Indie Basement: Best Songs & Albums of June 2023 - Pop It Records

Indie Basement is a weekly column on BrooklynVegan focusing on classic indie and alternative artists, "college rock," and new and current acts who follow a similar path. There are reviews of new albums, reissues, box sets, books and sometimes movies and television shows. I've rounded up May's best music, highlighting my favorite songs and albums, plus links to relevant features and news, a monthly playlist, and more.

Six months down, six to go. June was an exciting month including a whole of of goth-adjacent concerts (The Cure! Love & Rockets! Sisters of Mercy!), tons of news and a lot of great music as usual. I usually pick 10 songs write about each month but this time it spilled over to 13 songs, ranging from indie rock to disco, from big names to debut singles. Even some goth! Read about those below.

You can also check out the Indie Basement Mid-Year Report of 2023's Best Albums So Far.

June was also a great month for albums. I chose six to highlighgt below, and runners up include This is the Kit's Careful of Your Keepers, Lloyd Cole's On Pain, Creep Show's Yawning Abyss, and Jake Shears' Last Man Dancing. Read about the top six below

Also below are Spotify and Tidal playlists featuring all 13 songs, tracks from the six albums, plus all the other June stuff I really dug.

Slowdive - "kisses"

When Slowdive reunited in 2014, it was enough just to have them back, playing the classics, but it was actually the start of a surpringing, extremely rewarding second act. "kisses" is our first taste of the group's fifth album and is one of the best pop songs they've ever written. When the chorus hits, it's also a great showcase for Neil Halstead and Rachel Goswell's enduring vocal chemistry. All this while offering plenty of that gauzy guitar magic that made you fall for Slowdive in the first place.

Aphex Twin - "Blackbox Life Recorder 21f"

As much as I like Richard D. James' beat blender experiments that make you feel like your brain is going to explode a la Scanners, it's nice when he offers us something to grab onto. While Aphex Twin is never going to make normal music, "Blackbox Life Recorder 21f" is as close as it gets, with just enough wafts of melody to keep you oriented and a skittering beat that glitches out occasionally, threatening to totally fly off the rails, but never does.

Art Feynman - "All I Can Do"

Up until now, Luke Temple's Art Feynman records have all been made on a cassette four-track portastudio, embracing the lo-fi nature of the medium for some seriously groovy songs that sounded like Awesome Tapes From Africa by way of Klaus Dinger and Michael Rother. The new Art Feynman album, Be Good the Crazy Boys, was recorded live in the studio with a full band....and it's even better. Temple cites Grace Jones' Private LIfe and Talking Heads' Remain in Light as touchstones and "All I Can Do" revels in widescreen fidelity, top-notch musicianship and big hooks. For all the stuff that is going on here -- marimba, bongos, etc -- the playful backing vocals are the best little touch.

CHAI - "PARA PARA"

I was unfamiliar with Para Para, the two-step choreography many Japanese bands have for their own songs, but CHAI are here to educate and entertain. There's a real sense of fun to "Para Para," which mirrors the neo-Kawaii approach of CHAI's first album, and the video makes it all the better. Learn these steps in time for their tour!

The Chemical Brothers - "Live Again" ft Halo Maud

Don't count out the masters. Tom Rowlands and Ed Simons have been making crowd-pleasing electronica as The Chemical Brothers for 30 years and are still capable of greatness. "Live Again" is a four-on-the-floor banger of the highest order, made extra magical by Parisian artist (and indie basement fave) Halo Maud who brings shoegazy sweep and heavenly vocals.

Devendra Banhart - "Twin"

This is not the folky weirdo you remember. Having teamed with Cate Le Bon for his first album for Mexican Summer, Devendra Banhart enters the rain-soaked, neon-lit territory that is also soaked in synthesizers and fretless bass. Think Bowie's Berlin period, Japan or Bill Nelson, and Banhart's still gossamer falsetto fits naturally into this world.

Drab Majesty - "Vanity" (ft Rachel Goswell)

We get double Goswell this month. Slowdive's Rachel Goswell spent her teenage years as a smeary-eyed goth -- their band's named after a Siouxsie & The Banshees song -- and she gets to play up that side wonderfully and go full Elizabeth Frazer on this deliciously gloomy slow-jam by Drab Majesty that sounds like a lost classic from 1985.

Freak Heat Waves & Cindy Lee - "In a Moment Divine"

Divine indeed. With its chill, bongo-enhanced breakbeat, cresting synths and Cindy Lee's ghostly vocals, this collab with fellow British Columbia group Freak Heat Waves sounds like the kind of song that could've been a leftfield hit in the late '90s.

Girl Ray - "Love is Enough"

Girl Ray have been throwing notstop heaters off their upcoming album Prestige and that doesn't change with "Love is Enough," another wonderful, romantic, and dreamy disco number. Girl Ray say this is their favorite song off the album and while I'm not sure I agree, when those strings kick in they may just be right. But really you can't go wrong on this album as you'll all hopefully realize on August 4.

Hand Habits - "The Bust of Nefertiti"

The closing song on Hand Habits' new mini-LP Sugar the Bruise, "The Bust of Nefertiti" feels significant in the musical evolution of Meg Duffy, a transition from where they were to where they're going. It begins as a gentle rock song but seamlessly morphs into a house jam. You can listen 20 times and still wonder how Meg did that, still catching you off guard while doing so with grace.

Peggy Gou - "(It Goes Like) Nanana"

I have never been to Ibiza, certainly not when the original balearic scene was happening in the late '80s and early-'90s, but I have a fondness for the music, from New Order's Technique to 808 State's "Pacific." Peggy Gou's first single in two years instantly transports me there, laying on just the right layer of cheese from the classic house piano to the rolling electro-snares, faux classical guitar leads and the irresistible "nanana" chorus.

