I’ve just finished reading Bono’s book Surrender: 40 Songs, One Story and I have to say it was quite enjoyable. He’ll be the very first to admit that he can be honest and compassionate as much as he can be the biggest irritating doofus (in public, no less). I found him to be not just intelligent but quite humorous and a huge dork as well, which only made him more endearing. And that most of his time in between U2 albums has been spent on high-level activism.
Sure, people have polarizing feelings about him. Partly because he’s so flipping ubiquitous at times, but that he and his band have always had Something To Say About Certain Things. And then there was the “forced download” of their Songs of Innocence album that got certain people up in arms (he takes full blame on this in the book, by the way).
Still, it reminded me just how much I love this band. I actually do remember seeing the “I Will Follow” and “Gloria” videos on MTV in its early days and became a fan early on. I fell in love with the Unforgettable Fire album for its unique songs and sounds. I remember so many of my college classmates going apeshit over Achtung, Baby back in 1991. I remember loving Pop even when the label rep told my record store manager it wasn’t all that great. I remember finally getting to see them live for the PopMart tour, even though I’d been wanting to see them since the mid 80s. And yes, I was one of those people who downloaded the $200 iTunes collection The Complete U2 back in 2004.
I’m thinking at some point I should do a deep dive of this band again, revisit their discography and remember why I love the band so much. And yes, I am looking forward to their new release that comes out next month, Songs of Surrender, which revisits forty classics and deep cuts and tries them out in new ways as a tie-in with Bono’s book. [I only found out the other day that there’s also going to be a tv special on Disney+ the same day called Bono & the Edge: A Sort of Homecoming, in which the two tour their native Dublin. Yes, I’m looking forward to that as well.]
So yeah, don’t be surprised if I do a bit of posting about them in the future!
Dang, how are we on volume 27 already? Or more to the point, how are we not at a higher volume, considering I started the series in 1988? Heh.
Either way, I’m happy to return to making mixtapes more consistently again. I’ve made it a point to give my listening habits a bit more breathing room — and paying attention once more to when a song or album catches my attention, and letting my brain latch onto it instead of just flitting onto the next shiny. I know it’s helping that I made that choice on purpose to tie in with my MU4 novel project, but the real point was to reconnect with why I love to listen to music so much. I’d lost track of that for a while.
[Note: One song is missing from this Spotify version of the mix, “Splinter” by Chatham Rise, which sits between Miss Grit and Beck as track 9.]
I knew about this band from my HMV years when their 1999 album Ágætis Byrjun came out as an import (it would get an American release a few months later). They were like an apocalyptic version of Cocteau Twins — both bands creating otherworldly music with curious and indecipherable lyrics, but while the Twins veered towards beauty, this band chose fragility instead. Their songs were always on the verge of not so much breaking apart as disintegrating before our eyes and ears.
In 2002 they released an album of eight untitled tracks simply entitled ( ) and sung entirely in lead singer Jonsi’s ‘Hopelandic’ conlang. I remember hearing an NPR review of it just before it came out, with the reviewer being utterly blown away by it. I picked it up pretty much on the drop date (one of my Newbury Comics runs after work, natch), and gave it a spin in the Belfry. It would end up getting some serious play during my writing sessions that year and into the next while I wrote The Persistence of Memories.
The band released a remastered version late last year and it sounds just as lovely as it did then, if not better. The album still feels just as fragile and cold, but that just adds to its beauty; this is an album of delicate sounds and moods that calls for contemplation and meditation.
Depeche Mode, one of the defining bands of my youth and later years, just dropped a new single this morning! It’s called “Ghosts Again” and it’s from their upcoming album, the fittingly titled Memento Mori. It’s their fifteenth studio album and their first with just the core of Martin Gore and Dave Gahan (Alan Wilder left in the mid-90s and Andy Fletcher passed away last year) and focuses not just on the pandemic but the passing of their bandmate and friend.
