Tag: Ezra Furman

Categories
Tunes

Best tunes of 2020: #17 Ezra Furman “Every feeling”

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I recently wrapped up watching the final season of Sex Education on Netflix and almost immediately, I found myself wanting to start over and rewatch it from the beginning. To me, that’s a sign of a great show and when it happens with books, it’s the same – the feeling of missing the characters and their stories and their worlds.

I wasn’t immediately sure when I started watching the first season back in the fall of 2019. It felt a bit weird to be watching a show that explicitly detailed the sex lives of teenagers, even though I knew that all of the actors would be of the age of consent. It did a great job, though, playing with reality, making the stories not about their age or the place and time*, and more about the great characters and how they reacted to universal problems and situations related to love and relationships and yes, sex.

The show lasted four seasons of eight episodes a piece, which seems quite long for British television in my own limited experience. Each episode in each season was quite excellent and of course, I loved the music throughout, a pastiche of hip music from the 70s to the present, with many songs that I recognized and some that I didn’t. A quick google search explained that many of those excellent songs I didn’t recognize were supplied by American singer-songwriter Ezra Furman.

In late January 2020, about a week after season 2 appeared on Netlix, Furman released “Sex education original soundtrack”, which collected together all of her songs that appeared in the first two seasons of the show. Of course, I made sure to peruse it and then found myself perusing more of her work and it was then, that I realized that though some of the tracks were written for the show, many were songs that were repurposed from her previous recordings.

One of the tracks that Furman wrote new for the show appeared at the end of episode three of the first season. “Every feeling” fits the mood of scene perfectly: the wind-down of an emotionally draining day. At the time, the song wasn’t available anywhere and viewers  immediately started clamouring to find out where they could get a copy. It’s a short piece that focuses on Furman banging away at her acoustic guitar like it was cause of her hurt and depression and her drained voice shaking out all the f-bombs. Because sometimes that’s the only word that’ll do to get your message across.

“I’m gonna feel every feeling
And only love
Only love will remain”

It’s a track full of pain but it’s also damned uplifting.

*Though there were plenty of homages to John Hughes’ teen comedies of the eighties, the hints to past and present technologies and trends made it feel out of time completely.

For the rest of the Best tunes of 2020 list, click here.

Categories
Playlists

Playlist: New tunes from 2022, part three

If I was still looking at this blog as something that should be scheduled or on schedule or whatever, I might consider this post a couple weeks behind that “s” word. I’ve been trying* to post these quarterly playlist updates a couple of weeks after the end of each quarter but well, the two week vacation I took that spanned the end of August and the beginning of September put me a bit behind.

Yeah. That’s right. I took some vacation. Two weeks! It was the longest period from work that I’d properly taken since before the pandemic. I spent as much of it as I could experiencing nature, sitting by the water, going on hikes, and just generally taking in our province’s natural beauty. It wasn’t exactly restful, per se, but it was definitely good for the soul.

Prior to that, I actually attended several evenings of an honest-to-goodness music festival at the beginning of July. It was an amazing feeling to return to a bit of normalcy, see some bands I’d seen before and some I hadn’t, and seeing people outside of my bubble, all revelling in the ecstasy that is the live music experience. I say again, I t felt great. Then, the day after the festival ended, a friend of mine who I had attended a couple of the dates with texted me to say he had tested positive for COVID. So I tested myself and thankfully came through it clean. But it was definitely a bitter reminder for me that though we may be done with the pandemic, it may not necessarily be done with us.

Otherwise, the summer flew by in a haze and blur of sameness. With all the work, eat, and sleep, I am super thankful of my continued employment, general good health, and that I am continuing to spend my life with my very best friend and love of my life. And of course, there is always the music.

