Tag Archives: writing soundtracks

I need to revisit 80s 4AD again…

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…it’s been far too long since I’ve sat down and let myself get lost in this stuff. I mean, considering I’ve been working on reviving the Walk in Silence book, I think it’s fair to say that a lot of these albums were a huge influence on my high school years, and would fit nicely with the current iteration of this project.

I always call this era of the label’s output autumnal, because a lot of it, at least for me, evokes the feeling of an impending change of seasons near the end of the year. The air growing colder, the sounds of nature growing quieter, the sky greyer. Many of these albums — most of which I had on cassette and played incessantly at night as I went to sleep — might not always invoke a darkness, but more of a sense of desolation and breakdown, and even abandonment at times. You can hear the dust being kicked up as you walk through the wide emptiness of this music.

That, now that I understand music a lot more, was the key to 4AD’s signature sound then. A clever mix of heavy reverberation with sparse instrumentation gives it that same sound that Cowboy Junkies achieved with The Trinity Session when they recorded inside an empty church. Listening to these albums with my Walkman, volume set high and bedroom darkened, I entered another world, sometimes an escape but often times a safe place. I could let my mind and creativity get lost within the music, letting it take me on a metaphysical trip somewhere.

The collection Lonely Is an Eyesore is a great place to start. I listened to this one just a few days ago. Several of its accompanying grainy 8mm and 16mm videos were shown on MTV’s 120 Minutes, which in turn inspired me later on during my college years for my film production classes.

This Mortal Coil was a huge favorite of mine, especially after hearing a few tracks from their second album Filigree & Shadow on college radio in late 1986. That particular album was one of my top favorites in 1987-88 and inspired a lot of story ideas.

Dead Can Dance was a band I’d heard of in passing but it was 1987’s Within the Realm of a Dying Sun that became my all-time favorite of theirs. Not quite chamber music, not quite alternative rock, not quite current orchestral music, this album wasn’t just one that I’d lose myself in at night, it helped me find a Zen calm right when I was at my most anxious.

Cocteau Twins was of course a major influence on my bass playing, thanks to the Blue Bell Knoll album. By late 1988 I had a good portion of their discography on cassette (and a few on vinyl) and I was constantly listening to it. The twin 1985 EPs, Tiny Dynamine and Echoes in a Shallow Bay, remain in heavy rotation after all these years alongside their project with Harold Budd, The Moon and the Melodies.

And of course, let’s not forget the surprise hit by MARRS, a one-off project between 4AD label mates Colourbox and AR Kane. While this one goes against the grain of the typical autumnal sound of the label, it’s so damn catchy and inventive that you can’t help but love it.

Favorite songs: Isolation

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Every now and again I think about this EP, and how it’s affected me over the years. It’s Mark Pritchard of Global Communication and Kirsty Hawkshaw (formerly of Opus III, you know her from two covers: Jane’s “It’s a Fine Day” King Crimson’s “I Talk to the Wind“). I first discovered them on a quirky seasonal compilation called Invocation — the same album that introduced me to Jocelyn Pook. I listened to that album constantly during the final months of 1997 and into 1998, using it as a soundtrack to my writing at the time.

The song itself (Part 1 lasts a bit over eleven minutes, and Part 2 a bit over eight) is what I imagined as the best example of ambient electronic music: there was melody, but there was also mood and atmosphere. It was like the culmination of everything I loved about 4AD bands like Cocteau Twins and Dead Can Dance. It also felt widescreen in my mind. Cinematic in its own way, telling a story with its weavings of highs, lows, bursts and quietness. There was something about it that somehow hit me viscerally, and it felt almost like…a spiritual leaving.

I used that feeling some years later when I wrote a pivotal scene in The Balance of Light with the final moments between Denni and Saisshalé.

This track was actually what got me into Global Communication soon after, picking up both their brilliant 76:14 (highly recommended) and their album of Chapterhouse remixes, Pentamerous Metamorphosis, both of which had recently been reissued in the US. Those two albums, along with Invocation, became some of my favorite go-to albums when writing the Bridgetown Trilogy, especially when I needed something deeply atmospheric.