I’ve been a Depeche Mode fan since I first heard “People Are People” in 1984, a full two years before I even knew what college radio and alternative rock or post-punk was. That song was a surprise breakthrough hit for them in the US, making it all the way to number 13 on Billboard’s Top 100 chart. While it took them a few more years to return to such heights here, they’d hit their stride with a trio of albums: 1986’s Black Celebration, 1987’s Music for the Masses, and 1990’s Violator. They never quite hit the same heights after that, even despite strong records, but I don’t think they really needed to at that point: they’d already claimed their spot as a deeply influential and highly creative bands of the era. Many synth bands of the current generation owe a lot to this group.
This new song sounds a lot like their earlier pre-US-fame songs, perhaps something off of Construction Time Again or Some Great Reward, and now I’m curious about what the rest of the album will sound like. It’ll be out on March 24th, and I’m definitely looking forward to it!
Yes, believe it or not, I am not just listening to Belfry-era albums while writing! In fact, I’ve got a lot of relatively new tunes playing as well! Here’s a smattering of what’s on rotation here in Spare Oom…
The Tubs, Dead Meat, released 27 January. This is totally something I’d have listened to back in the late 80s-early 90s. It’s got that post-punk jangliness I loved at the time (The Church, IRS-era REM, and so on), plus its lyrics are very of that time (and very much similar to those of my band The Flying Bohemians). Thanks to KEXP — again — for introducing me to this great London band!
Belle & Sebastian, Late Developers, released 13 January. It’s essentially leftovers from the band’s 2022 album A Bit of Previous but they stand extremely well on their own. It’s a super fun listen and kind of sounds like a successful mix of their folkier early sound and their poppier later years.
Everything But the Girl, “Nothing Left to Lose” single, released 13 January. Tracey Thorn and Ben Watt are back as EBTG after far too many years and they haven’t missed a beat. This is a stellar song and I’m eagerly awaiting their new album Fuse, which should drop mid-April.
New Order, Low-Life (Definitive), released 27 January. For some reason I always skipped over this album when I listened to this band back in the day, preferring Brotherhood instead, but giving this one a new listen recently has made me realize just how flipping great it is! However, as I’d mentioned to a friend earlier, it occurred to me that this is a stellar album marred by songs being in the wrong key; not that Bernard Sumner is out of tune (he tends to waver sometimes, which I’m used to), but that these songs are so out of his range, as he really strains on some tunes like “Sunrise”. Still, great album!
파란노을 (Parannoul), After the Magic, released 28 January. Noisy shoegaze from South Korea? Of course I’ll give it a listen! You guessed it — another band introduced to me by KEXP. They’re definitely reminiscent of Ride, with songs that sound like light bursts and unassuming vocals that insert themselves perfectly into the melodies.
Dave Rowntree, Radio Songs, released 20 January. The debut from Blur’s drummer is intriguing in that it’s quite moody and mellow but also reveals who might have been behind some of Blur’s more quieter and more introspective songs as well.
July’s playlist shows that my tastes in music have definitely changed and evolved over the years. For every band I’d followed for years releasing an unexpectedly laid back record (Interpol), there’s a new group that captures my attention with its bubblegummy goodness (beabadoobee), with the occasional sideline into the bizarre (Ty Segall). This is what listening to non-commercial radio will do to you, I suppose…
Metric, Formentera, released 8 July. Another band that chose to focus on the effects of the pandemic. Metric has always had a tinge of darkness to their music, but this one leans heavily on it with songs like “Doomscroller” and the single “All Comes Crashing.”
beabadoobee, Beatopia, released 15 July. This is such a super fun band to listen to! Catchy melodies and irresistible guitar pop make them a band I return to whenever I’m in a good mood. Their latest is just as great as their previous, if not more so!
Working Men’s Club, Fear Fear, released 15 July. I’m loving the fact that more new bands have been giving an extended nod to the dark sounds of 80s post-punk, especially when synths are involved. This new album sounds just like something I’d have listened to as a teen!
Superorganism, World Wide Pop, released 15 July. A very apt album title for this band, as this one’s full of perky, slightly off-kilter tunes that are just this side of sugary goodness.
Interpol, The Other Side of Make-Believe, released 15 July. An extremely understated album for this band, which definitely threw me for a loop for a bit. This one’s very muted and moody, unlike several of their last few albums. Well worth checking out, though.
