Indiecast - Oneohtrix Point Never + Salem

Episode Date: October 30, 2020

This week's episode kicks off with a reader question asking for Steven Hyden and Ian Cohen's thoughts on the artists of the 2000's and 2010's that were hugely influential to the new crop of indie musicians coming out today. Each "scene" has its own central name, but Cohen is quick to assign roles of leadership to artists like Mac DeMarco, Frankie Cosmos, Alex G, and Title Fight. Hyden is also adds to the list artists like Tame Impala and The War On Drugs, who influenced a whole other sect of emerging indie artists with their psychedelic tendencies.The meat of the episode is dedicated to diving into new albums from Oneohtrix Point Never and Salem. In the case of 'Magic Oneohtrix Point Never,' Hyden wonders whether this will be the record that breaks Daniel Lopatin into the pop mainstream, with a track featuring none other than The Weeknd. On the other hand, Hyden and Cohen are unsure what to think of 'Fires In Heaven,' the new album from Michigan duo Salem, who The Washington Post called "the stupidest band on Earth" in 2011.In this week’s Recommendation Corner, Cohen is digging 'No Driver,' the new album from Swedish band I Love Your Lifestyle, while Hyden is tiding himself over until the return of live music with new live albums from The War On Drugs and Arctic Monkeys. Sign up for the Indie Mixtape newsletter here.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Indycast is presented by Uprox's indie mixtape. Hello everyone and welcome to Indycast. On this show, we talk about the biggest indie news of the week. We review albums and we hash out trends. In this episode, we'll be talking about new albums by Winnetrix Point Never and Salem. My name is Stephen Hayden, and I'm joined by my friend and co-host, Ian Cohen. Ian, how are you? For one thing, super excited about this episode because I think it kind of goes a little bit off-brand for us.

I mean, do you ever feel sometimes that, like, you're feeling, maybe that you're getting a bit typecast as a writer or as someone who, as far as your music taste goes? Because last week, a friend of mine was telling me this, this writer, a pretty, a pretty renowned writer. Some might say he even wrote the book on emo, like, texted her saying, hey, I'm listening to Ian Cohen core. And it was like, too chay-a-more. And it's like, I think this episode, you know, as much as like I do like identify with that realm, I think this episode brings us back to a time like where we were guys like like, I don't even think we knew each other back then. But like this is the kind of stuff that I was covering back then.

Like rap and like weirdo electronic music. Like back when I was just a guy trying to make a name for himself and reviewing any like anything under the sun. So yeah, you know, I don't know. I think it's like, if you think of your favorite actors, you know, I think all of them have certain roles that they're associated with. And it is a double-edged sword at some point because you feel like they're very easy to stereotype. But then on the other hand, it's like, well, they have a personality. So I like having a personality. And I've leaned into it as I've gotten older.

I'm like, hey, I am Stephen Hayden. I'm going to listen and talk about Stephen Hayden music. I'm glad there is such a thing. And I think on this show, we've already had the Indycast genre of music. It feels like that's already emerging on streaming platforms, which is very flattering for me. And I hope we can continue to not surprise people with our takes on this show. Just wait until the end of the episode, if you think we're getting a little bit too far off our path. I'm pretty excited to talk about Salem.

I'm stoked to talk about these two. That's so 2010 to me. And as listeners of this show know, we like to go back to 2010 fairly often. But before we get to all that, we have our mailbag segment. And by the way, thank you to everyone who has been writing to us asking questions. We really appreciate it. We like hearing from our listeners. Most of the time, we're just getting compliments from people, which is great to hear.

But, you know, if you've got some complaints, send them over. Ian and I will like talk about you behind your back. We'll make fun of you. You know, if you, but the, you know, but if you want to complain, that's fine. No, hit me up. My email address is steve.hidot-hiden at uprocks.com. You can also hit either one of us on Twitter. We will make note of your questions and hopefully we'll get to address it in an episode.

Today's message comes from a listener named Brian. And Brian writes in saying, Just saw a link to your most recent pod off of a big thief subreddit. Listen to a couple episodes, and I think I've been looking for something like this for a little while, exclamation point. Feels like music podcasts with a breadth of knowledge and influence can be kind of hard to come by without sounding to NPR or giving me recommendations to listen to like a Mongolian throat singer or something. This guy has a question? But he does. But, you know, again, I like to leave the compliments in the reader, in the listener mail just so we can, again, just have this like reflective.

did glory put back on us. By the way, maybe I'm just not used to positive feedback from readers. I don't know. This is a little awkward for me. Ian, lean into the positivity, man. This is a positive scene on this podcast. I was just going to say, we were about to do a special theme episode on Mongolian throat singers, but maybe we ought to reconsider that. It sounds like the listeners wouldn't be into that sort of thing. On the Adrian Linker Bibadubi pod, you guys talked about Sakamani and Phoebe Bridgers being kind of the origin of a lot of sound-alike bands coming out right now. And I think it would be cool to talk about how many of those, how many other artists are out there like that right now? Two that come to mind are definitely

