Sorry for the lack of updates, but I’ve been busy focusing on Theadia and a few other things so I haven’t had the time or the brainspace to think too much about posting here. I’ll probably be back next Tuesday with April’s ‘what I’m listening to’ roundup.
See you then!
All the Beatles social media sites hinted at this yesterday and followed through today with this bit of interesting news: after so many years of the 1970 film Let It Be being out of print and available only as a bootlegged copy, it will be available in fully-restored-by-Peter-Jackson form on Disney+ starting next month.
I can’t say I’m surprised, considering they hinted at it when the Get Back documentary dropped a while back, and it’s been on the fan want list for decades. I remember seeing it at my cousin’s house back in the early 80s when they played it on The Movie Channel, and eventually owned it on a grainy and slightly unfocused dvd bootleg, but it’ll be really interesting to see it in a much cleaner and high-definition version.
It’s a lovely day and also my day off! The sun is out, the temperature’s hovering in the upper 60s, and to top it all off, the teens have been on spring break so it’s been relatively quiet at work as well. So I’m just going to kick back and relax, maybe get some writing done later this afternoon.
See you next week!
No, I did not stare at the sun yesterday during the eclipse. It came and went within a short amount of time and we only got a tiny partial one. I was too busy working!
Coincidentally, this particular U2 song has been on the playlist at the Day Job and every time it comes on, I’ve been wanting to listen to Pop. I know, it’s always derided as one of their worst records, but I still have a soft spot for it because it came out during my HMV years and got a lot of play during my writing sessions.
To celebrate the start of my major rewrite of Theadia, I created the fourth mixtape/playlist for it, and I think this one works exceptionally well as feels more cinematic and score-like than the previous three. I’m quite happy with this one and have already listened to it multiple times over the last couple of days! Hope you enjoy it as well!
Side A:
1. David Holmes & Raven Violet, “Stop Apologizing”
2. The Fauns, “Spacewreck”
3. Big Wreck, “White Lies”
4. Torres, “Collect”
5. Eluvium, “Vibration Consensus Reality (For Spectral Multiband Resonator)”
6. Brittany Howard, “What Now”
7. Sea Lemon, “3A”
8. Cast, “I Have Been Waiting”
9. Middle Kids, “Bend”
10. Calibro 35, “Apnea”
Side B:
1. Eluvium, “Endless Flower”
2. The Fauns, “Afterburner”
3. Trevor Horn & Seal, “Steppin’ Out”
4. Ducks Ltd., “Deleted Scenes”
5. Topographies, “Red-Black Sun”
6. Salt Cathedral, “Terminal Woes”
7. Torres, “Artificial Limits”
8. Horsegirl, “Anti-Glory”
9. Four Tet, “Daydream Repeat”
10. David Holmes & Raven Violet, “It’s Over, If We Run Out of Love”
[PS. I can’t seem to remember if I’ve posted the other three here or over at Welcome to Bridgetown, so I suppose I’ll have to follow up with those as well if I have not!]
Whoo! For so early in the year, there were a ton of great new releases that dropped this past month! Not only that, several are from some of my favorite bands! A lot of these are definitely going to be on rotation once I get started with writing Theadia.
Kaiser Chiefs, Kaiser Chiefs’ Easy Eighth Album, 1 March. Surprising that they’ve only released eight albums considering they’ve been on my radar since 2005! (I tend to equate them with my brief time in Jersey and our move to SF.) They take an interesting left turn into summery funk here, complete with help from Nile Rodgers himself on the above track!
Liam Gallagher & John Squire, Liam Gallagher & John Squire, 1 March. The sneery voice of Oasis and the excellent guitarist from The Stone Roses get together and the end result is intriguing…it’s a wild mashup of sounds from their previous bands and it works unexpectedly well. [I still say Noel’s the better songwriter, though.]
Yard Act, Where’s My Utopia?, 1 March. I love how hilariously nerdy and goofy this band is. James Smith delivers his lyrics in such an unassuming talk-singing way that you think he’s channeling The Fall’s Mark E. Smith or Art Brut’s Eddie Argos, but once you pay attention to his ramblings you’re laughing and wondering what he’s on about. A super fun band well worth checking out.
Torrey, Torrey, 8 March. Slumberland is becoming the new 4AD for me, in that I’m pretty much picking up and devouring several things they’re putting out. [It helps that they’re local and carry some of those super-local bands I love so dearly.] KEXP loves this one a lot and so do I.
FLOYA, Yume, 8 March. I didn’t know much of anything about this band other than they’re metal and from Australia…and chose to change direction on their new record by writing poppy upbeat music that could fit easily on pop radio. Their positive vibe kind of remind me of The Sound of Arrows in a way, and that’s pretty much what intrigued me.
crushed, extra life, 15 March. I’ll try out any shoegazey band that captures the same moods that Curve does, even if it’s less wall-of-sound and more like an aural blanket. Really good stuff here that I need to pay attention to.
