Every Friday, On Vinyl features 88Nine music director Erin Wolf and Lilliput Records co-owner Tanner Musgrove delivering their top picks and a list of this week’s other releases, so the can’t-miss new albums don’t pass you by.
Lilliput pick: Wishy, Nature's Pill
Wishy’s newest full-length captures a world where life feels unpredictable and overwhelming. Yet there's still a brimful of possibility the band share, Romantic frustration, neurotic desire and the melodrama of humanity congeals across this bundle of songs for something relatable, roiling and soothing.
Across the board, Wishy’s sonic trademarks are there. Poetic and playful lyrics that shift melancholia into freedom. Singalong choruses. And an undeniable fusion of sugary dream-pop, indie rock and grunge that hits hard and leaves a lovely swirl of broadly spanning alternative and indie sounds.
Greg Freeman, All Set the Bone
Vermont-born, Chicagoan Greg Freeman calls his third album a “reflection of a lot of change, and a lot of tension.” The personal and the political crash together on an album with a “sense of time running out; of us becoming stuck in the trajectory of our own history.”
Produced by the legendary John Congleton, the songs of All Set the Bone — like past Freeman releases — trace its musical fingers on the spangled lines of ’70s-era Big Star and dusty alt-folk from Jason Molina, as well as indie classics like pre-Good News Modest Mouse and early Pavement. But it also shows a new obsession with the post-punk of Fugazi and Unwound with its heavier dirges.
Ahead of the release, Freeman shared that he was barely done making his second album, Burnover, when he started writing the songs that became All Set the Bone — a collection that came together surprisingly fast, as if by a sheer natural force. “I had this epiphany moment,” he said, “where I understood what the next record should be.”
Dev Lemons, hunting what we already killed
The Philly-based artist born Devon Marie Vonder Schmalz creates magnetic confessional bedroom pop that runs the gamut of shimmering shoegaze, soulful bedroom pop and emo. Further boosting her sound and adding even more layers, she’s capably climbed to new heights through what she calls “scary short films” shared via TikTok.
Those vids’ appeal? They’re an oddball mix of comedy sketches, horror and clip-art animations, using visuals not unlike the early days of Microsoft Windows. When paired with the swirling sonic layers of her psychedelic dream pop, Dev Lemons conjures up both an untapped nostalgia and emotions so real that you can almost touch them.
Fat Dog, Cancel Me (I'm Tired)
London industrial techno-rock band Fat Dog formed in 2020 and quickly became known for their wild shows and seriously unserious spirit, which is fully encapsulated on their latest release.
They shared that there’s a feeling of frustration throughout the full load of songs, especially on the title track that was inspired by John Lennon’s “How Do You Sleep.” Frontman/songwriter Joe Love said the song imagines “what Anatolian rock experimentalists Altın Gün would sound like if they were under siege from a thumping club beat.”
The full album’s 10 songs mash up electro-pop anthems, cascading rave bangers, cowboy-tinged pitstops and swirling psychedelia (as they describe it), purging themes of addiction, family ties, love, AI, ancestry, extraterrestrials and more. Cancel Me (I’m Tired) carries a similar rabid frenzy and electrifying excitement to 2024 debut WOOF but gets even more messily grand.
More of our picks
- Emily A. Sprague, Cyano
- Helen, Linda’s Head
- Johnny Marr, The Age of Everything
- Meshell Ndegeocello, Synonym
- Pokey LaFarge, Rent Money
- stef chura, Dancing Alone on the Concrete
- VACATIONS, Pursuit of Anything
- Vanishing Twin, Archives
