Smashing Pumpkins Misunderstood Madness of Machina: 25 Years Later

Photo by David Williams

In the spring of 1999, Billy Corgan plotted a scheme to snatch back the title of rock n’ roll king. This was coming just a year after a turbulent reception to his band’s fourth studio record, the unjustly maligned Adore. The public, it seemed, was not ready for The Smashing Pumpkins to turn their signature stadium-level rock into an intimate, ballad-heavy experience with an abundance of synths. The album failed to reach the sky-high peak of Mellon Collie And The Infinite Sadness, which was an impossible feat to achieve (that record sold so much it went diamond), especially given the electronic-goth pivot they executed on Adore. The Pumpkins became victims of their own success; the number one band of the mid-’90s was hit with devastating adversity heading into the new millennium.

Around this era, music shifted away from the grunge movement that defined the early part of the decade. In many ways, this was rock music’s last gasp at the forefront of the cultural zeitgeist. Bands like Pearl Jam and Nirvana were replaced by boy bands, hip-hop, and a fresh wave of aggro rock music dubbed nu-metal. TRL was my barometer for culture at this time: every day when I got home from school, I’d tune in at 4 PM Central Time to watch Carson Daly introduce videos from Britney Spears, NSYNC, Jay-Z, and Limp Bizkit. The bands of the early ‘90s were essentially pushed aside like Brussels sprouts at the kids’ table during Thanksgiving.

Rock music was in an undeniable state of transition during this period, with nu-metal leading the charge as a louder, angrier, and more aggressive offering. Groups like Limp Bizkit, Deftones, Kid Rock, Korn, and Rob Zombie were the bands that people wanted to listen to as the Y2K era approached. For a super-specific example, consider the entrance music of WWE legend The Undertaker. When he had his biker gimmick, The Undertaker introduced this era by coming out to Kid Rock’s “American Bad Ass,” but by the time the new millennium rolled around, he shifted to Limp Bizkit’s “Rollin’ (Air Raid Vehicle).” And don’t even get me started on the Mission: Impossible 2 soundtrack; if someone wanted to know what this era sounded like, just go listen to that album. It didn’t matter what the content was culturally; if a studio wanted commercially friendly rock songs attached to their product, they were going to be knocking on a nu-metal band’s doors. 

So, going back to the Pumpkins, Billy Corgan wanted to compete as if he were a top-tier athlete, testing his powers against the young guns while also aiming to make one last great record as a “fuck you” to the music industry as a whole. Feeling scorned by executives, critics, and even his own fanbase who rejected the previous record, Corgan began to conceive of a new album – a collection of songs so great that it would prove them all wrong. 

The Smashing Pumpkins, Circa 2000

But first, to even begin working toward this goal restoring the order of rock supremacy, Corgan needed drummer Jimmy Chamberlin, his hired muscle, back into the mix. Chamberlin is the merciless force that takes no prisoners behind the sticks. Songs like “Jellybelly,” “Geek U.S.A.,” and “An Ode to No One” showcase just what kind of Tasmanian Devil he truly became. Chamberlin combined his jazz background with a late-70s rock style that, I can attest after seeing his live performance, is truly a one-of-a-kind experience. Unfortunately, Chamberlin was exiled from the Pumpkins in 1996 for rampant drug use, so once he showed the ability to lead a clean lifestyle in the three years that followed, he was reinstated. Corgan said it best in an infamous Q Magazine interview that dubbed him THE RUDEST MAN IN ROCK: “If you want to know what Jimmy brings back to the band, then listen to Adore and this record back to back. It speaks for itself.”

Once Chamberlin returned, Smashing Pumpkins had all four original members back and ready to rock. James Iha, who is the Robin to Corgan’s Batman, has a reserved persona, always seemingly lurking in the shadows away from the attention of the spotlight. Iha excelled at bringing a more atmospheric ambiance to Corgan’s devastating power riffs. Meanwhile, bass player D’Arcy Wretzky has the kind of cool factor that you can only be born with. Known for her signature bleach blonde hair and nonchalant attitude, she brought an edge to the Pumpkins that no one can put an exact measure to. Wretzky was also the tastemaker of the band, where songs would often be run by her to see if they would work on records.