This third part of this annual playlist represents the music that has followed me and kept me going through this third pandemic summer. It is yet another great 25 tunes (for parts one and two, check here and here) representative of the best that’s been released during the last three months. Highlights include:

      • Opening things up with “Rockstar”, this ripping track off the third album by Momma calls to mind 90s rockers, like maybe Babes in Toyland and L7, but most definitely Veruca Salt
      • “Circumference”, a brilliant synth-pop gem by Working Men’s Club ripped right from the heart of the 80s
      • More dream pop beauty from Toronto-based indie pop quartet Tallies, a sweet explosion called “Wound up tight”
      • I’ve not been a fan of Animal Collective, nor Noah Lennox’s solo work as Panda Bear but his recent collaboration with Pete “Sonic Boom” Kember is pure sunshine, “Gettin’ to the point” is just a case in point
      • When I think of Kasabian, I typically think of blistering high energy numbers but this ballad called “The wall” off their latest record is equally full of passion
      • “It’s always the quiet ones” by Suede – that’s right, they’re back and it’s majestic
      • Kristian Mattson, aka The Tallest Man on Earth, covering “Pink rabbits” by The National is like a collision of some of my favourite music from a decade ago
      • Finally, Yeah Yeah Yeahs teamed up with Perfume Genius for “Spitting off the edge of world”, the magnificent first single of their latest album

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

1. “Rockstar” Momma (from the album Household name)

2. “All comes crashing” Metric (from the album Formentera)

3. “Day 21” Secret Machines (from the EP Day 21)

4. “Fables” Interpol (from the album The other side of make-believe)

5. “Circumference” Working Men’s Club (from the album Fear fear)*

6. “Vanishing point” Julien Baker (from the EP B-sides)

7. “So far for so few” The Sadies (from the album Colder streams)

8. “Eventually” Beach Bunny (from the album Emotional creature)

9. “Wound up tight” Tallies (from the album Patina)

10. “Parasite II” Kiwi Jr. (from the album Chopper)

11. “Gettin’ to the point” Panda Bear & Sonic Boom (from the album Reset)

12. “The wall” Kasabian (from the album The alchemist’s euphoria)

13. “Forever in sunset” Ezra Furman (from the album All of us in flames)

14. “A line of shots” The Afghan Whigs (from the album How do you burn?)

15. “Slowly” Preoccupations (from the album Arrangements)

16. “Roman candles” Death Cab For Cutie (from the album Asphalt meadows)

17. “Expert in a dying field” The Beths (from the album Expert in a dying field)

18. “It’s always the quiet ones” Suede (from the album Autofiction)

19. “Heart attack” Editors (from the album EBM)

20. “Pink rabbits” The Tallest Man On Earth (from the album Too late for edelweiss)

21. “First high” Nikki Lane (from the album Denim & diamonds)

22. “Backup plan” Maya Hawke (from the album Moss)

23. “Friday night” Beth Orton (from the album Weather alive)

24. “Pagan man” Pixies (from the album Doggerel)

25. “Spitting off the edge of the world (ft Perfume Genius)” Yeah Yeah Yeahs (from the album Cool it down)

Those of you who are on the Apple Music train 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.

*Trying might be a strong word here.

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
Vinyl

Vinyl love: Du Blonde “Homecoming”

(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: Du Blonde
Album Title: Homecoming
Year released: 2021
Year reissued: 2021
Details: Limited edition (limited to 500), signed, reissue, transparent with black, neon yellow and bright pink splatter, came with a small magazine, stickers and two cards

The skinny: Continuing my ‘Vinyl Love’ series that’s highlighting my favourite records of last year, here’s the album that placed number eight on that list. I liked the sound of “Homecoming”, the third album by Beth Jeans Houghton as Du Blonde, right off from the get-go. I hesitated, though, and didn’t pull the trigger on its purchase right away. As time wore on, the grrl-rock-ravaged, salacious glam wore upon me, and I found the collaborations with Ezra Furman, Ride’s Andy Bell, and Garbage front woman, Shirley Manson too much fun to bear. I finally decided the record should be on my shelf, but by this time, it became apparent that I wasn’t the only one to come to this conclusion. All of the initial pressings and variants had sold out. Luckily for me, Du Blonde decided to do another limited run late in the year and this time, I did not hesitate. It’s signed by Du Blonde herself and includes a bunch of stickers and postcards and a hand-drawn zine that explains how she came to create her own record label. And of course, the “Lil Petey’s Pick’n Mix Puke” spatter vinyl looks much lovelier than it is described.

Standout track: “Medicated (feat. Shirley Manson)”