Spencer Griffin's New Music Mondays

 here they are: "Aerial Troubles" by Stereolab:   Stereolab have been active for over 35 years, but this marks the first time I've really gotten to hear one of their songs! Though I don't know their material too well, I did get the impression from hearing about them that they mixed the bittersweet side of 1960's pop music with more avant-garde aspects of music, and "Aerial Troubles" seems to be confirming that this is indeed what Stereolab sounds like! The Anglo-French indie outfit whisper and sing playfully over swirling synths and sprawling harpsichords that sound like they came straight out of an obscure French avant-garde romance film! If any song screams "French hipster," this is it! Not that anyone asked, of course. "Chemistry" by Gigi Perez:  Last summer, we were introduced to Gigi Perez, whose indie-folk sound seemed to contrast with her fast-spreading TikTok fame. Where her "Sailor Song" was more or less straight up...

 here they are: "Empty Trainload of Sky" by Gillian Welch:  Sighing combos of banjo and guitar and bittersweet Southern female vocals can only mean one thing. Gillian Welch has come out with a new song! Her latest number, "Empty Trainload of Sky," is a lovely bluegrass-folk-rock song in G minor with a blues-y D7 to punctuate the first two verses midway through. I'm not exactly sure what "Empty Trainload of Sky" is supposed to mean, but chances are it's a metaphor for some difficult experience(s) in her life. As she states in the second verse, "Well, it hit me and it hurt me/Made my good humor desert me." Fitting to her Tennessee roots, Gillian's comparison of hardships to empty trains really evokes "traveling down a lonesome highway" imagery to me.  "Paranoid" by by Hippo Campus:  Not to be confused with the (much) heavier Black Sabbath song of the same name, Hippo Campus' "Paranoid" is more impassion...