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Never mind the editorial bit at the top or what we said yesterday, exact same thing today. Another five slices of music things and however you slice it and of course it was the price of fish and here comes the introduction that heralds the latest Five Music Things feature thing. Five? There’s something rather compelling about five. Cross-pollination? Five more? Do we need to do the editorial bit again? Is there another way? A better way? A cure for pulling flying pigeons out of the clouds? Is there a rhyme? Is there a reason? Was there ever a reason? What do reasons make? Five more? Snake foil? Everything must go and same as last time (and the time before that) five, and no, we never do and the proof of the pudding is in that proof reading. When we started this thing, oh never mind, it doesn’t matter why we started this thing and like we asked last time, does anyone bother reading the editorial? Does anyone ever actually look down the rabbit hole or is it all just method acting? We do really try to listen to everything that comes in, we do it so you don’t have to, we are very (very) very very picky about what we actually post on these fractured pages or about what gets played on the radio or indeed what we hang in a gallery. Cut to the chase, never mind the editorial, there’s loads of music further down the page, well five or so pieces of music that have come our way in the last few days and cut cut slash and cut it, who needs an editorial or words or worms in general? What’s Wordsworth? Just facts and links and sounds then. Here you go, play the music, grab your five, eat your greens, go eat some art, go eat some fresh flowers and don’t forget whatever it was we said last time…
1: Tape Runs Out and another track taken from the upcoming album Floodhead (soon to be released via Trapped Animal Records). They’re kind somewhere near that gap between Radiohead and classic early IQ this time around, actually that’s a lazy statement but there us something rather beautifully compelling about the band from Cambridgeshire
Previously on these pages –
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2: Firefriend – Sao Paulo’s Firefriend have been impressively prolific, they’ve been around for seven or so years now, there’s lots out there to explore, a smart arse might say they’re going in the right direction, thankfully there are no smart arses around here, just people who like good art and like to share good art, good music, as we are doing here with this latest rather simple Five Music thing.
Here’s some live Firefriend footage from last year…
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3: Newski are from Milwaukee, Wisconsin, this track features Ryan Miller from Guster, feels like a kind of throwback to somewhere late in the last century, back in the innocence of it all, there’s something about this little rabbit hole and Nirvana t-shirts and famous last words and the nevermind of it all. I like Newski and may we never break up….
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4: Moreish idols – more Moreish Idols, you find it, whatever it is, in the details, they don’t sound like much and then they catch uoiu, the details, and hang on a minute, they sound like quite a lot actually, something to hold. They do keep doing this, “South London’s Moreish Idols arrived fully-formed last year with the absurdist smarts of “Speedboat” and the contorted thrill of “Hangar”, two highlights from a debut EP for Speedy Wunderground”
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5: Friendship Commanders – from the forthcoming Friendship Commanders LP. Streaming everywhere March 24th, that’s today if yuo’re reading this today, if not then where have you been. This sounds big. big is good.
“If you don’t yet have the language for what you want to say, you will.”
“This is the thesis statement contained within “Blue,” the new single by Nashville heavy duo Friendship Commanders. “Blue” is the first track to be released from their forthcoming body of work, a collection about memory, language, and the state of Massachusetts. The work explores finding new vocabulary around lived experiences that were once cloudy and confusing; it gives shape to stories that songwriter Buick Audra long avoided”.
They sound like they probably hang out with Avery Barkley
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“Buick Audra says, “Writing this project was largely prompted by the suicide of an old Boston friend. When he died, I glanced back at things I’d never wanted to, and I wrote a whole record about it. The process was like going underwater for short bursts and coming back up for air when I needed to. While I was down there, I was like, I suddenly see what all of this was, and I’m going to name it now.”
“Blue” sets the table for the rest of the work, making general observations around pressures to stay, to work things out, to see things through no matter what. In the choruses, Buick sings: “The sky was blue in Massachusetts / the sky was grey inside my head / and it told the truth”
“I knew things were bad when I was there, and I was told that I was judgmental. That’s how people spelled ‘honest’ in that particular time and place. I’m lucky that I had the wherewithal to get out and start a new life elsewhere, but I wanted to circle back and say, so can you. If leaving will save your life, get gone. Whatever chapter you’re living through, you can get free. There’s no shame in leaving.”
The band co-produced and recorded this new project with Kurt Ballou (Converge) at his GodCity studio in Salem, Massachusetts. This decision was intentional, and the product bears the impact of the in-person collaboration, sonically and energetically. This marks their third year of working with Ballou who has mixed everything they’ve released since their 2020 EP, HOLD ON TO YOURSELF. The color blue is a theme throughout all of the visuals for the record, as Buick says that the trauma she experienced has since stained her memories of that time and place—all blue. On the song’s video Jerry Roe says, “I wanted the video to present the color blue as a menacing presence with a strange duality. It’s beautiful, but it’s surrounding us, blinding us, and trying to drown us. Like water and blinding light – things we can’t live without but can’t be exposed to for too long.”
Friendship Commanders are proud to present “Blue,” a nod to the past with a statement for the present”.
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6: Monte Mai – okay, so that’s one more than five, what yer gonna do? These things are in no particular order and the links are your doorways. “Monte Mai is a Swiss Grenadian psychedelic pop trio. Formed in 2020 by vocalist Anais Schmidt (Grenada), vocalist and guitar wizard Fabio Pinto (Switzerland) and bassist Fabio Besomi (Switzerland). This unique encounter between Swiss precision and Caribbean freschezza echoes in Monte Mai’s music….”
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And while we’re here, what the hell is this? They did;nt bother with translating the original, just made it about the hund or the Baskervilles instead…
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THE ORGAN 