Echo Beach Radio 5

So much new Music, how can we not have hope?

“Snap out of it!” is the internal slap in the face I give myself when I’m feeling a bit in the dregs, a bit “tongue in the sand.” Most of my self-slaps come in the form of long walks in the woods, good bike rides, or making something. But Music is always there. Music is always saying things in a better, more nuanced way. Music is where the future is always being baked from the ingredients of the now. Here’s what’s got me hopeful, mostly new music with two oldies in the mix.

Three ways to consume this: You can go to Youtube and listen to this with radio intros — but also with ads. Or you can just listen to the Spotify playlist here.

Or scroll down, to read and listen along.

“Sacrificial Bonfire by XTC

XTC was a deeply formative band for me in the 1980s. To my knowledge they never “played out” around New England, and the band is essentially one giant tragic story of mismanagement and financial doom. Lead singer Andy Partridge had an infamous breakdown over performing and during most of the 1980s, like Kate Bush, they only did studio work. But some of us local music nerds knew they were secretly recording an album in upstate New York, and tapes and out-takes ran through local college radio well before the album actually dropped. This song is to me the most hopeful on the album, which doesn’t take much on the album that features “Dear God” and “Dying”.

“She’s Leaving You” by MJ Lenderman

While I’ve never been to Asheville, North Carolina, I’m going to have to go pretty soon. It already punched way above it’s weight fostering folks like Indigo DeSouza and Wednesday, but MJ Lenderman may end being the big break out star. I cannot rave about his guitar playing enough. It’s not flashy. He’s not a shredder. He’s just one of those guitarists who sings through tone.

She’s Leaving You is a straight up killer rock song, and while it lasts the over-the-top sarcasm/cynicism of Rudolph or You Have Bought Yourself A Boat — two songs I love of his, but that are almost parody. The bite is a little less sharp in this one, but still there:

You can put your clothes back on, she’s leaving you.
No time to apologize for the things you do
Go rent a Ferrari and sing the blues
Believe that Clapton was the second coming
It falls apart, we all got work to do
It gets dark, we all got work to do.

Those last two lines. Yeah.

“Frogs” by Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds

I have a respectfully distant relationship with Nick Cave. I wouldn’t consider myself a “Fan” although I happen to have seen him and the band play a few times with other artists I was there for.

But this song dropped a few weeks ago and it’s just been stuck in my head. I’d sort of formed the opinion that it was an absurdist take on joy and positivity. I recognized the weird Kris Kristofferson reference to this goofy song about daydrinking from a million years ago, and then found out that Nick had posted a whole blog post about the lyrics in which he says:

Frogs is a laudatory and epigrammatic paean to the cosmos as we sometimes find it, a cosmos tilting towards love and reveling in its own insistent beauty.

“Tarkovski” by BODEGA

New to me, this NY post-punk millennial indie band (not a small list). Mostly I just dig the vibe, and some interesting chord choices, and a really solid grungy guitar solo. But I also dig the smart lyrics.

You want to save time
But I know you really don’t
Cause theory never gets at what you really want
You can never stop
To seek thematics in a plot
Yet what mirrors show
You better keep exposed.

“Hey You” by Bickle

I am a SUCKER for bedroom pop and simplicity, and Bickle’s got that in spades. I really dug BiBlickle, his 2023 album (especially his simplest stuff like the Piano-song, Apocalypse Love Song). A lot of Bedroom-Pop producers don’t have multi-instrumentalist chops, a strong voice, and a good ear for editing, and he’s got all three. Get in on the ground floor. I suspect he’ll be our next Avicii (RIP). Someday soon he’ll reach back a decade and do a mashup with Skrillex or Macklemore and it’ll be a breakout success.

I Might Say Something Stupid by Charlie XCX

Look, I’m not gonna be rational about the next three songs. Charlie XCX dropped what is just so clearly the best album of her career (BRAT), and possibly one of the best hyperpop-influenced albums ever made. You should just listen to the whole thing on headphones in order without skips.

More than anything, this is a vulnerable album lyrically and an interesting album. To me the defining factor of good hyperpop is using vocal production as it’s own instrument. In this case, in a song about feeling fake and artificial, the use of autotune is so specific and carefully done, and almost always to *detune* her voice to make a lyrical point… it’s just magnificent.

“Reason Why” by SOPHIE (et. al)

SOPHIE was probably the most influential EDM, Techno, Arthouse, Hyperpop and young millenial artist of the past decade, was nominated for a Grammy in 2019 for her one studio album, “Oil of Every Pearl’s Un-Insides” She was part of the same Collab scene as Charlie XCX and AG Cook, and when she died unexpectedly in 2021 at the age of 34, it was a bit of a shock.

Just last week, we got the first song from her upcoming posthumous release, and it’s just a banger.

So I by Charlie XCX

… and Charlie XCX put this on her new album, which is a eulogy for Sophie, and it should be one that caries a lot of guilt and remorse. While not necessarily uplifting, to me there’s a sense in this whole three song arc of hope and possibility. Bad shit happens. People we love die. Things we believe in fade. But we can cry and move on.

“It’s ok to cry. I can cry. So I cry.”

Take a Bite by Beabadoobee

Just a slinky vibe from another rising star Zoomer. I gather she’s opened for some Taylor Swift concerts now so everyone in the world now knows about her, but I don’t mind. She’s got real indie sensibilities and sometimes drifts towards Mazzy Star, sometimes towards Eliot Smith, and in this one, more towards Mac DeMarco, and I’m here for it.

“U Should Not Be Doing That” by Amyl and The Sniffers

I mean, best band name ever, amirite? But seriously, new to me Punk band from Australia. Since first hearing this song a month ago, I have now gone down the Amyl rabbithole, and they are just a straight up fantastic punk band that would have felt very at home playing a rainy Tuesday Night at the Blue Wall in Amherst MA in 1985. Check out this KEXP session. This is a new band - they only formed 8 years ago. They have no business being THIS TIGHT. Tight punk bands are really rare, and it’s really hard.

Didn’t by Illuminati Hotties

Back on the show, because they’re just too good. Like I said last time — the production is just SO GOOD and clean and interesting, while at the same time, they write great hooks and make interesting choices — from the use of the silence to the weird synth interludes to the straight up rock and roll chorus:

There’s so much that I’m expected to do
I feel so insufficient
Yeah, I’m not engineered quite like you
Ambition, intermittent, then I think
Well, what if Just didn’t?
Didn’t do it?

Nightporter by Japan

Mostly unknown, Japan was a Glam Rock band from the mid 1980s I was really into. They released all sorts of strange music all anchored around lead singer David Sylvian’s amazing deep and rich voice, who folks might know better from stuff he did with Robert Fripp and Ryuichi Sakamoto back in the day. I’ve always loved this little haunting lullaby from their 1980 classic, Gentlemen Take Polaroids, and I thought it good to go out on.

Be well.