The Stargazer Lilies

Artist: The Stargazer Lilies

LP: We Are the Dreamers

Song: "Endless Days"
[ listen ]

Everyone knows I'm not in the loop when it comes to new music. I'm basically quoting my grandmother when I say things like, "Music nowadays sounds like cheap copies of what's already come before!" But it's true. Most new singers and bands sound like they're trying awfully hard to sound just like someone else who's already done what they're doing, but better and before. Other new bands are just completely idiotic, since there's actually a large fan base for that sort of thing right now. In other cases, quoting my grandma again, "They sound like trash cans banging together!"

This all serves to introduce my very first posting of a record created within the current decade—this 2013 release by The Stargazer Lilies. I found this lovely (pink vinyl!) album at Everyday Music when I traded in a couple of bags full of records and CDs last weekend. While I admit they do remind me of the early music of Lush, but played at 23 rpm through an extra layer of gauze, The Stargazer Lilies do their thing equally well and they sound different enough, I say. They certainly ain't no trash cans. You can visit the band's website here.

[ The Stargazer Lilies ]

The Feeling of Love

Artist: The Feeling of Love

LP: Petite tu es un Hit
Song: "Jailbait, I Need Free Entrance"
[ listen ]

Song: "Dad = Eat / Mum = Die" 
[ listen ]

The Feeling of Love is noisy, but they're not one of those typical and derivative noisy bands, as you can probably tell from their group photo included below. Most noisy bands pose like this (or sometimes like this, or even like this) because they're just usually not very clever. They pose the way bands are supposed to pose—especially if you've got tattoos! But not The Feeling of Love, who also sometimes pose like this and occasionally even like this. Admittedly, they have at times posed like this and, as a special favor to a deer friend, they did once pose like this. So, ya know.

[ The Feeling of Love ]

Spirea X

Artist: Spirea X

LP: 12" single

Song: "Chlorine Dream"

[ listen ]

The a-side of this 1991 12" single from short-lived 4AD band Spirea X has always been one of my favorite things to listen to in the springtime. It's different from the version included on the group's full-length LP—livelier, crisper, more springlike. It's one of the best 4AD releases of the '90s, if you ask me, partly also because it features bold and classy cover art made of neon lights. Sadly, I have to admit I liked the song a little bit more before reading just now that frontman Jim Beattie bragged that it was simply impossible to classify his music into any established genre of the time. He also occasionally claimed to be God, and sometimes he said he was Jesus. yawn. Silly, silly pop star. Spirea X features Beattie's girlfriend, Judith Boyle, on backing vocals. I bet it's not easy to date a guy who thinks he's Jesus.

[ Spirea X ]