A Song For Friday: Vitiello/Canty/Rowe
Art-rock majesty from three experts. Also: Frankie & The Witch Fingers, Lifeguard, Kiran Leonard, Takaat, Pond, Phoebe Rings, Soccer Mommy, Briana Marela, Azymuth, Beatie Wolfe & Brian Eno, etc.
My history with musician, sound-artist, and producer Stephen Vitiello was well-covered the last time he appeared here on a Friday last July. At that time, I was marveling over Almost Missing, his collaboration with Andrew Deutsch, which I called “full of surprise, beauty, and adventure.”
That EP and several other recent releases by Vitiello were more accessible than some of his stuff, which can get pretty out there. But Second, released today, may be his least esoteric project yet. The album feels like a homecoming to a lot of the music we loved when we were in college, specifically art-rock and dub-influenced post-punk. Joining Vitiello, who plays guitar, Rhodes, sampler, loops, and modular synthesizer, are ex-Fugazi member Brendan Canty (drums, bass, and piano) and ex-Hugo Largo member Hahn Rowe (violin, viola, 12-string acoustic and bowed electric guitar, and bass). However, it’s a homecoming with zero nostalgia, just three expert musicians reveling in the pleasures of hypnotic guitars, rich electronics, questing bass, and time-shifting percussion. On the last track, Geologist from Animal Collective sits in on the hurdy-gurdy.
While the whole album is absolutely fantastic, focus on Rhythmic Rhodes, which begins with a high drone soon given structure by Canty’s reggae-influenced drum pattern, sounding huge in the cavernous production. Rowe adds more drone from a violin and then lays down a gorgeous bass line that finds its way into Canty’s kit like a snake through the grass. Vitiello drops in bits of sparkle on the titular keyboard, and it feels like a whole universe is springing up around you. Step inside.
The album is called Second because the three initially appeared together on First, a meditative 17-minute track from 2023 that pointed towards Second without spoiling any of its marvelous surprises.
Listen to most of the songs for Friday here or below.
Also Out This Week
Frankie and the Witch Fingers - Trash Classic Kicking off with a prelude that puts the Dark Side Of The Moon in a blender with Gangsters by The Specials, this eighth album from the LA rockers finds them at their best and then some. The energy levels are through the roof, and new synth-wiz Jon Modaff adds some no-wave noises to their patented punk-prog-psych mix. Post-punk moves are more prominent, too, as on Eggs Laid Brain, which sounds like Entertainment!-era Gang Of Four playing a Levitation session. When they slow things down a hair on Gutter Princess, the interplay between Dylan Sizemore and Josh Menash’s guitars only becomes more lethal. Sizemore is in peak vocal form, too, sounding more confident and unhinged than ever. Nick Aguilar is typically punishing on drums, not that Nikki Pickle’s bass would ever let him get away with slacking off. The title track ends the album on a dystopian note, with a touch of glitch to remind you that even this well-oiled machine of a band can seem like it’s falling apart, just like everything else in 2025.
Lifeguard - Ripped & Torn Guitars scrub and whine, drums push and pull, and vocals shout and soar on this debut LP from the young Chicago band of Asher Case (bass/vocals), Isaac Lowenstein (drums - and brother of Horsegirl’s Penelope), and Kai Slater (guitar/vocals - who also records as Sharp Pins). The trio lives and breathes rock & roll of the post-punk and post-hardcore varieties, with touches of dub and art rock, and the album goes by in a flash of noise and space. If you’ve never seen them live, get to it!
Kiran Leonard - Small Brown Bed/With You Waltz This rangy, raw, and expansive (96 minutes!) collection of live takes and off-cuts is intimate and engaging. Over a decade into his career, Leonard’s sense of conviction and self-belief comes through in every strum of his guitar. The concert recordings feature Leonard and the No Tailgate Group working it all out together, sometimes with group vocals, as on the chaotic and emotional epic known as K/S. Indie rock as therapy for performers and listeners? Sign me up.
Finn Wolfhard - Happy Birthday Fun, jangly, and sometimes messy indie pop from one of the Stranger Things actors and produced by Kai Slater (Lifeguard/Sharp Pins). He’s got the right cheekbones for rock’n’roll, and his sunny tunes will help keep The Upside Down at bay.
Takaat - Is Noise Vol. 1 Wide release for this EP by the guys who shred behind Mdou Moctar while he shreds. I would advise him not to look back - something intense, churning, and quite magnificent might be gaining on him.
