The Smile "Wall of Eyes" (2024)

Wall of Eyes

release date: Jan. 26, 2024

format: digital (8 x File, FLAC)

[album rate: 3,5 / 5] [3,70

producer: Sam Petts-Davies

label: XL Recordings - nationality: England, UK

Track highlights: 1. "Wall of Eyes" (4 / 5) - 2. "Teleharmonic" - 3. "Read the Room" - 4. "Under Our Pillows" - 7. "Bending Hectic"

2nd studio album by The Smile following nearly two years after A Light for Attracting Attention (May 2022) with Petts-Davis as producer - he previously produced Thom Yorke's solo soundtrack Suspiria (2018) for Luca Guadagnino's remake of a Dario Argento horror classic.

Although, the album has been made with a new producer, it really doesn't fall far from the trio's first album and you could also argue that the project here doesn't expose a tone that essentially differs from that of Radiohead, perhaps because that band's musical centre is constituted by Thom Yorke and Johnny Greenwood who are 2/3 of The Smile. And although, many compositions were nearly finished by Greenwood and Yorke in the Summer of '23, all songs and music here is credited the band only.

The now two studio albums by The Smile are so much alike that it's tempting to regard them as two chapters of the same book, or two sides of the same coin, and that's the only snag to a otherwise fine follow-up. On the positive side, you could add that it's really nice to have renowned artists like Yorke, Greenwood, and Skinner, who choose to make an album with focus on musical experimentation instead of going mainstream pop, and in that regard, the trio still offers a refreshing and challenging side-step to the Grammy Awards' self-centrered spotlight of make-believe where everything is about performance.

Recommended.

[ allmusic.com, The Guardian, NME, Rolling Stone 4 / 5, 😮Pitchfork 8,5 / 10, 👎Exclaim! 3 / 5 stars ]

Jan & Kjeld "Banjo Boy" (1959) (single)

Banjo Boy, 7'' single

release date: 1959

format: vinyl (1960) (TD 45 49)

[single rate: 2,5 / 5] [2,66]

producer: ?

label: Triola - nationality: Denmark

Tracklist: A) "Banjo Boy" - - B) "Mach doch nicht so viel Wind"

Single release by Danish duo Jan & Kjeld, who had an international hit with this song, especially in Germany, where they had started performing in the late 1950s with German schlagers, and also in The Netherlands where the single was released in '59. The Danish release came out in 1960 alongside a full-length album with the same title. The two siblings Jan and Kjeld Lennart Wennick first played on national TV in '57 after which they were promoted as 'wonderkids'. They had a few more hit singles in Germany, and they stayed to their style of playing popular covers of standards and schlagers. Their heydays were a ten-year period from their breakthrough and up around 1966 after which they kept touring for another decade before ending their engagements [ Danish wiki ].

This copy was part of my parents' record collection, and it was a single I used to play on a portable turntable at 6-8 years of age. It never was a single I found particular good - it was more of an obscurity, I think. 'Yes, they were kids and yeah, they knew how to play and sing, Okay. But it's not really that great'.

This is one of my very first music memories that wasn't purely children's songs.

👉 Another one from that earliest stage.

~ ~ ~

This post is part of MyMusicJourney, which enlists key releases that have shaped my musical taste when growing up and until age 14. Most of these releases come from my parents' and / or my older brother's collection.

Protomartyr "Formal Growth in the Desert" (2023)

Formal Growth in the Desert

release date: Jun. 2, 2023

format: digital (12 x File, FLAC)

[album rate: 4 / 5] [3,86]

producer: Greg Ahee, Jake Aron

label: Domino - nationality: USA

Track highlights: 1. "Make Way" - 2. "For Tomorrow" - 3. "Elimination Dances" (4 / 5) - 4. "Fun in Hi Skool" (live) - 5. "Let's Tip the Creator" - 6. "Graft vs. Host" - 7. "3800 Tigers" - 8. "Polacrilex Kid" (live) - 10. "We Know the Rats" (4 / 5) - 12. "Rain Garden"

6th studio album by post-punk revivalists Protomartyr following three years after the acclaimed Ultimate Success Today (Jul. 2020) is another high quality release from a band who understands to stay true to its origins while exploring new territory.

Musically, it's fierce alt. rock building on an American college rock-tradition where both Pixies and Modest Mouse play equal parts with more classic British punk rock and post-punk roots. And then still, Protomartyr sounds just like no one else. They play with a nuanced understanding of balancing quiet and loud and delicate with the brutal, and lead vocalist Joe Casey's political comments are mixed with surreal / cryptic messages that fronts Greg Ahee's white noisy guitar constructs in perfect balanced disorder.

Formal Growth in the Desert gives us Protomartyr as a highly vital American band with something to offer than just a fabrication of mainstream sound.

Highly recommended. [Get the album here].

[ 👍allmusic.com, Uncut, Slant 4 / 5, 👍SputnikMusic 4,1 / 5, TheLineOfBestFit 4,5 / 5, Pitchfork 7,6 / 10 stars ]