Echo Beach Radio 7
14 Songs for fall walks, pumpkin parties, spooky season and the inherent anxiety of November.
WARNING: Mellow Vibes Ahead. Get some Tea and a sweater. (Next time it’s gonna be all hardcore and bangers!)
Fall came to New England in a hurry this year. The Ash and Birch trees, usually the first to pop pale yellow and fall, went straight to brown, turning the daily walks into crunchytime nearly a month before “Normal” around here (although Normal has stopped being normal in New England climate.
It’s my favorite time to be in right where I am, sitting at my desk looking out the window at nature — the real world, not this false narrative humans construct as somehow being more real than the actual stuff that came before us and will last long after us.
I don’t generally listen to music when I’m hiking, but I do driving to trailheads or when I’m walking on the pavement to get from this to that… and that’s what this playlist is: mostly new music that feels in sync with this season, where everyone snuggles in for the winter in gratitude for an abundant season of growth.
Don’t call it shoegaze or goth or folk or mopey music. Just call it music for fall walks.
As always, you can watch all this on a YouTube playlist (but there will be ads), or you can listen on Spotify:
Or you can keep reading and I’ll ramble a bit about each tune:
“Alone” by The Cure
Boy do I have a love hate relationship with bands of my youth. I followed the Cure around New England one summer in the ‘80s (half because I was in love with them, and half because I was tragically in love with a girl who was in love with them, and wanted to impress her even though we’d broken up, it was sad.) I saw them several times after that (including as series of amazing concerts with Love and Rockets in 1988 in LA). But the truth is I’m SUPER PICKY about which Cure I like. I am all in on their first four albums with Pornography my fave, but most of their copious production since has been hit or miss for me. Less “Friday I’m In Love” (a song from Wish which, while I love it and have covered it, isn’t really “my Cure”), and more album-friends “From the Edge of the Deep Green Sea” and “To Wish Impossible Things” which most people don’t even know, but very much are “my cure” - moody and depressing).
Frontman Robert Smith is older than I am and he’s clearly in the Nostalgia/Cashing In part of GenX fandom, and I’m fine with that. He did a fantastic little collab with CHVRCHES in 2021 with “How Not To Drown” and recent concert footage has been great, but I was *not* expecting an old-school emo-kid drop like “Alone” last week. The lyrics seem very self aware - and very much a slow burn melancholy opus:
And here is to love, to all the love
Falling out of our lives
Hopes and dreams are gone
The end of every songAnd it all stops
We were always sure that we would never changе
And it all stops
We were always surе that we would stay the same
But it all stops
And we close our eyes to sleep
To dream a boy and girl
Who dream the world is nothing but a dream
“Screamland” by Father John Misty
I feel like FJM has gone from a bit of a novelty indie act, with storied sets where he doesn’t even play songs, rambling videos, and a reputation for antics that seem to follow the inanity of his own video Mr. Tillman, to the real deal. I’ve enjoyed his lyricism and his obvious lunatic talent all the while, but he’s been sometimes hard to take seriously.
Then he drops this plodding, soaring, poetic and sad. It’s not … uplifting, but it’s beautiful:
Stay young
Get numb
Keep dreaming
Screamland
“Dulling the Horns” by Wild Pink
Straight up Brooklyn Indie band I first heard because they did an amazing 6 song EP of covers which include the Jeopardy theme (but also this amazing cover of Taylor Swift’s “We Are Never Ever Getting Back Together” and Shane MacGowan’s “Lonesome Highway.”
Anyway, they’ve got a new album dropping, and I’ve been hooked on this first track. Love this kind of loose grungy guitar:
“Nothing Lasts” by Bnny
New to me, another NY band, signed to the same indie label as big-favorite Dehd, Bnny has the breathless chanteuse thing going on that just says fall to me. And of course, the name says it all — it’s about the fading we see all around us, especially in fall.
“Turnaround” by Loma
Apparently they’re now being produced by Brian Eno once in a while? Another ethereal folk-ish collective that seems to be from both England and Texas. Just hauntingly gorgeous music. I listened to their debut album on repeat (Loma) which is very different and heavily produced compared to this very spare and lovely track:
“For Sure” by Ethel Cain
Southern Gothic continues its takeover of great indie music with a new Album from Ethel Cain, the literal preacher’s-daughter who’s album Preacher’s Daughter caught me by surprise in the post pandemic music boom. Her other stuff has been pretty experimental already, but here she is with a 9 minute cover of defunct indie legend American Football (who is listed as the producer?) I can’t even keep up anymore, but this is great.
That’s my Floor by Magdalena Bay
OK, by this point you probably need a little caffeine, so while you get that, do a little bop to this yummy jam by Mag Bay. Rapidly becoming reliable synthpop hit-makers, almost every Mag Bay song has an irresistible hook and this one is no different… with a little message on the way out:
People used to think about the meaning of it all
So maybe if I opened up my mind
I could really learn to look alive
Never really noticed I'm the transcendental type
I also love the glitch-guitar noise-solo.
“Crystals” by Sea Lemon and Ben Gibbard
I mean it starts with the line “heading down to the creek at 2AM” so its already a spooky season classic. Mostly it’s DeathCab’s Ben Gibbard dropping the “dreampop queen” crown on Natalie Lew of Sea Lemon (whose 2022 EP is phenomenal). I love her and Ben’s voice, so the combo (and straight ahead melodic indie-guitar jam) works for me. But also:
It seems that all I wanna do is sleep these days
And wake up in about a year and not feel this way
… is pretty much how I feel every four years in October.
“Don’t Put Anything on the Bible” - JPEGMAFIA and Buzzy Lee
Here’s a curveball for you. Most of the Hip Hop I listen to is on the weird experimental side of things, so JPEGMafia shows up on lists a lot. This is a really interesting collab with vocalist Buzzy Lee that delivers some pretty intense lyrics from JPEG in this warm soup of her voice, with bizarre and over-the-top orchestrations. I dug it, but won’t judge you if you hit skip.
“Never Arriving” by Allegra Krieger
Apparently from the NY Indie scene, I’ve associated the few songs I know from her with the Southern Gothic movement built on the back of Waxahatchee and Wednesday, but nope, no direct connections. I love her voice, and I love a double-stop overloaded guitar solo.
“DOWNER” by Dean Blunt, Panda Bear and Vegyn
For a year or two it’s seemed like every other song has Panda Bear singing on it, and honestly, I’m just fine with that. Today I learned Dean Blunt has been called “hypnagogic pop” … and people tell me I use too many SAT words. Regardless, I’ve listened to this track at least 20 times in the last few weeks.
“Organs” by Molina and ML Buch
I’ve featured Danish electronowizard ML Buch a few times here, for reasons just like this. Strong atmosphere, interesting production, real creativity and interesting choices. Never heard anything by Molina before, but apparently a local collaborator and the two of them are touring together. They’re in NY in December and I hope to make it. Very vibey. Very demure. Very mindful.
“Raining” by Malice K
Another Pandemic find, Malice K dropped “Clean up on Aisle Heaven” back in ‘22 and it was a wildly mixed bag of Nick Drake like earnest vocals and an occasional punkska banger? Anyway, he has a new album out and its pretty great. Raining is my AlexG-adjacent favorite track (although check out “The Old House”). Anyway, very much in the fall vibe for me.
”Well Meet Again” by Dame Vera Lynn
Look, I’m a sucker for nostalgia like anyone else, and I’m a *real* sucker for WW2 era music. And pretty much no song expresses hope in the face of anxiety and uncertainty as strongly as this one. Listen to the whole thing and stay in a bad mood, I dare you. Until next time … I’ll be singing…