Chasing Fridays: Trauma Ray, 9Million, Polo Perks live, more

What a week! I did my best to tune out the ongoing collapse of the American empire and dedicate time to the activity I value most: listening to music. I caught up on a shit-ton of new releases this week, several of which I jotted some thoughts on down below. I also wrote about a couple new shoegaze releases from Trauma Ray and 9Million. And I attended four shows this week! One I wrote at length about in this article, and the others I'll just mention here: Japanese emo adventurists Anorak, ambient drone royalty Windy & Carl, and new-gen shoegaze savants Bleary Eyed.

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Trauma Ray - Chameleon

I finally got around to checking out the entirety of Chameleon, the long-awaited debut from Texas heavy-gazers Trauma Ray. I was skeptically pleased with the record's lead single "Bishop," but I'm happy to say that I enjoyed the full record more than I anticipated. Yes, the reference points they're playing with are plainly obvious (Nothing, Whirr, Deafheaven, Hum), though I think Trauma Ray are stronger songwriters than many of their style-over-substance contemporaries, and that makes Chameleon sound like a record that will hold its own well beyond the waning half-life of the American nu-gaze boom.

While most fans are probably coming to Trauma Ray for ear-engulfing guitar barrages, I'm more interested in B-side cuts like "Breathe" and the Greet Death-y "Spectre," where the band open the windows of their dank, cavernous sound and allow some prettier ambience to waft in. The Slowdive circa Pygmalion trip-hop instrumental "Drift" and the delay-soaked interlude "Flare" are crucial breaks from the bludgeoning monotony, keeping me fully invested in the record's flow all the way through its seven-minute peak-scaler "U.S.D.D.O.S." The closer caught me off guard by never erupting into predictably gnashing chords, but instead growing to a gentle boil of burbling fuzz and then receding back down to a low heat simmer. It's simply one of the prettiest shoegaze songs I've heard in a long time, and I never expected to hear it from a band like Trauma Ray. Props.

9Million - Lucky

9Million played one of the best sets I've seen all year earlier this spring. The Toronto shoegaze band have something like seven members in their live ensemble, and they made an absolutely explosive racket while stuffed onstage in the tiny venue I saw them in. Their sound is hard to pin down because they do a little bit of everything that encompasses the present-day shoegaze zeitgeist, from chunky alt-rock rippers like "Sun Spots" to sexy industrial-gaze affairs like "Ultraviolet Reflection," which sounds like Curve if they were really into Salem. 9Million have put out a lot of music but I still think they've yet to channel their full potential onto one full-length project. Especially after seeing their magic play out onstage a few feet from my eyes and ears, I'm convinced they have a classic in them, and whenever their next album arrives I'll be bracing myself for greatness.

For now, we'll have to munch on this new two-songer they just released called Lucky. The first track, "The Trick," sounds like if Superheaven were 15% more shoegaze. Its grungey chords crackle like autumn leaves crunching under squealing tires, while the steamy vocal harmonies counter the maelstrom with a whispering-through-your-teeth gentleness. "Shapeshifting" has vaguely mathy emo licks peaking out from behind the wreathe of gazey distortion, which melt into the vocals in a way that reminds me of Pity Sex at their most docile. It's not as instantly memorable as "The Trick," but I'm not opposed to hearing 9Million wade into the more sentimental side of the shoegaze spectrum, especially after hearing their magnificent cover of the Jesus and Mary Chain's "Sometimes Always." These Lucky tunes are good, but I'm positive 9Million have 10 or so great ones in the chamber. Fire away, please.

Catching up on some big releases...

I listened to a bunch of albums this week that I'd either been meaning to check out for a while or that I was indifferent to checking out but that people have asked me for my opinion on. Below, I've written a sentence or three on each.

​Godspeed You! Black Emperor - "NO TITLE AS OF 13 FEBRUARY 2024 28,340 DEAD"

A lot of people were saying this is another perfectly solid addition to their catalog, and I'd have to agree. ​"Babys in a Thundercloud" was the standout for me. All of it is great.

Mount Eerie - Night Palace

Astonishingly good. At once wistful and gnashing, poetic and primal, crushingly loud and tinnitus-triggeringly quiet. Never considered myself a big Phil Elverum guy but this is making me a believer.

