Follow me if you want your Spotify wrapped to look a little more unique, and to expand your horizons musically, humorously, and intellectually. If you like indie rock that makes you want to ride your bike around the city as the sun sets, old filters / new light is the newsletter for you.
Lest the Black Dirt Freak You Out
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Good morning Reader and happy Tuesday. Here's what I've been jamming to:
Rose City Band - Me and Willie Slowing down in this modern world can take a lot of work. What with the constant stream of digital distractions, notifications, and inboxes to check, news to doomscroll, polls to watch, scores to keep, and texts to wait on (she must be busy). Sometimes, you need a slow song to slow you down. But sometimes fluttery guitars and singer-songwriter, coffeehouse vibes or jazzed-out piano doesn't do the trick. No, you need the heavy stuff, the fentanyl of acoustic relaxation, something only a psychedelic track can provide. Enter Rose City Band, the Pepsi to Wooden Shjips Coke of bass-forward neo-psychedelic rock. And I'm not a Pepsi guy, but after my cousin Jeremiah queued this one up on a ride back from the New Hampshires Whites, when it was not only acceptable but encouraged to say few words after a long day hike, well, I drank the Kool-Aid--or Pepsi, I should say. Waxahatchee - Burns Out at Midnight As you button up those flannels and sit by the window; as that crisp air comes rolls through, look no further for your onset-of-autumn album than Waxahatchee's 2024 release, Tigers Blood. Though it has fewer Charlie Sheen references than I expected given the title, Tigers Blood makes up for it with a Midwestern indie-meets Southern gospel-country soundstage, the perfect background for Katie Crutchfield's unmatched vocal range. Twangy guitars and resonant harmonicas litter this ground but don't distract from Crutchfield's lyricism and Middle American mysticism. Some highlights besides the thumping "Burns Out at Midnight": "Bored," "Lone Star Lake," "Crowbar," and of course the MJ Lenderman feature, "Right Back to It." Fontaines D.C. - Starburster With all due respect to Waxahatchee, Ireland's own Fontaines D.C. dropped the frontrunner for album of the year with Romance. It's a rollercoaster of indie-punk and garage rock. The single "Starburster" is bloodthirsty, the drum kit pulled out of Mad Max 2 (the Mel Gibson version), the borderline-rapped lyrics are Dylan-esque if Dylan had been in Skins seasons 1 & 2 (the U.K. version). The uuuaaaaaghhh breathes are getting precariously close to metal and screamo, genres Fontaines has traditionally tolerated, dare say allied with, but never fully embraced. (Maybe this testing of the waters is a precursor for more screamo from Fontaines; maybe we're at Peak Scream; Dublin musical economists are hotly debating the topic). Ratboys - Black Earth, WI With additional respect to Waxahatchee, we turn to a more Northern version of Americana--that of Chicago's Ratboys, who blend the I-Dont-Give-a-Fuck-but-in-a-Nice-Way stylings of Midwestern indie with a splash of twang and mouth-close-the-mic intonations. Ratboys certainly reminds more of driving out of Chicago than into it, and "Black Earth, WI"---a track named for a town outside of Madison, Wisconsin, in the state's Driftless region (dope name for some geography, I know, and yes, I did a Wikipedia dive on this area; and, needless to say, glaciers were heavily involved)---captures well the expanses of the beginning of the western half of the country. The song, which clocks in at 8 minutes and change, is Ratboys "Cortez the Killer," though the comparison isn't apparent until the 3-minute mark when the squeaking guitar solo starts.
Floodlights - Small Town Pub Shout out to friend of the blog Tim L. for this rec. A real Aussie ripper. Ciggy smoke in a small pub... Footies on... rough as guts ...and the rest of 'em... a shout out to Idaho from Slow Pulp, (let's just hope they're not shouting out the part of the state with all the Neo-Nazi compounds)... a bopper from Santigold I pulled from a FIFA playlist... the Rural Alberta Advantage has a few more tricks up their sleeve besides "Frank, AB"... a new one from Eddie Vedder... and Florida's own flipturn hunkers down with some synthy guitars. Now if only they'll stop letting guys who don't work in construction drive F-150s.
Some Light(foot) humor.
It ran its newscycle but by God the RFK bear story still gets me.
This edition of OFNL is dedicated to Sloan Melanson, my niece, born September 30th, 2024! [Uncle mode... activated.] Thanks for reading. If you liked it, send it to a friend (or a foe). https://oldfiltersnewlight.com/ |
old filters / new light
Follow me if you want your Spotify wrapped to look a little more unique, and to expand your horizons musically, humorously, and intellectually. If you like indie rock that makes you want to ride your bike around the city as the sun sets, old filters / new light is the newsletter for you.
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