Top 15 of 2018

2018 has been an eye opening one for me with regards to music.  It started out simply enough, new releases creeped into my subconscious the first few months of the year, but then I learned about DKFM – a “shoegaze” online radio station.  This linked me to a ton of new music via their regular playlist and especially from their wonderful weekly shows such as: The Shoegaze Collective, This Radiant Hour, Muso Asia, Somewhere Cold Radio, and the highlight of my listening week: When the Sun Hits (and the brand new show Drowned in a Sea of Sound).  These shows, along with weekly listens to Louder Than Bombs, The Big Takeover Radio Show, The Kitchen Sink, and Emmas House Music, have broadened my musical scope ten-fold.  I don’t think I’ve devoured new music like this since I was in my early twenties.  It’s been an exciting whirlwind and incredibly overwhelming.  Just as I settle into a flood of new purchases, I am on to the next batch. 

As is tradition, I am going forward with an annual favorite releases of the year, with the caveat that for the sake of brevity there are many that could be on this list that are not.  The ones that have made the list are all in alphabetical order and not ranked.  Also, I will keep my jabbering out of it.  Each of these releases speak for themselves and I invite anyone and everyone to take the time to sample music from each of these remarkable artists.

Cheers to a great New Year!

the black watch Witches!

Collapse Delirium Poetry (ep)

Endless White Flow West To You

flirting This Would Be Funny If It Were Happening To Anyone But Me (ep)

The Goon Sax We’re Not Talking

Habitants Habitants

Jetstream Pony Self-Destruct Reality (ep)

Kill The Moose To The Moon and Back (ep)

Last Leaves Other Towns Than Ours (2017)

Lowtide Southern Mind

Oxy Fita

Sharesprings Paraparlor

Soft Science Maps

Tender Age Becoming Real Forever

Wild Meadows Wild Meadows

It's Beginning To And Back Again

About a month ago I received an iPhone from the IT guy at my job.  This was to replace the Windows Phone that I hadn’t really used for several years at work and rarely pulled out of my desk drawer.  The sad fact is, the Windows phone was my first smart phone and it was terrible.  My personal cell phone is very very old.  It was a free knock off Blackberry.  The only reason I bought a cell phone in the first place was when I was on the kidney transplant waiting list in 2004 and I didn’t trust the beeper the transplant clinic provided me.  I get made fun of a lot when I pull out my antiquated old phone, but I never really had much of an interest in having a smartphone.  My biggest fear being that as soon as I had one, I’d be somehow connected with work all the time.  I can barely mentally take a full day at the office as it is, why would I want to deal with the constant crises 24/7?  This is the same job where someone urgently called me for some simple question while I was being poked and prodded in the ICU a few years ago.  There is a level of helplessness that many of my beloved co-workers seem to possess that constantly flusters and frustrates me.  Being reachable at all times worries me.  If you’re still with me, you’re better than me, because writing that paragraph bored me.  At any rate, I have decided to actually give this 21^st century phone thing a try. 

Yes, I have found that I now check my work messages during evenings and answer work phone calls on weekends.  Yes, it has already spoiled a night’s attempt at sleep a few times.  In fact, I just reflexively checked the work Outlook for emails as I’m typing this on a Saturday.  WHY?!  I don’t want to know even while I’m in the office!  However, what I didn’t think about is the easy access to music that this new-fangled phone provides.  I also discovered that my ears quickly eject the earbuds that came with the phone by spitting them out every few minutes. 

Music has been my lifeline since I was about twelve.  When I was first able to get a job at the age of 14, I began spending all of money on records and it rarely slowed down since.  It has all evolved ever so slightly over these way too many years, but the search for new-to-me sounds seems to be part of my DNA.  I don’t play any instruments, my voice is like some sort of nasally appropriation of a Peanuts cartoon adult (come to think about it, so is my writing voice), but I can handle listening to music intently and with purpose and telling anyone and everyone I can about the stuff that inspires and energizes me.  That’s been predominantly what this blog I’ve mostly abandoned is all about – sharing my love for the music I choose to purchase (and yes, I do purchase it) and doing my best to get others to do the same.  Alas, I’ve never been able to find much of an audience over all of these years, so I crawl back into my shell and keep to myself. 

