Fluxblog 419: post-Nirvana alt-rock gold rush!
Plus new songs by Magdalena Bay, Eddie Chacon, and Jana Horn
This week’s playlist is POST-NIRVANA ALT-ROCK GOLD RUSH 1992-1995, in which the record industry scrambles to market new and old underground/alt acts and figure out what could potentially become mainstream. This retrospective features the winners, the losers, and a handful of artists sniping from the sidelines after opting out of the success sweepstakes. This cultural moment is basically ground zero for me as a young listener, and I feel like anyone who grew up in this era ended up with a permanently warped sense of what could become popular. Like, if Primus can be huge and have radio/MTV songs with no aesthetic dilution, what's the actual limit? [Spotify | Apple | YouTube]
If You Know The Movie
Magdalena Bay “Top Dog”
One of the most charming things about Magdalena Bay to me is that they love to write odd little jokes into “normal” sounding pop songs and then play it so straight that it’s easy to miss the joke entirely. They have their priorities straight – elegant songwriting first, subversive humor second. In the case of “Top Dog” the joke is a little tribute to film icon Laura Dern:
The joke can be as simple as noting that Laura Dern is the female lead in both Wild At Heart and Jurassic Park, but the funny part is more that in the context of the lines preceding the “girl in Jurassic Park” line are ambiguous enough to make you question whether she actually means Laura Dern’s character, the young girl Lex, or the “clever girl” velociraptor. Given Magdalena Bay’s history of writing literally predatory themes into pop music, it really could be the dinosaur.
Buy it from Bandcamp.
Stop The Hands Of Time
Eddie Chacon “Holy Hell”
“Holy Hell” is a pastiche of slow-burn disco ballads in the vein of Boz Scaggs, but one so elegantly composed and well executed that I think a lot of people could be tricked into believing it’s actually from 1980. A lot of this comes down to the use of a vintage Fender Rhodes and producer John Carroll Kirby keeping the arrangement in constant motion while keeping it all feeling uncluttered and loose. He and Chacon know the power of abundant negative space and an unhurried groove. Chacon’s vocal is understated but conveys some warmth, but not a lot, like he’s trying to hold back the full intensity of his feelings. Everything about the song feels pensive and circumspect, like they’re building an ice wall around a fire, and it’s only a matter of time before it melts away.
Buy it from Bandcamp.
This Bath Of Existence
Jana Horn “The Dream”
I was surprised to learn that “The Dream” began as a poem written as part of an esoteric literature workshop. Not so much for the content of the writing, but in that Jana Horn’s melody sounds so lovely and natural that it doesn’t have that awkward “words forced into a song” quality common to music where the words come first. But the lyrics are indeed a cut above, a meditation on perspective and perception that contrasts the natural world with an inner world observed by her mind’s eye. The music sounds like overcast skies and the overall mood of the song feels like a mix of physical peace and intellectual restlessness. The lead guitar parts are particularly good and evocative, communicating a lot of the tension in the song without undermining the more serene aspects of the piece.
Buy it from Bandcamp.
