NEW MUSIC ROUNDUP: A LITTLE BIT LESS NOT TRUE
The return of: music
It’s one of the first truly warm days here and everyone’s out and about. I too was walking around, trying and failing to run a bunch of errands in a sensible order and having to go back to the house in between trips. I didn’t make it to the post office before it closed. But that’s alright—I feel great. The whole time I was listening to…
…this album, Dream of Me, from Holy Now in Gothenburg, Sweden. I love the rhythm section and the absolutely no-frills arrangements. This music sounds like how the band Alvvays sounds in my memory, which is to say they’re a bit like that, but actually even better. And the lyrics get right to the heart of the issues without including a single extraneous word. I can’t get enough. I’ve surely said this before somewhere, but some of my favorite writing is from writers whose first language is not English—there’s a special quality that comes from writing straightforward pop lyrics that are just slightly askew from American or British conventions. As the Cardigans’ Nina Persson would have it, this is studied and intentional: "I think it can be an advantage [being a Swede writing in English]… it's as if it's my right to be wrong on purpose, and that makes the lyrics different. I'm writing in English with a Swedish brain."
Katy Pinke - High School (2024)
This new record from Katy Pinke is fantastic, and here I’m starting you at the beginning, with this song, which for me recalls the best of Aimee Mann in the attitude and a bit of the harmony and flashes of circusy instrumentation. There are a ton of really sharp bits of writing in here: “All of the people who’ve made me feel this way / in my dreams they all look like just one.” They do, don’t they? But this song isn’t out to take anyone else down, it’s more about putting yourself back together: “With every song / a little bit less of you / a little bit less not true / to myself.” And there’s the kind of absurd double negative that is exactly what I think we need more of, now, to really get at the contradictions of life and what is true. More of The Truth can be found in that ripping fuzz guitar that sneaks in at the end of this song (and elsewhere underscores the anthemic chorus on the title track, another album highlight).
Will Stratton - Temple Bar (2024)
I’m on tenterhooks for this new Will Stratton record. I’m also contractually obligated to tell you that there’s no affiliation between our beloved Temple Bar here in Bellingham and this song, but to be honest the song does capture some of the magic of the place, even if Will was thinking of a different quasi-fictional one. “Temple Bar” has the ring of a classic, though pinning down its influences is tricky—which to me says it’s properly pushing things forward. The piano and drums arrangement is a bit Beatles, a bit Elton John even, and the song as a whole is definitely something the Band would do. But it also has a slick modernity to it that to me enhances its lyrics about late capitalist folly, like Steely Dan. But then there’s that fiddle that you’d never hear on a Steely Dan record, which keeps things in a dreamlike in between. I also realize I’ve basically just listed all the good bands, but I think it’s warranted! Check this shit out.
Joni Mitchell - The Windfall (1991)
Speaking of late-capitalist folly… I am really digging on this record, which we have the CD of at work. This song rocks. The early 90s production, for what I’m into right now, is perfect. How did they even do those little bass slides? And the line: “You'd eat your young alive/for a Jaguar in the drive” is quite prescient. It’s actually a little too good. I don’t think you can get away with this clever of a line anymore. We just don’t live in that world now.
Bôa - Beautiful & Broken (2024)
I heard this one on the radio, and was wondering what it reminded me of. Then I embarrassingly realized it was one of my songs. Oh well, I guess I’m not the only one to ever slide a campfire C chord up a whole step. Anyway, that probably explains why it’s just the sort of thing I’d be into! How narcissistic of me. I love the strings, and while this may or may not work for you the first time around, I really love the way the chorus just says exactly what needs to be said, without trying to dress it up or make it more poetic. I think that speaks to the perspective of a band who reportedly hadn’t made an album in nineteen years at the time of release:
“I wish that I could be better / I wish that I could be stronger
But I think there’s something beautiful / In the broken”
Like the best lyrics, it sounds better in the song than it looks on the page. Go listen!
That’s all for today. Hope you found something you liked, and if not, well, you can’t have everything.