New York City’s Macula Dog is a duo known for their singular style of clattering electronic synth music. The band is also known for their live performances, which are highly visual, with the duo donning elaborate costumes and operating custom control rigs. Their current live set features a luminol-glam experience with live video of each member’s face recorded by head-mounted cameras and projected onto screens around the performance area. Their live set has been covered in The New Yorker and their last LP earned a Tiny Mix Tapes Eureka designation.
The band’s first self-titled EP was released on their own Haord Records label in 2014, followed by their debut LP for Wharf Cat, 2016’s Why Do You Look Like Your Dog? The Natural Dog cassette followed by a U.S. release tour and performances on Adult Swim. The Breezy EP was be released on 4/17 but the band had to cancel the Eps release tour because of the COVID-19 pandemic. Macula Dog is currently working on their next LP, after which a support tour will be planned when it is safe to do so.
(Photo Credit: Ates Isildak)
Matt: My album of the year is Lucy & Aaron by Aaron Dilloway and Lucrecia Dalt. I didn’t really know about Lucrecia before the collab, so that’s what’s great about a shared album. I went back and listened to her 2018 album after hearing this one and thought, Oh, shit, why didn’t I hear about this at the time? It’s great.
Lucy & Aaron just has a cool flow to it; the songs mostly blend into one another though there’s a few distinct cuts. Best collab record since Pan Sonic and Alan Vega I’d say! — Lucrecia is Pan Sonic in this case and Dilloway is more Vega. Old heads and new. I don’t usually like collab albums much, but I thought this one just worked. It has a bit of a Residents vibe at some points, and there’s some super melodies. That’s probably Lucrecia Dalt’s contribution but maybe not! If you want to know which person in Macula Dog puts more melody into our music, it’s probably me? I don’t know if Ben agrees with that or not.
Ben: I don’t know about the premise, but yes, let’s go with that.
Matt: I don’t think Ben or I do a great job of staying up on new releases. I realized while tracking down releases for this Talkhouse story that many weren’t from this year at all. I also couldn’t tell you if this Lucy & Aaron album sounds like it MUST be from 2021 just listening to it, but honestly, maybe that’s what I did like about it. It doesn’t seem like it needed to be from right now. But again, Ben may not even agree with me about this album being the best of the year!
Ben: No, I like that album. I couldn’t come up with anything, so I made you do it. Mostly because it’s hard for me to remember anything, and anything I can come up with, I’m like, This isn’t something anyone needs to know about…
Matt: There is some newer music we both get excited about though. There’s this rapper Baby Couch, he put out some music videos this year and they were tight. And then that guy Sewn Leather came out with new music — he kind of went silent for a bit. We both like that a lot.
Ben: He’s had a few projects — he was Skull Katalog after Sewn Leather, now he’s Antimaterial Worlds.
Matt: He became Hare Krishna and put out some new videos. One’s called “when the panicattak,” and the other’s called “karmic scales.”
Ben: He’s always put out good stuff, and is a really good live act, too.
As told to Annie Fell.
(Photo Credit: Ates Isildak)
