Iceage have always seemed like a band in a state of constant development. You might say that’s understandable, given the Danish musicians were in their teens when their debut album New Brigade was released in 2011: if you don’t change between the age of 18 and your early 30s, you’re probably in trouble. But rock music isn’t real life, and a less adventurous band might have been minded to stick with a good thing, given the reception New Brigade was afforded. Twenty-four minutes of hardcore blended with noisy Birthday Party-esque post-punk and a sizeable pinch of gothic gloom, it was praised so vociferously that the praise itself provoked heated debate, as claims any one band are the “saviours” of an entire genre are wont to do, particularly when said genre is punk.
Tag Archive: Mexican Summer
It’s probably about time we retired that nonsense about the pram in the hall. Sure, having a baby will upend your priorities, monopolise your me-time and severely restrict your capacity for hedonistic adventure. But Sessa’s magical third album is further proof that becoming a parent can enhance rather than obstruct your art.
When we first clapped eyes on Sergio Sayeg AKA Sessa, via the back cover of his striking 2019 debut album, he was stripped to the waist and locked in a disconcertingly passionate embrace with an equally half-naked woman. As for the subject matter, one song urged the object of his affections to “me fode de vez” (“fuck me once and for all”), while another was simply entitled “Orgia” (no translation required).
Previously, Carmarthenshire-born Cate Le Bon has interspersed recording with learning carpentry in the Lake District and taking pottery classes in Los Angeles. She made mugs for people ordering 2013 album Mug Museum.
Her new album, however, was preceded by the end of a relationship, by heartache and ill health. But if this suggests a tormented record, it’s not there in the music, which is a sweetly meditative expanse, coloured with effects units – a warm bath infused with rare essences of chorus, reverb and perhaps Le Bon’s EarthQuaker Hummingbird pedal, where the product information promises “choppy sawtooth tremolo”.
Opener ‘Jerome’ leads into the reverberant studio-verse of the Cocteau Twins.
Sitting On the Moon is a low-key statement of purpose for the longrunning, Brooklyn-based independent label Mexican Summer. Fresh off of the imprint’s 15th anniversary in 2024, the largely instrumental compilation asks “where to next?”
Label luminaries like Connan Mockasin and Dungen make eagerly anticipated appearances, while the new school, Zsela and Natural Wonder Beauty Concept, present standout tracks — the former written with Daniel Aged and Casey MQ during a recording retreat in Hawaii, the latter a cover of Chris Isaak’s eternal “Wicked Game” that’s become a live favorite for DJ Python and Ana Roxanne. Fresh off the release of his acclaimed album Gift Songs, label mainstay Jefre Cantu-Ledesma also returns with a sprawling, ten-minute…
Hayden Pedigo: man, myth, master of disguise; un-picker, finger-picker, absurdist, perfectionist. The unorthodox contender for Amarillo City Council, subject of the film Kid Candidate, and creator of the acclaimed Letting Go (2021) and The Happiest Times I Ever Ignored (2023) now embarks upon the release of his new album I’ll Be Waving as You Drive Away. An innovator of the instrumental genre, challenger of the stereotypical, son of a truck-stop preacher, he backs up a cherry red Silverado under his own smiling, Brylcreemed and Nudie-Suited billboard. His foot hesitates above the gas pedal as a cloud of dust rises. Where between beaming advert and disillusioned entertainer might his truest self lie? On this intentionally maximalist, genre-resistant work of warped instrumental…