The three albums we’re highlighting today are tied together by their sense of playfulness; from prog rock epics to whimsical electronica, it’s music where creativity and joy take center stage.
Bruiser and Bicycle – Holy Red Wagon
Holy Red Wagon, the sophomore release from Albany’s Bruiser and Bicycle, feels like a lost relic from the early aughts, channeling the spirit of the era into a psychedelic and kaleidoscopic vision of indie rock. Perhaps the most obvious touchpoint is Animal Collective, who’s sunny freak-folk harmonies are littered across the album. But you can also hear the prog rock ambition of bands like Flaming Lips or The Fiery Furnaces; with a median runtime of seven minutes, each song on the album is richly detailed and can change on a dime. This sort of creative sprawl could easily veer into self indulgence, but it never does; their cryptic narratives and buoyant melodies build a slightly askew fantasy world, one that you’ll be sad to leave after the album’s last notes ring out.
Foyer Red – Yarn the Hours Away
Yarn the Hours Away, the debut album from Brooklyn-based band Foyer Red, places them firmly into a long line of art pop weirdos from Suburban Lawns to Palm. I picked these two bands as examples specifically because I can hear echoes of both throughout the album (the nervy, jerky rhythms of the former loom large, and the almost mathematical angularity of the latter rears its head on occasion), but I could easily pick ten other artists who cast a shadow over the album. That’s because Foyer Red seem to be intoxicated by the possibilities of sound, each of their songs tugging in a million directions without ever seeming overstuffed. “Unwaxed Flavored Floss”, a song about oral hygiene, starts with a skeletal, halting rhythm before bursting out into an art rock sprint complete with Dirty Projectors-esque vocal acrobatics; the rhythms of “Pocket” seems to never sit still, forming a maze of abrupt stops and hairpin turns. The sense of play even extends to their lyrics: my favorite, “Gorgeous”, is a sweet love songs built around the narrator’s affection for a paramour’s incorrect turns of phrase (“a jacket of all trades”, “throw in the pillow”). It’s music that is as fun to listen to as it clearly was to create.
Kate NV – WOW
Over the entirety of her discography, Kate NV has effortlessly moved between pop forms and abstract experimentation. Her latest, perhaps her most ebullient set of music to date, feels like the closest she’s gotten to melding the two. Armed with a seemingly endless palate of sounds, the eleven tracks that make up the largely instrumental album share a sense of childlike whimsy. “d d don’t” seems to congeal into something resembling a chorus, only to instantly fracture into a cascade of overlapping vocal snippets. The complex rhythmic patterns of “night call” are both off kilter and oddly catchy. Elsewhere the sounds of popping bubbles and bird song add playful touches to already buoyant melodies. It feels like her crowning achievement to date, a statement of purpose from one of our most singular artists