LOTW 04: Electrelane, Julie Byrne & Automatic
Coming at you with August’s first Listens of the Week. I’ll say it with my chest: the month started out a little rough. Thankfully, week two brought some saucy, vibey, and ethereal tunes. Here’s what I’ve been loving:
“The Valleys” & “Love Builds Up,” The Power Out, Electrelane (2004)
British indie rock band Electrelane recruited audio engineer Steve Albini (who also recorded Pixies’ Surfer Rosa, Nirvana’s In Utero, and PJ Harvey’s Rid of Me) to record and produce their second album, The Power Out. Interestingly, the group’s debut, Rock It To The Moon was released in 2001 on queer feminist label Mr. Lady, known for releasing albums from acts like Le Tigre and The Butchies. While the group has links to many socio-political grunge acts of the late ‘90s/early 2000s, they chose to keep their music relatively politics-free. Their tracks, specifically on The Power Out, are also much tamer than you’d think.
Choral-like vocals take center stage on “The Valleys,” layered on top of a somewhat simple and muted backing track of keys, bass, and drums. Hundreds of voices, from the highest sopranos to the lowest basses, have a bit of a round with each other — at some points, the highs and the lows are singing completely different lyrics. You can kind of picture the bass tones singing at the bottom of a valley while the sopranos are overlooking them at the top of a mountain. When the two sides come back together on the line “Now he’s here again,” the circle feels complete, and the most beautiful and satisfying chord holds and modulates as the song builds to its end. The vocals on this track really do have the ability to send you to another dimension.
On “Love Builds Up,” Electrelane entertains their more grunge ties. The song takes after its name and literally “builds up,” starting with a singular theme that continues to get layered on with different instruments until a guitar comes in around the halfway point. The guitar and organ-like keys have their own little back-and-forth that incorporates some funky, futuristic synths. A wholly instrumental track, the group adds quirky production techniques and other little moments that throw glitter on the song and make it an all-encompassing experience.
Listen if you like: Stereolab, choir, opera, Broadcast, feeling the Earth’s rotation
“Portrait Of A Clear Day,” “Summer Glass” & “Flare,” The Greater Wings, Julie Byrne (2023)
The Greater Wings is Julie Byrne’s third album, following 2014’s Rooms With Walls and Windows and Not Even Happiness from 2017. Recorded mostly in the wake of the sudden death of collaborator/producer Eric Littmann, Byrne creates an almost-acoustic dreamscape that explores grief, renewal, and finding power in trauma. The album itself is a beautiful, gentle listen, filled with soft finger-picked guitar and other shimmering instrumentations. “Portrait Of A Clear Day” shows Byrne exhibiting her songwriting prowess with poetic lyrics that punch right through the speakers, meditating on the beauty a clear day brings, and a potential lost love. The track ends with the line “Your love filled me like the summer ground, passed me / Like the rising sun / Now I get some nostalgia feels sometimes” that nearly took the wind out of me on first listen.
On “Summer Glass,” Byrne switches to a somewhat electronic vibe that includes ethereal synth patterns and harp moments that continue to build the aesthetically beautiful world in which The Greater Wings takes place. Byrne uses her nomad-like teens and 20s as inspiration, ruminating on the idea of renewal with lyrics like “I brought myself to the edge of the water / Crossed the river to remember who I am.” “Flare,” a somewhat unsung hero of the record, continues the self reflection motif, this time while looking at a sunrise, with delicate guitars, orchestral strings, and lyrics that question her true desires and ways of being.
Listen if you like: Weyes Blood, meditating, Lorde’s Solar Power, Sufjan Stevens, incense, nature, traveling (specifically via car), sunsets
“Suicide in Texas,” “I Love You, Fine” & “Electrocution,” Signal, Automatic (2019)
LA-based trio Automatic delivers synths on steroids on their debut Signal from 2019. The group, made up of Izzy Glaudini, Lola Dompé, and Halle Saxon, found inspiration for their name from the track “Automatic” on The Go-Go’s debut album Beauty and the Beat (coincidentally, my favorite song on that album). Notably, the band includes NO guitars. The trio uses only drums, synths, and bass to create their larger-than-life sound. The group has recently been linked to the management label Spinning Top, which also supports some of my all-time favs like Tame Impala and Pond. To make Automatic even more enticing, in 2022 they shared the stage with Kevin Parker himself, and Ridgewood-bred Parquet Courts.
On Signal, Automatic tips their hat to their roots in the LA DIY scene (specifically toeing the line of punk, both in sound and in lyrics), while elevating that sound with off-the-wall synths that make your entire head buzz (in a good way). The trio sets itself up with a consistent foundation of minimalism. That foundation is always built upon, but never gets taken too far. The “automatic” (ha ha) nature of the band’s core sound is on display. On “Suicide in Texas,” the loop-like, somewhat monotone vocals drive the track alongside alarm-like synths and thick basslines that ring from start to finish. There are also some cannonball-like dribbles here and there, which add color and vibrance, among other unique production choices. The album goes in different directions, but it never ventures too far from its base sound. The quick and quippy “I Love You, Fine” shows some punk-leaning attitude, while “Electrocution” incorporates more of a groove that allows for the group’s three main pieces (synths, bass, and drums) to shine in conjunction with the somewhat staple monotone, almost spoken word vocals. All in all, Automatic hit it right out the gate with their debut, and have only continued to prove themselves on newer releases. Consider me a fan!
Listen if you like: synths of all kinds, feeling like you’re in a movie, trying to be cool, tinted windows, red lipstick, The B52s
And there we have it! To more good listens for the rest of August! Check back next week for more favs, and refer to the playlist of all playlists for more top tracks of the month.
