Happy May everybody! This week I review six new albums (The Raveonettes, Sextile, Jenny Hval, Mei Semones, Moon Mullins and The Blue Knots), give my two cents on the Pavement movie, and wish New Order’s best album happy birthday.

It’s a busy week for new albums and over in Notable Releases there are reviews the latest from Model/Actriz (I like it too), Esther Rose, PUP, Blondshell, and more.

In other news that might be of interest to Indie Basement regulars, Alison Goldfrapp and Kae Tempest announced new albums, and Air are bringing their genuinely spectacular Moon Safari tour to North America.

RIP The Alarm’s Mike Peters, a true nice guy and genuine article.

Head below for this week’s reviews.

ALBUM OF THE WEEK: Mei Semones – Animaru (Bayonette)
This New York musician effortlessly blends tropicalia and indie rock on her delightful debugt album

Spring has fully sprung and I can’t think of a better soundtrack the blooming flora and fauna than the debut album by Mei Semones. Animaru opens with “Dumb Feeling,” filling the air with bossa nova guitars straight out of a ’60s Jobim album, but 26 seconds in come the fuzzed-out indie rock chords and not long after strings that dance like blossoms in the breeze. It’s an unusual blend of tropicalia, indie rock and chamber pop that is familiar, friendly, satisfying and uniquely hers. Mei and her band are very skilled and songs can turn on a math rock dime from gentle to loud, sweet to aggressive, while they’re always in control of where they’re going.

Animaru is the kind of album you could play for MOJO-reading music snobs (raises hand), metalheads, jazz lovers, emo fans, or your grandparents, and they’d all find something to like here. For all the dazzling technique on display, “Dangomushi,” “Norwegian Shag,” and “Toro Moyo” are effortless and tuneful and just sound wonderful. At times, like on album high point “I Can Do What I Want,” Mei is not unlike Cornelius at his Drop peak, blending traditional genres into something her own. Minus the electronics, that is, but I wouldn’t count that out in the future. Mei is just getting started.

Animaru by Mei Semones

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PAVEMENTS (Utopia Distribution)
Fact and fiction blur in Alex Ross Perry’s often funny, very meta blend of rock doc, biopic, and jukebox musical that is unlike any other movie

Do you like indie rock and music documentaries, but not so much music biopics or jukebox musicals? Do you also enjoy mockumentaries and, especially, ’90s slacker icons Pavement? There might be a movie for you. PAVEMENTS is a real have-your-cake-and-eat-it-too work, that mashes up all of the above into one film that feels like something a superfan dreamed up while very high and then actually followed through and made it. That fan, stoned or not, is Alex Ross Perry (Her Smell) who really went the extra mile here, blurring the lines between reality and fiction. Centered around Pavement’s very satisfying 2022 reunion tour, Perry imagines a world where the group are at the center of popular culture, and he is making a biopic (Range Life) and jukebox musical (Slanted! Enchanted!) simultaneously. PAVEMENTS is the documentary about all of it that also encompasses the tour and a travelling “Pavement Museum.” Perry actually staged the musical (two performances) and the museum here in NYC just for the movie, events open to the public, both of which were pretty clearly tongue-in-cheek when happening.

Lack of sincerity was always a criticism lobbed at Pavement, and PAVEMENTS is very much in this mold, wearing it as a positive, from Stranger Things star Joe Keery going very method after being cast in Range Life as Stephen Malkmus, to the ridiculous Theatre! aspects of the behind-the-scenes moments of the musical, to the artifacts found in the museum (including a collection of late drummer Gary Young’s toenail clippings). There are real moments, too, mostly the reunion tour stuff where we get to watch the band find themselves playing the best shows of their career. With so many spinning plates in the air, it’s kind of a miracle this film works at all — credit editor Robert Green and producer Lance Bangs whose long history with the band certainly helped keep this from being all irony and for making this shaggy dog hang together — and I enjoyed almost all of it. It should be said, I am the target audience for PAVEMENTS. But at 128 minutes it is still an overstuffed record bag, and am not sure it will hold the attention of anyone who isn’t already very familiar with the band. But if you are, and that probably includes most of their fans, PAVEMENTS has style for miles and miles, and will have you dreaming of an extended director’s cut DVD. One thing’s for sure: you’ve never seen anything quite like it.

