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This week in Indie Basement we’ve got new records by Sharp Pins (Lifeguard‘s Kai Slater), Oneohtrix Point Never, Irish-by-way-of-Portugal band pôt-pot, and Chicago’s Glyders, plus two rave-forward movie soundtracks: GAME from Geoff Barrow (Portishead/Beak), and SIRĀT by Kangding Ray.
We lost a true legend this week, Gary “Mani” Mounfield, and I pay tribute to his work in the Stone Roses for this week’s Indie Basement Classic.
Over in Notable Releases, Andrew reviews new ones from De La Soul, Glitterer, and more.
In other news: My Bloody Valentine played their first show in seven years; Velocity Girl are giving ¡Simpatico! the deluxe reissue treatment; Crooked Fingers are back; and Soulwax made an awesome NYC-centric mix as only they could.
Head below for this week’s reviews…
ALBUM OF THE WEEK: Sharp Pins – Balloon Balloon Balloon (K)
Lifeguard’s Kai Slater moonlights as a low-fi pop wunderkind; Bob Pollard, watch your back
Kai Slater is one-third of Chicago post-punk band Lifeguard, but he also makes super-catchy, ’60s-inspired lo-fi guitar pop on his own as Sharp Pins. Balloon Balloon Balloon is actually the second Sharp Pins album of 2025 — he released Radio DDR back in the spring — and his prolific nature is in line with the artist he’s most likely to get compared to: Guided by Voices. Early GBV, specifically, and Slater holds up well against them. Like Robert Pollard, he has a way with home recording, playing every instrument, multitracking harmonies, and evoking his heroes without ever exactly stealing from them. He also bears a vocal resemblance to Pollard, especially when dropping lines like “all the silver-tongued creeps” on “Popafangout.”
Balloon Balloon Balloon is a nonstop hook-fest, with jangly, chiming guitars, “ooh ooh” and “ahhhhh” choruses, and “yeoowwww!” intros to solos. The album also features some clever, trippy production touches that keep things from being a total time machine. It’s almost as if Kai is wearing his influences (Beatles, Big Star, Zombies, Kinks, Television Personalities, Cleaners From Venus) like armor, and earworms like “I Don’t Have the Heart,” “Queen of Globes and Mirrors,” and “Stop to Say Hello” are his ammo. They’re protecting him well.
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Oneohtrix Point Never – Tranquilizer (Warp)
Inspired by ’90s sample packs and dentistry, Daniel Lopatin has made his most inspired, engaging 0PN record in some time
Daniel Lopatin’s latest cosmic trip as Oneohtrix Point Never was inspired by two different traumatic situations. The first came when a vast library of commercial samples from the ’90s and ’00s — made from hundreds of sample CDs that had been uploaded to the Internet Archive — suddenly disappeared from the web. They eventually resurfaced, but the idea that something so foundational — sounds used across film, TV, video games, and advertisements — could simply vanish, inspired Lopatin to make an album about transience, and about disappearing into a world built entirely from vintage audio.
As with most of his records, Lopatin slices, dices, shreds, manipulates, and reassembles these sounds into something wholly other while firmly rooted in the 0PN universe. Tranquilizer is his most engaging album in some time: melodic, magnetic, and immersive, yet still untethered in that unique liminal, liquid dreamstate. “Rodi Glide,” “Lifeworld,” “Measuring Ruins,” and the rest of the album may be made from decades-old echoes, but they defy timestamping, with shards of plastic and polished steel blending with stone, flesh, occasional organic instruments, and sounds of the natural world for a truly transportive listen.
The second traumatic event that inspired the record was a trip to the dentist, as Lopatin lay back — mouth full of metal instruments — gazing up, half anesthetized, at the peacefully painted ceiling. Tranquilizer indeed.
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pôt-pot – Warsaw 480km (Felte)
Irish quintet mix motorik rhythms and strummy guitars for a sound somewhere between Neu! and the Velvet Underground
Hailing from Ireland but based in Lisbon, quintet pôt-pot bash out fiery, krautrock-inspired psych powered by a head-down, deep-in-the-groove rhythm section and a guitarist who often plays anything but what you expect. Across the record they make sharp detours into funk (“Sextape”), Stonesy pop (“Hot Scene”), and ripping garage punk (“I AM!,” “Can’t Handle It”). Plenty of bands wade around in these Neu! / Spacemen 3 waters, but it’s the curveballs — and the musicianship — that make Warsaw 480km so captivating.
“One massive influence for me is James Brown and a lot of early soul and funk,” says bandleader Mark Waldron-Hyden. “Those deep grooves and chant-like vocals, repeated for minutes on end, are crafted so skillfully… simple enough to get down to, but evolving enough to stay incredibly interesting. That kind of music makes people move and lose themselves, but also stands alone as totally original and timeless.”
If you have any interest in this sort of thing — Goat, Spiritualized, Beak> — Warsaw 480km is top-tier stuff: hypnotic, danceable, dubby, swirling, moody, and full of swerves that keep you guessing what’s coming next.
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Glyders – Forever (Drag City)
Long-running Chicago band find their groove on their first album for Drag City
Guitarist Joshua Condon and bassist Eliza Weber have been leading Chicago’s Glyders for more than a decade with a revolving door of drummers, but they didn’t release their debut album until 2023 — and it wasn’t really until they linked up with drummer Joe Seger that everything clicked. A formidable power trio was born. Forever is Glyders’ first album for Drag City, which is a perfect home for them, and not just because they share a hometown; there’s a mix of skill, tunefulness, glammy riffs, urbane wit, and rural jamminess that fits right in next to Ty Segall, Bill Callahan, David Berman et al.