Mac DeMarco for all the bands drenched in synths and seventh chords. And on a smaller scale, Frankie Cosmos for every 8.0 rated indie singer based somewhere in the Northeast. I like both of them for sure, seeing as a lot of my taste is kind of built around that 2010 Philly, Brooklyn scene, there just seems to be a lot of those groups that sound like them right now. now. Let me know what you think. Again, that's from Brian. Brian, you ought to have your own podcast. You're breaking down the artist with expert music critical acumen in that email. But yeah, Ian, he mentioned, I think, two really good examples, Mac DeMarco and Frankie Cosmos, artists that it seems like a lot of other, you know, maybe younger up-and-coming indie artists

are looking to them and emulating them in some way. What other artists like that come to mind for you? Yeah, I mean, the past week I've been reading Jeff Chang's Can't Stop, Won't Stop, History of the Hip Hop Generation, and like after 15 years. And one of the main points of that book is to really like just listen to the kids, like, see what they're doing. They drive culture. And so for the past week, I saw a, I saw some articles on hyperpop, one written by Eli Enis, a good friend of ours.

And also one about Lorum, this Spotify. playlist that is massively influential. And when I looked at Lorham, it just sounded like this alternate universe where MacDamarko was like the Beatles and Tame and Pala was the Rolling Stones. People who like they may be 20 years old or even younger, but like clearly, clearly influenced by MacDamarko. Frankie Cosmos, as Brian said, is more towards the indie side of things.

but I think if you're going to bring up Frankie Cosmos, you have to bring up kind of the counterpoint, which is Alex G. I cannot tell you how many, you know, solo, singer, songwriter, band camp type people have taken after Alex G, whether it's the alternate tunings or the, you know, the vocal manipulations. I think what Frankie Cosmos and, you know,

Alex G have done in particular has just made the band camp route seem doable. Like there isn't a high. bar of difficult like they're both very talented but there isn't a high bar of difficulty to do what it is that they're doing and so i think though you hear someone with a guitar kind of warbling and like nowadays you think Alex G not like stephen malchmus or you know will old them or whatever and if we're going to talk about hyperpop i mean you have to talk about charlie xx is like or pc music as like origin artist as well but that's a little outside of like i think what brian's asking about also title fight. Title fight is a band that if they are, if we have reunion shows or if, you know,

they ever reunite, I'm not sure how plausible that is. Like, that might be a situation similar to what you saw with Jawbreaker in the past couple of years where they come back and play like the Palladium in L.A. These like two or three thousand cap rooms. So I would say those ones are really getting towards the, if you're like 18 to 22, you're probably going to sound like, and you play guitar, you're probably going to have some element of Mac DeMarco, Alex G, Frankie Cosmos, and or title fight in there.

Yeah, I would also add, you know, you mentioned Tame Ipala. I think I definitely hear a lot of Tame I influence and a lot of younger artists. I would also mention the War on Drugs being a big influence, maybe more on the mainstream rockish side. Absolutely. Especially like the Sean Everett

era, deeper understanding. And we talked about that Killer's record you know, a few months ago that was such a War on Drugs record. They're obviously a huge band. But I think there's lots of other much smaller bands that are aping that Synthi Heartland Rock thing, that they're doing some really well. A band that we both like Wild Pink.

They're going to be dropping their record next year. They're definitely in that lineage. But I think there's lots of other bands. Yeah, there are ones that you don't really hear very much. Like I think of the last Caveman album. It's like these indie bands that are kind of bubbling up on the indie slash mainstream side. Like there's a lot more war on drugs in their sound now. You are absolutely right. So let's get into the meat of our episode. We're talking about two electronic artists in this episode.

The first is One Otricks Point Never. He has a new record that is out today called Magic. One of Tricks Point Never. This is a project spearheaded by a guy named Daniel Lopiton. He's been working since the mid-aughts. And working, I guess, like in sample-based music as well as like, like, like, Old synth sounds, MIDI, all that kind of stuff. I would say that his aesthetic is basically taking music from the past, specifically music from the 1980s, I think, for the most part, and warping it and changing it in such a way that music that maybe once would have sounded comforting or banal or extremely mainstream ends up sounding a little bit twisted,

maybe darker, disturbing. In some cases, very strangely beautiful. But really, you know, when I listen to his music and also, his interviews, he strikes me as a musician who has a critical element to what he's doing. He reminds me a little bit of like someone who's doing music criticism in the form of music. There's something very sort of commenting on the music of the past and also like how we remember the music of the past that I think is sort of an interesting intellectual element to what he's doing. I think in terms of the mainstream or I guess people that maybe don't normally listen

to electronic records, I feel like OPN really came into like a larger consciousness when he started scoring films by the Sapti Brothers. That started with Good Time in 2017. That's a score that I really love. I ended up putting that album in my top ten list that year. That is the record that brought him to the attention of a pop star that you might have heard of, named The Weekend. He was a big fan of that score.

