rip damo & the importance of the super long song
read to the end for a super weird "fast car" cover
RIP Damo Suzuki, whose work with CAN is their loose, tribalistic peak, and therefore the peak of krautrock overall.
A peak Millennial experience was hearing a bunch of extremely long, weird songs from your friends who went to college the year before you. The generational impact of burned copies of Lift Your Skinny Fists Like Antennas To Heaven making their way from the dorms to the suburbs? Unrivaled! I first heard Damo’s voice on a (yes) burned CD of Tago Mago when my friend got back from his first semester at college, and like Godspeed, it was entrancing to listen to a song take shape far outside of what I had known – not jam music, but something pulsing and strange that wriggled uncomfortably on first listen. The sense of forbidden knowledge beyond the eight minute mark was real – and Damo’s voice always brings me back to those first strange listens of music from a larger world. RIP.
No Good Links this week, unless you want to read this super sad story about divorce.
As always, you can follow along on our playlists on Spotify and Apple Music, which update every Tuesday along with the newsletter. Enjoy!
Operator Music Band – As It Goes
An unexpected club banger from Brooklyn’s Operator Music Band! I really loved member Dara Hirsch’s solo single from the other week as Datadata, and there’s a similar squelchy bounce here that makes “As It Goes” irresistable.
Jessica Pratt – Life Is
Jessica Pratt finds a full band, but still is on the precipice of heartbreaking, spectral knowledge on “Life Is.”
Tomato Flower – Temple of the Mind
Baltimore indie pop that feels like a split between Elephant 6 bedroom psych and the erudite dinky grooves of TOPS. I really loved their single “Red Machine” from a few years back, and I’m stoked to hear their new record No drops March 8th!
Omni – Compliment
Charming post-punk from Atlanta that almost nears a paisley pop moment but always takes the stranger hallway when presented with a chord change. Stoked on their upcoming new LP out on Friday!
Slaughter Beach, Dog – I’m In Love
Stereogum called this out as sounding like 90’s Wilco, and that’s spot on – like a wooly, familiar Big Star single played by your city’s best bar band.
throwback
Jim O’Rourke – Fast Car (Live in Japan 2002)
Lots of love for Tracy Chapman these days thanks to Luke Combs’ cover and their charming Grammy performance – but Jim O’Rourke slowly dissecting and reassembling “Fast Car” in 2002 is the take on the track that’s stuck with me the last few weeks. The song starts breaking into increasingly chaotic fractals at the six minute mark, to come back together with O’Rourke repeating the song’s last line over and over again. It’s strange and heartbreaking!