expect delay
Ulrich Schnauss‘ take on the centrepiece of Slowdive’s Pygmalion was one of the standout tracks on the uniformly excellent Blue Skied an’ Clear, a 2002 tribute album assembled by German electronica label Morr Music. I’m of the belief that this comp in no small part helped elevate that record from its initial status as career-ending […]
When I did this roundup of versions of Magazine’s “A Song From Under The Floorboards” back in November, I certainly didn’t think I’d be needing to make an addendum a few months later, but here we are. And that’s because none other than The Wedding Present have tackled the song as the b-side on their […]
With news that Slowdive are back in the studio working on their fifth album, let’s go back five – FIVE?!? – years to July 2017 when Neil Halstead appeared on Song Exploder to dissect the band’s writing process, particularly as applied to my favourite song from the self-title record, “Sugar For The Pill”. And hearing […]
It’s been a minute or two since I’ve done one of these iterations posts – they do take some time do, you know – but I’ll ease back into it with one of the landmark songs of shoegaze and dreampop, arguably Ride’s signature song, “Vapour Trail”. Written and sung by Andy Bell, it was the […]
I saw German composer/producer Ulrich Schnauss live a few times ages ago – I think SXSW 2005, supporting M83 that same year, and then opening for Chapterhouse in 2010 – and confess I never appreciated what he was doing at the time. I mean, as a certified guitar fetishist, his style of electronic shoegaze was […]
I’m not a big podcast guy – I’d generally rather listen to music than listen to people talk – but I do like Song Exploder, even if I frequently forget that it’s around. Their latest episode reminded me they were, however, as well as the fact that I like Franz Ferdinand (though I guess not […]
I imagine the early aughts were an odd time to be a small, independent band. On one hand, the internet and its potential to reach a massive audience, had largely arrived. On the other, the technological infrastructure to support media, e-commerce, and everything besides just words and pictures on a screen, had frustratingly not. All […]
If it seems like there’s been a rush of new music from former Cocteaus guitarist Robin Guthrie… well it’s because there has been. Yesterday, to coincide with his 60th birthday, Guthrie released the Springtime EP – a set of four gossamer guitar instrumentals. This follows last year’s relative deluge of material, starting with the Mockingbird […]
As most Mogwai song titles are wonderful nonsense, I’m pretty sure there’s nothing deliberately Christmas-y about this track from their 1999 EP release, but it’s pretty and doesn’t at any point sound like a thousand blenders being thrown into a trash compactor, so it’s probably as Christmas-y as they get.
Let’s kick of the last week before Christmas with the lowest-hanging of fruit for the season. In December 1993, just a couple months from releasing their major-label debut Four-Calendar Cafe, Cocteau Twins got into the festive spirit with Snow, a two-song EP comprised of covers of Christmas standards, albeit secular ones. A strange choice from […]
