As proven on their strange and beautiful new album Mudglimmer, the looming specter of artistic oblivion pushed The Slaps to lean into their idiosyncrasies: snaking rhythms, complicatedly interlocking guitar riffs, grubby yet alluring poetry, and homespun post-modern Americana sing-alongs all surge with a free-wheeling improvisatory verve informed by free jazz. It’s a stunning DIY comeback story, a doubling-down on avant-garde impulses that pays immediate dividends.
Spontaneous composition and earnest, threadbare folk collide on Mudglimmer. It’s a marvel of influential synthesis, evoking Slint’s comfortability with ominous tension (“Mudglimmer”), Tortoise’s slinky push-pull grooves (“Filthy Sex Manuevers”), Waxahatchee’s slice-of-life Americana gems (“Flip”), elliptical funk-punk a la The Minutemen (“Forward”), minimal grunge-pop in the vein of Sebadoh (“King”) and so much more.
Mudglimmer, in short, rips. Faced with existential threats, The Slaps reconfigured and reenergized — finding purpose, not in reaching for a brass ring, but in becoming fully, unashamedly, their own wonderfully confounding thing.
hemlock
hemlock is the swamp-raised “phone-fi” alt-folk project of multi-disciplinary creative force Carolina Chauffe and various rotating collaborators, currently anchored between Chicago, Austin, and Louisiana, but more often on the road.
Their most recent album ‘444’ – self-released in October 2024 – is a “best of, so far” of an ongoing song-a-day-for-a-month project, with its 12 carefully chosen tracks recaptured, rearranged, and reimagined in eager collaboration with an all-star Chicago cast.
This is means-to-an-end modern-day folk art for the open-hearted. Eager, intentionally imperfect, prolific.
Doggedly DIY, Chauffe is an avid documenter, an amateur archivist, and a believer in magic, with a discography spanning hundreds of songs in half a decade, including their independently released debut full-band LP ‘talk soon’ (2022), and 6 months’ worth of aforementioned phone-recorded song-a-day collections (2019-present), among other works.
In addition to hemlock, Carolina has toured in Merce Lemon (2023), Babehoven (2022), Fran (2023), and is a long-time member of TX band Little Mazarn.
They are a gatherer, a neighbor, and a hopeful for a free Palestine, for a free tomorrow for all. They will be a road dog for as long as they can, and make music for as long as they live.
Mobius Trip
Crash-landing in Boise, Idaho, in the winter of 2023, Mobius Trip is a five-piece rock outfit that harkens back to times gone by and spaces rarely traveled. Inspired by legendary acts of the ’60s like Cream, The Beatles, and Pink Floyd, as well as more obscure gems like Ultimate Spinach, The Mops, and St. John Green, Mobius Trip has forged their own brand of double-dipped acid rock, light and flowery psychedelic pop, and searing blues rock.
Rhythm guitarist Mason Jackson channels his unique songwriting talents to craft sonic soundscapes that are brought to this dimension by lead guitarist Steven Sherden, drummer Alex Wargo, bassist Justin Binau, and keyboardist Simeon Titmus.
