No Expectations 099: Rock City
Three new albums worth your time. Plus, Tony Tulathimutte’s “Rejection,” “Soundtrack to a Coup d'Etat,” and seeing Goose (again) in Grand Rapids, MI.
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Headline song: Horsegirl, “Rock City”
Thanks for being here. From Thursday through Monday, I was in Michigan seeing friends and family. I also caught the band Goose live in my hometown of Grand Rapids, which you’ll read about below. Vacations are great but they mess up my workflow for No Expectations. In a normal week, I take a chunk of each day to listen, explore new things, and come up with a passable idea for an essay. When I’m traveling, I’m not doing any of that. Taking PTO is for turning your brain off, leaving the laptop and emails at home, and doing your best to relax. I had a blast—shoutout Madcap Coffee, the best vintage store in the world at Zabház, the Grand Rapids Art Museum, and meals at Littlebird, Max’s South Seas Hideaway, and drinks at Pyramid Scheme and Speciation. This is a long way of saying, “Short one this week.”
Though there’s not a main essay, there are still great new albums you should check out. I also made a 15-song playlist, watched a movie, read a book, and compiled the best live shows happening in Chicago this week. As always, you can sign up for a paid subscription or tell a friend about a band you read about here. It’s still $5 a month—the cost of one Old Style plus tip at Rainbo Club. Every bit helps, keeps this project going, and allows it to stay paywall-free. It’s rough out there, weatherwise and otherwise, so I’m grateful you’re still reading and supporting this scrappy writing project.
Also: You might have noticed that next week will be No Expectations 100. Well, that’s sort of true. Because of bonus newsletters, mid-year, and EOY roundups, the 100th newsletter happened quite a bit ago. It’s still cool though and it’s incredibly sick to see how No Expectations has grown in just a couple of years. I don’t have anything major planned to mark the occasion, except to write about stellar music from independent artists that you won’t find from algorithms or from writers with worse taste.
Three New LPs to Check Now
Dead Gowns, It's Summer, I Love You, and I'm Surrounded by Snow
One of the best albums of 2025 was recorded in 2020. That’s a long time to sit on a record. I can’t claim to know what industry bullshit, album cycle purgatory, or exercises in patience Maine songwriter Geneviève Beaudoin had to endure before putting out her debut as Dead Gowns, but I’m so happy it’s out. Not since Angel Olsen’s 2014 Burn Your Fire No Witness has an indie rock voice floored me so palpably. While both LPs tread similar sonic territory, It's Summer, I Love You… is much more animated and energetic. Beaudoin’s croon can oscillate from a warble to a coo and a scream with a violent intensity but her deft and observant songwriting anchors each track. There’s not a bad tune on here. If this is what she was capable of a half-decade ago, it’s bewildering to imagine the high-caliber material she must have ready to go now.
Frog, 1000 Variations On the Same Song
1000 Variations On the Same Song is an album title that undersells what the New York band accomplishes with their sixth LP. It’s a cohesive collection, which is what you want with a full-length record. I think Stereogum’s Chris Deville put it best when he said this was “as if Modest Mouse made a Pinegrove album.” It’s folky, lo-fi, and scrappy but my favorite tunes on here are when they tweak the formula like on the piano-led opener “Stillwell Theme” or the banjo-anchored lead single “Mixtape Liner Notes Var. VII.” It can get a little goofy as it traverses aughts and 2010s indie signifiers but the aching lyrics and charming, unadorned production make it shine. Though Frog’s been at it since 2012, this simple and humble approach might be their most effective yet.
Horsegirl, Phoenetics On and On
The Chicago-formed, New York-based trio Horsegirl burst out of the pandemic with a record deal with Matador and a debut album recorded at Electrical Audio with the legendary producer John Agnello. They were still in high school then but the songs were expansive and exploratory, and I wrote in 2022, “The artists who make up Chicago’s Horsegirl are at least 11 years younger than I am and have the best taste I’ve ever seen in a young band.” Where that palette took from crate-digging sensibilities of indie rock’s fringes, their follow-up is more straightforward, more inviting, and full of palpable heart and fun. On paper, it’s a paring back of what made them so exciting as they were starting out, but Phonetics On and On is a document of a band discovering that they’re better at writing perfect, ramshackle pop songs than setting an atmospheric, immersive, and record collector-impressing vibe. Recorded with Cate Le Bon at Chicago’s The Loft, these strong songs speak for themselves without being drowned in fuzzy guitars and reverb. The “da-da-das” elevate “I Can’t Stand To See You,” the subtle, shooting star guitars on “Julie” rule, and the single “2468” features the best counting motif since Feist. It’s full of grooves, glowing harmonies, and perfectly mixed drums. I wrote about Horsegirl in the first No Expectations newsletter, saying, “I bet their next album is a classic.” While it’s still way too soon, at least I didn’t totally embarrass myself with that.
