Garbanotas – Hey Love
Genre: Dream-pop, Rock, Punk
There’s only so much that you can sit around playing power-chords and choppy rhythms without beginning to wonder what other sorts of sounds those instruments can produce. It’s only natural that by playing you’ll get better, and, frankly, there’s no real way to stop this unless you make halting your progress your main objective.
This is what the original punk bands that hung long enough to mature found out. Playing what was, essentially, vamped-up 50s rock n’ roll couldn’t be their main occupation throughout a lengthy and rewarding career. This is where the goth, post-punk, and experimental waves diverged. Frankly, many of these were much more interesting than what had preceded the styles preceding them.
Lithuanian group Garbanotas sounds like they’ve contemplated a similar issue. Their solution is Hey Love a song that drips like water from a tub overflowing upstairs. It’s punk-rock turned down to its slowest and most mysterious elements. The result is a tune that ends up sounding like a retro spy movie soundtrack. Could this be the start of a romance James Bond franchise?
Public Body – Formica
Genre: Post-Punk
Similar artists: Parquet Courts, Ought, Girl Band, Viagra Boys, Thee Oh Sees, shame, Egyptian Blue, Courting
I find it interesting that nearly have a century after the fact, it is not angry punk-rock a la the Sex Pistols that are the default sound meant to express alienation, hopelessness, and mistrust of society, even though the Pistols get all the nice spots in the music docs.
Instead, it’s post-punk the vein of the Fall that seems to have had the biggest impact, especially in Britain. It turns out, I gather, that those snazzy clothes that Malcolm Mclaren decked his groups in proved a little too much for the future generations. Most people, on the other hand, wouldn’t even be able to describe what Mark E. Smith looked like. Good!
Public Body’s Formica is born out of that music and reflects a new kind of despondency. It’s one born out of the responsibilities and comforts of modern life. The band powers through their funky post-punk arrangement while shouting out their frustration like a pub-dweller after a few too many pints and a long journey back on the public transport.
