A Song For Friday: Car Seat Headrest

The Scholars is a thrilling album. Also, releases from Leal Neale, Mei Semones, Anysia Kym & Loraine James, Model/Actriz, True Names: A Benefit for Trans Youth, Kill Symbols, and Alec Hall.

I used to be better at digging for gems on Bandcamp. That’s how I found Car Seat Headrest, which was originally Will Toledo’s solo project and thus named for the “vocal booth,” i.e., his car, where he sang his heart out in peace. When I heard him on 2013’s Nervous Young Man, his eighth album, he was on the verge of breaking out of the morass of self-released, underheard indie bands.

If Teens Of Style, the 2015 compilation of Toledo’s earlier work re-recorded by a full band, was the threshold, then 2016’s Teens Of Denial, one of the 100 best albums of the 2010s, was the other side of the door, a powerful proclamation—anthemic, epic, and romantic—that a great new band had arrived. And it was a band now, with Ethan Ives (guitars), Andrew Katz (drums, electronics), and Seth Dalby (bass) becoming the stalwart musicians helping Toledo realize his maximalist visions. They were also ferocious in concert, capable of nearly levitating a sold-out Webster Hall when I saw them in 2017.

The next album was a re-recording of 2011’s Twin Fantasy, which revealed that Toledo’s big ideas were embedded in the songs all along. For those who weren’t lucky enough to see CSH, 2019’s Commit Yourself Completely was a fair facsimile, a blazing series of performances with an expanded band that became my #8 live album of all time. The next studio album, 2020’s Making A Door Less Open, featured fewer guitars and more electronics, making it somewhat divisive among the fanbase, but I included it on my Top 25, praising its “mastery of soundscaping” and finding much the same emotional impact as the earlier albums. When I saw CSH on that tour, I was happy to discover that Toledo was just as great a frontman without a guitar in his hands and that the new songs blended well with the classics. Faces From The Masquerade, another live album from 2023, consolidated that period of the band as Toledo began dealing with health issues that put his career on pause.

When he put that behind him, he began work on the most ambitious CSH album yet, which has now arrived in the form of a concept album called The Scholars. Detailing eight characters connected to the fictional Parnassus University, the 70-minute collection incorporates ideas from Shakespeare, Mozart, The Who, and David Bowie for a nearly cinematic experience.

While I feel I’m still early in the unpacking stage of The Scholars, Reality, an 11-minute track from late in the album, is an instant and epic classic from the band. Co-written by Ives and Toledo, it begins with a pulsing drum machine and ethereal synths, before settling into a mid-tempo groove with pensive piano chords. A duet between Artemis, sung by Ives in a plainer voice that finds unexpected grandeur in its falsetto, and Chanticleer’s Ghost, sung by Toledo in his trademark howl, Reality features elegiac, intertwining acoustic guitars, a searing guitar solo (in the Bandcamp listening party, Toledo noted “Recording these guitars were some of the loudest days in the studio!”), and a pounding finale that has Ives and Toledo nearly bellowing, “And the earth fell out from under me” over and over. Thrilling stuff!

While I can imagine it might be daunting to enter the story of a band on their 13th album - and Teens Of Denial might still be the place to start for the uninitiated - The Scholars solidifies Car Seat Headrest’s position as one of the century’s greatest bands. I hope I’ve at least made you curious enough to give them a try.

Listen to most of the songs for Friday here or below.

Also Out This Week

Leal Neale - Altogether Stranger I’m no stranger to Neale, having first encountered her in 2021, when her debut album, Acquainted With Night, called to me with her “crystalline voice” and the “plastic sparkle” of her signature Omnichord. In 2023, she released Star Eaters Delight, which managed “to double-down on the hypnotic, repetitive vein” of the earlier release. Her collaborator, then as now, is Guy Blakeslee, who adds guitar and electronics, and now they have delivered Altogether Stranger, a sleek transmission from LA “from the perspective of a being from another realm witnessing the peculiarities of humanity.” In the liner notes, Neale talks about resisting the call to bend to the algorithm by smoothing out her eccentricities. Mission accomplished. On Altogether Stranger she sounds more like herself than ever.

