Just Mustard and Devilish Dear – LITTLE LOST CLASSICS

Heart Under

Army of Nothing

2022, the last year of the neo-fascist mismanagement that put Brazil back on the hunger map and almost erased it from the world map. A country torn apart, divided and misinformed by networks of lies saw it die and watched 2023 be born happier and more colorful, but under the threat of a coup d’état, in a mixture of hope and despair that seems to set the tone for part of the people’s daily lives of this nation of zombies.

However, despite the ills, it was also the year in which the PCP definitely returned to activity after endless months of suspended animation/induced coma, with the return of weekly editions of its web-radio version, greater assiduity in the texts, mixtapes, in short, a great and resounding ‘we’re back, motherfuckers’.

I haven’t listened to, researched and spread (good) music for a while as in 2022, from the good and always present little lost classics to newly released and/or still fresh records (despite the contemporary ephemerality, a work from 2018, for example, still resonates with me looks like new); and I haven’t dived so deep into some music scenes like jangle pop, post-punk, C-86, underground paisley and especially shoegaze in a while. It is not by chance that the album I heard the most in the last year was Grass stains and novocaineby the Californians Seabilte.

And from those many dives through distorted waters come my two favorite records of 2022, both driven by the noise but taking it in other directions. So let’s go to Just Mustard and Devilish Dear.

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Heart under, by the Irish Just Mustard, it’s one of those records that swallows you up; you press play or dial down to “23”, the voice of Katie Ball – which really reminds you of Alison Shaw of the Cranes – comes on and suddenly you are being digested somewhere between “Blue Chalk” and “Sore” only to be calmly spat back to the sound of “Rivers”.

In the midst of all this you go through almost symphonic cascades of effects and noises, post-punk, shoegaze, dream pop, electronics ranging from trip-hop to industrial, post-rock, everything dense, dark and with the front as a guide. of light amid darkness Katie’s intoxicating vocals… (Read more)

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Army of nothing it took practically five years to be ready (in parts, according to the Midsummer website, due to Braulio’s perfectionism), so we have two similarities with My Bloody Valentine by Kevin Escudos and his monstrous Loveless: the attachment to the details of its main creator and the time of gestation.

The Devilish Dear album comes full of loops and beats, samples, effects and with few vocals. If it doesn’t revolutionize the genre in which it is labeled, it does bring a freshness to it, seeking to incorporate classic influences (in addition to the Valentines, Curve comes to mind a lot) its particular way of creating art amidst the chaos of distorted blurs… (Read more)

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And so another cycle ends. Then come 2023.

Axis!