soccer mommy

"circle the drain" is quite easily one of the best indie rock songs of the year, "night swimming" and "yellow is the color of her eyes" are also knockouts. both surprised and not to find out that the producer she worked w/ also did the last war on drugs record -- this album is shimmery and enveloping in a similar way to me. generally i just love the textures throughout.

she's a very direct and efficient lyricist, love that kind of writing. "gray light" has some incredible lines

I really like "Royal Screw Up" but my daughter assures me that it's because I tend to like songs of that type

ready to fight over this album

No need, it's a good one

swam back to the shoreline
and found that all you left me was a note
i read it slow
you said that you had loved me
but you knew that you would end up on your own
a sinking stone

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Oji9RtJkNu4

the gentle fog of noise enveloping her in this performance ._.

i want someone who's following a dream
someone like me
who feels the air inside their body running free
i want the breeze

well the moon is in the water
and i'm dancing with the current and my clothes
are on the beach
you stay with the earth
cuz you don't understand why i would wanna freeze
the irony

we learned to dance, and i was swaying all alone
you're stiff as stone
you lock your heart up in a place i'll never know
the distance grows

Loved this album until the lockdown put me in a different headspace.
Still, first time in ages an indie rock record has grabbed me like this, in much the same ways as those of my youth (ok boomer)

Ya I'm with you baaderonix -- I was super-excited in the run-up to the album release,really looking forward to seeing her play later in March to kick off the spring concert season, and then.....

I guess my attachment to the record must have been a superficial one, because it got sloughed off as totally as a snake's shed skin. Except that's not an accurate metaphor, because the self that emerged is smaller than the one I had before.

Anyone listening to the singles series she's been releasing?

One of these songs sounds like "Lose Yourself"

Dug this out after a long while and it still hits the spot. Maybe even better suited for this weird late summer.

it's so good, i want to listen to it all the time

Definitely a standout album of the year for me. I still haven't absorbed all of the lyrics yet - its all about the textures of the songs for me.

I'm already nostalgic for the first time I heard this album just before lockdown. It feels like that was a complete different age. What a weird year.

Jordan I dipped into this because of a rec you made on twitter, ty

:)

i checked it out under similar circumstances so i'm happy to pass it along

Yep this very good album was a J0rdan inspo for me too

i love this album from 1997

lol, yes

crawwwwllllliiiiiing in myyyyyyyy skiiiin
crawwwwllllliiiiiing in myyyyyyyy skiiiin

crawwwwllllliiiiiing in myyyyyyyy skiiiin
crawwwwllllliiiiiing in myyyyyyyy skiiiin

― mellon collie and the infinite bradness (BradNelson), Thursday, January 28, 2021 10:32 AM (seven months ago) bookmarkflaglink

were you at the show tonight brad? i was thinking of you when they played that song & added the whole like synth led jammy outro that blew my socks off

i was not there but the person i'm dating was!! which inspired me to listen to the album last night. i am jealous of both you and her for getting to experience that synth outro

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3EO18qI8r3I

kkb remix of "rom com 2004" is cool

New album produced by.. Oneohtrix Point Never!?!

not a combo that really makes any real sense and i would not have really guessed based on the single

Makes as much sense as opn working with The Weeknd I guess. Dude trying to expand his palette / resume I guess

did anyone listen to the single from last year

obv shotgun is more normal than rom com but the choice doesn’t feel out of nowhere

i liked that one a lot more than this one

it's an interesting choice for a lead single considering how immediately hooky "circle the drain" was, this feels more jagged and smeared by comparison. but i do like it, you can def hear lopatin's synth work in the mix in a cool way

Really like Shotgun, so I went back and tried Color Theory again and...it's still mostly a bore. Clean was such a great album, though, and I dig the sonics and structure of Shotgun, so I'm cautiously looking forward to the new LP.

"Shotgun" is incredible and to me a lot more immediate than anything she's ever done before

Weird. For me,it’s been a real grower. Was disappointed when I first heard it. Thought it sounded pretty generic. But that twangy beat made me come back and I now pretty much love it. Don’t hear any trace of OPN though

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gfNHwboQ0yU

very portishead s/t to my ears. lives way more up to "soccer mommy produced by opn" than "shotgun." i love it :)

otm with the Portishead comparison. I didn't much like Color Theory outside of "Circle the Drain" which remains brilliant. Definitely eager to hear more of this.