For a more detailed look at PAVEMENTS read Rob Sperrry-Fromm’s review elsewhere on the site.

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Jenny Hval – Irish Silver Mist (4AD)
Inspired by perfume, Norwegian art-pop musician’s ninth album is scent-ilating stuff

During the height of the pandemic, some people got into sourdough, while others took up running or watched concerts at home. Jenny Hval rediscovered her love of perfume. Scents of all kinds became the chief inspiration for her ninth album, Irish Silver Mist, which is named for a fragrance created by Maurice Roucel for the French perfume house Serge Lutens. The smell of flowers, cigarettes, rain-soaked earth, and more triggered specific memories, from playing a grungy rock club to the death of a pet. Hval’s music was already airy and the spacious, and often haunted arrangements on creations like “All night long,” “I don’t know what free is,” and “To be a rose” — along with her stream-of-conscious lyrical recollections — make this an especially vivid, evocative, fully realized work.

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Sextile – yes, please. (Sacred Bones)
The LA duo take their visions of excess even further on this banger-filled album

LA duo Sextile’s 2023 album Push was an awesome embrace of ’90s club culture, and their follow-up to it continues down the same path, right down to the cover art which prominently features a tongue: this time with a lollipop on it, not a square of blotter paper, but the blown-out pupil seen on yes, please. tells you they are still having visions of excess. Melissa Scaduto and Brady Keeh hit the ground dancing with “Women Respond to Bass,” which nods to Renegade Soundwave’s 1992 single of the same name (but is not a cover), is a real stormer that you could imagine Lola running and running to, and the album doesn’t let up from there until the very last track (“Soggy Newports,” great title). Speaking of 1992, the album title is probably a tip-of-the-hat toYes, Please!, Happy Mondays’ disastrous and drug-addled follow-up to Pills, Thrills and Bellyaches, but Sextile are clearly much more in control than those Mancunians. But I digress. The banger quotient here remains exhaustingly high, including but not limited to: the clanging “Freak Eyes”; “Push Ups” with it’s surging, incessant bassline; the blissed out “99 Bongos”; and the very hooky “Kiss.” The album also has a quasi group theme song “S is For,” where they list off dozens of words that begin with S including Sex, Shit, Swell, Stiff, Slag, Snap, and Shut, which are all delivered, mantra-style, over a gleaming, pulsing techno beat until grows into an angry chant. Of course, S is also for Sextile and this album makes it clear they should be at the top of the list.

yes, please. by Sextile

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The Raveonettes – Pe’ahi II (Beat Dies Records)
The Danish duo’s first album in 11 years hits all the Raveonettes pleasure centers. They’ve still got it.

It doesn’t seem like The Raveonettes’ last album, Pe’ahi, was more than a decade ago but this very site tells me it was released in 2014. They’ve put out a few singles and a covers album since, but the Danish duo of Sune Rose Wagner and Sharin Foo are finally back with a new collection of originals. They’ve literally picked up where they left off, giving this one official Part 2 status. “It follows the same themes of fragility of life, death, longing and, not least, vulnerability,” they say. Some groups you want to evolve, and maybe it’s the absence that make the heart grow fonder, but there is comfort in their familiar style, and Pe’ahi II has everything you want in a Raveonettes album: surfy guitars, Everly Brothers harmonies, reverby drums, atmospheric arrangements, blown-out sonics, big hooks, and earworm melodies. Like on the first Pe’ahi, they are also still dabbling in drum machines and electronic elements. My biggest criticism is with the title: making it a sequel, especially a decade later, gives it the air of leftovers which I don’t think this is. “Strange,” “Killer,” “Lucifer,” and the other seven songs are superior Raveonettes creations and find Wagner and Foo still masters of their sound while finding new textures within it.

