Tag: Nation Of Language

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Playlists

Playlist: New tunes from 2023, part three

Ok. Fine. I’m really late with this one. I typically try to post my quarterly updates to my ongoing playlist featuring new tunes of the year within a couple of weeks of the end of the quarter. We’re getting near the middle of November and it’s already starting to feel like winter. Summer would normally be a distant memory… except…

Except it was an excellent summer.

I started off July at Ottawa’s Bluesfest and saw some excellent sets of music over the course of its just over a week and a half duration. Then, a road trip at the end of that month brought new experiences, beaches, a hike on a mountain ridge, great food, and craft beer. In August, there was a hiking trip in Algonquin park and in September, a quick getaway to squeeze in the last dregs of summer. Definitely one to remember, especially with all the other craziness going on in the world.

Musically, there wasn’t a lot of new music that came across my desk that caught my ears and attentions. However, and as you will see below, what there was was all very excellent and in fact, many of the albums in which these songs appear will likely find their way on my on to my year end best albums list*.

If you want, you can check parts one and two of the playlist before you peruse further or you can just skip to the new songs below. If you’re one of those that find twenty-five tracks overwhelming and you just want some highlights, you could do worse than start with these:

      • Canadian singer/songwriter, Colter Wall, and his deep, deep voice are back with a new album and “Corralling the blues” is just a tumbleweed blowing across the deserted highway
      • “The narcissist” by one of my all-time favourite bands, Blur, spearheads a surprising new twist and turn for the band on its latest reunion album
      • Speaking of returns of favourite bands, the eight and half minutes of “Fables of the silverlink” shouts The Clientele from far and away and allows the echoes and reverb speak for themselves
      • Drab Majesty recently toured with Slowdive while supporting their new EP of dark and shadowy dream pop, of which “The skin and the glove” is the most upbeat and accessible
      • “Simmering” by Pale Blue Eyes is anything but – boiling over is more like it and like it a lot I do
      • Canadian indie pop quartet The Beaches invoke a lot of memories and laughs with “Shower beer”, just one of the many fun tracks on their latest
      • Soccer Mommy has released an EP of great covers by bands like R.E.M. and Slowdive but I am really digging her version of Sheryl Crow’s “Soak up the sun”

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

1. “Portrait of a clear day” Julie Byrne (from the album The greater wings)

2. “Independence day” Palehound (from the album Eye on the bat)

3. “Corralling the blues” Colter Wall (from the album Little songs.)

4. “The narcissist” Blur (from the album The ballad of Darren)

5. “Fables of the silverlink” The Clientele (from the album I am not there anymore)

6. “Close to the clouds” Art School Girlfriend (from the album Soft landing)

7. “Jaws” Dizzy (from the album Dizzy)

8. “Too far gone” Islands (from the album And that’s why dolphins lost their legs)

9. “The skin and the glove” Drab Majesty (from the EP An object in motion)

10. “Home” Hannah Georgas (from the album I’d be lying if I said I didn’t care)

11. “Morning zoo” Ratboys (from the album The window)

12. “Kisses” Slowdive (from the album Everything is alive)

13. “Simmering” Pale Blue Eyes (from the album This house)

14. “What’s the point in life” Coach Party (from the album Killjoy)

15. “Weak in your light” Nation Of Language (from the album Strange disciple)

16. “Between the past” Woods (from the album Perennial)

17. “Shower beer” The Beaches (from the album Blame my ex)

18. “Bug like an angel” Mitski (from the album The land is inhospitable and so are we)

19. “Stop talking” Will Butler + Sister Squares (from the album Will Butler + Sister Squares)

20. “Soak up the sun” Soccer Mommy (from the EP Karaoke night)

21. “Foreign land” Teenage Fanclub (from the album Nothing lasts forever)

22. “Dead man” Postdata (from the album Run wild)

23. “Everything at once” Bleach Lab (from the album Lost in a rush of emptiness)

24. “Cramps” Slow Pulp (from the album Yard)

25. “Snowman” Blonde Redhead (from the album Sit down for dinner)

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

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

*If I ever get it pulled together and drafted…

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 2020: #20 Nation Of Language “On Division St.”

<< #21    |    #19 >>

The story goes this way. Ian Richard Devaney’s band The Static Jacks had recently come apart and he was in a car with his father when his father put on a song he hadn’t listened to in many years: “Electricity” by Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark (aka OMD). It evoked a great measure of nostalgia in him and he decided to try to write a song in a similar vein. He never meant it to amount to anything but this playing around with synths eventually brought us a new synth pop act out of Brooklyn. Nation of Language became a trio when Devaney added Aidan Noell for more synths and vocal support and former Static Jacks guitarist Michael Sue-Poi on bass.

They released a string of EPs and singles between 2015 and 2020 but I didn’t get to hear the group until they released their aptly named debut, “Introduction, presence”, in 2020. And even then, I didn’t catch up with this fine album when it was first released in the spring. It took a Spotify playlist, ‘made especially for me’ sometime in the fall, to include a song that made my ears prick up, had me reaching for my iPad to discover what song was playing, and then, had me googling a band name that had previously escaped my attention.

That song was “On Division St.” by Nation of Language.

“A song so sweet
From back when I was born”

Originally released as a single back in 2018, it was re-recorded for our collective “introduction” and it was well met, indeed. It is a lovely and sad thing that feels like I’ve known it all my life, grew up listening to it during my ansgty teen years. It is just over three minutes of romance unrequited, a rain soaked black and white photograph, discarded scarf, and a single dried rose. It is a drum machine set to weep and a flickering and fluttering arpeggio of synths. It is a solo form dancing and singing to him or herself in the middle of a long emptied dancefloor, still waiting and hoping for the appearance of a dream.

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

Categories
Vinyl

Vinyl love: Nation Of Language “A way forward”

(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: Nation Of Language
Album Title: A way forward
Year released: 2021
Details: Limited edition, red/blue split

The skinny: One of the pitfalls of creating a Best album of the year list before the year in question is even over is that you’re bound to miss an album or two, one of which might’ve made it on to said list had it been heard in time. Such is the case with Nation Of Language’s terrific sophomore release “A way forward”. Given that it was released so late in the year, December 2nd, 2021, to be precise, I wouldn’t be surprised if I wasn’t the only music blogger kicking themself for not giving this one its due. I had really liked the New Order and OMD synth pop of the trio’s debut the previous year, the aptly named “Introduction, presence” but with all the craziness that was last December, I only gave “A way forward” a cursory spin upon its release. Then, early on in the new year, I happened upon their live performance at KEXP on YouTube and was completely blown away and drawn to rediscover the album. Not long after that I was procuring on of these exclusive, limited edition blue/red split vinyl pressings from Rough Trade and its been on my turntable off and on ever since.

Standout track: “Across that fine line”