Wire / 10:20

10:20 is a curious entry in Wire’s discography, especially since it’s their last release to date of “new” music but actually is a lot of old music, made new again, but not at the same time. This might sound confusing, but is rather par for the course for an act that as much as they’re […]

The Cure – “A Forest”

A little retroactive housekeeping today, the day I finally cross The Cure off my live bucket list. I’ve done a couple posts focusing on their Seventeen Seconds classic “A Forest”, but both have some notable content omissions I’m rectifying now. One of my earliest posts was a live clip from 1981 of the band playing […]

Dry Cleaning, Live @ KEXP

I’d thought I already posted the first of these Dry Cleaning studio sessions from Seattle’s KEXP, but no – those were other live sets, so let’s make this one a twofer. Or threefer, since I didn’t even know about the middle one. And they make a nice little pre-post-pandemic triptych, if “nice” can be used […]

Sweeping Promises – “Eraser”

It’s been a hot minute – or three years – since Sweeping Promises dropped their terrific debut Hunger For A Way Out, but they’ve been busy in that time, signing to SubPop internationally, relocating their home base from Boston to Lawrence, Kansas, and crafting their follow-up record which they’ve now announced to the world: Good […]

New Order – “Elegia”

It’s probably overstating things to call “Elegia” one of New Order’s signature tracks – it’s too much of a stylistic outlier for that – but it is one of their most notable and memorable. Opening up side two of 1985’s Low-Life, it’s an elegiac instrumental that bridges the far poppier halves of the album with […]

Cocteau Twins – “Pearly-Dewdrops’ Drops”

Here’s another instalment in the series I’ll call “Cocteau for Cocteau’s sake”, where I’ll just throw some Cocteau Twins material out there because doing so makes the world a marginally better place. Wikipedia says that the band had two videos before this one, taken from 1984’s The Spangle Maker EP, but I can’t find it […]

MEMORIALS – “Tramps!”

A new band with an impeccable pedigree, MEMORIALS is the duo of Matthew Sims – he of It Hugs Back and Wire – and Verity Sussman of Electrelane. Though the two had collaborated off the record for some time, their first officially released output comes in the form of soundtracks for a pair of documentary […]