TWO TIMES THE MUSIC FOR A LONG WEEKEND. LABOR DAY MIX ON MONDAY, MAYBE
Put yourself in mind of Mazzy Star. That is where Widowspeak dwell: in haze, dreams, misty mornings, fierce yearning, and whispered confessions. The songs on All Yours are geared, per the band, to the theme of moving on. You relinquish your desire for control of life, which is uncontrollable. Resign yourself to the notion that chance and happenstance rule everything, because that's true. You could have been born as a giant tube worm on the bottom of the ocean, and yet you're a human. Enjoy what you can of that experience, including the music of Widowspeak, which is soft and sweet and pleasant, a clear fall morning.[BUY All Yours]Refractor is the lead track on Painted Palms' new album, Horizons. This album feels more dramatic than Forever, the band's debut album. There's a sense of fragility too, though it's hard to pinpoint why. Horizons, as I mentioned when I wrote about Disintegrate, invokes the spirit (?) of early 2000s music like the Rapture, especially the later era of that band--Pieces of the People We Love, in fact, seems like a major influence on this album, which is pretty awesome, because almost no one loved that album at the time and everyone was like, "Fuck the Rapture, I love Tapes & Tapes!! They are my new god, end of story." The Rapture just did not get a fair shake after Echoes, let's be honest. All of us should write letters to those dudes and apologize. Painted Palms is performing our expiation for us, and I admire their courage and their music.[BUY Horizons]
