The Declining Winter - Goodbye Minnesota (2008)

Downcast post-rock dirges from sunny West Yorkshire. Room-reverb-heavy acoustic guitars chime, horns rise and fall, violas drone, melodicas wheeze, and warped vocals slide in and out of view like ghosts. I absolutely hate this time of year.

Track listing:
1. Summer Turns to Hurt
2. We Used to Read Books
3. I Don't Really Want to Be Alone
4. To Know Gospel
5. Yorkcitythree
6. Oh God C'mon
7. The World Is an Idiot
8. Last Train to Maple Grove
9. The Clock Gently Ticking in the Hall
10. Hey, Nick Heyward
11. Goodbye Minnesota

Trees sway back and forth

More wintertime classics:

Portrait of David - These Days Are Hard to Ignore (2001)

Clogs - Lantern (2006)

Tram - Heavy Black Frame (1999)

Total sad-sack slowcore from a relatively short-lived, London-based duo. Songs of heartbreak, self-doubt, anxiety, and the occasional glimmer of hope, with warm, rich instrumentation courtesy of a handful of collaborators that includes producer/unofficial third member Clive Painter and Bill Lloyd of Placebo. It's making me feel a little better about having woken up about 2 hours too early and sunrise not being for another hour.

Track listing:

1. Nothing Left to Say

2. Expectations

3. Too Scared to Sleep

4. Like Clockwork

5. Home

6. I've Been Here Once Before

7. High Ground

8. When It's All Over

9. Reason Why

10. You Can Go Now (If You Want)

Who's gonna catch me the way you used to?

If you like this, listen to:

The Paradise Motel - Left Over Life to Kill (1996)

Her Space Holiday - The Astronauts Are Sleeping Vol. 1 (1999)

Low - Trust (2002)

Related:

Low - The Curtain Hits the Cast (1996)

Low - Songs for a Dead Pilot (1997)

Low & Spring Heel Jack - Bombscare EP (2000)

Alan Sparhawk - Solo Guitar (2006)

Low - Murderer EP (2003)

I am absolutely gutted to learn that Mimi Parker has died. I knew that she had been battling ovarian cancer, and that the outlook wasn't great, but I guess I was just hoping for the best. Low completely changed the way I thought about music, and Mimi's contributions to the band were a huge part of that. She doesn't just have one of the most emotive, pure voices I've ever heard -- her songs are works of angelic yet cryptic beauty, and she was an absolute master of minimal drumming. My heart goes out to Alan and the rest of her family and friends.

The first time I saw Low, they were touring for Trust. It is still the best show I have ever seen. I had only recently gotten into them when my sister bought me their then-newest CD, Things We Lost in the Fire, for Christmas, and it quickly became my favorite album -- I was seriously spreading the word of Low like it was the fucking gospel. I hadn't heard Trust yet when I saw them, but I was utterly transfixed from the moment they opened with "(That's How You Sing) Amazing Grace". And I will never forget how completely silent the crowd was when they played "Laser Beam", one of Mimi's best and most beloved songs. It's a strangely comforting feeling to be in a club full of people, none of whom are saying a word, and it takes a truly special artist to command that kind of attention.

Obviously, I bought Trust at the show, and proceeded to listen to it while getting high about 50 times over the course of the next 6 months or so, getting to know its every tiny detail. I love that the first sounds you hear aren't the instruments, but the space -- it's like they have you step into the cathedral where the album was recorded before they start playing. Mimi's two solo songs, "Tonight" and "Point of Disgust", are flickering candles on an album full of oppressively dark, crawling dirges. A lot of critics didn't like those dirges too much, but as a doom metal fan (particularly when the record came out), tracks like "Time Is the Diamond", "The Lamb", "John Prine", and "Shots & Ladders" were like answered prayers to me. Elsewhere, they flirt with uptempo rock ("Canada") and sing-song-y folk rock ("Last Snowstorm of the Year", "La La La Song"). The album's kinda all over the place, and that's why I love it.

And then there's the aforementioned "(That's How You Sing) Amazing Grace". There are countless songs about death, dying, and mourning, and many of them are very good. But Low has a way of tapping into otherwise rarely explored emotional territory, and on this song, they do so masterfully. To me, it's cut of the same cloth as "Murderer", a song that they wrote right around the same time. Both songs deal with mortality, and the anger that we can feel when someone is taken away from us too soon. In "(That's How You Sing) Amazing Grace", the titular song, once sweet and uplifting, becomes an instrument of torture and submission: a reminder of both the unfairness of our world and the brutal indifference of mortality.

