Heathen Disco Music Reviews #0146 (November 21, 2025)

Shouldn’t we give the music made by AI a different name? It’s not music. Never will be.

That’s as deep a thought as you’ll get outta me today. The days are shortening, my unemployment grows longer. Can’t win.

Next week I’ll be doing some newsletters for the supplicants, everybody who’s sent stuff in or popped up with some random link once they learned somebody else is reviewing records. Brothers, I been here this whole time. Take your teeth out.

You can get in line: PO Box 25717 Chicago IL 60625 USA // [email protected] 

One freebie bc you gotta hear it. Subscribe to read the rest.

Maybe see you at Dazzling Killmen/Dead Rider at the Bottle tonight.

SHARP PINS Balloon Balloon Balloon LP (Perennial / K)

I think there was probably a time when people would have tended to be more critical of something that, both on its surface and in its root structure, so closely matched the works of Guided By Voices as does the new one by Chicago’s Sharp Pins. But this isn’t a new development; the past two albums from Kai Slater’s pop concern pointed in this direction as well. When I saw them play last year the group had absorbed a full-on mod sound and style, down to the rhomboid 12-string guitar, haircuts and clothes. But they were able to back that up in every way in which a band would be required – not just the sound but the sting of it, not just the moves but the elation and enjoyment they beamed out. The surface tension on Balloon Balloon Balloon broke right after the first listen, maybe really cracked in full when the backing harmonies cut through on “Gonna Learn to Crawl.” This wasn’t like Sammy to Pavement. I wasn’t in the presence of a band that only loved Guided By Voices (or let’s face it, The Beatles) this much, and this wasn’t root structure under them so much as a mycorrhizal network that had absorbed the British Invasion and every band that ever adored it, in every bedroom, in every garage, in every effort to get the sounds just right, to get the tears out of their eyes that stained their pages of lyrics onto the tape, to let every windmill guitar move ring out and shake the reverb tanks until the history of recorded sound is amended to include an underlying increase in feedback. At times the record seems like some sort of ice cream contest where you get a badge for finishing off 64 scoops with all the trimmings, but challenges like that are always more rewarding to witness than to participate in. Somehow the balance is achieved from song to song that Sharp Pins keeps lifting itself, and the rest of us, up out of it. Let every mushroom rise up out of the ground and take the Earth out of orbit with their mind-altering mass. Harness this wonder. It’s time for a new orbit.

More below…