I was a big fan of the first two Goon Sax albums, so I preordered the new one, especially since the first two singles ("In the Stone," song of summer 2021? and "Psychic") were so good. A slender digipak CD showed up in my mailbox yesterday. Props to a certain large indie for continuing to put out CDs for the cheapskates among us, even if the script font they use doesn't work so well at the smaller scale.
I've only listened to it a few times so far, but so far so good. Things get a lot weirder after the first couple songs.
It's been interesting following the press about this album. The young hipsters in the band name-drop some absurd artists in the press release like Les Rallizes Desnudes (did I recall that correctly? It feels better not to fact-check this one) and Jandek. Reminds me of myself when I was that age, name-dropping DNA or Pere Ubu or something while making garden-variety sad-sack home-taper indie-pop. The press has dutifully stenographed said name-drops because it makes them feel cool themselves to name-drop Luh Rallizay Duhnood or Jaandeqq in their article about this weird little indie-pop band. What a world.
James' songs in particular are very interesting, particularly the all-over-the-place "Temples," sounding not so much like the Representative from Corwood Industries as, well, a high-budget version of Crabstick? Which is actually totally great, but no points with the prestige music media if you name-drop Crabstick (45 views on YouChoob). A bit of on-own-planet wildness that reminds me of Eric Gaffney zagging hard against Lou Barlow. I worry about schisms, but for now things are holding together OK.
