Madison’s musical odds and ends of 2023

A look back at the year’s exceptional musical misfits.

Madison experienced a significant number of musical highs across 2023 and not all of them slot neatly into categorization. Every year we take a look at the musical odds and ends that Madison produced and give a handful of those releases their well-deserved flowers. Between all of our year-end coverage, Tone Madison will have covered over 100 local releases to have come out between January and December. And it’s a body of work made all the richer by the inclusion of the odds and ends: remixes, compilations, reissues, archival material that was released for the first time this year, releases that didn’t exactly come from Madison, mini-documentaries, and mash-ups all played a critical part in what made 2023 so unique for music in Madison. And we want to continue to make sure those contributions don’t go unnoticed.

Before we get to our 15 favorites across that spectrum—and in keeping with the theme of 2023’s abundance—it would only be right to name some of our other favorites that were considered for this list. A number of bootleg recordings from venues across Madison found semi-official releases once they made their way to the artist, with one in particular leaving an indelible mark: a recording of Ryley Walker’s September 2022 set at The Majestic. Between the musical performance and Walker’s banter, it’s a near-essential listen for Walker fans.   

Indie rock veteran Graham Hunt and snarling punk newcomers Eat Turf both released short-form documentaries. Hunt’s, a cinema verite look at a national tour, skewed earnest and introspective, while Eat Turf’s high-concept take on the genre proved bitingly sardonic. Both had their merits and provided windows into the respective artists’ modi operandi.

None of Shoobie, Superglue, or Tiny Voices are majority-Madison based (or Madison-based at all), but the proximity of each to Madison has allowed that trifecta of up-and-coming acts to leave an impression on Madison. Shoobie’s live album was a caterwauling run of punk aggression that paints an honorable portrait of the band’s penchant for fearlessness. Tiny Voices’ tightly-executed Make Up Your Place was a career high for the Midwest emo-punk band, which set an impressively high bar for their contemporaries in the genre. Sheboygan guitar fiends Superglue raised their own artistic bar with Monarch, an impressively large-sounding debut album. Each of the three acts took huge swings on their respective records and connected with emphasis.

All the aforementioned releases are indicative of what’s been an overflowing year for Madison-area artists. And they were just scratching the surface. Here are 15 more of Tone Madison‘s favorite (mostly) musical misfits of 2023.

Carrellee, Rescaled

Carrellee’s 2022 album, Scale Of Dreams, is a lush blend of synth-pop, industrial gothwave, and post-punk. Moody and intoxicating, Scale Of Dreams also provided ample opportunities for potential remixes. Rescaled makes good on that implicit promise, tying together a series of producers’ remixes of those tracks into something just as spellbinding as the source material. Each of the baker’s dozen’s worth of reimaginings brings something unique to the table, creating an alternate world enticing enough to keep listeners returning for more. —Steven Spoerl

Chants, Drum & Basement: Breakbeat Sample Pack Vol. 2

Jordan Cohen—who releases a ton of incredible work as a producer under the Chants moniker—released a second volume of his Drums & Basement series this past spring (and a third volume in December). Drum & Basement: Breakbeat Sample Pack Vol. 2 is another sterling collection of breakbeats, loops, and instrumental hooks for other producers to pilfer. While there are built-in clearance and royalty requirements for non-indie artists, smaller artists are simply asked to credit Cohen if they incorporate any of the tracks on offer. It’s a radical move that illustrates Cohen’s understanding of the landscape, and continues to make this series an endearing one. —SS

Complexive, “Harder, Better, Faster, Stronger (Complexive Remix)“

Taking an ubiquitous genre classic and putting your own spin on it is always a daunting prospect, but producer Complexive pulls it off with aplomb on this reworking of one of Daft Punk’s biggest hits. Complexive’s remix of “Harder, Better Faster, Stronger” demonstrates the producer’s most playful tendencies, updating the 2001 electronic/dance classic with silkier, emphatically modern sensibilities. “Paft Dunk,” Complexive’s follow-up single to the remix, also packed a similarly playful punch. —SS

Dusk, Glass Pastures

Dusk can’t quite seem to stop growing. Between their debut 7″ and their sophomore album, they’ve shuffled their lineup twice and expanded it by a member (former Reality Something bassist Bill Grasley). They’ve also developed their own distinctive, collective voice, as well as their individual voices as artists (nearly every member of this sextet fronts or has fronted a separate project). On Glass Pastures, Dusk locks into the nostalgic Americana warmth that has made them a chameleonic favorite for Wisconsin folkies, blues heads, and punks alike. Glass Pastures is nothing if not consistently excellent across its nine exacting tracks. Few releases felt as emblematic of Wisconsin and its history as this one. —SS

