Deep Voices #101
A daisy chain plucked from the garden of utopia
Deep Voices #101 on Spotify
Deep Voices #101 on Apple Music
Not that it’s here nor there, but I had a lot of fun putting together this week’s mix. Maybe because it’s so all over the place. When I first started Deep Voices, I asked a former colleague whose (non-music) newsletter has been very successful, for some advice. He told me I should probably not have it be a bunch of songs put together with no coherence, with writing that only occasionally touches on the basic facts of the artists. You all know how that worked out. Just thinking about that as I stare at the introduction I wrote for this week about how roller coasters shouldn’t be the metaphor you’re looking for with music—sledding makes more sense. I’ll spare you. Anyway, a joy to string together a bunch of totally unrelated music into a daisy chain plucked from the garden of utopia. Enjoy the mix, it’s a good one. IMHO!
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I think spoken word is trending. Still House Plants, Tongue in the Mind, and the new Iceboy Violet album, produced by Nueen. Spoken word is maybe a misnomer, there is lilt to the vocal delivery, not flat recitation. In SHP and TITM’s case, the vocals work in contrast to the underlying music, an arranged marriage of yin and yang. But Iceboy Violet, whose music feels like listening to grime in zero gravity; it feels like falling down and not having the desire to get up. Nueen, who has been on a Deep Voices mix before, typically makes ambient leaning techno; here he crafts brittle, emo beats for Iceboy to brood. It’s a unique album—with the double depressing title You Said You’d Hold My Hand Through the Fire—that I think should appeal to people who like, say, both Lil Peep and Burial. Too bad I don’t know anyone like that…
The Spatulas are from Massachusetts, but they would fit right in with the current Bay Area scene of bands equally in love with the Beach Boys and the Velvet Underground, as well as equally disinterested in fidelity. Their debut album Beehive Mind is a great listen. It’s out on Post Present Medium, the venerable label run by Dean Spunt of No Age, another group who took their influences and shredded them to bits. Spatulas singer Miranda Soileau-Pratt has a voice like a British folk singer from the ’70s, which gives the album a pastoral touch. The generous use of tambourine gives it a vintage rock’n’roll one. And then one of the guitar players—I’m not sure if it’s Soileau-Pratt or the band’s other guitarist Lila Jarzombek—occasionally comes out of the ether with these wonky solos, garage rock shredding in the background like it’s another band. I honestly didn’t even know that was happening the first couple times I listened. Then I realized how precise they were in making a sound so shambolic. New, ecstatic worlds are unfolding all around us.
I found myself going album by album through the Shrimper Records catalog recently, which is the type of dumb, satisfying, low risk, low reward activity to which I have dedicated my life. I came across The Ah Club, which is very much a product of its time, an indie rock duo where one person sings off-key over the other’s rudimentary loops. They are, of course, totally fantastic, idiosyncratic, glorious, and shameless. I included what is probably the “best” song, “Bitter Days,” with the soul group horn sample, but the weirdest and most amazing thing on the album is this: “In This Quiet Place,” which samples, warps, and loops the (famous?) opening guitar riff from Slint’s “Breadcrumb Trail,” then, in 1997, just six years old. It’s a dream, it’s a nightmare, one of the truly weirdest collisions I can think of (maybe since Gil Scott-Heron covered Smog?). Like Beat Happening if they were really in the X-Files. I feel like I dug up a fossil.
There are three pieces of music on here I learned about from others and I wanted to note that and publically thank them for sharing. One is the producer ambent, which my friend Michael played for me in his Rav-4 after we ate at a chicken-only restaurant. It was a nice night and I was happy to see him and when we got in the car the music sounded amazing. A complex, subtle take on jungle. At least that’s how it sounded in the car. Without the sheen of that friendship euphoria it sounds less groundbreaking if still very cool. Sorry if that’s mean. I mean it more as a compliment to Michael and his transformative powers.
The Ulyssa record label head Eric Deines posted a song by Nirosta Steel on his Instagram story a few weeks ago. Eric has great taste and a knack for digging up odd and obscure pop music so I gave this an immediate listen and I loved it. The music is unvarnished acoustic pop songs, peculiar and sweet. This particular album, Cool Fire, is from 2014 and has less than 1,000 listens on Spotify per month. It’s a live recording and on the intro to the record he thanks his “straight friend” and shouts out Arthur Russell. Should give you an idea of where he’s coming from.
And then I was proud to be able to expand on my thoughts about One Dove and Andrew Weatherall from Deep Voices #90 in the form of a Sunday Review for Pitchfork on One Dove’s album Morning Dove White (many thanks to Pitchfork’s Jeremy Larson for his stewardship). But I was urged by some in the Instagram comments on Pitchfork’s post about the review to check out Ultramarine, a British duo who, like One Dove, blended house and rock music. They’re great, painting with bold colors. I love to listen to bands who take disparate styles and smush them together into a lopsidedly happy marriage. This is why I always read the comments—I love to listen!
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Love the Spatulas // thanks for the recommendation. What are other “Bay Area scene of bands equally in love with the Beach Boys and the Velvet Underground?” Would love to check others out. Thanks!