The last few years my music passion has admittedly cooled.  I actually went through a period where I purchased no music between August 2015 and April 2016 (I did receive a couple of crowd-funded CDs in the mail during this time), which was disconcerting on many levels.  However, this smart phone has changed things.  Now, when I leave the office, I head to a place where I can walk in a forest, or quiet neighborhood, and jam those earbuds in for a few minutes at a time, and walk with a soundtrack of fantastic music!  These are all things I could’ve accessed before on my laptop, but just didn’t - things like: Jack Rabid’s weekly Big Takeover Radio show (I’ve been reading his magazine for 27 years!!), or the When the Sun Hits show every Wednesday on DKFM preceded by Louder Than Bombs on local station House of Sound (Wednesday evenings have become a new version of my old Sunday nights in High School with the New Music Show on Q105 and MTV’s 120 Minutes!).  What this phone has taught me is that I had stopped seeking as much as I used to.  That I was falling into complacency.  I had followed the When the Sun Hits blog for years via Facebook, but only barely paid attention to the posts.  Most of the artists mentioned were unfamiliar, so I skimmed by and I regret it.  Now that I’m actually listening to host Amber Crain’s carefully curated show, my ears have been opened again, and I feel pretty damn excited about it.  I haven’t been introduced to this much new music in such a short span of time, since I was in my early 20s and it is refreshing.  And DKFM!  An internet radio station that plays so-called “shoegaze” music 24/7?  Are you kidding me?!  A couple of Sundays ago, I went for a morning stroll (awkward stumble?) and tried out DKFM’s Classic station and heard eight straight songs I spent time and effort tracking down in the late 80s and early 90s!  It was as if I ran across an old mixtape and popped it into my Walkman.  The source material is expanding too, as I have been turned on to The Kitchen Sink (Elizabeth Klisiewicz's show on Strawberry Tongue Radio) and This Radiant Hour (Girl Afraid's show on on DKFM).  I’m sure there will be more.

Here I am, not jabbering on about the music I think you should be listening to, but instead where you can find the great music you should be listening to.  

This image is the Decayfm.com logo.

http://bigtakeover.com/radio
http://whenthesunhitsblog.blogspot.com/
https://decayfm.com/
https://www.mixcloud.com/louderthanbombsus/
https://www.mixcloud.com/Girl-Afraid/
https://www.mixcloud.com/eklisiewicz/
http://houseofsound.org/

How to Keep from Falling off a Mountain

Slowness

How to Keep from Falling Off a Mountain

(Blue Aurora)

Last summer I read a glowing review of For Those Who Wish to See the Glass Half Full – the debut album from San Francisco band Slowness in the venerable Big Takeover magazine.  As I do while perusing each massive issue, I wrote the name down on a list and checked out their music online and then excitedly sought out the vinyl only release (sorry digital as well, but that is never my first option) at all the record stores I ventured into.  Unfortunately, time slipped by and I still had not tracked down a copy of the album.  Not until recently when the band announced the release of a new (vinyl) release when I knew I had better get my act together and order the new LP, as well as download their previous work. 

There’s something mysterious and lovely about Slowness.  Their name evokes ideas of the so-dubbed slo-core “scene” of the early to mid 90s, and though they share some of the transcendent qualities of some of those artists, they are really something completely different.  In fact their two earlier releases (including the 2013 LP and the 2011 EP Hopeless but Otherwise) are really straight forward affairs.  Musically, the band weaves a very attractive intricate guitar work to create pretty damn catchy songs.  I’ve heard them lumped in with the other modern ‘shoegaze’ bands, which is fitting, but their free flowing sound also reminds me of the dreamy post punk who favored chiming guitars and nice vocal harmonies.

On the latest LP, How to Keep from Falling off a Mountain, Slowness (Julie Lynn and Geoffrey Scott and guests) has decided to stretch their sound.  They have not lost their classy touch with creating enticing repetitive foundations for their songs, but here their power of drawing the listener into a wholly immersive near trance is astounding.  Almost every song on the album is the same steady tempo and the constant driving and drifting atmosphere is both soothing and intriguing.

“Mountains” begins the album as a perfect bridge from their earlier work to where they’re heading.  The soft vocals and glittering guitars sound like they could be taken from the first Stone Roses album and yet as the song continues, the edges sharpen, the keyboards begin to take on an increasingly menacing tone and by the end the coldness of Closer – era Joy Division begins to take hold of the song (check out that scratchy guitar).  “Division” rumbles in next and reminds of early Saturnine or (whatever happened to) UK’s Engineers from a few years back.  The near seven minute “Illuminate” closes out side one and is truly the most repetitive of all of these songs.  The Velvets-like buzz and relentless unchanging beat is both a little jolting and comforting. 

