#dead oceans

[furbybr1dgers]

Mitski and her Dean Custom Zone 4 string Bass <3

[nofatclips]

My Love Mine All Mine by Mitski from the album The Land Is Inhospitable and So Are We - Writer Director Editor: A.G. Rojas

[toast-oast]

i was 16 listening to puberty 2… like girl ur not even done with puberty 1 yet

[underachievers-please-try-harder]

Track of the day // Cassandra Jenkins - Only One

From the album My Light, My Destroyer, out July 12th on Dead Oceans.

[innovacancy]

Mitski Bold Point Pavilion, East Providence, RI 28 July 2022 coverage here

[stevenvenn]

Slowdive - alife (from everything is alive) Friday, I'm in love! The new Slowdive album everything is alive drops today. Nice! It's always a good day when there's new Slowdive.

[iamlisteningto]

Mitski’s The Land Is Inhospitable And So Are We

[dustedmagazine]

Slowdive — everything is alive (Dead Oceans)

everything is alive by Slowdive

When Slowdive re-emerged in 2017 with their self-titled comeback album, it felt like receiving an improbable but very welcome gift. The band had released the glacial beauty of Pygmalion at the height of Britpop, and then disappeared off the map, Neil Halstead and Rachel Goswell going on to form Mojave 3, and drummer Simon Scott releasing experimental instrumental work under his own name. Album number five, everything is alive, comes across like a sampler of all the aspects of Slowdive that make them appealing, arranged into an easily digestible, eight-song collection, while failing to amount to more than the sum of its parts.

Opener “shanty” sets the tone nicely: an introductory patchwork of synth arpeggios reminiscent of Klaus Schulze soon gives way to thick, wall-of-sound guitarscapes courtesy of Halstead and Christian Savill, punctuated by Nick Chaplin’s strident bass and Scott’s crisply compressed, skipping drums. Halstead and Goswell share vocal duties, their voices swimming distantly in the mix, as if calling out from afar. Though the song builds up a satisfying head of steam, it sadly fades out just as it might have built further towards a climax or taken a welcome left turn. The instrumental “prayer remembered” is perhaps the album’s finest moment, coming across like The Cars’ “Drive” reinterpreted by Sigur Ros, all weighty melancholy and elegant yearning. “alife” feels like a companion to “shanty,” complete with another inexplicably rapid fade-out. This leads into the album’s weakest moment, “andalucia plays,” where Halstead’s vocals are uncharacteristically loud in the mix, his lyrics blushingly naked and sadly wanting.

First single “kisses” leans towards the janglier, dream-pop end of the musical spectrum, and feels like a retread of classic 1990s sounds, complete with a will-this-do chorus that never really takes off. “skin in the game” has a glowering malevolence to it that works effectively, but the heavily effected vocal during the chorus feels like overkill. “chained to a cloud” brings back the synth arpeggios and crisp snare attack that characterized “shanty,” but the guitar textures feel somewhat muted in comparison. (Inexplicably, Goswell’s vocal tone here is a dead-ringer for Blonde Redhead’s Kazu Makino.) Closer “the slab” picks up the pace during the album’s final stretch, its icy, descending guitar lines pitted against ferocious, fuzzy bass, hurtling towards what could have been a promising climax, only to abruptly fade out (again!), as if the band has run out ideas. It amounts to a frustrating end to a frustrating record, one where some great sounds and ideas aren’t fully worked through into wholly successful songs.

Tim Clarke

[bandcampsnoop]

4/16/24.

Dead Oceans just announced "Into The Blue" the new full-length album from Aaron Frazer - a solo soul artist who also serves as the drummer for Durand Jones.

"Introducing" has been worn out around my house since 2021. We just can't get enough. In fact, Aaron Frazer (Brooklyn, New York) opened the door to Holy Hive and various Big Crown Records artists.

But it has also made me open to listening to a lot of older soul. For example, last December Vampisoul reissued Marie Queenie Lyons "Soul Fever" - originally on James Brown's Deluxe label.

[august-sysex]

slowdive - kisses (2023)

[furbybr1dgers]

[nofatclips]

Live radio performance of We'll Be Here Soon by Phosphorescent from the EP The BBC Sessions

[akaanuar]

Top 20: Best Albums of 2023

A escasas horas de terminar el 2023 les presento por undécimo año consecutivo mi top 20 de los mejores y favoritos álbumes del año. Música nueva de todas partes del mundo que me acompañó durante este año en los mejores y no tan mejores momentos. Pero antes, les comparto mi top 5 de los mejores conciertos que asistí durante el 2023: 1. Depeche Mode y Kelly Lee Owens @ Foro Sol, CDMX 2. Kraftwerk @…

[thepermanentrainpress]

Gallery: Mitski @ Trinity-St. Paul's United Church - Toronto, ON Date: September 29, 2023 Photographed by: Chris Ho

[innovacancy]

shame The Sinclair, Cambridge, MA 16 May 2023 article + full gallery here