Andrew Fitzpatrick, Wry Igloo Chariot: Live 2023 
Issued only as a very limited-edition CD (um, you can borrow mine if you’re curious?), this live recording captures two solo sets from electronic musician Andrew Fitzpatrick, recorded in May 2023 at Arts + Literature Laboratory and September 2023 at The Vines in Sauk City. A deft, long-experienced manipulator of synthesizers and guitars, Fitzpatrick blends abstract texture with harmonic beauty. These two half-hour performances help us hear his music as a living, ever-mutating organism. —Scott Gordon

Gordmin, Gordmin Gold (2020-2021)

Gordmin, the recently-revived solo project of former Trophy Dad guitarist/vocalist Jordan Zamansky, released a compilation of material from 2020 and 2021 in February entitled Gordmin Gold (2020-2021). As was the case with Zamansky’s contributions to Trophy Dad, the writing and vocal delivery remain incisive and gripping. “Are you gonna finish that? / Are you gonna have that soda? / Or want another bite to eat? / I don’t know if I can stomach it” goes the opening refrain to “Soda,” painting a stark metaphorical picture of insatiability and its accompanying struggles. All of the tracks here exist in varying forms of warped bedroom-pop heavy on pulsing electronic adornments. But it all comes across as incredibly considered and grounded, combining into a mesmeric portrait of an artist embracing a growing realization of their voice. —SS

Charlie Kojis, A Normal Amount Of Pain

And now for something completely different. Not music, per se, but it seemed worthwhile to cast a spotlight on Charlie Kojis’ 2023 stand-up special, A Normal Amount Of Pain. Kojis’ wry observations about seemingly mundane moments and masterful command of pace allow A Normal Amount Of Pain to operate in a cadence that doesn’t feel too dissimilar from an expert jazz quartet working the room. We haven’t touched on stand-up comedy as a medium here at Tone Madison with much frequency, but A Normal Amount Of Pain is so well-calibrated that it might legitimately change that trajectory going forward. —SS

Mac Krol, For Some Other Reason b/w Fair Warning + What Would You Say

No two bands were more influential in pulling me towards Madison to experience the city’s music community in the late 2000s than frenetic indie-punk acts Mike Krol and Sleeping In The Aviary. Both Krol and Sleeping In The Aviary guitarist/vocalist Elliott Kozel have since relocated to Los Angeles, but their penchant for collaboration remains intact.

For this unlikely 7″ Krol once again enlists Sleeping In The Aviary’s original trio—Kozel, bassist Phil Mahlstahdt, and drummer Michael Sienkowski—as his backing band, but gets a welcome assist from Superchunk‘s Mac McCaugahn on lead vocals. All three tracks on the 7″ operate as a resounding victory lap, a testament to hard work and consistency, and a sterling example of the bratty, venomous, blown-out indie-punk that has become Krol’s calling card. —SS

Logan Lamers, simple linear iterative clustering

As Tone Madison’s music editor, something I’ve been advocating to consider expanding over the past few years is the geographical reach of what we consider for coverage. Milwaukee has a few publications that are doing an incredible job honoring their cities local musical talent. Other pockets of the state have thriving scenes but lack the publishing infrastructure or interest to receive that type of notice. The Fox Valley area is one of those areas that’s been consistently under-served over the past handful of years, despite playing host to a consistently excellent music scene.

The Present Age guitarist/vocalist Logan Lamers’ recent collection of the solo ambient work he steadily released throughout 2023 is a perfect example of a piece of this dynamic; a piece of art that should have netted significantly more notice. Moving, delicate, and varied, Lamers’ simple linear iterative clustering is a painstakingly gorgeous reminder of what other musical communities around the state can offer if you dig deep enough. Electronic hums, insistent drum programming, wistful, melancholic solo piano, field recordings, and other atmospheric layering all combine in intriguing ways to keep the album engaging. Easy to fall into, and comfortable to stay in, this collective sprawl constitutes a small sliver of the exceedingly worthwhile and under-appreciated work laying just outside of Madison’s borders. —SS

Queer Madison Mixtape Winter 2022-23

Released just a few days into 2023, local arts and music space Communication released the third volume of their ongoing Queer Madison Mixtape series. Queer Madison Mixtape Winer 2022-23 proved to be a memorable compilation, with several of its tracks sticking in my memory throughout the ensuing 12 months. Once again boasting an unimpeachable lineup of, as the series’ motto goes, “low-effort recordings by local queers in Madison, WI.”