They started talking. Of course, they both ended up being involved in the next Sapti Brothers film, which was Uncut Gems. That came out in 2019. And then OPN ended up. working on the most recent weekend record, after hours, which came out earlier this year, produced several tracks.

They performed together on Saturday Night Live before the quarantine came down. And, of course, the weekend is involved in this new OPM record, Magic 10-O-Trix Point Never, sings this song on the record called No Nightmares. I think it's fair to say that if the weekend is on your record, you have reached a new strata of recognition in the world.

I wouldn't say that this is necessarily like a full-on pop record, but for an OPN record, it does feel broader, perhaps, than the work he's done in the past. I'm curious, Ian, what do you think about this record and I guess the overall evolution that OPN has been on for, like, the past, say, 15 or so years? Well, I think that he's definitely got the mind of, like, if not a music critic, like a music writer or someone on Twitter. I remember I interviewed him back in, like, 2012 or 13 for Grantland, and he would talk about how when he was at shows, he would have like one monitor playing the music, and sometimes he would use it to check his fantasy basketball scores on the other,

like perhaps during a more calm stretch, huge Celtic fan. But, you know, one oh, Tricks Point Never to me is an artist who has been, like, he's always been there in the 2010s. Like, he first kind of came onto the scene for me in 2010 when Riffs came out. It's this, I think, a double CD or double album collection of mostly ambient. music synonymous with altered zones, this sort of phenomenon that popped up. It was a pitchfork hosted community of blogs that was really getting more abstract and obscure electronic music into the attention of the public. And, you know, and that include like, you know,

forest swords or how to dress well or even grimes for that matter. And what you talked about the way he deals with sound, he used a phrase that I love so much called he's a textural fascism and being against that. Like I assume like what he meant by that as like, you know, an acoustic guitar or, you know, a drum sound like basically presets. And so what I like about one of a trick's point never is that there's really no wrong place to get started because every single thing he's done is it can be considered, quote, the one.

My personal favorite is replica. That's the, that's the most more sample based one where it's kind of taken from like old be a it's sort of quasi chill waveish but like a lot scarier and r plus seven is the one where he really went back more into like vapor wave um garden of delete uh he claimed that was his new metal album i think that was kind of like a music writer sort of thing for him to do because it doesn't really sound like corn but it has some um intellectual components of it but you know with with with where he's been like I see him as someone kind of operating outside of the greater, like the greater narrative. Like he's someone who's just like kind of carving his own path because I don't hear too many

electronic artists where I'm like, oh yeah, that sounds like one of tricks point. Never right there. Like he's very chameleonic. And what I'm curious about, like at least from your perspective, being on warp, being someone who's achieved this level of notoriety, is he someone. one that occupies the same spaces like, you know, boards of Canada or Affects twin. Like, because when I think of like warp artists that kind of dabble and rock, like, that's really where the forward-thinking artists look towards. And like you wrote, like when you wrote about

kid A, it's like Tom York bought the entire like warp catalog. Is, does one or church point never kind of occupy that space in 2010? I'm curious what you think about that. Well, you know, I feel like, I mean, if we're just talking like a musical influence, I mean, in a way, if you listen to that weekend record after hours, I feel like you can definitely hear the influence of his soundtrack work on Good Time and Uncut Jams. Again, those like really kind of bright synth sounds. I mean, really, like his soundtracks, they seem more straightforward in a way than his albums are. Yeah. Like, again, I feel like his albums have this sort of medic commentary element to them where it's like, Like, you know, you can listen to it at face value, but also if you appreciate the source material that he's drawing from, he's sort of operating in this, like, uncanny valley of like sort of, I feel like he's sort of looking at the distance between like the way we perceive things or the way that we hear things.

And the way it's like presented by technology and the valley between that and like the way things actually are. And sort of the weirdness that exists, you know, between like in the gap. between those things. And that sort of analytical element, I think, isn't really in his soundtracks. Like, the scores are basically just like these very sort of intense, you know, evocative, soundscapey things that are more, I think, directly rooted in the 80s. Yeah. Which, and I think that aesthetic, obviously, I don't know if you would just attribute that

to him. That's something that has been just sort of broadly popular, I feel like, in this realm for, like, the past decade or so. Yeah. Good time and Uncut Gems to me sit like it sits in this space between what the the stranger thing soundtrack does and I guess like Trent Resner's soundtrack work. It's a little, it's like more obscure, like more intense. And I think the movies are they're just not the same without them. I think if you see any sort of like major influence of one of tricks point never going forward, it might be the same way like people say like John Carpenter-esque synth.

I think his soundtrack work is really what's going to be influential going forward rather than people listening to like Replica or R plus 7 because with him, he kind of moves on from things very, very quickly. But I think his soundtrack work is what people will, it's like, yeah, we want one Otricks Point never to do that. Right, exactly. Yeah, you mentioned Rezner. Yeah, his, like the scores that he's done definitely remind me of like those early

Resner scores, like, for the social network. And I guess we should mention Atticus Ross, too. Atticus Ross always get in the shaft. People don't want to mention Atticus in the context. I'm sure he sleeps well at night. He's doing all right. But yeah, and also, like, how Resner and as well as Lopetan, they're both referencing. You mentioned John Carpenter.

