Evolving Through the Sounds

Update from May 14th, 2022

1. The Power of the Heart (a Lou Reed Cover)

It took me years, streaming into the bleakest turbulences of my own inner voyage, to envision the prospect of making a monument of sincerity such as The Power of the Heart mine. Self-acceptance in an age of make-believes is what allows someone to find themselves, and it’s once emancipated from self-preservative escapism that one can navigate amongst the vestiges of their existence, which in turn leads one to simply be, as an individual and originator. Being liberated from the anguish of being seen for who I am is the reason why I didn’t feel the pressure to mimic Reed’s incarnation of the song nor was I constrained by the burden of having to emulate his intimate intent.

2. Black Country, New Road – Bread Song

I’ve been a fan of this band for quite a while now, but I guess it’s when Isaac Wood opened up about his struggles with mental health that I truly started paying more attention to his lyrics and his interviews rather than only look at their songs’ aesthetic. And now that Isaac elected to choose his health over the ever brighter lights Black Country, New Road shine under, what he shared and crafted remains forever more significant.

3. Alex G – End Song

I came across Alex G around the time he released his first album Race. Being a fan of Elliott Smith, Guided By Voices, Neutral Milk Hotel and everything lo-fi, a Japanese friend directed me to his MySpace page and I kept following his evolving and transformative creative universe since. I got very intrigued when I first heard that he would be the architect behind the soundtrack for the movie “We’re All Going to the World’s Fair”, especially as the theme of the movie — about the thin line between illusion and reality — greatly resonated within me. I have listened to the whole record countless times already.

4. bdrmm – Three

I first discovered BDRMM because I have always been following their record label, Sonic Cathedral, very closely. I didn’t pay too much attention to the band at first, but added their album to a playlist I have called “Maybe Not Today, Probably Tomorrow”, which is a personal space I created to make sure I wouldn’t forget to go back to something I felt was interesting but for which I wasn’t in the mood or didn’t have the time to properly dive in. BDRMM was one of those artists. I liked their music vibe, but it’s only when I started to closely listen that I kept going back to their albums, as a distant listener at first. When I read the article associated with the track “Three”, based on the substance abuse of the band’s frontman, Ryan Smith, I became a fan. Suddenly, I had somehow found something that had a deeper meaning, for me, in the band’s music following Smith’s inspiring humility and generous openness…

5. Iceage – All The Junk On The Outskirts

I’ve always liked Iceage, maybe because a vague early Nick Cave is reminiscing somewhere in their sound, or maybe it’s what appeared to me as a creatively emancipated attitude. I don’t know… But I’ve followed them ever since I heard their first album New Brigade. There was a lot for me to like. I didn’t know quite what it was until I heard Elias Bender Rønnenfelt’s interview, which I think was on Jehnny Beth’s podcast Start Making Sense. He shared about literature, along with his vision regarding art and culture. And then, I knew.

6. William Basinski & Janek Schaefer – …on reflection (one)

I discovered William Basinski by accident what feels like ages ago, when a friend and I were looking into the releases of German record label Raster-Noton. If noise and no-wave were my usual go-to music early on in my life, I found Basinski’s art as immensely inspiring as I found his creative process liberating. I found the meditative and contemplative nature of his work transcending like I rarely see in artists emulating such an ethereal atmosphere.

7. Lisa Mitchell – Let Me Stay Here

I’m usually pretty skeptical, if not truly cynical, about talent shows and whoever sees that type of entertainment platforms for something else than an elusive fast track to stardom, a fizzling one if any. I know it is totally judgmental on my part, but I got fooled by my own arrogance and self-loathed pretension when I heard Lisa’s new album A Place To Fall Apart…

Not only was I captured by her profoundly spiritual voice and deeply moved by the purity of the emotions she evoked within me, I even told myself that she was everything the music business was missing out on nowadays. Then I dug a little deeper in her discography, only to discover that she was part of Australian Idol back in 2006, which made me feel totally ridiculous, especially knowing that I keep saying that “true art is about heart and soul”. If the mantra remains, Lisa’s music reminded me that no matter the path we decide to take, what’s eternal doesn’t have anything to do with our starting point, my first EP with Your Favorite Enemies being quite a good example…! In the same line of idea, I also believe that where we hope to end up doesn’t have any kind of significance either. I think that it’s what we discover somewhere in between that transforms us in what we keep on evolving in…

8. Gentle Heat – WDYG

I recently discovered that band from Chicago on Paste Magazine and really fell for their song. For some odd reasons, it reminded me of the likes of Matthew Sweet, whose music is not only on my ’90s music guilty pleasure playlist — a playlist that features the song Sick of Myself, that Sef and I played way before we started writing our own music in 2005. I hadn’t thought of this in ages… thank you, Gentle Heat! Can’t wait for your new album!