I’m not sure if there are many bands in the indiesphere with a more surprising career trajectory than Milwaukee’s Collections of Colonies of Bees.
Having started out as a bluegrass/electronica side-project (that’s not a typo) of math rock heroes Pele, they became bastions of intricately composed post rock before eventually forming the experimental pop supergroup Volcano Choir with Bon Iver’s Justin Vernon.
If you’ve been following along for any length of time, you’ve probably picked up on the fact that I’m almost automatically a fan of anything with huge, thick walls of guitar noise.
It doesn’t matter if we’re talking about shoegaze, space rock, post rock, blackgaze, sludge metal, or whatever brand of guitar rock Lantlôs is putting out. If the guitars are loud, fuzzy, and slathered in reverb, I’m here for it.
So naturally, as soon as I heard the new album from Lake Michigan-area outfit Cloakroom, I was here for it.
Sucker that I am for post rock, I’ve never given much time to Ireland’s God Is An Astronaut. I’ve heard the name plenty, and I had a couple of their albums on one of my work playlists, but I never paid close attention to it.
But when I saw that they released a new record, I made a note of it. I haven’t noticed many good post rock records this year, and I had a hunger.
And by God (who is an astronaut), this record satisfies that hunger.
Public opinion is a fickle thing.
Once you catch the public’s attention, it can be difficult to keep it. A hit single is no guarantee that you’ll maintain relevance. Just ask any of the hundreds of artists deemed “one-hit wonders.”
But a number of these alleged one-hit wonders actually have long and storied careers that the general public has largely ignored.
And by God, it makes me so irritated.
Today, I’m counting down my favorite bands whose best work went mostly unnoticed.
If I were to ask you to imagine a female singer-songwriter, there’s a good chance your mind would go to a subdued, pensive artist, a la Joan Baez or Julien Baker.
But lately, there’s been a crop of women whose particular brand of introspection is better accompanied by rattling, detuned guitars and a pummeling rhythm section than an acoustic guitar. Women like Kristina Esfandiari of King Woman and Chelsea Wolfe.
Hipster music snob that I am, the depths of my musical knowledge is riddled with blind spots. For example: until last week, I realized that I had never knowingly listened to Dinosaur Jr. Continue reading
Last fall, my band was driving between cities, sharing music with eachother o the road. At one point our bassist pipes up, “have you guys ever heard Dawes?” He grabs the aux cable and plays a song.
My immediate thought was, “dang, this is pretty boring.”
Throughout their career, Beach House has consistently written textbook-perfect dream pop. Teen Dream is a bonafide masterpiece. It topped nearly every 2010 year-end list, and with good reason. Bloom was similarly brilliant.
When Depression Cherry dropped in 2015, it hit all of the same notes. But I started wondering if the world needed another Beach House record. Two months later, they released Thank Your Lucky Stars, and the question got louder.
Now that they’ve released their seventh LP, the music world is left pondering this quandary once again.
I can hear you now. “Hey, I thought this blog got updated daily. What gives?”
Or, “hello,” as people used to say. But yes. It’s been a while since my last post. My wife and I were taking a shirt vacaion last weekend to visit family, but during that trip I got an email from my boss in Florida offering to fly me down to meet Ric Flair, who is a client of ours.
I didn’t hesitate. But, that weekend away turned into a whole week away pretty quickly, and when you’re dealing with a blog chronicling a vinyl collection, it gets hard to take the show on the road.
So the blog’s been quiet, but my life has not been. And neither have my headphones. I used all of my travel time as an opportunity to dive into a bunch of different bands that I had previously overlooked. And, there’s a great record store in St. Pete’s where I acquired a bt of a backlog that I need to go through now.
In the meantime, here’s me and Ric Flair.
Also, I’ve been thinking for a while about starting a podcast to talk about my favorite records with friends, and the more I talk about, the more serious I get about it. Now, I’m brainstorming show formats, researching licensing laws, and putting together a list of records and guests, so I guess you could say things are getting pretty serious (yes, that was a Napoleon Dynamite quote).
But now, I’m back home, and ready to spin some records. Regular posts will resume shortly.
There is no curse greater than a masterpiece, and no one knows that better
than Deafheaven.