NO BYE, NO ALOHA
I messed up my back and shoulder last week. As a result, I spent most of last weekend on the couch watching A24 movies, eating Advil, and feeling sorry for myself. One of the difficult truths of quarantine is just facing how out of shape I am, wrestling with weird aches that didn’t used to be there. Some of this getting older, and not keeping up with my home yoga practice, but part of it is simply surviving this year. It took most of my life to understand the ways trauma manifests physically and this year has been nothing but body blows. This is to say—if you’re feeling run down, spend the time to do nothing and reset. It’s been a year and then some. You owe it to yourself and to those you love, to love yourself. Nobody else will.
Mac Miller - Circles
Cymbals Eat Guitars - Finally
SOPHIE and Shygirl - BM
Taylor Swift - exile (Feat. Bon Iver)
Boris - Angel
The Armed - Ft. Frank Turner
Dire Straits - So Far Away
The Pharcyde - Passin’ Me By
The Breeders - No Aloha
Alex G - SugarHouse (Live)
I highlighted “Good News” a few weeks ago but I’ve been sitting with “Circles” a lot lately. There’s a quiet kind of zen that permeates throughout the record, which is eerie considering the circumstances surrounding its release. But I like the title track’s soft drift, the way Mac Miller narrates the record from a disassociated place of perspective, the notion that our problems often bring us back to the beginning and that’s the problem. There’s a worldliness to “Circles” that matches the pillowy keyboard flourishes, proving that with age comes a wisdom that’s felt long after we’re gone.
Cymbals Eat Guitars traffic in the kind of messy guitar worship that makes live shows feel like a spiritual experience. “Finally” splits the difference between a kind of propulsive power pop and amplifier-ready gospel that’s as enormous as it is rapturous. Joseph D'Agostino’s voice is soaked in reverb, adding power to his wobbly yelp as he searches for the center of everything. If you need something to believe in, something to take you past the 4 walls of your apartment, maybe give this one a spin.
I have not been able to acquire a PS5, which means plugging in to Cyberpunk 2077 will have to wait. But the game’s soundtracks are available for streaming and they present an absolutely glorious blend of metal, electronic, and hip-hop music that all sounds like a terminal, broken future. “BM” is a huge standout, a booming, sleek take on electro-rap that sounds like DJ Mustard in a cyborg club. Operating under the name Clockwork Venus, SOPHIE and Shy Girl trade hooks that blend sex, violence, and the kind of nocturnal swagger that makes you feel invincible—which is perfect for a hyper-aggressive sci-fi narrative or your latest workout playlist, depending on your interests.
My official stance is that folklore is better than evermore. I don’t think this is controversial—neither record is a vast departure from Taylor Swift’s early period ballads but there’s real restraint and sophistication on folklore that further highlights Swift’s attention to craft. evermore is a nice collection of b-sides, and certainly worth your time for “champagne problems” and “coney island” respectively, but I think folklore will be the one remembered past 2020. “exile” steals the show, with its climbing piano, sweeping strings, and superb duet with Justin Vernon. The song is able to capture this vast sense of finality, the moment where the dam breaks and you realize something is *over* over, the moment of really seeing something for what it is. And when Justin Vernon muscles out the “So step right out…” line, in his best indie tough-guy grumble, I felt that.
One of the larger tragedies in the streaming age is the jigsaw of restrictions that prevent the entire Boris catalog from widespread availability. To be fair, this allows the band to release things that are challenging and experimental (and it’s not like most of their output isn’t on Bandcamp), but a few glaring omissions rob the general public of entire breadth of Boris’ kaleidoscopic, genre-bending cacophony (especially the releases like Heavy Rocks I and II). “Angel” is taken from 2014’s Noise, a slow moving dirge that builds from gossamer guitar chimes into monolithic sludge that grinds, spirals, and blooms into a dizzying array of shoegaze and post-rock. The results are spellbinding and the group’s chameleon-like approach to music continues to inspire for those willing to seek it out.
[Bernie Sanders voice] I am once again asking you to listen to The Armed, the kind of band that sounds like a car crash wrapped around explosions, complete with electro-clash riffing, warped saxophone, and enough skater-shred theatrics to completely obliterate the difference between Frank Turner and Frank Carter.
I got into Dire Straits because of my dad. Every time “Money for Nothing” came on the radio he would crank the volume decisively, air drumming just before the robotic guitar god explosion took hold. When I started collecting records, Brothers in Arms was one of the first ones I bought for $2 at the Goodwill. There’s something dreamy about this album, the way it oscillates between deeply moving arrangements that border on art rock while flipping back to pure 80s guitar pop. While “Money for Nothing” contains less than optimal lyrics (it’s got a flat out slur, let’s not mince words), “So Far Away” touches on the grief of longing in a truly sublime way—the longing for closeness, for intimacy, for a different world. I’ve been catching up on the last season of AMC’s Halt and Catch Fire, which featured “So Far Away” during a particularly difficult scene and it reminded me of the power here—the show’s main characters are moving through their friend’s house, packing up his possessions after his funeral. It hit me hard, everything from the sighing guitars to the dubby hook, watching these people sort and make sense of a lifetime together that never came easy.
A college friend turned me on to “Passin’ Me By” back in 2008, which was a perfect fit as I went through a Gym Class Heroes phase. At first, I was here for the smooth, funk-inspired beat, the simmering Rhodes against a soft snare roll and fractured jazz. But as I got older (read: thirstier), I fell in love with the story telling. Prior to meeting my wife I remember meeting a lot of people that always seemed out of reach and out of my league. Rejection is a tough pill to swallow when you think you’re connecting with someone, especially after 4 hours at the wine bar. Still, that kind of longing stays in your bones and the burn that comes from daydreaming is sweeter in hindsight. You can’t fake chemistry but it all makes so much more sense in the rearview.
It’s no secret that my love for chunky, fuzzed-out, rock is well documented. “No Aloha” is the kind of overdriven sugar rush that I crave, shifting from isolated to explosive at the drop of a hat. Kim Deal’s mournful voice is one of the most underrated in rock music, or alternative, or whatever we’re calling left of center guitar songs these days. Regardless of your own stance on big overdriven power chords, “No Aloha” speaks in riddles, Deal’s sphinx-like minimalism drawing you closer to a secret that’s gone before you know it.
Alex G’s House of Sugar came out while I was traveling last year on vacation. “SugarHouse (Live)” takes me back to the transient feeling of driving around Switzerland for a week and a half—the freedom from routine and the chance to change everything teased at my finger tips. The song was cut live but its almost got a lounge approach to something Bruce Springsteen or Jack Antonoff might write. It’s not an anthem though, more like a ragged end to a long bender. “SugarHouse” is about resilience in the face of disappointment, the classic gambler’s “let’s play it again” push because the thrill is in the game, not the reward. The bluesy saxophone flutter reminds us that everything is on borrowed time, and maybe if we stopped thinking about escape we could realize this game called life is borrowed as well—because ultimately someone else is going to pick up the tab at the end.
Originally published December 13, 2020 as part of Hella Vibes.