Lemuria, the sophomore album from Optometry, has the best closer I’ve heard in a long time, so we’re going to start this review at the end. “Never Coming Back” is in the vein of what’s considered post-punk right now. It has a running-for-your-life tempo (over 160 bpm for those of you who keep track of these things), a gloomy synth and a “Ceremony” sad guitar. It’s dark— really, it sounds like the cliff-hanger ending of a TV show— but also danceable and it’s become my favorite track on the album, which is out today on Palette Recordings.
Last Sunday, at the same record fair booth where I found Marc Almond’s fantastic “Melancholy Rose” 12” single, I came across an Italian copy of Quando Quango’s 12” “Two From Quando,” featuring the song “Atom Rock,” released on a Bologna label called Base Record, although it’s still marked with the Factory Records catalog number FAC 102. Sweet! There was no way I was leaving the record fair without this record, even if I *technically* already have the song on vinyl.
Quando Quango first came into my orbit thanks to a compilation called Cool As Ice: The Be Music Productions. Released in 2003, it’s a collection of music produced by members of New Order as Be Music between 1983 and 1985. There are two tracks from Quando Quango on there, “Love Tempo” and “Atom Rock,” both of which were produced by the dream team of Bernard Sumner, using the name Be Music, and A Certain Ratio’s Donald Johnson, under the name DoJo. At the time that copies of Cool As Ice landed in the bins at Amoeba, I was promoting and DJing a Wednesday night party at a now long-gone West Hollywood bar called The Parlour called Transmission. If the name weren’t a total giveaway, I was pretty obsessed with everything related to Joy Division and New Order, as were a lot of the regulars, so I played both those songs often. And, since one of the few constants in this world is that I’m still a little on the Joy Division/New Order obsessive side and still play for people who are riding the same wave, “Love Tempo” and “Atom Rock” still turn up in my sets. All of this a super tl;dr way of justifying my purchase, btw.
At Sunday’s Lovers Market at Homage Brewing in Chinatown, I stopped by the one record vendor who I try to always visit. I don’t think I’ve ever walked away from this booth empty-handed because there’s usually at least one crate loaded with legit cool ‘80s club 12” singles, a mix of everything from post-punk to Italo disco to hiNRG that’s geared towards DJs rather than collectors. While I was digging, I came across a Marc Almond single that I instantly wanted to buy.
(left to right) Genevieve, Miles (back of pic on drums) Taleen Kali and Josephine playing Covered EP release party at Love Song Bar DTLA on February 8, 2025 (Pic: Liz O.)
Taleen Kali has a new EP out on Valentine’s Day. Covered features the band’s versions of songs by Smashing Pumpkins, My Bloody Valentine, The Supremes, Garbage and Depeche Mode. Last night, at the appropriately-named Love Song in downtown Los Angeles, was the listening party, which included a live performance. This isn’t a review, which would be unfair on account of the fact that I was the DJ for the event. It’s more of a recap.
The Love Song is a tiny bar— like, really tiny— at the front of The Regent, a 110-year-old former movie theater-turned-concert venue. Bands typically play in a patch of open space right next to the bar’s entrance, in front a window that faces Main Street and that was the setup last night. All this makes for a very intimate performance. If you’re up at the front, which I was on account of the CDJs being set up right next to the band, you’re really face-to-face with the performers.
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.
