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 March’s best music, highlighting my favorite songs and albums, plus links to relevant features and news, a monthly playlist, and more.
Spring has sprung and the 2024 floodgates have officially opened with so many albums announced and released in March. Singles too, and I picked my 10 favorites of the month to review, including a few Indie Basement all-stars as well as rising talent. As far as March albums went, I narrowed my list down to my five favorites, but ones that narrowly missed include Halo Maud’s Celebrate, Real Estate’s Daniel, Julia Holter’s Something in the Room She Moves, The Bevis Frond’s Focus On Nature, Dent May’s What’s for Breakfast, Klaus Johann Grobe’s io tu il loro, Pete Astor’s Tall Stories & New Religion, Mildlife’s Chorus, Holiday Ghosts’ Coat of Arms, and SAVAK’s Flavors of Paradise.
In addition to my March album and songs reviews, I made a Best of March playlist with all of that and more of the month’s best stuff, available in Spotify and TIDAL form.
Other things that happened in March: I went to Big Ears 2024 in Knoxville, TN and BrooklynVegan launched its own digital magazine which is free to subscribe to.
Head below for reviews, playlists and more Indie Basement Best of March…
INDIE BASEMENT – BEST SONGS OF MARCH 2024
Bill MacKay – “Glow Drift”
Chicago guitar god and collaborator with the indie stars, Bill MacKay teases his upcoming album Locust Land with this wonderful, perfectly titled instrumental, “Glow Drift.” The warm guitar tone he nurtures here shines gently like embers above a campfire, and even without vocals this tilts into pop territory a la Luna or the Velvet Underground.
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Broadcast – “Follow the Light”
When Trish Keenan died in 2011 it had been six years since Broadcast had made a proper studio album. They had made a lot of demos during that time and we’re finally going to get to hear some of them via upcoming compilation Spell Blanket. “Follow the Light” is spare, haunting and beautiful; while we might wonder what the full-Broadcast version of this might have become, it’s also perfect just as it is.
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Cold Cave – “She Reigns Down”
There has always been a danceable element to Cold Cave — all good goth bands have at least one indie banger — but it was always more of a teutonic beat. “She Reigns Down,” however, goes the full Eurodisco route and Wes Eisold’s melodramatic baritone sounds great over these electro club beats. Also: can someone use this song for a new variation of the video of the dachshund playing keyboards on a roof?
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Good Looks – “If It’s Gone”
This is my kind of dad-leaning heartland rock. Warm and inviting with just a little undercurrent of melancholy, “If It’s Gone” is an instantly appealing slice of twangy indie, a breakup anthem that builds momentum with each anthemic chorus, putting the past in the rearview as Tyler Jordan sings “If it’s gone say goodbye, say goodbye / it’s nice to leave here, I was stuck here for a while.”
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John Grant – “It’s a Bitch”
I’m a sucker for the clavinet (the world’s funkiest instrument) and ’80s-style orchestra hit samples, and I’m happy to report John Grant’s new single has both. “It’s a Bitch” is the kind of lush, slinky, maximalist synthpop that would sound right at home alongside Peter Gabriel’s So hits. Peter Gabriel, however, would never rhyme “I was examining the walls of my encephalon” with “Looking for hot heshers playing Robotron.”
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King Hannah – “Big Swimmer” ft Sharon Van Etten
The first time I put this on I was confused — did I hit play on the wrong track? Initially, none of King Hannah’s usual sonic signifiers (ample reverb, gritty guitarwork, Hannah’s ultra-smoky vocals) are here, but then two minutes in “Big Swimmer” shifts into more typical territory, though Hannah Merrick’s voice has never sounded so clear or pure, especially with Sharon Van Etten backing her. “Big Swimmer” feels like a big swing and, disorienting as it is at first, they knock it out of the park.
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The KVB – “Overload”
Darkwave was well represented in March, between Cold Cave’s “She Reigns Down” and this, the first single from UK duo The KVB’s upcoming album, Tremors. “Overload” isn’t breaking any new ground, but these two really understand how to put together a track like this together that really satisfies, from the motorik beat to the hushed vocals, the sweep of the synths, and the twangy, Duane Eddy-style guitar leads.
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La Luz – “Strange World”
If you thought King Hannah’s new single was a surprising swerve, La Luz’s latest is two left turns in a row. The West Coast band known for dreamy surf rock start “Strange World” off as fuzzy garage rock, before the song shifts into new wave territory with an abundance of proggy synthesizers. And yet it still sounds like La Luz, all glowing magic hour melodies and the band’s signature harmonies. I’m anxious to hear what the rest of News of the Universe sounds like.
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Penny Arcade – “Don’t Cry No Tears”
It’s been a while since we’ve heard from James Hoare of Veronica Falls and Ultimate Painting. Penny Arcade is his new solo venture and “Don’t Cry No Tears” is its quiet stunner of a first single. With a vintage drum machine sounding like crickets on a summer evening, Haore strumms an alluring minor chord melody, with whispered harmonies and homespun production that nonetheless build to Bond Theme levels of drama. James, welcome back.
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Pernice Brothers – “The Purple Rain”
I’ve heard versions of “The Purple Rain” played live by the Pernice Brothers since fall of 2019, when the songs were new and the people it is about (David Berman, Fort Apache studio founder Joe Harvard) had only just left us. “The Purple Rain,” a title only someone as good a songwriter as Joe Pernice is could get away with, is moving enought with just Joe and his guitar but when the strings kick in as he sings “I often read the end before the start,” there’s not a dry eye in the house.