I'd also say like Gertio Moroder, like those kind of, yeah. Yeah, that kind of stuff. It's interesting, like, this new record, this Magic 10 Otricks Point Never, You know, I was setting it up as it being, again, not just, I don't think it's exactly a full-on pop record, but it is, I think, for an OPN record, it's relatively approachable. Again, you have the weekend on this record. You have Caroline, Polichick of Cherlifts. She's on a song.

Arka is on a track. So he's bringing in, like, fairly well-known people from the indie pop world as well as, of course, this huge superstar in the weekend. It is interesting to me, though, that, like, even in the context of a record, like this, that I think people, if they're going to write the narrative of this album, you might say it's OPN moving into more of a mainstream strata. It's also like a comment on that as well, because this is a record where he's really kind of reflecting on his own nostalgia for listening to the radio when he was a teenager, and he's talked about how that was

how he fell in love with music. And I think even now he says he really likes listening to the radio for the communal aspect of it that you get from just hearing DJ's voices and the idea that all these people are listening to the same thing you are at the same time. And there's bits on the record where there's like these interstitial tracks where it's like these, again, kind of warped sounding like radio transmissions that are in between songs. So this is like, I guess, his version of like a radio station, you know, like what it would sound like a pop radio station. Even there, it's like a comment on radio as much as, I guess, catering to it.

Well, his name itself, One Otricks Point Never, I believe it's taken from a Boston radio station 106.7. And also Magic 10 Tricks Point Never was like what he went by before he dropped the magic and went by what he does now. So yeah, I think that it does have this. It is very much like an intellectual piece. Like I don't think it's his longest record for one thing. And there's still just as many like really long and drawn out ambient pieces like, you know,

the weather channel, which is I think another kind of. at a commentary because I think more people who like more abstract and like challenging electronic music have a cute maybe due to his popularity have accused them of kind of going to that Mike Oldfield like weather channel hold music style thing and so just to call something the weather channel particularly the longest song kind of nods at that and yeah I think it's interesting to like think of the radio because I mean how often do you listen to the rate like the radio the radio the radio the radio. Well, hardly never.

Yeah. And what, it's, it's interesting when I do hear it, like, I, at work, sometimes I've had to drive a van that has no ox court or whatever. And you realize just how few songs there are on the radio and, like, how, how influential it is when you have, like, a captive audience. So I do, also, like, to make a, make a nostalgic album about the radio very much shows that he is aiming, I don't think, towards, like, you. the Zumer generation, you know, like I think that sort of nostalgia is completely lost upon anyone

under the age of, I don't know, 25. Well, although I think, again, on this record, he's not doing it in a straightforward way. No, not at all. I think it's another example of him taking something from the past and making it seem, something that might seem overly familiar in making it seem sort of alien and new and a little strange, you know, I think that's how it comes across on this record. think I think it's interesting. If you're more familiar with OPN through the soundtrack work, his recent records that have actually been pretty sedate. Like this record and age of,

which I believe came out in 2018, are both like fairly soft and I think often beautiful. But like I think of his work with the Sapty brothers and this is very appropriate, of course, for those films. Those are like pretty intense scores. And they're great. But like, you know, it's definitely like riding like a razor's edge. of tension that does not exist on these most recent OPN records, which, again, I think, tend to be, you know, almost like a soft rock type music, which, again, not a straightforward version of that, but I think, you know, I think of the song on this record, like, I don't love me, I don't love anyone, which sounds like, again, this sort of garbled, you know, like 10-C-track

from the 70s or something, or that song, No Nightmares, the weekend track, I think he has talked about how that power ballad, uh, separate lives by Phil Collins was, was one of the inspirations for that song, um, which you can hear. And really, like, that's a, I think, kind of a genius showcase for someone like the weekend. I get it. To me, it's like him having it both ways where he can like have this huge pop star on his record. But there's also like a slight almost like deconstructionist quality to having him sing on a song like that. Yeah. I don't know. There's like a layer of irony almost to it. having him having the weekend sing this kind of garbled twisted version of an 80s power

ballad but yeah I mean for the most part I like this record I enjoyed it and I tend I would say that I lean more toward his soundtrack work as opposed to his recent albums just because I find them to be a little bit more dynamic but I like this record overall what did you think um to me like I like that it exists. Like I haven't been like hit really hard by a one of a tricks point out since a replica in 2011. I think that's the one that had like this more sort of evil and uncanny sound to it. I think that the ones that have come after have been very conceptual, like very in a weird way like cerebral in a way I can appreciate like oh, oh here's the new one oh trics point never record. And I listened to it and I think,

oh, you know, this is good. I appreciate what it's doing. And then I read people who are more familiar. It's like, this is amazing. And I always feel like I'm missing something with this work. I think that maybe, I think in some ways, it's similar to the new Sufyan album where if I give myself more opportunity to let it sink in or if I don't quite like let the hot take, you know, sink in. Like it'll probably appreciate it more.

