No Expectations 153: Indu
Three stellar new albums perfect for summer. Plus, a weird but compelling documentary and a cult classic '70s novel.
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Headline song: Greg Freeman, “Indu”
Thanks for being here. This week had its highs and lows. The nadir didn’t come when the World Cup ended, although that was a bummer. It hit when a thick blanket of wildfire smoke from Canada and Minnesota engulfed Chicago and other parts of the country, driving the Air Quality Index to unprecedented levels. At its worst, it hit 660 here (and here I thought the June 2023 wildfires were bad at 220!). Even if you were outside for just a minute and were donning a KN95 mask, you could feel the smog burrow into your lungs, and the smell lingered for longer than it should’ve. As much as it was physically dangerous, it was also emotionally deflating.
Fortunately, it cleared enough Friday and Saturday so you could comfortably go outside. I saw a short but excellent festival set from a recent newsletter favorite and attended a wedding of two good buds, who packed a beloved concert venue with their thriving community of friends. It was a perfect two days. Though I never want to get used to this sort of air pollution and not being able to breathe while walking around my own neighborhood, the week’s gross weather made the weekend sweeter.
The three records recommended below were a great salve. They’re all easygoing and instantly likeable, but interesting and knotty in all the right ways. If it’s all clear where you are, I’d recommend taking these albums on a stroll.
Also, this week’s playlist is a good one. It kicks off with Greg Freeman’s “Indu,” the lead single from his new John Congleton-produced LP All Set The Bone. I’ve been championing the now-Chicago-based artist’s music since the very beginning of No Expectations, and it’s truly so sick to see how he’s grown as a songwriter since his first record, 2022’s I Looked Out. Through writing about him and getting to know him over the past few years, I’ve been introduced to so many great artists from his home of Burlington, VT that have made running this newsletter so rewarding: Lily Seabird, Dari Bay, Robber Robber, Vega, Charlie Hill, Paper Castles, Greaseface, etc. Mark its release date of October 2 in your calendars, because somehow he’s outdone himself with this new batch of songs. Alltimer album incoming.
Here’s the spiel for new subscribers: Each week, you get a wildcard main essay (often new album recommendations), a 15-song playlist, as well as updates on what I’m listening to, watching, and reading. Sometimes you’ll get an interview with an artist I love, and other times it’ll be a deep dive into one band’s discography. Since I’m a Chicago-based writer, this newsletter is very Midwest-focused. So, if you live in this city too, you’ll also receive a curated roundup of upcoming local shows to check out.
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Three Albums Worth Your Time This Week
Kevin Copeland, Only Love Songs
Whenever Vermont/NYC artist Kevin Copeland is listed as a producer on an album, chances are it’s going to be a No Expectations favorite. His credits include Hannah Frances’ Keeper of the Shepherd and Nested In Tangles, Lamplight’s Lamplight, and Lily Seabird’s Trash Mountain, all of which easily made the newsletter’s year-end lists. When he’s not behind the boards for other artists, he’s making music with his band Big Net. Though he enlists his bandmates, Only Love Songs is his proper solo debut. It’s 11 songs of punchy and twangy pop-rock alongside several cuts of quietly winsome folk. Like the records he’s worked on, this LP sounds spectacular, but it’s Copeland’s lyrics that truly shine. He manages to be at the exact midpoint of conversationally funny and sweetly earnest, like on the single “Hotel Bar,” when he sings, “I was down at the hotel bar/ Trying to clear out my mind/ I like to think that I’m suffering/ But I know I’m doing just fine.” Elsewhere, on the Steve Earle-evoking “That’s All Over Now,” a muscular Americana riff buoys lines like, “Well, I have wasted half of my life / watching TV and saying goodbye / but that’s all over now.” He’s reverse Jeff Tweedy’d here; being a respected producer who turns into a commendable country-and-rock-tinged pop songwriter, rather than vice versa.
RIYL: Wilco, Foxwarren, Elliott Smith
Swapmeet, Mount Zero
It’s rare to come across a debut record that’s overwhelmingly hook-laden and fully-formed but never glossy or saccharine. Adelaide, Australia’s Swapmeet pass this rubric with flying colors on Mount Zero by translating the anthemic choruses and explosive fuzz of '90s alt-rock with the hushed intimacy of bedroom pop. Sure, this is well-trodden territory, but this quartet manages to write songs sturdy and memorable enough to set them apart. Their secret weapon comes in the dual vocals between Venus O’Broin and Jack Medlyn, who both lend a distinct melodic sensibility to each of the nine infectious and explosive songs here. On O’Broin’s songs, they reach for soaring, room-filling catharsis like the kinetic singles “I Know!” and “Halfway.” Medlyn’s songs tend to be more subdued and sinewy. “Seeds” starts soft but then morphs into snotty punk guitar jams while “Bonny” evokes the hushed nerviness of Pinback and The Sea & Cake. It’s the clear standout “Sand” where both singers’ voices best merge: a duet that highlights all the strengths of their astoundingly mature and tasteful brand of indie rock.
