There is more DIY indie and alt. rock/pop/folk music than ever before. Everyone pretty much already knows that.
Still, for some folks, they like to have fellow music lovers do some sorting and selecting among a non-stop flow of gigabytes containing new DIY tracks and albums.
That’s where truly-indie blogs (like ours we hope) still have a place in the culture of indie and alt. rock. While blogs, like ours, have taken a huge hit in recent years – thanks largely to Spotify and social media – there is still a hankering ‘out there’ for carefully-selected homegrown indie music – across the ‘indie spectrum’ that includes indie rock; indie pop; indie folk, etc., and alt. rock; post-punk; new wave; psych rock; alt. country; dream pop; etc. Pretty much anything that sounds good and falls under the ‘indie/alt’ umbrella, to put it another way.
In This Installment:
z3th3r – Oakland, California – “Goodbye”
Patches – Enid, Oklahoma – “A Nice Day to Orbit Saturn”
Loops & Loops – Broxn, New York – “Not Yet”
Ice of Neptune – Larisa, Greece – “Solitude”
Poploader – Regensburg, Germany – “Books of Love”
z3th3r – “Goodbye”
OAKLAND, California – Bay Area producer Zachary Greer, aka z3th3r, together with vocalist Ulenni Okandlouvu, creates indie love on the new track, “Goodbye.”
About the song, Greer writes: “Ulenni says it’s "a prayer for loved ones to endure and stay strong in tough times, remembering that the journey of life always comes with ups and downs." Weaving dizzying guitar riffs through a lofi dysphoric soundscape, the sonic palate of the track is a reflection of the bittersweet notion of saying goodbye.”
Okandlovu is a professional artist from Matopo Hills, Zimbabwe and lead vocalist for the music duo Bantu Spaceships. Greer dabbles in indie rock, lo-fi, experimental with interest in field recordings, heavy 808 beats and guitar elements. The duo’s musical influences include Obongjayar, CKay, Four Tet, Bonobo, Tobi Nwigwe, and Flying Lotus.
https://www.instagram.com/z3th3r
Patches – “A Nice Day to Orbit Saturn”
ENID, Oklahoma – The indie-rock/post-punk trio Patches first met in the online world early last year. The band’s music is harmonic, pop infused rock with experimental noise since our inception, and the three members switch instrumental roles on the fly.
Patches’ new single, “A Nice Day to Orbit Saturn,” fulfills their new sound with “equal parts melody-oriented pop and scathing, distortion heavy feedback that quickly builds into layered guitar play,” says vocalist and bassist Nick Robilliard.
“Lyrically, it is a bitter, first person narrative of an astronaut in a futuristic setting who has resigned himself to being stranded on one of Saturns moons. Clean harmonies obscure some of the dread.”
The track is the band’s third song to be presented on their new album Tales We Heard From the Fields.
With backgrounds in REM style jangle pop, minimalistic art rock bands like Wire, and the bombast of outfits like Jesus Lizard, each member of Patches brings something unique to the band. The other two members are Evan Seurkamp (vocals, guitar) and Melodica Aaron Griffin (guitar, drums).
The trio’s major musical influences include original post-punk heroes like Wire, The Cure, Guided by Voices, Kitchens of Distinction, Gang of Four, and REM.
https://www.instagram.com/robinkc3/
Loops & Loops – “Not Yet”
Loops & Loops began as a musical project of Bronx-based producer/musician Peter Bogolub formed as a way to deal with the quarantine.
As a result, Bogolub ended up experimenting mostly with lo-fi. After a few short months, he had recorded over 60 songs and had released two albums under his Loops & Loops moniker.
Initially, he recorded under the name The Sems and released shoegaze/dream pop style of music under that moniker for many years.
Elements of shoegaze and dream pop as well as indie and indie-folk are clear on singles like “Not Yet”.
Some of the material is purely instrumental, fitting for the background of movies and montages. Others are more introspective with vocals reminiscent of Elliot Smith and Yo La Tengo. Good stuff.
Ice of Neptune: “Solitude”
Based in the town of Larisa, Greece, the band members of the alt progressive rock band Ice of Neptune, belt out a captivating sound on their new single, “Solitude.”
The band members are vocalist Pierlorenzo Molinari; guitarist and keyboards Timoleon Adamopoulos; bassist Federico Giardini; and drums Alessandro Bissa.
The song, according to the band is “a story tale through modern man’s eyes during the decades and the social facts that happened.”
Molinari (ex-Kezia/ex-Blackmail of Murder) and Adamopoulos (Forbidden Lore) founded the band originally in 2010.
Poploader – “Books of Love”
The ‘revival’ music of German indie rockers Poploader is quite a kick.
Take this latest single and video, “Books of Love.” We don’t usually go for ‘cutesy’ type of indie rock/pop but this is such an original and impossibly-catchy track. This is one of the first new songs from the band in 20 years.
At the end of the nineties, the young trio spent many hours and days together in stinking rehearsals, backstage rooms, and live show after live show.
Fast-forward to the year 2018. The band members meet up for a beer, reminiscence of the past, and decide to record some new tracks together. “Books of Love” is one of the results and it proves the band can still rock as does its predecessor, and equally as catchy, the 2020 single, “Summerboy Blues.”
The member’s musical influences demonstrate exceptional taste: The Kinks, Oasis, The Kooks, and DMA’s via The Cure, and David Bowie.
Fans of English indie guitar pop can look forward to more catchy songs with a lot of optimism, a pinch of retro, and great recognition value.
