Staring in disbelief - out of body, out of place

Continuing my trip down The Guardian's top 50 albums of 2023

#44 : I've Seen A Way - Mandy, Indiana

If Gilla Band’s Most Normal deconstructed rock Cronenberg-style last year, then Manchester’s Mandy, Indiana strip away the genre scaffolding altogether to deal in realms of pure, eviscerating texture. Their debut summons cold gusts whipping down wet warehouse walls throbbed by punishing techno; funereal fanfares evaporating into the ether; disembodied squalls and swarms. It’s fantastically nasty, a feeling enhanced by their unsparing approach to rhythm and Francophone singer Valentine Caulfield’s equally percussive, sibilant glee as she riffs on various abject horrors. While many artists created worlds on their own terms in these uncertain times, Mandy, Indiana, like Lankum, reverberated in the abyss.

I've never heard of this lot and having read The Guardian's review above, I'm not entirely sure I want to listen to this album...

Ach, come on guys - it's not that bad!  It is very industrial and inaccessible, but no more so than anything else in this genre.  I kinda admire people that make such unlikeable sounds (and they've very artfully constructed unlikeable sounds), but I've no clue why anyone actually listens to them.  They do win the prize for the best track title so far though for "(ノ>ω<)ノ :。・:*:・゚’★,。・:*:♪・゚’☆ (Crystal Aura Redux)" - I tried to get Alexa to pronounce it and she was disappointingly boring about the whole thing.  I like the album cover as well - although it gives no clues as to the horrors that lie within...

Wikipedia tells me they're part of the "noise rock" genre (and I'm not going to argue with that) and the album was recorded in crypts, caves and shopping malls.  Once again, the critics got their bullshit thesauruses out to give us such beauties as "an idiosyncratic collision of familiar elements that blurs genres and defamiliarizes language".  And, somewhat strangely, the album didn't chart anywhere.

"Customers also listened to" Water From Your Eyes, bar italia, Nourished By Time and feeble little horse - some lovely names there for what are probably purveyors of not so lovely sounds.  I found this intriguing - not least as to why they bothered and who cared...

#43 : This Stupid World - Yo La Tengo

This Stupid World is a testament to the 40 years that Georgia Hubley and Ira Kaplan have been playing together (and 30 with bassist James McNew): the product of intentionally aimless improv sessions in their own space, closed off to the rest of the world, yet unavoidably guided by their distinct chemistry. Their humour lies in the unsettled dusky groove of Tonight’s Episode, which feels vigilant, playing its cards close to its chest; Until It Happens is just as quizzical and minimal. The distortion of the title track and Brain Capers is balanced out by Hubley’s sweet country song Aselestine, with its pedal steel lens flare, while the band’s innate sense of equilibrium combines in the dualities of Sinatra Drive Breakdown, as a cool motorik pulse calms sparking noise to brooding stillness. This Stupid World isn’t prescriptive about its outlook, but makes a good argument for tight community and understanding in the face of the idiocy outside your four walls.

Somewhat surprisingly, this is the second YLT album we've met on our travels.  I'm expecting to find it tolerable but not immediate - these things tend to take me several listens to get into them (if I ever bother going there).

And it sounds exactly like I was expecting - very low-key in a Belle & Sebastian kinda way.  And yes, it's very much not immediate - at first listen I'd actually say I thought it was rather bland (which The Guardian reviewer obviously didn't!).  I'll be generous and settle for "perfectly fine if you like that sort of thing" but I struggle to see the beauty myself.  With the notable exception of "Apology Letter" which I did quite like.

Wikipedia has an unexpectedly huge amount on the album (205 milliPeppers) - it tells me it's their seventeenth album (37 years after their debut) and the first one they've produced themselves.  The section on the critical reviews is massive and covers such esteemed publications as The Burlington County Times, The Shepherd Express, Business Insider and Iowa Public Radio - apparently everyone thought it was ace!  Pitchfork declared it to be "their liveliest album in decades" - whilst this album may be many things, it is certainly not lively.  It has charted in a few countries - I was somewhat surprised to see it's done best in Germany, getting to #18 because it doesn't feel like their sort of thing at all!

"Customers also listened to" Black Belt Eagle Scout, Andy Shauf, Young Fathers (really?) and Paranoull - yeah, that lot.  I know Yo La Tengo are highly regarded by many people and I'm sure they've done some lovely stuff, but I think it's fair to say that at first listen this didn't grab me.

A most peculliar pair of albums, both of which sound like the artists have gone out of their way to make something that, being generous, I think I can safely describe as not exactly immediate.  I can see that Yo La Tengo's could be a grower but I really struggle to imagine too many people are going to put Mandy, Indiana on repeat play - but I guess it takes all sorts...

#46/45 - Well, I definitely like one of them
#42/41 - A decent pair of albums