Howfu r u?

nobridge “drifting”

Sam: My friendship with Jono Hunter has always been predicated on me being a massive, unapologetic fan of his various bands. We’re Actual Friends by now, but our relationship started with me being super into his mid-tempo dirgey-ish band Horses after seeing them one time at Rancho Relaxo then hearing the demos for his new pop-punk band !ATTENTION!, seeing a friendship opening, and subsequently cold messaging him on MySpace to see if they would want to put out music on our until-then-pal-only PWYC digital label Juicebox (a bigtime Quote Unquote ripoff, kindly blessed by Jeff, who I also forced my friendship on in the same way). Since then, he’s continued to make urgent and exciting music that always seems to resonate precisely with my own enthusiasms - across bands like Found Objects and Atlas, I genuinely think he’s written some of my favourite songs of all time. nobridge is his latest thing to fuck my life up, and I’m absolutely fucked up by it. This EP is easily my favourite thing I’ve heard all year.

Josiah: This is cool. Maybe I’m way off but something about it kind of reminds me of that band Meneguar, who I’m pretty sure became Woods? But they had some similar rockin’ layered rock that felt like this. I love how I can’t quite place it at all. It has some Pains of Being Pure at Heart, some post-Springsteen pop rock, etc. You can tell it’s someone who has played punk before, but it doesn’t sound punk. Sounds like aging gracefully.
 

Andrew WK “I’m in Heaven”

Sam: In 2008, I had the good fortune to interview Andrew WK on Valentine’s Day where we spent an hour crafting valentines together. It’s possible that the experience changed my life? He was one of the first famous people that seemed to “get” what me, Justin, and Ashley were trying to “do” with “content” at a critical juncture in our early 20s - we stayed friendly and he starred in the pilot for our first TV show, which involved him coming to my house for a sleepover (we got into bed together and ate ice cream and talked about crushes). Everything else is a straight line from there. And yes, I know. I hear your critiques, and I do not care. After years of toying with the fringes of metal (and with members of Obituary), it appears the new Andrew WK album is going to be a proper thrasher, and that fucking rocks.

Josiah: There have been so many different Andrew WKs over the years. And I don’t just mean the conspiracy theories. The actual dude that is presented to us has existed in so many forms, some of which are incredibly cool (Load Records-era Andrew WK) and some of which are unfathomably corny (remember when he used to do like, VBS.TV lectures about the spiritual truth of partying). At this point, it’s basically a wash, with Andrew WK coming out as neutral. But it’s at least pretty interesting that he’s making this Sam music while also marrying one of the 2 broke girls.
 

Karen Peris “i would sing along”

Josiah: Probably the hardest band of all time is the Innocence Mission — a hushed, beyond-twee Catholic indiepop duo featuring husband and wife Don and Karen Peris, two people who look like they’ve had grey hair since they were 16. Because they’re called the Innocence Mission, the band’s deep, near-perfect discography has been passed around for decades. They’ve even got a micro-hit in milk-breathed NPR circles via “Lakes of Canada,” which was covered by Sufjan for a Take-Away Show. But because their music is so impossibly uncool, it never ages, meaning the older and greyer they get, the better they sound. The Innocence Mission released another absolute gem of an album last year, and now Karen’s gonna Karen with her own solo album. “i would sing along” is another perfect piece of regal wuss music. It goes behind easy indiepop categorization: it doesn’t really sound like coffee shop indie or enamel pin store indie. It sounds like the kind of music you hear when you accidentally walk through the little gift shop area while visiting a cathedral. It sounds like stained glass.

Sam: Sometimes I try to imagine the scenarios in which Josiah, a man who I have talked to for thousands of hours but seemingly almost exclusively about jizz, listens to these beautiful, small songs. Like he talks about it all the time, so I know this is as much a part of him as Blink and jizz, but does he lay on the couch and close his eyes? Go for a moody nighttime stroll? Make dinner? Personally, I will stroll moodily to this one. Lovely!
 

Low “Disappearing”

Josiah: It’s not just Catholic couples killing it on the non-protestant front. Mormon hubbeh and wife Alan Sparhawk and Mimi Parker somehow continue to improve and evolve Low without sacrificing any of the strange quietness that has characterized their entire decades-long career. Their 2018 album Double Negative was profoundly contemporary despite being made by olds, and their next album HEY WHAT seems similarly forward-thinking. Simple harmonies and just three chords create the basis for the song, but once again there is plenty of weird panning, Yeezus-sized distortion and eruptions of sound. Being old and religious and married is so cool.

Sam: All I knew about Low before reading what Josiah wrote is that it's the music Ashley puts on when I'm out. I like it, too, but it never makes an appearance when I'm around. So this Mormon revelation is shocking to me. Are Mormons ever publicly sad? Low's whole vibe runs counter to my whole pop culture perception of Mormons. Good for Low.