Twenty Years On: Summer 2004

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I think it was around this time that I started running out of gas while writing The Balance of Light. [For those playing along, I’d stalled right about where Poe follows Denni and Amna up to Trisanda in Act 3. I knew how to end the book…I think I was just afraid of it this huge years-long project finally coming to an end and doing a crap job of it.] To clear my head I’d started working on the vampire novel more often.

Weirdly enough, I think I was just running out of things to listen to…? There’s this strange era between 2004 and 2007 where I’d lost interest in indie radio. It could be that I was stuck between the lingering effects of alternative metal on one end of the spectrum and indie folk that was a little too esoteric on the other, and neither were really resonating with me. That, and a lot of my favorite bands were in between albums so I wouldn’t hear from them for a while longer.

Danger Mouse & Jay-Z, The Grey Album, early April 2004. Looking at my mp3 collection, 2004 was the peak of the initial mash-up wave, and this one is bonkers fun: DM’s decision to take Jay-Z’s The Black Album and The Beatles’ white album and create something new could have been terrible but instead it’s surprisingly enjoyable and highly amusing. Allegedly both Jay-Z and Paul McCartney thought it was great!

Ambulance LTD, LP, 6 April 2004. This band sadly came and went too quickly, releasing only two EPs and a single album, but it’s all worth checking out. I played the hell out of this record in the Belfry at the time, especially the great opener “Yoga Means Union”.

tweaker, 2am wakeup call, 20 April 2004. Chris Vrenna’s second album remains one of my favorite albums of that year, and it got all sorts of play the entire summer. It features vocals from Robert Smith, Hamilton Leithauser and David Sylvian, and a hauntingly gorgeous instrumental track featuring Johnny Marr that I’ve embedded above. Highly recommended.

Prince, Musicology, 20 April 2004. In between all the funk-heavy NPG Music Club albums he’d dropped for the last couple of years, this was a surprise mainstream hit that got considerable airplay both with the title track and “Cinnamon Girl”. It felt like a record on par musically with Sign ‘o’ the Times for me.

The Beta Band, Heroes to Zeros, 4 May 2004. Their last record’s title may have hit a bit too close to home considering they were no longer indie critic darlings at the time, but that didn’t seem to bother them any with this oddball collection.

The Magnetic Fields, i, 4 May 2004. The fun thing about Stephin Merritt and his many projects is that you can never really take him all that seriously, even when he’s writing breakup songs. Between his basso profundo voice and his quirky and self-effacing lyrics, you can’t help but like him. “I Thought You Were My Boyfriend” was a college radio favorite.

Mission of Burma, ONoffON, 4 May 2004. Their first new album in multiple decades, three of the four original members come back with a loud and blistering record that successfully captures their chaotic post-punk sound that influenced so many others. The fascinating thing is that there’s also an element of quietness here as well, inspired by the members’ time in much calmer bands.

Secret Machines, Now Here Is Nowhere, 18 May 2004. This was another favorite of the year, and an album that got a ton of play during my writing sessions for its deep dive into hard rock tinged with eclectic prog and maybe even a bit of psychedelia. This one earned them a small but highly loyal fanbase that remains to this day and even spread to the side project School of Seven Bells. Highly recommended.

The Fall, 50,000 Fall Fans can’t Be Wrong: 39 Golden Greats, 8 June 2004. A near-perfect sampler of a band with a convoluted discography on several different labels and an always-shifting membership. It’s oddly missing songs from I Am Kurious Oranj however, the 1988 album that helped them gain considerably more popularity in indie circles.

My Chemical Romance, Three Cheers for Sweet Revenge, 8 June 2004. You either love this band or you hate them. For me, they were a band I disliked at first but heard “I’m Not Okay (I Promise)” and “Helena” so much on WHMP that they grew on me. Not quite goth, not quite alternative metal, not quite emo, but somewhere in between.

The Killers, Hot Fuss, 15 June 2004. I’ll be honest, I wasn’t the biggest fan of this band at first, and the breakthrough single “Somebody Told Me” just kind of bounced right off of me as too glam and too alt-rock-goes-disco for my tastes, but the more I heard the other singles the more I liked them, and finally bought it when I heard “All The Things That I’ve Done” which remains one of my favorite songs of theirs.