The Parade - "I'm a Dreamer"

I have also never been to Stockholm, but spent much of the early '00s searching Audiogalaxy for obscure Swedish indie bands after discovering The Radio Dept, Peter Bjorn and John, Labrador Records, etc. The Parade's debut single is like a time warp back to those days with its dubby beat, nostalgic atmosphere and melancholic melody. I know nothing about this group and that's exactly how it should be!

The Smile - "Bending Hectic"

The Smile have been playing this one live for a while, and you can tell listening to this studio version that that's how this one was born. "Bending Hectic" a fake-out with its first two thirds all Thom Yorke cooing over gentle guitar and gorgeous strings (courtesy the London Symphony Orchestra). But then the sky turns dark, those strings become foreboding, not unlike Jonny Greenwood's film scores, and like a thunderclap you're in a storm of epic rock grandeur. It's awesome and I hope to see them play it live soon.

Sweeping Promises - Hunger for a Way Out (Feel It / Sub Pop)

Signing to a Big Indie like Sub Pop doesn't seem to have changed Sweeping Promises one bit. Good Living Is Coming For You sounds like it was recorded on cassette and redubbed a few times, with a hissy compressed sound that is clearly a stylistic choice and doesn't detract from another wonderful back of razor-sharp earworms. The density of the hooks on these 10 songs, most under three minutes, is staggering, with basslines worthy of early Cure, slash-and-burn riffage, bleating sax, weirdo keyboards, drums that wallop without being showy, and Mondal's voice which just seems to have gotten better over the last three years. Across punky burners ("Eraser," "You Shatter"), nervy skronk ( "Connoisseur of Salt,") and dancy new wave pop ("Throw the Dice," "Walk in Place"), Sweeping Promises deliver the goods with confidence and swagger. [Read The Full Review]

Protomartyr - Formal Growth in the Desert (Domino)

For those who listened to Protomartyr's 2020 album Ultimate Success Today and thought "if this was made before the pandemic, what will a record made during it be like?," the answer is "pretty great." Formal Growth in the Desert is Protomartyr's best record since Under Cover of Official Right. The whole band seems energized and locked-in, and where Success felt unrelenting and bleak (some would say that's Protomartyr's thing on all records), here are they empowering. Casey hasn't lightened up, per se, but he doesn't sound quite as defeated. [Read the full review]

Baxter Dury - I Thought I Was Better Than You (Heavenly)

While he's still working within his self-described style of "narrative-based, blokey, indie type talk music" -- including his mastery of casual, flowery British slang and creative swearing -- I Thought I Was Better Than You is a much more focused, inspired, and better record than 2020's Night Chancers. Part of that is the subject matter but it's also the melodies and music; the album was produced by Paul White who has previously worked with Danny Brown, Charli XCX, and Sudan Archives. Bringing a hip hop sensibility on songs like "Celebrate Me," "Crowded Room," and "Aylesbury Boy" is like a missing piece from Baxter's wardrobe that now completes the look. There are still elements of dub, "indie guitar," and drippy strings, along with the invaluable work of vocalists Madeline Heart, Eska and JGrrey who serve as counterpoint narrators to these vivid tales of schoolyard fights, petty larceny and a famous dad who was on tour a lot. Baxter may never fully escape the shadow of his father -- or get arrested in America -- but 20 years into his career, Baxter Dury has developed a sound that may echo of the past but is entirely his own. [Read the full review]

Noel Gallagher's High Flying Birds - Council Skies (Sour Mash Records)

Noel Gallagher's greatest talent is as a quote machine that always pays out gold, but he remains a pretty great songwriter, and as long as he's making records as terrific as Council Skies (and still playing some oldies live), I'm totally OK with Oasis never getting back together. He may still be quick with an insult, but musically he has mellowed wonderfully and for the most part he's traded in his Les Paul and Marshall stacks in favor of an acoustic guitar and a string section. He's always had a great voice -- watch Oasis' MTV Unplugged -- and while his delivery has less attitude and swagger than his brother's, it's prettier and sounds at home in these 12 lush songs. [Read the full review]

Django Django - Off Planet (Because Music)

Born out of lockdown, Django Django's sprawling, guest-filled double album Off Planet is easily their most fun album since the first, with forays into house, afrobeats, disco, techno, new wave, reggae, acid jazz, you name it, alongside their signature brand of indie dance. You get a feeling the weren't concerned if it all held together or if they could ever play half of it live, and whether they'd be able to play everything live or not, which brings a freeing energy as well. The album was released not unlike Beach House's Once Twice Melody, with entire sides dropped in monthly installments, which makes each Planet its own mini-LP, featuring irresistible dancepop songs alongside crate-digger excursions, and that may be the best way to digest the record, by exploring one planet before moving on to the next strange new world. You may not make it through the whole thing at once, but it's all worth exploring and, if you keep this in rotation, you'll continue to make discoveries. [Read the full review]

King Krule - Space Heavy (Matador)

Space Heavy is King Krule's fourth album and first in three years, his first since the pandemic, and first since becoming a dad. Most of the lyrics were written on train trips from London to the Northwest of England where he now lives to visit his kid. "Train to the coast, four hours once a week," he sings on closer "Wednesday Overcast" against claustrophobic backing. "In the pub corner, surrounded by creeps...This place was forgotten from history.” (He knows how to set a scene.) Recording, meanwhile, was partially done in his studio, formerly known as his mom's bathroom which he converted into his own workspace. Sing where you sound best. [Read the full review]

Here's the Indie Basement: Best of June playlist in both Spotify and TIDAL form:

Looking for more? Browse the Indie Basement archives.

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