Photo by David Williams

Once reassembled, the band was off to the races, breaking ground on a concept album titled Machina / The Machines of God. The thought was for all the band members to play exaggerated caricatures of themselves, becoming the cartoon-like characters the public and critics viewed them as. The story of the record would revolve around a rock superstar named Zero (based on Corgan) who heard the voice of God, then renamed himself Glass and further renamed his band The Machines of God. The fans of the band are also known as the “Ghost Children.” Are you still with me? Good! Whether you think this plot is insanely convoluted or insanely brilliant, you have to admire the ambition of artists swinging for the fences with max power regardless of the outcome.

The Smashing Pumpkins, around this time, were the poster child for dysfunction. Right when the band reunited, everyone appeared to be in a harmonious kumbaya state, and the ship had finally been righted. I know their fans had to be thinking, “Ok, here we go! We’re about to get another Pumpkins classic!” Instead, something else was arriving in the shape of a neutron bomb flying in seemingly out of nowhere. Wretzky leaves the band before the recording is finished, never to return again, seemingly crushing the concept before it ever even began. When Corgan spoke to Q, he said, “I’m not going to talk about D’Arcy; she left for reasons more complicated than any single answer could hope to cover. So, I’m not going to get into that. It’s a private matter.”

In the music business, especially for a major label like Virgin, the show must go on; an album still needs to be recorded. What came out of those recordings is some of The Smashing Pumpkins’ most intriguing work to date. Opening track “The Everlasting Gaze,” which also served as the lead single from Machina, is one of my favorite songs in their entire catalog. The main attraction is the infectious cyber-metal guitar riffs that find a delicate tightrope balance of power and catchiness. Corgan repeats the opening lyrics “You know I’m not dead” nonstop as if he’s Freddy Krueger in a slasher film. No matter how hard you try, you just can’t kill the man. On top of that, when you throw in the addicting, can’t-take-my-eyes-off-it music video by Grammy award-winning director Jonas Åkerlund, the song is a can’t-miss experience. Go ahead and take a peek for yourself. This had all the ingredients for a timeless video; it’s goth, metal, theatrical, and has a leprechaun-green carpet, what more can you ask for?

Another classic that derived from this era of the Pumpkins was “Stand Inside Your Love.” This is another insane, visually entertaining music video, shot entirely in black and white and inspired by an Oscar Wilde play from 1891. The song has a new wave vibe similar to that of another Pumpkins mega-classic, “1979.” Does anyone know what “standing inside someone’s love means?” It doesn’t matter because the song is superb and is a pop hit.

One thing I appreciate about Machina, regardless of whatever dysfunction or controversy surrounded the band, was how they went for it. The Pumpkins easily could have folded and called it a day after a member left the band, but there are some seriously underrated pop songs here when you peel back the layers. “I Of The Mourning,” which, in my estimation, should have been the third single, accompanied by a music video, was essentially made for radio airwaves with that earwormy chorus. “This Time” is Corgan’s love song to the band, singing in only the way he can, “And yet it haunts me so / What we are letting go / Our spell is broken,” the words his heartfelt ode to a band that was actively being ripped to shreds. “With Every Light” is the gentlest song on Machina, and I believe that if it came out today, it would have a cult following, given how much new music coming out seems to borrow from the same spirit of this track.

Machina was caught between a rock and a hard place, regardless of the quality of the music. The public moved on from the alternative sound in the year 2000, and the convoluted concept didn’t help either. I don’t think the idea of the album was conveyed clearly enough for people to wrap their minds around while listening. Eight years after the release, Corgan reflected on the record’s failures, stating, “I think the combination of the band breaking up during that record, D’arcy leaving the band… Korn was huge at the time, Limp Bizkit was huge at the time, so the album wasn’t heavy enough. It wasn’t alternative enough; it was sort of caught between the cracks. And it was a concept record, which nobody understood. So the combination of those elements was a career-killer… Adore didn’t alienate the audience; they were just sort of like, ‘Oh, it’s not the record I want.’ Machina alienated people.”