You Shriek, “Dead Pilots” single, released 19 July. I add this as I actually knew this guy in college! He was a friend of a friend and his sound was much more goth/synthwave back in the early 90s, but he’s come along way since then with a brand spankin’ new single.
Ty Segall, “Hello, Hi”, released 22 July. This SoCal weirdo is someone I never would have followed if not for the fact that KEXP loves him and his music (and the fact that he released an EP two years ago featuring all Nilsson covers). The album is full of fuzzed-out guitars and oddball lyrics and it’s all great.
Jack White, Entering Heaven Alive, released 22 July. The second of two albums he dropped this year and the quieter half, leaning somewhat towards psychedelic country-folk (if there’s such a thing). It also features a tongue-in-cheek take of the previous album’s “Taking Me Back” single as if done by the Carter Family.
Bananarama, Masquerade, released 22 July. Yes, this band is still around! After reading their memoir a while back, I finally gave them another listen and came to appreciate them a lot more.
ODESZA, The Last Goodbye, released 22 July. Another KEXP find, they’re very much set in that curious indietronica universe where it’s obviously dance music but it’s also beautifully crafted and full of emotion.
Sun’s Signature, Sun’s Signature EP, released 29 July. One of my top ten releases this year, Elizabeth Fraser’s return (after thirteen years) finds her working with her partner Damon Reece (of Lupine Howl) to create something beautiful and strange. That might be stock in trade, but this is definitely not Cocteau Twins. This album made me realize I don’t relisten to albums nearly as much as I used to, and that I really needed to do something about that.
I keep coming back to the fact that my Current Day Job allows me so much more time for introspection and clarity of mind, and that the Former Day Job did not in so many ways. I also come back to the realization at how much I’d shut myself out socially. I mean, sure, I talk to my friends online — especially now that most of us are all gathered in one place on Discord now — but for years there wasn’t that deep of a social connection in general.
Working in retail again after so many decades made me realize just how much I’d missed that connection. While I’m not a drinks-after-work sort of person anymore, this is the first time in ages where I look forward to seeing my coworkers, having fun chats and getting to know them on a personal level. Some of them are only half my age, but it truly is fun to get to know them from a Gen-X standpoint. And as an unexpected plus, these new social connections have made me do a lot of rethinking of my character building in my writing!
Nation of Language, “Androgynous” single, released 1 June. One of my favorite recent synth-rock bands dropped a few interesting things this year, including a cover of the classic Replacements song. They turn a boozy, sloppy album track and turn it into a curious and rather nice melody that tiptoes along.
Prince and the Revolution, Prince and the Revolution: Live, released 3 June. The fabled live show from Syracuse NY in March of ’85 was filmed and a rarity for years until it was officially released via online streaming in the middle of the pandemic. [I highly recommend watching it, as it really does show just how flipping amazing Prince really was, and how tight the Revolution was with him.] It finally got an album release this year and it’s well worth adding to your collection.
Kula Shaker, 1st Congregational Church of Eternal Love and Free Hugs, released 10 June. Crispian Mills and his band return with quite the unexpected album that brings them back to their classic psychedelic-Britpop sound, this time adding a healthy dose of self-conscious humility and humor. This album might be full of religious themes, but it’s also filled with much silliness (the minute-long spoken interludes set during a make-believe mass are often quite goofy) and there’s even an unexpectedly great and funky cover of a Marx Brothers song as the first full track!
Panda Riot, Extra Cosmic, released 10 June. This band had been hiding away since 2017 so I was pleasantly surprised to see they’re back with a fun, fuzzy and bouncy album that got some play during my writing sessions. This is definitely a record I should be listening to more!
Shearwater, The Great Awakening, released 10 June. One of A’s favorite bands return with another album of epic and atmospheric alternative rock that sounds both dreamlike and daunting. This is another album that’s become part of my writing session soundtrack.
Various Artists with Neneh Cherry, The Versions, released 10 June. An unexpected treat, several bands rerecord a number of Cherry’s best tracks and bring them into the 21st century. This is a really fun album worth a listen!
The Dream Syndicate, Ultraviolet Hymns and True Confessions, released 10 June. This band has had a bit of a renaissance with several new albums since 2017 and a great and exhaustive box set overview of their excellent 1986 Out of the Grey album (What Can I Say? No Regrets.. from January). Glad to see they’re still going strong.