Four Tet, Three, 15 March. I’ve known about this musician for a while and he’d gotten a ton of positive press over the years, but surprisingly this was the first album I’d picked up! His work is fascinating in that it’s not quite electronic, but not quite jazz either.
Hooverphonic, Fake Is the New Dope, 21 March. Somehow I’d completely missed that one of my all-time favorite bands of the 90s dropped an album, even though I knew they’d been releasing teaser singles from it since late last year! I’m really digging this one (no big surprise) as it leans quite heavily on their jazzy electronic style. Really great stuff, and I’m sure this one’s going to be on heavy rotation soon enough.
Elbow, AUDIO VERTIGO, 22 March. Another one of my favorite bands, this one from the early 00s, their sound has evolved so much over the last two decades that each album sounds slightly different from everything else they’ve done. This one expands on their previous two records by leaning more on the twitchier side of things. This one’s also getting a lot of play.
Salt Cathedral, Before It’s Gone, 22 March. Thanks to KEXP for this one as well, they’re that kind of moody indietronica I really like. They’re kind of an odd mix that reminds me a little of early Sarah McLachlan in her more obscure moments.
The Jesus and Mary Chain, Glasgow Eyes, 22 March. [C/W: lots of flashy in this video.] I am really liking this new J+MC record!! It’s got the mood of some of their best earlier works like Automatic but with the warmer sounds of Honey’s Dead baked in. I highly recommend it!
Ride, Interplay, 29 March. Loving this one as well, but then again I’ve been a Ride fan for decades now. Their version of shoegaze always had that bright and breezy feel to it, unlike the density of bands like My Blood Valentine. Definitely going to be playing this one.
The Church, Eros Zeta & the Perfumed Guitars, 29 March. This one snuck out on me unexpectedly, and I’m already fascinated by it. The band is essentially singer Steve Kilbey and whoever he’s hanging with at the time, so while it may not have their signature chimey jangle, it does have their reverb-drenched dreaminess they’ve always been known for. This and their previous record sees them going in a very odd direction indeed, almost prog-experimental, yet not without a sense of humor to it.
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Stay tuned for April, with new releases from The Black Keys, Vampire Weekend, James, The Reds Pinks & Purples (yay!), and St Vincent!
Heya! Taking a few blogging days off to finish up the edits for Queen Ophelia’s War (and also take a well-earned rest after a crazy-busy couple of days at the Day Job). Will be back next week!
I’ve told many already that I am absolutely thrilled that the independent station that I’ve been listening to religiously online for the last six or seven years, KEXP, is now on the air here in the Bay Area, having snagged the 92.7 FM frequency in a bankruptcy deal and gone live last Tuesday. They truly are independent, relying not on commercial breaks but fund drives and listener donations. [I’ve been ‘powering’ the station since at least 2019.] Their playlist remains the same for the moment, though they’ve already made plans to add some shows focused on the local scene in the near future.
What’s the appeal? Good question. Several of the daily shows come very close to free-form radio, a sadly now-rare style that does not rely on numbers and algorithms or rotation schedules. DJs like the Morning Show’s John Richards (pictured above, who is also currently the station’s associate program director) connect with their listeners on a personal level, whether it’s in celebration like their International Clash Day, or in mourning like their Death and Music talks. These DJs aren’t putting on an act, they’re simply music nerds that love what they play and want you to share it with you.
My tastes in music have definitely changed in those past six or seven years, having gone from the very commercial Live 105 to the indie KEXP. [I’ll listen to Live 105 now and the difference is extremely telling, to be honest.] Several bands I’ve seen at Outside Lands are bands I heard first on that station. Pretty much most of my music library over the last several years comes from their playlist.
From what I’ve heard, the response to their Bay Area presence is overwhelmingly positive. They’ve always had a strong fan base thanks to their online streaming, and their base is already global. And yes, I’ve already added them as a preset in the car, heh.
Check ’em out here! —> https://kexp.org/
Another four years after their last studio album, the band finally dropped the unexpectedly upbeat 4:13 Dream in late 2008. It had a very interesting origin story behind it: it was supposed to be a sprawling double album swaying between light and dark, with over thirty songs prepped and nearly ready for release. However, at the last moment they’d chosen to dial it back to using only the lighter songs in a tight thirteen-track single record. Only one song breaks the five-minute barrier, the lovely opener “Underneath the Stars”.
The band chose to tease the album’s release by releasing four singles beforehand, followed by a six-track remix EP, then dropping the album in full afterwards.