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Moon Mullins – Hotel Paradiso (Ruination Records)
Sean Mullins creates a vivid, synth-fueled world of exotica with help from Molly Lewis and Sam Evian

When not playing drums in Brooklyn band Wilder Maker and on other people’s records, multi-instrumentalist Sean Mullins makes lush exotica as Moon Mullins. He does it mainly with vintage keyboards, synthesizers and rhythm boxes, and has created such a lush, fully realized world you can’t help but be impressed. Hotel Paradiso is his third and most captivating album to date, and features contributions from whistler Molly Lewis, guitarist Sam Evian, and strings player Oliver Hill, all of whom understand the assignment. (Molly Lewis probably already lives in the assignment.) On this concept album about a fictional hotel a la LA’s Chateau Marmont, we’re whizzed back in time to the early-’60s era of Henry Mancini, Playboy After Dark, and Ferrante and Teicher, with just a little Esquivel thrown in for good measure. You can almost smell the cigarette smoke soaked into red leather banquets as guests sip tiki cocktails. It’s kitschy, for sure, but Sean’s attention to detail and love of analog gear also makes this the kind of record that will appeal to fans of Ryuichi Sakamoto, Tangerine Dream and Stereolab. You might not want to live at Hotel Paradiso, but its inviting enough to want to book a return visit.

Hotel Paradiso by Moon Mullins

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The Blue Knots – Becoming Noise (Skyling Scores)
Minimal pop with dubby production makes Danielle Stech-Homsy first album as The Blue Knots a surreal charmer

Danielle Stech-Homsy, who spent much of the ’00s and ’10s making music as Rio en Medio (who released albums on Devendra Banhart’s Gnomonsong label), now records minimal pop as The Blue Knots. While these 12 songs, played mainly on electric piano and other keyboards, are memorable on their own, it’s the production that makes Becoming Noise special and should appeal to fans of Julia Holter, Young Marble Giants and The Innocence Mission. You might not even parse the dubby post-punk aesthetic bubbling underneath “Sidra,” “Bike By,” “Sunspots,” and “In Futures” on first listen, but the sound-design atmospherics will keep you coming back.

Becoming Noise by The Blue Knots

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INDIE BASEMENT CLASSIC – New Order – Power, Corruption & Lies (Factory Records, 1983)
Happy 42nd birthday to one of the greatest albums of the ’80s

New Order’s classic second album was released 42 years ago today and it’s never a bad time to listen to it. While I could argue that 1985’s Low-Life is even more impressive in its meshing of the organic and synthetic (it’s my favorite), I cannot deny that Power, Corruption & Lies is the group’s best, most important album. Here’s a bit of my 40th anniversary review:

Released May 2, 1983, Power, Corruption & Lies is a near perfect album, the sound of a band flying confidently into uncharted territory and landing the plane. The album opens with the manic, massively hooky bass riff to “Age of Consent,” as usual played high on the neck, followed quickly by Morris’ precision drumming, inspired by disco — those high hats — and tweaked slightly from what he did on Joy Division’s “Love Will Tear Us Apart.” When Bernard Sumner’s guitar enters the frame, weaving intricately around Hook’s bassline, and Gillian Gilbert’s synth-string lead joins in, you have the sound of a band announcing themselves. “It felt like we’d become New Order, really,” Morris would say in 2020.

There are so many great ideas, winning melodies, and exciting performances on the album you might not notice how simple many of the songs are from a songwriting perspective. Few bands have done as much with two chords as New Order did with Power, Corruption & Lies. Nearly every song here is just two chords, using the same progression for verses and choruses, though at this point New Order rarely followed traditional pop conventions. When they did, though, the results were undeniable, like on “The Village” which is PCL‘s other moment of pure joy, featuring another amazing bass lead from Hook alongside a very bouncy synth bass line, and Morris playing his kit alongside drum machines. This one was apparently a real pain in the ass to program but the result is springtime bliss, from the chorus of “Our love is like the flowers” which echoes the album’s iconic cover art, to the instrumental midsection where machines and traditional instruments join forces in perfect harmony.

Read the whole thing here.