I feel like I'm supposed to end this on a positive note, but I don't know how. Thank you, Mimi, for helping me to understand life a little better. Rest In Peace.

Track listing:

1. (That's How You Sing) Amazing Grace

2. Canada

3. Candy Girl

4. Time Is the Diamond

5. Tonight

6. The Lamb

7. In the Drugs

8. The Last Snowstorm of the Year

9. John Prine

10. Little Argument with Myself

11. La La La Song

12. Point of Disgust

13. Shots & Ladders

Then in the dust

All the things we discussed

Are thrown to the wind

So at last we begin

Cause we fall hard

We fall fast

Mercy me

It'll never last

Also listen to:

Ida - The Braille Night (2001)

Portrait of David - These Days Are Hard to Ignore (2001)

Papercuts - Mockingbird (2004)

Downcast indie pop from SF songwriter Jason Quever. Gauzy, organ-heavy melancholy with sleepy vocals and a 60s-referencing aesthetic. The kind of earnest, un-self-conscious record that really makes me miss the pre-social media days of the early aughts indie boom.

Track listing:

1. Mockingbird

2. Poor and Free

3. A Fairy Tale

4. My Ivory Tower

5. Pan American Blues Pt. 2

6. Tulips

7. December Morning

8. Oh Nobody's Son

9. Judy

10. Well I Don't

For every kingdom down

Another builds again

They make their maker sigh

And never wonder why

More sad indie folks:

Camera Obscura - Biggest Bluest Hi-Fi (2001)

Thee More Shallows - More Deep Cuts (2004)

Ida - The Braille Night (2001)

Downcast, low-key love songs with rich vocal harmonies courtesy of three lead vocalists. Ida have been accused of trying too hard to be pretty, and they're definitely too earnest to be considered 'cool', but I got into them at just the right time -- in my early 20s, trying to navigate a doomed relationship -- and this record (and Will You Find Me) have stuck with me to this day.

Track listing:
1. Let's Go Walking
2. Ignatia Amara
3. Arrowheads
4. So Long
5. Blizzard of '78
6. So Worn Out
7. The Braille Night
8. Gladiolas
9. Ocean of Glass
10. Moves Through the Air

We're just haunted in our skins
By all that could have been
You hide it from your face
But it still shows

More sad lovey-dovey music:

Azure Ray - November (2002)

Mi and L'au - Mi and L'au (2005)

E - A Man Called E (1992)

The music of Mark Oliver Everett -- aka E, best known as the only permanent member of Eels -- has remained more or less unchanged for about three decades now. Sure, he has singer-songwriter mode (his default setting), weirdo pop mode, 'rock' mode (NOT GOOD), and even Shrek mode, but it's all splitting hairs around the same mopey, lovesick smart-ass. The only thing that's really changed about his music has been its quality, which has taken a significant downturn over the past 15 years or so.

His debut album, A Man Called E finds him in full-blown pop-rock singer-songwriter mode, and it's often more effortless, thoughtful, and mature -- not to mention concise -- than anything he'd put out as Eels. Due to having first heard them as a stoned sadsack teenager, I'll always have a very special place in my heart for Beautiful Freak and Electro-Shock Blues, but as a content but anxious adult, A Man Called E is my favorite thing dude's ever done.

Track listing:

1. Hello Cruel World

2. Fitting In with the Misfits

3. Are You & Me Gonna Happen

4. Looking Out the Window with a Blue Hat On

5. Nowheresville

6. Symphony for Toy Piano in G Minor

7. Mockingbird Franklin

8. I've Been Kicked Around

9. Pray

10. E's Tune

11. You'll Be the Scarecrow

Bad and beautiful and strange

Monkeys dancing in a cage

Also listen to:

The Beautiful South - Welcome to the Beautiful South (1989)

Sparklehorse - The Black Sessions (2006)

Camera Obscura - Biggest Bluest Hi-Fi (2001)

First proper full-length from one of Glasgow's finest musical exports. Breezy, sleepy, 60's-referencing indie pop that's very much in the vein of early Belle and Sebastian, whose Stuart Murdoch helped out with string arrangements. All of this band's records are really great -- there's apparently a new album in the works, too -- but Biggest Bluest Hi-Fi and I go way back.

