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THE RECORD EXCHANGE REVIEW: TATI ON AMYL AND THE SNIFFERS’ ‘CARTOON DARKNESS’

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November 11, 2024 - The Record Exchange Blog - by - No Comments

Artist: Amyl and the Sniffers
Album: Cartoon Darkness
Reviewer: Tatiana Silva

Amyl and the Sniffers’ junior album is nothing groundbreaking in the sound of Aussie pub rock, but the attitude of frontwoman Amy Taylor easily carries this album into my top 10 for 2024. Like the short-lived, euphoria-inducing inhalant the band is named after, Cartoon Darkness is 33 minutes of bullshit-ridding incantation backed by the same inebriating instrumentation that got me hooked with their 2021 album Comfort to Me. 

One of my favorite mantras from the album’s “U Should Not Be Doing That” highlights the growth in musicianship from this Melbourne-based pub-rock punk quartet:

I’m working own my worth, I’m working on my work, I’m working on who I am

I’m working on what is wrong, what is right, and where I am

Amy gives us her most complex melodies to date, we hear saxophone for the first time in “U Should Not Be Doing That” and the band proves they’re more than just rowdy pub rockers with debut ballads “Big Dreams” and “Bailing on Me.” Lyrically I am obsessed with Taylor’s bluntness in disregarding the opps (misogynists, racists, fascists and, well, anyone just generally f*cking up the vibe). I do have to throw a bit of shade on the “they didn’t want to see us succeed” trope that comes up throughout the album, as the band was touring internationally and opening for acts like Foo Fighters within the first year of their self-titled debut in 2019, which also went on to win the 2019 ARIA Best Rock Album of the Year. I am grateful to have downtempo moments in Cartoon Darkness to flesh out my admiration for Taylor while she sings about heartbreak and wanting to escape a place that feels inescapable. It’s a unique feeling to feel like you’re growing with a band, as Comfort to Me did not find me well but served as a driving force to get me to where I am today. The switch-up in styles has me genuinely eager to hear what new sounds and ideas the band will conjure in following projects, and how I will also have grown and changed by the next time we meet. 

Amyl and the Sniffers continue to be the band that I would recommend when you need to lock in to just surviving the next day (because sometimes it be like that). With all of their albums ringing in below 40 minutes, they know how to drive a beat forward with clear, crisp dictation that can be dicey to find within the genre. Taylor’s lyrics read like spells and will easily have you sold on sticking things out to spite it all. 

In the chance you don’t need any of Taylor’s spellwork lyricism, I’d highlight “Tiny Bikini” and “Doing In Me Head” as instant on-repeat tracks, the kind that feel eerily familiar but also so tingly new you can’t stop until you’re absolutely sick of them. “Chewing Gum” is mid-tempo for the album and pulled at my heartstrings, as I’m a big cheesehead for any gum/love reference ever since I heard Air’s “Playground Love.” The penultimate track, “Going Somewhere,” has a dark, flirty playfulness that leads us into the final track “Me and the Girls,” which holds my favorite mantra: 

Me and the girls are stealing our napkins, me and the girls don’t want to be taxed

Me and the girls want free abortions, you and the boys can’t even get waxed

Me and the girls, we don’t want protection, me and the girls don’t want to be boxed

Me and the girls are gonna go party, you and the boys can shut the fuck up

So I am once again pouring my wee little heart out and asking you to indulge in less than an hour of primal, somatic and strutty chords. And if you’re an overachiever, watch the official music video for “U Should Not Be Doing That” – all I have to say is Steven Ogg.

Until next time! 

XOXO Tati

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THE RECORD EXCHANGE REVIEW: TATIANA ON LOLA YOUNG’S ‘THIS WASN’T MEANT FOR YOU ANYWAY’

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October 7, 2024 - The Record Exchange Blog - by - No Comments

Artist: Lola Young
Album: This Wasn’t Meant For You Anyway
Reviewer: Tatiana Silva

This Wasn’t Meant For You Anyway is the ambitious and unafraid Lola Young’s sophomore album. Lola hails from the UK and rose to place fourth in the BBC Sound of 2022 list after being nominated for the Brit Rising Star Award in 2021. Her downtempo dreamy cover of “Together in Electric Dreams” for the John Lewis Christmas Advert in 2021 solidly put her on the map, but her fans know she’s been on the scene since 2019. Lola is no stranger to great talent and has Solomonophonic (Jared Solomon) as her righthand man and executive producer. He is most known for his work with Remi Wolf, Brockhampton and Dominic Fike.

I discovered Lola Young while mindlessly scrolling on whichever platform I was on at the time and immediately was taken aback by the stark freshness of the familiarity Young portrayed in her videos. Singing directly into the phone camera anywhere from public transport, a laundromat or a busy intersection about things like heartbreak and why she could never fit a particular mold. While a DIY approach could potentially inhibit an artist from conveying their full expression, this is the rawness Lola wants to depict and certainly details lyrically in her music.

This Wasn’t Meant For You Anyway is one to be belted and one to be listened to in its entirety. Lola processes her pain, anguish, self-hatred, love lost, love gained and “weird other things.” She admits that it was a very strenuous process to write but equally cathartic and amazing on a spiritual level. Which was always meant to be the case, as the album wasn’t meant for you anyway. Yet I am eternally grateful that this project was in fact shared.