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Beyond “Blue Monday”: New Order’s Best Deep Cuts

“Dreams Never End” (1981)

New Order were still underneath the shadow of Joy Division in 1981, a hard shackle to shake. Unsure how to progress after the death of Ian Curtis, both guitarist Bernard Sumner and Peter Hook sing lead on New Order's debut album, Movement, and both sound like they're trying to mimic him. "Dreams Never End," which features Hook on vocals, is musically bright and sunny, with Hook, Sumner and Gilbert's instruments swirling around Stephen Morris' insistent, danceable beat. The Cure would crib liberally from this for their 1986 single "Inbetween Days."

“Procession” (1981)

Following their debut single, "Ceremony" (which had been played live with Joy Division), their next release was "Procession" which felt like a natural progression from Joy Division's Closer, with glacial synths washing over a frantic rhythm section and Bernard Sumner's brittle guitars. Recorded and released before Movement, "Procession" nonetheless feels past it, with Bernard Sumner coming into his own as lead vocalist. While a single, "Procession" didn't make it on to the main tracklist for 1987's Substance, but was instead relegated to the bonus disc of the CD. But it's a pivotal song in their evolution.

“Turn the Heater On” (1982 John Peel Session)

Keith Hudson's "Turn the Heater On" was Ian Curtis' favorite reggae song, says Peter Hook in his Substance memoir, saying it was where Bernard Sumner "got the got the idea for using the melodica," an instrument which would turn up in New Order songs like "Your Silent Face" and "Love Vigilantes." Barney's only playing guitar at the end, after he's stopped singing," adds Hook, only kinda joking that "That became the whole template for the band."

“The Village” (1983)

Power, Corruption & Lies is a perfect record, and none of the songs were released as singles -- "Blue Monday" was tacked onto the U.S. CD release -- so every song could theoretically fit on this list. There are moments of sadness and desolation, but there are also songs of unabashed joy. In much the same spirit as "Age of Consent," "The Village" bounces along like the first day of spring with Sumner singing "Our love is like the flowers / The rain, the sea and the hours." The mid-section instrumental -- with guitars, synthesizers and drum machines joining forces -- remains one of New Order's most magical moments.

"The synths are incredible from 1:45 so in your face but not overpowering ... then they disappear - my whole taste in music seemed to change because of this song" - The Charlatan's Tim Burgess on "The Village"

“Leave Me Alone” (1983)

Many of New Order's most genius moments come from the interplay between Peter Hook's bass -- which is almost always played high up on the neck to where some mistake it for guitar -- and Bernard Sumner's guitar. Is there a more perfect example than on Power Corruption & Lies' closing track? The bass hook opens the song, but it's when the chiming guitar lead enters that "Leave Me Alone" truly blooms. (Gillian Gilbert adds further, crucial, counterpoint guitar lines.) A grey-hued portrait of loneliness ("On a thousand islands in the sea / I see a thousand people just like me"), it's one of New Order's crowning achievements, fading out with two more minutes of gorgeous instrumental melancholia.

“Thieves Like Us” (1984)

This is the big concession to the "no singles" rule on this list. While "Thieves Like Us" went to #18 in the UK in 1984, it does not have the stature of "Bizarre Love Triangle," "Temptation," "Blue Monday," "Sub-Culture," "True Faith" or even LP tracks like "Age of Consent" or "Love Vigilantes." But it is one of New Order's best, most deeply emotive songs -- it's Peter Hook's favorite (you can see his full Top 10 below) -- that needs all six minutes and 36 seconds to work its magic. Bernard Sumner's vocals doesn't even come in till two-and-a-half minutes into the song, long after we've been seduced by the song's NYC hip-hop inspired rhythm section and majestic washes of synths. While the song works well as an instrumental -- it plays over the "making the dress" montage in Pretty in Pink -- Sumner gives a great delivery with a whole lot of "Loves," in his signature, fragile style.

