Do Not Dare to Dream by Teenage Fanclub is out now.
Scottish indie band Teenage Fanclub has been together for more than 35 years now, with a few lineup changes along the way, and have just released their 13th album. It’s called Do Not Dare to Dream and it’s out now via the venerable indie label Merge Records. I’ve listened to the album a number of times to write this review and the one song I keep hanging onto is “Over and Over.”
“Over and Over” is an interesting song. It begins with a gentle vocal harmony, a bit reminiscent of 1960s Bee-Gees. Less than a minute into the song, a funky drum kicks into gear, but those vocals, they remain subdued and a bit melancholy. By the chorus, the guitar picks up a Johnny Marr quality, like The Smiths’ take on ‘60s pop in songs like “Unloveable.” All this leads to a Can-like, psychedelic outro that goes on for close to a minute. It’s a lot to pack into a song and Teenage Fanclub does it well and it’s a testament to the band’s eclecticism.
Long-running indie duos Arab Strap and Club 8 both released new albums in September. Plus, Swedish singer/musician Murex released her debut. Keep reading for the reviews.
On my first trip to New York, I connected with an L.A. friend who was at NYU. We were going to meet up in Times Square. “Meet me by the Disney Store,” he said.
The Disney Store? I don’t know if my shock and disappointment carried over the hotel lobby phone. This was the end of the 1990s, the era of Rudy Giuliani and TRL if you will, but the Times Square in my head was closer to the one Marc Almond describes on the latest Soft Cell album, with B movies playing in rundown theaters.
For their final album, Danceteria, Soft Cell takes listeners to the New York that inspired inspired so much of the English duo’s work. It’s the same New York that Madonna recalls on Confessions IIand, if you listen to the two albums, you can hear similar perspectives that unfold in very different ways. Where Confessions II jumps back and forth through time, Danceteria maintains a narrative, and sound, that’s firmly rooted in the 1980s. You can hear the end of disco and the beginning of house in “Danceteria” and “The Space Inside,” which sit side by side on the album.
Let’s start this review with a confession. I like Boy Harsher, but I’m not the mega-fan that so many people I know are. Too many of their songs sound the same to me, to the extent that I frequently have to double-check what I’ve played when I’m DJing, lest I confuse “Country Girl,” “Give Me a Reason” and “Come Closer.” That said, I was very excited to hear “Jeans” when it was released as a single a few months back because it doesn’t sound at all like a Boy Harsher banger. At first it sounded very New Order to me. Now, it reminds me of “I Go Crazy,” the Flesh For Lulu song that’s in Some Kind of Wonderful. I love “Jeans,” but wasn’t quite sure that the club crowds would. In fact, it’s been one of the big hits on the dance floor this summer. Thanks to “Jeans,” there were a few nights where I didn’t have to play “Pain.” That’s a relief.
New albums from Actors, Frankie Rose, Railcard and Perennial have been in my rotation at home this week. Maybe they’ll find their way into yours too. Keep reading for the reviews.
Did you know that there’s a new album from Hercules and Love Affair out now? Neither did I. Hype surrounding Danseur has been scant, which is a shame because it is a fantastic album. It’s also an album that can’t be described with whatever marketing buzzwords are trending this week, so I suppose the lack of buzz is to be expected.
For the uninitiated, Hercules and Love Affair is the project of DJ, musician and producer Andy Butler. Back in 2008, he unleashed a monster club hit, “Blind,” with Anohni on vocals. I’m hesitant to refer to the song as a banger because it’s pretty melancholy, but “Blind” still packs the floor nearly 20 years later. (In fact, I played it the night before writing this, and the night before that, in DJ sets.) In the years that have passed since then, Hercules and Love Affair has become synonymous with smart dance music over the course of five albums. Butler’s productions, which sit at the crossroads of disco, house and synthpop, are steeped in nightlife and LGBTQ+ culture For his sixth album, Danseur, Butler explicitly pays tribute to the queer club history.
I’ve never been big on The Strokes. Now, that might sound like a surprise given that I’ve been playing the band in my sets, literally, since the Is This It era, but part of being a DJ is playing music that works in the room even if it’s not your favorite. I never really hated the band either. (If I did, I wouldn’t play them at all.) It’s just one of those things, where I guess I like some songs, but the hype kind of annoyed me and there were other bands coming out at the time that I preferred. It’s not a big deal. You don’t have to love everything that’s been deemed important or popular. Pre-social media, people understood that.