The Cure, The Cure, 29 June 2004. I’d mentioned this one earlier when I blogged about the band’s 2000s-era releases, and at the time I really wasn’t sure how I felt about it. I liked it, especially the darker-edged songs like “Lost” and “The End of the World”, but its sound was just so unlike them that it was a bit of a hard listen.

Twenty Years On: Spring 2004

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I often say that 2005 was the year of major change in my life (getting married and moving twice and all, among other things), but it really started in 2004. I’d met A online and by the summer we were constantly running into each other on LiveJournal. I was writing The Balance of Light at the time and having a terrible time with it, and writing a vampire novel as a way to distract myself. I’d head to my first Worldcon that autumn when it came to Boston. I’d quit buying comics cold turkey when my go-to comics store closed up shop, and I even started thinking seriously about looking to find my own apartment. Life was changing whether I was ready for it or not.

Musically I’d latched onto LAUNCHcast, a sort of proto-Spotify site where one could curate a playlist by way of a ratings system. [And given that my house was in a radio desert, I couldn’t always listen to WHMP or WFNX at the time unless I was in the car or using my stereo upstairs.] Given my music obsessions, it wasn’t long before it provided me with the kind of indie and electronic rock I enjoyed so much.

The Crystal Method, Legion of Boom, 13 January 2004. I’d completely forgotten there was an album between this one and their mega-selling Vegas (the one with “Busy Child” and “Trip Like I Do” on it), so I thought I’d try them out again. This one got a bit of play in the Belfry during my writing sessions.

Air, Talkie Walkie, 20 January 2004. This band is on the ‘I will buy anything from them’ list, and this one became a huge favorite of mine that year, getting a lot of play all around, not just during writing sessions but my occasional road trips as well. I loved that it retained the dreaminess of their Moon Safari album yet sounded futuristic.

Stereolab, Margerine Eclipse, 27 January 2004. Another band I was woefully behind on in terms of collecting at the time, I liked playing this one on the weekends when I had my hours-long writing sessions.

Yes, The Ultimate Yes: 35th Anniversary Collection, 27 January 2004. I’d always been a huge fan of this band, though everything I owned of theirs was on scratchy used vinyl, having acquired them over the years in dollar bins, heh. This was a great full discography-so-far collection that was quite a pleasure to listen to.

The Walkmen, Bows + Arrows, 3 February 2004. Long before Hamilton Leithauser showed up on indie radio with his solo and collective projects, he was the lead singer of this great indie band that got a ton of play on LAUNCHcast and college radio with the song “The Rat”. Highly recommended.

Incubus, A Crow Left of the Murder…, 4 February 2004. Sure, you hear those same two or three hit singles from this band on alternative rock radio these days. Back when this came out, the singles “Megalomaniac” and “Talk Shows on Mute” got a ton of play on alternative radio, but sadly this album tends to be forgotten for the most part. It’s one of their most tense and dense records though, and well worth checking out.

Franz Ferdinand, Franz Ferdinand, 9 February 2004. Yes, that band with that song! They’ve always been a bit of an oddball band that slid between arty post-punk and groovy glam and somehow made it not just fresh and new, but made it irresistibly catchy as well.

Junkie XL, Radio JXL: A Broadcast from the Computer Hell Cabin, 10 February 2004. One of my favorite records of the year, this is a two-cd collection of electronic rock and house mixes and a thrill to listen to. Released just a few years before Tom Holkenborg focused mostly on film scores, this one’s highly recommended.

Audio Learning Center, Cope Park, 26 February 2004. This not-quite-grunge rock band from Portland were big on the moodier pockets of the genre, leaning a bit more towards emo and post-rock in some places. They only dropped two albums (this is the second) but they’re well worth checking out. This one got a lot of play in the Belfry.

TV On the Radio, Desperate Youth, Blood Thirsty Babes, 9 March 2004. I picked this one up mainly due to the fact that every music critic out there were getting their minds blown by this record, and they weren’t wrong. I wasn’t entirely sure what to make of this band at first, considering their sound back then was a bit difficult to describe. But the track “Dreams” was just so emotionally dire that I knew then that this was a record I’d enjoy.

The Vines, Winning Days, 21 March 2004. Their second record after the critically acclaimed Highly Evolved was a bit of both ‘more of the same’ and ‘heading further into psychedelia’ and while it wasn’t as popular as their debut, it was just as enjoyable to listen to.

