The Sounding Board
A new, weekly column where New Music Tuesdays live on. Conversation is encouraged in the comments.
Every Tuesday, the Sounding Board is a space for a short-ish review of a recent-ish release and conversations about new-to-you music. We’ll get things started with a write-up about a newer, likely under-heard album, and invite you to share your music musings in the comments.
For the past few years, the arrival of a new year has also meant a new album from Gumshoes, the name U.K. singer-songwriter Sam Sparks uses to release delightfully off-kilter bedroom-recorded pop.1
This year’s LP is Bugs Forever, and it’s a sunny-sounding collection of uptempo chamber pop that spends its runtime ruminating on a subject that might be on many minds in 2025: doomsday. End times are nigh on every song on the album, which could be oppressive if it wasn’t for the album’s other major defining feature.
As Bugs Forever‘s title suggests, there’s an entomic slant to things, and each of its dozen songs assumes the perspective of a different bug.2 It’s an odd, and per Gumshoes “unbearably whimsical” idea on paper, but it makes some sense. Swarms are shorthand for pestilence and doom; in life, and especially in death, a variety of bugs feed on us; and famously cockroaches are destined to outlive humanity. So why not mix a little Jonathan Richman with Hieronymus Bosch? 3 The end result is basically an album where every song is “Doctor Worm” by They Might Be Giants and also about the end of the world.4
Bugs Forever is relentlessly twee in its sonic sensibilities, and Sparks employs some of the brightest sounds possible to render its apocalyptic visions.5 On its title track, the sound of a boisterously tolling bells preempts a chorus of “One more body on the side of the road / One more city gone cold / Bugs forever! / One more generator under the snow / One more fire to go / Bugs forever! / It never happens any other way.” Musically, it could pass for a modern Christmas carol. Lyrically, it’s a Cormac McCarthy scene.
“Bad Omens,” a deliriously catchy album highlight, might have an even larger gulf between its lyrical and musical contents. It’s a song from the perspective of a locust working through the reality that they are a small part of a voracious whole and destined for a brief, damaging existence. The existential dread is set to a jaunty key melody that sounds like sped-up Allen Toussaint, or an extra-frantic Phoenix and belted out with soaring self-harmonies. While “Bad Omens” is maybe the most extreme example of shiny sounds meeting a gloomy subject on Bugs Forever, that “Hey Ya!”-esque discordance is the album’s default setting from the drunken sway of opener “Cockroach Song” to the stately sort-of-waltz of mosquito-minded closing track, “Suckers.”6
How well this works over the course of an album is going to depend on your sonic sweet tooth. Instrumentation, tempo and vocal delivery are varied enough that the songs decidedly do not suffer from sameness.7 However, Bugs Forever is ceaselessly bright and commercial jingle levels of catchy. On a full listen-through, some listeners could find it assaultive and pesky, like a musical cloud of gnats. Meanwhile, for those who crave hooks above all else, this album will handedly scratch that itch.
About the writer
Ben Hohenstatt
Ben Hohenstatt is an Alaska-based dog owner who moonlights as a music writer and photographer.
For more information, consult your local library or with parental permission visit his website.
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The Sounding Board
A weekly column where New Music Tuesdays live on. Conversation is encouraged in the comments.
The Sounding Board
A weekly column where New Music Tuesdays live on. Conversation is encouraged in the comments.
The Sounding Board
A weekly column where New Music Tuesdays live on. Conversation is encouraged in the comments.
The Sounding Board
A weekly column where New Music Tuesdays live on. Conversation is encouraged in the comments.
The Sounding Board
A weekly column where New Music Tuesdays live on. Conversation is encouraged in the comments.
Department of
Conversation
What Did We Watch?
Kojak, “Therapy in Dynamite” – Someone has been randomly planting bombs, only it’s not so random as it turns out he’s a group therapy patient seeking revenge on the other patients’s behalf. A somewhat interesting if very unlikely idea, but we then get a twist that one patient is happy to let the bomber kill his wife’s mistress. Steven Keats, best known for playing opposite Carol Kane in Hester Street, is the bomber, and really over the top. Other guests include a young-ish Dabney Coleman as the cheating husband, Joan Pringle (The White Shadow), and Len Lesser aka Uncle Leo on Seinfeld.
