Going For A Song: ‘Passing Afternoon’ (Demo)

 

Iron & Wine – Passing Afternoon (Demo)

In the Quietus, Luke Turner wrote that seeing Suede recently wasn’t an exercise in nostalgia but ‘everything they did for me a quarter of a century ago’. I mention this because I recently bought the 15 anniversary vinyl edition of Iron & Wine’s Our Endless Numbered Days and, to paraphrase Turner, listening to it hasn’t been an exercise in nostalgia; the record is everything it was to me when I first heard it fourteen, maybe fifteen years ago.

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Going For A Song: ‘Closure’

Mammoth Penguins – Closure

It’s thanks to the Norman Records’ weekly playlist I heard Mammoth Penguins this week. ‘Closure’ is the first song on their new album, There’s No Fight We Can’t Both Win. I listened to it (the album – sub 45 minutes, the perfect length for an album of alt indie pop rock – their classification, not mine) a little worried, concerned the rest of the album wouldn’t match up to that opening.  But it does. The album is melodic, noisy, recorded fantastically, with intelligent lyrics (and if you’re wondering what I mean by “intelligent”, I mean ‘I love you, I love you, I love you, I love you, I love you, fuck it all, fuck it all, fuck it all’). They’re playing London in June. I’m there.

Going For A Song: ‘Song For Willie’

Magnolia Electric Co. – Song For Willie

I recently finished reading Erin Osmon’s book Jason Molina: Riding With the Ghost. There’s a lot to recommend it: details such as Jason’s teenage bands having reassuringly teenage band names (Chronic Insanity anyone?), my hope fulfilled the book would look at the Midwest music scene (subject for Osmon’s next book maybe please?), and the excellent analysis of Jason’s music throughout.

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Going For A Song: ‘Slow Education’

Silver Jews – Slow Education

When God was young / He made the wind and the sun / And since then it’s been a slow education / And you’ve got that one idea again / The one about dying

I loved the Silver Jews. ‘Slow Education’ is the first song on the first album – Bright Flight (2001) – I ever heard of theirs. So enamoured of the band was I, I stuck a review of the album, which I had cut out of a music magazine, onto my bedroom wall like a soldier, posted overseas, would do to a photo of his sweetheart back home.

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Blow ’em away, kid

This secret knowledge you have is a strength that lives only inside certain people. It is a strength that will inspire you to do wondrous things – like write stories, or draw pictures, or build rockets that fly to Mars. It will give you the courage to take on anything that the world might put in front of you. It’s a wild power that can be of untold value to the world.  Your name, Ptolemy, is a warrior’s name. A boy full of inspiration with a warrior’s name! The world is waiting for you. Blow ‘em away, kid.

Red Hand Files Issue #26

I’ve been a subscriber to Nick Cave’s The Red Hand Files for a few months now, and the answers he’s given to the questions put to him have at turns been thoughtful, frank, honest, funny, cynical, optimistic and lyrical. The Red Hand Files, born out of Cave’s ‘small idea that people were in need of more thoughtful discourse’ separated from social media, is just simply a musician answering questions from people interested in him, his music, and the Bad Seeds, but it feels unique and yes, given the parlous state of communication between people currently, necessary. But overall The Red Hand Files stand as testament to the musician and artist that Nick Cave is.

 

Reading: Jason Molina: Riding With the Ghost, Erin Osman

Going For A Song: ‘Didn’t Know What I Was in For’

Better Oblivion Community Centre – Didn’t Know What I Was in For

Apart from the music he has put out under his own name – and contrary to the label of singer-songwriter he is frequently ascribed – Conor Oberst is primarily a collaborator. All his bands – Commander Venus, Bright Eyes, Desaparecidos, Mystic Valley Band, and Monsters of Folk – have been bands. And Oberst’s latest one is the Better Oblivion Community Centre, a collaboration with Phoebe Bridgers. I haven’t heard all of their debut record, but I’ve heard some of it and I like what I’ve heard so far.