RIYL: Slow Pulp, The Bel Air Lip Bombs, Feeble Little Horse
Tommy Goodroad, Goddammit
Chicago’s history as a hotbed of country is well documented. Before the Grand Ole Opry show, the city’s own National Barn Dance was the premier radio program highlighting this music, and it thrived for decades. We’re also the home of John Prine, the Old Town School of Folk Music, Bloodshot Records, which helped birth alt-country in the ‘90s, and a thriving recent scene that includes rising acts like Tobacco City, Glass-Beagle, Orillia, Andrew Sa, Reilly Downes, and more. (A much more thorough overview can be found in Mark Guarino’s excellent 2023 book Country & Midwestern: Chicago in the History of Country Music and the Folk Revival.) One listen to roots-rocker Tommy Goodroad’s debut LP, Goddammit, and it’s clear the local crooner has done his homework: not just for his home’s own musical traditions but the many movements and decades-long left-turns in the genre. Throughout these 11 rowdy and rollicking songs, you’ll hear melodies and arrangements that evoke ‘70s and ‘90s pop country, ‘80s outlaw country, and contemporary indie twang. He enlists Amos Pitsch (who’s in the great Wisconsin bar band Dusk) to produce the LP, which gives it a crunchy grit. On the title track, Goodroad showcases his folksy charm with lines like “Sometimes you just gotta cuss and moan like a bitter old wreck / 'Cause just when things start looking up, turns out to be a crick in your neck” while pedal steel player Peter Briggs shines on the barn-burner “Burden Avenue.” The great country music newsletter Don’t Rock the Inbox called this “Warm weather beer-drinkin' music — in the Ratboys school of Midwest indie x Southern rock x country,” and I can’t come up with a better sell than that.
RIYL: Dusk, JP Harris, Chico States
What I listened to:
The No Expectations 153 Playlist: Apple Music // Spotify // Tidal
1. Greg Freeman, “Indu”
2. Ultra Lights, “Diamond Dreams”
3. Kiwi jr., “Photos Of The Reenactment”
4. Swapmeet, “Seeds”
5. Squirrel Flower, “Not Me”
6. Kevin Copeland, “Hotel Bar”*
7. Lily Seabird, “Portal to the Past”
8. Tommy Goodroad, “Burden Avenue”
9. Chris Acker, “Overdrafted”
10. Jake Xerxes Fussell, “Rock Island Line”
11. Julia Jacklin, “I Wish”
12. Hollow Hand, “Here Are The Tulips”
13. Jon McKiel, “Rosemary”
14. Curbside Lambsear, “Man The Door”
15. Standing On The Corner, “Mr. Postman, Wait!”
* = Not on Spotify
Gig recap: Slippers at West Fest (7/17)
Every week, I curate the local concert listings for my day job at WTTW News. I don’t include every big show happening, but I choose the ones I’d attend if I could. (Sometimes my selections aren’t very PBS-coded, but according to my bosses, that’s ok!) That week, I scoured the bands playing West Fest, and hoped to see Slippers, the LA indie pop band behind Slippers 08, one of my favorite records of the year so far. I already knew they were going to be nearby, opening up for headliners Hunx and His Punx at a sold-out Empty Bottle show on Thursday, but I didn’t see them anywhere on the actual festival lineup. That changed Friday morning thanks to a last-minute lineup change, so around 5 p.m. I brought a few friends to see the three-piece in action. The set was 40 minutes of crystalline twee-pop bliss, complete with oddball stage banter, a surprise downpour, and a perfect rendition of my Song of the Year contender “Wants For Everyone.” They’re the real deal.
What I watched:
Infinite Football (directed by Corneliu Porumboiu, streaming on MUBI)
Like Radu Jude, the director behind Do Not Expect Too Much from the End of the World, Corneliu Porumboiu is a major figure in Romanian New Wave. In 2018, he released an odd, bewildering, and honestly affecting 70-minute documentary about his brother’s friend, who’s long had an idea to change and improve the game of soccer. His quest to develop a new sport came from an injury he sustained in his teenage years, and it’s an obsession he’s maintained in adulthood as a joyless Romanian government bureaucrat. This is not a film that will be compelling to most people. It’s a dry watch: think How to with John Wilson without the visual gags or Nathan For You sans obvious jokes. But a lot is going on here: the hope that this global sport inspires, the existential dread of a man past his prime, the needless and confusing rules mirroring post-Soviet life in the Balkans, the disappointment of living to your full potential, and many other things that I kept thinking about hours after the credits rolled. I loved it, but I feel like this will be a divisive recommendation.
What I read:
Speedboat (by Renata Adler)
Renata Adler was a longtime reporter and staff for The New Yorker and a film critic for The New York Times in the late ‘60s. While I’ve read several of her essays and reviews, I realized I hadn’t gotten her two novels, 1976’s Speedboat and 1983’s Pitch Dark, until I encountered a scathing recent book review (targeting a writer I like a lot, for what it’s worth!) that called said writer, “The Renata Adler of looking at your phone.” Listen, there are worse ways to discover the fiction work of a great author, and I’m happy I took the time to sit with her debut, Speedboat. Though it’s 50 years old, it’s bracingly contemporary: almost a proto-Twitter novel. Rather than a linear narrative, it’s a collection of vignettes, observations, party diaries, and scattered thoughts from a young journalist named Jen. You’re not here for propulsive plot, but to luxuriate in the writing. It’s ambient and evocative prose, and there’s a section about criticism that will stick with me for a long time. Because of its experimental structure, it’s not for everyone, but I’d recommend it solely to see how folks on the timeline shamelessly rip Adler off.
The Weekly Chicago Show Calendar:
The gig calendar lives on the WTTW News website. You can also subscribe to the newsletter I produce there called Daily Chicagoan to get it in your inbox a day early.