This week in Freak Scene, Connecticut band Northfield harks back to ’90s roots-rock on Lost and Found, and how much do you really know about Latin freestyle? Ken Partridge can fill you in on the essential details.

Connecticut band Northfield touts its ’90s indie cred on the group’s first album, Lost and Found, and they come by it honestly: singer and guitarist Jesse Perkins wrote the bulk of these songs in the ’90s. Then he set them aside before digging them out decades later and forming a band with some compatriots in Litchfield to record them.

northfieldLost And Found

Although the finished versions haven’t been sitting around for 30 years waiting to be rediscovered, Lost and Found might be how it feels to open a long-forgotten vault and discover that the contents are intact. These 11 songs (plus one acoustic demo, for the keyboard-heavy “Grounded”) have a rough-hewn indie-rock sound that leans toward alt-country, with musical arrangements that favor brawny electric guitars, sturdy drums, piano counterpoints and Perkins singing heartworn melodies in a raspy, ground-glass voice. It’s like stumbling across the Drive-By Truckers or the Memphis rockers Lucero at the start of their careers.

Right from the start, the songs feel lived in and unaffected. “It’s Too Easy” is a punchy rocker full of bright fuzztone guitar from Mike Goldberg and harmony vocals on the chorus from bassist Greg Hughes. Perkins and Hughes sing loose harmonies on “Time Will Tell,” too, a song about seeking redemption of a sort — “wanting to be wanted” — with accompaniment from a flowing bassline and huge, turned-up guitars. Northfield lay back a bit on “In the Morning,” a more subdued number with sleek bass, a simple beat from drummer Ethan Sawyer and searing electric slide licks that punctuate Perkins’ vocals.

At this point, so long after writing these songs, it’s unlikely that Perkins and Co. are in a position to fully dive into the ’90s indie-rock model and live out of a tour van for the next 10 years, but they don’t really need to. They’ve done the hard part by finally getting Lost and Found out into the world, and whether it’s 1996 or 2026, the songs sound just as good.

‘Lost in Emotion’ Lets the Music Play

As we round the corner into 2026, maybe this is the year brush up on your knowledge of Latin freestyle. My longtime pal Ken Partridge can help. Ken, author of the 2021 book Hell of a Hat: The Rise of ’90s Ska and Swing (and also a Manchester native, so local angle), is exploring the music that helped lay the foundation for ’80s dance-pop in his newsletter Lost in Emotion, which he launched in September. Partridge calls his new venture “a love letter to freestyle.”

Each installment so far has covered some of the formative figures of the movement, from Shannon’s 1983 banger “Let the Music Play” to lesser-known singers like Nayobe to Stevie B., the “king of freestyle.” Throughout, Ken’s writing is informative and entertaining, and his affection for the music is clear.

Not only does he know his stuff, Lost in Emotion is free, so what do you have to lose?

That’s all for this week — thank you for reading! If you like what you’ve seen, please share. Also, I’m always open to submissions. You can send music for coverage consideration to erdanton at gmail or reply to this email. Check out these guidelines first.

Freak Scene is free, but donations help make this happen, and are gratefully accepted. Previous issues are available in the online archive.