Dig ‘in: Curtis Harding, Tony Molina, The Bats
Check out what the No Wristbands team is listening to and what’s in our show calendars this month on our latest Dig ‘in.
INCOMING
Curtis Harding - Departures & Arrivals: Adventures of Captain Curt (ANTI- Records LP)
The title of Curtis Harding’s 2014 debut record, Soul Power, arguably conveyed the sound of the artist’s music as accurately as any album title ever. Harding’s songs are thoroughly modern, but they evoke the sound and key stylistic elements of early ’70s soul with an almost alchemical vividness. Harding’s two subsequent releases found him refining and burnishing his already strong songwriting, and his new record is as compelling as anything he’s done to date.
Departures & Arrivals opens with perhaps its best track: the insanely catchy “There She Goes.” Over a relentlessly infectious groove, Harding belts out the song’s soaring vocal line, buoyed by satiny strings, lush background harmonies and even a brief Ernie Isley-style ax solo. It’s a masterpiece of soulcraft. Other album tracks, like the propulsive “Out in the Black,” “Time” and “The Winter Soldier” trim the instrumentation down to a simmering mulligan stew of bass, drums, Hammond organ, guitar and Wurlitzer electric piano beneath Harding’s supple and consistently emotive vocal melodies. Another disc highlight is “True Love Can’t Be Blind,” which shifts deftly between a slinky shuffle tempo in the verses and a more disco-driven chorus gliding beneath a charmingly elegant, baroque piano riff. It’s an impressive bit of composing and arranging that testifies to Harding’s skills. Departures & Arrivals is a start-to-finish blast that can hold its own against some of the classics of the original soul era. If you’re a fan of that sound, you need to check this out! -Rick Reger
Tony Molina - On This Day (Slumberland Records LP)
The album title of On This Day prefaces the ephemerality of Tony Molina’s music. Comprised of 21 tracks over 23 minutes that he recorded and produced with Alicia Vanden Huevel (The Aislers Set) in their San Francisco home studio, songs meld into each other almost as quickly as a blink of the eye. While pop music is sometimes derided for its disposability, Molina doesn’t waste any notes in executing his vision. If a certain track fails to capture you attention it’s no bother because he’s already on to the next.
Molina excels at grafting ’60s/’70s pop influences into a contemporary indie approach. The staccato piano plink and surging trumpet on “Faded Holiday” showcase Beach Boys basics. His cover “Violets of Dawn” by esteemed singer-songwriter Eric Andersen (who was part of the ‘60s Greenwich Village folk collective) condenses the original with an accelerated pace while retaining the song’s inherent beauty. “Livin’ Wrong” and “Don’t Belong” revel in Byrdsian jangle and “Lie To Kick It” highlights Molina’s knack of delivering sub-one-minute pop nuggets. On This Day’s combination of brevity and tunefulness is attention grabbing and a welcome distraction from the numbing effects of stimulus overload. -Bruce Novak
The Bats - Corner Coming Up (Flying Nun Records LP)
I’ve always liked the gravitas of The Bats. Over 40-plus years, even in poppier moments Robert Scott’s deliberately paced tenor and Paul Kean’s rounded-edged bass lines have grounded the New Zealand band’s discerning, dispassionate observations. The Bats’ 11th outing, Corner Coming Up, feels like a very specific, serious moment in the band’s long philosophical journey; it offers simple, muted poetry about the personal and universal aspects of life and grief. They face mortality (their own or of loved ones); they reflect on impermanence, move to acceptance, and along the way embrace and savor experience.
The beautiful, melancholy opening track “The Gown” sets the story with a slow, haunting drone underlaying Robert Scott’s subdued ruminations. The setting is, I think, a hospital during tests: “Open your mind, thinking of what you think of / Lying beside the big machine, what do I feel? / It’s pretty cold and it’s so white while I lie here….” We see him face and try to alleviate the disquiet: “Making the most of every day that we have / Waiting outside the big machine, what do I fear? / It’s not so cold, I’m in a gown, dressed for now / Fear not the coming days, heal now in all our ways / In the gown for now / dressed in a gown for now….”
Well-placed piano phrases add depth as the album’s tone shifts to cautious hope: “This is your lucky day, I have no doubt… You might not make it back, I don’t know where you’ve gone / But if you get in touch, we’ll sing you a song.” Malcolm Grant’s drums pound and quicken, Kate Woodward’s winding lead guitar and harmonies emerge, the rhythm guitar jangles through the lively “A Line to the Stars” (“Push your feet up against the sky, be at one with the universe”) and fuzz-laden “Corner Coming Up.”
The throughline of every song is perseverance in the face of the inevitable and the importance of basking in the here and now: “Don’t forget to wonder, don’t forget to learn.” With classic Bats jauntiness, “A Crutch, A Post” encourages: “All those things you lean upon, are they running away? / Try and count the stars in the corner of the sky… / A crutch, a post, something to hold us up / I’m just outside, counting the mountains / Never know--some may be gone.”
