• Courtesy
• Another Sexless Weekend, Ice Cream Window & the Dynamic Flavors

(Self-released, CD, digital)

Trying to pin down where in the hell Another Sexless Weekend are coming from can be exhausting work. The Burlington-based "band" (more on that later) doesn't just blur the lines of genre, it all but ignores genre's existence. On its latest LP, Ice Cream Window & the Dynamic Flavors, the group attempts to wrangle a concept record out of 15 tracks of chaos, soaring melodies and wildly eclectic songwriting, all without a hint of fidelity to tone or theme.

Through multiple listens of the record, any attempt to stitch together a story or overall concept remains fruitless. So I'll let the band's founder, Julian Foster, aka Lemon-Toe Braindough, explain what it might be all about.

"The key concept [of the record] being that the ice cream window is the headphones or the speakers where the music comes out and us as the musicians are the flavors that just so happen to land on your tongue if you are so impolite as to leave it in the open position," Foster wrote in an email. "And if that's not the stupidest thing you've heard this month, I have failed in my one and only task of any importance."

Get all that? The music is the flavor, people.

Setting that metaphor aside for now, we can attest that the record is overflowing with assorted "flavors." The liner notes reveal five different lead vocalists, all with delicious-sounding names like Raspberry Sue (Natalie Palmer) and Candy Rivers (Giannina Gaspero-Beckstrom). The musicians get the same treatment, from Salty Ass Nickel (Sam Atallah) on piano to Neon de Twinkle (Ben Rodgers) on guitar.

Beyond tasty names, the music on Ice Cream Window is wonderfully all over the map. Perhaps the only unifying trait is that each song has its own interpretation of a dreamlike sound, full of space and colored with enough harmonies to please Brian Wilson. "Depend On" channels icy shoegaze, while "Sunglasses & Cigarettes" is a properly angular indie rocker. "Beautiful Strange" dabbles in honky-tonk, featuring a strong vocal take from bassist Michael Dunham — aka Mullet Broom Brown.

The eccentricities of Another Sexless Weekend began the moment they formed, according to Foster. Combining two separate groups to which he belonged, a Brian Jonestown Massacre cover act and a six-person vocal harmony ensemble, Foster sewed together a sprawling patchwork of musicians that eventually coalesced into one band, at least in the studio. The group checked into Spicy World, the downtown Burlington studio of Dead Shakers leader Kevin Bloom, in late 2019.

Almost four years later, the album is finally out, having been briefly released online last year before the band removed and reworked it. Another Sexless Weekend will post an accompanying novel on its social media pages, according to Foster. Perhaps that will explain the album's concept a little more clearly, but its songs are interesting enough not to need much glossing.

Listen to Ice Cream Window & the Dynamic Flavors at anothersexlessweekend.bandcamp.com.