Track listing:

1. Happy New Year

2. Eighties Fan

3. Houseboat

4. Shine Like a New Pin

5. Pen and Notebook

6. Swimming Pool

7. Anti-Western

8. Let's Go Bowling

9. I Don't Do Crowds

10. The Sun on His Back

11. Double Feature

12. Arrangements of Shapes and Space

Don't get wise to everyone and everything
Leave a little room for some naiveté

If you like this, listen to:

The Gentle Waves - The Green Fields of Foreverland... (1999)

Luna - The Days of Our Nights (1999)

Escape the Day - Ghostless (2005)

Get the party started with some crushingly sad German slowcore/post-rock. Simple guitar and piano figures and barely-there, whispery vocals, and the occasional cathartic crescendo. Ghostless is devastating on its own terms, and even more so given that one of the project's two main members, Chrisoph Florian Rehse, committed suicide before it could be released.

Track listing:

1. Hallways

2. Ghostless

3. Days

4. The Hour Undone

5. If I Told You

6. Still

7. This Wave's Length

8. Last Words

I feel I might be home

Also listen to:

Bark Psychosis - Hex (1994)

Low - The Curtain Hits the Cast (1996)

Tape - Milieu (2003)

Sad, sweet, fragmented instrumentals from a Swedish trio. Acoustic and electric guitars, chimes, melodica, organ, piano, saxophone, and more against a backdrop of fragmented, glitchy textures and field recordings.

(As many of you pointed out, my previous post of Luminarium actually linked to Milieu. This is because I had started out making a Luminarium post, but immediately decided I'd rather do Milieu, and forgot to change the title and artwork. Thankfully, the description works, give or take the part about saxophone, for both albums. Making a new post entirely to fix the URL. Thanks for letting me know.)

Track listing:

1. Oak Player

2. Sponge Chorus

3. Crippled Tree

4. Edisto

5. Golden Twig

6. Long Bell

7. Root Tattoo

8. Switchboard Fog

Down on your back

All of your secrets collide

Similar vibes:

Pan•American - Quiet City (2004)

Tokyo Bloodworm - Tokyo Bloodworm (2007)

Nina Nastasia - The Blackened Air (2002)

Beautiful, idiosyncratic folk rock/chamber folk from the early-aughts sad bastard boom. The Blackened Air made an impact when it first came out -- the record store I used to work at had a bunch of used copies -- but I haven't heard it mentioned since way-back-when. I honestly hadn't even listened to it in like 15 years until the other day, when I put on an old-ass mix CD in my car and "Ocean" came on. Real good stuff, though. Recorded by Steve Albini.

Track listing:

1. Run, All of You...

2. I Go with Him

3. This Is What It Is

4. Oh My Stars

5. All for You

6. So Little

7. Desert Fly

8. Ugly Face

9. In the Graveyard

10. Ocean

11. Rosemary

12. The Same Day

13. Been So Long

14. The Very Next Day

15. Little Angel

16. That's All There Is

His days are long

His bones are broken

I served him right

I go to heaven

Also listen to:

Mi and L'Au - Mi and L'Au (2005)

Orion Rigel Dommisse - What I Want from You Is Sweet (2007)

Gem Club - In Roses (2014)

Songs of heartbreak and longing against a lush backdrop of piano, cello, organ, synth, and layered, choir-lake voices. One of the great sad bastard records of the last decade, and a balm for those of us staring down the barrel of a particularly blue Christmas.

Track listing:

1. [Nowhere]

2. First Weeks

3. Michael

4. Hypericum

5. Idea for Strings

6. Soft Season

7. QY2

8. Speech of Foxes

9. Braid

10. Marathon (In Roses)

11. Polly

I am soft for the season

I look up and you're leaving

And I'm out in the hallway

Where I work on my bloodline

Similarly sad listening:

Low & Spring Heel Jack - Bombscare EP (2000)

Lisa Germano - Lullaby for Liquid Pig (2002)

The Black Heart Procession - Amore del Tropico (2002)

Previously on OPIUM HUM:

The Black Heart Procession - 1 (1998)

Fourth and first non-numbered album by The Black Heart Procession. Amore del Tropico is a two-fer -- a breakup album and a concept album -- and marked a turn towards a more sonically rich, diverse, uptempo (not, mind you, upbeat), and yes, accessible sound. While I wasn't sure what to make of it when it first came out, it's become my favorite BHP record. It's also been a rich source of tracks for my Halloween playlists over the years.

