The Sounding Board
A weekly column where New Music Tuesdays live on. Conversation is encouraged in the comments.
Hush’s debut long-player is a consummate psychedelic indie pop album.
It’s a near certainty that whatever sounds the words “psychedelic indie pop” evoke for you are somewhere on For Dolly.1 At various points across the LP’s eight songs, the Montreal trio make use of tremolo, panning, babbling synths, spacier shimmering synthetic sounds, a tasteful amount of glockenspiel, a relatively extended instrumental break, a loopy phrase repeated into meaninglessness, airy and frequently layered vocals and a warm tone.
The last two items in that list are essentially constant throughout For Dolly, and they wind up being the album’s defining features, overwriting the lightly trippy touches that would otherwise be its calling card. For Dolly is totally devoid of the time-delating formlessness or bad-trip abrasion that sometimes mar psyche-tinged albums. It is a snug, gentle, slightly heady experience to its core.
While two songs — “Bliss Just Missed” with its four-on-the-floor drive and “Prey to Me” with its riff-forward structure — are active enough to feel like rock, the majority of For Dolly makes Candy Claws2 sound like Osees. 3
Vocalist Paige Barlow and multi-instrumentalists Miles Dupire-Gagnon and Gabriel Lambert make sure that gliding on that gentle zephyr is a pleasant way to spend 37 minutes. Barlow’s high, breathy voice should be classified as a narcotic — especially when used for self-harmony or polyphony, like on “The Mirrors Were Right.” Dupire-Gagnon, who also co-produced with René Wilson, and Lambery hold up their end of things, too. The multi-instrumentalists drift through different sectors of the psyche-pop map — kaleidoscopic new-age stuff, gentle folk-influenced moments, ambient drone, delicate dream pop, and light rock — with aplomb.
The common ethereality and lack of friction on For Dolly does make the album as a whole feel slightly insubstantial. It sounds good while it’s playing, but it lacks an extra quirk or a definitive strength to give it extra staying power. However, it’s the right album for the right time, arriving nearly in tandem with warmer, lazier summer days, and it’s a cinch to delight those in need of a psychedelic soundtrack for their good times.
About the writer
Ben Hohenstatt
Ben Hohenstatt is an Alaska-based dog owner who moonlights as a music writer and photographer.
For more information, consult your local library or with parental permission visit his website.
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Year of the Month
A new Iceage album is now treated like a Capital-E Event. That wouldn't be the case without Plowing into the Field of Love.
The Sounding Board
A weekly column where New Music Tuesdays live on. Conversation is encouraged in the comments.
The Sounding Board
A weekly column where New Music Tuesdays live on. Conversation is encouraged in the comments.
The Sounding Board
A weekly column where New Music Tuesdays live on. Conversation is encouraged in the comments.
The Sounding Board
A weekly column where New Music Tuesdays live on. Conversation is encouraged in the comments.
Department of
Conversation
What did we watch?
The Kids In The Hall, Season Five, Episode Twenty
Wow, only one episode after this one. There’s the reboot season but I don’t have access to that, and regardless it’s the end of an era.
“Guys, please? Puh, puh!”
“Would you mind keeping it down out here? I’m trying to get some sleep.”
“I’m only one guy.”
“Okay, who said that?”
“Go ahead, take the time and count – one, done!”
“I need my sleep – if I don’t get my twenty-three-and-a-half hours, I’m cranky the rest of the day.”
“My name is Robert. And you are?”
“Er, ya lost me.”
“I’m gonna need your full, undivided attention.”
“Sure, as long as I can watch TV at the same time.”
(Media Magpies)
“I’m at home – drying the dish – who needs more than one dish when you live alone?”
(Me, who lives alone and owns one plate and one bowl and bought a second bowl when my partner started staying over: ಠ_ಠ)
“I got the pizza for free, but that’s a different monologue in itself.”
“I think my testosterone level must be very low.”
“Oh, I don’t think that.”
“We’re not multiple orgasm people.”
This is what’s good about television. Getting perspectives you’re not familiar with.
“I think I’ve lost interest in muffins.”
“No dames!”
Charley Varrick – The second most famous movie with a crop duster? I’d seen this long enough ago that I didn’t post about it on Letterboxd, and only remembered a few little details. So I was able to come to it with fresher eyes and try to take in the Siegel-ness of it all. And it definitely has the look and feel of one of his films. Solid cast, great camera work, good score, though a bit padded and the longer it runs the less sense it makes. (I am never going to buy Matthau so easily seducing John Vernon’s secretary and probable lover. Who was played by Jack Lemmon’s wife, just to make it weirder.) I kept thinking that to some degree, this has elements of a Westlake or Stark novel, though not the same thing, and now I wonder what could have been if Siegel tried to do Parker.
Elementary, “Tremors” – Holmes and Watson are called to testify at an administrative hearing after a generally successful assignment goes off the rails and Detective Bell is shot and suffers damage to his right arm. The case is interesting enough but not the important part here as Holmes is called out for his blatant warrantless searches (which is to say breaking and entering) and for overall demeanor. Ultimately, a recommendation is made for Holmes to be let go but the police commissioner decides to keep him on, but his standing is a mess and Bell does not want him around. While they’re trying to have it both ways, it’s still good to see the writers confront Holmes’s abuses (something we don’t see often on crime shows) and to have a longer story grow out of how the characters act and not some big event.
The Twilight Zone, “The Sixteen Millimeter Shrine” – Well done and well acted, but not much of a story. More to come.
Frasier, “Maris Returns” – Yes, her unseen presence is back, begging help from Niles, who can’t bring himself to tell Daphne (having stereotypical pregnancy mood swings) the truth. Ultimately, after some hijinx, the truth comes out, but not before Maris’s angry Argentine ex-boyfriend punches Frasier. And as we end the episode, we (but none of the cast) hear on the radio of Maris killing that boyfriend. There’s not much to this, and it’s actually the secondary plot, but it’s to be continued. The main plot is Frasier’s return to private practice, where almost nothing goes even a little right, and it’s kind of exhausting, though in the end he gets his balance back. The most noteworthy thing about this are the guest patients: Sarah Silverman, Missi Pyle, Penny Johnson Jerald, TR Knight before he was famous, and Dan Castellaneta face to face with his occasional Simpsons c0-star.
MASH, “Hawkeye Get Your Gun” – After Frank gives Potter a hard time about his age, the colonel is the one to go with Hawkeye to a South Korean aid station run by Mako. A nice focus on Potter and his sensitivity about being 60 and still a working doctor and in the army, but nothing special. There is a subplot where Klinger claims he’s just learns he’s “king of the (slur word for Roma)” that was probably offensive even back then.
“Is it better to live by logic or reason?” is one of the oldest internet arguments, and Charley Varrick not only argues reason, it wonders why the fuck you’d make decisions for any other reason – no other story has so thoroughly gotten away with fridging the wife, because you see how he registers the realisation, processes it, and moves on, and that carries him through the rest of the film. Yes, very Parker.
I hadn’t thought of the Parker connection, but I’ve always described CV as the best 70s Elmore Leonard film that was not adapted from one of his books, or that he had no connection to, for that matter.
Obsession – really solid, nasty, funny low-budget horror from the latest “sketch comedy to horror filmmaker” convert. The monkey’s-paw-esque setup is nothing new but the scary stuff and the funny stuff is equally well-executed and the cast, none of whom were familiar to me, all do excellent work. Terrible cat movie though. TERRIBLE.
Eddington – hmm time to give up on Ari Aster perhaps. He seems to make all of his films half an hour too long specifically so he has time to fuck things up. There’s some entertainingly messy stuff here but as it escalates it just eventually crossed a line for me where it just felt a bit annoying.
Live Music – big live music weekend in my town, the city-wide festival with 15+ stages took place on Sunday, the hottest May day on record in the UK I think? Thankfully most of the venues were cool inside. I managed to see eight full sets plus a few partial ones, highlights included the intense, pointedly named Vancouver post-hardcore (?) band PISS, some excellent “electronica with live drums” from the annoyingly named Another Country $$$$, psychedelic synthpop from Silver Gore and some electroclash-style sleaze-pop from NYC’s Swordes. Also caught a few songs by Ratboys (great band but I’ve seen them before) and Mandy, Indiana who annoyingly started 15 minutes late, can’t really get away with that on a packed schedule like this. Also caught a bunch of electronic stuff in a tiny venue that is actually a woodworking studio the night before, really fun.
Seinfeld, S8 – “The Soul Mate” and “The Bizarro Jerry”, both very funny. Definitely a few bits that felt different as per the changes in personnel this season – the slapstick Jerry / Newman chase through the corridors in particular. Newman feeding poetry to Kramer in the book store was great, and I enjoyed Tim DeKay’s guest role in these two episodes, it’s oddly fun when a guest star gets a bonus episode.
Three-way tie between Obsession, Hokum, and I Love Boosters for what I’m going to see in theaters this weekend, assuming all three of them will still be playing (fingers crossed).
Good options to have! I think I’ve missed Hokum’s run here now… I Love Boosters doesn’t seem to have a UK release date yet.
Woo, live music!
