the scowl

During my last year of college, one of my roommates was quite fond of the Seattle group Red Stars Theory’s full-length debut, an album called But Sleep Came Slowly. And while I was definitely impressed by what I heard, I was even more taken by the album that followed it, 1999’s Life in a Bubble Can Be Beautiful, which soundtracked any number of late-night drives once I’d moved to Brooklyn.

I have some thoughts on said album from the vantage point of a decade later up on the newly-redesigned Tiny Mix Tapes.

I’m perhaps spoiling the ending by saying that the last release made by this band—a seven-inch on Suicide Squeeze— includes a take on John Coltrane’s “Naima.” Having taken the default moody-guy indie-rock template as far as it could go, the band instead kicked through a wall, keeping their grasp of dynamics but working to create a sound all their own, one where atmospherics were key and the lines between the band and their guests were increasingly blurred.

You can read the whole thing here.