Justified, S3 E5 and 6 – finding this season a little uneven, it feels like it needs to either have some stronger standalone episodes (like the first season) or a more compelling central storyline (like the second) but it’s falling somewhere in between. Still an enjoyable watch of course, I just wish that episode 5 had really committed to being “what if Crank, but bleaker?” or that the domestic drama stuff in episode 6 felt like it didn’t kinda come out of nowhere.
Nickel Boys – Sometimes a film finds a groove early on and you realize you’re in great hands. This starts with a memory-sensation montage ala The Tree of Life or The Cathdral, a format not attempted very often and rarely this well, where every shot offers a new surprise in its details. This section also sets up RaMell Ross’s conceit for the film, which is shot entirely as a series of POV shots from its two central characters. This sounds like a tedious experiment, but Ross consistently finds innovative ways to make it fresh and varied. If it occasionally feels like a play through of a video game about an abusive youth correctional facility in the 60s, it does so in the best possible way.
I didn’t click with Ross’s much-lauded Hale Country This Morning, This Evening as much as it felt I should have. I now think I bristled at the control he demonstrated over the images which felt at odds with a study of a community (other reactions would suggest this was more my problem than his). Nickel Boys is a brilliant outlet for this control, rewarded with every careful frame that feels natural, remarkable choreography between cast and DP Jomo Fray (who I see now shot last year’s All Dirt Roads Taste of Salt, nothing has made more sense). And the very few exceptions to the POV makes you feel the experience of disassociation, in this case literally leaving their body.
More a sensory experience than a narrative one, Nickel Boys nonetheless manages tension in the adapted story with inspiration from a real-life place. I recommend falling under its spell.
Great call on Fray being essential to the conceit working here. I think Hale’s lack of narrative could make its images feel controlled or constructed, besides the film just working for me it has an overall sense more of things being chosen than manipulated — still an author’s hand at play but as editor as much as writer. In any case, I think the two POVs creates a tension that pulls past the videogame playthrough aspect (which I can see) — Elwood’s general passivity, particularly in the beginning, can lead there but moving between he and Turner’s viewpoints lets them construct a narrative beyond the double of viewer/camera.
I, uh, didn’t care for the editing in Hale County – but I do agree it belies an author’s hand at play!
And to be clear, I don’t think evoking a videogame is automatically a bad thing, good video games can provide sensations that few other experiences can and if a movie can brush that kind of feeling, cool. I had just played an area of Amnesia: The Bunker before watching, which is a game where you sneak around in the dark trying to avoid a terrifying beast living in the walls. So I was in that mindset when I started watching and let me tell you, it does wonders for that scene in the shed, which would make your blood run cold in any circumstances.
Wow, I didn’t know they made a Calculon video game. And I think I sort of bristled at “playthrough,” which to me evokes not the gaming itself but a video of it. A videogame taking aesthetics from cinema, with the game elements removed as it becomes a document of the play and not play itself, some kind of bastard middle ground. Perhaps this is my “editing in Hale County” rejection…
Monkey Man: In revenge movies, I always prefer to get the rationale for the revenge upfront: there’s something off-putting, to me, about introducing me to characters I know the movie will soon ask me to regard with contempt and blood lust, but not yet knowing why. You’re just supposed to take the film’s structural word for it for a while and seethe in advance. Monkey Man at least makes its villains disturbing and detestable for other reasons, even if it takes a while to know exactly why Dev Patel’s Kid wants them dead. But really, I know nonlinear storytelling is cool and all, and some of it works like gangbusters, but there’s a reason linear is the default. We do get something of it! Anyway, that complaint aside, this is a pretty strong directorial debut. It’s a little too long and its influences are a little too obvious, but it’s got oomph, energy, and an invaluable sense of place. Patel is a fantastic turbulent center, so effortlessly compelling that you can easily believe that other characters, with aching grievances and furies of their own, would be drawn to him. Great action, great ownage, great charismatic actors in supporting roles. Incredibly solid B movie, and I hope Patel makes a lot more in this pulpy but thoroughly realized mode.
