Our take: Itchy Bugger is a solo project by Josh from Diät, Idiota Civilizzato, the Love Triangle, and a million other bands. Their limited LP from 2018 (consider yourself lucky if you nabbed one!) was one of my favorites of last year, so I was excited to hear this new material. Itchy Bugger takes a lot of inspiration from the UKDIY movement, but rather than copying those bands Itchy Bugger borrows their central conceit of making personal, experimental pop music with low fidelity. There are ten tracks here and they’re great, an unexpected but beautiful mix of mechanical drum machine rhythms, simple and melodic lead guitar, and intimate, hushed vocals. Sometimes the songs are simpler and more straightforward a la my favorite Kiwi pop, while on other tracks Itchy Bugger stretches out and sounds a little shoegaze-y. Maybe I’m projecting this, but now that Josh has moved back to Australia his music also seems to have traded Berlin’s gray skies for Australia’s golden sunshine. An excellent album I plan to listen to a lot this summer.