Sadness (“Some say the writing’s on the wall”) and acceptance (“You’ll find your way home”) emerge in “Smallest Fall,” and “Tidal.” The penultimate song, “Eyes Down,” is quiet and somberly repetitive, bringing peace.
With eyes raised once more, the superb closer, “Loline,” chugs sturdily along like the bicycle of its title, with fuzzy reverb and a hopeful, bouncing beat. Loline is a model of road bike made by--appropriately enough--Healing Industries. -Tina Woelke
UPCOMING
Her Head’s On Fire at Schubas Tavern - Dec 5, 8:00 PM
Titling their 2022 debut album, College Rock and Clove Cigarettes, gives you a fair sense of the jumping off point for this quartet of indie music vets. Taking inspiration from a Dag Nasty song lyric, Her Head’s On Fire melodic, crunchy guitar rock would co-exist rather seamlessly with the ’80s/‘90s alternative playlists that were spilling forth from university radio stations at the time. Their 2024 follow-up, Strange Desires, was recorded by their guitarist Jeff Dean (Deep Tunnel Project, The Bomb) in Chicago with a co-production assist from Jason Narducy. Frontman Joseph Grillo (aka Sid Jagger) has a strong vocal presence that stands up to the aggressive backing of his bandmates. They’re opening for friend J. Robbins (Jawbox, Burning Airlines), with whom they shared a split single with when first surfacing as a band. -Bruce Novak
Golden Smog at The Vic Theatre - Dec 9, 7:30 PM
Since 2022 the core members of Golden Smog (Dan Murphy of Soul Asylum, Kraig Johnson of Run Westy Run, and Gary Louris & Marc Perlman of The Jayhawks) have been gathering around the year-end holiday season in the Twin Cities for an annual show. For the first time in over three years, Wilco’s Jeff Tweedy will be joining them again for a run of three special shows this month (in Jersey City, NYC & Chicago). Down through the years the line-up has been fluid—in addition to the aforementioned core members, Dave Pirner (Soul Asylum) & Chris Mars (The Replacements) took part in recording their initial EP in 1992, and Jody Stephens (Big Star) started participating at the end of 1996 before giving way to current drummer Steve Gorman (Black Crowes) in 2023.
Originally, strictly a cover band, that changed in 1996 as the group harnessed the wealth of their songwriting talents across four albums, with the last one arriving in 2007. Their album material is generally rooted in alt-country, but their shows are still littered with a smattering of covers from across the rock spectrum. Expect to experience an all-out love fest as this collection of renowned performers take a well-deserved victory lap. -Bruce Novak
Sorry at Lincoln Hall - Dec 11, 8:00 PM
London’s Sorry forged an identity early on for their chameleonic musical approach. Able to metamorphize between elements of hyperpop, post-punk, electroclash and jazz, they function with a nonlinear unpredictability. Their new record COSPLAY explores the ramifications when imitation becomes the sincerest form of flattery. In other words, how do we progress creatively when the basis of our ideas are culled from what’s already been presented? While certainly not reinventing the playbook, Sorry is successful in providing new context for their work that continues to evolve while still being captivating. -Bruce Novak
UNCOVERED
Able Tasmans - A Cuppa Tea and A Lie Down (Flying Nun Records LP)
This 1987 debut album from Able Tasmans was among one the most ambitious efforts to come out of the deep Flying Nun catalog. After recording The Tired Sun EP as a trio, co-founder Graeme Humphreys was compelled to go bigger in order to execute his vision for the band. Peter Keen was added on vocals, along with guitarist Dave Tennent, organist Leslie Jonkers, and new drummer Stuart Greenway, joining Humphreys and bassist Dave Beniston. All told 23 individuals were enlisted to contribute to the record, all of them captured in a group photo on the album’s back cover. In his book, Needles & Plastic, author Matthew Goody notes that people outside of their native Auckland, “who had never seen the band live, thought Able Tasmans had come out of some hippie commune.”
The expanded line-up brought a new level of diversity and eclecticism to their music. The swirling, psychedelic-tinged “What Was That Thing?” is an earlier composition that was temporarily shelved but sparkles under the new band treatment. “Little Hearts” and “Sour Queen” are baroque pop pleasures, and “Evil Barbeque” comes on like a twisted two-step country sing along. The pastoral “Fa Fa Fa Fa” gives off Fairport Convention folk vibes accentuated by the interplay between Humphreys’ piano playing and Jane Leggett’s flute interludes. After being long out of print, Flying Nun partnered with Captured Tracks in 2015 to reissue A Cuppa Tea and A Lie Down in a deluxe edition format that includes The Tired Sun EP and three additional bonus tracks. -Bruce Novak
We recommend listening along over at our Spotify page. Here’s this week’s content: