That whole “music used to sound better when I was younger” theory

AUGUST (52-63)

Ill – Breasts

A well-educated female intones eloquently the advantages of having a larger breast size over a (Farfisa?) keyboard that easily passes the Electrelane test. And that’s about it, except to mention the ebbs and swells, the latent repetition, and the hilariously deadpan delivery.

Eleanor Friedberger – That Was When I Knew (live at Sydney Festival)

I LOVE THE NEW ELEANOR FRIEDBERGER ALBUM! It is, by some distance, my most-played album of 2013, and not just cos I’m a wannabe menopausal disjointed disillusioned forgotten irrelevant and bitter male music critic in his early 50s. I love the Herman Dune too. And this is the same golden mile. I refuse to be cowed! I refuse to be embarrassed! There are no guilty pleasures, only self-image problems. Thank you, Ms Friedberger, thank you. You have made this disjointed redundant hack happy. Every time he listens to you, you make him happy.

The Rutabega – The Shamen (live at Pete’s Place)

This is some damn fine music right here. Throaty vocals and BIG choruses. Choruses as big as Liverpool.

Pony Time – Lori & Judy

This video disturbs me. There’s something quite WRONG about it. Maybe it’s the idea of ascribing sexuality to a genre that has its roots in what Simon Reynolds doubtless would’ve called something like an “almost virginal romanticism”. A genre that The Legend! was inextricably tied up in (excuse the pun).

Chastity Belt – Seattle Party

Makes me want to huddle with myself tightly in a corner of crowded bar, and burn a whole sheath full of Bauhaus B-sides. Makes me think of space and distance and 3am hangovers (Hobart, say). Makes me want to hug famous columnists decades before they got famous and tell them yes it’s OK in 20 years time you’re gonna be way famous and I’m gonna be spitting into thin air.

Dog Party – Sunny Days

Awkwardness and awesomeness in equal measure. And yes. Shonen Knife.

The John Steel Singers – State Of Unrest

On the one hand, this new song sounds like a Britpop band circa 1993, eyes struck WIDE OPEN by a sudden influx of Neu! albums, all fuzzed-out bliss and motorik know-how.

Courtney Barnett – History Eraser

This song is so great. It doesn’t break any rules, but not everything has to. It sounds like someone’s heard Bob Dylan but that’s OK. I have, too. Main difference is that I could never, not in a million Kimya Dawson years, create a song as beguiling and full of chutzpah and misery and whirling abandon as this. At a YouTube commentator puts it, this is a “total breath of fresh air next to the billion Mumford & Sons wannabes, the post-disco synths and girls singing with that quasi vulnerable Julia Stone whisper”.

Amen, brother and sister. Amen.

Kim Deal – Are You Mine

Kim Deal has a new single out. God damn, but it’s beautiful.

Ruby Pins – Chameleon

Spooky and dislocated and with a circular guitar refrain that calls down images of… wait. There’s a Grass Widow connection. Is it me, or this a new sound going down in 2013? Some sound better. Some sound far worse. There’s shades and light and shadow: shade and lights and shadows that mean Ruby Pins feel partly hidden from view, scratching out her art in the half-light of companionship and…

James X. Boyd & The Boydoids – Elissa Says

Of course I can hear The Velvet Underground influence. Why deny it? Let’s embrace it! It shoots right through this song, from the title to the slices of pizza to the mournful slices of guitar and ramshackle drums, and bits of silence. It’s the wistful malicious enjoyment of melancholy, the arrogance of youth, the self-consciously laconic drawl. It’s Zarjaz Baby brought up to battle with the blonde surfer boys. It’s Jonathan Richman, down the front, dancing to Ramones before anyone danced to Ramones.

Josephine Foster – All I Wanted Was The Moon

Every time I hear a new song from Josephine Foster’s new album I’m A Dreamer it’s my New Favourite Song in the World Ever – and then I do a quick Google for the new album from Josephine Foster and it doesn’t seem to exist anywhere, and I’m falling to wondering whether I’m imagining some most delicious phantasm in the mind, one that calls down images of an analogue future and transistor past, one where all music is proud, impassioned, deeply human gestures, shaded and coloured by sweeps of piano and a deep female voice, and I think to myself damn I never want to stop imagining such phantasms if that’s true.

(continues overleaf)

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by Everett True

My name is Everett True. I am a music critic. This is what I do. I criticise music. The clue is in my job description – music critic. I do not consider myself a journalist, as I do not research or report hard news. I do not consider myself a commentator as I believe that everyone should be a participant. I criticise people and in return I am not surprised if other people criticise me. It is part of the whole deal of being in the public arena. I am Everett True. Believe in me and I have power like a God. Quit believing in me and I no longer exist.