Fluxblog 430: Matador history, 00s cool girl
Plus new music by Blur, Depeche Mode/Wet Leg, and Disclosure
The first of this week’s two playlists is NOT QUITE LIKE ANY OTHER, a soundtrack for a cool sad girl circa 2004 featuring songs by Goldfrapp, The Kills, Cat Power, Blonde Redhead, Clinic, Broadcast, Ladytron, and some other stuff you’d probably only really know if you were around back then. It’s a really good vibe, and a sister playlist to my previous 90 minute imaginary soundtrack playlists WHAT’S A GIRL TO DO and WHAT INSTITUTION ARE YOU FROM, set in the early 80s and late 90s respectively. [Spotify | Apple | YouTube]
The second playlist for this week is MATADOR HISTORY, a chronological tour through the discography of my favorite label of all time from 1989 up through this year. This one features music by a laundry list of indie icons including Pavement, Yo La Tengo, Liz Phair, Interpol, Car Seat Headrest, Belle & Sebastian, Snail Mail, Jon Spencer Blues Explosion, Sonic Youth, Cat Power, Kurt Vile, Spoon, Lucy Dacus, Julien Baker, Chavez, King Krule, The New Pornographers, Helium, Perfume Genius, Stephen Malkmus and the Jicks, Iceage, Guided by Voices, Mogwai, Teenage Fanclub, Smog, Superchunk, Come, Matmos, Savages, Queens of the Stone Age, Boygenius, Algiers, Water From Your Eyes, and many more. [Spotify | Apple | YouTube]
This playlist follows 4AD HISTORY, which I think mainly through search traffic has become one of my most popular playlists. [Spotify | Apple]
I have fewer regular posts than I had planned to write this week because I had to set aside time to write about the new Blur album The Ballad of Darren for NPR. Here’s the bit at the end that nearly summarizes how I feel about it:
Like Bowie, the members of Blur don't seem interested in recapturing old glories, especially since they already have more than enough old favorites to fill out a setlist. The Ballad of Darren is a work unapologetic about its own middle-aged point of view, and is made with the understanding that for an artist to age gracefully, they need to offer listeners a perspective that could never have come from their younger selves.
Just To Watch Another Angel Die
Depeche Mode “Wagging Tongue” (Wet Leg Remix)
This Wet Leg remix of a recent Depeche Mode song does not sound that much like either of those bands, but it DOES sound like a lost indie dance track from the mid to late 2000s blog house era and a particularly good one at that. The original version of “Wagging Tongue” is a fairly solemn meditation on mortality and loss set to Martin Gore arrangement that’s about as Kraftwerk-y as he ever gets. Wet Leg toss most of that and scramble the rest, placing the emphasis on an indie disco groove and a wordless cooing vocal hook sung by Rhian Teasdale and/or Hester Chambers. There’s a distinct “Heart of Glass” feeling to this without necessarily emulating anything specific about the Blondie classic. Some artists use remixes as a testing ground for ideas they’d like to explore and I certainly hope this is a direction Wet Leg are considering going on their next record – the vibe would suit them well and it would add something fresh to their live show without repeating all the same moves from their debut.
Buy it from Amazon.
Right Now That’s What I Want
Disclosure “Higher Than Ever Before”
It’s not too surprising to me that Disclosure would mess around with drum-and-bass breakbeats given that they’re essentially dance music scholars with a gift for emulating different styles, and that they certainly get that this style of drum programming is back in fashion. The surprising thing to me is more in how they did it. “Higher Than Ever Before” has a strong modern psychedelia vibe to it, a sound Philip Sherburne described as “What might a golden-age jungle remix of Tame Impala sound like?” I think that’s a very accurate read, though I’d say it’s more like if The Chemical Brothers made a “Setting Sun” based on The Slow Rush instead of “Tomorrow Never Knows.” In any case, there are some truly ecstatic moments in this song and I’d love for them to do some music in this lane.
Buy it from Bandcamp.
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• I recommend a series of playlists made by some guy named Brad collecting songs featuring various models of classic keyboards including the Hammond B3 organ, the Farfisa, the Hohner Clavinet, the Wurlitzer electric piano, the Rhodes electric piano, the Vox Continental organ, and Mellotron. I was pretty familiar with most of these models and their distinctive sounds but the playlist for the Yahama CP-70 blew my mind in how it made me realize the connecting thread between several early 80s songs with a particular ultra-crisp piano sound that I’ve loved since childhood was this specific keyboard model.
• Michael Tedder wrote a really smart piece for Inside Hook about the “dudes rock” positive masculinity of The Bear, though I must correct something in this essay - “dudes rock” was originated by the Episode 1 guys back in 2018.
• I enjoyed what Lana Schwartz wrote about Jenny Lewis, particularly the music Lewis has made in middle age.
• I have disliked “Mr. Brightside” by The Killers for close to 20 years now and it never occurred to me that a lot of what I don’t like about it is the drumming until I heard the drummer from Megadeth improvise a much more interesting take on it after hearing the song once for the first time with the drums muted.