By It’s our Bandcamp Picks of the Week, featuring a pair of self-titled debuts including sparse and beautiful post-punk from LXRP and colorful and scrappy indie rock from Holofoil!
LXRP – S/T
Genre: Post-Punk
Favorite Tracks: “Bricks,” “Arrows,” “Artifacting,” “Loss”
LXRP’s self-titled debut record embodies immediacy, down to the music and its genesis. The trio comprises Amy Rogers, Heather Jardany, and Mish Furner, who have separate musical stints cherished in Naarm/Melbourne. LXRP was born in mid 2024, from their love of Sydney’s post-punk scene, which twists the genre’s anatomy with an unending propulsion, metallic, wiry chords, and a dreamy, psychedelic tone. Some tracks on the record were written at the band’s inception, while others were presumably closer to its recording. This occurred in a single day at a suburban home studio. For that alone, the project has “DIY” written all over it.
Yet that doesn’t discount their songs’ completeness at all—LXRP exercise a less-is-more mentality, the few instruments they deftly deploy will instantly hotbox any stage room with a fervent energy. Each track, all reinforced by Jardany’s drum programming, features her guitar textures either densely reverb-soaked or imitating classic goth rock. Rogers’ steady bass, never missing a beat, keeps the athleticism going among the surrounding reverberance. Furner’s commanding voice, sometimes almost a call-to-response, is the cherry on top of the band’s close-knit interplay. Her stream-of-consciousness words are her oblique view of ordinary surroundings, with this strangeness making LXRP memorable.
The more hardcore tunes, like “Bricks” and “Bet,” quickly behave as expected—rhythmic enough to make you dance. There are plenty of quieter songs, such as “Maintenance” and “Arrows,” which aren’t just spaces to breathe but showcases of their wide musical depth. Some songs travel in both modes—“Artifacting”’s chattering sequencer is perhaps a nod to that in New Order’s “Temptation”—music with a rock or punk origin blended with a club sensibility. Ending the album is “Loss,” its standout, graceful ramp-up soaring skyward to a triumphant closure. LXRP have created an unforgettable journey, and if they had instead dwelled on recording, the immediacy throughout the album might not have been as potent. Its beauty, then, lies in its spontaneity. Listen to it on Bandcamp. [Dom Lepore]
Holofoil – S/T
Genre: Indie Rock
Favorite Tracks: “Yuck,” “Lip Reading,” “App”
As someone who obsesses over music and indie art and comics, Holofoil is clearly my band. Frontman Curtis Tinsley (joined by singer-bassist Mabel Suen and drummer Joseph Hess) just so happens to make both, which explains the synesthesia-esque quality to their seven track, self-titled debut. With an unassuming charm and approach, Holofoil operate maneuver so that the visual and auditory sensibilities (intended or otherwise) augment and compliment each other in dazzling, undulating glory.
Mostly, it’s about stoking moods and fostering experiences. “Cool With Me” is this surfy ode to growing and perpetuating self-love and empathy; it should appear in the credits of some Hayao Miyazaki-Pendleton Ward collabo. “Lip Reading,” meanwhile, delivers its lyrics via word balloons—these uncomplicated, achy love notes I’d expect from, say, LOVE AND ROCKETS. Sometimes it’s more abstract and indefinable. “Cults of Orm” unfurls sharp, pointed repetition over mostly funky bass, and it actually paints a swirling desert vista in my brain. “Yuck” is absolutely anti AI, which makes perfect sense for a rock ‘n’ roll cartoonist. (The song being the LP’s catchiest cut is a layer not lost on ya’ boy.)
Everything else falls somewhere between: “Chakra Salad” axes the words and still unfurls a majestic picture of ethereal surf-funk; “App” re-approaches “Yuck” to inject rich new colors in bettering grasp our devolution; and “Blue Eye Orb” is a mish-mash—or the letters section of your favorite comic (that’s still an angular post-punk jam). HOLOFOIL is a way to earnestly engage with Tinsley, and explore how artists see all creation as a vehicle for pure ideas and emotions. In that way, my double sided, deeply sentimental experience even mirrors that of the band—the liner notes start with “sometimes you just gotta make an album with your best friends”—and I’ve entered the record in a way that’s less presumptuous or obvious and more organic and heartfelt. That the LP emphasizes generally slice-of-life thematic fare doubles down on the sheer connective heft.
At the same time, my excursion into this LP is about more than yummy vibes. If there’s a single shred of truth to recent debates regarding AI technology, it’s that music really is evolving. Not into unbridled slop, but with increasingly tenuous barriers around both participation and even between forms of media, albums ought to reflect much more. HOLOFOIL leans into and subverts the experiences and expectations of everyone involved to ride this post-something surge directly into our hearts and minds. Great artistry is always transforming, and people with real talent, insight, and heart are having a better time engaging us as consumers and cohorts. And to respond in kind to these new paths is generally the point, yeah?
So whether Tinsley is drawing a picture or strumming a chord, I know that he and Holofoil have what actually matters to make good, deeply important art. The end result might stoke other regions of your cranium, but it’ll make you strut, make you swoon, and maybe even have you screaming your very heart out. Here, let me draw you a picture instead: it’s rock music that exclaims “Kapow!” every dang millisecond. Listen to it now over on Bandcamp. [Chris Coplan]
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