SOTD #723 – Emily Rodgers
For a writer, the first step in any work is to earn the reader’s trust. Never mind clever wordplay, reliable narrators, action-packed plots, or even correct grammar – inherent in good prose is the promise of discovery. A fact, a feeling, a revelation, anything that the reader didn’t have from the start. We bury the […]
SOTD #722 – Mandy
This song of the day came to me via their PR company. I usually just find my own songs without trying, but this track found its way into my inbox, and without a press person pitching this I’d probably never have heard it, and that would have been a real shame. Mandy is the band […]
Song of the Day #721 – The Orielles
The Orielles might call Halifax (which is as middle England as you can get) their home, but their hearts sound deeply rooted in California. Replace the cobblestone hilltop roads with miles of flat asphalt running alongside the beaches and piers, replace the woolly sheep with dogs wearing sunglasses, replace the nonstop rain and overcast skies […]
SOTD #720 – Jeff Runnings
Come to think of it, “dreampop” is a horrible tag. Rarely anything that the indie world perceives as “pop” is ever popular, and then the stuff we perceive as “dreamy” rarely lulls us into any dream-like state of bliss. Mired in the existential angst of post-punk, “dreampop” done right leads us further into ourselves, to […]
SOTD #719 – Skating Polly
When I heard ‘Perfume For Now’, I took to Twitter with the words “Song of the year in February? Maybe.” Angered girlish squeals and powerful raging screamed words spat out in the direction of the lyrics’ target. “Frying slowly in butter and fate / Take it take it take it take it- it’s a hunt.” […]
SOTD #718 – Flowers
By Caspar Jacobs “Do you know?” It’s the defining question of insecurity. Do you know what you want to be later? And what you want to study? What kind of job you’re gonna apply for when you’re done with that? On ‘Ego Loss’, Rachel is asking that open-ended question over and over, and every time […]
SOTD #717 – Ratbath
My brother Ben and I, we used to be like crossed fingers. I didn’t need any other friends on the playground, because I could always just hang out with him after school. We told stories together, played word games and card games and our modified version of Rock-Paper-Scissors. In the mornings, we’d just lie on […]
SOTD #716 – Animal Daydream
Well, here we are again. Another year, another lush EP for running through cornfields barefoot, another suggestion that Gothenburg might float on a cloud high and away from the tumultuous river of now. I’m not about to renounce any of my thoughts on how music needs to keep moving forward, that musicians need to challenge […]
SOTD #714 – Dendera Bloodbath
Photo courtesy of Immersive Atlanta. In the great kingdom of Atlanta, way up north toward the mountains, there lies a village within the foothills. No families or clans call this hamlet home, for the grass is eternally charred, and the barren trees glow faintly at night, and voices chirp and chatter where no humans or […]
SOTD #713 – Halfsour
Say you’ve gone out to see a gig in a new town. You’ve arrived early, as is your custom, but already people are crowding the couches and milling in bunches. You don’t know any of these people. Your legs lock as you stand at the threshold, scanning for somewhere unobtrusive to sit. Twenty minutes crawl […]