The second side of the LP is named “Anon, A Requiem in Four Parts,” and is the highlight of the album.  These four distinct, yet perfectly matched songs (fantastic production, by the way) flow so seamlessly that it’s almost hard to believe that 18 minutes have passed when the needle lifts away from the record.  The second part (“Anon, part II”) has the most wonderful side-winding bass-line and an oddly danceable groove, which is reprised in “Anon, Part IV,” but instead in a much darker and heavier light.  But it’s the entire voyage that makes this album so special.  It reveals new insights with each listen and transports the listener to another world.

This is a band that has quietly and quickly amassed a pretty special selection of music, which is deserving of a lot more attention.  Don’t be like me last summer.  Contact the band and buy the vinyl (it comes with a free download) before it’s gone. 

(slownessmusic.com)

Disappear Here

Lately I’ve been overwhelmed by music. There is simply too much and it has paralyzed me. I’ve not had the patience to listen to songs all the way through, because there’s so many more to get to. It’s hard to explain, but it has had me restless and unnerved for no particular reason. Oftentimes people who are aware of my inclination towards music fanaticism will ask me how I learn about new music. I learn of things the same way most people do, via word of mouth, from live shows, exposure from the internet, radio, TV, movies, etc, but mainly just by paying attention. I make the extra effort to remember when and where I first heard a really cool song and take the time to track down who performs it. Having said this, it becomes clear to me that oddly enough most of the music I’ve run across over all of these years has come from reading. When I was a teenager, music discovery came from the big magazines like Rolling Stone and Spin. I voraciously absorbed all of the music history and references and read every article and review no matter what. If I knew I liked a band, I would take note of who they were linked to, or compared to, and so on. Little by little by tastes both expanded and refined simultaneously and with it my need for resources expanded. While I was a weekly audience member of MTV’s 120 Minutes back in the 80s, and especially a fan of SNUB, which aired sporadically on USA late at night on weekends, and a consumer of the meek radio options locally (via cable from the bigger cities of Portland and Eugene from the Willamette Valley) such as Q105’s “New Music Hour” (Portland), and more importantly Sheldon High School’s (Eugene) public radio madness at KRVM, I was still discovering more from the written word and buying new music sound unheard. The UK weeklies such as NME, Melody Maker, and my big favorite, Lime Lizard, all became sources for new music news and exposure leading one of my high school English teachers (“The Barn”) to refer to me as an “Anglophile.” Though he was right, it was about that time that I discovered the American noises from the underground via Maximum Rock-n-Roll and local papers such as the much missed Snipehunt and Paperback Jukebox. Once I reached college, I moved onto the all-encompassing CMJ Weekly, a college radio trade magazine that included maybe a hundred record reviews to brand new releases every single week and came with a CD compilation of 16-20 new songs every month. But it was when I ran into the epic twice yearly MEGAzine the Big Takeover (go to bigtakeover.com and watch the “create or else” video and then subscribe!) that my music horizons exploded! In 1991, I had purchased a nice little CD by a New York band named Springhouse based on a positive review in the CMJ Weekly, as usual sound unheard, and I sent a self-addressed stamped envelope to the band’s mailing address on the sleeve for a copy of the lyrics. A few weeks later that envelope was returned filled with typed lyrics for the album that by then had become a favorite, along with a handwritten letter from the band’s drummer Jack Rabid, who also creates this magazine. The advert he included had a photocopy of the cover of his latest issue, which included the Pale Saints and the names of several other favorites splashed in print across it. I sent away for a four issue subscription. That was 21 years ago and I am still renewing every couple of years. For at least 15 of those years, it has been the biggest source for me for discovering new music and what I track down. Even though the ease of discovering new music on my own has become so much simpler in recent times, every issue still offers up at least 4-5 new artists that become a part of my world. Their CDs find a home on my player, I attend their shows when they visit town, and I look forward to what will come next. However, it was early this summer, while scouring through the last section of the newest issue when I started to feel pressure build up in my temples and a touch a panic set in. I was pouring through the hundreds upon hundreds of unique reviews by Mr. Rabid and several of his contributors of new music and I realized that at most I will be able to hear about 2% of this music. Since I have read this magazine for so long, I have gotten to know the tastes of many of these writers and I trust most of them, so it hit me that I simply cannot handle all of this! I looked over at my shelving that holds my CDs, and the boxes stacked all over my floor containing my records and lost my breath knowing that if I started listening to every single one of them once each starting now that I may not live long enough to get through them all. What the hell was I doing?!

