Hannah's Mid-Year Roundup

Feat. Sabrina Song, Eliana Glass, Bella Kay, and more

Starting with some brief shout-outs before going into writeups of songs I’ve enjoyed recently. In the meantime, check out the remixes I mixed for Jack Riedy and the EP I mastered for Serena Clara, featuring previous Transient Peak guest TWST.

But first, a recap of the Pitchfork reviews I’ve done this year:

Favorite tracks from albums I reviewed:

Mumford & Sons - Prizefighter: the genuinely beautiful "Prizefighter "(I’m convinced this song is about Laura Marling lol Marcus still isn’t over it)

August Ponthier - Everywhere Isn’t Texas : the ebullient “Betty”, but “Angry Man” has stuck with me most.

Lauren Auder - Whole World as Vigil: the heartfelt “Candles”

Julia Cumming - Julia: the complex, time-signature-agnostic “Revel in the Knowledge”

MX Lonely - ALL MONSTERS: the rambunctious “Return to Sender”

Sadie - Better Angels: the 2-step/garage bop “Better Angels”

Noah Kahan - The Great Divide: the guilt-suffused “All Them Horses”

Searows - Death in the Business of Whaling: the shockingly effective slowcore “Dearly Missed”

Mon Rovia - Bloodline: the stunning, constantly building “Pray The Devil Back To Hell”

Eli - Stage Girl (Not Just a Dream Anymore): the Ayleen Valentine collab “Love U Thru The DJ”, but also “F**k The DJ” if you want maximalism

Zoh Amba - Eyes Full: the shambling “Dead End Street”

Favorite albums I haven’t reviewed:

Star Moles - Highway to Hell RIYL: Charlotte Cornfield, Kevin Ayers

i26 Connector - i26 Connector RIYL: Songs:Ohio, Wednesday

Slayyyter - Worst Girl in America RIYL: Underscores, Ke$ha

The Femcels - I Have To Get Hotter RIYL: Sidney Gish, Wet Leg, Daria

The Twilight Sad - It’s The Long Goodbye RIYL: The Cure, Frightened Rabbit

Cola - Cost of Living Adjustment RIYL: Ought (RIP), Geese

Cootie Catcher - Something We All Got RIYL: Frankie Cosmos, Water From Your Eyes

Hannah's Discoveries

Big Fear - Darling Boy

RIYL: Let’s Eat Grandma, Alt-J (complimentary)

I first found Big Fear because my colleague Emma Madden sent me the wonderfully obsessive “Culture Cannibal” - they share a producer with Alt-J, but I prefer Big Fear’s music because it’s much more lyrically ambitious than whatever Alt-J were doing back in the day. “Darling Boy” is about a mother slowly watching her son get radicalized; from the description on their Bandcamp, it’s basically what it would be like to be the mother of Patrick Bateman. A less interesting song would end at 2:15 for streaming/Tiktok reasons, but that’s when this takes off, with synths that oddly remind me of 70s prog rock; yes, like Genesis! I’m really liking these weirdos, and I hope they indulge their weird side on future releases.

Maddie Ashman - Dark

RIYL: Bjork, Madison Cunningham, Angine de Poitrine

Microtonal music is having a moment right now thanks to Angine de Poitrine, and I can easily see the "gimmick" accusations settle in: a song like "Dark" only shows how many possibilities are left. Welsh musician Maddie Ashman toured with fellow microtonal weirdos King Gizzard and the Lizard Wizard, performed with Jon Hopkins and Leo Abrahams, and releases through Sony’s indie arm AWAL, so I wouldn't be shocked to see her become a big deal soon.

"Dark" is a re-recording of a song she created last year as part of the "Otherworld" project; this song depicts her grandmother's complicated relationship with her own mother, and the music captures that ambivalence. I love the way the vocals and guitars are almost always in unison: the melody is rife with vocal flips and descending lines, and she follows herself on guitar every quarter-step of the way. Lastly, it's fun to see something go viral on Instagram Reels that isn't pandering to an algorithm: the comments are utterly confused by this inscrutable piece of music that has somehow breached containment.

Light Bird - Big Time Texter

RIYL: Joss Stone, Norah Jones, Brandi Carlile

Danni Hoshino realized she was transgender weeks before her wedding, and she’s spent the next few years working on this debut LP. I never see trans women in this bluesy space, and it’s a treat to hear someone approach a genre that’s never included her. I like the very straightforward, unfussy production that prioritizes Hoshino’s vocal harmonies and formidable guitar playing. (several songs include drifting, flowy piano overdubs). This song cracks me up: I didn’t expect to hear a blues-rock song about Brooklyn polyamory, but that’s exactly what’s appealing about Light Bird as an artist. Also, there’s a Billy Joel cover. What’s not to like?