Big Wreck, Big Wreck 7.2 EP, released 17 June. This band is also going strong after several years, following up last year’s EP with five more tracks of hard-rocking blues and blasting vocals.
Foals, Life Is Yours, released 17 June. This band can be alternately forebodingly loud and light and funky, and sometimes they’re both at the same time. Their irresistible grooves and twittering guitar licks keep you listening from start to finish.
Lit, Tastes Like Gold, released 17 June. This 90s band is back and it’s like they never left, giving us more songs about being a terrible boyfriend, having a little bit too much fun, and getting in stupid kinds of trouble. And it’s a super fun album!
Alanis Morissette, the storm before the calm, released 17 June. On the complete opposite side of the spectrum, Alanis returns with an unexpectedly chill and meditative work of mostly long instrumental tracks. While one might expect new-agey space music, this is firmly planted in the real, with ethereal hushed vocals, quiet percussion and relaxing melody.
Porcupine Tree, CLOSURE/CONTINUATION, released 24 June. For years Steven Wilson made no mention of his former band during their incredibly long hiatus so its band members could focus on their solo endeavors. The surprise return (minus bassist Colin Edwin) brings them back to what they’ve always done best: extended jams of tense hard rock anthems. This feels a lot like their early 00’s era of In Absentia and Deadwing, which in all honesty I felt was their best work ever. Definitely in my top ten of the year.
Various Artists, For the Birds: The Birdsong Project, Vol II, released 24 June. The second of five volumes of the poetry/music hybrid project from Audobon features songs from Elvis Costello, the Flaming Lips, Jeff Tweedy, Stephin Merritt, Shearwater, and more.
Third Eye Blind, Unplugged, released 24 June. This was a band I loved, then hated, then loved again years later. (I think it’s partly because they’re a hometown band to me now!) Their classics work surprisingly well in an unplugged format, making this an extremely enjoyable album.
As promised, I’m about to go through my music library to check out what came out this past year and shake the dustbunnies out of my brain to remind myself how many great songs and albums came out in 2022. Like the last couple of pandemic years, the music scene has kind of been all over the place — not necessarily in a bad way, but it’s definitely shaken things up to the point where the unexpected is the norm. Let’s take a listen…
The Smile, “You Will Never Work in Television Again” single, released 5 January. Radiohead members Thom Yorke and Jonny Greenwood joined up with their drummer friend Tom Skinner from Sons of Kemet as a creative outlet during the pandemic and surprised everyone with a decidedly punkish sound that might be Radiohead at its most frantic. They’d eventually release a full album later in the year.
The Weeknd, Dawn FM, released 7 January. His latest is kind of…weird? Yet really fun and funky? And features in-between smooth-jazz-DJ voice-overs by…Jim Carrey? I’m still not entirely sure what he was trying to say with this record, but it’s a great listen nonetheless. “Sacrifice” in particular is my favorite off the album.
Cat Power, Covers, released 14 January. Chan Marshall has been known to record unique and fascinating covers of other people’s music, and this latest batch is full of gems. Her take on Frank Ocean’s “Bad Religion” got quite a bit of airplay on KEXP at the beginning of the year and it’s a wonderful take on an already quirky track.
Miles Kane, Change the Show, released 21 January. Kane, also known as part of the supergroup The Last Shadow Puppets, takes the classic British soul swing sound and tweaks it with humor and maybe a bit of strangeness and the result is earwormy fun.
Kids On a Crime Spree, Fall in Love Not in Line, released 21 January. I’ve been intrigued by Slumberland Records these days for several reasons: much of their roster is super-local (one or two coming from my own neighborhood!), and much of that same roster often records in a semi lo-fi way, providing a very loose ‘bedroom recording’ feel that reminds me of…well, my own band The Flying Bohemians, actually! Extra props for this particular Oakland band for naming themselves after a newspaper story headline about problem youths in Foster City on the peninsula…which became the inspiration for the movie Over the Edge.