In addition to all this, I can’t stress enough just how much Corgan had worn out his welcome with the press. From the band’s own in-fighting to the combative nature of his interviews, he didn’t do himself any favors. Goodwill was as good as eroded leading up to Machina, as Corgan would often give interviews with a played-up, standoffish persona to unsuspecting journalists. I’m a humongous wrestling fan, so I can appreciate Corgan relishing in the art of going kayfabe (presenting a staged performance as genuine or authentic), but you can’t treat an interview with Rolling Stone as if you’re cutting a promo on Stone Cold Steve Austin. That’s a recipe for a disaster, which is exactly what happened with the media on this album cycle.

Machina presents some of the most jarring “what ifs” in this era of music. What if D’Arcy never left the group? What if the story were clearer and more concise? What if Corgan got his wish and this were a double LP like Mellon Collie? Virgin Records denied Corgan this extravagance, citing the poor record sales of Adore. There was so much carryover material from Machina that there was no place to put it, so the band deployed a guerrilla marketing campaign for what would become known as Machina II. Only twenty-five vinyl copies were made and distributed to friends, with the sole mission of passing them along to the internet. That’s some forward-thinking views on online piracy for the twenty-first century to say the least.

What would become of Machina II was an artistic blend of synth-goth, dream-pop, and industrial heavy metal. This was a proper swan song for the initial run of the Pumpkins. If they had been granted the double-album treatment, I think this collection would have solidified them with one last classic to their name before bowing out in the year 2000.

Epilogue

The Machina era of The Smashing Pumpkins has reached its 25th Anniversary, and to celebrate this achievement, Billy Corgan has released a deluxe vinyl box set that collects the full story in one place. No longer do fans have to painstakingly agonize over what order the original song concepts would have been. The vinyl dubbed Machina — Aranea Alba Edition is forty-eight songs in length, complete with thirty-two bonus tracks of demos, outtakes, and live performances for the low-low price of three hundred and ninety-five dollars. If, like most folks, you find that this price is too rich for your blood, I’m sure this will hit streaming services soon enough. The year 2000 was a complicated, befuddling, and downtrodden end for the original Pumpkins lineup, but I’m happy to see that, slowly, more people are recognizing the artistic beauty of Machina, even twenty-five years later. Better late than never.

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David is a content mercenary based in Chicago. He’s also a freelance writer specializing in music, movies, and culture. His hidden talents are his mid-range jump shot and the ability to always be able to tell when someone is uncomfortable at a party. You can find him scrolling away on Instagram @davidmwill89, Twitter @Cobretti24, or Medium @davidmwms.

Addy – fire, fire | Single Review

Self-released

Around this time a couple years ago, I made a terrifying leap. After moving across the country from Portland, Oregon, to Wilmington, North Carolina, I reached a point where my short-term lease was up and I was forced to make a decision. It was almost December, and I wanted to travel back home to visit my family for the holidays, so I struck up a deal with my landlord: they’d let me skip out on a month of rent and come back in the new year so long as I moved all my stuff out of the apartment for that intervening month. 

Since the place was fully furnished, this wasn’t too big of an ask. I tossed all my clothes into my car, then drove to my partner’s house across town to stash my stuff there. Because of the timeline and how all this worked out, this meant there was about a ten-day window where the two of us were living together for the first time ever. Sure, it was just temporary and mostly consisted of my shit sitting in boxes off in the corner of her living room, but still, it felt like a milestone. 

I remember this vividly because that day, December 1st, 2023, Addy released temperance, and I was floored. I had come to Addy by way of Heather Jones, who earlier that year had released the phenomenal LP a horrid whisper echoes in a palace of endless joy. I enjoyed that record so much that I kept up with all of Jones’ output, including her mastering work at So Big Auditory. Her involvement in any project came to signify an instant sign of quality, so I ventured into temperance relatively blind after a day of lugging my belongings across town, up a flight of stairs, and into this weird, liminal living situation. What I found was affirming beyond belief.

The songs on temperance ache with beauty, coalescing into 22-minutes of pillowy indie rock that works through layers of adoration and connection in the most effortless way. Opening track “hudson” slowly unfolds to envelop the listener, welcoming them into this revelatory, folksy world before “tandem” picks up the pace. Penultimate track “poison ivy” might be my favorite: a five-minute narrative of uncomfortable physical pain that crescendos into a sea of distorted guitar as everything reaches its emotional peak. The EP centers around friendships, identity, presentation of self, and trying to maintain genuine, adult relationships when all the realities of life seem hellbent on peeling us away from each other. 

