1989 - USA
Slowcore, Dream Pop
Psychedelia, George Harrison, empty drugstores and lonely dusks. These are the main ingredients of Galaxie 500’s On Fire, one of the most unearthly and empyrean dream pop album. Guitarist and vocalist Dean Wareham, bassist Naomi Yang and percussionist Damon Krukowski, under the production of Kramer, built a record that feels like a sweet trip on a deserted highway. As soon as Wareham’s voice appears in the opening track Blue Thunder, a slow ode to driving, we enter his soothing world. The vocals might sound clumsy to some, but the heavy reverb and his fragile singing creates a unique atmosphere that escapes from the jail of time. Even if the band’s influences can clearly be dated (New Order, Cocteau Twins, Big Star), there is something to it that sounds timeless.
Centering their music around a very specific mood, Galaxie 500 tells us the story of lost minds, struggling to fit in their world, walking through the winter of human relationships. On Strange, we can hear how they relate to the world with the lyrics “Why's everybody acting funny? / Why's everybody look so strange? / Why's everybody look so nasty? / What do I want with all these things?”. If we just stuck to the lyrics, we could think On Fire is an album about depression, but the several instrumental parts, whether it’s those jangling guitars on When Will You Come Home or Ralph Carney’s saxophone on Decomposing Trees, keep us afloat. From afar, Dean Wareham designs a tale of seemingly dark songs but finds the vigour to uplift his bitter themes, enabling us to witness beauty in melancholia.
About Another Day :
The most positive song of the album, without any doubt. Naomi Yang’s distant voice clears the horizon from it’s anthracite clouds and allows us to reconsider this album. The songs ensue like the random days of an anxious year. There’s a similar atmosphere that might feel repetitive, but everyone can hear something really precise in each tune, and that’s exactly the feeling conveyed by Another Day. Despite the growing anguish that waters our existential crisis, our eyes can, to quote Jonas Mekas, still find brief glimpses of beauty as we keep moving ahead.
Centering their music around a very specific mood, Galaxie 500 tells us the story of lost minds, struggling to fit in their world, walking through the winter of human relationships. On Strange, we can hear how they relate to the world with the lyrics “Why's everybody acting funny? / Why's everybody look so strange? / Why's everybody look so nasty? / What do I want with all these things?”. If we just stuck to the lyrics, we could think On Fire is an album about depression, but the several instrumental parts, whether it’s those jangling guitars on When Will You Come Home or Ralph Carney’s saxophone on Decomposing Trees, keep us afloat. From afar, Dean Wareham designs a tale of seemingly dark songs but finds the vigour to uplift his bitter themes, enabling us to witness beauty in melancholia.
About Another Day :
The most positive song of the album, without any doubt. Naomi Yang’s distant voice clears the horizon from it’s anthracite clouds and allows us to reconsider this album. The songs ensue like the random days of an anxious year. There’s a similar atmosphere that might feel repetitive, but everyone can hear something really precise in each tune, and that’s exactly the feeling conveyed by Another Day. Despite the growing anguish that waters our existential crisis, our eyes can, to quote Jonas Mekas, still find brief glimpses of beauty as we keep moving ahead.