The Standard, Wire Post to Wire, 23 March 2004. I latched onto the track “Even Numbers” via LAUNCHcast and I picked this one up soon after I’d heard it maybe twice. They were another Portland band made out of former members of other local indie groups, and this was their third and most popular album. This one got a lot of play in the Belfry as well.

Jem, Finally Woken, 24 March 2004. This quirky British singer had a minor hit with the trippy “They” single that got a lot of play on the local indie rock stations and kind of labeling her as a one hit wonder in the process, but the rest of this album is well worth checking out. To me she was like Alison Goldfrapp only a lighter and trippier.

L’arc~en~Ciel, Smile, 31 March 2004. I’d been a fan of this band since hearing “Spirit Dreams Inside” at the tail end of the 2001 Final Fantasy movie, but alas they were always super hard to find unless I was willing to spend thirty dollars on Japanese imports. This was one of their first American releases and featured one of their best hits and their most popular, “Ready Steady Go” (which at the time was also the opening theme for the anime show Fullmetal Alchemist).

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Q2 coming soon!

Novel Mixtape: Theadia 4

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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!]

What I’m Listening to: March 2024 Edition

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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!

Listening to 2000’s era Cure, Pt 4: the Deluxe Editions I

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After the promotion of The Cure and the Curiosa Festival had come and gone, the next phase was about to begin: a massive reissue of their early catalog. While this may not have been all that important in the UK where they’d stayed on the Fiction label for years, in the US they’d appeared on several: the indie PVC, A&M, Sire, and eventually an extended stay (complete with minor reissues) on Elektra. This would finally bring the majority of their discography together on one label, with its original packaging.

The new reissues of their back catalog began of course with their debut album Three Imaginary Boys in late 2004. Most Americans knew most of its tracks from the US collection Boys Don’t Cry or via the import. [I’d bought the original version at Al Bum’s in Amherst probably in early 1987 and much preferred this one. It flows much better and the band’s early gloom is much more prevalent here.

The bonus disc of this reissue would of course include the singles “Boys Don’t Cry” and “Jumping Someone Else’s Train”, both post-album stand-alone singles, though surprisingly it did not contain their debut single “Killing an Arab”, though that was most likely due to its questionable source material. Still, it did contain several demos and outtakes that are quite fascinating to hear.

The next three album reissues would appear all on the same day: Seventeen Seconds, Faith and Pornography, in late spring 2005. The first two had been released at different times in the US, including as a double-disc two-fer called Happily Ever After, which I owned on cassette.

Seventeen Seconds expanded on their post-punk sound and added a pastoral feel to their sound, thanks to the melodic bass lines of new members Simon Gallup and the keyboards of Matthieu Hartley. This album definitely feels like something you’d listen to alone, on headphones, sometime around 2am. It was a huge inspiration to my writing in the late 80s and got a ton of play late at night. The extra tracks on this reissue are more focused on live recordings, some of which would show up on the cassette version of the live album Concert.

Faith, on the other hand, was a much darker affair. It too is perfect late night listening, but it leans more towards isolation and loneliness. There are two faces here: the anger and tension of songs like “Primary” and “Doubt”, and the atmospheric fog of “All Cats Are Grey” and the title track. The original cassette had included the twenty-seven minute (!!) instrumental track “Carnage Visors”, which they’d recorded for an animated film that would play before their live shows. This epic is included on this reissue, along with several studio outtakes and live tracks, as well as the non-album single “Charlotte Sometimes”.

Pornography, on the other hand…is not an easy album to listen to. Hartley had left, leaving the band as a barebones trio that only added to the album’s sparseness. They took several steps further down into the bitterly cold abyss, well past the darkness of Faith. Depression, desolation and entropy abound on this record. Is it any wonder that this was in super heavy rotation on my Walkman in the late 80s, then? While it’s not as violently dismal as, say, The Downward Spiral, it could probably be seen as its goth equivalent. Interestingly enough, its closing title track (like “Hurt”, come to think of it) hints at a sense of strained hope. This too features a lot of studio demos and live tracks.

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Are these reissues that you must have in your collection? Well, if you’re a huge fan like I am, then yes, definitely. The remastered tracks sound great, and the extras are all sorts of fun to listen to. For completists they are missing a few things here and there, such as a few single-only b-sides (which, to be fair, were easily available on the Join the Dots box set), but it’s worth checking out.