PETER HOOK: THE TEN BEST NEW ORDER SONGS from his memoir "Substance: Inside New Order" 1. "Thieves Like Us"
2. "Leave Me Alone"
3. "Homage" (unreleased)
4. "Too Late" (John Peel session)
5. "Someone Like You"
6. "Ruined in a Day" (K-KLass Remix)
7. "Every Little Counts"
8. "Age of Consent"
9. "Temptation"
10. "Eligia"

“Lonesome Tonight” (1984)

"Lonesome Tonight" is, according to Peter Hook, New Order's ode to Elvis Presley. Bernard Sumner was apparently obsessed with a version of "Lonesome Tonight" (where The King can't stop laughing) and suggested to the rest of New Order they try jamming it on stage one night. That bit of C-F chord improvisation became this song, which Hook calls "a glorious tune even though it's nothing like Elvis', given away in true fashion as a b-side." (It's the flip to "Thieves Like Us.") New Order rarely needed more than two chords to create something amazing (see all of Power, Corruption and Lies), and when the synthesizers crest halfway through, it evokes Joy Division's "Atmosphere." If you're wondering, that is Peter Hook clearing his sinuses at the four-minute mark. "When Barney heard me hocking up phlegm into a handkerchief he suggested we put it on at the end because the contrast between something so beautiful and something so awful might be interesting. He was absolutely right."

“Murder” (1984)

New Order have always had a way with instrumentals and this one's a real tour-de-force, a pounding goth nightmare powered by Stephen Morris' propulsive drumming, a sinister bass line from Hook and Sumner's three-note, cyclical guitar hook. The song also makes great, creepy use of movie samples of Hal in 2001: A Space Odyssey and Malcolm McDowell in infamous big-budget softcore film Caligula. "Murder," which has been covered by The Charlatans and K-X-P, was originally only released as a single in Belgium, but later appeared on the second disc of the Substance two-CD set.

“Elegia” (full version) (1985)

An ode to Ennio Morricone's spaghetti western scores, specifically the pocket watch scene from A Few Dollars More, "Elegia" opens side two of 1985's highly underrated Low-Life. While the five-minute instrumental is carefully paced, exploding into full Sergio Leone glory in the last minute, the original 17-minute version is even better. "Dylan Jones - then editor at id magazine --asked us if we’d like to do some music for a short 15-20 min art film," Stephen Morris says. "We went into a studio in Wembley and did a marathon all night session. The film never happened, but we liked 'Elegia' so much it got edited down to fit on the LP." As Morris says, "Hooky's bass melodies on 'Elegia' are majestic."

"Elegia" is one of three New Order tracks to appear in Pretty in Pink ("Thieves Like Us" and "Shellshock," which appears on the soundtrack album, are the others), and you may have also heard it in Stranger Things, and the trailer for video game "Metal Gear Solid 5: Phantom Pain."

“Sooner Than You Think” (1985)

Like Power, Corruption and Lies, Low-Life is a near-perfect album and picking from the many great songs is difficult. Following "Blue Monday" and "Thieves Like Us," New Order really came into their own as far as blending rock and club music. While the albums that follow would more often than not have songs that were either "rock" or "synth," Low-Life let things intermingle in wonderful and surprising ways. After a building, minute-long intro that is mostly guitar, bass and drums, "Sooner Than You Think" shifts gears and lets the keyboards take over. "A very unusual tune, showing exactly why I used to love New Order," says Peter Hook in his memoir. "We were so versatile." As the lyrics describe, the song was actually written after "a party in [New Order's] hotel" in Zurich in 1984. "I think some members of the Furious Five were there, no Grandmaster Flash," recalls Stephen Morris. "There was a very loud blaster in a very small room - other hotel guests were not amused - complaints were made, maybe I dreamt the Furious Five bit? But not the Swiss police though."

“Face Up” (1985)

This one should've been a single. "When we first wrote Face up in early 1984 we thought it was the best thing ever," says Stephen Morris. "Face Up" is another New Order song where two disparate parts have been grafted together, with an an atmospheric intro ("inspired by Caligula" says Hook) that then drastically shifts gears into music that all but demands you bounce up and down. Sonically, "Face Up" is pure ebullience, the kind few besides New Order can do with guitars, but the lyrics -- "Oh how I cannot bear the thought of you" -- are a decided kiss-off from a spurned lover. "I couldn’t understand why some people didn’t get Face Up’s euphoria, but maybe you had to be playing the drums to fully get that," adds Morris.

