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.
Men I DO NOT Trust
Good morning Reader and happy Friday. Here's what I've been jamming to:
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flipturn - "Fletcher" / "Six Below" (live on Audiotree)
I saw these guys open for Goth Babe last year. They stole the show.
Not that Goth Babe put up a terribly strong effort to keep the show. He seemed indecisive about whether he was doing a DJ set or a live show. Add in his subpar voice and Steve Aoki-esque gimmicks (he made a girl crowdsurf in a life raft for three songs and distributed more beach balls than a Carnival Cruise), Goth Babe underwhelmed.
Lucky for me and my compadres, flipturn was the opposite of Mr. Babe: tight sound, clear, amazing vocals, and the ability to match the acoustic potential of a large modern venue like Boston's Roadrunner.
flipturn sounds better live if you can believe it, and you better believe I'm buying tickets to their spring tour.
The Slingers - "No Harm Done"
They're not from Old North Wales. The Melbourne, NSW-based Slingers echo Mark Knopfler with their boogie-piano-led, seduction-minded groove rock. And yeah, Knopfler is Scottish, not Welsh, but close enough for the pun.
Juice Webster lends her able hands on the keys here, forming one of the song's core pillars opposite lead singer's Robert J. Mahon rumblings.
Random thoughts: Juice Webster should be a Brooklyn Dodgers' 2nd baseman caught up in a game-throwing scandal in 1908 rather than an Aussie indie rock pianist in 2024, and Mahon reminds me vaguely of Bradley Cooper.
Barry Can't Swim - "Rah That's a Mad Question"
It's the kind of house music that invites you in and offers you something besides molly. Quite welcoming.
Men I Trust - "Billie Toppy"
This one sounds so much like a Parquet Courts song I googled it. Lo and behold, someone beat me to the punch--a year and a half ago. Indie rock blog Fat Angel Sings wrote October 2022 :
Well said, Fat Angel, well said. I, personally, would have gone off on an in-poor-taste rant about the pure French Canadian-ness of Emmanuealle Proulx's name. But no need to plant my own Canuck Letter** and ruin any future political ambitions in New England.
**The Canuck letter was a "forged letter to the editor of the Manchester Union Leader, published February 24, 1972, two weeks before the New Hampshire primary of the 1972 United States presidential election. It implied that Senator Edmund Muskie, a candidate for the Democratic Party's presidential nomination, held prejudice against Americans of French-Canadian descent" and spoiled our most recent attempt to put a Mainer in the Oval Office. You will be avenged, Muskie.
Waxahatchee + MJ Lenderman - "Right Back at It"
Fellas, would you let your folk girlfriend be driven around the bayou on a rusting pontoon boat, in the waning sunlight and through drooping mangrove trees, by alt-country bad boy MJ Lenderman? Yeah, me neither. So either Waxahatchee and her partner and indie-folk star Kevin Morby have some permissive aspects to their relationship, or we can expect a banger of an album from Kevin in the near future.
Sigur Rós - "Sæglópur"
This is the song that plays in my head when I stand on my deck in the morning, adjusting to the sunlight. I imagine I look cool putting a hand in front of the sun and casting a shadow on my face, but to my neighbors I probably just look hungover and unemployed.
...and the rest of 'em... is 9 million Spotify streams worth your girlfriend moving to Toronto? Ask London-based alt-pop artist Jamws...
...Rocko's Slippin' and I'm here for it...
....is Slow Pulp sad? Are they angry? Was it my fault? Because it sure feels that way...
...and Thom Yorke's side project The Smile puts that in your pipe, and smokes it too.
Some things should not be left behind in childhood. This goes for society at large and applies especially to trains and warm, welcoming train stations which double as mini castles.
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Shocker of the week: criminal justice reforms which reduce sentences for non-violent drug offenses and provide services to post-release convicts reduces crime and societal costs of incarceration.
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Luka putting his teammates onto ebikes >>
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Thanks for listening.
Ned
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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