Anyhow, there was this moment a few months ago when it hit me that The Strokes were cool af. Or, at least, Julian Casablancas is. It was when the band played Coachella and bits and pieces of the set turned up on my Instagram feed as a clip loop. That performance of “Oblivius,” with the images on the screen pointing to the U.S.’ history of messing around with other people’s countries, bringing us up to present-day Iran and followed by the destruction of Gaza’s last university, hit me hard. That was a bold move for a Coachella set, especially after what happened to Kneecap in the aftermath of last year’s festival.
Over the years, Brendan Angelides has scored TV shows like Billions and 13 Reasons Why, as well as the video game Assassin’s Creed Mirage. On his new solo album, Can You Feel the End Begin?, the composer and producer scores the American dystopia. The big tell that this is where the album is heading is Angelides’ choice of cover songs, “I’m Afraid of Americans,” David Bowie’s 1997 jam, co-written with Brian Eno and famously remixed by Trent Reznor for added industrial oomph.
Angelides’ version of “I’m Afraid of Americans,” released as a single in late July, plays off the Reznor remix, but with a much-needed dose of bottom-heavy funk. The vocal delivery from Angelides and Serj Tankian gets darker, more twisted and urgent, as the song veers towards its conclusion. It’s a song that has only grown more disturbing with time – at this point, we might all be afraid of Americans – and that’s something Angelides and at Tankian tease out of this cover. In fact, in the video’s YouTube description, Angelides writes, “I keep thinking about what happens to creative communities during authoritarian times. It’s half of what this upcoming album is about.”
“Compliment” by Rare DM has been sitting around on my laptop, waiting to be played, since the album, Attention, came out a couple weeks ago. Last night, it finally turned up in between Depeche Mode and Boy Harsher earlier in the night at Underground.
You might have seen Rare DM, the analog synth project of New York-based Erin Hoagg, before, as she played Substance LA a few years ago. Attention is her second full-length. It’s a poppier sort of darkwave, sounding somewhere in between Boy Harsher and “Bad Guy” Billie Eilish, but with a stronger techno influence. My actual favorite track on the album is “Significant Other,” a killer minimal synth/techno instrumental that reminds me of a cross between Soft Cell’s “A Man Could Get Lost” and early Matthew Dear. It’s a solid album, so check it out on Bandcamp when you have the chance.
Full set list from last night at Underground is below. New-ish songs (less than two years old) are linked back to previous mentions on this site. As always, thank you for dancing.
You might not expect to read this, but I’m way into Nature Is Healing, the new album from horsegiirL. If we’re IRL friends, though, you might think, yeah, Liz would totally be into something that sounds like the rave at an anime convention. And that’s true. But, there’s also a lot more to horsegiirL than DDR beats and pitched up vocals.
Just to back up a second for anyone who is like, wtf are you talking about? HorsegiirL is a DJ/producer/singer known for wearing a horse mask, or horse prosthetic face makeup, who had a viral hit some time back called “My Barn My Rules.” She’s known for playing hard, fast dance music- roughly equivalent to what ‘90s ravers would know as hardcore or happy hardcore- and has been buzzy for a good while. She played Coachella in 2025, made guest appearances during Wet Leg and PinkPanthress’ sets at this year’s Coachella and will be opening for Robyn at the Forum in September.
Nature Is Healing is horsegiirL’s debut album. It dropped yesterday and it’s a genuinely strange and subversive album. Musically, it’s not really something you can categorize. You’ll have something like the single “That’s My Beach!” that brings together a summer party sound with a play on words to talk about respect for the beach or “Only the Best,” which satirizes materialism. Then there’s “An Apple a Day,” with its relentless kick drum and campy, Europop-style lyrics and vocals, and “Fun Guy Fungi,” an avant-garde, new age interlude. Last night, I tried out “Hands Hands Hands,” a synthpop tune with bit of a Kylie Minogue vibe and a touch of house percolating underneath. Hopefully, sometime soon, I’ll have the chance to play “Music Goes On” because I love how it morphs from euphoric rave track to Pure Moods jam. The sounds are all over the place on Nature Is Healing, but it makes sense as an album because the songs all seem to tied to this very My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic-meets-Nausicaä Valley of the Wind message about taking care of the planet and each other. Right now, it’s not too often that we see people making art that’s both light-hearted and serious, so, if you’re looking for something that hits those notes, I recommend checking out Nature Is Healing.
Last night’s set list from Club Underground is below. As always, the new-ish stuff links back to previous mentions on this blog. In addition to horsegiirL, the other brand new song from last night is “Every Single Weekend” from The Avalanches and Jamie XX.
