Although most live shows have been put on hold by the pandemic, Milwaukee bands are continuing to release new songs — and Matt Wild has listened to most of them. Wild is one of the co-founders of Milwaukee Record, which describes itself as an online source for music, culture, and gentle sarcasm.
Among the many cultural things Milwaukee Record keeps track of is a nearly exhaustive list of new music from local musicians. Wild is the curator of that list and he joins Lake Effect every month to share with us a sample of what he’s been listening to for our Milwaukee Music Roundup.
Here's the latest Milwaukee Music Roundup:
B~Free & Quinten Farr
"Say It"
A notable fact of this collaboration is that B~Free and Quinten Farr are married and this is their first collaboration. "['Say It'] is not just a song, it is in fact a celebration. They put it together to commemorate their four year wedding anniversary," says Wild. "It's a lovely song, it's got some very serious tropical summer vibes."
The Beat Index
"Record Collection"
"If you listen to this song and think to yourself, 'Gee, this sounds an awful lot like the Strokes,' that's kinda by design," says Wild. "It's a pretty funny, pretty brutal takedown, kinda poking fun at the kind of person, 99% of the time that person is a man, who defines himself by the music that they listen to."
Abby Jeanne
"Stop And Listen"
"'Stop and Listen' is a cover of a song from a Milwaukee group in fact, called The Shag who released a couple records back in the '60s," says Wild. "I think she does a terrific job of making it her own and staying faithful to the original recording."
Space Raft
"Please Be Kind"
"The lead singer and kinda frontman of the band, his name is Jordan Davis. At some point he decided, even though he had no experience doing this, he decided he wanted to translate the band's music into 8-bit Nintendo-era video game music. You know real bleepy and bloopy, what they call chiptune music," explains Wild. "He has the entire album available, it used to be called Positively Space Raft, this is Approximately Space Raft."
Jordan has also created a NES video game called Space Raft NES, in which Matt Wild is a character.
