(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.”
Well, folks, here we are at the precipice of a new year and I’m wrapping up the old one, crumpling it up like an off-scribbled on piece of foolscap, and jettisoning it in favour of new ideas… but not before celebrating my favourite piece of work that 2023 had to offer.
“Everything is alive”is Slowdive’s fifth studio album and second since re-forming back in 2014. Their original run spanned only six years from 1989 to 1995 but it was a prolific period resulting in 3 LPs, 5 EPs, and a handful of singles. The five players moved in different directions when they were dropped from Creation Records, a victim perhaps of the flagging shoegaze scene with which they were lumped, a flash fire that passed as quickly as it started. The lineup that performed on the group’s debut album – Neil Halstead, Rachel Goswell, Nick Chaplin, Chris Savill, and Simon Scott – announced a string of reunion shows nine years later and they’ve stuck together ever since then.
Slowdive has appeared a few times on these pages already, including placing number two with their triumphant return, the self-titled album, on this blog’s inaugural end of year, best albums list in 2017, and in pretty much every post I’ve referenced how I wasn’t super-enthused with them during their first go-round as a band. My attitude has, of course, changed and I now fully appreciate what they were doing back then and it goes with saying that I am completely enamoured with their new work.
“Everything is alive” got its start as many of Slowdive’s albums do, with principal songwriter Neil Halstead writing and demoing by himself. He had originally envisioned the album as more austere and electronic based. The recording sessions were then planned for the spring of 2020 but were in the end impacted and informed, as pretty much every album over the last three years has been, by the COVID-19 pandemic and resulting lockdowns. The recording of the album was pushed back and then spread out over various sessions and locations. But for the band, these were all joyous occasions when they finally happened, being the first time they had seen each in months and perhaps the first time they had seen people other than those with whom they were living for the same amount of time. This positivity likely informed the mood of the record and the original concepts for these songs were enlarged and expanded and became a representation of the band and their mood as a whole.
Indeed, “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.
There is so much to love here that I wanted to pick all eight songs and run through each for you but in recognition that we’ve only got a few hours left to make 2023 brighter, I’ve managed to narrow down my picks for you to three.
“Alife“: Track three was the final single to be released in advance of the album and was the first one to be finished for it. It starts with a ringing and jangling guitar line and Rachel Goswell adds a set of vocals that are just as ethereal.”Two lives are hard lives with you.”And this is a theme that continues throughout, setting out a mysterious balance against Neil Halstead’s slightly more straightforward narrative. But really, it’s all just a whirlpool of sound and cyclical tones, a hint of relationship struggles, a blockage of communication, diverting wishes and dreams, he said, she said, a billion voices, all looking for love in this difficult life.
“The slab”: The climactic track on the album is very much that, dense and heavy and intense, its title perfectly describing the sound rather than hinting at a narrative. The intro is just over a minute and a half of pounding drums and guitars that fritter and sizzle in repetitive drones and underneath it all is something a bit ominous, washes of deep synths, like black curtains in a black room, ponderous and striking. When the vocals do come in, it’s like Halstead is allowing us in to a conversation already in progress but not quite completely opening the door. The words seem like they’re purposefully incomprehensible, just adding to the mystery and mood of the piece. And at the end of the five minutes, as the sound fades, you’re left bereft and just want to restart it but before you can stop yourself, you’re already flipping the disc back to side one.
“Kisses”: The first advance single from this amazing album is the closest thing to a pop single I’ve heard from the group in a very long time. Though it does feel upbeat and perhaps a little structured for Slowdive, it still is very much a chill vibe. The drums provide clarity in just one of the many layers of gauze and cobwebs, chiming guitars echo off into eternity and Halstead’s and Goswell’s harmonies flit and flirt on the surface of a million mirrors refracting in upon themselves.”I know you dream of snowfields, floating high above the trees, living for the new thing, sometimes the new won’t do.”It is a perfect sampling of the joy that the five-piece is looking to spread about here, drumming up memories previously lost, and forcing you to face them and appreciate the good and the bad and how they shaped everything that came after.
In case you missed the previous five posts, here is the rest of the list:
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”
My (life in) music lists 