So, last month was pretty damn yeah hooo boy. Wow. Good stuff!
This month, it’s October. Let’s make it wyrd.
Oh no, I’m late!
I’m adding Dead Gaze’s recently released Easy Travels, which is an excellent name for this album since it goes down sooooo easy. It’s a glossy, upbeat pop record that was recorded at home by some dude in Mississippi who I’ve never heard of before but clearly belongs in the sunshine in L.A. Great stuff.
Thanks! Anyone else getting in the boat down the river of Autumn music?
Going a bit obscure this month, more so than usual. Since it’s October I figured a good goth or industrial album would fit the bill nicely. Was having a hard time coming up with a good goth pick, but there was a pretty strong Industrial scene in MA for a while. Informatik probably had the most national success while locally Big Catholic Guilt was probably the biggest, then there were many other noteworthy bands like You Shriek, D.D.T., Zia, and Happy the Clown. Almost all of these were centered around Boston. Meanwhile out in Western MA there a band called Out Out. They’d sign with Tackhead’s Axis label and later Metropolis, and have a new album after a long hiatus coming out on Artoffact records. Out Out is basically the work of one guy, who also works as a sound engineer at Sonelab and on an array of albums ranging from Dinosaur Jr. to Lloyd Cole. Out Out itself has that very early 90s industrial sound, falling somewhere between early NiN and Skinny Puppy, featuring a dancy beat, audio samples, and distorted vocals. Pepperbox Muzzle, released in 1991, was the first full length, with Admire the Question getting some play in the clubs, but Protoplasm is a personal favorite for it’s sillyness.
Loving that Dead Gaze record, CW!
I’m super late this month but I discovered something cool earlier this week that I wanted to share.
Botany by Deepak Verbera. Meditative, soothing, serene ambient electronic music with a mysterious undercurrent of droning guitars. Something a little sinister in the margins. Really liking it as a soundtrack for gazing out the window on my autumn train trips to work. It sounds like both Pleasantville and New York City.
I’m going with the altogether excellent new album from The Radio Dept. called Running Out of Love.
I didn’t know they had a new one out! Been a big radio dept fan for a long time. Thanks!
Last year Speedy Ortiz cleaned up at the Boston Music Awards, winning Artist, Album, and Song of the year. Sadie Dupuis, front woman of SO, dropped a solo record side project today under the moniker of Sad13. The album, Slugger, is a bit of a poppier, synthier Speedy Ortiz.
I haven’t been in the mood for music so far this month, but the new Hope Sandoval album is really quite soothing.
I was checking if there was ever going to be another Rammstein album and discovered that yesterday they released a compilation of some of their songs arranged for piano and it’s on Spotify. So I added it. It works surprisingly well.
Edit: I guess it was actually originally released as a CD with actual sheet music last year, but now it’s available digitally.
One of the last music projects that Gavin Clark participated in was a collaboration with the UK electronic duo Toydrum, kind of combining his voice and lyrical strengths to their ability to cut and paste from pretty much every genre on the map. It was a project that went on hiatus when Clark’s addictions reappeared and his voice and confidence fell apart and health deteriorated.
Even as Clark seemed to be falling apart, they managed to collect what they had, and put it together as an album that came out at the tail end of last year. They called their project Evangelist, and it’s really terrific. One of the songs (“Whirlwind of Rubbish”) ended up on the show Lucifer, and I guess with all his songs on This Is England his family will have some residuals coming in. I made it a late add to the playlist.
Anyway, this is a pretty amazing collection of songs that veer sharply from profoundly sad to somewhat hopeful. Give “Never Feel This Young” a shot.
This isn’t on Spotify, but pops into my head from time to time:
I’m adding the new album from the suddenly and unexpectedly revived Moles. Richard Davies (who also records under his own name and with Eric Matthews as Cardinal) is pretty much a bedroom pop genius in the vein of Chris Knox, Robert Pollard and Martin Newell. He clearly is not recording music in the hopes of finding a mass audience, but there is some damn catchy shit here.
Holy shit. There’s a new Moles album?!?!
Was just listening to Cardinal the other day and wondering if Davies was up to anything.
I love Cardinal but I’m unfamiliar with Moles.
And, yeah, Dinosaur Jr! Haven’t spent enough time with the new album yet.
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I’ve added Heron Oblivion!
Found this one lurking on that Google doc trig posted which compiles the various Best-List-Making albums of 2016. (Mojo put this at #10.) Meg Baird of Espers does her gentle folk vocal thing over shaggy, psychedelic guitar noise. Very satisfying mix of elements. (Just like that album cover!) Here’s how Subpop describes the album:
Pastoral pummel. Listening to Heron Oblivion’s album feels like sitting in a lovely meadow in the shadow of a dam that’s gonna heave-ho’ any minute. Members of this new San Francisco combo have put in time in both raging and relatively tranquil psychedelic sound units - this is the premise and the synergy behind this very unique and special new album. Three shades of light run through Heron Oblivion: Baird’s rich, beautiful vocal approach, the locked-horns bass and drums of her and Miller’s streamlined-but-motorik rhythm section, and a twin guitar tapestry that both aligns with the dreaminess of the songs and crackles out of containment to froth over the rim, punctuating Opal/Fairport moves with dramatic, explosive fuzz solos. Meg’s gorgeous singing resides within an untouchable domain and never struggles, nor has to combat the avalanche of guitars that ebb and flow.
I’ll close out the year with The Curtain Society. TCS are an old work horse band of central MA. They have been playing for almost three decades. A swirly bit of gothy shoegazy dream pop taking influence from bands like The Chameleons and The Cure. Inertia was their first album released with Bedazzled Records. They’ve performed as the backing band for local stints of Jim Carroll, Shanna Morrison, and Mark Burgess (The Chameleons) where they were also joined by Marty Wilson-Piper of The Church. Lead guitarist/singer Roger Lavallee joined Burgess for parts of the most recent Chameleons Vox tour as well.
I just added hittills by Bo Kaspers Orkester. The music is Swedish and jazzy/funky. I used to listen a lot when I spent a lot of time in Norway. I go back to it often as “comfort” music.
