Reviews of Dinosaur Jr.’s Green Mind don’t always focus on what a shift it was for the band. For the first time, it was J. Mascis’ unadulterated vision, updated to fit perfectly with the alternative scene that was strengthening in the early nineties. However, nothing about it presaged the success of Nirvana’s Nevermind, bringing sludge rock to the mainstream. It was at once denser than anything the band had done, but also more pastoral. On the lead single, “The Wagon,” The meandering guitar lines on the verses hint at straying through open fields on some rural route somewhere. It was no doubt this turn that helped Mascis get the role of soundtracking and appearing in 1992’s coming of age drama Gas Food Lodging.

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Memoryhouse consists of Canadians Evan Abeele and Denise Nouvion. The band had a minor hit with their piano-driven live cover of My Bloody Valentine’s “When You Sleep” for Yours Truly in 2011. They capitalized on their success with that cover and the well-regarded EP, The Years, by signing to indie heavyweight Sub Pop Records. When their follow-up full length, Slideshow Effect didn’t garner as much attention, the band unceremoniously parted ways with their label and went out on their own.

The next LP was a labor of love called Soft Hate which brought some more uptempo songs to what had previously been a mostly slowcore catalogue. Despite having some of their most accessible songs, Soft Hate didn’t generate the kind of buzz the band had experienced at their outset.

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One problem with posting your listening habits on a periodically updated Now page is that those habits can literally change overnight. A couple of days ago, I updated my /now page, only to get deeply into a Swedish jazz EP very shortly after.

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Details are scarce, but a Bluesky post has people once again wondering about the fate of Bandcamp.

my 13 years at bandcamp are coming to an end - i’ve been laid off along with most of the remaining engineers. best job i’ve ever had, working with the best people you could ever work with. unceremonious end to quite a ride.

Some are speculating that Bandcamp’s owner, Songtradr, has enough engineers to fill in the gaps and keep the service running. I would not be surprised if that were the case, and I don’t think this piece of news is necessarily an indicator that the service is shutting down, but nevertheless, it’s not a good thing.

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Tortoise - I Set My Face to the Hillside (YouTube)

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Last year, I bought TNT by Tortoise on CD from a Discogs seller.¹ I should tell you, this sort of activity is as sure a sign of my devotion to a particular album as any. After all, I’ve got access to high-quality digital copies of albums like this through streaming. I don’t need to seek them out on an online marketplace, where, let’s face it, you don’t always know the quality of the merchandise.²

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Terry Godier might be something of a genius, as evidenced by his masterfully crafted RSS reader, Current, and the ideas behind it. So when I saw he created a short documentary about musical formats, one of my favorite subjects, I had high expectations.

Godier hits upon a lot of the problems intrinsic to streaming media in the video. When he discusses the limitations of physical media, he’s able to make them sound like desirable features.

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Some good news came this week in the form of more Velocity Girl remastering. This time it’s a compilation of non-album tracks from various places being released by Slumberland Records. The collection is called 1989-1992 and the contents are precisely what it says on the tin.

The first available track from the release is my favorite song by the band, “Forgotten Favorite.” Even after the remaster, it’s still a bit muddy, but I’m not sure if there is anything more the band could do apart from rerecord the track completely. It’s still a stellar song through, with a shoegaze-worthy crush of guitars that’s as propulsive as anything put out by UK pedal hoppers. Despite some muck still on the recording, the vocals are pristine, and Sarah Shannon sounds heavenly.

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