Chaos Practitioner

The second release from Brooklyn art-pop duo Al Nardo and Bailey Wollowitz (formerly of Sloppy Jane and several other acts), a collection of oddball, lush earworms; both tapping into modern brainrot and aching romanticism; I'm honestly having a hard time describing what they sound like (it varies wildly from track to track!), so you'll just have to listen for yourself...

FCC on track 3 -- basically inaudible, but it's technically there

1. (2:40) ***** Glitchy cowbell intro, chanty/oblique/dancy back-and-forth, cool and ethereal and somewhat nightmarish (dense and cyber chorus) -- LAST 15 SECONDS are a sort of strange spoken word outro (a gruff older man commenting on the band), you can/should cut this off you want
2. (3:11) ******** Broken, tragic, glitchy take on a classic melody; propulsive and louche and multi-textured... hard to describe, but great stuff; the "you spent a grand at the mall" line in the chorus keeps getting stuck in my head. Like a deranged vaporwave music box
3. [FCC: "some Fripp shit", almost inaudible, only clear from official lyrics] (3:08) ***** Strummy/glitchy low-rez at first, moves into a more MGMT-type snarly sound, lush and pretty chorus; some yelling and chaotic clattering, cyber-nightmare
4. (2:14) ***** Strummy uptempo rocking playing off against gauzy, heaven-like dreamwave sounds; very pretty and interesting, if short and simple; ends in percussive clatter, then long quieting buzz
5. (2:54) ***** Acoustic/folky but snarky sound, with sweet and hooky '70s soft-pop chorus: "JUST CALL...", rollicking and catchy
6. (4:53) ***** Whispery uptempo, gauzy and dense and both very modern/glitzy and decadent; ends rathe suddenly