Track listing:

1. The End of Love

2. Tropics of Love

3. Broken World

4. Why I Stay

5. The Invitation

6. Did You Wonder

7. A Sign on the Road

8. Sympathy Crime

9. The Visitor

10. The Waiter #4

11. A Cry for Love

12. Before the People

13. Only One Way

14. Fingerprints

15. The One Who Has Disappeared

Remember, remember

No one leaves

You'd also like:

The Dead Science - Submariner (2003)

The Paper Chase - Now Your Are One of Us (2006)

Soul Whirling Somewhere - Please Sennd Help (2001)

Previously on OPIUM HUM:
Soul Whirling Somewhere - Eating the Sea (1993)

Fourth and seemingly final album from the great, unsung Soul Whirling Somewhere. The 'confessional' lyrical approach suggests emo, but everything else -- the reverb, the slo-mo, ethereal instrumentation, the ever-present sense of doom -- evoke the golden eras of 4AD and Projekt.

Track listing:
1. The Wedding
2. Nani
3. Aileron
4. Salt Angel
5. Shivering Fox
6. You Stutter When You Sleep
7. Box
8. The Sun in Braids
9. In On
10. Little Gaze
11. Gaze
12. Happy Valley
13. I Give Up. Goodbye.

Pale, near-virgin paper
Barely creased or ever read
The scent of your lipstick
Still preserved where you kissed it

More along these lines:

Lycia -
The Burning Circle
and Then Dust (1996)

The Hope Blister -
...Smile's OK
(1998)

Sparklehorse - The Black Sessions (2006)

Previously on OPIUM HUM:
Sparklehorse - Distorted Ghost EP (1999)

I rarely cry when celebrities/musical heroes die -- John Prine, David Bowie, and Prince also come to mind -- but Linkous really got me. This March was the 10th anniversary of his untimely passing, and I really fucked up by not posting this to mark the occasion. The Black Sessions is a crisp, punchy bootleg of a performance on French radio show France Inter, and includes songs from all four Sparklehorse records. Grab the tissues and saddle up.

Track listing:
1. Gold Day
2. Sad & Beautiful World
3. Apple Bed
4. Hammering the Cramps
5. Painbirds
6. It's Not So Hard
7. Eyepennies
8. Spirit Ditch
9. Weird Sisters
10. Ghost in the Sky
11. Don't Take My Sunshine Away
12. Someday I Will Treat You Good

The moon it will rise with such
Horse laughter
It's dragging pianos to the ocean
If I had a home
You know it'd be
In a slide trombone

You might also like:

Luna -
The Days of Our Nights (1999)

Hospital Ships -
The Past Is Not a Flood (2016)

The Secret Stars - Genealogies (1998)

Swansong from this experimental lo-fi indie rock duo. I first discovered The Secret Stars through the album Ten Small Paces by Ida, which contains not only a cover of "Shoe-In", but a song called "Les Étoiles Secrètes" that's about falling in love while listening to The Secret Stars and talking about how great they are.

Based on Ida's precious, uniformly pretty sound, I remember expecting more of the same -- maybe rougher around the edges. But surprise, surprise: while their sound is in fact rooted in sweetly sad, lo-fi slowcore, there's a strong presence of experimental tape-loop noise, as well as diversions into sloppy, raucous indie rock. There's even a Crass shout-out.

Track listing:
1. Haphazard Joy
2. Shoe-In
3. Melt
4. N29, It's Alright
5. Can U Feel It?
6. The Four Senses
7. SERC
8. Sister, Brother
9. Trance Hall Storm
10. 5,000,000,000
11. Some Sinatra
12. The Mode-E
13. The Vitamin-V
14. We Have Been Schooled By...
15. Release Form
16. Back in the Car

Home is here, anyway
Or wherever I say

You should also hear:

Lullaby for the Working Class -
I Never Even Asked for Light (1997)

Damien Jurado -
Ghost of David (2000)

Lisa Germano - Lullaby for Liquid Pig (2002)

Previously on OPIUM HUM:
Lisa Germano - Happiness (1994)

"These are your secrets / Hidden inside / Wherever you go / Wherever you hide."

Thus starts a devastating but beautiful exploration of an inner world where memory, love, loneliness, shame, and addiction co-mingle and inextricably intertwine. To be sure, there's some joy in there, but it always feels fragile and fleeting. Cohesive to the point of playing like a single song-suite, but with each track occupying its own magical little sonic space. The title track hits a nerve in me like no other. No hyperbole, one of my all-time favorites.