One year later, in 2024, Addy released “rosemary,” a standalone love song that bounces forward with emphatic acoustic guitar, likening the feeling of love to the smell of a lover’s deodorant and splittin’ a six-pack on a porch. It’s a highly sensory track, relishing the detail of salt on fingertips and cold packs pressed against wrists – all distilled into a collective, intangible magic that pulls two people together.

Continuing this trend of smaller, lowkey releases, Addy has now released fire, fire, a pair of tracks that continue to construct a home around this lush sound the project has been cultivating since its start. 

“cradle” plucks forward carefully as Ada Paige depicts a day at the beach with unhurried prose. After detailing the snacks and drinks in the cooler that her and her partner lugged to the water’s edge, she sings “This is how I know how to heal / let’s fuck around and see if we can” before shifting into this whisper that pulls you in and forces all your attention on her voice. After the stark confines of the first track, “fire, fire” settles into a more upbeat groove that expounds on the mysteries of the universe, finding beauty and intimacy in the randomness of it all. 

Together, these tracks, and really the last few years of music from Addy, come together to paint a beautiful portrait of self-discovery, of finding your people and finding yourself. After years of transitory living and uncertain movements (no matter how beautifully rendered), Addy has now found bliss in the simple facts of her surroundings and the people she finds herself in the presence of. I think that’s just lovely. 

Ben Quad – Wisher | Album Review

Pure Noise Records

Ben Quad are back. Not only are they back, but they’re fucking huge. Or at least that's what it feels like for those of us in the emo world, anyway.

I first discovered Ben Quad because I was endeared by the idea of a new band using so many interesting tricks and flips from the same dust I grew up in. They’re one of several Oklahoma acts from the past several years to break out of their local scene to more renowned heights, alongside acts like CLIFFDIVER, Chat Pile, and Red Sun. What makes Oklahoma such an outpost for this style of music? I am not quite sure, but earlier this year, I was in Ben Quad’s home state for a couple of concerts. Both nights, I stood outside my hotel room, looking at the way the sky never ends there. If I grew up under that sky, I would try to absorb the world with my guitars, too. 

Wisher is technically Ben Quad’s sophomore album. But between 2022’s I'm Scared That’s All There Is and present day, the band has unleashed a steady flow of releases that tightened their sound and expanded their ambitions. First, they released “You’re Part of It,” a standalone screamo single that felt like an instant addition to the Emo Canon. Then there was Hand Signals, a tour split, and finally Ephemera, their 2024 post-hardcore EP where they cited groups like Underoath and Norma Jean as inspiration. Wisher elaborates on the Ben Quad that Ephemera left behind, offering something not quite as genre-hopping but upholding that harsher sonic twist with even more experimentation. 

Ben Quad have described their new album as “post-emo,” a kind of theoretical subgenre that I’ve heard described as “emo but better” or “not real” depending on who you ask. Whatever it is, it marks a departure from the rules of the original emo sound and a step further into the depths of rock.

Wisher is an album that spans the parking lots of Warped Tour metalcore, the terrain of midwest emo, and the highs of country lilts, all with dizzying guitar tapping, frenzied screaming, and a desperate demand for something better than this. The record is full of “what-ifs,” both sonically and lyrically. What if we dialed this amp to eleven? What if we added tooth-grinding bass here? What if I told them I’m sorry? What if they told me they’re sorry? Say you’re sorry, you’ve been so hard on me. You. You. You.

The album begins with a banjo’s twang on “What Fer,” floating over the atmosphere that Ben Quad are desperately trying to find the limits of. The instrument bends with the breeze before ripping into the sky with electric guitars playing so ferociously you worry they might summon a lightning strike. The energy they build here shocks everything directly into “Painless” where Sam Wegrzynski begs some faceless other to “please just tell me how you’re doing” while Edgar Viveros’ guitar arcs around the song.

It’s at this point that I realized this album is so big that I had to talk to them about it.

