No Expectations 042: Dog Year
Q3 catch-up: new music worth your time from Lily Seabird, Slaughter Beach Dog, Squirrel Flower, and more.
No Expectations hits inboxes on Thursdays at 9am cst. Here’s the mailbag email for any questions, tips, or suggestions: Noexpectationsnewsletter@gmail.com. (Please, no PR pitches). Thanks for reading Tuesday’s Taste Profile interview with Slow Pulp’s Emily Massey.
Earlier in the week, I bounced around a few ideas about longer essays for the Thursday newsletter tackling either Live Nation nixing merch cuts (at some venues, for 90 days), the WGA strike ending, the great new mixes for the classic LP by The Replacements Tim, or Bob Dylan performing with the Heartbreakers at Farm Aid, but I didn’t get around to them. Basically, my car started making a weird noise and I had to spend most of Wednesday morning (valuable newsletter writing time) at the mechanic. The car is fine but life always finds a way to get in between deadlines.
Instead of all that, I decided to do a recommendations-based newsletter about some new tunes I’ve been digging.
10 Unbeatable New Tracks from Q3 2023
Lily Seabird, “Grace”
You know and I know that I’ve written about Burlington, Vermont’s Lily Seabird a bunch in the newsletter this year. She’s just a fantastic songwriter with one of the most distinctive and hypnotic voices I’ve ever heard live. She plays in Greg Freeman’s band and Freeman plays in her band too. Since I started writing about her, the only full-length available is 2021’s Beside Myself. There are some fantastic songs on there but it doesn’t quite capture what makes her such a compelling performer in 2023. Her upcoming new album was co-produced by Seabird and VT songwriter Benny Yurco and features Seabird, Yurco, Freeman, and Zack James (Dari Bay) rounding out the band. “Grace” is a perfect intro to Seabird. The track slowly unfolds from a ‘90s-inflected guitar pop to something more snarling and unrelenting.
Blue County Pistol, Under Cold Country EP
I absolutely love this EP from Madison’s Blue County Pistol, a band whose artist reads “tarnished alt-country angels.” If you’re a fan of some acts I frequently write about here like Bonny Doon, Tobacco City, and Cotton Jones, you’ll find a lot to love in these five songs. Under Cold Country is bookended by two standout tracks, the rollicking, banjo-heavy opener “Like You Always Do” and the woozy closer “Honey, I Know.” Both tracks are warm, familiar, and instantly memorable. I first heard this band through the weekly playlist from North Carolina’s New Commute and knew little about them—they’re not even on Bandcamp yet! This piece from Friend of the Substack Steven Spoerl does a great job introducing the band, which features members of Mission Trip and Graham Hunt.
Slow Pulp, Yard
I wrote about Yard on No Expectations as recently as Tuesday so I’ll let Stereogum’s James Rettig explain why this LP is so fantastic from the publication’s stellar recent Album of the Week feature: “I liked Moveys well enough — especially after seeing those songs live, when they opened for Alvvays last fall — but Yard feels like it’s on another level. It’s quieter and more even-keeled than Slow Pulp’s debut, and it feels more emotionally potent. Maybe some distance from the upheaval that led to Moveys means that these songs have slightly more perspective. There’s no grand narrative surrounding Yard, just great songs. It’s not necessarily a showy album, but it’s one that I keep inexplicably returning to, comforted by its gauze and sticky sweetness.”
Slaughter Beach, Dog, Crying, Laughing, Waving, Smiling
Whenever I’ve talked about this album to friends, I always led with, “It’s great: the dude named this LP as an homage to that alltimer Labi Siffre album Crying, Laughing, Loving, Lying so if you like that you’ll probably dig this too.” As it turns out, I was totally wrong: Jake Ewald had never even heard of Siffre or that LP. In fact, as Paste’s Matt Mitchell points out in his incredible profile of the former Modern Baseball songwriter, Ewald assumed Siffre’s 1972’s masterpiece was a new album because Pitchfork gave it a Sunday Review. Of course, once Ewald heard the album he instantly loved it and said, “it was such a beautiful meeting of all these different things that I was into, that I am into, and I fell in love with it right away.” That scans because Ewald makes conversational folk-hued rock that’s as lush and inviting as Siffre. He takes mundane moments and gives them resonance throughout 10 meaty tracks which include the sprawling yet understated “Engine.” You won’t be shocked to hear SBD is taking Bonny Doon on the road this fall.