Coming Up Next: the final three reissues of the decade

Listening to 2000’s era Cure, Pt 2: Hits, Dots, and One-Offs

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While Bloodflowers was a great album, it wasn’t my favorite of their latter years. I think part of it was that it came out at a time when my time at the record store was coming to a close, but it was also that it simply just didn’t resonate with me as deeply as some past albums had. Still, this sparked off a slow but steady stream of increased visibility. They were constantly on tour at the start of the decade, and followed it up with a number of collections and appearances.

The band released the Greatest Hits collection in late 2001 as a contractual obligation to the Fiction label. It features many of their best known tracks, chosen by Robert Smith himself, and also two new tracks: the poppy “Cut Here” (the title an anagram of the band name) and the perky “Just Say Yes” featuring Saffron from Republica. It’s by no means a must-have collection, but it’s a good place to start, and also a good mix for those not interested in a discography deep dive. The expanded version features a second album’s worth of the same songs, this time recorded acoustically.

Smith kept himself busy by appearing on a few albums, many of which are definitely worth checking out. He provided vocals on the great track “Perfect Blue Sky” on Junkie XL’s Radio JXL: A Broadcast from the Computer Hell Cabin — an expansive two-cd collection of upbeat radio-friendly electronic tracks and expanded house instrumentals. This album is one of my favorites of 2003 and also features vocals from Saffron, Dave Gahan, Gary Numan, Chuck D, Terry Hall, and more. It also features the groovy reimagining of Elvis’ “A Little Less Conversation” which had showed up in 2001’s Ocean’s Eleven. It’s a record worth picking up.

Also in 2003, he featured on…a Blink-182 album?? Sure, why not? The punk pop trio called The Cure one of their influences, and he features on the track “All of This”.

Then in spring of 2004, he featured on the second album by tweaker, drummer Chris Vrenna’s collective project. The album 2am wakeup call is about Vrenna’s wife’s insomnia so much of the record is dark and moody…but not necessarily gloomy. I listened to this album incessantly for most of that year, not just in the Belfry during my writing sessions (I was writing The Balance of Light at the time) but during my commutes to work. I highly recommend checking this record out.

Backing up a few months, The Cure also released the box set Join the Dots: B-Sides & Rarities 1978-2001. It’s a four-disc collection that proves that these oddities weren’t just throwaways or one-offs. Their b-sides, like “Just One Kiss”, “Breathe” and “The Big Hand”, could be just as amazing and memorable as their album tracks and singles, and even their soundtrack and compilation offerings like “Burn” (from The Crow soundtrack) and the cover of Depeche Mode’s “World in My Eyes” (from For the Masses) are great. It’s worth checking these out.

But wait! There’s one more thing! One that often gets overlooked!

They also did the theme song for the French animated series Dragon Hunters by taking their track “Taking Off” (which would show up soon on their next record) and repurposing it into this fun and boppy theme. This one doesn’t show up on any greatest hits, reissues or box sets (at least not yet anyway), but it’s easy to find online.

Coming up: finally, another new album!

Twenty-five years ago…

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I’ve been going through some music from 1999 the last couple of days and finding a bunch of albums and songs I used to listen to quite a bit then that I haven’t listened to in ages, and some I’ve even completely forgotten about. This was during the back half of my tenure at HMV, and by this time I’d been tasked with ordering the imports and, if I could get away with it, some of the obscure indie titles that I figured someone aside from me might like. A lot of these got considerable play down in the Belfry during my writing sessions.

Medal, Drop Your Weapon, 24 May 1999. This Oxford quintet’s music had that sort of epic moodiness that was at odds with a lot of what was big at the time, but their sound was perfect for my writing sessions, especially the slow groove of “Possibility”. Well worth checking out if you can find it.

Arab Strap, Cherubs EP, 1 September 1999. I kind of liked the lead track off this, but it was the slow and sludgy “Pulled” that drew my interest. Sure, it’s seven-plus minutes long and takes its own sweet time getting somewhere (and even then the tempo subtly shifts all over the place), but it’s the two-minute wall of noise coda that makes the entire song. Considering that I’m a huge fan of the quiet/LOUD style, this fit perfectly in my wheelhouse.