“Way of Life” (1986)

As the '80s progressed, New Order became more and more known as a synthpop band, but they remained a clever, inventive rock band on album tracks, as is evidenced by the entire first side of 1986's Brotherhood. "Way of Life" closes out Side A, beginning with another gloomy fake-out intro before blossoming into a wonderful pop song with a chorus so infectious it seems impossible they would bury it this deep into the album. Hook says "We were trying to emulate 'Age of Consent' so I just played the riff backwards, and voilà."

“Every Little Counts” (1986)

New Order were guilty a few times over the years of what Peter Hook calls "five o'clock in the morning lyrics." Sometimes that meant something special, like "you caught me at a bad time, so why don't you piss off" (Power, Corruption & Lies' "Your Silent Face") and sometimes it gives you the opening lines to Brotherhood's closing track. "Every second counts when I am with you / I think you are a pig, you should be in a zoo," which Bernard Sumner cannot get through without laughing. (He also didn't feel a need to do another take.) And yet, "Every Second Counts" is still pure gold, making great use of orchestral samples, harmony and Sumner's winning "do de do de dooh" chorus. "Every Little Counts" is also a perfect album-closer, with a massive, woozy swell from their Emulator sampling keyboard -- "with Barney holding all the keys down at once, using both arms" -- and then a great final joke that definitely freaked out some vinyl listeners at the time.

“1963” (1987)

Like "The Perfect Kiss," this b-side to 1987 single "True Faith" is a story-song about a doomed relationship -- and perhaps firearms -- set to ultra-catchy crystalline synthpop. There's a case to be made that it's better than the A-side (which was one of New Order's biggest hits and their first entry into the Billboard Top 40). For people like Peter Hook who wished more of Peter Hook's distinctive bass stylings made it into the the final product (it doesn't show up till right before the slow fade out), Arthur Baker's sublime remix adds in more string instruments -- bass and guitar -- throughout.

“Vanishing Point” (1989)

Both Stephen Morris and Peter Hook's favorite song on 1989's Technique, "Vanishing Point" is one of New Order's finest electronic dance songs (and it really should've been a single instead of either "Fine Time" or "Run"). Like "Thieves Like Us," this one is in no hurry to get to vocals, with the 90 second lead-in playing like an overture, leading us through the major melodic points; when Sumner does begin with "Grow up children don't you suffer / at the hands of one another" it's a cinematic experience. "Vanishing Point" has the best chorus on the album and the best breakdown and "drop" (before they called them that), that was clearly influenced by the two months spent in Ibiza making the album (and spending a lot of time at the club).

“Dream Attack” (1989)

individual lanes, but the album closes with the glorious "Dream Attack" that brings the whole record together, mixing ragged guitar solos, windswept acoustic guitars, sampled orchestra hits, sequencers and live drums -- plus another great chorus -- all together as only New Order can do. Bernard Sumner apparently had The Eagles' "Hotel California" in mind with the song's two-minute jam outro which, in their hands, works. Gillian Gilbert, who played those wonderful acoustic guitars, says, "To me, Dream Attack' sums up the whole album. It’s bright breezy and uplifting...a good song to walk off into the sunset to."

“Special” (1993)

New Order were not especially getting along in the early-'90s, but got back together to make a new album, as they were low on funds after their label Factory Records (which went belly-up the year prior) and their troubled Manchester club, The Hacienda, depleted their bank accounts. Republic was, by all accounts, not the most pleasant recording experience with Bernard Sumner and Peter Hook butting heads constantly. There's not much of Hook's signature bass on the album, but there is some unfortunate rapping by Sumner. Republic does contain "Regret," one of their best-ever singles (a Top 40 hit in the US), and some of the old magic can also be found tucked away near the end of Side 2 with the sultry, moody "Special," which is driven by Hook's bass and another great chorus. Lyrically the song is perhaps referencing the demise of Factory Records or the group itself: "It was always special, like water down the drain." New Order went on an eight-year hiatus not long after its release.