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INDIE BASEMENT – BEST ALBUMS OF MARCH 2024
Elbow – AUDIO VERTIGO (Polydor/GEFFEN)
After nine albums, you’d think you’d know exactly what to expect from Elbow on their 10th: big, open-armed, open-hearted anthems perfectly suited for festival crowds. But AUDIO VERTIGO doesn’t sound like any Elbow album before it while somehow retaining all the things that make the band’s music so rewarding. The soaring melodies and the warm, inviting voice of frontman Guy Garvey are distinctly Elbow, but the way they get there — the arrangements, the instrumentation — feels new and exciting. It’s not often you get a band three decades into their career making music this bold, creative and fun. [Full review]
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Ride – Interplay (Wichita)
Along with their Oxford friends Slowdive, Ride are having one of the best second acts in recent memory. Their third album since reforming a decade ago, Interplay, is the sound of an older, wiser and more comfortable in their skin group who are no longer worrying about being part of a current scene and just making music for themselves. Really, really good music. Andy Bell, who leads the band alongside fellow singer/guitarist Mark Gardner, has intimated that this was not the easiest album to make, but Interplay sounds effortless, with some of their Ride-iest songs since the early ’90s and their best swerves away from their signature sound to date. [Full review]
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High Llamas – Hey Panda (Drag City)
Sean O’Hagan has carved out such an instantly identifiable High Llamas sound over the last 30 years — a mix of Brian Wilson, Steely Dan, Ennio Morricone, Caetano Veloso — that it’s been hard for him to escape his own gorgeously constructed cage. There aren’t any bad High Llamas records, but even big fans like this writer would admit that since 1998’s Cold and Bouncy, you pretty much know what you’re going to get: two or three very catchy songs and lots of meticulously crafted aural wallpaper in their signature style. Not so with Hey Panda, the group’s 11th album that majorly shakes up the formula while still being very much a High Llamas record. Drawing inspiration from Tierra Whack and Tyler, with help from his kids and Bonnie ‘Prince’ Billy, O’Hagan has reinvented his long-running project for their best album since 1996’s Hawaii. The High Llamas’ music has always been verdant and bucolic, but Hey Panda positively glows. [Full review]
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Four Tet – Three (Text Records)
Kieran Hebden has been doing it so long and so well as Four Tet, having carved out a distinctive sound from the jump, that it’s easy to take him for granted. But what makes Four Tet records so consistently great is that whatever he does, whether it’s albums on his own or collaborations with Thom Yorke or Skrillex, everything seems to stem from personal curiosity. He makes music for himself and remains at the top of his game on Three, his 12th Four Tet album and first in four years. Hebden is still working with the same threads he always has — downtempo beats, jazz, folk, shoegaze, techno, house, dub — but the tapestries he weaves are always unique, beautiful and distinctly his own creations. [Full review]
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Astrel K – The Foreign Department (Tough Love)
Rhys Edwards has just delivered three great albums in as many years. 2023 saw the release of Compact Trauma, the first album from his band Ulrika Spacek in five years, and surrounding that are two solo releases as Astrel K. The first of those, 2022’s Flickering i, was made during the pandemic after Edwards had moved to Stockholm to be with his partner. It felt very much like a solo project, almost accidental and decidedly homemade as he explored musical ideas outside Ulrika Spacek’s world of guitars. The Foreign Department is, however, 11 big swings, featuring Edwards’ take on sophistipop with swaying, swaggering songs filled with grand piano, brass and string sections, swoony melodies, soaring falsetto, and more than a few waltzes. The touchstones are still the same: ’60s sunshine pop, Jacques Brel and Scott Walker’s early ’70s records, Stereolab, Saint Etienne and the nostalgic whimsy of the first Avalanches album, but this time applied to ambitious, fully orchestrated studio recordings that sound thoroughly modern. [Full review]
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Yard Act – Where’s My Utopia? (Island/Republic)
Yard Act’s excellent second album is brimming with confidence, ambition, wit, fun, and big hooks. As to the latter, they are not ashamed to write catchy songs which is the subject of “We Make Hits,” a meta bit of bragging, statement of intent and Yard Act origin story all in one dance floor filler. “We make hits…but not hits like Nile Rodgers,” Smith sings, knowing they probably won’t be displacing Taylor Swift on the charts, then rhyming it with “just that we ain’t hook dodgers.” Yard Act’s choruses are massive and instantaneous, and working with Gorillaz drummer and producer Remi Kabaka Jr. they’ve expanded their palette well beyond the post-punk signifiers of their debut. They’ve embraced disco (the ABBA kind), lush ’80s new wave sophisti-pop (the Wham! kind), and hip hop rhythms (the ’90s kind), while still keeping those groovy basslines and angular guitars (the Gang of Four kind). [Full review]
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Bolis Pupul – Letter to Yu (DEEWEE)
You may know Belgium-based artist and producer Bolis Pupul as Charlotte Adigéry’s chief collaborator, who with her made one of 2022’s most fun, charming, danceable and just plain best albums with their debut, Topical Dancer. In addition to his work with Charlotte, Bolis has been making electronic music on his own for nearly a decade, but Letter to You is his full-length solo debut. Like Topical Dancer, he made it with help from Soulwax’s Dewaele Brothers who run DEEWEE Records, and musically it’s very much in the same universe, with an engaging mix of house, techno and downtempo grooves. Thematically, though, this is a deeply personal album, a literal love letter to Bolis’ Hong Kong-born mother who was killed in a traffic accident in 2008, and it was inspired by his 2018 visit to the city of her birth, Hong Kong. It moves both the heart and the feet. [Full review]
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Here’s a playlist with all 10 songs reviewed, songs from my Best Albums of the Month, runners up and more of the best March had to offer. Available via TIDAL and Spotify:
Looking for more? Browse the Indie Basement archives.
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