featuring the very best of americana, alt.country and roots music
July 14, 2026
Scott Foley, purveyor of dust
Another tough week, forcing us to tag just one record to highlight. We could easily have waxed enthusiastic about any of the promising projects mentioned in Sunday's ROUTES-cast. Nevertheless, we persist.
IF YOU LiSTEN to ONE RECORD THiS WEEK
Let's start with a playlist Twisted Teens have apparently assembled on Spotify. Friends Of the Twisted Teens seems to feature acts the duo have played with or encountered during their travels, several hailing from New Orleans' underheralded arts scene. In addition to more familiar names like the Lostines and Kiki Cavazos, there are very indie artists like Remi Dean or Forty Drop Few with no more than a handful of listeners. Stylistically, the playlist veers between punk and roots, pop and folk, most decidedly lo-fi and bearing a musty garage essence. In all the best ways.
We mention this playlist as a way of wrapping our ears around Twisted Teens. The playlist is one of several online from CPNPC, otherwise known as Caspian Hollywell. Alongside RJ Santos, he makes up Twisted Teens, who have just shared Florida Water Blues, their second record of 2026 and their third LP since a self-titled project appeared in 2024. While there is an unrehearsed immediacy to his music, Hollywell knows stuff. He understands the tradition of which the duo are a part, the idea that punk is a community as opposed to a genre.
These songs were a product of Twisted Teens' sessions for Blame the Clown, mined from the same vein of country, folk, and blues forced through a lo-fi filter and occasionally collaged with found noise. "Swamp" begins with a patch of sound, then: I live in a crazy swamp just about in the crotch of America / Smells like ket and two piece chicken. Santos' steel guitar provides a foil to Hollywell's phlegmy bark, a juxtaposition that defines the push-pull of Twisted Teens. As the singer explains in an interview, it's traditional music with a weird, awkward, future element to it. "Weather the Season" establishes an early rock 'n stroll, featuring Hollywell's strongest vocal and his primitive electric guitar jangle.
Even Twisted Teens' relatively tame moments vibrate with outsider energy. One of the year's worthiest songs, the title cut lays out its Southern rock, replete with Santos' genuine steel solo before things take a Mojo Nixon turn: The sun and the rain make a golden shower / And I would drink it all if I had my power. Songs like "Top Of the World Hwy No 2" and "Concealed Weepin'" speak most readily to the Teens' punk connections. With its rapidfire bass, the latter delivers spoken verses from Caspian: Little fucker with a big attitude / Did not socially integrate to the school / Did not get in the deep end of the pool / Was not considered super duper cool.
Tunes start and finish abruptly, sometimes bookended with manipulated noise. "Riding" closes with a length of digitized shape note singing, morphing into the next song's gospel snippet which stumbles into the twang guitar and spoken vocal of "Business". The mess and clutter is essential to the success of Florida Water Blues, the programmed percussion or throwback synth simply contributes to the Twisted Teens' oddity, as does the humidity of the production. "Javelina" offers a near-standard alt.country arrangement, and "Sun Go Down" falls just this side of a country balled, until the final two minutes dissolve into soggy strings and a wheeze of noise. While occasionally tough to pigeonhole, it's all a part of the living tradition of vernacular music. We eagerly await this fall's promised Holy Cross Tigers, a new project the duo refer to as their Blood On the Tracks. Is nothing sacred? No, thank God.
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