6 upcoming albums from Madison bands that will be playing soon on a stereo near you
Peaking Lights have a new album, 936, coming out later this year.
The Hussy, Cement Tomb Mind Control
Release date: October
Why you’ll want to hear it: For the last few years, this duo of Madisonian garage-punks has been cranking out infectious two-minute blasts of conversational shouting, hissing guitar riffs, and rhythmic pummeling from drummer Heather Sawyer. After a couple of seven-inches, vocalist-guitarist Bobby Hussy’s spastic, guitar-trashing live presence has been put to tape for an entire album.
What you can expect: “This record was literally recorded in a cement tomb of a basement over on Willy Street. This is the longest we’ve ever spent recording anything. I did all the engineering, so we could really take our time and get things how we wanted them,” Hussy said. “Our first and last seven-inches fell into trash-punk and garage, and our middle seven-inch had more of a ’50s pop streak that made it a little tame when compared to a typical Hussy record. This LP is a little of both, but it expands our sound a lot with more overdubs.”
Peaking Lights, 936
Release Date: Late November-December
Why you’ll want to hear it: Peaking Lights always pull its listeners into a faded Polaroid of the Pacific Ocean whenever the ethereal pop sensibilities of vocalist-keyboardist Indra Dunis join forces with the reverberated guitar and twitching sonics of Aaron Coyes. You can bet that the album will be crawling with warm sounds from electrical Frankenstein Coyes’ suitcases of self-rewired household electronics, rewired guitar pedals, and manipulated thrift-store keyboards.
What you can expect: Dunis said, “Lyrically, it comes from the heart: I sing about love, loss, and nature. It’s got a lot of dub influence. We also experiment with dance beats on top of Aaron’s endless layering of organic synth sounds.”
Man Mantis, Cities Without Houses
Release date: January 2011
Why you’ll want to hear it: Whether punching out infectious grooves for the Dumate crew or keeping the sci-fi pulse for J. Dante, Man Mantis has built his own hip-hop Mount Rushmore in Madison, with that gnarly bug-mask he dons at live shows etched into the front.
What you can expect: “I wanted to try doing my own thing. I like to show that you can create new material by only working on other people’s work or using pre-recorded sounds. A painter is limited by color, a writer is limited by language, and what I’m doing is limited to songs that I find on vinyl,” Mantis said. “However, I do play a lot of instruments on Cities: I program bass lines, drums, and synthesizer. I even play a fair amount of guitar and hand percussion. Oh, and there are auto-tuned whales. That should be a huge selling point.”
All Tiny Creatures, Harbors
Release date: January 2011 on Hometapes
Why you’ll want to hear it: Leader Thomas Wincek recently quit Milwaukee’s Collections Of Colonies Of Bees to concentrate on ATC and releasing the follow-up to 2009’s Segni, and the first single, “An Iris,” beautifully reflects that focus.
What you can expect: “Harbors represents an alternate universe where pop songs are crafted using process-oriented techniques. There are hooks for you to catch your ear on, but we’ll never play these songs on a stool with an acoustic guitar,” Wincek said. “The sounds are the song, and they are inextricably linked to whatever method we are using at a given time.”
Caustic, The Golden Vagina Of Fame And Profit
Release date: 2011
Why you'll want to hear it: On his website (the excellently named tellmeaboutmyuterus.com), Caustic, a.k.a. Matt Fanale, admits to hitting rock bottom and subsequently quitting drinking at the end of recording his previous album, And You Will Know Me By The Trail Of Vomit. But now he’s in a much better place and laser-focused on having fun.
What you can expect: “It’s basically a love note (maybe more [of] a stalker letter) to all the dance music that got me into making this stuff,” Fanale said, adding that Golden Vagina will have a more official release than Trail Of Vomit. “I’m in the process of lining up labels, so nothing definite yet, but this one will have an actual European release as well as [a] North American.”
Julian Lynch, Terra
Release date: TBA on Underwater Peoples
Why you’ll want to hear it: According to Lynch, Terra could come out his year, making it his second full-length of 2010. Yet the rapid productivity has only seemed to enhance the songwriting on Terra, which will have to stand alongside the excellent Mare.
What you can expect: “Terra is definitely thematically and musically linked to Mare (hence the complementary titles, if you happen to be a Latin speaker),” Lynch said in an e-mail. We’re not, but Googling revealed mare means sea and terra means land. He added, “Some of the tracks might have a little bit more in common with my usual live set, too, as there are a couple longer, clarinet-oriented sections. But, overall, this is mostly an album of songs.”
