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“Bluebird[s] of Happiness”
4 IN 1: Hand Habits, TOPS, Kathleen Edwards, and Water From Your Eyes
So here’s something: four brand-new releases I’ve been spinning lately, gathered together in one post because apparently I can’t pick just one to focus on this week. It probably won’t be the last time I do this, since the queue of music I want to check out keeps getting longer than the line outside of Oasis merch pop-up shops. Also, I’m staring down a long weekend, the official end of summer (for me), the pumpkin spice industrial complex is rubbing its hands in gleeful anticipation of fall (not for me). Frankly, I’m not ready for it (except for The Life of a Showgirl, let’s get a lead single out already, Tay Tay). Weirdly (perhaps fittingly?) every sleeve here is some shade of blue (almost every). The music, though, is anything but blue.
Songs denoted with ✦ have been added to my end-of-summer-survival, pumpkin spice-resisting playlist hear [t]here, living exclusively on Music—and now also on Tidal—because fuck you, Spotify.
Hand Habits, Blue Reminder
All of my social media feeds last week were filled with posts about Hand Habits, a band I had zero familiarity with beforehand. I took that as a sign from the algorithm gods that they wanted me to check out their latest release, Blue Reminder, and gawd damnit, I’m gobsmacked. I immediately wanted to know everything there is to know about chief songwriter and principal member Meg Duffy, and I feel that I’ve only just scratched the surface of their talent and tenacity. Blue Reminder is a quietly confident record, with Duffy’s poised and dulcet voice at the centre of a dozen understated yet exquisitely arranged songs. “Jasmine Blossoms” has this alluring groove courtesy of a muted bass, and when Duffy crashes in on the chorus, the seduction was complete, and I was in love. “Way It Goes” ✦ seems to just come together out of thin air, like wispy tendrils of sound that curl and intertwine. I read that Blue Reminder is rooted in the first flushes of a new romance. There is that wide-eyed awe that comes with finding your person popping off in its cool melodies, but Duffy’s songs still have a hint of anxiety and tentativeness in the lyrics and their delivery that suggest being scared of going all in lest you end up getting your heart broken.
TOPS, Bury the Key
Montreal-based band TOPS’ fifth and latest release, Bury the Key, is a refinement of the sugary sweet pop simplicity they have been perfecting since their 2012 debut, Tender Opposites. They have been perennial favourites for the way their songs feel effortless and crackling with excitement without having to be loud, shouty, or overly showy. Mellow vibes and mellifluous melodies abound, particularly on “Call You Back” ✦ and “Your Ride,” and the Laurel Canyon-kissed opening track, “Stars Come After You.” Bury the Key makes for the perfect late summer soundtrack, its saccharine-coated songs catching and refacting the last lingering rays of daylight, while the breezy, detached delivery of singer Jane Penny offers a chilling—almost nippy—balm to soothe your sun-burnt soul.
Water From Your Eyes, It’s a Beautiful Place
What do you imagine would be the aural equivalent of your Atari 2600 console glitching out after your cousin Rory spilled his open can of Pepsi all over it (fucking, Rory)? For me, it’s “Spaceship” off It’s a Beautiful Place from Chicago-born, Brooklyn-based duo Water From Your Eyes. “Spaceship” jerks and sputters like corrupted code, but all the while, there is a fragile, dreamy pop sensibility floating just underneath the surface that’s mesmerizing. A lot of It’s a Beautiful Place often sounds like it’s falling apart, and that members Nate Amos and Rachel Brown are catching what’s breaking off and putting those pieces back into the songs in whatever spot they can make them fit. The effect is dizzying, whether in the jittery rush of “Life Signs” or the schizophrenic turns of “Playing Classics,” ✦ which opens like New Order’s “Fine Time” before exploding into a cacophonic dance-pop anthem blasted through blown speakers. Rory may be a sugar-water-addicted clutz, but you both have to admit that playing Defender and Berzerk through a haze of fractured pixels and with audio on the fritz is kinda rad, which is the same trick It’s a Beautiful Place pulls off: turning collapse into something worth hitting “Start” on over and over again.
Kathleen Edwards, Billionaire
Of these four albums, Billionaire is the one I’ve spent the least amount of time with, but Kathleen Edwards is the artist out of today’s post I’ve had the longest history with. I fell in love with her 2012 album, Voyageur, which also ended up being her last before an extended absence from the music business (TLDR: she opened a successful coffee house called Quitters in the Ottawa suburb of Stittsville, which she sold some time after releasing her 2020 album, Total Freedom). Don’t take my lack of engagement as an indication of Billionaire’s musical quality; Edwards is as sharp-witted and emotionally astute as ever. “Say Goodbye, Tell No One” ✦ is a stand-out: “People change, people grow / You can take it in stride or slam a door,” she sings over a spritely pop-infused roots rock melody (courtesy of producer Jason Isbell’s band, 400 Unit), before dropping this doozy of a double-edged observation: “The hardest part about the truth / Saying something that might hurt you / The hardest part about a lie / You can’t outrun it if you try.” Edwards’ rawness and honesty are so rare in music these days; it’s well worth a billion bucks, let alone the cost of a download.