I’ll say this for the non-linear storytelling: it makes one of my favorite scenes, where Patel seems to literally become Hanuman, seem totally natural, and maybe not even “just” metaphorical.
SUNDAY
Duel
First time, for Movie Gifts. Unwrapping on Friday.
FRIDAY-MONDAY
True Detective: Night Country
Season 4, Episodes 1-4. “Part 1” to “Part 4”. First time.
Having ran out of new Lioness episodes, my wife picked this for a new crime/mystery obssession, though this one hews closer to Mare of Easttown, which is good since that was probably her favorite. I’ve been watching with her and we’ve been having a lot of fun. Jodie Foster is terrific and lets her asshole flag fly, and Kali Reis is the real deal, hard and vulnerable. They both have great chemistry. The central mystery is pretty compelling, where an entire science station in Alaska disappears, and it gradually gets tied with the old homicide of an indigenous midwife activist, previous cases that Foster and Reis worked on, their harrowing personal bullshit, and perhaps some supernatural happenings. I keep waiting on the other shoe to drop on that last one but it all hangs quite well so far. Very small town mystery show too, with plenty of old beefs informing the action and lots of varied characters with complicated histories in the periphery. Doesn’t help that between Foster and Reis they’ve slept with half the town, and that the other half hates them. (Actually that first half too.) We’re probably finishing it up tonight. Also, terrific photography, with lots of snow and perpetual night, really puts one in a sour state of mind.
Fuck yeah, Duel.
Night Country at its best is pretty fantastic, and I love the setting–the series has always been good at creating fully realized places with strong landscapes and their own messy, organic histories (and communities, and institutions, etc.), but the isolation here means that everything comes back to, and is a product of, setting, which is really interesting. (Obviously this is definitely on the literary/cinematic end of TV, rather than the purely dramatic.) S3 still reigns supreme as my favorite TD season, but Night Country is very, very good at what it’s doing.
finished die Walküre the first part of the ring opera tetralogy, after the pre-show. It follows Siegmund, Sieglinde, Wotan (Odin), and Brunnhilda. It’s mostly Wagner riffing on the Sigmund chapters of the Volsungsaga, but with a few changes. The biggest change is Siegmund’s subjective agency—he does not merely follow his grim destiny. And Sieglinde breaks one less taboo than her counterpart in the saga (she does not commit serial infanticide).
Quick synopsis: (spoilers for a 150 year old opera which you should read a synopsis of before watching anyway): Siegmund is on the run after attempting to rescue a woman from a forced marriage to one Hunding’s kin. By chance he reaches the house of Hunding and there finds Hunding’s wife, Sieglinde. Siegmund does not remember his name and he and Sieglinde (who is also in a forced marriage to Hunding) fall in love at first sight. Then Hunding shows up, gives him hospitality for the night, and tells him he’ll die tomorrow. Siegmund and Sieglinde realize that they’re twins. Later, they bone. Siegmund finds a sword stuck in the trunk of ash tree, which he pulls out. The sword had been placed there by Wotan, who is also siegmund’s father. Fricka tells wotan to kill siegmund, which makes wotan but he decides he has to. He tells Brunnhilda to break the sword. Brunnhilda meets Siegmund and, moved by his free spirit, decides to help him and rebel against the gods. Wotan breaks the sword, kills siegmund, kills hunding, brunnhilda escapes, hides sieglinde, hides her baby, and wotan curses her to live in a cave.
Anyway, the whole thing is extremely derivative of the lord of the rings, star wars, and looney tunes. I give it negative one star.