Weekend catch-up:
Merrily We Roll Along
There’s a recurrent pattern in stories with happy endings where the either-or dilemma is revealed, at the last minute, to actually have a previously unrealized compromise yes-and option: happiness means never having to choose, means a lifetime of having your cake and eating it too. (I’m curious now if this appears more often in American fiction.) This can work–people do sometimes convince themselves there are zero-sum games–but it’s also powerful to see it undone as it is here, where the backwards structure constantly shows the characters reassuring themselves that it’ll be okay, they can have their artistic ambitions and their successes, or their friendships and their compromises, or their marriage and their idealism, and we’ve just come from seeing that no, actually, they’re fucked. Maybe sometimes the best you can do is plunge yourself into “Franklin Shepard, Inc.,” one of the musical and dramatic high points of the show, and let that excess of emotion close off an option for you: you want to know how Charley won that Pulitzer? Here’s how.
Good performances. Radcliffe is my favorite (it’s amazing how much love and despair he puts into “Frank does the money thing very well, but you know what? Other people do it better. And Frank does the music thing very well, and you know what? Nobody does it better”), but Groff does a good job keeping Frank vulnerable even as he’s making all the wrong choices, and Katie Rose Clarke was a bit of a scene-stealer as the vibrant, high-tension Beth.
Favorite non-song exchange: “I hope it’s all right that I’m just crazy about [your husband].” / “I hope it’s all right too.”
Eephus
Peak hangout movie. There’s some quote about baseball being invented as a tool to help you enjoy a perfect summer’s day, and while it’s early autumn here and some frustration and melancholy creep in–the field about to be paved over to make way for a new school, and this is the last game any of these schmucks will play there or maybe anywhere; as the game presses into extra innings, people are tired and sore and cranky and sometimes absent–that still holds true. The scene where they light up the field by pulling their cars around the diamond may belatedly be one of my favorite movie moments of 2024. Lovely, funny, characterful beats throughout. And now I can go read Dave’s recent article involving this.
Arsenic and Old Lace
This drags a bit in the middle, but it still has plenty of madcap charm: amazing how many laughs you can get just from someone opening a window seat. Cary Grant gets more and more delightful here the more frazzled and frantic he gets, and there’s a sneaky dramatic pull to it, too, because his panic has the emotional core of wanting to (rightly or wrongly) protect the people he cares about. But we also correctly make time for wonderfully buffoonish bits like him rolling his eyes at the contrived stupidity of a character in a play even as the same events are happening to him in real-time, so the laughs always take precedence here, and to good effect.
“But darling, Niagara Falls!”
“It does? Well, let it!”
A History of Violence
A masterpiece. I feel like I’ve seen this discussed from so many of the angles I would normally talk about–the deliberate ugly realism of the violence (still being alive after being shot in the face is a horror beat, which Cronenberg knows and uses to sublime effect here), the almost mythic contrast between the painterly ordinariness of Tom’s small town life and the violence that erupts (this film is a masterpiece of set design, especially in the Stall home: check out those T and E wooden blocks on the coat rack), the haunting cut to black in the middle of whatever Edie’s final reaction will be–that I have nothing especially new to add. Except that this Viggo Mortensen would have made one hell of a Roland Deschain.
Columbo, “Blueprint for Murder”
Directed by Peter Falk himself! This episode is slightly weaker on mystery construction–and the murderer makes one of the dumbest blunders we’ve seen yet, tuning his victim’s radio to a classical station while disposing of his car; you know what, how about we do this murder clean-up in silence? You don’t deserve to get away with crimes if that’s how you’re going to handle yourself–but Patrick O’Neal, whom I know best from The Stepford Wives holds the screen well, and Columbo’s relationship with the victim’s ex, the eccentric Goldie (Janis Paige), is charming, as are Columbo’s adventures in City Hall red tape. Other shows have lifted the howcatchem format and Columbo’s somewhat ditzy, sloppy front, but it feels like fewer have tried to imitate the feeling that he genuinely likes and appreciates people in all their variety, often including the killers themselves.
I was delighted to get that “this movie is about exactly one thing” angle in my essay on A History Of Violence. It’s almost a model on that kind of writing.
Also no wonder Radcliffe won a Tony – he really exemplifies what Sondheim wanted with “actors who can sing,” funny and still very much breaking down live on television.
I love how you can see everything go off the rails pre-song, right as he faux-cheerfully points out that actually, he’s pretty sure the news anchor isn’t supposed to mention Frank’s new deal in front of him. The brittleness really comes through.
