well quite frankly, almost nothing like the original track. Rather, like the best remixes, it utilises the possibilities of the studio to not so much add to, as rebirth the original, creating something entirely, and delightfully new. You want a better description? Listen in and write it yourself. Suffice to say it's ample proof that the most innovative and exciting music, comes from mixing it up. Sampa herself says “I've made it a personal goal of mine to be able to work with legendary African musicians who have broken barriers for African  music". Hopefully that means there are more collaborations of this calibre to come.

 Seun Kuti and Egypt 80 will support Lenny Kravitz on six dates in Europe during March:
4th Amneville (France)
6th Zurich
7th Munich 
9th Vienna
11th Gliwice (Poland)
12th Prague


SPRINGHOUSE
From Now To OK
(Independent Project Records)

by Jonathan Thornton

From Now To OK is Springhouse's third LP, and this timely reissue gives fans of melodic and atmospheric songwriting a chance to catch up with it. Springhouse released two LPs of gorgeous shoegaze indiepop in the 90s. Land Falls (1991) and Postcards From The Arctic (1993) mixed melody with swirling guitar noise to great effect, and Springhouse were clearly in debt to the UK shoegaze greats, they were certainly one of the earlier practitioners of the genre stateside. From Now To Ok was released after a hiatus in 2007, and sees the band toning down the distortion in favour of Mazzy Star-esque torch songs and Shins-esque tuneful narratives. If it's not as sonically striking as their original two albums, it's still a lovely listen. The CD comes with a bonus disc of instrumental, demo and live recordings which fans will want to hear.


THE DELINES
The Haunting Thoughts/Left Hook like Frasier
(Self-released)

by Alex V. Cook

Amy Boone drags through a twilit ballad like a police diver does a lake, revealing once again that terrible things happen to the redeemable but, well, here we are. The Delines was formed out of the remnants of the world’s greatest band Richmond Fontaine and finds home for their understated horns and ashtray overflowing with jacked-up stories. The kind of misery that gives me hope.


THE JESUS LIZARD
Westside
(Ipecac Recordings)

by Jonathan Thornton

The difference between the Jonathan who reviewed the Jesus Lizard's last standalone single for OUTSIDELEFT and this one is that I have since had my brains melted by the wondrous spectacle of the Jesus Lizard live. As new album Rack and previous standalone single 'Cost Of Living' testify, the band show no signs of mellowing in their old age. 'Westside' is, claims the band, obliquely inspired by Leonard Bernstein's West Side Story and the passing of the great David Lynch. Well it may be. Either way it's another glorious, primal and vicious slice of noise rock from the greatest to ever do it. Bloody marvellous. 


THE LEGENDARY PINK DOTS
So Lonely In Heaven
(Metropolis)

by Alan Rider

Alan Rider listens to the Legendary Pink Dots latest long player and realises that you can never be truly lonely when you have The Dots for company here.


THEN COMES SILENCE
Feel The Cold
(Metropolis)

by Alan Rider

Last years 'Trickery' album was a masterwork in how to do modern Gothic Rock, with nods to the past and future, and a fresh sound that stands out a mile in a genre that has become largely stale through unimaginative repetition. No such worries with Then Comes Silence. They are perpetually touring, so you may even get to catch them live, wherever you are in the world, at some point. You can always read our exclusive interview with them here whilst you are waiting.  'Feel The Cold' surges and explodes in all the right places, boasts best-in-class production, is anthemic without sounding cliched, and is one of the best tracks on the album, against some pretty stiff competition from the other songs on there.  Crikey, I may even need to prise open the Outsideleft piggy bank and buy the album for myself as, sadly, we impoverished reviewers only get MP3 downloads and once something disappears into a folder on my hard drive, it is like burying it in the garden, so I have to have it on CD or vinyl to keep playing it.


TOBACCO CITY
Autumn
(Tobacco City)

by Alex V. Cook

"We were smoking schwag behind the grocery store" offers a dimebag of information about my favorite band Tobacco City. They get loser nostalgia right, shining a dim light through prismatic reverb harmonies and a pedal steel, casting a shadow of not really having a fixed dream for oneself upon those apartment walls of the soul. It's easy to be won over by the country rock sway and epic choruses, because they're winners, but the beauty is in their laser accurate details dirty lake shore breeze / from the water treatment plant
I am transformed to a beautiful "then", skinny again and overdrawn (not necessarily again), hoping there's some cigarettes in my car with which to take in the chemical haze sunset by the river. If not I'll postdate a check at the store. They're cool.


TOMáS DONCKER
Wha-Gwaan
(True Groove Records)

by David O'Byrne

Tomas Doncker emerged from the late 70s New York  'No Wave' scene, cutting his musical teeth with acts such as James Chance and the Contortions, and Defunkt before going on to play with or produce a long list of luminaries ranging from Bill Laswell and Bootsy Collins to The Specials and Madonna. We won't hold that last one against him as his new single 'Wha-Gwaan' owes nothing to the erstwhile 'Material Girl' turned 'Madame X'. Instead Doncker has very much returned to his roots channelling the early 80s, studio heavy, sound of Ze Records acts such as 'James Chance', and especially the wild hypnotic funk of 'Was (Not Was)'. Albeit one reinforced with a heavier reggae style bass and dub guitar lines, and drumming courtesy of Frank Benbini, late of 'Fun Loving Criminals'.There's even hint of Ze stablemates Kid Creole and Coati Mundi,  not to mention New York musical neighbours 'Talking Heads'.. In short it's a truly engaing mix  clearly nostalic, but  still managing to sound bang up to the minute.


Essential Information
Main image a screengrab of Miki Berenyi from her youtube video
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