Fluxblog 491: go back to those GOTH SOUNDS
Plus new music by The Army The Navy, Kate Bollinger, and Sex Week
This week’s playlist is DEAD SOULS: GOTH SOUNDS 1967-1990, a collection of goth classics, goth-adjacent music, and some music that was goth before it was called goth. But you know what you’re in for – The Cure, Siouxsie and the Banshees, Bauhaus, Joy Division and New Order, Nico, The Doors, Clan of Xymox, Sisters of Mercy, Swans, Nine Inch Nails. But I think you’ll find a few pleasant surprises.
[Spotify | Apple Music | YouTube]
Sing the Lyrics Almost Perfectly Out Loud
The Army, The Navy “BBIDGI”
The Army, The Navy are a folk duo with the same basic set up as Simon & Garfunkel – two singers, one guitar. The interesting thing with them, most especially on “BBIDGI,” is how their melodies and vocal harmonies are much closer in style and tone to mid 90s through mid 00s R&B than typical folk. It’s a little like if an R&B girl group did an unplugged record, right on down to the lyrics about being flummoxed by a very confusing sexual relationship. I hear this as like a reversed version of Lauryn Hill and D’Angelo’s classic “Nothing Even Matters,” which has a somewhat similar melody – instead of two people with such intense intimacy the world disappears around them, this is one woman trying to understand why her connection and intimacy with someone seems to come and go inexplicably. Even with the harmony vocal, she sounds so cut off and alone but so eager to get to where Hill and D’Angelo are in that song.
Buy it from Amazon.
From Somewhere Above
Kate Bollinger “Postcard From A Cloud”
I love the simple little trick Kate Bollinger pulls off in this song – singing near the bottom of her register in the verses, and at the top of it on the choruses. It’s not heavy-handed at all and it took me a little while to even really notice, but it’s very effective in marking the broader contrast between those two sections. In the verses, which chug along on a relaxed rhythm guitar part, she’s addressing her friends and assuring them “I think about you more than I’m showing.” The chorus is extremely airy, and feels like she’s rising up into the heavens. Her lyrical perspective shifts, she’s not grounded at all, but she’s experiencing something from on high. Pretty good metaphor for the experience of a fairly normal young person who’s suddenly pulled into a life of touring and minor stardom, right?
Buy it from Bandcamp.
Sex Week “Angel Blessings”
“Angel Blessings” is pretty firmly rooted in alt-rock and shoe gaze genre conventions, so it’s more cozy and familiar than musically interesting. (Which is fine, you don’t always need to be original to be good.) But there is something intriguing going on here – oblique lyrical references to living in squalor, fraught sexuality, obscure mysticism, and some lines that suggest drug addiction with some degree of plausible deniability. You can connect the dots a lot of different ways, but the main feeling I get from this song is someone so overcome by desire and need that it’s become a little disgusting to them.
Buy it from Bandcamp.
It was a big week for me as a Pavement fan – I saw the final show of their 2022-2024 reunion on Tuesday, and the premiere of Pavements 33-24 at the New York Film Festival on Wednesday. I’m hoping to write a lot about
Pavement and the film sometime soon but it depends on time and energy, which hasn’t been easy for me lately.
LINKS LINKS LINKS LINKS
• Joe Hagan interviewed Stephen Malkmus for Vanity Fair. It's a must-read if you're a fan, it covers a LOT of ground. There's a lot of interesting stuff about being in Pavement again, what he was thinking about when he wrote a lot of classic songs, his perspective on the band's legacy and incoming generations of fans, and some tangents about being the father of two artistically-inclined teenage girls.
• Sam Sodomsky also interviewed Malkmus for a GQ profile of his new band, The Hard Quartet.
• Ilana Kaplan profiled Jack Antonoff for Time, with an emphasis on his solo and Broadway work.
• Larry Fitzmaurice interviewed Geordie Greep about his new solo record, the dissolution of Black Midi, and his love of Donald Fagen’s The Nightfly.
• I had a great time listening to the new episode of Black Bubblegum in which Jasmine reflected on the pop culture stories of summer 2024, including thoughts on Drake vs Kendrick, Diddy’s downfall, Camila Cabello, Katy Perry, and Blake Lively.
• Guitar Player has a new interview with Doug Gillard, mostly focused on his long collaboration with Robert Pollard of Guided by Voices.
I am waiting for the day when a band answers for what genre they are by saying, “Siouxsie Sioux”
very belated thank you for the black bubblegum shoutout!!