🎵 Frankie Cosmos - Jesse: A conservative estimate would be that I’ve listened to this song somewhere around a million times in the past year.

I didn’t know, however, that the force behind Frankie Cosmos, Greta Kline, is the daughter of married couple Kevin Kline and Phoebe Cates. There is something so gratifying about the child of two film celebrities making music this wonderfully understated.

RIYL K Records, Teenbeat Records

🎵 The patron saints of indie pop, The Pains of Being Pure at Heart, have broken up. I can’t pretend that I’m not bummed out by this news. I enjoyed all of their records, right up to, and including, the full-length cover of Tom Petty’s Full Moon Fever. I had hoped they would have a couple more albums in them before unplugging the guitar cables for good. A more derivative band I don’t think I can honestly name, but what was it that was said about great artists stealing? The Pains combined their many influences into a sound that you don’t hear much anymore.

Kip Berman, the band’s principal, made the announcement via Instagram.

Since the rotating cast of characters ended up in so many other great bands, it was cool to see Kip call them out in “what are they up to now?” style.

🎵 DIIV - Blankenship: This track, from the just released Deceiver album, is powerfully propulsive in the way the best songs by DIIV tend to be. There are explosive/angular bits that bring to mind Sonic Youth in the middle of some of their tuffest gnarls. With Deceiver, DIIV may not be as big as Nirvana, like singer/songwriter Zachary Taylor Cole predicted they would be by their third album, but they are still growing and continuing to stay interesting.

🎵 Hammock - Circular As Our Way: I’ve been sick recently, and this new cut, from the forthcoming Hammock album Silencia, has been soothing. If it were possible to encapsulate the entire magnificence of the dawn of creation in song, it would probably sound something like this track.

We have lost some legends in these last few weeks.

I didn’t spend formative years reading tomes like The Trouser Press Guide To 90’s Rock, the Spin Alternative Record Guide and such only to end up with algorithms making my playlists. However, the (human) Apple Music Editors who made this playlist have my undying affection.

🎵 April Showers - Abandon Ship: As far as I can tell, Glasgow’s April Showers only had one single. Their sound, while similar to contemporaries such as Sophie and Peter Johnson, also points the way to the aesthetic of later Glaswegian indie poppers Belle and Sebastian.

Getting ahold of this single seems like a crate digging expedition for some 80’s pop folklorist, but at least you can enjoy the song on YouTube.

🎵 Treatment - Solitary: Without any new sounds from bands like Roman a Clef and the Ice Choir in years, I have been starved for more good modern sophistipop. Thankfully, Treatment is coming to the rescue, with a full release in October and a single called ‘Solitary’ to whet the appetite.

via Fadeawayradiate

“I asked a painter why the roads are colored black. He said ‘Steve, it’s because people leave and no highway will bring them back.’”

~ Silver Jews, “Random Rules”

RIP Dave Berman

🎵 Ryan Porter - Force for Good: On Ryan Porter, bassist Miles Mosley, who plays with Porter, nails it.

Ryan’s music seeks to bring out the brightness in life. It’s pleasant, sultry. I’ve never heard anybody write instrumental like music that before. Ryan Porter writes luxurious music. It makes you feel better about your day.

Though I prefer his previous effort, The Optimist, on Force for Good Porter displays the same qualities that make his brand of jazz a unique offering.

🎵 Sambassadeur - Foot of Afrikka: This song, which evokes imagery of the burning sun of Africa, goes as well with summer as walking bare foot in freshly cut grass while drinking a glass of lemonade. Sambassadeur’s Swedish indie pop has a kind of gentle forcefulness to it. On this track, the clean guitar tones breeze things along, eventually giving way to a jazzy saxophone part that serves as a fitting outro.

RIYL Belle and Sebastian, Camera Obscura, etc.

🎵 Sonic Youth’s new Battery Park live album demonstrates much of why I usually don’t get into live show recordings. The songs just come across as inferior, sloppier versions of their better sounding studio recorded counterparts.

🎵Sleater-Kinney - Hurry on Home: This summer seems to be rushing in with a burst of music characterized by youthful energy, even when the performers themselves don’t necessarily fit the youthful profile. Sleater-Kinney has returned from dormancy, like the aughts never happened, with a new track fits right in with the wave of high-octane indie rock. It is jolting. Though it’s over-too-soon, the track unwraps a dense package of sounds in its less than 3 minutes of life.

The cover of the single, while ridiculous and not even completely safe for work, feels like an homage to Carrie Browstein’s other life as a comedian, stubbornly refusing to take herself too seriously.