Crave is back with this week’s new music playlist, featuring new offerings from Operators, PJ Harvey, Chelsea Wolfe, Tindersticks and more. If you see something you don’t recognize or haven’t heard, that’s a good thing. Trust us with your ears, and we’ll keep bringing you the goodness each week – try to keep up!
Operators – ‘Cold Light’
Indie music nerds across the globe celebrated, unironically, a few weeks back when Canadian darlings Wolf Parade announced their return from a lengthy hiatus. Frontman Dan Boeckner though is set for a busy year ahead, having also finally announced the arrival of Blue Wave – the debut album for his other project (one of many) Operators.
The album’s first single Cold Light is immediately reminiscent of New Order and the Cure, awash with catchy ‘80s hooks and truthfully wouldn’t feel out of place on The Breakfast Club soundtrack. Far from kitschy nostalgia though, those distorted guitars give the song an entirely modern edge. If you think it has a Divine Fits-vibe, you’d be right too. Operators also features New Bomb Turks drummer Sam Brown, who is also in Divine Fits with Boeckner. Settle down overachievers.
– Nastassia Baroni, Australian Editor
PJ Harvey – ‘The Wheel’
Polly Jean returns with a haunting musical diary of her journeys to the war-torn Kosovo over the last four years, a powerful testament to the spirit of the people despite devastating hardship over the last generation. The call-and-response lyric about the disappearance of 28,000 children “lost upon a revolving wheel… of metal chairs” is haunting for its historical truth, anchored by an outro in which Harvey repeats “and watch them fade out” two dozen times. The number itself has a disturbing interpretive significance: the number of troops NATO anticipated deploying to Kosovo, as well as the number of street-working children in Kabul as determined by a survey in the late ’90s.
– Johnny Firecloud, Crave Music Editor
Chelsea Wolfe – ‘I Love You All The Time’
Following the terrorist attacks in Paris, Eagles of Death Metal encouraged other artists to cover their track ‘I Love You All The Time’ as part of their Play It Forward campaign, with proceeds from the sale of these singles aiding the victims of the violent tragedy. Chelsea Wolfe is the latest in a long line of artists to lend their support to the campaign, and her rendition of it transforms what was previously a raucous, knowingly silly track, into something far more impactful and, given the context, downright heartbreaking.
Thus far those who have covered the track have mostly refrained from deviating from its guitar-led, celebratory feel, but Wolfe instead opts to go for the emotional jugular. Repeating the line “I would beg if I thought it would make you stay,” Wolfe causes it and the rest of the song to slip out of Eagles of Death Metal’s grasp, with it taking on a new, devastating meaning in her hands.
– Paul Tamburro, UK Editor
Massive Attack – ‘Take it There’
Massive Attack released their new EP Ritual Spirit just a few days ago, without the anticipatory hysteria one might expect in an upcoming release from the trip-hop pioneers. Of the four tracks, only one features 3D, though its significance skyrockets with the return of Tricky, back for the first time since 1994.
– Johnny Firecloud, Crave Music Editor
Tindersticks – ‘Like Only Lovers Can’
Nottingham’s Tindersticks continue to exist in their own time capsule, with the band having been around since ‘91 yet escaping all of the pitfalls that typically accompanies ‘90s bands, such as being forced to bounce around Glastonbury singing songs about lads’ holidays in their mid-40s (hi, Blur). Their latest album, The Waiting Room, pretty much serves as an explanation of why that has continued to be the case, veering into hopelessness and then calming relief with an ease not attainable by most of their contemporaries.
Album closer ‘Like Only Lovers Can’ is its cathartic release, a dreamy number more than vaguely reminiscent of some of Richard Hawley’s earlier work, permeated by Stuart A. Staples’ trembling baritone. It’s a lullaby placed at the tail-end of a series of nightmares, and is all the more impactful because of this.
– Paul Tamburro, UK Editor