Also, there's a big difference between listening to something on Spotify and listening to it on like a Hallex promo website. I think that, yeah, luxury problems for sure. But I think with him, I think his more interesting work occurs now on the soundtracks. And I don't know like how much, you know, I don't know like which one's more meaningful or if they compliment each other. But for me, it's like this one's good. Am I going to flip over it? I don't know quite yet.

I think that that he's definitely not. fallen off, and he's not become self-parody. So I think he keeps the conversation going with him, which is really all I can ask for of a 1-0-O-Trix Point Never album. So if OPM represents, I guess, the more cerebral side of electronic music, I think it's fair to say that Salem is the non-cerebral side. Salem is a group. They're from Traverse City, Michigan.

They were originally a trio. They were formed in 2008. Their full-length debut called King Knight came out in 2010. And I remember that being like one of the most controversial indie records of that year. And I think it had to do partly with how Salem was associated with this genre known as Witch House, which I think is, can we say that was critically maligned at the time? I don't. I don't know. I think like it was maligned, but also like the fact that it was such a phenomenon means that people were like really into it as well.

Like it's something like it's kind of like chill wave in that sense where like a lot of people really made fun of it. But also there are people who thought like this was the future. Right. And you mentioned chill wave. And I feel like witch house was a similar kind of music. I think it had like a similar aesthetic in terms of taking reference points from like the previous 20 years or so. And sort of changing it and distorting it and it. and reflecting it in more of, I guess, low-fi sort of way.

Like with Witch House, it was basically like goth music and like trap-rap-rap music, you know, which are not two genres that you would have mashed together before. But I think there was a lot of, I guess, conversation about like cultural appropriation with Witch House. I think a lot of people felt that some of these groups were, especially on the rap side, approaching it from like sort of a tourist perspective, maybe not. the most respectful or reverent perspective. That was certainly a criticism

that was levied at Salem back in the day. They were also controversial because of this performance that they had at South by Southwest in 2010, which I think it's fair to say is one of the most infamous performances in the history of the festival. I actually wrote a piece about that earlier this year right before

South by Southwest was actually canceled, which I remember back then, that was like the first sign that COVID was going to like totally upend our lives, at least in my world. I was like, okay, we have to take this seriously. But I wrote a piece about their performance that year, which was basically a disaster. Like, they were this group that, like, clearly had no experience performing live. And they were at the fader fort, and they're basically, like, walking around stage listlessly.

I don't know. It's hard for me to do this justice on a podcast. You just have to look up this performance. Like, go look it up. I think the song that they talk about is red lights, which is actually like they're one of their best songs. But, I mean, it's a couple things. The fact that it's this style of music, that it's fader for, which I think people kind of associate with maybe flash in the pan type music and South by Southwest. Like this combination of factors just leads.

Is it a total, is it a total fail performance? I mean, we're still talking about it 10 years. later. It's so bad that it's fascinating. You could almost say that it's a commentary. I keep talking about meta-commentary in this episode. Take a drink because I just said medic commentary again. But yeah, you could almost say like, oh, like maybe they're commenting on terrible up-and-coming

hipster bands. We have to mention the fact that they're 2008, 7-inch. The first thing I think people most heard from them was called, yes, I smoke crack. So, Right. Well, that was the thing about them is that

they had this very decadent image where, yeah, they would do these interviews where they'd talk about smoking crack, you know,

having sex and gas station bathrooms, you know, all of this crazy behavior. So there was a mythology about them

that I think exceeded the size of their audience, even though they were, I think, a pretty popular group in their time. But yeah,

there was just a strong backlash against them after that South by Southwest performance. I think, you know, in the context

of the time, I mean, this was the peak of like people complaining about hipsters. Like, yes. Which is where you never hear anymore. But like back then, like people were so upset about hipsters. And like hipsters ruling the culture and this idea that like if you were hipster, you were ironically liking things, that you were embracing things that weren't actually good. But for some reason you thought were funny or silly and you're going to like insert this into

the culture for that reason. And there was a lot of suspicion about that. And I think Salem became a flat. point for that, like people that were suspicious of hipsters or they hated that culture. They looked at this band. They were like, this is the kind of stuff that music critics like. How can we take these people seriously? This is terrible.

And it kind of sunk their career, I think, in a way. I mean, they put out an EP in 2011 that is called I'm Still in the Night. But then after that, they basically went on hiatus until this year in this new record, which is called Fires in Heaven. It's their first full length again in 10 years, the first since King Knight. They're no longer a trio. One of the singers, Heather Marlett, is not involved in the project currently. And there was like a mini controversy about this.

