From The Wire:

New electronic music compilation to help Hurricane Harvey victims in Texas
Laurel Halo and Chino Amobi contribute tracks to Praxis Houston

The really cool part is that Halo's track, "Sophon", was until now exclusive to the Japanese edition of Dust. So if you're like me and didn't spend degenerate amounts of dough trying to get that rare edish, here's your chance. Bandcamp!

So, this Pacific Northwest-based band Zen Mother opened for Xiu Xiu last year and caught my ear. I've got a friend who knows the members, and he's been pushing me to listen to their 2017 full length debut album, "I Was Made to be Like Her," and I finally remembered, and I think this band will have fans on this board if people stop to take a listen.



Their album is on Bandcamp, Apple Music, Spotify, etc. It's good moody droney, noisy, synthy rock that's menacing and kicks some ass.

I highly recommend this band.

You heard it here... Zen Mother. Good shit.

The new War on Drugs is about as good as you'd expect, if you're into those guys.

Same with Godspeed, though at this point I feel like a lot of their music is starting to feel a bit same-y.

Zen Mother is really cool. Nice rec.

Cool! You listened to Zen Mother! Awesome! So glad you liked it!

I fucking hate the War on Drugs. I consider them peak musical boringness, but I'm glad you are getting some enjoyment from their new album.

Re: Godspeed! -- haven't heard yet. Shame to hear it's samey. There's SO FUCKING MUCH material out there for GY!BE to draw from right now. Jesus, what the hell are they thinking?

I mean, the new Godspeed isn't bad, it just doesn't have any surprises. It's the same story with most bands who have been making music for over 20 years, really.

Still... I wanted to hear Trump voter quotes. I wanted to hear something fucking FIRED UP and apocalyptic. There’s so much material out there for this band to use.

But you’re right. I should lower my hopes and expectations. The formula isn’t going to change.

listening to godspeed in order to be surprised is pretty absurd though, right? like every piece of music they've ever made subscribes to a pretty clear formula, and irrespective of whether or not I like it people listen to them because they like that aesthetic, even if it is a complete artistic straitjacket

I disagree. For instance, I felt that their album Allelujah really broke some new ground, and I can still go back and listen to that album feeling like it's something unique. A lot of post-rock tends to blend together in my mind, much of it is formulaic and overdone, so I'm interested in the stuff that can break out of that mold.

Again, I don't dislike the album, I just think they've done better.

to be honest i'm not really in a position to sispute that because I haven't listened to them since I was 13, I just remember being at ATP hearing them through a wall as htrk then the dead c were playing, and every 10 minutes there would be a big crescendo, and it confirmed suspicions that seemed pretty clear to me even as a young'n, that they sounded like a fair trade starbucks blend

Hmm... At first I was pretty into “Allelujah! Don’t Bend, Ascend!” but after a while it started to sound a bit like a series of not-quite-finished thoughts from the “Lift Yr Skinny Fists Like Antennas to Heaven” era. It still knocked the shit out of a lot of other indie-and-post-rock-type stuff from that year (2012, yeah?) and it had some seriously cool moments, but I think my opinion on it now is that it didn’t really add anything too substantial to the band’s canon or identity.

Granted, it’s been a while since I listened to it, so I should probably revisit it before saying much, but that’s how I kinda left things with that album. I do feel that it was better than the follow-up — “Asunder...” — but I think that album was more fully formed. And actually I think one of the reasons I like “Allelujah...” more is that it has sort of a spontaneous, jammy feel to it, which actually is/was kind of a new thing for the band if you think about it. All their albums are just so meticulously arranged and for that one to have more of a “fuck it let’s play stuff” feel may well qualify as “breaking new ground” — not in a general sense, but for GY!BE.

I’ve listened to two tracks from the new album and I’m a little disappointed. Like you said, it’s not bad, but it’s also not particularly good for a band like this. I’m sure there’s some genuine fire and fury behind the intention of the music, but it doesn’t really come across as being particularly fiery or furious because the music itself sounds so freaking much like GY!BE. This isn’t a bad thing — most bands sound like themselves, after all, and I like the band’s sound and approach in general, but after 20 years and one lengthy break-up/hiatus-type-thing, it might be nice to hear a slightly different side of GY!BE.

It’s hard not to think of Portishead when talking about older (or, I guess, more seasoned) bands returning from a hiatus and making something new and vital. For all the bands that have gone away and come back over the last 10-15 years, no band has returned quite as well as Portishead, whose “comeback” album mixed some of the groups’s more traditional elements with a whole MESS of new ideas and weird-ass sounds and styles, deconstructing and rebuilding their sonic palette in a very modern way. And “Third” did the impossible in that it’s actually a better and more interesting album than either of the classics that preceded it.