Sabrina Song - Background Actor

RIYL: Lizzy McAlpine, Asha Banks

Prime adult-alternative throwback, self-produced with Stolen Jars’ Cody Fitzgerald (their record I Won’t Let Me Down should have been much bigger). It’s very Lilith Fair/John Shanks 00s pop rock, and I’m a mark for that kind of sound. There’s enough going on - like the appropriate spiraling out when she confesses to spiraling out - to distance itself from that famously overly polished moment in pop. If anything, it reminds me a bit of the Gracie Abrams songs I like, but in a positive way: Sabrina Song has a significantly higher batting average, and is actually willing to experiment with her sound. On her own terms, though, this is just great, catchy, well-crafted pop music; I see why she’s opened for the Ophelias and August Ponthier, acts who also approach an oversaturated genre of music on their own terms.

Cold Court - Burn

RIYL: Bassvictim, 24/7 Spyz

A lot of the recent wave of hyperpop hasn’t done as much for me, but this Philly band, led by Mini Serrano and Jojo Lavina-Maldonado, completely clicked from the moment I heard the opening of “Nina”. Their debut record is out next week, called \ (^_^) / (pronounced “Hands Up”), and it’s the rare “genreless” band genuinely impossible to pin down. It helps the band is rooted in live instrumentation; as online as their music sounds, they’ve opened for Black Midi and Geese, and I also hear traces of early 90s rock like 24/7 Spyz and The Veldt in their genre anarchy. “Burn” started out as a house-inspired track, but kept growing as they learned Ableton, piling on more ideas via email and eventually getting their full band together – including drummer Jett Mann, who adds a ton to this song. The result is only slightly less nonsensical than it sounds due to the pop structure underneath; this kicks ass.

Eliana Glass - Good Friends Call me E

RIYL: Nina Simone, Anastasia Coope, Sibylle Baier

I saw Glass open for Sadie and was captivated by her deep, mournful contralto. As a rule, I try not to do overtly abstract writing; I always feel like that “bodies and spaces” tweet, and my niche is explaining why something works on the technical side. But in my notes, I wrote things like "an apparition that perishes when trying to hold it" and "staring into the sun". My colleague Joshua Minsoo Kim interviewed Glass, and the sheer amount of esoteric namedrops in that interview makes me eager to explore more in this space.

Glass recently released an EP of lo-fi demos that approach Daniel Johnston at times, if Johnston had more complex chord voicings of course. In the demo, Glass sings around the eventual melody, and it’s fascinating to hear how that stream of consciousness translates to the final version. I was in Jazz Band in high school, but as an untreated neurodivergent piano player (above-average ear but too dysfunctional to be a savant, the worst kind of autistic!), I never really fit in with how bro-y it got; this sounds like the way back.

Bella Kay - Say it Say

RIYL: Olivia Rodrigo, Gigi Perez

Hello again, Idarose! Bella Kay’s emerged out of nowhere this year - there are a lot of songwriters like her, but I appreciate her willingness to indulge in toxicity. This EP is called “are you mad at me?” Her music is something of a playground for Idarose, where rubber bridge guitars appear on a very new wave-inspired track. If Aaron Dessner produced the Weeknd’s “Blinding Lights”, it wouldn’t be far off.

Hipsy Gap - Buzzer Beater

RIYL: Pool Kids, MX Lonely

Just as the Liberty find their footing and the Knicks face off against the Spurs, we have a song called Buzzer Beater. Apparently I know about basketball now? I do know about Midwest pop-punk-emo, and I'm happy to see its equivalent pop up in New York.

Their previous song “South” was wonderfully indebted to Pool Kids and Paramore, but “Buzzer Beater” suggests a more intriguing, jarring direction from this band. Even in its anthemic, very emo chorus (“scrape my knees to bleed for you!!!”), there are unusually heavy distorted guitars atop a weirdly Cranberries-y melody. A lot of these parts may be familiar, but they’re put together in a way that’s kept my interest.

Sofia and the Antoinettes - I Don’t Know What I’m Doing On Earth, I Don’t Know What On Earth I’m Doing

RIYL: Lola Young, Paris Paloma

This song is truly reverse gay Mambo No. 5, where Sofia Atkinson-Hieber details all her lost friendships and relationships with primarily other women. We don’t really get details beyond “we swung from chandeliers at the masquerade” or “We held hands under stars when we were eight”, but the cumulative effect matters more. I’ve always struggled with being genuinely close with people; the more I get, the more I want, and it inevitably leads to drifting apart or falling out. What I love is that the chorus goes “I never meant to hurt anyone”, but she admits in the second verse to betraying a friend: it’s not your fault and it’s something you have to take responsibility for. Where was I? Oh, right: produced by Dan Carey and mixed by Alan Moulder, the song is surprisingly sparse and drum-heavy for something that feels so deeply, grounding the track. For a song about instability, it goes down easy.