Kaycie Satterfield, “Dog Year”
Kaycie Satterfield is a Texas-raised, L.A.-based artist who makes smart, intricate, and airy indie rock. A little over a month ago, Satterfield emailed me her new single “Dog Year,” which she says is the first taste of an upcoming album, and it’s stayed on my regular rotation since. Here, she thrives on shimmering arrangements, enveloping hooks, and even makes a whispering bridge the highlight of the track. I’m stoked to hear more.
Coworkers, “Legwork”
The best tool for music discovery—better than Spotify, Apple Music, Pandora, or any algorithm-based service—is quite simply your cool friend’s Instagram story. My bud Ruy posted this track from New Orleans outfit Coworkers the other week. “Legwork” is a ripper—one that kind of evokes artier groups like Squid but keeps it grounded with a tangible ferocity.
Radar Peak, “Butane Glow”
I met Radar Peak frontman Matt Aldred seven years ago when he was touring as the guitarist for Canadian psych-rocker Michael Rault. When we met, I did the “I know these Canadian bands. Do you know them too?” thing I always do and it turned out he knew everyone I brought up. He even played in a garage rock band with Nestor Chumak and Zack Mykula in high school. Small world! It turns out, they started making music again together and it’s now called Radar Peak. The songs so far have been noisy power-pop gold and “Butane Glow” has been on near-constant repeat since it came out.
Cruel, “Gutter”
Friend of the Substack Jon-Carlo Manzo launched a new tape label called Angel Tapes. It’s a new imprint of Fire Talk Records (Cola, Strange Ranger, Mandy Indiana) and the first release comes from Chicago punk outfit Cruel. The RIYL-Cliff Notes pitch here is that it feels like if you split the difference between Shame and Uranium Club but somehow make it more feral and uncompromising , which is incredibly up my alley.
Squirrel Flower, “Intheskatepark”
Squirrel Flower (aka Chicago songwriter Ella Williams) hasn’t missed yet previewing songs from her upcoming full-length Tomorrow’s Fire (which is out Oct. 13 via Polyvinyl. Each song “Alley Light,” “Your Love,” and “When A Plant Is Dying” have been Song of the Year contenders but the fuzzed out latest “Intheskatepark” might be the most immediate. It’s a dense and hooky guitar jam with programmed drums that floored me on first listen.
What I listened to:
Lily Seabird, “Grace”
Slaughter Beach, Dog, “Float Away”
Blue County Pistol, “Honey, I Know”
Slow Pulp, “Broadview”
Big Thief, “Born For Loving You”
Al Menne, “What U Want”
Mitski, “The Deal”
Ratboys, “The Window”
Squirrel Flower, “Intheskatepark”
Radar Peak, “Butane Glow”
Coworkers, “Legwork”
Faye Webster, “Lifetime”
Lala Lala, “HIT ME WHERE IT HURTS”
Kaycie Satterfield, “Dog Year”
Resavoir, “Sunday Morning (ft. Elton Aura and Whitney)”
Gig report: Strange Ranger, Husk at the Hideout (9/22)
Strange Ranger is a band that’s reinvented themselves with each new album. This restlessness has made the now New York-based outfit (they’ve been based in Montana, Portland, and Philly prior to this) one of the most exciting bands going right now. From 2017’s Daymoon, to 2019’s Remembering the Rockets, 2021’s No Light In Heaven, and 2023’s Pure Music, their once emo-tinged indie rock has expanded into increasingly poppier to now experimental and electronic directions. It’s a winning combo here and live at the Hideout this past weekend. I had a great time. I premiered “Living Free” in 2019 at VICE and it’s been a joy to see them evolve and continually find a new muse. Husk, the project from Ulna and Cafe Racer’s Adam Schubert and Bnny’s Alexa Viscious, did a fantastic set to open the gig.
What I watched:
Bottoms (2023)
This was one of the best-cast new comedies I’ve seen in a long time: Rachel Sennott and Ayo Edebiri are enough to make this claim but overall it’s such a fantastic and funny ensemble. It takes a minute to get used to this movie’s rhythm, which is pretty bonkers and never stays totally in reality. It’s Heathers meets Assassination Nation meets Booksmart meets Bodies Bodies Bodies. I really enjoyed Marshawn Lynch as an oblivious teacher and Ruby Cruz as Hazel (the best, most likable character in the whole thing). Not all of it works (then again, I am certainly not the target audience for this high school comedy) but I had a ton of fun. Two-and-a-half to three out of five.