It was then that I started looking closer at all of the album titles that have been shelved and often for too long in favor of whatever has come after. This is the dilemma of I struggle to straddle inside every so often. I am always in search of that new song and/or album to stamp its place on this time and become tied forever in the future as the soundtrack of the now. I have never wanted to become stagnant with my love of music. For years I have argued against people my age and older who claim that there’s “no good music anymore.” Well, damn it; there is great music every year! One simply has to make the effort to find it. I’ve never liked the idea of still listening to the pop hits from the 80s – the era I came of age in - on the flashback stations and what not. Don’t get me wrong, I have a fondness for much of that stuff because of their individual impacts on me positive and sometimes even negative. It disturbs me that those formats rarely venture out of the one to two hits per band realm. For example, I always loved Big Country, but can they ever play any song of theirs other than “In a Big Country”? Yes, it was their big signature hit in 1983, but it wasn’t their only hit and it is nowhere near their best song from a career of eight solid to great albums. And from there, why not play some selections and expose the masses to Stuart Adamson’s pre-Big Country post-punk outfit The Skids, because I am sure at least a few unknowing fans would be excited to learn about that? New music doesn’t always have to be actual newly recorded music, but discoveries from the past that can be revelatory and exciting – such as when I discovered the Skids way after the fact. Then I realized that most people could care less. So, I contemplate my own situation as someone who has a need to consume these details and histories with an endless hunger and my situation becomes distressing. It is impossible to hear all of the new music that I know I’d love and there are so many amazing songs and albums that I have ‘shelved’ for too long that I need to re-expose myself to. Thus the minor music panic attack. How could it be that I’ve gone over a year without listening to any albums by the Big Takeover favorite The Chameleons, or that crackling first LP by The Rifles No Love Lost, how long has it been since I’ve played that? Come to think of it, how many of these greats have been off the rotation for too long? After reading the latest issue of the Big Takeover I realize that so many of these came from Jack’s recommendation: The Long Blondes, Adorable, Compulsion, Leatherface, The Joy Formidable, Maximo Park, exlovers, Whipping Boy, oh and the amazing and completely overlooked Australian 1990s band Glide (this list could go on forever, but I’ve already written beyond my intended introduction by about a page).

                                                                                            Big Takeover #42

Glide was a multi-textured guitar band that survived for 9 years in obscurity, especially here in the US. They had one poorly distributed US release, 1996’s Disappear Here, which seemed to reach our shores sometime in 1998. It was that summer’s Big Takeover issue 42 - #3 pick in Jack’s Top 40 and here are some of his words at the time that inspired me to seek this out:

“Mixing in a nice breadth of styles that nod toward the Buffalo Tom/Man Sized Action/early Soul Asylum/late Husker Du thick, streamlined hum without the distortion (this is a cleaner, intentionally focused wall of guitar), the sounds of Disappear Here snare you from first play with their dynamite sonics (can’t stress this too much), and then holds the listeners hostage thereafter with the sheer talent, scope, variety, and well thought-out dynamics on display.”

Jack is speaking specifically of band-leader William Arthur’s brilliant guitar work, but his words ring true for the entire sound of the album. With an endorsement like this, I could not resist. I tracked down a copy via mail order from the label itself and was stunned upon first listen. Firstly, the production from Wayne Connolly is immaculate. He had done masterful work with my other Australian favorites Underground Lovers during the early 90s and this clearly continued his magic touch by wringing out the best balance of sound, where the dynamics of the complex arrangements reveal themselves naturally and each instrument is given a chance to shine.

The opening song, “You Were More Than a Trick to Me, Ray,” is a tour de force as it builds up with an acoustic intro before exploding into a messy waltz that drops us right into the middle of some serious turmoil. It’s a scrambled scene that winds up incredible tension right off the bat, before switching to a more straight forward 4/4 pounder that pays off with the ending repeated refrain of “I like that side of you” – giving us a breath of fresh air and the sense that there may be a positive ending to the drama within.