I think Godspeed had it in them to make a “Third”-level late career masterwork that stayed true to their essence, but also took their sound into new and different territory, but apparently I was either just plain wrong, or the members have no desire to use the GY!BE name to do any such experimentation or reinvention.

Still... it’s GY!BE. They’re a good band, and their music will probably always be good. But I think I’m done holding out hope that it will ever sound truly great, or essential, or brilliant again. :( But at least we have their first four albums, and we can listen to those and think back to when that particular sound did indeed feel vital and urgent and powerful. It’s more than most bands manage in a career.

Ok, I do agree that expecting something surprising from this band is a bit silly at this point. BUT... that’s not really what I was getting at when I said I had high hopes for the new album. I wasn’t saying I thought it was going to, or should, sound surprising or different from their “classic” material. Rather, I meant that there is a lot happening in the world’s current geo-political and social-economic climate for this particular band to draw from to potentially make music that is on a par with their unsettling early work. Those albums (“F#A#∞,” “Slow Riot for New Zero Kanada,” “Lift yr Skinny Fists...,” “Yanqui U.X.O.”) used a multimedia-based approach to instill the music with a sense of dread and urgency. Samples of unsettling conversations, loops of advertisements, and so on, were a huge part of what made that music sound special. I think the band members were inspired to make some truly epic and lasting music by things that were happening in the world, in the periphery of cultural consciousness.

What I meant was that, Jesus, right now, there is some truly bone-chilling, terrifying shit happening right out in the open, threatening political systems and ways of life on the global level, just RIPE for the picking, and I thought GY!BE might be well-suited to tackle some of this stuff in a way that would inspire some really memorable — if not new or surprising — music.

“Lift Yr Skinny Fists...” is a double album filled with these massive track lengths, but the songs are truly unforgettable as individual pieces of music. I don’t really feel like that’s been the case with either of their 2010s records. The songs just sound like Godspeed, and don’t leave much of a lasting impact. I was, perhaps naively, hoping that the absolute apocalyptic fucked-upendness of the Trump era might inspire some GY!BE songs that hit hard and stayed fresh in one’s mind, like “The Dead Flag Blues,” or “Blaise Bailey Finnegan III,” or “Storm,” or “Attention Mon Ami Fa-Lala-Lala-La-La” (really ALL of the movements on Skinny Fists.) Those tracks get stuck in my head like pop songs, and pack a punch even 18 years later.

I just thought... maybe there was enough material out there to inspire another “peak” Godspeed record. Not something surprising... just something really fucking good.

I suppose I should wait to pass judgment until I’ve heard the album in full, a few times, but based on what I have heard and what gogologogolo (weird username, dude!) has said, I don’t think I’m going to get my wish, and I doubt this album is the kind of GY!BE album I was hoping for.

But yeah, all of their music sounds pretty similar. Crescendos and stuff. Drones and stuff. More crescendos and stuff. Yep. But if it’s inspired and captivating, that’s good enough for me. If it’s just Godspeed going through the motions for the sake of making something Godspeedy, I’m kinda over all of that.

teresa winter - untitled death. i snatched it on a whim without knowing anything about it. i love it when that works out. it's kinda ambient, but pretty unusual. electronic skitterings, hushed vocal oohs and ahs, and unidentifiable dronings.

B Boys - Dada

very refreshing young post-punk band, quite raw

Hey, I’ve got this playing right now. Nice, slippery, spastic bass and chugging, tweaky guitars. I dig. The lyrics aren’t perhaps the best they could be, but otherwise, nice stuff. Thanks for the rec.

I don't often get excited anticpation for new releases but i am excitedly anticpating the forthcoming Harry Pussy live LP

New Rhapsody album, “Laila’s Wisdom,” is totally worth hearing.

Discovered this awesome band called Re-TROS that's based in Beijing. https://re-tros.bandcamp.com/ They play something at the intersection of post-punk techno and prog. I really haven't heard much like it.

Which makes me wonder what's going on in the Chinese underground music scene. I almost never hear about bands from China. There have got to be a ton of great bands out there that haven't reached the west yet.

Soup where are you??????

Deluxe reissue series starting for Wilco!!

deluxe version of AM, and 5CD (FIVE SEE DEE) version of Being There out on Rhino in December!!!!!

PREORDERS UP NOW!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

So nobody has mentioned Neil Young's Hitchhiker album yet? Shame on you guys! I'm liking it a lot, even though it's a bit on the short side and most songs are already known and some of them even in better versions than on this album (Powderfinger especially can't beat the live electric guitar version with Crazy Horse on e.g Weld). But still it's a very nice album.
I also bought On The Beach at the same time, one of those albums I wanted to buy for a long long time but never got around to.