What I read:
Why Letterboxd is the social media app for people who hate social media (Fran Hoepfner, Washington Post)
In its FAQ, Letterboxd bills itself as “a global social network for grass-roots film discussion and discovery. Use it as a diary to record and share your opinion about films as you watch them, or just to keep track of films you’ve seen in the past.” But its real omnipurpose shows up a little later: “How should I use Letterboxd?” the site asks; “However you like,” the site answers. What I like is keeping to myself and doing my own thing. And more often than not, Letterboxd allows me to be introverted on a social media app.
I’m not using it to see what other people do — I’m using it the way I did the opening pages of my journal, before I stopped keeping one. For years, I hand-wrote entries about my life, what I got up to, who I went out with, what movies I was seeing, what I was reading, what inspired me, what drove me insane. At the start of my journals, I’d keep a running log of what movies and books I watched and wrote about. I’d begun to write a bit of freelance film criticism, and I’d been a lifelong reader, and it always made more sense to have an analog method for keeping track of these things.
I used Letterboxd to be funny, to be astute, to troll. I exist there without rules for myself. I am consistent about neither punctuation nor grammar. Over time, Letterboxd grew to be less of a “social” media and more of an extension of self.
Ode to Palm (Quinn Moreland, Quinn’s Newsletter)
It will always bug me that Palm never really got their critical due, but I suppose you could say that about many influential bands—maybe a Numero Group box set in 20 years will correct the record. Regardless of review scores, Palm were consistently named as an inspiration by seemingly every other artist I interviewed over the past decade. It was a real if you know, you know situation which is not to suggest there was some weird gatekeeping situation but rather that if you saw Palm live, you understood. It felt extremely ironic that they played Pitchfork the first year after I quit. I will really miss them and the crowds at those final shows made it clear that I’m far from alone in that feeling.
Martin Scorsese: “I Have To Find Out Who The Hell I Am.” (Zach Baron, GQ)
All these people you’ve known and loved—“they suffered and struggled so much, and then life is over,” Scorsese said. “You get to the point of saying, ‘Well, what does it all mean?’ It doesn’t matter what it means. You have to live it. And if you choose not to live it, you choose not to live it, that’s up to you. But you are existing and you live with that existence. And so I think that has changed. And I don’t want to necessarily move the camera if I don’t want to anymore. I don’t. I don’t care. I just don’t care about that anymore.”
The Weekly No Expectations Chicago Show Calendar:
Thursday, Sept. 28: Fiddlehead, Buggin, Lifeguard, Restraining Order at Metro. Tickets.
Thursday, Sept. 28: David Longstreth, Sen Morimoto at Old Town School of Folk. Tickets.
Thursday, Sept. 28: Run The Jewels at Salt Shed. Tickets.
Friday, Sept. 29: Run The Jewels at Salt Shed. Tickets.
Friday, Sept. 29: Waltzer, Tea Eater, Edie McKenna at Empty Bottle. Tickets.
Friday, Sept. 29: Slow Pulp Album Release Party (DJ Set) at Sleeping Village. Free.
Saturday, Sept. 30: Movements, Mannequin Pussy, Softcult, Heart to Gold at Concord. Tickets.
Saturday, Sept. 30: Mapache at Empty Bottle. Tickets.
Saturday, Sept. 30: Joshua Hedley at Judson and Moore. Tickets.
Saturday, Sept. 30: Miya Frolick, Babebee at Lincoln Hall. Tickets.
Saturday, Sept. 30: Grace Bloom, Soft and Dumb, Pictoria Vark, Oux at Subterranean. Tickets.
Sunday, Oct. 1: Lane Beckstrom, NIIKA, Late Nite Laundry at Sleeping Village. Tickets.
Sunday, Oct. 1: Hannah Jadagu, Miloe at Schubas. Tickets.
Sunday, Oct. 1: Loraine James, Semiratruth, lynyn at Empty Bottle. Tickets.
Monday, Oct. 2: Washer, The Deals, Edging at Schubas. Tickets.
Monday, Oct. 2: CHAI, Font at Thalia Hall. Tickets.
Tuesday, Oct. 3: Frankie Cosmos, Good Morning, Joey Nebulous at Empty Bottle. Sold out.
Tuesday, Oct. 3: Slowdive, Drab Majesty at Riviera. Tickets.
Tuesday, Oct. 3: Knifeplay, Smut, Astrobrite at Sleeping Village. Tickets.
Wednesday, Oct. 4: Cut Worms, Ryder the Eagle at Old Town School of Folk. Tickets.
Wednesday, Oct. 4: Devendra Banhart, Le Ren at Thalia Hall. Tickets.
love that new Strange Ranger album, hope they are booked for fests next summer. Love to see the mutual Fran and Josh shout-outs too. hope your car’s back in fighting shape!