Chairlift - Bruises (This year's "Heartbeats"/"Young Folks")

this is certainly a choice!

https://www.stereogum.com/1974416/caroline-polachek-pulls-out-of-moogfest-over-lineup-announcement/news/

i support this. she doesn't want to be enlisted in political grandstanding without her consent.

someone at MOOGfest should have been conscientious enough to consider giving the artists a heads-up that this was how the lineup was getting rolled out, but I think Polachek could have handled this a little more professionally too. it's of course her choice if she doesn't want to play but it's still sad to see this kind of discord from two parties that ostensibly are pretty simpatico in their view of the world.

There's no question that the tweet is tokenistic as hell, but outright bailing seems like an extreme response to me idk xp

"political grandstanding" seems like a bordering-on-bad-faith reading of this. I'm just looking at the tweet though, i don't know if there was more to the announcement or not.

whether it is a worthy cause or not they didn't consult the artists as to whether they were OK with being enlisted in it

caroline polachek doesn't have to be a gender activist if she doesn't want to

Support Caroline on this one!

I have a lot of memories of friends experiencing a very particular kind of conflicted doubt when they get invited to all-female festivals. I can only imagine all those feelings compressed into a shock when learning about it after signing up. moogfest & emmy parker are definitely not grandstanding though, and I liked their response

the CEP solo album has a balance to it, the way her melodies give way after the opening pieces to longform sinewave textures. like hiroshi yoshimura & eliane radigue on the same bus. sounds great loud.

It does strike me as about 40 years too late to curate electronic music festivals around gender. Among musical genres, academic/experimental electronic composition has been the most friendly to female composers, and the most eager to fete female pioneers, at least since I first started paying attention in the 80s.

Milton - that polachek solo album is great!

She sounded strong vocalizing with John Cale recently at the Brooklyn Academy of Music.

yeah I'm usually surprised at people not having heard her solo album -- it's way better than the last chairlift record

"From Ottawa to Osaka" sounds like a textural nod to her solo record; but the last chairlift record is so uneven it's probably for the best they split so they can both focus on their own projects.

'Amanaemonesia' just popped up on shuffle play and blew me away all over again. I still can't believe how much of a step forward Something was from their debut, and even moreso how they went completely to shit afterwards.

Definitely one of the best singles in the respective year. Follow up was super patchy, some songs felt like they may have fit better on Caroline’s solo record, which was very good.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7w6R4I7I3wA

absolutely phenomenal imo

beautiful song

song & video are both incredible, very excited for this record. was a little worried that she said in this interview that Danny L Harle co-produced 2/3rds of the record but he was apparently involved on "Door" so it should be fine

Wow, I'm blown away by this. Agree that video is just as incredible as the song. Suddenly very excited for her album now.

It's a nice song, but there's a limit to how much I want to hear her in ballad mode. Generally prefer the upbeat tracks.

What struck me here is how much the vocal technique she (over)relies upon mimics overt autotune.

omg I love this

This is so good!

That last Chairlift album was underrated too.

True

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=19ku7o_25wU
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T6HDrFxDVX8

two more tracks, nice but not stunning in the way that "door" was

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8NTUY-jP47I

Apparently the album is out on October 18th. Going by these singles, it's shaping up to be quite special.

I like em all so far! Door still the standout though

I did not expect to like this as much as I do (still not really into "So Hot You're Hurting My Feelings," not sure why, on any axis) but I do, also from what I've heard it is somehow the closest to a sarah brightman album I am likely to get (exaggeration but it is definitely conversant with classical/new age stuff)

Does this mean she's pretty much abandoned the more upbeat pop songs?

not exactly, no

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jZtUJ4b2jsw

another wonderful single, extremely excited for this

unsurprisingly this rules. kinda sequenced weirdly with the most pop moments right near the end though

Loved all the tracks that have dropped so far; Hit Me Where It Hurts is doing it for me the most of the new tracks.

that's probably one of the weaker ones for me, my favourites of the new ones are "pang" and "shut up caroline". "door" and "so hot you're hurting my feelings" are some of the very best songs i've heard this year still

this album is so sick

as a white man I can't believe the misogynists at pfork only gave this a 7.3. ;)

(sorry)

About 2/3rds of this album is great; the rest that isn't sounds like something made by the kind of white woman Kelela called her out for being.

what does that mean?

she wrote "n***as" on her instagram last year, quoting a lyric, and kelela saw it and was understandably mad about it

she wrote it uncensored that is

"Pang" is an excellent Dave Matthews Band rewrite, "Caroline Shut Up" is excellent, period. Sometimes she's too in love with the sound of her voice.

i don't blame her too much when she has a voice like that

over a full album the static tempos make this feel a little inert but I love so much of it, definite Imogen Heap vibes

Caroline Polachek has coronavirus :(

Do you have a source on that? I don’t see any news site or social networks reporting anything about it.

which one of y’all gave caroline polachek coronavirus pic.twitter.com/pjy17xaVab

— original visual (@poppysdaddi) March 14, 2020

yeah surprising that pitchfork or whoever didn't pick up on it. but it was in her ig story