Days of the New, Days of the New II, 31 August 1999. Remember this guy, Travis Meeks? Promising musician with a growly semi-acoustic grunge sound? They had a minor hit with “Touch Peel and Stand” from the first album but the second record kind of got passed over. Thing is, this second record was absolutely amazing. Really tight musicianship and songwriting, and definitely more adventurous. Sadly his group imploded (apparently his backing band quit in frustration and started their own group, Tantric, who had a few minor hits in the early 00s. I listened to this one a hell of a lot that summer.

Tin Star, The Thrill Kisser, 9 February 1999. How the heck did I latch onto this…? I think the BMG rep handed a promo to me and thought I’d like it, and yes, like it I did! Not quite electronica, not quite indie, but a hybrid of both with a heaping dollop of British eccentricity added into the mix, it’s cool, funky, and a really great record. This got a ton of play in the Belfry for a good couple of years.

Kill Holiday, Somewhere Between the Wrong Is Right, 23 February 1999. I’d heard “In Closing (Memorial Day)” on The River one night driving home from work and immediately ordered the album on my following shift! Y’all know how much I do love an epic final track with a slow build (and again with the quiet/LOUD thing). One of my favorite indie releases of that year.

Trashmonk, Mona Lisa Overdrive, 25 March 1999. Ever wonder what Nick Laird-Clowes did after The Dream Academy? Well, he dropped this one really weird album named after a William Gibson book that sounded nothing like his former band. Sometimes experimental, sometimes groovy, sometimes hauntingly beautiful, it’s definitely worth checking out if you can find it.

Lamb, Fear of Fours, 17 May 1999. More experimental and much darker than their debut (and nearly all the songs contain quirky time signatures outside of 4/4), it’s the one that captured my attention to the point that they became one of my favorite bands of the late 90s/early 00s.

Rico, Sanctuary Medicines, 16 August 1999. This Glaswegian industrial musician could probably be compared to Nine Inch Nails but without the dire levels of nihilism. I don’t even remember how I came across this one aside from the fact that I really dug the whole industrial metal sound and that it wasn’t trying so damn hard to fit into the goth stereotypes like some other bands.

Handsome Boy Modeling School, So…How’s Your Girl?, 19 October 1999. Only Prince Paul and Dan the Automator could get away with naming their band after an episode-long joke from Chris Elliott’s bonkers TV show Get a Life…and loosely basing AN ENTIRE ALBUM on said episode. But it’s a damn fine record and one of the best of the year on many critics’ lists. It’s a super fun record worth owning.

The All Seeing I, Pickled Eggs & Sherbet, 20 September 1999. Another ‘where the heck did I hear about this’ import and the only album from this electronica collective, though this sounds more like a quirky British indie band instead if you didn’t know their background. It’s extremely eccentric and I have no idea what they were trying to prove with it, but it’s a fascinating listen.

Two new mixtapes!

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Unlike last year, where I was just too preoccupied with Real Life and other things and hadn’t allowed myself to really get to know the new music I was acquiring, I’m making a concerted effort to pay attention to what’s coming out these days, and I’m quite happy to say that I’m finding a lot of really good stuff out there!

These two mixtapes were basically holdovers from late 2023 where I’d started a list of songs but hadn’t gotten around to completing it and arranging the tracklist flow. I’m quite happy with how they came out, however, and I hope you enjoy them as well!

From the Open Skies: In My Blue World 2, created 14 January 2024. No, I have not written the sequel to In My Blue World just yet! I only have a very rough two-page outline of an idea, but I think it’s worth working on as a future project later on in the year! All I’ll say that it involves our heroes facing off a new foe with a much stronger and creepier ability to siphon magic for their own nefarious uses! And what better way to prep for a future novel project than creating a mixtape soundtrack for it? [Note: for those of you playing along, the title here is borrowed from another ELO song, heh.]

Walk in Silence XXVIII, created 30 January 2024. First of all, I can’t believe I’m already up to twenty-eight volumes of this series!! (Then again, I’ve been making them since 1988, so…) This, Listen in Silence and Untitled have pretty much become my own NOW That’s What I Call… compilations that just won’t quit. This one came out surprisingly well and I’m finding myself returning to it more and more.