Mei Semones - Animaru Her dazzling brilliance on acoustic guitar is evenly matched by the generosity of her music and songwriting. Encompassing jazz, bossa nova, folk, and pop, Animaru shows the full scope of Semones’ talent even more than last year’s delightful Kabutomushi EP. While many of the songs here are as dreamy as those, there are also some she takes at a thrilling, breakneck clip, leading her excellent band (Noah Leong, viola; Claudius Agrippa, violin; Noam Tanzer, bass; and Ransom McCafferty, drums) on a merry chase. And should anyone question her approach, Semone’s has an answer for them in I Can Do What I Want, which begins with a delicate dance between voice and guitar and soon introduces power chords and devilish unison runs as she sings: “If I like it/That’s enough for me/An explanation/Isn’t necessary/Don’t need it.” I’ll amend that to say if she likes it, I’ll like it, too. Join us!

Anysia Kym & Loraine James - Clandestine This transcontinental collaboration between Brooklyn-based Kym and London-based James is brief, yet highly diverting. The electronic tracks are spare and fragmentary, inviting the listener to become a participant as they combine all the pieces. The dynamic range, from Kym’s airy soprano to the deep pulses of pure bass, is expansive, enhancing the experience. More would be appreciated!

Model/Actriz - Pirouette Post-punk, techno, and art rock collide, often relentlessly, on this second album from one of Brooklyn’s most exciting live bands. But there are also moments of tenderness and introspection, as in Acid Rain when Cole Haden sings, “And if I can be more plainspoken/Your voice is with me, I’m reminded/I sing in part because you often/Told me that you liked to listen.” The results display a greater confidence in differentiating their record-making from live performance. Pirouette is the exact opposite of a sophomore slump.

Various Artists - True Names: A Benefit For Trans Youth. From the bedroom indie of Salt’s Burn Me to the delicate folk of Eleanor Elektra’s The Word, and from intimate demos of songs by Night Moth, Squirrel Flower, Really Great, Lena Bartels, Tuxis Giant, Fraternal Twin, Strong Fenn, and (T-T)b to a blistering track by Remember Sports (live!) and blissful jangle from 2nd Grade, there’s a strong sense of community to this compilation benefiting Trans Youth Emergency Project. Let them hold you close.

Kill Symbols - You, Me, and the Mists of History Jake Triola follows up last year’s “supremely smart” Gonzo Activism with what may be a concept album of his own, complete with an Overture and a Coda. The subject seems to be…the totality of human existence? In any case, the songs seduce with their reverb-soaked guitars, gentle melodies, and Triola’s refined voice. As on Gonzo Activism, he nails the current moment with killer lyrics, as on It Comes With The Territory when he sings, “history doesn’t repeat itself— it cloaks itself in mirrors/reflecting what resemble/past versions of a life/ lived, ahead of us.” He’s even more perspicacious on The Next Disaster, with its refrain of “The next disaster’s coming faster/than the ones that came before/you and I both know that in/the way we close the door.”

Alec Hall - A Dog Is A Machine For Loving I first heard the music of Hall when Talea Ensemble performed his 2017 piece, Vertigo, at Time:Spans in 2024. Thanks to the “high drama throughout the piece along with subterranean rumbles, choreography, and metronomes,” Vertigo ended “the evening in bravura fashion.” I wanted to hear more of Hall’s work, and now I have on this expansive debut portrait album featuring excellent performances by pianist Ning Yu, violinist Marco Fusi, and the Mivos Quartet. The title piece is a tribute to canine companions through spoken word, dog sounds, and splashy piano parts. Even though I’m not a dog person, the seven movements are an inventive delight. There Are Only Two Ways to See Inside Someone (2019–2022), for violin and live electronics, is even wilder, shards of sound blending and competing with a white-hot violin part. The Water’s Memory, the Memory of Sand (2021) for string quartet, concludes the album with a highly original approach to this venerable form. Hall’s reputation as a delightfully inventive composer should grow rapidly thanks to this release.

Note: The graphic above is based on a photo by Carlos Cruz.