In No Particular Order: 3 Albums For Your Weekend (07/17/20)
Come for the music, stay for the conversation.
Well, enough said. Let’s get on with it.
You can find Dusty Organ on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and Spotify to stay up to date on new releases. Also, you can find tracks from these albums and more on our Monthly Spotify playlist.
If you enjoy something, don’t forget to share it around!
Haux – Violence In A Quiet Mind
8/10
Alternative folk/Singer-songwriter
A quiet, shaking voice, gentle piano textures, and sombre lyrics are the building blocks of Woodson Black’s debut full-length Violence In A Quiet Mind, an apt name for an album riddled with pain and sorrow. The Massachusetts-based artist know as Haux was reflecting on his family’s history of addiction and tragedy when writing his new music. Raised by his mom and her five sisters, his childhood stood out to him, especially considering how he lost his aunt Alice when he was eight years old, and then his aunt Patricia years later to addiction. His time of reflection and isolation proved to be the spark that lit the flame for Black, and he went on to write the rest of the album in just a few months.
The album’s delicate nature is undeniably alluring, as Black’s voice sings about his family with such grace and sincerity. It’s easy to get lost in his lyrics as they sweep forward under a current of acoustic guitar and gentle piano. Early Bon Iver comes to mind on a handful of tracks, “Accidents” and “Heavy” especially, making use of subtle percussion to round out the edges of such sombre music.
Notable tracks: “Of the Age” // “Heavy” // “Eight”
Alice Ivy – Don’t Sleep
8.5/10
Electronic/Dance
On her sophomore studio album Don’t Sleep, Australian producer Alice Ivy wanted to experiment with songwriting methods and collaborators to facilitate a more engaging and emotionally driven listening experience. Aside from opening track “Champagne Late Nights” , the entire album is a collection of features from various walks of life, namely voices that are often neglected in the music industry: LGTBQ+, Indigenous, women, non-binary, and people of colour. Especially in the male-dominated genre of electronic music, Alice Ivy was intentional in her search for the best talent to work with ensuring a platform for these under-appreciated voices.
On Don’t Sleep, this cluster of features adds to its party-starting energy. Glued together by Ivy’s energizing production, the track list travels across various styles of electronic, from club-ready hits like “Sunrise” and “Don’t Sleep”, to more pop-forward tracks like “Ticket To Heaven” and “Sweetest Love”, and even Flume-esque glitchy trip-hop on “All Hit Radio” and “Money”. There’s a little bit of everything, letting Alice show-off her versatility and expertise as a producer, but at the same time there’s a familiarity to the album that makes it feel as if it’s your best friend showing you their music and it fucking rocks.
Notable tracks: “Sunrise” // “Don’t Sleep” // “Better Man”
Oliver Tree – Ugly is Beautiful
7/10
Alternative pop-rock
Every so often, artists prefer to hide behind a mask as an aspect of their performance. Slipknot, deadmau5, and Marshmello all come to mind, known for their iconic face-coverings. Very few, if any, use prosthetics and dentures to create a new performance persona. Oliver Tree is on his own level with his ’80s ski jacket, bowl cut wig, and chunky facial makeup, making himself a walking, talking, and singing meme and performance piece. On his debut album Ugly is Beautiful the aesthetic goes unnoticed, but it’s still entertaining to picture him cruising on a scooter to some solid beats.
After pushing the release date twice, once due to COVID and the other in June due to the ongoing protests and BLM movement, Ugly is Beautiful was finally released, but not without complications from his label Atlantic Records. Most of the album was ready to go in 2018 and 2019, but Tree was forced to slow the process, and you can hear the difference a year or two makes in the industry. “Alien Boy” and “Hurt” were early releases and the song’s sound just feels slightly outdated, even though the hooks are clean and simple.
The bulk of the album is supported by the fun, pop hooks and production since the songs don’t have very much substance to them, but at least it’s still an enjoyable record.
Come for the weird face and scooter, stay for the addictive hooks.
Notable tracks: “Cash Machine” // “Bury Me Alive” // “Alien Boy”
