These New Puritans - Field of Reeds (2013)

These New Puritans really had an extraordinary first-3-album arc, moving from post-punk revival to percussive art rock to experimental chamber music with such precision that each of those albums could rightly be considered their best. (The fourth one's really great, too; it just wasn't such a massive shift.)

For me, though, Field of Reeds is an all-out masterpiece. A series of haunting, elusive songs grappling with the (possibly futile) search for meaning, understanding, or connection, against a musical backdrop of piano, woodwinds, horns, strings, synths, and spare percussion. Although there is at least one obvious predecessor -- Mark Hollis -- the mood that this album sets is truly unlike anything else I've heard: always drifting in the liminal space between the beautiful and the sinister without ever fully committing to either one. This sense of constant unease and uncertainty is not for everyone, but at least a few of you are about to discover a new all-timer.

Just want to add this bit from the liner notes regarding the title of the first track, because I love how annoyed they sound: "The opening track originated from a field recording made by Jack Barnett of an amateur singer half-recalling fragments of a song. TNP were unaware of the original song until completion of recording 'The Way I Do' [original title]. Since then the trustees of Bacharach and David's songwriting material have demanded that the title of the half-recalled song be used in place of TNP's title."

Track listing:

1. This Guy's in Love with You

2. Fragment Two

3. The Light in Your Name

4. V (Island Song)

5. Spiral

6. Organ Eternal

7. Nothing Else

8. Dream

9. Field of Reeds

Is there a prayer that just for a moment

real life and dreaming swap places?

Nothing else but this.

You should also listen to:

Rain Tree Crow - Rain Tree Crow (1991)

Gastr del Sol - Camoufleur (1998)

Flux of Pink Indians - Strive to Survive & Neu Smell (1989)

Unsurprisingly, I've been tripping down musical memory lane. This comp is a real formative punk classic for me that I've somehow managed to miss posting all these years. Strive to Survive... is easily a top 5 anarchopunk album, and Neu Smell is arguably the best Crass Records 7" that isn't by Crass. From an era in which it probably felt, for a second, like punk might actually amount to something resembling a political movement.

(I haven't actually listened to this rip, I'm listening to my physical copies, let me know if the rip sucks.)

Track listing:

Strive to Survive Causing the Least Suffering Possible

1. Song for Them

2. Charity Hilarity

3. Some of Us Scream Some of Us Shout

4. Take Heed

5. T.V. Dinners

6. Tapioca Sunrise

7. Progress

8. They Lie We Die

9. Blinded by Science

10. Myxomatosis

11. Is There Anybody There

12. The Fun Is Over

Neu Smell

13. Sick Butchers

14. Background of Malfunction

15. Poem

16. Tube Disasters

17. Poem End

Build up some speed, don't shut your eyes

Make sure that everyone in the train dies

You don't get no prize, no time to say goodbyes

Just smile everyone, you'll be on TV tonight

That's right

More peace punk that we would listen to in our cars driving around suburban Maryland:

Lost Cherrees - All Part of Growing Up (1984)

Toxic Waste - Belfast (1987)

Asunder - A Clarion Call (2004)

Not to sound like a broken record but: my friend died. No, not that one; a different one. Pat. The person who in middle school introduced me to punk rock as a lifestyle. Who I was lucky enough to call my best friend from my late teens through early 20s, before I got too old and cool to have "best friends." A beautiful, gentle man whose absurd sense of humor and small, sweet gestures made our awful reality just a little bit better.

I wish the world had been better to him.

I feel a deep, wrenching regret that I didn't try to reach out to him for so many years, to make sure that he knew how much he and his friendship meant to me, how deep my love for him was.

We have to say what we mean while we still can.

I am exhausted by grief. I'm tired of feeling it, of witnessing it, and of talking about it. Tired of more and more songs being added to the pile of songs that I can't listen to unless I have an hour to recover. But most of all, I am tired of losing friends. It's an inevitability of life, but for fuck's sake, I'm 42. Why do I know so many dead people?

Pat loved as wide a variety of music as I did. He was the first friend of mine who liked Springsteen -- I didn't get on board until years later, but I do have fond memories of walking around Towson Town Center with him, laughing my ass off as he screamed the lyrics to "Born in the USA". We got into and obsessed over Radiohead and Nine Inch Nails together. Eventually, by way of Dystopia and Grief, we got into doom metal. He fucking loved Asunder. I remember his MySpace page used to autoplay "Twilight Amaranthine". Here's A Clarion Call.

After I found out, I was digging around in crates, looking for my old notebooks, in which he and I used to jot down stupid ideas for joke bands, made up languages, drew unflattering sketches of mutual friends, shit like that. Pretty sure I hadn't looked in them for over a decade. Inside the front cover of one, I found a small, folded piece of paper. On the outside, it says "To Tim, Love from Pat. Happy birthday." Unfolded, the inside just says "I love you." It fucking wrecked me, and it's wrecking me right now just thinking about it. I love you too, Pat.

Brendan Walls - Cassia Fistula (2002)

Pure minimal drone from Australian composer Brendan Walls, with assists from Oren Ambarchi. If you, like me, haven't been able to shake that gnawing sense of dread for the past, oh, month or so, Cassia Fistula probably won't help, but it will transmute that anxiety into an aural form, so that instead of just feeling it, you can listen to it, too.

