Every Monday, 88Nine music director Erin Wolf shares a sonic gem she found using her nearly 20 years of new-music exploration experience. You can hear all her discoveries at 2 p.m. every Sunday on What’s All This: Adventures in New Music.
Hotline TNT’s much-lauded material came from one source: vocalist and guitarist Will Anderson, who crafted a suckerpunch of a sound that magically entwined introverted shoegaze with heartfelt heartland rock. Pitchfork mooned over 2023 album Cartwheel, giving it the title of “Best New Music” and describing it as “intoxicating.”
Recently, though, Hotline TNT expanded their vision of the project and officially started writing as a four-piece. The sonic shift doesn’t erase their quality; it simply renders the band’s sound even more satisfying and intricate.
Gone are the straight-up walls of noise in favor of a shift, a deepening and an unearthing of a more layered and sweetly nuanced power-rock sound. Even though the band hails from the east coast, it still sounds very Midwestern — something that makes sense when you learn that Anderson is originally from Wisconsin (Chippewa Falls, to be exact).
The frontman shared this about their newest single: “‘Break Right’ hides nothing. This is the sound of TNT becoming a band. Every effect has been unplugged, every sample has been deprogrammed, and every emotion has been laid bare.”
We’ll hear the sum total of those parts on new album Raspberry Moon, due out June 20 on Third Man Records. Meanwhile, “Break Right” lands on the latest episode of What’s All This (available in the player at the top of the page) and in regular rotation on 88Nine. Keep your ears open for it, then come back at 2 p.m. next Sunday for another episode of What’s All This: Adventures in New Music.
Best new indie music this week
- Lou Tides, "Autostatic!"
- Anand Wilder, "Appointment in Samarra"
- U.S. Girls, "LIke James Said"
- Shilpa Ray, "I'm a Ghost"
- Wombo, "Danger in Fives"
- Sir Chloe, "Forgiving"
- Fazerdaze, "Motorway"
- Florry, "First it was a movie, then it was a book"
- Hotline TNT, "Break Right"
- Winter, "Just Like A Flower"
- Mother Soki, "Rivet Gun"