Apparently, like she wrote an Instagram post where she said that basically she didn't want to tour or be involved in a music project right now because she's a mother of two kids and she didn't want to be involved in this in the middle of a pandemic. So, I don't know. That's a very odd controversy with Salem. It's like, I don't want to go on tour and I want to be a mother to my two kids. It's very wholesome. That's not very controversial at all.

Well, and I mean, it is a weird time to be relaunching this project. You know, obviously they can't play live, although in Salem's case, maybe that's not. That's not a bad thing. But, you know, when I wrote that piece about the South by Southwest performance, it was an opportunity for me to revisit King Knight, which was a record I reviewed in 2010 and gave a pretty negative review of. And I feel like that record has actually aged quite well. I really liked revisiting it. I think that's a pretty strong record. And it actually made me more interested to hear fires in heaven. I'm just curious, like, where do you come from with this group? And what did you think of this record? So with Salem, I love shoegays. I also love 3-6 Mafia. Like those are two things that I've loved since I became like a knowledgeable music fan like in the mid-90s.

And the idea of like putting them both together, it makes sense in a lot of ways because both are very slow, very narcotic music. And I think Salem approached that like it's funny you mentioned decadent because when you talk. about like what they did, which is like sex and gas station bathrooms and smoking crack, which I actually know a guy who like booked some shows in San Diego around that time. Like he was, he was the type of guy hanging with like black lips and King Khan and that whole wave. And he's like, yeah, Salem, like they were very real. Like those interviews are not a stunt. And it's, it's decadent, but like in a very cheap sort of way. You know, it's not like Motley Crew where it's that sort of decadence. But, um,

When I came to Salem, I thought they were very interesting. It's like, oh, this is new. This is novel. This is something that I want to hear more of. Now, can it be done? Because I think you hear a lot of artists who, you know, try to push genres in places they might not be ready to go. But King Knight was a record when it finally came out. Like, I was just kind of shocked by how good it sounds.

Like not like the music like or the it's more like the production of it. It was produced by Dave Sardi who's like a rock guy. I think he's like worked on like a perfect circle records or things of that nature. But he did the jet record like get bored. Oh, well. Yeah. He's worked with like, well, I was just saying like whatever you think of jet. I mean that is like the epitome of like mainstream rock and like big sounding rock.

So yeah. So that is the direction that they were coming from with that record. And I think it benefits from that. You're right, it is this like kind of like dirtbag Midwestern type decadence. But on that album, it is blown out. Yeah. To like epic scale. Yeah.

And Trapp Door, I think that's the song that people really like look toward. Like if you listen just the instrumentals like King Knight, which I think samples, so Silent Night or something like that, if you listen to that, like the bigger instrumental pieces or release the bore, I don't think there's as much controversy, but where it can where things really start to come up are like songs like Trapp Door, where they actually like rap and it sounds like Chalk and Screwed Rap. And it's, you know, pretty vulgar, kind of like pretty misogynist as well. And it's like, do we take this at face value?

Also, if you can find it after you watch their Fader Fort performance, there's a sped up version of Trapp Door on YouTube, which actually sounds like really good. If you can, you know, get past the lyrics. but people like really, really hated Salem. I think people, like, I think someone called like Trapp Door, like the worst song of like the decade, I think. But for me, I think there was a, I think because people felt, I mean, I think the issue with that too is that, oh, these are like white kids from Michigan almost like making fun of rap. I think there was like a suspicion, which I don't think is a fair necessarily criticism to make. With three six months.

That seemed to be feeling the animus, though, against them. They were, like, making fun of that culture, essentially. With 3-6 Mafia in particular, like, I think to my experience in college where, like, I went to school in Virginia, where you would find people who list, like, 3-6 Mafia was the only rap they listened to. Like, that stuff was so super important, particularly for the Midwest. And also, like, you know, 3-6 Mafia would collaborate with, like, insane clown posse and, like, a guy from saliva. So I think the love of it is very legitimate, but with Salem, like, you get into this thorny problem of like, okay, I love this music. I love DJ Paul and JuC.J's production. How do I evoke that with also not making songs like tear the club up or like slob on my knob or something like that? In Salem, I think they made a game effort in a lot of ways. And I also think that when we look at the, when we at least compare like Wino Trix Point never in Salem. like, Wyn Otrick's Point never had a much deeper catalog, a much, I guess you would call it successful 2010s. But Salem, I think, was way more influential.

When you look at like what they did and how it led to, you know, stuff like Goth Boy Click or emo rap, a lot of that stuff that come out. It's an album that like, I think, I think artists and critics kind of think differently about this record because, you know, critics would think, like, oh, Salem couldn't put out a good record. but like, you know, there's like this wave of like younger artists who think what they're doing is cool. Like I don't care if it's like, you know, two songs are good and like 10 or just whatever. It's they took this idea and kind of ran with it. And I think King Knight to me stands as this album that like may not be like particularly great, but is super important.