Much of this album feels like it is tackling the notion of imbalance within relationships from both sides of the coin. The second song, “What Do I Know?” tackles this topic with its opening lines: “You give me protection I don’t need / Too many connections I don’t see” atop a gliding and catchy as hell guitar hook that practically sings William Arthur’s chorus for him. This theme arguably appears in a few songs throughout. The first slow down on track three gives us this conflict within an imbalanced relationship, where it takes too much effort to maintain the original spark, and the effort to continue the charade finally peters out. The big and painful chorus gives us “I wonder why / You’re cracked and dry / You feel you need a worn out lie / See you flicker a worn down smile.” “Tangled” jumps right back in with the feeling from the opposite perspective of the need to end a relationship, but still feeling trapped by it. Again, the chorus has an incredible pay off both lyrically and musically as the “All I really want is peace and quiet / You batter me and leave me sore and tired” presents his feelings clearly despite “flipping like a fish gasping for breath tangled up in your net.” The inner turmoil is palpable, because it’s not easy to give up on something that one already has when there’s no guarantee of a better future. These emotions continue on yet another upbeat strummed shiny piece of musical genius on “Here She Comes” (“Arms around me tight / I’m tied too tight”). Finally, on the penultimate song, “Ripped and Stripped,” we get the redemptive payoff from the frustration with the most straight ahead rocker which gives us a clean break and ends the floundering coupling (“You never knew me / Now you’re nothing to me / and I’m not your slave”).

The brilliance of Arthur’s lyrics is that they are vague enough that one can punch their own experiences right into them. Everything I said above could easily be taken in another interpretation. The beautiful ballad, “Wrapped in Fingers,” for example, was a powerful song for me personally, as I once had a major crush use chorus’s repeated question “Would you ever hurt me?” on me out of the blue (story can be found here at Lose Your Illusion). The song took on a whole new dimension for me and breaks my heart every time I hear it. Initially, however, I interpreted the song as the lyrical offspring of Sugar’s nasty and murderous “A Good Idea.” Either way, the music is powerful and the soaring chorus lifts the listener up to the stratosphere each and every time.

The saddest part about Glide’s story is that while working on the follow-up to this album in 1999 (and an early EP collection: Shrink Wrapped Real Thing), William Arthur reportedly overdosed and passed away. This tragic and senseless passing robbed the world of this fantastic songwriter – a story that happens far too often and has become cliché in the world of rock-n-roll. In this case, the artist was never given a chance to find the kind of wide audience his talent deserved. There are three songs on Disappear Here that fully display his incredible talent and showcase not only the inner battle inside of him, but his ability to convey it like no one else can. There’s the previously mentioned stunner, “You Were More Than a Trick to Me, Ray,” the centerpiece, “Surfaced Euphoric” with its dragging introduction and take a breath chorus, before it plunges head first into the deep water of a dramatic dive of wild abandon. The lyrics close with “I’ve blown away every chance I’ve known / That was it – the only song I know” and indicate incredible effort and desperation. The third standout, among an album of stunners, is the closing track “Cradlesong.” This song gives us layers upon discordant layers of Arthur’s amazing guitar work on top of a shambling mess of a beat (the rhythm section of Jason Kingshott on drums and Andy Kelly on bass are excellent throughout – worth much more than this minor mention) wonderfully capturing the mess that he has portrayed throughout the album. The dramatics of the song lead into a slow peeling away of density and sound as the song marches its way to the inevitable conclusion (“Leave me with a chill when you waste a tear / Open my eyes now, blue and clear / Unclench my hands and disappear, here”) and carry us to a conclusion that leaves us with both a finality and a lingering curiosity of what might happen next. It is simply spectacular. This album never grows old and sounds as good today as it did when I first played it 14 years ago.

Hearing this album again after far too long puts my mind at ease. It makes me realize that no matter how overwhelmed I can get sometimes by the sheer amount of music to be heard in the world, I can always take heart in the fact that what I have already run across will find a way to endlessly amaze and empower me. Besides, over all of these years, due to the scarcity of Glide’s product on the market, I have always been paired with just this one fine example of their music. Tracking down their many singles, EPs, and two other albums has depended on an international money order to Australia sent to their manager and some seriously expensive prices, which has kept me at bay. However, recently, these songs have been made available via download at very reasonable rates, which I have taken advantage of. After so long, it is amazing to hear more music from a band that I have held in such high regard for so long. Please take my advice and find out for yourself. Check out their website for more information and for sound samples at glidetheband.com.