‘Hair’, taken from 2012’s Ætherea, is almost certainly the darkest, heaviest track on our release. At first appearing to be a moody rock number, the song grows into something altogether more substantial, the clattering drums and discordant squealing and vicious guitars cumulating into something as dark and ominous as Biblical thunderclouds. Through it all come the vocals, weaving themselves amongst the dense fog like calls from some doom-dream deity.

The art piece for Sondra’s song was produced by Oregon-based artist Rachael Perisho, who you might recognise as the talent behind the Good, Good Blood cover. I’ve been more than a little overwhelmed by the artistic responses to the songs, and this one is no exception. You can find all of Rachael’s work on her website, and be sure to follow her on Tumblr and Instagram too. You can pre-order Quiet, Constant Friends now via the Wake The Deaf Bandcamp page. All tape orders come with super-limited edition postcard prints, and all profits go to Worldreader, so why not treat yourself and feel good about helping a great cause at the same time?

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Fox Food Records have been busy releasing really good music, so much so that we’re running behind on writing about it (we have already featured one great release this year). This self-titled album from Good, Good Blood is their latest release and in no way bucks the trend of Fox Food quality.

The opening track acts a prologue, an atmospheric and instrumental introduction supplemented with an ambient recording of children. This sets the tone of the album and unfolds into six subsequent songs of gentle, lo-fi indie pop, both sort of sad and sort of not, and generally a pleasure to listen to. See for example the ‘Hold Me Like a Child’ which you can check out in the player below:

My current favourite tracks are numbers five and six, almost as much for the transition between the two as the songs themselves. ‘Suffer Silent’ sounds like those little grey and rainy storms of worry and doubt that sometimes come blowing through your mind, ending in a Continental sample that sounds how I imagine walking through the sodden streets of Paris might feel. But if this track sounds like a gloomy drizzle then the following one, ‘Settle Down’, feels like a spring morning, like birdsong and breezes and rippling waves at the lakeshore, the dawn of something bright and new.

The final track acts as the epilogue, a deviation from the album’s template and the antithesis of the opener’s childlike naivete. The song contains a reading of Charles Bukowski’s poem ‘Dinosauria, We’, an incredibly cynical and pessimistic account of the decline of society and the world in general. It contains lines such as:

“We are born into a government 60 years in debt
That soon will be unable to even pay the interest on that debt
And the banks will burn
Money will be useless
There will be open and unpunished murder in the streets
It will be guns and roving mobs”

And:

Trees will die
All vegetation will die
Radiated men will eat the flesh of radiated men
The sea will be poisoned
The lakes and rivers will vanish
Rain will be the new gold
The rotting bodies of men and animals will stink in the dark wind

Luckily, this doom and gloom is cut through by the musical accompaniment, the guitars offering some kind of hope and giving the dire prophesies (even more of) an ironic edge, less a wink and a nudge and more a gentle pat on the back saying that perhaps things might not get all that bad.

Unfortunately (i.e. because we were so slow in writing about this) the cassettes have all sold out, but you can (and should) download it via the Fox Food Records Bandcamp page.

P.S. The artwork was provided by Rachael Perisho.

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