And I think it can be both of those things at once, you know? Well, I think Salem, the power of their music is how enveloping it is. Yes. How huge it sounds. And like you have the huge. beats and you have these like sampled string sounds and it just sounds enormous and I and when you listen to King Night like that first track it just sweeps you in and it's if you aren't sort of looking at the cultural context of it against some of those songs if you're just looking at it purely

as sound it is you know I think undeniably you know evocative and in you know sort of magnetic in that way. I think one reason why they've been influential, too, is that they have such a fixed aesthetic. And I think when you listen to this new record, Fires in Heaven, you know, that is a bit of a blessing and a curse, because Salem, basically their songs all sound alike, I think. I think they have a formula and they repeat it over and over again. And, you know, you and I were talking this week about this record, and I think you texted me at some point and you said, this new Salem record is pretty bad. And I wrote back and I'm like, I don't know if I could tell the difference between a good

Salem record and a bad Salem record. I think the gap is very small because, again, I think they're doing the same thing all the time. And like when I listen to this record, I mean, I enjoy it most of the time. I guess I enjoy it as much as King Knight. I think the things that are different on this record is, one, you don't have the huge production. No.

And two, you don't have that element of danger. that I think existed in 2010. Again, the mythology that was around Salem that I think maybe turned a lot of music critics off, I'm sure that sucked a lot of people in. They're like smoking crack. I mean, this is amazing, and they're on the edge. And, you know, you don't necessarily get that vibe anymore.

I mean, they're older. I mean, maybe they still smoke crack. I have no idea. I think they talk a lot about getting sober. Okay. Well, good for them. I'm glad I bet they did. But,

So yeah, I don't know. It just seems like if you like King Knight, this is in the same vein, I think, as King Knight, although maybe I guess just less powerful. Yeah. And I also think like losing the other, like losing Heather as a vocalist and is another counterpoint to it because the King Knight worked not just as like this enveloping sort of sound, but also like there were counterpoints to it. Like you had like the real, you know, 3-6 mafia fanfic like trap door, but you also had like red lights. which was more of like a shoe gaze, uh, trap. Like,

more shoegays less trap. And I think that her presence also kind of counteracted, uh, the more unseemly, seemly parts. And, you know, now it's, I mean, does the, does, does, does having a second record take away from the, the, the reputation of King Knight? Like, I don't know. Like, to me, when I listen to, I, I think a lot of the luster's worn off when I,

I listened to like bands or bands or rappers or whatever who have taken what Salem have done and kind of made it better. I think we have to bring up the Space Ghost Purp album that was put out on 4A.D. In 2012, Space Ghost Purp is a guy who is kind of working in a similar vein. He just like extremely low-fi, 3-6 Mafia rip-offs, for lack of a better term. But Salem made it possible for this guy to release a rap record. like that on 4 AD, which usually does like Big Thief and Deer Hunter and Cocto Twins record. So between that, like Raider Klan stuff, when I hear like where people have taken Salem's music, like I don't think they have the ability to really kind of change the trajectory again.

When I listen to the new record, it's like, okay, like it's definitely them, but it sounds thinner. it sounds a little more diminished and like it's it's quality but it it's kind of missing that sense of danger that sense of like it really challenging um what we think music is supposed to do you know it's like it it fits very comfortably into a world they created you know and i think that's a sign of king knight's success i mean will this be a footnote who the hell like who the heck knows i mean like i i don't know if there's been like a heck of a lot of discussion about it ever since. Okay. Well, Salem's back.

Hey. But other than that, like, I mean, it exists. Yeah, I don't see this having any impact on how people remember King Knight. I think that is such a singular moment in the history of like, you know, I guess recent indie music. When you talk about 2010, I feel like Salem is going to have to be discussed. And, you know, the good points of what they did and the bad points of what they did, They're such of that moment. You know, I guess if you want to start in 2008 and go until, you know, their EP that came out in 2011, like that seems like their moment.

This seems like a postscript to me. Yeah. I think there's people certainly that still love Salem and they're going to check out this record. And again, I think that if you like King Knight, you're going to enjoy this record. I don't think it's going to get like, you know, people are going to say like, oh, this is shit or whatever. Like, I think it'll be kindly received. that's yeah i think it's like a pretty good record given the gap that exists between you know this and like their previous work you know but to me king knight again it kind of stands on its own

and some people will remember this and some people won't even know that salem even ever made another album but you know how many bands have that one record that people remember i mean and how many people you know of all the thousands of bands that have performed at south by southwest how many do we remember, you know. We don't remember most of the performances that were great or even just okay, but we remember Salem. So right or wrong, they have their place in the indie rock history books. All right, we've now reached the part of the episode that we call Recommendation Corner, where Ian and I talk about something that we are into this week. Ian, what do you recommend? All right, so as we kind of hinted at the top of the episode, this brings us right back into

the territory, which you probably know us for. Every now and again I go through these like weeks or something like that where I think, man, there's just there's just nothing happening that's really moving me right now, particularly when we're talking about like the emo slash DIY realm, where I hear bands that's like, oh, another Frankie Cosmos rip off, another Alex G rip off. Oh, these guys sound like title fight. And then right now, I don't want to like give a shout out to too many bands in case I want to talk about them. a later episode, but right now it's a very bumper time for bands in this realm. The one that stands out most to me is I Love Your Lifestyle. They are a band from Sweden. They sound like they're from

Philadelphia. Last year they put out an album called The Movie, which I put that alongside Osso Oso's Basking in the Globe as far as records that are definitely emo, but also have kind of a power pop sort of leaning to it. It's very accessible. And so they actually, they came out a year later with this record called No Driver, which kind of does the same thing, but a little bit more emphatically.

