As the story goes, in the early years of the 1990s, the buzz on Drop Nineteens began with two demo sessions that landed them gigs, ink in the U.K. press and, ultimately, a record deal with Caroline. The songs on the demo, though, weren’t what made it onto the band’s debut album, Delaware. In fact they hadn’t been officially released until now. Called 1991, the remastered collection of songs recorded mostly in a dorm room on an 8-track reel-to-reel is out now via Wharf Cat Records.
French Police released a new EP, Espera, last week. If you haven’t already added the four-song release to your listening queue, get on that asap because this is a good one.
Based in Chicago, French Police is a trio on the post-punk/darkwave tip who have been steadily gaining popularity over the past few years. Anecdotally, I can tell you that their songs were requested at virtually every party I played with Klub Nocturno this past year. Frequently, their songs were requested more than once during the course of one night. Outside of the clubs, you have probably heard them in the ether somewhere in L.A. Recently, when I was at Alamo Drafthouse to see Pump Up the Volume, there was a French Police playlist on in the bar.
Belle & Sebastian “Legal Man” single, Belle & Sebastian Girls in Peacetime Want to Dance and Nobody’s Empire by Stuart Murdoch
Stuart Murdoch just released his first novel. Called Nobody’s Empire, it’s inspired by the Belle & Sebastian singer’s own experiences. In the novel, a young, Scottish man develops chronic fatigue syndrome, also called myalgic encephalomyelitis (ME), which changes his life and brings him together with a new group of friends and leads him on a path towards songwriting.
Nobody’s Empire is a beautifully written story about finding your people under difficult circumstances. It’s also filled with vivid details about the music and fashion of late 1980s and early 1990s indie/alternative subcultures. Recently, I was able to meet up with Murdoch on Zoom for an interview that is now out in the Books section of Southern California News Group papers. (Here’s a gift link to read the story.) You can catch Murdoch at Barnsdall Gallery Theatre for his L.A. stop on the book tour.
I’ve been a Belle & Sebastian fan for a long time, so I wanted to list my favorite songs from the band here as well. Keep reading to see the picks.
Cover of Marianne Faithfull’s self-titled 1965 debut album
A couple people asked about the last song at Underground last night. It was “As Tears Go By,” the 1964 single from Marianne Faithfull, who died on Thursday at the age of 78. Since none of us have the same timeline, I’m not going to assume that anyone reading this saw the same glut of posts about her that I did, or is immediately familiar with the singer at all. So, for background, read this obituary from the BBC.
Marianne Faithfull had a rough ride through pop stardom (here’s a gift link to an NYT story that explains more), but she persevered over and over again. She was legit cool. Mick Jagger and Keith Richards wrote “As Tears Go By,” her first hit, but she also wrote with them and is said to have influenced multiple Rolling Stones songs. Her career revival album, Broken English, was post-punk and post-disco and influential on subsequent generations of musicians, as well as club DJs. Later on, she would collaborate with the likes of Jarvis Cocker, Blur, Nick Cave and others. She’s part of a generation of nonconformist musicians who really set the stage for what we now know as alternative or indie music and it’s no exaggeration to say that there are loads of musicians (especially women, especially women who resist stereotypically feminine branding) whose names you wouldn’t know if it weren’t for her.
Anyhow, here’s last night’s set list, which begins and ends with Marianne Faithfull.
Mogwai The Bad Fire is one of this month’s essential new releases
We’ve finally made it to the end of the longest month ever. I’m writing this under the assumption that no one— literally, not one single person— wants a recap of the events of January, 2025. However, I do want to spotlight some of the music that came out this month because we need the arts most when the world is bleak af and there is some wonderful new music that came out this month.
The deluxe edition of The Faint’s 2004 album Wet From Birth is set for release on March 14, 2025
Recently, maybe at the CSS show last week, I said to a friend that you know we’re living in dark times because people are all nostalgic about the ‘00s. I’ve written about it here before, but that decade was not cute. Bleak is probably a better word to describe an era marked by wars, financial shenanigans and rising social conservatism. And, at least in comparison to other decades, there weren’t many musicians addressing the turmoil in their work. Amongst the few who did was The Faint.
FKA Twigs dropped a new album, Eusexua, on Friday. I haven’t had a chance to listen to the whole thing yet, but, I really like the song “Drums of Death,” so I tried it out to open last night’s set at The Mermaid and you’re probably going to be hearing it more in my sets. Splash! Sundays is genre-free, so the set ranges from ‘60s rock and soul to new darkwave and indie.
I woke up Sunday morning with “Silver Rings” from Matt Berry’s new album, Heard Noises, stuck in my head, so that made it into last night’s set, sandwiched in between Shocking Blue and Los Bravos. Other new-ish songs in the set include “No Longer Mine,” from South Bay soul group Thee Heart Tones, and Male Tears’ latest synthpop jam, “Little Doll.” Keep scrolling for the rest of the set list.
Years ago, Matt Berry and Rich Fulcher had a show called Snuff Box, a comedy about two executioners who hang out at a gentleman’s club— the British kind, not the Bada Bing! kind. The show itself is fantastic, but the most memorable thing about it is the theme song. That melody has haunted me for years, even when my content-addled brain struggles to recall what actually happened in the series. Matt Berry writes a good earworm.
Berry, the actor who has been in cult favorite shows like Garth Marenghi’s Darkplace and The Mighty Boosh, starred in the British series Toast of London and recently ended a six-season run as Laszlo in What We Do in the Shadows, has a parallel career as a musician. His latest album, Heard Noises, was released on January 24 and it’s potentially as sticky as that Snuff Box theme song.
Nosferatu welcoming you to the New Wave vs. Darkwave room at Klub Nocturno on Friday, January 17, 2025
If New Wave vs. Darkwave were a real battle, IDK who would have won. Last night, in the Loft at Catch One, where I DJed all night for Klub Nocturno’s fundraiser for those impacted by the recent wildfires, new wave was visibly the clear winner. Nothing packed the floor like the ‘80s jams last night. However, the requests were overwhelmingly for the darkwave bangers and the groups nearest to the DJ booth, some of whom were dancing virtually the entire night, definitely were into Boy Harsher, French Police, Molchat Doma, etc. , so darkwave was also a winner.
Anyhow, here’s the set list from the New Wave vs. Darkwave room at Klub Nocturno on January 17, 2025. The only new song— as in the first time I’ve played it out— in the set is “God Whispers” by Soft Vein, whose latest album, Through Blinds, came out on Friday. Check it out if you’re into dark, EBM-influenced synthpop, which you probably are if you’re reading this post.
In 2022, Legendary Pink Dots released The Museum of Human Happiness, their first album since the pandemic. It was one of my favorite albums of that year and, really, one of the finest releases from a band who celebrated their 40th anniversary just before lockdown. Now, two weeks into 2025, they’ve dropped the follow-up, So Lonely in Heaven, via Metropolis Records and I humbly recommend that you listen to the two albums back-to-back. I don’t know if it’s intentional, but from the listener’s perspective, The Museum of Human Happiness and So Lonely in Heaven sound as if they are part of the same extended body of work.
