Hello, friends. In the spring a young life form’s fancy turns lightly to thoughts of bursting forth from the psychedelic cocoon. And while they cross-pollinate my type hibernate in bedrooms above, trawling the megabytes to bring you another selectrumeclectrum of interesting music that might be sailing under the radar, replete with the usual evocations of the season and meeting (or exceeding) our ‘M4’ pledge: maximum melody, moderate melancholy.

You can listen to this episode via the embedded player just below in this post—if you don’t see it, try turning off your ad-blocker then reloading the page—or on the Mixcloud website, via the Mixcloud mobile app, on your Sonos system, etc.

There’s also a more barebones iteration of this episode’s playlist on Spotify (minus my commentary, as well as songs that are missing from their library).

If you like what you hear, please support the artists. You’ll find buy links to all the tracks in the bulleted list below.

Gray Days and Gold, May 2021

1. Small Plant, “Mothering Nature” (2021) • BUY
2. Lonny Micro, “Eyes of Electric Blue” (2021) • BUY
3. Momus, “Under the Volcano” (2021) • BUY
4. Louis-Jean Cormier, “138” (2021) • BUY
5. Will Stratton, “Tokens” (2021) • BUY
6. King Crimson, “Cat Food” (1970) • BUY
7. Aaron Space & His Terrestrial Underlings, “Grass” (2021) • BUY
8. Cap’n Marble, “Fox in a Hole” (2021) • BUY
9. The Pattern Forms, “Simple Pleasures” (2021) • BUY
10. Mottron, “How Long” (2021) • BUY
11. Brian Dickinson, “Spring Prologue” (2017) • BUY
12. Justin Sullivan, “Daughter of the Sun” (2021) • BUY
13. Ruby Rushton, “The Good Mixer” (2021) • BUY
14. Blossom Dearie, “They Say It’s Spring” (1957) • BUY
15. Stoylov, “Concrete Arrows” (2021) • BUY

Appendix

Justin Sullivan interview (Couch Riffs podcast)

As a longtime fan of New Model Army, I was surprised when this recent interview with the band’s chief singer/songwriter demonstrated how much I didn’t know. For example, any fan knows the importance of Sullivan’s partner Joolz Denby in the group’s aesthetic, but I had no idea that she was critical in the group’s formation as well. Or that Sullivan’s trademark intensity on stage, which didn’t wane a bit in the twenty years between the two occasions that I’ve seen them live, was inspired by The Ruts. Extremely revealing is that the band members can’t agree on a single album in the history of music that they’d all consider an unqualified classic, a diversity of artistic opinion which prevents them from ever leaning very far in a particular stylistic direction, and perhaps is essential to the genre-defiance that makes them the only rock band to whom I consistently pay attention. Listen here.

As always, thanks for listening. If you have questions, suggestions, etc. please feel free to contact me. And if you’d like to receive these posts via email, you can sign up here. Take care.

[Cover photo courtesy of Sean Pratt]