They have a song called A Line on the new record, which they describe as American Football meets Pat Mathini. I don't know if this gets Steve interested. But when I hear it, hear this record, it just makes me think of, like, man, what would happen if, like, a subpop or merge or Madador got behind this sort of thing? It reminds me not just of like revival era emo, but also this mid-2000s blog rock that's starting to come around through like Bia Doobie or Soccer Mommy or things like that. It's just a record that has no real net. It's just a record that has no real

narrative around it, like no real cerebral aspect to it. Like, you know, English is their second language. So a lot of the lyrics are just very straightforward and kind of funny. But, you know, if you're looking for something that hits that, that oh, so, also mark of, like, emo, but like, I kind of, I kind of think it might be more shinsish or whatever, or like the shout out louds. Their last two records are absolutely perfect on that front. I just, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's futile for me to believe that this band could like make any sort of like inroads in America, not being able to tour and also being from Sweden and, you know, being on a record like dog nights and counterintuitive, which are amazing labels, but don't have a huge promotional push. But like, if you like the sort of

music we talk about at the end of these episodes, the last two, I love your lifestyle records. Like, I virtually guarantee you're going to like it. Well, that sounds cool. I'm a little surprised you didn't talk about record setter in this spot because I knew you wrote about them this week for stereo gum. That's next week, man. Okay. For that, they're doing a live stream of the record on Halloween night

and it drops on November 6th next Friday. So I'm saving that one. I was going to say that they're basically like Ian Cohen the band. Basically. Like everything Ian Cohen likes, I think, is in record setter. But also, but that's also true if I love your lifestyle. So just, just a different sort of, a different sort of, if you're into like happier stuff, you know. Well, if we can do a hard left now into total Stephen Hayden music, I have to start hyping a record that's not going to come out for another three weeks or so.

But I've been listening to it a lot lately, listening to the promo. It's live drugs, the upcoming live record, from the War on Drugs, comes out November 20th. And look, if you know me, you know I love the war on drugs, so I'm fully on board with this, but I'm also a huge fan of live albums. And it seemed like we had gone through this period, a pretty long period, like bands weren't really putting out live records all that much.

I guess because you can go on YouTube and you can stream pretty much any band that you want, you know, someone holding up a camera phone and taping a band playing in a club somewhere. but maybe because we're in this period right now where none of us can go see live concerts. I've been seeing more live albums come out in 2020 and a lot of really good ones. Actually, there's another live record that I'm really excited about that's going to be coming out in December. That's live at the Royal Albert Hall, the Arctic Monkeys live record, which I believe is a charity release benefiting war child among other charities. We'll probably talk about that record again on this show, and I'll get the charitable organizations that it is benefiting. fitting down when I talk about it again. But in terms of live drugs, it is a record that is

drawing primarily from a deeper understanding and lost in the dream. And I think like a lot of great live records, it functions not just as a great sort of representation of what a band can do live. And by the way, I will say I think the war on drugs have had an incredible evolution in the last 10 years or so from being like an okay live band to being like a truly great live band. Like, I love seeing them live. I listen to their bootlegs and what they're able to do, how they can kind of transform their songs in a live setting. It has been really great. But I think also great live records, they act as almost like de facto greatest hits records. Like, if you want to get into an artist and maybe you're like a little overly familiar with the studio

recordings, you can plug into a great live record and you can hit on the highlights of their but in a slightly different way. It makes the familiar songs feel fresh again. And I think that is definitely true of live drugs. Some of the songs are rearranged a bit in really cool ways. There's a great version of Eyes of the Wind on that record. That is really beautiful. And also, you know, you have songs like Strangest Thing

or an Ocean Between the Waves where it's not radically different versions. It's just that the guitar solos are longer and louder, which is basically what I want from a War on Drugs record. I want the solos to be even longer than they already are. So that's something you want to mark your calendars for November 20th, that record is going to be dropping. So I like that we end the episode with just totally leaning into our brands. I think that is a good way for us to end to leave people with as they exit Indycast for another week.

Thank you all for listening to this show. We will be back with more reviews and trends and banter and all the good things. things in our next episode. And if you're looking for more music recommendations, sign up for the Indie Mix Taped newsletter. You can go to uprocks.com backslash indie, and I recommend five albums per week, and we'll send it directly to your email box. Take care.

Peace.