The Music Box.
Entries about the music I like.
Pinegrove – Pinegrove on Audiotree Live
In this piece, I navigate the intricate soundscapes of Pinegrove's Audiotree performance, set against the backdrop of the bustling city and its ubiquitous cafes. My exploration of indie studio sounds, alongside an introspective study of key indie bands, unravels a tale of life, hope, rejection, and the unending rhythm of the urban existence.
Bartika Eam Rai – Bimbaakash
Not all sadness is the same dad, he was trying to explain to his ageing father. Pa had spent much of the mid-seventies damming one of India’s major rivers with other ‘sons and daughters of the newly independent nation’. Come rain, come sleet, they bored through terrain, mixed concrete, fixed slabs, built barricades against portented landslides.
Sunny Day Real Estate – Diary
Inch by inch, then mile by mile, they corrode the core of you. Eating away at what some say is a soul while others disagree; who’s to say whose story adds up? Your dreams are set in concrete and glass, towering all around you. You – dwarfed, hunched over, lurking in the shadows – become one with them. All in or nothing, depending on which side of the bed you last graced.
Angel Olsen – Aisles EP
Listening to Angel Olsen’s Aisles has me thinking about the stories we tell ourselves and each other. Something about these slow-burning covers of 80s hits like Safety Dance and Forever Young makes me jostle with the why-are-we-here and why-do-we-do-the-things-we-do variety of questions. Or maybe I was contemplative to begin with and just happen to be listening to Aisles.
Wilco – Yankee Hotel Foxtrot
Dropped on September 18, 2001, in an America deeply embroiled in that nation’s largest collective post-war trauma, Wilco's Yankee Hotel Foxtot became an accidental synecdoche. Sonically, the album captured something of the upheaval and incongruity of that era in the history of America and the world, while lyrically striking a tone of surreal apathy.
Taylor Swift — evermore
Taylor Swift released her second album of the year, evermore. In many ways it continues the indie-themed acoustic guitar rock of folklore. But it has a bite: an evolution on the themes of storytelling in folklore. It’s a marriage of two important question for every songwriter: how to write a good hook and how to write lyrics.
Peter Cat Recording Company — Bismillah
Anybody who talks about Indian indie talks about Peter Cat Recording Company. It’s the Indian independent music version of you like beatles? So it isn’t really a hot take to say, you like PCRC? But here goes: Bismillah is a great album.