Calming Pink.
A new mixtape, quick hit reviews & more.
As I’m wont to do lately, I’m combining a bunch of scattered items into one newsletter for your reading and listening pleasure. I’ve got a brand-new mixtape waiting for you at the bottom of the page, but before then enjoy some Power Hour playlists and album reviews.
Please let me know what you’ve been listening to by reaching out on Twitter and saying hello! I’m always interested in recommendations and hearing what you’d like covered on the Tab.
The Latest Playlists
I’ve added some new artist-based Power Hour playlists to my database; here’s the newest additions:
🆕 Sicko: Seattle, Washington pop-punk giants… a lot of the genre doesn’t age well - sometimes due to cringe-worthiness or other times because of how problematic the genre was in the 90s - but Sicko not only side-step this, their huge hooks and major jams sound better than ever. Maybe it had something to do with Kurt Bloch (of Fastbacks!) producing some of their albums?
🆕 The Go-Go’s: What else needs to be said? I watched the new documentary about the group recently so I was inspired to put together a playlist. Though I was already a big fan in general, I'm not exactly a die-hard either so the documentary had lots of early footage that was new to me (and getting to hear it all laid-out in chronological order by the members themselves was a delight.)
🆕 Post The Go-Go’s: What it says on the tin; Go-Go’s band members post-breakup career, including new bands, song features and solo work.
Quick Hits for 2020-08-11
Uncut by Table (out via Atypeek Music)
I tweeted about this as a “new to me” pick the other day, but it deserves mentioning again. Table's 1995 self-titled noise-rock album has been collected here on the 2017 release "Uncut" by Atypeek Music - with a Live cut from WNUR as a bonus track.
This should be a real treat for fans of Steve Albini, as he produced the album, but if you’re also looking for something to slot beside those Jesus Lizard, Tar and Barkmarket tracks on your latest mixtape, look no further.
Every one of these songs storms out the gates with a kind of “hell yeah” moment… the opening of “Gagbox?” Hell yeah! When “Ditch Recall” kicks in at second :12? Hell yeah!! That “Vacuum” riff? Hell yeah!!! My legs already hurt from pretending to drum along.
Promo Tape by Island of Love (out via Smoking Room)
I’m not exactly sure where this Promo Tape from Island of Love came from, but I’m glad it found me. As far as I can tell from the Smoking Room bandcamp page, this is a collection of tracks from London’s Karim Newble & Linus Munch.
Remember how in the 00s and 10s it became really, really hip to release super fuzzed-out lo-fi pop and everywhere you turned it seemed like a new band was dropping MP3s via blog posts? And remember when a band like Cloud Nothings cut through the hype because, despite the layer of grime on top, the songs ripped? That’s what I’m feeling here from Island of Love: songs that rip, rendered quickly and wrapped in the energy of their creation. “Tall Boots” is such a major hook, “Glee” brings to mind the best of Dinosaur Jr., and “Ugly Sister” has a shoegazed pop-duet thing going on. A true hidden gem.
Cosmit EP by Cosmit (out via Specialist Subject)
A true Quick Hit, this is 5 minutes and 17 seconds of truly satisfying rock. It’s part punk-rock, part throw-back pop (dig those Motown-esque backing vocals on “Keep It Real”) and part scrappy indie-rock. They kind of sound like Superchunk went on a 60s pop binge and these three songs came out. This is such a wildly promising three-song release… I can’t wait to hear what’s next from Cosmit.
Prize for Writing by Matthew Grimson (out via Two Minutes For Music)
I was not familiar with Matthew Grimson until this posthumous release was brought to my attention. From what I could gather, Grimson was Canadian cult-figure whose songs weren’t heard far-and-wide, but the ears they did reach were important ones (such as Joel Plaskett and Chris Murphy.)
Both of those figures worked on this release, which has been crafted out of a 1995 four-track recording session featuring members of Sloan and Super Friendz backing Grimson) which was unreleased previously. Grimson had an immense gift for crafting CanRock gems, and I’m sad it took me this long to know his name and music. This is some of the best stuff I’ve heard in a while.
“Twin Forests.” - A new mixtape.
I often find myself in a guitar-music rut these days. It’s comfortable, it’s what I grew up loving, and it satisfies when I don’t know what to listen to. I’ve always loved all genres though: in College downtempo/electronic music was my go-to, post-College I fell down a very deep jazz rabbit hole, and it didn’t take me long to shuck the idea that there were genres that I just “didn’t like” when I was younger. Like a lot of people I’m sure, I realized there’s music in every genre to love, I just hadn’t heard it yet.
Anyway, this is a long way to say that lately I’ve been leaning back into electronic music lately and so I put together a mixtape of electronic music (mostly from 2020 but with a few exceptions.) Let me know what you think on Twitter! Are there any genres that you’d like to hear more of on the tab?
Track list:
Terremer by Azu Tiwaline off Magnetic Service EP
Rhys by Datach'i off Bones
Auto-Explicativo by Yamasaki Suz off Révolution Technologique
Symbolism by Von D off Hermetica
A Happy Town by Automatic Tasty off A Farewell To Reason
Discipline of Enthusiasm by Lorenzo Senni off Scacco Matto
ZX Rhythm by Two Fingers, Amon Tobin off Fight! Fight! Fight!
Spraycopter by Supersprite off Color Mixing
Electryon by dgoHn off Undesignated Proximate
Unlikely Pair by Vale-Smith off Are You Sick of Being Unlucky?
Space Flex by Filter Dread off Trickster
Tone Clutter Mix by Eedl off Unstored
LS September by Andrea off Ritorno
That’s it, that’s all. Be excellent to one other.