Discordant pop and proto-punk pleasures, new romantic inflections with post-punk’s detachment, Tired Cossack makes music that’s as charmingly jarring as it neatly steeped in nostalgia. As common threads link back and forth to The Cure, Magnetic Fields, Ty Segall, and Stephen Malkmus, we hear lo-fi indie jitter and synth-busy heat in a bleary-eyed blast of excitement.

When we dig through the curious grit of the song, through the feedback and quick loops of riffs and refrains, we pick out bedroom pop through the decades. Guitars flick and switch from C86 jangle to late 80’s shoegaze, synths shift from light bouncing three note motifs into cold sounding New Order textures, and over the top, like a permanent static, is a mess of top-end snare and cymbals. If all this sounds busy, that’s half of the fun. There’s a rush to the track’s lack of order.

In that mess there’s an almost cute sweetness. In vocals that sit back way down in the mix, there’s a nervousness just poking through. It’s that kind of shy voice heard in first album Smiths, one that’s still not quite sure and naïve. Maybe that’s down to being so damn new.

Tired Cossack the project was born fall 2020, there’s an EP / mini album before this. And if ‘Shashka’s more tightened and scuzz-muscle style is a hint of what’s set to come next, then I’m sure there’ll be more features soon.