Ferrn Returns, New Laughing Stock, Basketball Thoughts
It is going to be a busy summer
Good morning! Thanks for your patience regarding last week’s missing letter and the relative brevity of this week’s letter. As you’ll soon discover below in The Promo Zone this has been and will continue to be a busy month for me. Much of my writing time has been dedicated to some freelance work and an on-going project that I hope will wrap up in July. I’ve also been hard at work preparing for a recording session next week. What I’m saying here is that the next few letters might have truncated introductions. That may continue to be the case for the rest of the summer. You can expect a “Best Albums of 2025 So Far” piece coming at the start of July, and then I’ll be shifting my focus to some longer features that have been piling up on my proverbial desk for a while now. Enjoy the warm weather and the tunes below!
# # # # # The Promo Zone # # # # #
Dan Rico, the scamp, just released a new song with no forewarning. It’s called “Buddy” and it features yours truly on drums and Luc Swift on bass. We recorded this one back in Dan’s old home studio in Bed-Stuy, Brooklyn before I moved to Chicago and he split for the equally far off charms of Ridgewood, Queens. I always had a blast at these sessions. Dan and Luc are both great musicians, and it was a pleasure to commiserate with Luc as we tried to navigate Dan’s unpredictable song structures. I know Dan spent a long time working on this mix, so give it a listen!
As readers can probably tell from my frequent digressions into the subject, I’ve been thinking a lot about NBA basketball lately. I’ve been thinking about it so much in fact that I went and wrote a whole essay about the 2024-2025 Finals and the buzzy concept of “heliocentric basketball” for Indie Basketball. This is my IB debut after lurking on their Discord channel for months, hopefully the first post of many more to come!
Ferrn’s last show at The Burlington (paying subscribers can expect more on that show soon-ish) was such a success that we’re coming back for seconds! On Saturday, June 28th we are opening for System Exclusive along with fellow Chicago locals Eden. You can grab tickets in advance here, and we hope to see you there next weekend!
Unlike Dan Rico, the homies in Laughing Stock gave me plenty of warning that this pair of tunes were on the way into the world. Like the last two track single, these songs were recorded with Dan Howard at Chateau Grand in Williamsburg, Brooklyn just before I skipped town last summer. "Ease of Use” was one of the first songs Zach wrote for this project and was a highlight of our early sets. “Trieste” is probably the most ambitious song we wrote as a group. It took a lot of time to piece together, especially the long looping coda. One trusted friend described the track as “Talk Talk (but LOUD)”, so if that interests you click below to our Bandcamp (or our Ampwall) to listen to the songs.
Finally, before we get to our regularly scheduled Listening Diary and Micro Reviews, consider becoming a paid subscriber for the low price of $5 a month or the even lower price of $40 a year. The support of my paying subscribers make this newsletter possible, full stop. If you’ve found Lamniformes Cuneiform insightful, entertaining, if you’ve discovered new music thanks to my recommendations, or if you are simply a very dedicated hater, subscribing is the best way express your gratitude. Paying subscribers also get access to a number of cool bonuses, like exclusive annotated playlists, behind-the-scenes looks at my music in progress, re-caps of my concerts, and other illusive features.
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Listen to this year’s running diary on Apple Music.
“Motown” by The Workhorse Movement (Sons of the Pioneers, 2000)
A while back I wrote about my affection for mash-ups of old soul songs and classic metal tunes and pinned for more examples of real bands attempting that fusion in their original material. Here, in this early 00s nu-metal obscuirty, we have one such example. I’m not going to try and sell this as a “good song”, but it is at the very least an interesting song. Turns out bounce riffs and horn sections go great together. The line between utterly tacky and kind of brilliant is thin enough that a band with actual songwriting instincts should take this goofy stupid tune as a jumping off point.
“Prism Prison” by Nicole McCabe (A Song To Sing, 2025)
I love when a song’s title matches the contents. This absolutely sounds like being trapped in a geometric pattern.
“Bliss: The Eternal Now” by Carlos Santana & Alice Coltrane (Illuminations, 1974)
Carlos Santana has got to have the strangest CV is modern music. If you’re a millennial like me you likely were introduced to him via Rob Thomas in the late 90s. What a shock then to discover that his back catalog is filled with tripped out fusion and collaborations with artists as lauded as Alice Coltrane. Bizarre! Beautiful track from a heck of a record.
“Shutterspeed” by Karnivool (Themata, 2005)
This tune splits the difference between the meat-head riffs of The Workhorse Movement and the jazzy refinement of the last two tracks. I remember reading about this band a lot in high school but I never made the effort to check them out. A shame, I would have really dug this back then! Prog metal with some very clear hooks and a great singer. I should dig into the rest of their catalog.
“Holy Man” by One Minute Silence (Buy Now… Saved Later, 2000)
My fellow countrymen might share my skepticism about nü-metal from the other side of the Atlantic. The genre demands a degree of dumbass-ness that Europeans sublimate through football hooliganism instead of bounce riffs. Set that skepticism aside here, this British freakout over the Catholic Church is the genuine article.
\ \ \ \ \ Micro Reviews / / / / /
Here are five micro reviews of albums from my vast Rate Your Music catalog. Long time Lamniformes Instagram followers will recognize these from my stories, however they’ve been re-edited and spruced up with links.
