Hey Colossus///Chai

Turns out I could be arsed the very next day! From where has this fresh bout of motivation arisen? Do they have dealers for this sort of thing? If so, has anyone got the number of a good one? 

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I was a bit worried this morning. Fuck me, I thought, as I looked through the list of newly released albums. Couldn't have picked a worse time to start a blog than the week there's absolutely fuck all of note released. Barring reissues, that is. ABC's The Lexicon of Love (aka the Greatest Album of the 80s) has received the half-speed treatment if you're into that sort of thing. Maybe one day I'll bore you with why I love that album so much, but today is not that day.

Instead, I'm here to present two offerings from differing ends of the musical spectrum. 

Three years ago Hey Colossus released Dances/Curses, one of my albums of that year. If I remember rightly, on a list I published over in some other corner of the internet, it ended up third. For a band that I couldn't really categorise, that's good going. From what I remember that album pummelled and droned in equal measure. It was heavier and noisier than the song I'll post below, not enough to be considered noise rock but not enough to be tagged as post punk. If I was going to plump for something, I'd have categorised it as psych rock with a heavy bent. 

But on Curved In The Air post punk seems to be the genre of choice -- and one that the band are very adept at pulling off. The pangs of guitar and the, at times, almost motorik beat of the rhythm section create that brooding sound so associated with the genre. The video -- and a song on the album titled Avalon -- shows a band that might harbour a fondness for British myth, or at least the Alan Moore arm of it. 


Japanese popsters Chai are having a bit of a moment. Truth be told they've been having a moment since signing to Sub Pop in 2020 (judging by the release of the Hey Colossus album, the year a lot of good music things were happening). Curmudgeon that I am, though, it's taken them until now to get into my ears. 

As someone who appreciates a good deal of pop music (I will fight anyone who doesn't appreciate Nicola Roberts' solo album to be one of the finest works of pop music of the 10s), Chai's sugary and spiky injections of pop, complete with bizarre dance rituals and lyrics to match, provide the nicest, cutest of headfucks. 


Hope you enjoy these tunes. Let me know if you do? Is there a comment section here? Engagement keeps the Great Content Creator happy. 

Until the next time I can be arsed...

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