Deep Voices #108

the precious and the otherwise

Aug 22, 2024

Deep Voices #108 on Spotify
Deep Voices #108 on Apple Music

The optimum environment for my toddler daughter to sleep in the car is one extremely cold and very quiet. The problem of chilliness can be thwarted with a sweatshirt and pants, but there’s not really a good solve for listening to music at the volume of a whisper. So what I usually do is put on an album I know like the back of my hand, so that even if I only hear wisps of a melody, my brain can fill in the rest. Basically this means I listen to a lot of Bill Callahan while driving.

I’m headed to Cape Cod today with my wife and Coco and I was thinking that maybe it would be good to have a few other non-Callahan options. Because someone was talking to me recently about David Byrne, I thought of one of my favorite songs he played on (uncredited), Dinosaur’s “Kiss Me Again.” And then I thought about Polmo Polpo covering that song (not on streaming) and my favorite Polmo Polpo song, which is from an album of Sandro Perri (who is Polmo Polpo) covering his own music. I looked and could not believe I never put “Dreaming” on Deep Voices (as far as I can tell—there’s been a lot of playlists).

So I was going to make a playlist of much-loved-by-me stuff I could listen to quietly in the car, but then, in the way things daisychain above, I fell not unwelcomely into a rabbit hole of listening to random shit, which hadn’t happened for a while. So this week is a classic Deep Voices with a bunch of music that has nothing to do with each other, aside from those two songs that will sound great in the car later this afternoon. I detailed how I stumbled onto a few of these tracks below; I kept it light. Deep Voices will be off next week while I am on vacation and the week after that will return with the best music of August exclusively for paying subscribers.

Speaking of: a paid subscription to Deep Voices literally helps me survive. Not to be too dramatic. A lot helps me survive. But, dear readers, a small amount of money is likely the most valuable thing you can offer me in exchange for this newsletter (babysitters and/or personal chefs please also get in touch). You can subscribe here for $6 a month or $60 a year (two months free). You can also buy a Deep Voices T-shirt for $45 dollars (made in the USA, high quality, double sided, pocket tee, riffing on Nurse With Wound). Paying subscribers get a 15% discount on T-shirts. Medium and XXL are running very low FWIW. Thank you to everyone for reading and supporting four years of this project, beamed directly from my brain to yours. Now on with the music!

Playlist notes:

My friend Pete sent me a link to this great comp put out by the label Scenic Route. When I was growing up, I loved compilations because that was the easiest way to hear as many new bands as you could. For a long time after music went online, I was generally not so interested in compilations, as I felt like they were more of a slapdash grab bag than a holistic artistic effort. Now I don’t really care either way because I listen to so much music that I’ve got plenty of room for both the precious and the otherwise.

I was listening to this while comp writing, enjoying it thoroughly, but I got totally stopped in my tracks when I got to song 13. The song starts with a buzzsaw guitar and a trip-hop drum beat before the singer comes in with a pleading blast. She sounded frozen and ancient, like Kate Bush stuck on the moon, singing about longing for Earth. Who the hell was this?

Mary Jane Dunphe, it turns out. I thought she was a totally new artist to me, but no, she is the former member of Gen Pop, Vex, CC Dust, and—most importantly to me—CCFX, the vocalist of short-lived group who released one fantastic EP that includes one perfect song, “The One to Wait” (God help me if I never put that on Deep Voices). “The One to Wait” is this incredible blend of Cure-tinged goth pop backed with those same trip-hoppy drums with Dunphe’s deep voice swirling. It’s an all timer. So to find out she had an entire solo career I didn’t know anything about was exciting, but I was disappointed I had missed it until now and had been unable to support her or enjoy her records. So here’s to making up for lost time: Her solo album from last year, Stage of Love, is really good, but “Uriel” is even better. What a (re)discovery. I hate to end stuff with the most pat statement of all time, ie “can’t wait for the future,” but that’s really the only thing to say here. Better than being bummed about the past.
The techno record label Nous’klaer Audio has a running Spotify playlist of all of their releases that I check in with from time to time. The mood is generally self-serious, sound design-y electronic music, which can or cannot be my thing depending on how much the percussion does or does not sound like bells. So I was surprised to find sweeps of guitar on the new track from the producer Elkan, who I had never heard of. Then, later, vocals, simple and half-sung in Dutch. The music sounded less like techno and more like a quiet version of the experimentation Amen Dunes brought to his newest release.

The next song sounded like techno, more what I expected. But I liked it, a mid-pace cruiser with a heartbeat bassline and a little bit of fun bloops and bleeps. A very good song, elevated to a great song because of what I discovered was its fantastic title, “Dub for Funny Cats.” Imagine if Autechre or Aphex Twin had a song called that and not, like, the written equivalent of a QR code. It’s nice to encounter a sense of humor when you’re expecting a frown.
I was talking about David Byrne because my friend that I made from going to the park every morning with Coco is in a book club with David Byrne and she did not know who she was—she is not a music person, she got invited through another friend in the club, a fellow parent she knew from school. So she is talking to me about how she likes him as a person but she’d never heard his music! I was like, there is just no way you’ve never heard his music. She said she was scared to listen to it because if she didn’t like it she’d be sad. I was just losing my mind. Then one day she texts me and says she is listening and it’s pretty good! Yes, you heard it here first, Talking Heads: good band! I was goofing on her for this and then, recently, she was telling me she saw “David” again at a book club member’s birthday party. And I was like, “David…Byrne?” She was like, “LOL yes.” So she went from no clue who he was to first name basis.

Anyway, as I said, he plays uncredited guitar on this Dinosaur (aka Arthur Russell) track, “Kiss Me Again.” I hadn’t listened to it for a while and was happy our David chat put it back on my mind. When I pulled it up on Spotify, though, I was shocked to see the three-minute edit of the song has over a million plays and the definitive version, nearly 13 minutes, has only 30,000. I assume the short version is on a playlist somewhere, casually racking up plays, but I can’t be sure. But I was so bummed. You need to hear the whole thing. It’s expansive, magisterial! Listening to the edit is like watching the trailer for Killers of the Flower Moon and pretending you saw the whole movie. A lie! I don’t know if this song is not “deep” enough for Deep Voices but it is an all timer. So if you know it already, sorry, and if you don’t, well it’s one of David’s best.

If you made it this far, you probably like talking about music! Come join me in the Deep Voices chat. I’m putting up a general “what are you listening to” thread each week. See you there.