Tag: Dream Pop

Categories
Vinyl

Vinyl love: Slowdive “Everything is alive”

(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: Slowdive
Album Title: Everything is alive
Year released: 2023
Details: pale pink

The skinny: From the ‘in case you missed it’ files, I’ve replayed my top five albums from 2023, albeit in a ‘vinyl love’ post format, over the last five weeks; partially because I love these albums and partially because I have them all on vinyl and want to show off their physical beauty as well. If you’ve missed them again, you can go back and admire records five, four, three, and two, but if not, you can read on for my favourite album of the year. Slowdive announced their second album since their 2014 reunion, earlier last year, and I was onboard immediately because of my love for previous one. I preordered a copy of the indie exclusive pale pink pressing that came in a gatefold sleeve from one of my favourite online indie record stores and received it well in advance of seeing them perform songs from it on their North American tour. Spinning it regularly, I quickly fell in love. As I’ve said before: “Everything is alive is hopeful and joyful and full of life. It is eight songs that don’t want to be anywhere near darkness and solitude. It is five musicians and friends that have known each other a long time performing as one, familiar and familial, a large sound that can envelope and absorb and has room for everyone and everything. It is the album we needed, whether we knew it or not.”

Standout track: “Kisses”

Categories
Tunes

Best tunes of 1993: #6 Mazzy Star “Fade into you”

<< #7    |    #5 >>

A tired, late night acoustic strum is accompanied by the ghost of a slide guitar and what sounds like a tired pianist playing one-handed so as not to spill his half-empty mug of beer. And up there onstage with this motley crew of musicians is Hope Sandoval, trying to hide in the shade of the microphone stand, eyes closed and crooning softly, singing about someone that sounds like her, but isn’t her, perhaps someone she loved that never noticed her, never took the time to understand where she stood.

“Fade into you,
I think it’s strange you never knew.”

This is the sound of Mazzy Star’s big hit, the unexpected catapult into the mainstream. It was an unassuming song that somehow captured the imagination of many and encapsulated a feeling at the time. It boosted sales of the group’s sophomore album, “So tonight that I might see”, on which “Fade into you” was track one, so that two years after its release, it garnered platinum status in the States and Gold in the UK.

Mazzy Star was formed in Santa Monica, California in 1988 when David Roback enlisted the vocal help of his friend Hope Sandoval when his previous group, Opal, lost their lead vocalist. The duo released three albums between 1990 and 1997 before dissolving due to their collective unhappiness with the music industry. They reformed in 2012 and released another album the following year but things stalled after that, even more so after David Roback passed away from cancer in 2020.

Much of their sound remained steadfastly in the dream pop realm, a slow and lilting environment in which Sandoval hides behind behind the echoes of her lovelorn and breathy vocals. It is music that continues to haunt long after it is played but none of their songs, for better or for worse, have quite had the impact of “Fade into you”.

For the rest of the Best tunes of 1993 list, click here.

Categories
Vinyl

Vinyl love: The Reds, Pinks And Purples “The town that cursed your name”

(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: The Reds, Pinks And Purples
Album Title: The town that cursed your name
Year released: 2023
Details: seaglass blue

The skinny: From the ‘in case you missed it’ files, I’ll be replaying my top five albums from 2023, albeit in a ‘vinyl love’ post format, every weekend in January and just into February; partially because I love these albums and partially because I have them all on vinyl and want to show off their physical beauty as well. I posted album number five last weekend and today I’ve got album number four: the latest album by Glenn Donaldson’s The Reds, Pinks and Purples, “The town that cursed your name”. I first discovered the project with their third album in 2021 and it topped my best albums chart that year. Since then, I’ve been struggling to keep up with their releases and yet, at least one of their albums have made into my top ten in each of the last two years. I pre-ordered this one from their record label, Slumberland Records’ bandcamp page back in February but with pressing plant issues, I didn’t receive it until June. With the lovely seaglass blue colour (and bonus 7”), though, it was well worth the wait. “The town that cursed your name” is peppy and reverb-drenched and throughout, Donaldson plaintively and romantically sings about the lives and loves of being a struggling musician in San Francisco and in the process, draws us all into his world with his melodic hooks and wistful turn of phrase.

Standout track: “Mistakes (too many to name)”