The artist they have the most in common with, though, is on a different Chicago label, Touch and Go: Ripley Johnson of Wooden Shjips, Moon Duo and Rose City Band. (Can a Rose City Band / Glyders tour be far off?) Forever has moments of one-chord zone-’n’-drone psych and even more choogle, all delivered with a casual, friendly, laid-back air that exudes sunshine — even on songs titled “Stone Shadow” and “Hard Ride.” It’s a terrific driving record, a great walking-around-the-city record, and an excellent Great Outdoors record. As they sing on “Moon Shadow,” “open up the window, unlock the door, and let the moon hit the floor.”
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Various Artists – GAME Original Soundtrack (Invada)
Geoff Barrow (Portishead/Beak>) is behind not only this film’s soundtrack, he co-wrote and produced the movie, too
When Geoff Barrow announced this time last year that, thanks to a “dodgy ankle,” he was retiring from Beak>, the band he formed with bassist Billy Fuller in 2009, he let slip that he had other creative plans in the works: “I’ve produced my first feature film that will be released later this year.” It took a little longer than that, but the label he started, Invada, launched a film arm this year and their first feature is out now in the UK. A taut thriller set against the ’90s rave scene, GAME was co-written and produced by Barrow, directed by John Minton (Portishead’s “Machine Gun” video), and stars Sleaford Mods’ Jason Williamson. Barrow also produced the soundtrack, which is unlike his usual scoring jobs with collaborator Ben Salisbury (Ex Machina, Annihilation).
“We knew that we needed a soundtrack for the film rather than a traditional score, and that it had to be RAVE tunes that sounded like they were made in the early 90s,” Barrow says, noting he wasn’t really into that scene despite being associated with Bristol’s Wild Bunch that spawned Massive Attack, Tricky, Soul II Soul and more. “I researched what was happening back then and spoke to the 90’s rave producer DJ Smudge… and asked him to write some tunes.”
With that in mind, GAME is full of period-specific warehouse bangers by DJ Smudge, a song by Fuzzface (aka Barrow and singer Stephen McKaye), an a cappella number by Beak> bassist Billy Fuller, a few more typical synth-score pieces, and a demented pipe-organ take on Ravel’s “Bolero” created by Barrow and Salisbury. The best dance cut of the bunch is the breakbeat-fueled “Me Be Ecstasy,” which features vocals by Tor Maries aka Billy Nomates. GAME, the film, might be more akin to Misery or Straw Dogs than Trainspotting or Human Traffic, but the soundtrack is pretty fun.
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Kangding Ray – SIRĀT (Original Motion Picture Soundtrack) (Invada)
Techno visionary Kangding Ray provides the pulse of one of 2025’s most arresting, unforgettable cinematic experiences
On a similar note to GAME, and on the same label (Invada), is the soundtrack to SIRĀT, the intense new film from Óliver Laxe. The film is set in the world of nomadic desert raves in Morocco, where a middle-aged man goes looking for his missing daughter who was last seen at one of these Burning Man–esque parties. The film, which won three awards at this year’s Cannes Film Festival and is Spain’s official entry in the 2026 Oscars, takes a few left turns along the way and is quite harrowing at times. It’s the most gripping, shocking film I’ve seen this year.
A large part of SIRĀT’s impact comes from its visceral, thumping score by visionary experimental techno producer Kangding Ray (David Letelier). It’s almost a character in the film — its pulse — and at times you think your heart may explode, while other moments offer pure release. Over the course of the film, the music seems to crumble apart, shredded by the harsh, unforgiving desert elements, filling you with dread before the beats fall away, leaving pure swirling atmosphere, as if whipped into a sandstorm.
The soundtrack holds up on its own, but it’s best experienced in a theater with state-of-the-art sound, within the context of this unforgettable film.
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INDIE BASEMENT CLASSIC: The Stone Roses – The Stone Roses (Silvertone, 1989)
A tribute to Mani, Manchester legend and The Stone Roses’ (and Primal Scream) secret engine
It seemed to be a total shock to the music world on Thursday when the news broke that Gary “Mani” Mounfield had died at age 63. A Manchester native, he was a member of The Stone Roses and later Primal Scream, and his contribution to both groups during his tenures is hard to overestimate. I have trouble picking just one record Mani’s on, but let’s go with the first: the 1989 debut album from The Stone Roses.
Plenty has been written about The Stone Roses over the last 36 years, especially in the British press where it is often mentioned as one of the greatest debuts of all time — in 2000 the NME even declared it “The Greatest Album Ever,” and in 2006 it topped their list of the “100 Greatest British Albums Ever.” I don’t know about either of those, but there’s no denying it’s amazing, no skips, and an evergreen classic. And as much as people talk about John Squire’s inventive guitar playing, it’s Mani’s awesome, memorable basslines that really power things — from the slow throb of “I Wanna Be Adored,” to the driving intro of “She Bangs the Drums,” the effortlessly ripping “Waterfall,” the deep grooves of “Shoot You Down,” and the tour de force that is “I Am the Resurrection” that closes things out.
Add in singles “Elephant Stone” and “Fools Gold,” which were added to the American CD, Mani’s legend status was cemented early. I’ve listened to The Stone Roses hundreds of times over the three-plus decades and I never tire of it — and Mani is a huge part of that. Rest easy.
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