Yard Act, The Overload, released 21 January. This goofy punk band from Leeds provided probably my first favorite track of the year with the title song from their debut album. I kind of see them as what The Fall would sound like if they played twice as fast and Mark E Smith hadn’t been so damn grumpy all the time, but they have a really fun and hilarious charm all their own. The whole album’s well worth checking out.
The Smile, “The Smoke” single, released 27 January. The band followed up with another new single leaning ever so slightly more towards Radiohead but remaining unique to their own style. This one definitely showcases Greenwood’s penchant for increasingly complex riffs and musical phrases and Yorke’s unnatural ability to easily shoehorn vocals within them.
Paul Draper, Cult Leader Tactics, released 28 January. The second solo album from the ex-lead singer of Mansun continues his foray into tension-filled alternative rock, this time featuring friend and Porcupine Tree singer Steven Wilson on the lead single “Omega Man”. Props to Draper for filming this video in the exclusion zone in Chernobyl to really drive the theme of isolation home.
The Beatles, Get Back: The Rooftop Performance, released 28 January. Tying in with the utterly amazing Peter Jackson miniseries, this release finally provides fans with the full rooftop show that ended up being the band’s final live show (of sorts). We got to see it on the (very!) big screen on IMAX and it was so much fun!
Our Lady Peace, Spiritual Machines II, released 28 January. A sequel to an underrated and fascinating record about Ray Kurzweil’s book about artificial intelligence, The Age of Spiritual Machines, this one revisits the predictions he’d made in the book to see what has come to pass and what has not.
Yeah, I know…I’ve gone on record multiple times that years ending in two are awesome years in music. And 2022 saw a lot of great releases! But I think it’s me this time out that didn’t do my due diligence and connect as deeply with it all as I should have. It’s not that it didn’t interest me, as a lot of it did. It’s that I didn’t allow myself to resonate with it.
I’ve been using variations of the word ‘resonance’ a lot lately, in two different ways. Musically, it means “the quality in a sound of being deep, full, and reverberating.” Emotionally, it means “the ability to evoke or suggest images, memories, and emotions.” Both are important to me: things that hit me in the heart not just emotionally but creatively.
And I haven’t been letting myself do either of them over the past couple of years. Maybe it’s partly the pandemic’s fault for holding back or blocking so many musicians out there. Maybe it’s partly my own fault for not making a strong enough attempt to make that connection in the first place. Maybe it’s also partly my own fault for focusing on the acquiring (yay for being a discography completist!) and less on the music itself. Maybe it’s that I listen to KEXP so frequently that I don’t give myself enough time to relisten to what I already have in my collection. Maybe it’s that my Day Job doesn’t allow me the ability to listen to my collection while working. Maybe it’s just too many real world distractions. It could be a lot of things.
I think what I’ll be doing in the next couple of weeks is do a monthly overview of 2022 to reconnect myself with this year’s releases and posting them here. There were a lot of great songs and albums out there that I loved but for some reason never completely connected to. And I’d like to see what I might have forgotten. Maybe I’ll reconnect with them this time around.
Let’s start with what has resonated with me: “Golden Air” by Sun’s Signature — the first new music from Elizabeth Fraser in many years. I absolutely adore the EP it’s from and I think that’s a good place to start!
You may not know her by name, but she was one half (or one third, depending on the lineup) of the slowcore band Low. They started out in the mid-90s and created a wonderfully unique style of alternative rock that wasn’t the meandering (and often quiet-to-loud) post-rock of bands like Slint or Godspeed You Black Emperor, but neither were they the delicate quiet twee of bands like Belle & Sebastian either. They were a bit of both, shifted sideways into something beautiful yet haunting. Mimi was the drummer and the wife of the band’s guitarist Alan Sparhawk.
I’d heard of the band during my HMV years, having seen some of their early releases pass by my receiving desk, but it wasn’t until 2001’s Things We Lost in the Fire that I finally understood just how wonderful they are.
Mimi passed away from ovarian cancer the other day, and will be greatly missed by many. This particular song, one of my favorites from the band, was on my mind when I heard the news.
…and here are a few other Low tracks featuring Mimi on vocals (solo or with Alan) that have also become favorites of mine over the years:
(This last song is one of my all-time favorite takes on a Christmas song.)
Walk In Silence 