RiYL

Dustin Payseur, front man of Beach Fossils, discusses their album-making process and the intriguing experiment of re-envisioning older tracks as piano ballads. They explore the challenges of genre, the trade-off between quantity and quality in creative output, and the importance of talented and honest bandmates. They also delve into the concept of reassessing controversial art and selecting songs for a jazz album based on personal judgment.

At the height of social distancing, David Christian (nee Feck) went solo. After 29 years as the chief wrangler of the ever-morphing indie pop act, the musician went to work on For Those We Met On The Way. It’s been strange couple of years for the singer – as it has for most of us. Christian and family left London for the pastoral French countryside. A mostly quiet life, as he describes it, with the occasional bicycling through the rain. The pandemic has also seen him experimenting with new methods of releasing music, including a prolific Bandcamp output, populated with ideas and songs that didn’t make it onto vinyl.  Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

As we’re about to start, Scott runs to the kitchen to check on dinner. He’s making chicken, breaded with Shake ‘N Bake. He’s up a few more times during the conversation, once to proudly present the final product to Zoom call. Scott Thompson and Paul Bellini see each other a lot, these days. They’re prepping for a rare live performance in Philadelphia and spending the rest of their time writing. In fact, it’s a lot like the early days of Mouth Congress, before the band’s carefree approach to queer punk was derailed by the rocket ship that is Kids in the Hall. It’s history repeating itself, really, as the band’s recent resurgence through a self-titled documentary and the compilation album Waiting For Henry arrived before an Amazon KITH revival. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

There was no guarantee we’d ever see another Midlake album. The eight year gap since their last album was more than a simple break before records. Tim Smith’s departure in 2012 left the band with a major gap to fill, suddenly staring down life without a princjple songwriter. Eric Pulido stepped into the role, and the band scrapped two years of recordings, in favor of starting from scratch with Antiphon. The band’s fourth full length was well-received, but its future remained uncertain. The intervening years have found its members focusing on side projects and other life pursuits. Plans to reunite were temporarily thwarted – along with everything else – by the pandemic, but this month, the group returns with For the Sake of Bethel Woods. It’s a deeply personal record and the sound of a rediscovering why they started in the first place. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Last year saw the release of The Horses and the Hounds. James McMurtry’s 10th album was easily one of the year’s best, showcasing a seasoned songwriter at the top of his game, 35 years after entering the industry. The musician is quick to point out that his songs are essentially all fiction, something that has, perhaps, become something of a sticking point after so often inhabiting his characters in the first-person. The son of an English professor and The Last Picture Show novelist-turned-screenwriter, McMurtry has a keen knack for storytelling that’s made him one of alternative country’s most enduring voice. The musician joins us to discuss performing during a pandemic, penning protest songs and the magic of Rick Nelson’s “Garden Party.” Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Faced with an indefinite touring hiatus, Josh Caterer improvised. The musician recorded a pair of “live” albums – The Space Sessions and The Hideout Sessions. No audience, no overdubs – just a trio of well-rehearsed musicians putting new spins on old classics. Caterer’s vocal range tends toward crooner as many of the song veer into jazz territory. That’s nothing new, of course. His unique vocal delivery is a major piece of what set Smoking Popes apart from their pop-punk brethren in the 90s, finding fans in everyone from Green Day to Morrissey. Caterer joins us to discuss his journey through the height of the 90s music industry crunch, to connecting with religion and reforming the Smoking Popes. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

A talented flautist trained as an opera singer, Melanie Charles wanted to make a splash with her Verve Records debut, Y'all Don't (Really) Care About Black Women. She taught herself to sample and tackled a slate of songs by some of jazz’s all-time greatest vocalists, from Billie Holiday and Ella Fitzgerald to Betty Carter and Abbey Lincoln. The result is a bold and expansive meditation on music and the many civil rights that permeate to this day, hitting a kind of fever pitch in recent years. Charles joins us to discuss her journey, the role of meditation and building on the work of some of music’s biggest names. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Editor’s note: Apologies for the rough audio quality this time out.Just shy of hallway through Tunnels, two of the books leads engage in a spirited exchange. The Israeli and Palestinian characters are debating who got there first. The moment is central to the plot of Rutu Modan’s latest graphic novel, while reflecting the underlying tensions of an on-going conflict that informs much of the artist’s work. It pokes lighthearted fun at the matter without being heavy handed or dismissive. An exploration of such conflict peppers a story that is, at its heart, an adventure tale. Over the years, Modan’s work has drawn aesthetic comparisons to Herge, and here she full embraces a search for the search for the arc of the covenant in a manner that equally embraces Spielberg. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

The past two years have afforded us all plenty of time to reflect – for better and for worse. For all of those who’ve devoted pandemic hours to reaching into past and wondering how we might change the past, given the chance, The Garden presents an ideal metaphor. Over 16 tracks, Basia Bulat revisits her past, breathing new life into old songs with the aid of a band and string arrangements. It’s an opportunity for the singer-songwriter to cover her work as she has countless others, from Daniel Johnston to The Strokes. The singer-songwriter joins us to discuss given birth during a global pandemic, the importance of remaining present and the music of Alice Coltrane. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Nostalgia is a strange thing for any artist – particularly so for a group like Pere Ubu. Perpetually striving for change and innovation, the band’s evolution has afforded little time for reflection. Last year, however, saw front man David Thomas remixing the group’s 11th and 12 albums,  Pennsylvania and St. Arkansas. It provided a rare opportunity to revisit and reflect on a pair of 20-year-old albums representing the halfway mark of the band’s career to date. Thomas’ musical career dates back even further, to the legendary – if short-lived -- Rocket from the Tombs. Pere Ubu represents to the next step in that musical evolution, a journey that took him and an ever-changing lineup through 2019’s The Long Goodbye. In spite of health problems, both Thomas and Pere Ubu still a mission to keep bringing music to the world.  Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.