What I listened to:
The No Expectations 099 Playlist: Apple Music // Spotify // Tidal
1. Horsegirl, "Rock City"
2. Japanese Breakfast, "Mega Circuit"
3. Fust, "Mountain Language"
4. Dead Gowns, "In the Haze"
5. Friendship, "Free Association"
6. Lucky Cloud, "Foreground"
7. Sean Solomon ft. Shannon Lay, "Car Crash"
8. Youth Lagoon, "Gumshoe (Dracula From Arkansas)"
9. Bon Iver, "Everything Is Peaceful Love"
10. Mamalarky, "#1 Best of All Time"
11. Yves Jarvis, "Decision Tree"
12. Hannah Cohen, "Draggin'"
13. Frog, "STILLWELL THEME"
14. Half Gringa, "What's the Word"
15. Patterson Hood ft. Waxahatchee, "The Forks of Cypress"
Gig report: Goose at GLC Live at 20 Monroe in Grand Rapids, MI (2/13-15)
If there’s one lesson from immersing yourself into bands like the Grateful Dead, Phish, and Goose, it’s that the more you put into it, the more you get out of it. With any band that thrives on improvised jams and marathon concerts, there’s a vast readily available archive of live shows, setlists that change from night to night, songs that can be played in drastically different ways, surprising covers, and a rabid fanbase that can’t get enough. This combination makes for a musical ecosystem that feels totally separate from the indie rock I grew up on. The genre exists and thrives because it forces you to either totally ignore it or to become a full obsessive. It’s fascinating and fun and I’m still shocked by how much I’ve entered the rabbit hole. After years of writing them off and ignoring their ascent, my first Goose show was in September (I wrote about their three-night Salt Shed residency then) and after this past weekend, I am now at eight. That’s psycho behavior for just six months, I know, but it’s been such a fun journey. I’m exhausted though. This is truly not for the faint of heart.
Since I wrote about this band quite a bit recently, my friends and family from back home were curious about seeing it for themselves. So, when Goose announced a three-night run at downtown Grand Rapids’ GLC Live at 20 Monore, I took one of my best buds, my girlfriend, my dad, as well as my sister and her husband to some of the nights. (I’ve been to the venue once when my friends played in 2017. Fortunately, eight years later, the green room wifi password still works). Everyone I brought had a blast, especially taking in the band’s new light show and lighting designer Andrew Goedde’s virtuosic theatrics manning it. Still, they weren’t used to standing around for several hours, set breaks, and potentially hearing only one of the few songs they knew by the group. This isn’t the concise 90-minute headlining show they’re accustomed to from their favorite acts. (My dad left at the break—He had fun but he’s almost 70 and I’m not stressing about it). It was also great to meet new folks like Nate and Victoria, buds who traveled from Ohio for all three nights and became fast friends with us. The same goes for Sydney, in town from Colorado and volunteering with the Western Sun Foundation. Probably the dark horse draw of experiencing this music in person is how welcoming and friendly everyone you meet there can be.
As far as the shows go, they keep getting better. Even in this short six-month window, I’ve been able to track their growth from making more unpredictable setlists, maintaining a distinct vibe with each show (for example: Friday was a dance party while Saturday was full of show-stopping curveballs), and putting on an overall more engaging show. At this point, I’ve caught all of the songs I’ve ever wanted to see (last week I said I wanted a “Tumble” and a “726” and got both), which is freeing. I won’t get bogged down in chasing individual tracks and can just enjoy myself and let the band play what they want. I’ll be happy to just see them once or twice a year going forward and not make a big deal of it. It’s a good band and a fun time. Apologies to the jam-skeptic indie rockers who’ve put up with these newsletter updates for months: It’ll be smooth sailing for months here.
What I watched:
Soundtrack to a Coup d’Etat (dir. Johan Grimonprez)
I love documentaries but too often I’ll stumble on some streaming service slop with dull talking heads, shitty cut-scenes, goofy actor-led scene recreations, and generally piss-poor editing. It feels like you’re listening to a bad podcast or that someone fed a mid-tier LLM a string of cable TV docuseries. Even the good ones sometimes feel like you could be reading an article instead. (I’ll still watch those though). Soundtrack to a Coup d’Etat feels like a movie. It’s one of the most innovative and enthralling political docs I’ve ever seen. Directed by the Belgian filmmaker Johan Grimonprez, the two-and-a-half-hour film follows the CIA-funded 1961 assassination of Patrice Lumumba, the first prime minister of the Democratic Republic of Congo, and the U.S. government’s efforts to enlist Black jazz musicians to serve as cultural ambassadors in the Cold War. The sound editing is phenomenal and so is its musical performance. Comprised entirely of archival footage and narration from the memoirs of those present, there are no interviews, no cut-scene exposition, and no frills. The movie dances through colonialism, Cold War paranoia, mercenary death squads, the intelligence community’s depravity, and the cooption of art so thoroughly and seamlessly that I know I’ll be thinking about this for months.
What I read:
Rejection by Tony Tulathimutte
This interconnected and brutally funny short story collection made me want to barf throughout. I think that’s a good thing. Each chapter’s protagonist in Tony Tulathimutte’s excellent Rejection is a lonely and miserable young person who is too online and unable to find connection, true love, and contentment. It makes for a dark, depressing, and often disgusting read, but Tulathimutte’s acerbic wit and humane prose keep it from entering the irrevocable abyss. This is not for everyone: the alienated, self-defeating, and cruel people have such sputtering and stunted rage that it’s upsetting. That said, it’s also so hilarious and undeniably human that it’s almost a perverse palate cleanser for this chaotic, brain-rot-plagued era we live in now.
The Weekly Chicago Show Calendar:
The gig calendar lives on the WTTW News website now. You can also subscribe to the newsletter I produce there called Daily Chicagoan to get it in your inbox every Wednesday.
I think I've listened to that Horsegirl song "Information Content" at least 100 times already
Glad to hear Rejection is good! I loved the Feminist when it was published in n+1.