Southpacific >> New cold dream

Southpacific - "Analogue 9"

(Turnbuckle Records, 1999)

I got this CD in a pretty strange way.  I had written to upstart indie rock label Turnbuckle Records in spring of '97 after learning that one of my favorite bands, Bailter Space, had signed to them after being dropped by Matador Recs.  They sent me a free copy of B-Space's new 7" and also a free B-Space shirt, because they were late in shipping their new album, Capsul, to me.  Cool label.  One day in early 2000, their online mailing list had a quiz made up of three softball questions about Bailter Space.  The first person to respond correctly would receive a copy of the new album Constance by Southpacific.  Well, I won it (I knew two of the answers, but sheepishly had to look up the other one online), and they sent me the CD and a bunch of promo postcards for it, and I was pretty much blown away by it, and it became the soundtrack to that summer for me.  I like the irony of a Canadian band naming itself after a balmy tropical locale.

Both of SoPac's albums got glowing reviews in the Canadian music press, and from a lot of U.S. scribes as well.  AllMusic Guide curiously said "Southpacific's songs are cacophonous photographs taken from the window from a falling 747."  Amazon staffer Matthew Cooke (yes, Amazon is one of the few online music sellers to have its own music writers who pen reviews, and not simply license reviews from AllMusic) said "All instrumental except for one song (and even then, the vocals are barely there at all), Southpacific's debut record is a slow-motion feedback loop, with shoegazer guitars swirling around whispery, half-suggested harmonies. Hypnotizing and noisily repetitive, the sound bears a resemblance to My Bloody Valentine's Loveless-era, fuzzbox-overload approach, but there's a quieter energy at the heart of these songs. While flirting with the fringes of glum, lonely-guy rock, the band's music still has its head too high in the clouds to be morose or 'sadcore' in the vein of Codeine or emotionally naked like Red House Painters. Short pearls of bright melodic snippets ('Alamo') mix with sleepy and repetitive dirges ('E10 @ 182'), all wrapped up in a sense of vastness, like the ocean of the band's namesake."  CMJ (1/31/00) described the album as "an evocative blur of shadowy streaks that coast over steady, deliberate percussion....outstandingly played, smart...and downright spectral in grandeur."


Though guitar is definitely what most people think of when this band comes to mind, the absurdly great basslines are what grab me.  The production levels are incredibly high, despite being self-produced (by SoPac drummer / sampler / guitarist Graeme Fleming).

From Toothpaste For Dinner

The band broke up not long after this album came out; the online label Orchard later picked it up and has continued to make it available online in mp3 form.  The album has attained a deservedly-big cult following among shoegaze / post-rock fans.  I have personally gotten at least a dozen people into this band / album, so I like to think that despite cheating a little bit to win this CD, I have "paid it forward" many times over.

The title of this post is a pun on the title of the album New Gold Dream by Simple Minds.  I saw this phrase in an old issue of NME or Melody Maker as the title of an article about Curve (or possibly some other band, but come on, it perfectly describes Curve), and I just knew I had to recycle it someday, and that day has now come.

About ten years ago I read about a slender tome called Warm Voices Rearranged, comprised of record reviews that are anagrams of the letters contained in the artist name + album name.  I have still not tracked down the book, despite having it on my eBay automatic alerts for all those years, which I guess means that a very small amount of copies have been sold, or that it's so good that no one wants to part with it.  Here are my favorite new ones (ones not included in the book) from their new blog:


Butthole Surfers - Independent Worm Saloon
SW bores emit another dud LP. No neurons left!

Yes - Tales From Topographic Oceans

These cosmic oafs play ornate prog.

Public Enemy - It Takes A Nation Of Millions To Hold Us Back

Black men complain noisily about the USA. No folk ditties!

GG Allin And The Murder Junkies - Brutality And Bloodshed For All
I'll rally at drug den, shoot junk and die right before album lands.

Nurse With Wound - Chance Meeting On A Dissecting Table Of A Sewing Machine And An Umbrella
A chic English noise band's inane debut, named for Lautréamont. [Wincing] Ew, what a glum scene!

Carcass - Necroticism: Descanting The Insalubrious
An imbecilic grindcore act scans its thesaurus, son!

The Rolling Stones - England's Newest Hit Makers

The white-skin men sell translated Negro songs.

John Lennon And Yoko Ono - Unfinished Music No. 2: Life With The Lions
"Any hit on it, Johnnie?"
"No."
"Music?"
"No."
"Skill?"
"No."
"Oho, flesh? Nude 2nd wife?!"
"No."

Joy Division's Unknown Pleasures
Ian's joyless vow: "I die, punks. No urn!"

Incredible String Band - Wee Tam And The Big Huge
Acidheads bring enlightenment. Dig, but beware!

Radiohead - The King Of Limbs
Kid A methods fail. Boring, eh?
(Submitted by the otherwise despicable Mark Prindle)

Godspeed You! Black Emperor - Lift Your Skinny Fists Like Antennas To Heaven

Sulky hipsters play one-note instrumental feedback dirges, noon-five. Okay?

And You Will Know Us By The Trail Of Dead - Source Tags And Codes
Sonic Youth soundalikes wowed retarded fanboys. All dug act!
(Alternative anagram: Atonal Austinites' rock drones fully awed dowdy douchebags.)

The Doors - Waiting For The Sun

Oh, four stoned twits are nigh!

Their Fiona Apple one is sure to become legendary.  Hopefully they'll come up with a good one for my submission: P.M. Dawn - Of The Heart, Of The Soul And Of The Cross: The Utopian Experience.

Planets with similar climates: Tristeza - "Building Peaks" (2000), Tortoise - "Glass Museum" (1996), Swervedriver - "Never Learn" (1992), Slowdive - "Morningrise" (1990), Poem Rocket - "Contrail de l'avion" (1994), Simple Minds - "Shake Off The Ghosts" / "A Brass Band In African Chimes" (1984).

Best abysmal video found this week:

"The running of the Porta Potties at Preakness 2008"