Track listing:

1. Section One

2. Section Two

3. Section Three

And when the sun is low

And the rays high

Similar vibes:

Coil - Constant Shallowness Leads to Evil (2000)

Mirror - I Paint for the Love of Color (2001)

The Dead Science - Bird Bones in the Bughouse (2004)

Previously on OPIUM HUM:
The Dead Science - Submariner (2003)

When I posted the above album, I actually wanted to post this EP because I like it just a little bit more, but I was unable to find either my copy of the CD or a decent rip. But I just found one of the latter, so we're in business. Favorites include the slowcore-ish "Film Strip Collage", which includes the line "garbage truck wants to fuck", and their cover of "Sign Your Name" by (the artist formerly known as) Terence Trent D'arby.

Track listing:

1. Ossuary

2. Gamma Knife

3. Film Strip Collage

4. Cuz She's Me

5. Sign Your Name

We started out as friends

But the thought of you just caves me in

Also listen to:

dEUS - The Ideal Crash (1999)

Honey Is Cool - Early Morning, Are You Working? (1999)

Dreamboat - Dreamboat (2016)

Related:

Ilyas Ahmed - Between Two Skies (2005)

Ilyas Ahmed - Speaking of Shadows (2006)
Golden Retriever - Golden Retriever (2010)

One-off collaboration between two phenomenal Portland artists. The rare collaboration that actually delivers on its implicit promise: Ahmed's spectral desert folk intertwined with Golden Retriever's shimmering synth drone.

Track listing:

1. Aftershock / Face to Face

2. Mirrored Image / Your Sunday Best

What do you think I'd see

If I could walk away from me?

You should also hear:

Charalambides - Market Square (1995)

Yair Elazar Glotman & Mats Erlandsson - Negative Chambers (2017)

Left Behind - No One Goes to Heaven (2019)

Punishing, sludgy metalcore. Groove-heavy, Down-inspired riffs as filtered through beatdown chugga-lugs for husky boys. Sounds like half of them wants to smoke blunts, the other half wants to beat up the first half for polluting their body and minds. But make no mistake: No One Goes to Heaven is no joke. It's a fucking killer album, whether you wanna maximize your gains or sit around wondering where it all went wrong.

Track listing:

1. Hell Rains From Above

2. Eternity of Empty

3. Throwing Stones

4. Peeling Wax

5. Shadow of Fear

6. Staring at the Sun

7. God Calls Out

8. Smoke and Pain

9. Outside the Body

10. The Mirror

11. Prisoner of Mind

12. What Makes Your Hurt

Heaven is a place down in the fucking dirt

You should also hear:

Breach - Venom (1999)

Empire of Rats - Empire of Rats (2013)

Various Artists - Someplace You Cannot See (2024)

This is a mix that I made when I was really, really going through it, probably in late April of last year. Unlike the last mix I posted, this one I really put some time into, piecing it all together into two suite-style, 46-minute sequences in Garageband over the course of a few days. It's pretty depressing, obviously, but I was in desperate need of an outlet, and it's definitely one of the best mixes I've ever made. There's a ton that I could write about why I chose each track on here, but y'all have already heard enough about my grief, so I'll just let you enjoy it however you like.

(To be clear: this is two 46-minute tracks.)

Safely floating away

My lantern dim

With a wick I didn't light

I never even asked for light

Includes songs from:

Michael Stearns - Floating Whispers (1987)

Andy Partridge & Harold Budd - Through the Hill (1994)

David Torn - What Means Solid, Traveller? (1996)

Lullaby for the Working Class - I Never Even Asked for Light (1997)

Songs of Green Pheasant - Songs of Green Pheasant (2005)

Growing - His Return (2005)

Asva - What You Don't Know Is Frontier (2007)

Snowman - Absence (2011)

Joan Bibiloni - Una Vida Llarga I Tranquila (1984)

Previously on OPIUM HUM:

Joan Bibiloni - Silencio Roto (1987)

Folk-infused, synth-y Spanish jazz-funk/lite fusion. My commute to work starts around 6:15-20 in the morning, which means that there are generally not a lot of cars on the road when I leave, and, for most of the year, the sun isn't even up yet. I have a couple of mixes specifically made for this dark, slightly eerie, but laid-back early morning commute, and this record's title track is the first song on one of them. (The next two songs, you ask? "Song for Sharon" by Joni Mitchell, and "Falling to Pieces" by Faith No More. I'm usually at work by the time "Falling to Pieces" fades out.) So take that as my overall assessment of the album. Also, please stick around till the end, things get pretty fucking weird and I wouldn't want you to miss it.

Track listing:

1. El Cumpleaños Se Jaimito

2. Unda Vida Llarga I Tranquila

3. El Aguacito

4. Lailala Lailala

5. Doble Volta

6. Sagitari

7. Jazmin 29

8. Una Vida Llarga I Tranqiula II

OK, Mr. Rich. With your fingers in the asses of the 4-star generals. This is your only chance to hear me, so listen up big. No more kissing toilet bowls. No more fingering the cold tits of bombs. Get out onto the street. There's better things to do. This is the Ralphie the Dog speaking to you. Life can be better than a pile of shit. Don't wipe us out now.

Also listen to:

Ian Carr's Nucleus - Out of the Long Dark (1978)

Steps Ahead - Steps Ahead (1983)