Track listing:
1. Nobody's Playing
2. Paper Doll
3. Liquid Pig
4. Pearls
5. Candy
6. Dream Glasses Off
7. From a Shell
8. It's Party Time
9. All the Pretty Lies
10. Lullaby for Liquid Pig
11. Into the Night
12. ....To Dream

What if I do stop
Or if I don't stop
It doesn't matter
I probably won't stop
Without you here
Without your love
The world is just there
It doesn't move me

Similar listening:

Lilys -
Eccsame the Photon Band (1994)

Hospital Ships -
The Past Is Not a Flood (2016)

Low & Spring Heel Jack - Bombscare EP (2000)

Related:
Spring Heel Jack - There Are Strings (1995)
Low - The Curtain Hits the Cast (1996)
Low - Songs for a Dead Pilot (1997)
Low - Murderer EP (2003)
Alan Sparhawk - Solo Guitar (2006)

As many of you know, Low put out my favorite album of 2018. It's a thing of harsh, damaged beauty, and I really can't recommend it enough. And this 4-song EP, a collaboration with experimental electronic duo Spring Heel Jack, is the closest antecedent to it in their discography. While other Low releases have featured electronic-laced production -- Drums and Guns and Ones and Sixes come to mind -- here, as on Double Negative, the electronic elements sound like they were part of the writing process from the jump. It's also a really great and slept-on little EP, so jump up on it.

Track listing:
1. Bombscare
2. Hand So Small
3. So Easy (So Far)
4. Way Behind

This time
Your lips won't be afraid
This time
Your hand won't be betrayed

You should also hear:

Bowery Electric -
Beat (1996)

Jessica Bailiff -
Hour of the Trace (1999)

Piano Magic - The Troubled Sleep of Piano Magic (2003)

Inventive, song-driven indie/post-rock. I know nothing about the inter-band dynamics around when this was recorded, but to me it sounds like there were two distinct songwriting voices at work -- one exemplified by the abstract, cryptic "Speed the Road, Rush the Lights", the other by the earnest, relatively plainspoken "Comets" -- whose interplay makes for a beautifully complimentary dynamic.

Track listing:
1. Saint Marie
2. The Unwritten Law
3. Speed the Road, Rush the Lights
4. Help Me Warm This Frozen Heart
5. I Am the Teacher's Son
6. The End of a Dark, Tired Year
7. The Tollbooth Martyrs
8. When I'm Done, This Night Will Fear Me
9. Luxembourg Gardens
10. Comets

You should always tell them you love them
In case you never see them again

If you enjoy this, try:

Greater California -
Somber Wurlitzer (2004)

Orbit Service -
Twilight (2004)

Azure Ray - November (2002)

Beautifully sad, strikingly heartfelt slowcore/indie folk. A six-song EP -- five originals and one Townes Van Zandt cover -- that I listened to on practically a daily basis when I was 20-21. Makes me think of my old friend and bandmate, with whom I listened to this EP many times, who passed away in November of 2009 -- particularly the title track, and especially when the lyric "So we're speeding towards that time of year/To the day that marks that you're not here" crushes me in its gentle, cooing palm.

Track listing:
1. November
2. For the Sake of the Song
3. No Signs of Pain
4. Just a Faint Line
5. I Will Do These Things
6. Other Than This World

I'll just sit and stare at my deep blue walls
Until I can see nothing at all
Only particles, some fast, some slow
All my eyes can see is all I know

More along these lines:

Lullaby for the Working Class -
I Never Even Asked for Light (1997)

Damien Jurado -
Ghost of David (2000)

Orbit Service - Twilight (2004)

Downcast indie rock wrapped in a psychedelic haze. Not that I've gone out of my way to bring them up, but I've never heard anyone else talk about this band, so they've always felt kinda like this weird, beautiful little secret. Music for the stoned and sad.

Track listing:
1. Start Dreaming
2. Dark Orange Sunset
3. High Orbit
4. A Song About Birds
5. The Seven Rays
6. How I Know You to Lie
7. When Everything Was Dead
8. Thought You Should Know
9. Minutes, Dollars, Days
10. Sad Syrup
11. Down Again

Some might say I'm dreaming
Yeah, I'm dreaming to save my life

You would probably also like:

The Black Heart Procession -
1 (1998)

Greater California -
Somber Wurlitzer (2004)