Pond - The Early Years 2008-2010 This collection of the Aussie psych band’s primordial material is like catnip for me, as their earlier albums (Hobo Rocket (2013) and Man It Feels Like Space Again (2015), especially) resonate most strongly for me. While many of the songs are concise and punchy, Pond is never better than when the guitars stretch into the stratosphere, as on Mist In My Brain Forest and Frond, the eight-minute-plus exploration that closes the album.
Phoebe Rings - Aseurai On their first full-length, this project of Auckland-based singer, songwriter, and synthesist Crystal Choi maps out points of pleasure, exploring realms of bossa nova, City Pop, and disco. Choi and her bandmates - including guitarist/synthesist Simeon Kavanagh-Vincent, bassist Benjamin Locke, and drummer Alex Freer - have worked with NZ wonders Tiny Ruins, among others, and know their way around the subtleties that can sell a song, whether a squiqqling synth or a tart string arrangement. Catch their breeze - it will lift you and transport you to some new places.
Azymuth - Marca Passo Fifty years after their debut and nearly 10 years since their last all-original album, the Brazilian legends have returned with an album that defines virtuosic insouciance. Even though only one original member remains, the brand is strong on this delightful album. They’re so slick and chill throughout that even when they work up a head of steam, with busy percussion, skywriting fretless bass, and stacks of synths, they don’t break a sweat.
Soccer Mommy - Evergreen (Stripped) This lovely EP features six songs from Evergreen in bare-bones recordings, putting the clarity of Sophie Allison’s voice and songwriting front and center.
Briana Marela - My Inner Rest When the ever-reliable AKP label sent this to me, I assumed Marela was a new artist. I was unaware of her previous work, including two dream-pop albums on the big indie label Jagjaguwar. However, based on what I heard on those earlier releases, this feels like a new direction for the producer, engineer, composer, and vocalist, who was born in Seattle with Peruvian roots. Recording live at Mills College concert hall, Marela loops and layers vocals and electronics into clouds of song and sound that are ecstatic, comforting, and deeply personal. Hearing someone connect with their musical life-force so beautifully is exciting and inspiring.
Beatie Wolfe & Brian Eno - Luminal Imagine side two of the Eno/Lanois/Eno classic Apollo - the country-space-odyssey side - as a vocal album, and you’ll get an idea of what this collaboration sounds like. This album and an ambient companion called Lateral were borne out of a friendship that arose on the stages of SXSW (talking about “art and climate,” naturally) and in the galleries of London. The art-rock and electronic music icon and the artist, musician, and data scientist whom Wired called “one of the 22 people changing the world” come together seamlessly on both albums, but it’s on Luminal where you feel new paths being forged.
Weston Olencki/Patrick Stadler/Katherine Young - Bridges Between Individual Trees Olencki’s name is always a guarantee of the wild and woolly, and this transmission is no different. That doesn’t always mean loud, however. Mycorrhiza II (with Patrick), composed by Young and featuring Stadler on soprano sax alongside live electronics, is surprisingly ethereal. I haven’t seen Young’s name since 2022, when I encountered her first Mycorrhiza on Olivia De Prato’s I, A.M. - Artist Mother Project: New Works For Violin And Electronics. It’s good to have her back! She also gives us Puddles and Crumbs, with Olencki’s trombone occasionally indistinguishable from the electronics. Olencki contributes three compositions, including a new recording of Tenor Madness, originally played by Anna Webber on Old Time Music, which was on my Top 25 in 2022. Stadler is more than up to the challenge and also smokes his way through Giant Steps, a time-stretched homage to the Coltrane classic, and Datalore, which opens the album.
Daniel Pesca - Walk with me, my joy Composer/pianist Pesca first crossed my radar in 2020, when he accompanied flutist Sarah Frisof on a lovely and smart collection of music by women composers. This new portrait album presents five of his chamber works and proves that his light touch on that album is also part of his ethos as a writer. Frisof is here, too, returning the favor on two pieces, including the title track, composed for flute, percussion, cello, and piano. With Pesca on piano and the addition of Christine Lamprea (cello) and Ian Rosenbaum (percussion), it’s an expansive listen, with detailed interplay and emotional engagement. Based on an Irish folk song called Shule Agra that Pesca’s mother used to sing to him, it’s a sparkling example of everything he does well as a composer. But the whole album, which also features solo works for piano, cello, and guitar (Dieter Hennings), is a sun-dappled delight.