Ho99o9 – “SKINS”
Ho99o9: “Skin”
(Photo: ATO Records)
At the moment, nobody sets senseless freaking out more beautifully than the American trio Ho99o9 (pronounced horror). Its founding members Yeti Bones and theOGM grew up with gangsta rap, soon brawled at hardcore punk concerts and ended up watching way too many horror movies. The music they have been making from it since 2012 sounds either like a musical aggression problem or cross-genre noise pollution. Travis Barker from the skatepunk band Blink 182 stepped in as drummer for their second album “SKIN” (ATO Records) and the anger that the three of them have been building up in the studio over the past two years is remarkable. There’s plenty of nihilistic anger and even a guest appearance from professional screamer and Slipknot singer Corey Taylor on “SKIN”. Live Ho99o9 are considered a much-vaunted impertinence, on record they are a promise: If the zombie apocalypse does come, rock music will have an afterlife in them. Timo Posselt
Alex Cameron – “Oxy Music”
Alex Cameron: “Oxy Music”
(Photo: Secretly Canadian)
has aggression problems AlexCameron no. Instead, the Australian singer-songwriter with the Nick Cave memory look is interested in the connection between profundity and pharmacy on his new album “Oxy Music” (Secretly Canadian). Cameron explains more precisely how the “search for the reason for life” ends in the next pharmacy. According to the artist, it is precisely the world situation that is leading to more and more people resorting to opioids. This was also shown by the latest statistics. So so. Cameron has hitherto fallen less with social science hobby studies than with his casual embodiment of fragile masculinity. On “Oxy Music” he accompanies his very own inventory of the opioid crisis in the USA with such cloudy 80s synthesizers that one thinks less of prescription painkillers than of drives in Bryan Ferry’s open convertible towards the sunset. Despite the parking space between form and content, you can hum along splendidly here. Timo Posselt
Dolly Parton – “Run Rose Run”
Dolly Parton:
(Photo: Butterfly Records)
Even Dolly Parton doesn’t reinvent the world directly, but at least gives it some strength: “Is it easy? / No it ain’t / Can I fix? / No, I can’t / But I sure ain’t gonna take it lyin ‘down.” Everything difficult. Nothing to solve. But who would give up and stretch out because of that. “Woman Up (And Take It Like a Man)” is the name of the song that is part of the album “Run Rose Run” (Butterfly Records), which marches very happily against the circumstances. A, you don’t have to beat around the bush, very archetypal, very American country work. Bit of a bluegrass touch, here and there a couple of swinging fiddles and really sleek choirs. Plus one or two really unbearable ballads, but also the song that should apply from here on out for the coming weeks – at least: “Dark Night, Bright Future”. And this is how it sounds: “Forgiveness is a magic wand, makes things disappear / Kindness wipes away regret, hope can conquer fear.” Are these calendar sayings? heavens, yes. It’s country. It’s America’s hit. But you take what you can get these days. Or? So! Jacob Biazza
Jenny Hval – “Classic Objects”
Henny Hval: “Classical Objects”
(Photo: 4AD)
The Norwegian knows how to harmoniously combine unusual themes in pop songs Jenny Hval. For example from “Blood Bitch” (2016): menstrual blood, vampires, capitalism. That sounded just as cinematic. The new album “Classic Objects” (4AD) is thematically more accessible. She then travels to places of her youth and to places she missed during the pandemic. After devoting herself to noise with her partner Håvard Volden under the name Menneskekollektivet, the new pieces are striving more towards pop songs. But the rippling rain at the beginning of “Cemetery of Splendor” alone indicates how far the journey could lead this time: the synths suffer from wanderlust, the percussion rattles handmade and Hval’s helium voice loses itself in the vastness. An album like a step out into the open. Timo Posselt
Stahlberger – “Lüt uf Fotene”
Stahlberger: “Lüt uf Fotene”
Switzerland scores not only with DJ Bobo, mountains of money from autocrats and different aggregation states of cheese, but also with a hopelessly underestimated music scene. After German ears got involved with the Viennese singer-songwriter Voodoo Jürgensthe large canton now has to brace itself for a band in Schwyzerdütsch: Stahlberger are regarded in Switzerland as the musical seismographs of everyday narrowness. The new album “Lüt uf Fotene” (Irascible) is populated by figures between arsonists and conservatives. Songwriter Manuel Stahlberger sings about the lost illusions of “People on Photos” – as the album title translates into High German – with laconic humor and in a scratchy dialect. Despite the rocking factor, it sounds less small-scale: These rock songs constantly swell to intricate steep walls of beeping synths. Like the Upper Bavarian indie band The Notwist, producer Olaf Opal gave this album such a feverish sound that it sounds placeless in the best sense of the word. Timo Posselt