I Love Boosters – A wild, cartoonish, visually dazzling time at the movies with unevenly angled floors, stop motion, machines that run on dialectical materialism, pussy-eating demons, and big, monochromatic colors. Putney Swope meets the French New Wave. If it falls apart near the end, it’s because there are so many ideas and inventive displays of political concepts at play, and I’d rather have excess than a movie with little to say or do. Keke Palmer continues to be a true star while Will Poulter steals his scenes as the most irritating clothing store manager possible.
Widow’s Bay – Tom finally reaching the point where he might believe the island is cursed thanks to Tim Baltz as a possible ghost haunting the local hotel and the legendary sea hag pursuing him by land and sea. The latter is probably the most the show gets into supernatural entity as metaphor, with Tom terrified about moving on from his widower status, and it’s still effective and spooky. Lots of uncanny touches throughout like Tom rummaging through the hotel and opening an old “board game” called TEETH; all that’s inside is a set of pliers. That and the video of a guy introducing tourists to Widow’s Bay and then standing at the door, Blair Witch style, as the credits play.
What did we listen to?
1001 Albums, etc.
Bad Brains – I Against I: not an artist I was particularly familiar with, I found the production really off-putting unfortunately. Some absolutely horrible-sounding 80s fuzz guitars.
Anita Baker – Rapture: didn’t recognise the name but of course I know “Sweet Love”. Enjoyable if a bit too smooth and background-y at times. Great voice. The book oddly uses this entry to slam Whitney Houston, who does not appear on the list!
The Smiths – The Queen Is Dead: I need the songs to clear a high threshold to put up with Morrissey these days but this album continues to sail over that bar, great stuff. The band are on fire.
Would recommend the first Bad Brains album myself.
CBS Radio Mystery Theater, “The Deadly Hour”
From 1974. This is a wild ride that goes on just a tad too long: as I say so often, this would be more powerful if it ended with the cannibalism.
A man pays a visit to a psychiatrist and reveals that he hasn’t said a word in twenty-five years, ever since he found out his marriage was an adulterous lie from the start, but now he needs to unburden himself: on his regular visit to miserably camp in a small seaside cave, he discovered a young couple there instead, and their sweet, lovestruck sincerity infuriated him … so he walled them up alive. This is an excellent, phenomenally dark horror premise that goes to some even more evil places later on–after they’ve been starving in the darkness for two weeks, licking moisture off the walls to survive, the man drops a matchbook with I AM HERE written on it down through a crack, briefly giving them the false hope that they’re about to be rescued, but no, he’s the cause of their suffering and just here to voyeuristically observe their end. It eventually outpaces its own story and gets a shade too pointedly psychological, but still: some gripping, vivid horror here. I should start listening to an older supsense/horror/sci-fi radio episode a week.
Similarly found Gethard on Blank Check a tad exhausting, nice guy whose digressions meshing with Griffin makes for a lot even for a famously extra podcast.
Music-wise: The second half of Hadestown makes for an intense and satisfying listen; the finale is cyclical and finds hope in that fact and its own existence, that if you sing an old, sad song again and again, perhaps that means it can change. The whole musical is extremely “70s concept album” in its ambition, romance, and painful, clumsy sincerity and I kind of like that about it.
Blank Check covered Mando and Grogu’s Cash Grab so I don’t have to see it. And while the discussions and digressions are interesting, it’s hard to get through. I am not big on Chris Gethard, who talks in what generalizations way too much (did kids really learn right and wrong from Star Wars and A:TLA?). And there is a lot of anti-Filoni sentiment here, which might be justified but feels a bit overblown. Still, this is probably the most entertainment I am likely to get from what sounds like a dreary movie.
Hoax! did a delightful episode about a “time traveler” who posted online for three years that he’d come back in time to the late 90s on a mission but also to hang with his family. To this day, the hoaxer has never been uncovered, so who knows, it might be real!
Year of the Month update!
This May, we’ll be opening the doors for your writing on any movies, albums, books, etc. from 2014!
TBD: Cori Domschot: Earth to Echo
TBD: Cori Domschot: Jack Ryan
May. 17th: Tristan Nankervis: Whiplash
May 23rd: Ben Hohenstatt: Plowing Into the Field of Love
May 31st: Tristan Nankervis: The Imitation Game
And in. June, you can write up any of these movies, albums, books, etc. from 1958.
Jun. 5th: Gillian Nelson: Paul Bunyan
Jun. 12th: Gillian Nelson: Grand Canyon
Jun. 14th: Tristan Nankervis: Vertigo
Jun. 19th: Gillian Nelson: Elfego Banca
Jun. 26th: Gillian Nelson: Disneyland Gay Days
Jun. 28th: Tristan Nankervis: Touch of Evil