The first single was the crunchy and peppy “The Only One”, which felt like a track from Wild Mood Swings. The second was the twitchy “Freakshow” which, interestingly enough, feels like it’s from The Top with its off-kilter beat and ‘I’m in an uncomfortable social situation’ theme.
The third single, on the other hand, had that polished-gloom sound of Kiss Me Kiss Me Kiss Me (it’s got the same tension as that album’s “Shiver and Shake”). “Sleep When I’m Dead” was actually an old song dating from 1985’s The Head On the Door, which makes sense here.
And finally, fourth single “The Perfect Boy” sounds the most current, very similar to something off Bloodflowers. It’s also the closest to their recognizable classic sound, though surprisingly it did not get all that much airplay at the time.
The album itself dropped in October of that year, and though it was a welcome return, the sheen had worn off, and both the critics and the fans weren’t exactly sure what to think of it. Don’t get me wrong, it’s a great record and their most mature…but it kind of lacks what made them the band that they are. The production is similar to Wild Mood Swings in that it feels a bit too polished, though thankfully the flow of the album is much tighter.
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That said…once they released this album, did their tours and so on, they just…kept touring and stopped recording. Given Robert Smith’s penchant for announcing one thing online with the best of intentions yet never quite following through for varying reasons, we never knew if we were going to get a follow-up, a leftovers collection, or a breakup. Sometimes it was all three. As the years went on, we’d occasionally get a “we’re working on new songs” only to hear them in rough form during their endless live shows and then nothing. The deluxe reissues would continue after a long delay (with the highly awaited Disintegration in 2010, Mixed Up in 2018 and featuring brand new remixes under the name Torn Down, and a grand package for Wish in 2022. We also had a handful of live albums, like Bestival Live 2011 and the anniversary celebrating 40 Live… but that was about it.
In late 2023, we finally heard a few more brand new tracks that they were road testing in live shows, once again hinting that they might be in the studio after a decade and a half. Do we still know what’s going on here? Smith is once again furtive and playful, hinting but never quite following up. We’ll know when we know, I guess!
The second wave of Deluxe Editions surfaced a year and a half later in early August 2006 with 1984’s The Top, 1985’s The Head on the Door and 1987’s Kiss Me Kiss Me Kiss Me. This was the peak of their original 80s fame, when they’d finally broken through that indie barrier (with partial help from the 1986 singles collection Standing On a Beach). But it wasn’t a sudden rise to fame, however…they still had a few ghosts in their closet that needed purging.
I’ve always felt The Top was their psychedelic album, written and recorded deep in their mid-80s booze and drug haze. It’s certainly a head trip and full of high weirdness like the freaky opener “Shake Dog Shake” and the odd “Piggy in the Mirror”, not to mention the Salinger-influenced “Bananafishbones” and the hazy folk of the lone single “The Caterpillar”. Even the darker moments are unsettling, like the mental breakdown of “The Empty World” and the dissociation of “The Top”. It’s not the easiest listen — it’s a band barely holding itself together. Most of the extras on the deluxe edition are demos and a few live tracks, but it also includes a few great outtakes that would become bootleg favorites, “Ariel” and “Forever”.
The Head On the Door, on the other hand, is a much cleaner and stronger Cure with a revived lineup and a focus on shorter and tighter songs. The original album clocks in at just over a tight half hour of ten songs, nearly all of which could have easily been singles or radio hits. The first single “In Between Days” is brisk and swinging and fits Robert Smith’s playful side that he’d too often hide in the past. Follow-up single “Close to Me” is just as fun, trading the energy of “Days” with a light jazz (similar to “The Lovecats”, come to think of it). It helped that both tracks were made into irresistible oddball videos by director Tim Pope, who seemed to instinctively know how to capture the true spirit of the band. There are also wonderful deep cuts here as well, like the freeing “Push” or the dramatic “A Night Like This”. About the only old-school Cure track here is the closer “Sinking”. The deluxe edition features nearly all demos including several tracks that would end up as b-sides.
The double-album Kiss Me Kiss Me Kiss Me — the title taken from the first line of the first song, the epic noisefest “The Kiss” — is intriguing as it takes elements of both albums and melds it into a very kaleidoscopic record. For each pop song like “Just Like Heaven” and “The Perfect Girl” there are psychedelic moments like “The Snakepit” and “Like Cockatoos”. There are even literary moments like the Baudelaire influenced “How Beautiful You Are”, and utterly silly moments like the singles “Why Can’t I Be You?” and “Hot Hot Hot!!!” It’s a glorious mess but it’s a clean mess unlike The Top. They’re having fun with this record instead of being hedonistic with it. The deluxe edition also contains more demos and live tracks.
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Next up: A new album (and several false rumors about more)!
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