Lola is honest and forthcoming in her struggles with mental health, being diagnosed with schizoaffective disorder, and traversing the ever-rocky love realm. Lola writes straight from the heart and by order of experience and intuition, making for almost too fine-pointed lyrics that she laughs at the fact that she must remember to keep some of it metaphorical (namely the choruses) so that she isn’t just singing directly to the person.

This Wasn’t Meant For You Anyway is 11 tracks but might as well be a 12-step program for the heartbroken. Opening song “Good Books” hits with the zinger, “I work hard to stay in your good books but you don’t read so why do I try?” The proceeding tracks “Conceited,” “Wish You Were Dead” and “Big Brown Eyes” are the ones meant for belting at the top of your lungs in an interpretive somatic rage fashion. Lola fully opens the door into her universe, as “Messy” could be sung about your relationship to anyone, never being quite enough of anything to check the green box. Hold on because “Walk On By” and “You Noticed” will have you wanting a hot candlelit bath to sob in. Breakups open the door for new entanglements; “Crush” and “Fuck” touch on the fine line of moving on and falling into old habits. The album closes with a solemn and gentle ode to Lola’s intrusive thoughts. And like a Marvel movie if you wait until the very very very end, there’s bits of pure gold that I’ll just let you discover on your own.

I truly believe that Lola Young has created an album that deserves any and all attention and accolades it receives. This Wasn’t Meant For You Anyway is a cathartic indie-pop album written for the soul and not for the glorification of fame and the rich. The type of album I am already daydreaming about singing to when I have a tough bout, one that my future children will probably hear over and over, an album to revisit, and like a catch-up with a friend that feels like the most oxygen you’ve had in weeks.

Lola is currently on tour in the US and is playing Portland and Seattle at the end of the month. She claims to love the energy of American crowds so let’s see if we can get her to stop in Boise on the next tour! In the meantime, grab the record (they’re red and hand-numbered!) and thanks for reading!

XOXO Tati

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THE RECORD EXCHANGE REVIEW: TATIANA ON REYNA TROPICAL’S MUST-LISTEN DEBUT DOCU-ALBUM ‘MALEGRÍA’

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August 12, 2024 - The Record Exchange Blog - by - No Comments

Artist: Reyna Tropical
Album: Malegría
Reviewer: Tatiana Silva

Reyna Tropical expresses what it is like to traverse this universe as a diasporic person on her debut album Malegría, released by Psychic Hotline, an artist-led label founded by Amelia Meath and Nicholas Sanborn of Sylvan Esso. Malegría documents the past four years of Fabi Reyna’s life – an exploration of identity, voice and grief told through entrancing riffs, chilling sound clips and sultry vocals. Reyna Tropical is the unapologetically queer guitarist who is running where the likes of Chavela Vargas paved to be a voice in the Latin and queer diaspora. Malegría‘s 20 tracks, ringing in at 43 minutes, take us through the bittersweetness of being everything and nothing all at once and more importantly, what it’s like to be happy and sad at once.

Malegría’s cover art depicts Fabi crouched with her bare back to us and with a blue-and-yellow macaw acting as her wings. This image perfectly captures the sounds that carry us through the process of grief on the album. We hear sound clips of intimate conversations as interludes detailing moments of shared joys and struggles. “Radio Esperanza” brings the message, “We do not need your permission to be liberated.” “Singing” is a conversation between Fabi and her late bandmate Sumo about Fabi finding a purpose in using her voice. Another, “Mestizaje,” details the struggle of colonization and conflicting views of legacy in mixed families. Fabi admits to choosing these interludes a little last-minute, which ultimately allowed for her intuition to shine as an artist and a storyteller because they are easily what I think made this album a must-listen, if even just to hear the story once.

Beyond the vulnerability Fabi gives us, it is nearly impossible to not dance when listening to any of Malegría’s musical tracks. Fabi is no stranger to getting hot on the dance floor and brings in a leading light of the new global dance underground, Busy Twist, and Colombia’s Best Electronic Act winner, percussionist Franklin Tejedor, on the track “Suavecito.” The lush landscapes Fabi paints layer the space with refreshing, revitalizing and raw energy that instantly lifts your spirit. You can find yourself in a completely different dimension if you allow yourself to succumb to the movement of the cumbia-based beats colored with nature and cityscape samples. Malegría can transcend even the most stagnant perspective.

Fabi finds resolve in the last track “Huitzilin”:

Al fin me siento
Mi alma, mi mente, mi cuerpo
Estoy aprendiendo, ah
Sonido de un respiro, antes no lo había oído

Translation:

I finally feel
My soul, my mind, my body
I’m learning, ah
Sound of a breath, I had not heard it before
This is my moment, the rest is the movement

“Huitzilin” translates to “hummingbird” in Nahuatl, an Uto-Aztecan language, who is said to be a fallen soldier who reincarnated into a hummingbird after a battle. His wife Xochitl reincarnated into a flower so as to keep their vow to always be with each other in every realm. I take this as a promise Fabi makes to always honor the earth, the beauty of our existence and the gift of being able to connect through a plethora of realms and have all of them be true. There is no doubt Reyna Tropical is one of the top global artists of 2024, and for now let’s cross our toes and fingers she makes a stop in Boise soon!

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