Happy Friday. I’ve been slacking over here but for good reason - I have been toiling away in the Google Doc mines to bring you Indie Sleaze month on Bandsplain (and yes we’re just calling it that, you can listen to the first episode which came out yesterday for a more thorough explanation as to why, it’s fine). We launched with what is in my opinion the best of the bunch that fall loosely under this post-facto mantle, Yeah Yeah Yeahs.
This gave me the idea to use this week’s letter to put you onto a bunch of other bands who carry the band’s DNA forward, including established ones you might have missed and very new ones you might not be aware of yet. But first a little housekeeping (hate myself):
London! October 15th - Miranda Sawyer’s excellent podcast Talk 90s To Me is doing a live event at ICMP Queen’s Park and I am the guest. The topic is Courtney Love. Tickets are available HERE.
I’ll be in London (on and off) between October 14th and November 5th so as usual this is your chance to invite me to fun things, ask me to host/present things, give me a gift, point me towards the best sausage roll in town, etc. Respond to this email or send me a note at fastnloosexo@gmail
Okay let’s get into the list (playlist at the bottom):
Slayyyter
Okay hear me out. The latest incarnation of Slayyyter is so good, and a big part of that is the sleazy, who-gives-a-fuck, girlish raunch vibe of her new album WOR$T GIRL IN AMERICA, which sounds at many points very what if Sleigh Bells was legible and by the transitive property (not using this word right I fear I’m not a woman in STEM), very YYYS.
This is a bit of a duh but if you, like me, were erstwhile a non-participant in Wet Leg fandom only to discover far too late that they are simply phenomenal (especially this second album) then it will be worth it to bring that joy to a few more people.
Not a single solitary idea how I happened upon this band from Marquette, Michigan. I do love a sibling duo. This one is Gretchen McKenzie (vocals/guitar) and Dawson McKenzie (drums), and they make mathy, freewheeling rock that Buffablog (a blog about music in Buffalo, naturally) likened to “a disjointed Emily Haines fronting Pavement.” It’s so good - all elastic riffs and dark humor.
Now here’s where it gets interesting. I’m pretty sure Lex Walton is in her 20s, and her music is heavily referential of a time before her own (on multiple levels, there’s a song called “Hipster Runoff”, the album is produced by Wolf Parade’s Dan Boeckner, whose band formed when Walton was like two years old) but also somehow thoroughly modern (Emily Green of Geese plays guitar on the incredibly vital track “USA = FAG NATION”, Ivy Wolk is sampled on the same song), both in themes and feel. Walton’s a razor sharp wordsmith, and her stance is one of smirking confrontation. To me, it’s adjacent to Karen O’s frenetically sexual posturing, different but just as mesmerizing.