More seriously, it’s great. I like the minimalist staging Boulez uses, though I would also like to see a traditional one with wagner’s stage directions (including horses, rams, winged and horned helmets, etc.). There are nice climactic peaks of action, but also long discourses about the freedom to choose not to go to valhalla / heaven, the conflict between oaths and freedom, etc. On the one hand, it fits into the freedom from the laws of a Wotan and the gods; on the other, it’s still weird. There’s also a proto-feminist angle here: forced marriage is worse than freely loving your long lost twin brother, even if wotan and fricka as the gods of marriage and contracts disagree.
I’m also reading Kate Wagner (architecture critic known for the mcmansion hell blog) as she writes about the cycle. She’s a very smart critic. https://substack.com/@thelatereview/note/c-81442067?r=q2yu2&utm_medium=ios&utm_source=notes-share-action
It’s not impossible that one day my wife and I as old retirees will seek out somewhere to see the Ring Cycle in its entirety somewhere.
And hell yeah, Kate Wagner, I saw her give a mini-lecture (not technically a TED Talk) and in about ten minutes she revamped my perspective on houses and interior design.
Kids In The Hall, Seasons Two, Episode Six
– “Hmm, that was very similar to a joke, I wonder how that got in my brain.”
– “The night fell, like, uuuuuuuuuuhhhhhhh.”
– “Would a rat work for minimum wage? And wear a stupid purple uniform on purpose?”
– “Let’s go over the plan one more time.” / “…There is no plan, Rico!” / “Right!” (Shane and Lem)
– “Is this your hair?” / “It’s so hard to tell, I’m used to seeing it on my head.”
– “Now I know where my goatee went.”
– Record for the shortest Buddy monologue.
– “Oh, I see. You were making a joke. Very good, very good.”
– “Well, my name’s Larry–” / “Bullshit!”
– “My wife and I had kind of an open relationship, and I never quite found the time or the words to tell her that.”
Year of the Month update:
We’re starting 2024 by returning to 1947! That means you can be as cool as all these people:
TBD: John Anderson: T-Men
Tentative: John Anderson: Nightmare Alley
TBD: Chris Blunk: Black Narcissus
Jan. 2nd: Cori Domschot: Christmas Eve
Jan. 3rd: Gillian Nelson: Walt Disney’s HUAC testimony
Jan. 9th: John Bruni: Out of the Past
Jan. 9th: Cori Domschot: The Ghost and Mrs. Muir
Jan. 10th: Gillian Nelson: Straight Shooters
Jan 16th: Cori Domschot: The Farmer’s Daughter
Jan. 17th: Gillian Nelson: Sleepytime Donald
Jan. 23rd: Cori Domschot: Down to Earth
Jan. 27th: Cliffy73: Miracle on 34th Street
Jan. 31st: Pluto’s Blue Note
And coming in February, you can sign up to write about anything from 2016!
TBD: Bridgett Nelson: Rogue One
Feb 7th: Gillian Nelson: Queen of Katwe
Feb. 14th: Gillian Nelson: Milo Murphy’s Law
Feb. 21st: Gillian Nelson: Pete’s Dragon
”The end result is basically an album where every song is “Doctor Worm” by They Might Be Giants and also about the end of the world”
Well, that’s a way to sell me on an album. Definitely TMBG vibes from the bandcamp, the process doesn’t sound all that different from their approach at times either.
That description caught my eye too. I’m not the biggest TMBG fan (they’re one of those “feel like I SHOULD love them, but haven’t quite unlocked it yet” bands) but I do love Doctor Worm a whole lot.
Will be checking this out after I’ve finished wallowing in blues-rock. Sometimes the 1001 Albums list is a harsh mistress.
I’m sold on this now. I have a soft spot for “upbeat until you listen to the words,” so a bright and buzzy apocalypse sounds right up my alley.
Merely reading the words “dr worm” means it’ll be in my head all day.
Top 5 tmbg songs contra the tmbg wiki:
istanbul (sorry. i’m basic)
dr worm
the communists have the music
your racist friend
birdhouse in your soul
honorable mention: mickey mouse club house
The MM Club House Theme should have them banned from any lists, but they balance it out with the themes for Malcolm in the Middle and The Daily Show.