Orchid Tapes is one of the leading perpetrators of lo-fi pop music, and while the label as a whole tends to, at best, be a mixed bag, occasionally a few gems stand out. One is the disarmingly off-kilter debut from Melbourne’s Katie Dey, asdfasdf, which plays out like postmodern dream pop filtered through Micachu-esque art pop. The sound is familiar, almost nostalgically so, but still odd and hard to place. On one hand, the weirder end of the K Records spectrum seems like a starting point, as if Old Time Relijun was a Lois Maffeo project. At the same time there are echoes of mainstream early-to-mid-2000s indie rock, of the sort you’d hear on TV soundtracks. ”Unkillable” sounds like it is a pitch-shifted The New Pornographers song. The tinny peakiness of the songs and charmingly simple melodies lend a warmth to asdfasdf that most releases of this ilk, creating an atmosphere that feels organic rather than affected.
“DSM” showcases the many individual styles of Brockton’s Van Buren Records
It has been a fruitful 18 months for the Brockton super-collective Van Buren Records. Their two 2021 records, Bad For Press and Black Wall…