Tag: Dan Boeckner

Categories
Vinyl

Vinyl love: Operators “Blue wave”

(Vinyl Love is a series of posts that quite simply lists, describes, and displays the pieces in my growing vinyl collection. You can bet that each record was given a spin during the drafting of each corresponding post.)

Artist: Operators
Album Title: Blue wave
Year released: 2016
Details: white

The skinny: Here’s an album that hasn’t seen my turntable in some time. I purchased it from Amazon (back when I was still buying records from Amazon) shortly after its release on the back of seeing the group perform live the previous edition of Ottawa’s Bluesfest. Operators was a short-lived synth rock trio led by Dan Boeckner, formed after the dissolution of Handsome Furs, then the one album collaboration with Spoon’s Britt Daniels (Divine Fits), and just before the reformation of Wolf Parade. The trio also included drummer Sam Brown and keyboardist Devojka and only ever released an EP and two full length albums. Spinning this white vinyl pressing of their debut “Blue wave” and its new wave influenced rock will forever remind me of a certain time and place and feeling, hot and yellow summery nights, crowds of like minded music fans, and joy.

Standout track: “Nobody”

Categories
Playlists

Playlist: New tunes from 2024, part one

Well, hello there. Did you miss me?

Yes? No?

It’s been a minute (or over a month) since I last posted to these pages. This hiatus wasn’t planned. Life just happened to get in the way, as it has a habit of doing.

My intention was to post this first part of my annual playlist of new tunes just over six weeks ago. The playlist was put together, vetted, and reviewed near the beginning of April, and yet, I didn’t have the words to go with them.

Indeed, 2024 has been a mixed bag so far, good times and bad. Stuff has happened, life has moved on, and yet, I’m not sure I can point to anything specific or any detail anything of note for the first three months of the year. Nevertheless, if I look back at the previous year for comparison, I gotta say things are an improvement, right?

Right.

Well, at the very least I can point to music as a constant in the pro column. There has been some brand new discoveries, as well as new stuff from old faves. The music has definitely been there. And for that, I am grateful.

This will mark the sixth year running that I’ve done this exercise of sharing the best of the new music that has caught my ear during the year in playlist format. As I have for the last few years, I’ll be doing a separate part for each quarter of the upcoming year. This first part here is made up of twenty five songs from albums released between January and March and all things being equal, you ‘should’ see twenty-five more songs from the spring months at some point in late July.

So without further ado, I’ll present the music that has helped keep me going over the first three months of 2024. Highlights include:

  • Starting at the midway point in the playlist, we have “Caesar on a TV screen”, a single by British indie buzz band The Last Dinner Party and listening to it, it’s obvious that they are worthy of all the hype heaped upon them
  • Speaking of expectations, lots have been heaped upon the new album by Liam Gallagher (Oasis) and John Squire (The Stone Roses) and in my opinion, the results have been mixed but on certain singles, like “Just another rainbow”, we have seen these expectations realized
  • The Jesus and Mary Chain are a band that are revered for very good reason and their latest fits right in with some of their best, “JAMCOD” is just a perfect example of how excellent this band still is
  • Dan Boeckner has wowed the indie music world with the various projects he has unleashed over the years, like Wolf Parade, Divine Fits, Handsome Furs, and Operators, and “Don’t worry baby” is just one of the many great tracks on his debut solo album
  • Closing things off with “Peace sign”, the first single released off “Interplay”, the latest and very excellent album released by shoegaze icons Ride

Here is the entire playlist as I’ve created it:

1. “Literary mind” Sprints (from the album Letter to self)

2. “Sometimes, I swear” The Vaccines (from the album Pick-up full of pink carnations)

3. “No caffeine” Marika Hackman (from the album Big sigh)

4. “How lost” The Fauns (from the album How lost)

5. “Gone” The Umbrellas (from the album Fairweather friend)

6. “Say goodbye” Future Islands (from the album People who aren’t there anymore)

7. “I got the fear” Torres (from the album What an enormous room)

8. “Change my mind” NewDad (from the album Madra)

9. “Waves” Kula Shaker (from the album Natural magic)

10. “Language” New Model Army (from the album Unbroken)

11. “Caesar on a TV screen” The Last Dinner Party (from the album Prelude to ecstasy)

12. “Hollowed out” Ducks Ltd (from the album Harm’s way)

13. “House of self-undoing” Chelsea Wolfe (from the album She reaches out to she reaches out to she)

14. “Terrible news” Middle Kids (from the album Faith crisis pt 1)

15. “I want to be with you” Lime Garden (from the album One more thing)

16. “The spark” Elephant Stone (from the album Back into the dream)

17. “Water underground” Real Estate (from the album Daniel)

18. “Bubblegum dog” MGMT (from the album Loss of life)

19. “Just another rainbow” Liam Gallagher & John Squire (from the album Liam Gallagher & John Squire)

20. “JAMCOD” The Jesus & Mary Chain (from the album Glasgow eyes)

21. “The summer of hate” The Dandy Warhols (from the album Rockmaker)

22. “Don’t worry baby” Boeckner (from the album Boeckner!)

23. “Lover’s leap” Elbow (from the album Audio vertigo)

24. “Evil spawn” Waxahatchee (from the album Tiger’s blood)

25. “Peace sign” Ride (from the album Interplay)

Apple Music fans can click here to sample the above tracks as a whole playlist.

And as always, wherever you are in the world, I hope you are safe and continue to be well. Above all, enjoy the tunes.

If you’re interested in checking out any of the other playlists I’ve created and shared on these pages, you can peruse them here.

Categories
Tunes

Best tunes of 2012: #5 Divine Fits “Would that not be nice”

<< #6   |    #4 >>

For those who might have missed out on the Divine Fits back in 2012, please take note, especially you fans of Wolf Parade, Handsome Furs, and Spoon.

The term indie rock supergroup was bandied about quite a bit in reference to the group and their sole album, “A thing called the Divine Fits”. But with all due respect to Sam Brown and Alex Fischel (the other two band members)*, the project really was about Dan Boeckner and Britt Daniel. Indeed, the Divine Fits’ template was an amalgam of the two different (but not so different) sounds that we were already used to hearing in each musician’s previous work. These two principals split lead vocal duties between them and there wasn’t a huge leap between the songs sung (and presumably written) by one or the other. All of this substantiated my feeling that these two friends and musicians were meant to work together from the beginning.

I must have listened to “A thing called the Divine Fits” hundreds of times in 2012. But even on my first go through, I remember thinking that it was going to be one of the most exciting releases of the year, right from the opening notes of “My love is real”. The project was an experiment gone completely right in every sense. The two mad scientists at the helm seamlessly fused guitar rock and synth pop into what felt like a whole new genre. Unfortunately, this one album is all that we’ve heard from this collaboration and as far as I know, there’s been no hint at all (from either Daniel or Boeckner) that there’s more music in the tank from these guys.

“You set the room up with flickering light
And if you did, would that not be nice?”

“Would that not be nice” is my favourite track here and would be my recommendation if you were to choose just one of the album’s eleven to sample. Be warned, though, you may not be able to shut it off and stop yourself from switching on the repeat function. It’s got a great groove, a bass line that won’t give up ghost, a hip shaking rhythm, and of course, Britt Daniel just kills it, rock and roll style.

*Drummer Sam Brown had previously worked with New Bomb Turks and later worked with Boeckner in Operators. Keyboardist Alex Fischel would later go on to join Daniel as a part of Spoon.

For the rest of the Best tunes of 2012 list, click here.