This album is going to be the best album

not entirely sure what to make of this, obvious mezzanine/third vibes. i do think the drumming is pretty sick.

i've heard the album. it's very textural and production centric, as opposed to color theory which feels far more hooky & songwriter-driven by comparison. as a color theory stan i haven't quite wrapped my head around it, but there's some great songs no doubt. i think "unholy affliction" is one of the more dissonant ones but i have only listened a few times. there's some good rock songs tho

she plays this live version of "crawling in my skin" that has this noisy freakout outro w/ feedback swirling everywhere and drums pummeling and synths diving in and out of the mix. there's definitely a throughline from this to the album as well. this version on KEXP is a bit truncated compared to when i saw her show but the sound is great

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WS0gznOYZUw

"rom com 2004" is the one that makes this all make sense to me, it feels like some of these songs are disintegrating in real time - hooks and choruses strong enough to withstand their own deconstruction, but lyrics and feelings enhanced by this sense of chaos and crumble around them

Is that a new drummer on the KEXP recording? It gives the whole band more drive.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m1kaQCMB1q8

another stunner

honestly prob my favorite thing i've heard from her barring my favorite song of all time "crawling in my skin"

Yet another banger

I've just bought a ticket to see her live in autumn based on that song.

ooh this one's good

Oh good, so it wasnt just me then! Agree that it might be her best song.

after the other two singles i feel like i have a firmer idea of what "shotgun" was doing and i'm now very excited for this album, seems on track to be her best

"Driver" sounds just like Belly or Julianna Hatfield to me, but there's nothing wrong with that

still no pfork review, kinda strange

(ftr I started listening to this and found myself losing interest pretty quickly, I should give it another shot but maybe that's the feeling over there too)

This sounds great but veers at times into “adult alternative” territory

Yeah, this is a little more sleepy than I'd hoped, especially after how much I loved the last one, but it still has some great moments. "Abigail" is gorgeous.

i never clicked w/ the last album. i admire her experimentation but it feels like that album was more about exploring different production ideas than it was about the songwriting. i love 'color theory' so much that i was prob always bound to be let down by the follow up, but it feels like an ill-fitting album in her catalog to me. i still find it interesting that when she did the acoustic shows this year she played zero songs from 'sometimes, forever.' perhaps that's just a reflection of how she needs/wants to perform the songs and less of a repudiation of the album, but even in that case it still aligns w/ my feeling that it's an outlier album

i think that this album is a bit too ornate for its own good in the first half -- i still think the version of "lost" that she performs on solo electric guitar is a total knockout whereas the recorded version pushes it into a different sonic/emotional territory that doesn't hit as hard. but i think the second half of this album is the strongest stretch across any of her non-'color theory' albums. "abigail" -> "thinking of you" -> "dreaming of falling" -> "salt in wound" just feels like a total sweet spot for her, imo, leaning back into the 90's rock sound of chiming guitars and atmospheric synth haze that she nailed on 'color theory'. she gets back to foregrounding lyrics, melody & riffs on those songs and as much as i respect her restlessness when it comes to production, i don't think she needs to do much deviating from that space to make some of the best rock music around

She's cancelled her European tour. I was hoping to see her in Warsaw next Wednesday 😔

she was good in Glasgow last week, but it did feel a little flatter than when I saw her before. She's a popstar I find myself worrying about - touring an album this heavy must really take its toll and I hope she's alright.

seeing her show really cements just how many excellent songs she's written. Most acts would kill for a song like "Circle The Drain" or "Shotgun" and for her they're like, things you play near the start as you build up towards the even bigger crowdpleasers.

Apparently she dropped off the lineup of a festival in Amsterdam rather abruptly, I hope she's okay.

Dream pop version of Pavement - Gold Soundz works weirdly well.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TJ3ozMQpXl0

that's great

been playing "bones" on repeat again for whatever reason. production on that song is unspeakably perfect

and it's just a beautiful song, "i'm trying to be someone that you could love and understand, but i know that i'm not" is a feeling i know deeply, but i love the added complexity of the second verse, where it implies the narrator's approach to love is part of what's causing the distance