Gonna be super honest i don’t know much about this one but came across it last night and damn.. formerly a part of The Lemon Twigs and currently touring with Mac DeMarco on bass, Daryl Johns has his own thing going on which he describes as ‘bubblegum jazz pop rock fusion’
3. American Football - LP4
Most of us are lifelong American Football (LP1) devotees, but seeing them at Sydney’s Oxford Art Factory in 2015 was a rare treat; the crowd was so electric they practically drowned out the band. Back then, the idea of a second, third, or even fourth record felt like a total pipe dream, yet this veteran emo outfit has defied the odds with a new album that operates on its own sense of logic and time—a fraught, dizzying triumph. The record’s climactic centerpiece, “Bad Moons,” sees Mike Kinsella using his earnest Midwestern elocution to navigate a heavy landscape of infidelity, substance abuse, and therapy, eventually finding a perspective-shifting "happy ending." However, the true magic happens once the singing stops; the band builds toward a post-rock crescendo and a wistful, snowcapped outro—complete with the ambient sounds of a playground—spinning the narrative into a kaleidoscopic language all their own.
4. Ariel Pink - Pom Pom (throwback reco’s) *2014 release*
Last year, a close friend reintroduced me to the sprawling, eccentric discography of Ariel Pink—music that had been buried in my subconscious since another friend first played it for me over a decade ago. It feels like his work belongs to a secret society; not many people are truly tapped into his world, but those who are always seem to be special, leaving a lasting imprint on my own musical DNA. A decade after emerging from a rented ashram room with reels of fragile, lo-fi love songs, the CalArts alumnus returns with a new album that cements his status as Frank Zappa’s stylistic next-of-kin: satirical, divisive, and far more interested in terraforming entire genres than merely deconstructing them.
His aesthetic evokes a specific breed of Los Angeles eccentricity, reminiscent of Angelyne, the flamingo-pink Corvette-driving icon who perfected the art of being "famous for being famous" long before the Kardashian era. Like Angelyne—an iconic, ornamental fixture of the '80s who settled for cult status and self-released albums on her Pink Kitten imprint—Ariel Pink occupies a strange, neon-lit corner of the cultural landscape. He is the sunshine daydream to the world's ghoulish noir, operating in a space where the bizarre becomes beautiful and the purely ornamental becomes essential.
