Friday Five: Rohn - Lederman, Dre Carlan, zagc, Modern Lady Fitness, MEMCO mixes by Natalya & Space Age Bachelorette Pad

MUSIC FRIDAY FIVE

Friday Five album, single, and video art

Friday Five highlights music by Washtenaw County-associated artists and labels.

This week features electronic industrial pop of Rohn - Lederman, pop-punk from Dre Carlan, hard techno via zagc, a new video by indie rockers Modern Lady Fitness, and MEMCO mixes from Natalya and Space Age Bachelorette Pad.

 

Rohn - Lederman, RAGE! LP, It Hurts! EP, We Need a Plan EP, "Policy of Truth" song
Ann Arbor's Emileigh Rohn and Belgium's Jean-Marc Lederman have released a steady stream of albums, EPs, and remixes since debuting with the "Watch Out!" single in August 2021, fine tuning a personal style that lands somewhere between the radio-ready sound of Garbage and the industrial side of electronica. (Lederman has worked with Front 242.) Rage is the duo's latest album, and in what feels like a throwback to 1990s protocols, the record's initial singles have been remixed multiple times on two EPs. Rohn - Lederman also cover several songs from the 1990s across these releases: The Rage! album and It Hurts! EP include the duo's take on Porno for Pyros' "Pets;" Depeche Mode's "Policy of Truth" is featured on 6161, a charity double CD in memory of DM's recently deceased co-founder Andy Fletcher; and The Cranberries' anthem "Linger" gets a downtempo remake on the We Need a Plan EP.

 

Dre Carlan, Straight Grit LP and "August 17th" single
Ann Arbor's Dre Carlan is straight-up about his music: "A permanent dreamer bent on bringing back the glory days of pop-punk," he writes in his Bandcamp bio. He has that blink-182 style of singing—overenunciating certain words and flattening vowels—and backs himself by playing all the instruments and what sounds like programmed drums. But Carlan isn't only about the 1990s glory days of pop-punk: He covers Drake’s “Started From the Bottom" on Straight Grit, turning it into a moody instrumental. The post-album single "August 17th" hints at yet another side of Carlan's music, offering up something akin to emo-rap.

 

zagc, Horse EP
Ann Arbor's zagc is a member of MEMCO and his Exposure Mix is one of the long-running series' more manic collections, full of slamming rhythms and a hypertechno sensibility. His four-song Horse EP follows a similar esoteric track, mixing hard-edged techno and gabba-leaning distortions.

 

Modern Lady Fitness, "Space Bugs" video
Ypsi's Modern Lady Fitness' latest video with dirty bros. quality productions highlights a track from this past summer's terriffic DARAD EP, the moody instrumental "Space Bugs." 

 

Natalya, Exposure Mix 051
Space Age Bachelorette Pad, Exposure Mix 049

MEMCO mixes are coming in so quickly that I somehow missed Space Age Bachelorette Pad's Exposure Mix 049 and jumped straight into Otherseas' Exposure Mix 050 a couple of weeks back—perhaps my favorite yet in this excellent series. Space Age's joyful set is full of funk and Latin jams, giving it a distinct identity among the more house- and techno-oriented mixes in the series, including Natalya's banging Exposure Mix 051.


Christopher Porter is a library technician and the editor of Pulp.