Swansong from this experimental lo-fi indie rock duo. I first discovered The Secret Stars through the album Ten Small Paces by Ida, which contains not only a cover of "Shoe-In", but a song called "Les Étoiles Secrètes" that's about falling in love while listening to The Secret Stars and talking about how great they are.
Based on Ida's precious, uniformly pretty sound, I remember expecting more of the same -- maybe rougher around the edges. But surprise, surprise: while their sound is in fact rooted in sweetly sad, lo-fi slowcore, there's a strong presence of experimental tape-loop noise, as well as diversions into sloppy, raucous indie rock. There's even a Crass shout-out.
Track listing:
1. Haphazard Joy
2. Shoe-In
3. Melt
4. N29, It's Alright
5. Can U Feel It?
6. The Four Senses
7. SERC
8. Sister, Brother
9. Trance Hall Storm
10. 5,000,000,000
11. Some Sinatra
12. The Mode-E
13. The Vitamin-V
14. We Have Been Schooled By...
15. Release Form
16. Back in the Car
Home is here, anyway
Or wherever I say
You should also hear:
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| Lullaby for the Working Class - I Never Even Asked for Light (1997) |
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| Damien Jurado - Ghost of David (2000) |
Had the exact same album-progression myself, from Ida to The Secret Stars, "can't believe how good they are".
ReplyDeleteAwesome! I think the only thing I had by them before was the live ep they had with Ida, Low and His Name Is Alive. Really enjoyed this!
ReplyDeleteSide project of Geoff Farina from Karate!
ReplyDelete