Still working through a few more records from 2023 that I hadn’t got to yet. This week we feature two very different Brooklyn-based musicians. Hotline TNT offer indie rock inspired by 1990s shoegaze. L’Rain serves up beautiful moments among her experimental textures.
Hotline TNT
Cartwheel
2023, 8.5/10
Brooklyn’s Hotline TNT is ostensibly a band. But it’s effectively a vehicle for Will Anderson, the band’s only constant member.
An interview with Stereogum describes Anderson as someone with a wide range of interests. Not only a musician, he’s been “a talk show host, a zine writer, a savvy social media presence, and a Mario Kart streamer”.
Hotline TNT are back with their second record, Cartwheel. They’re described as shoegaze, but it feels like a modern, American spin on the sound. Opener ‘Protocol’ has the gauzy electric guitars, but it’s also got lead guitar breaks. Anderson’s voice is likeable, low-key and vulnerable.
I like the sound so much that I don’t always take in the individual songs. Cartwheel often sounds like one excellent song, apart from an interlude for the woozy spoken word ‘That Was My Life’.
The fast riffing of ‘I Thought You’d Change’ is one highlight, as are the spiralling guitars of ‘History Channel’. ‘I Know You’ sounds like the work of a forgotten one-hit wonder from the 1990s.
Cartwheel is one of my favourite rock records of 2023.
L’Rain
I Killed Your Dog
2023, 8/10
Brooklyn’s Taja Cheek comes from a family entwined in the music business – her grandfather ran a jazz club and her father worked in record label marketing. Like Sade, L’Rain is both Cheek’s stage name, and the name of her eponymous band. L’Rain is derived from her mother’s first name, Lorraine.
Again, L’Rain incorporates found sounds into her work, taken from field recordings. And she still hurtles through tracks at a breakneck pace, with brief interludes meaning that 16 tracks go by in less than forty minutes.
But there are also differences. There’s more of a rock influence than before, dialling back the experimentation a little. The record reflects her own experience playing in guitar bands, with L’Rain playing most of the instruments. ‘Pet Rock’ has a guitar-heavy sound, more accessible than before.
Even when she’s weird, L’Rain throws up plenty of moments of beauty .They’re even more prevalent on this more mainstream record. ‘5 to 8 Hours a Day (WWwaG)’ is lovely with its stacked vocals. The title track is stripped back and lovely, with its gentle electric piano. The closer, ‘New Year’s Unresolution’, successfully dips into dance beats.
Even making music that’s inching closer to normality, L’Rain’s vision is still unique and lovely.
Read More
4 Comments
Leave a Reply
Read about the discographies of musical acts from the 1960s to the present day. Browse this site's review archives or enjoy these random selections:
I add new blog posts to this website every week. Browse the archives or enjoy these random selections:
Subscribe
Subscribe to receive new posts from Aphoristic Album Reviews.
Thanks G. I don’t know them, but I will look.
As far as NJ, we finally got the follow up for MGMTs masterpiece Oracular Spectacular in 2023. It has some good stuff.
Two young men who are very talented but also lazy.
I grabbed Congratulations from a thrift store back in the day and never really got into it. Maybe I should give it another chance though. Lots of people seem to love Little Dark Age from 2018.
I actually like both…Hotline TNT is more to my taste..very wide sounding and monotone…it stays level across…I do like the vocal.
L’Rain… at first I was like no…but the more I listened the more I liked it…in fact I probably like it best. I have to say also the video is very interesting.
L’Rain’s really cool. I don’t love everything she does, but she comes up with amazing tracks with her sonic alchemy.