Chat Pile - Cool World

To quote the immortal words of Dennis Reynolds: "It was pretty good...it was alright...it wasn't great...but it was fine."

​Two Shell - Two Shell

Their 2022 icons EP was sold to me as something super playful and fresh but it didn't click ​with me. This doesn't either, really. Am I missing something or is the pomp and circumstance around their semi-anonymous identity and elusive hijinks just being used to obscure what's actually rather monochromatic bass music?

Laura Marling - Patters in Repeat

Pretty! As far as intimate, folky, critically acclaimed singer-songwriter stuff goes, I enjoyed this. Probably won't return but it's good for a wintry night on the couch or a chilly walk through fallen leaves.

Blood Incantation - Absolute Elsewhere

I'm not a prog guy (metal or otherwise) and therefore never found myself championing Blood Incantation, one of the most revered death metal acts of the last decade-plus. Even so, I thought last year's Luminescent Bridge EP was unrepentantly epic, and this album of atom-splitting cosmic warfare is even moreso.

Quinn, Polo Perks, Ayoolii, Feardorian @ The Forge Urban Winery

A week after we went gonzo in Ken Carson's great chaos, my buddy Caden and I rolled out to see some other essential figures from the 2020s internet rap generation. The show went down in the basement of a wine bar just outside of Pittsburgh, and roughly 150 amped-up zoomers rolled out to mosh, scream, and stage-dive to the utterly stacked bill of underground rap auteurs. The headliner was Quinn: a mainstay of the hyperpop/digicore groundswell of 2019/2020 who then pivoted to artier, more Earl Sweatshirt-inspired rap in the early '20s, and then folded everything they've done so far (and then some) onto 2023's i used to just cry about it. I covered their music a good bit back in 2020 and then sort of lost interest after 2021's Drive-By Lullabies, where they seemed intent on burying the miserablist, lo-fi digicore that made them quasi-famous as a young teenager, and reinventing themselves as a more esoteric producer-vocalist.

Looking back, I think Quinn's artistic arc thus far is incredibly compelling, and seeing them burn through a set of newer cuts and older classics while the whole room jumped and sang along was honestly beautiful. They closed their set by running through "I don't want that many friends in the first place," their Hyperpop Playlist-era staple, twice in a row while teens split the room into a wall of death and held their phones up with such awe-inspired purpose that you would've thought they were archiving the reincarnation of Jesus Christ. Despite battling a respiratory illness that caused them to doze off in the green room 30 minutes after they left the stage, Quinn still went apeshit for the crowd and completely re-contextualized their introverted musings into blazing hype anthems. I was blown away.

Before Quinn took the stage, we were treated to a seamless passing of the mic between Atlanta rapper-producer Feardorian, Milwaukee rapper Ayoolii, and Atlanta rapper-producer Polo Perks – who all joined forces earlier this year on one of my favorite 2024 rap releases, A Dog's Chance. Live, the three figures channeled the delirious fun of their sample-flips and giggle-worthy couplets ("man, I love bitches, Susan B. Anthony," Ayoolii chirps over the Israel Kamakawiwo’ole ukulele strums of "Rainbow") into the vibes of a friendly house party where everyone left their egos at the door. Feardorian did his first ever stage-dive into a pile of college kids who, from the looks of their spotty catchmanship, had probably never been dove on. When Polo Perks descended down onto the floor mid-song, the whole room got about 100 decibels louder from all the ecstatic cheers. Although they apologized for it later in the set, there were a couple songs at the beginning where the guys were soaking the audience with so many bottles of Poland Spring that the stage lights dripped like the steps of a waterslide.

It was pure bedlam in the most wholesome way possible, and each time Polo Perks, Feardorian, and Ayoolii took a second to congratulate the room on how lit they were, admitting they "didn't know what to expect from Pittsburgh," you could tell they really meant it. Pittsburgh isn't New York, L.A., or even Philly. We don't really get underground internet rappers coming through very often, but the guy who put this show together, who books under the name Looming Shows, is trying to make shit happen. I'd go see a show like this every week if I could. Hopefully this gig was the start of a scene and not just one wild night.