Untrue by Burial (2007) - Dubstep
Probably the best album I’ve ever listened to on the strength of a Pitchfork review. Despite being electronic and dance music curious back in 2007 I had never heard anything like Untrue. Ignorant as I was of the album’s place in the history of UK club music, everything about the record seemed to arrive from outer space. The drums, the bass sounds, all of it completely new to me. While this locked me out of the nostalgic element of Burial’s style, I think this lack of context worked just as well for me. This is a perfect dance record for people that don’t actually go to the club. Sure, it is of the club but the tone is introverted, internal, like you’re hearing the music from inside someone’s skull or on the rain-soaked street just outside of the warehouse. Listening to Untrue since 2013 it’s easy to think of it as a stepping stone to the ambitious, long form work that Burial would explore and then master on subsequent EPs, but on the other hand this album’s immediacy and propulsive rhythmic drive are exactly what’s been missing from most of Burial’s music for nearly a decade now. Though it’s easy to paint this as weirdo loner music, that discounts how euphoric and dare I say hopeful this music is once you get past the surface. “He’s got a lot of love in him” as the sample says. Classic.
Harvest by Neil Young (1972) - Rock
The record of choice for Neil Young neophytes, which I can say with confidence because I am one such neophyte. This is the one with the hits. It sounds the way you expect a Neil Young album to sound, simple country-adjacent folk rock. It has songs about the effect of drugs but does not itself sound effected by drugs. There are two songs with inexplicable orchestral arrangements that people like to complain about. Every time I put on this record I spend all of Side A wondering if I’m too cool for it… but then Side B kicks in and man, that shit rules. My personal favorite Neil mode is when he embraces the messy harshness of electric guitar, so I’m a big fan of “Alabama” and “Words”, the latter of which gets up to some nearly prog time change shenanigans. Across the board this record is a testament to how much you can get done on drums while barely playing anything other than kick and snare. Good album to clean your house to.
What’s Going On by Marvin Gaye (1971) - Soul
A stone cold canonical classic that I dismissed for no good reason as a young man. Maybe I was resisting overexposure to the title track, maybe I was just a doofus. Don’t be a doofus, this album is great. What I overlooked when I wrote this off as pretty and sentimental was how pessimistic the album is when taken as a whole. The album starts at a party and then recedes inward, stewing on anxieties specific to the era (Vietnam) and ever present (drugs, poverty, the environment). This train of thought is sustained by a number of repeating motifs and an expansive but consistent arrangement. It always feels like the same band is playing on every song, and the transitions are so clean that you might not even notice the track changes. Over time though the mood palpably shifts however from the yearning sentimentality of the first half to the boiling rage under the surface in the home stretch. Even without the thematic richness, this is just straight up gorgeous record, full of lovely pitched percussion and haunting counter melodies. You’re not too cool for this one, it might be too cool for *you*.
Mercyful Fate by Mercyful Fate (1982) - Heavy Metal
Satan’s perfect four track metal EP. It is no surprise to me that this band took the tape trading scene by storm back in the day and eventually become the cornerstone for Roadrunner records. Already on their first EP they’d synthesized all the most essential elements of the New Wave of British Heavy Metal and pointed to the inevitable invention of extreme metal in the process. Mercyful Fate combined Iron Maiden’s high flying technicality, Judas Priest’s hard driving riffs, and Venom’s cheesy Satanic shtick, then added a healthy dose of their own personality. It is impossible to talk about this band without addressing King Diamond, who sings like Rob Halford if he were a Power Rangers villain. Yes he ridiculous… but doesn’t that kind of rule? I’d much rather hear a genuine weirdo on a heavy metal record than an overly professionalized “good” singer without any flair. Mercyful Fate have flair in abundance and the musicianship to back it up. My personal favorite is “Corpse Without A Soul”, but the pseudo-disco of “Devil Eyes” goes super hard too. “Nuns Have No Fun” basically invented Cradle of Filth’s whole vibe. The best way to hear this is on the The Beginning compilation (hence the art above) which pads out the EP with some terrific BBC live cuts. Essential listening for fans of 80s metal.
Liquid Swords by GZA (1995) - Rap
Joe Biden’s favorite Wu-Tang album, as the old tweet goes. The punchline of that joke being that this record is a record that only a die hard could love. Absent the pop charisma of Method Man, the anarchic energy of ODB, or even the untapped potential of Ghostface & Raekwon, GZA relies on his exceptional lyrical ability to carry him through his turn in the solo album spotlight. Everything else about Liquid Swords acts like bouncer, checking to see how much you can endure to enjoy the unfiltered #BARS on the other side. Inconsistently mixed vocals, sloppy unquantizied beats, and out-of-key singing only serve to heighten the album’s “rap real” bona fides. To be sure, this record can give you a headache if you’re not on its wavelength. Once it clicks though, whew. He may not be a leading man, but no one can deny that GZA can rap his ass off. And while the beats might be a little rough, if you squint they almost sound like a psych rock band stuck at mid tempo. The best tracks are the ones where the rest of the Wu chime in with their own verses, even RZA’s off-kilter flow is a nice change of pace, but with or without back up GZA’s performance earns this record’s meme worthy reputation.