A bit of self-deprecation colors the proceedings, as demos and tracks ranging in scope and fidelity make their respective marks. Brooding Prudes‘ opening track, “All That I Have,” sets a loose template for the compilation’s individual narrative arcs via its examination of the deeply personal relationship between hope and heartbreak. By the time Isaac Arms‘ extraordinary sub-minute closer “(Maybe) I’ll Be Fine” rolls around and gets in one last heartfelt gut-punch, it’s difficult to not feel a little drained. But it’s even more difficult to resist the urge to play it all again.  —SS

Ruwa Alien School, Axel Propelled Auditory Wave Armament

Ruwa Alien School, one in a growing number of aliases for Supa Friends‘ Alex Driver, was responsible for Madison’s wildest release of 2023: Axel Propelled Auditory Wave Armament. A cosmic jazz/funk fusion mashup with trip-hop sensibilities and, um, quick-hitting Norm MacDonald bits. The late, legendary comedian is one of several unlikely throughlines propelling Axel Propelled Auditory Wave Armament‘s 19 tracks. MacDonald’s repeated inclusions add another  layer of mind-bending subversion to an already playfully experimental sonic playground of coalescing textures. It’s head-turning work, and it’s, against all odds, impossibly compelling. This shouldn’t work. And yet. —SS

Slow Pulp, Yard

Like Mike Krol and many other outgoing Madison transplants before them, Slow Pulp moved to a larger market to facilitate easier pathways to support a growing public profile. And, like Krol, their relationship to Madison has remained strong. Slow Pulp’s proximity to Madison as a Chicago band allows them to keep fairly active within the city, playing several shows here a year. Yard, the band’s latest, was largely written in a Wisconsin cabin. And that, somehow, comes through in the music.

A sense of open-road, widescreen, semi-rural introspection permeates Yard‘s duration. Autumnal and thoughtful, Yard becomes a reflection of a specific, near-indefinable feeling born out of quintessential Wisconsin environments (there’s a reason “written and/or recorded in a northern Wisconsin cabin” appears in as many press releases as it does). Yard is as easy to listen to as it is to love and it’s beyond heartening to see this indie rock quartet’s profile continue to rise. Quite simply: Yard is one of the year’s best records, in or outside of the upper Midwest. But it’s a record that can’t, and shouldn’t, be separated from its Wisconsin roots. —SS

Tippy420, Ultrazone

Perhaps the most uncategorizable album I’ve come across in some time, it only felt right to dive in on Tippy420’s semi-new, semi-rescued Ultrazone in this particular roundup. Originally recorded in 2018 under the band’s first name (Tippy), Ultrazone finally earned a release in 2023, after years of languishing in a liminal flux due to guitarist/vocalist Spencer Bible’s cross-country move to St. Louis. Ultimately, the band decided it was too good to put to rest (and, per the record release, to honor Bible’s “period of personal reevaluation and recalibration”), and they were right to do so. Ultrazone is the indie rock group’s most impressive work, something that becomes immediately recognizable in the unrestrained energy of “News Music,” the album’s surging opener.  

Over ten tracks of insistent indie-punk, Ultrazone establishes and maintains a distinct sense of energy that defines and binds the work. Exceptionally crafted, structured, and written, the album’s inner workings are only outmatched by the cumulative effect, drawing listeners in and forcing their heads to nod, feet to tap, and brains to engage. Ultrazone makes it ultra-apparent that if Tippy has indeed gone out, that they went out on top. —SS

Tractorman, Tractorman

Originally released on cassette in 1996, chaotic Madison garage-punk band Tractorman’s frenzied self-titled earned a re-release on former Madisonian Chris Joutras’ Kitschy Spirit label. All but three of these 10 songs clock in at under 90 seconds, and the other three don’t eclipse the two-minute mark. Tractorman is as brash and unapologetically confrontational in its approach as it was nearly three decades ago. Shouted vocals, dirty tones, and bug-eyed ferocity will always have a place in punk, and Tractorman’s appealingly hardcore-adjacent Tractorman acts as definitive proof. Gritty, grizzly, and guttural, this reissue is a welcomely re-polished and republished document of a bygone era of Madison punk music whose ripples can still be evidenced in a few of the city’s presently active punk bands. —SS

Joan Wildman Trio, Orphan Folk Music, Under The Silver Globe, Inside Out

A few years ago we asked if the late Joan Wildman’s highly inventive, self-released albums as a bandleader would be allowed to sink into obscurity. We have an answer of sorts from experimental musician Keith Fullerton Whitman and his reissue label Creel Pone, which recently put out this two-CD set combining three of Wildman’s albums from the late ’80s and early ’90s. 

A longtime professor at UW-Madison’s music school, Wildman combined her mastery of jazz and classical piano with a wholehearted embrace of synths and software—long before those things were as affordable or accessible as they are today. Orphan Folk Music (1987), Under The Silver Globe (1989), and Inside Out (1992) all feature bassist Hans Sturm and percussionist Dane Richeson, who gamely accompany Wildman on her voyages through adventurous jazz and protean electronic experimentation. Under The Silver Globe is perhaps the most elusive of the three, only ever released on cassette. Hopefully this is just the first step in preserving Wildman’s legacy of cerebral, restless, and often playful music. —SG