Swim Into The Sound: This album sounds massive. As a long-time Ben Quad listener, I have always appreciated how flexible y’all are in your sound, but this is the biggest the band has sounded yet. I know you spoke a bit about the expansive studio access inspiring some of the sound, but what about the scale? 

Edgar Viveros: A lot of that has to do with Jon Markson’s magic. We really wanted to go with someone who could have a major impact on the production of the record. We walked into that studio with the intention of writing bigger choruses, and he knew exactly how to make them sound massive. We had so many new direct influences on the record, too — country, electronic, pop-rock. We knew early on that we wanted to have songs that got as big as a Third Eye Blind, Goo Goo Dolls, or Killers track.

No matter whether the band was tapping out Midwest Emo, post-hardcore, or playing along to an Always Sunny clip, Viveros’ guitar playing has always been a beloved aspect of Ben Quad. His style is very distinct in this era of post-emo: irrevocably fast, intricate, and loud. During live shows, Viveros stands center stage, radiant, as the crowd screams at him to play forever. On Wisher, he does seem to play forever, each song demanding something new and exciting, like the ethereal reverberations of “Classic Case of Guy on the Ground” or the world-absorbing work on the closer, “I Hate Cursive and I Hate All of You.” 

SWIM: I personally hear a lot of the stuff I grew up with — third and fourth wave emo, 2010s metalcore. What music were you inspired by while recording this album? What was it like working with Jon Markson?

VIVEROS: This record was influenced by so many things that I know I’ll probably forget something. The 3rd and 4th wave influence is definitely there. We’re all big fans of stuff like Taking Back Sunday, The All-American Rejects, and Motion City Soundtrack, and I don’t think there’ll ever be a Ben Quad record where my guitar playing won’t be inspired by Algernon Cadwallader and CSTVT. Stuff like Brakence and Porter Robinson heavily inspired the glitched-up guitar samples that are all over the record. There’s a good amount of banjo and slide guitar that draws inspiration from country and folk music. Personally, the recent wave of alt-country, like MJ Lenderman, really inspired me to dive into that style of playing. Beyond that, there’s huge Third Eye Blind and late 90s/early 2000s pop-rock influence. 

When it comes down to it, a lot of this record was us channeling the sounds we loved growing up to make something new. Jon Markson helped out so much with making that vision come together. His perspective was such a valuable resource when we were finalizing songs, and I don’t think I’ve ever worked with anyone who has pushed me to be a better musician as much as he did. It was such a cool experience to wake up and record music all day with him for three weeks. That guy rules. I look forward to being isolated on a farm with him many, many more times.

Photo by Kamdyn Coker

There’s a chance that this album might launch a dozen tweets about Ben Quad not being emo anymore from whatever the remnants of DIY Twitter are posting these days, but know that there’s nothing people can say that Ben Quad doesn’t already know. They make this abundantly clear on “Did You Decide to Skip Arts and Crafts?” with Sam Canty from Treaty Oak Revival.

SWIM: I’ve always heard that Oklahoma sound in your music, but never as much as I hear it in “Did You Decide to Skip Arts and Crafts.” What inspired y’all to bring a country twang to such a loud emo song? Do you see a connection between country and emo?

VIVEROS: I demoed out the instrumentals for that song in the summer of 2024 and really didn’t know where to take it. I kind of just wrote the song structure to be a mixture of big, anthemic Wonder Years choruses and some of the twangier moments in the Beths’ catalogue. It really came together when we invited our friend Sam Canty to hop on the track. That’s when I think we decided to really lean on the arena country-rock sound. I specifically love how Rocklahoma-coded the bridge sounds. Sam Canty’s feature fits so perfectly. I think the link between the two is a lot closer than people think. Sonically, both genres incorporate sparkly single coil guitars, and they both get pretty sad. Country is just farm emo.

I agree with all of the above: the connection between country and emo is storied, they’re both wrought, misunderstood genres that come from the middle of our nation. The aforementioned track starts with a phone call from Canty, playing a detractor of Ben Quad’s ever-evolving sound, telling them that they “ain’t the same anymore.” The song kicks in, and eventually Ben Quad gets him to change his mind and his sound too. Isaac Young clears a space in his drumming for Canty to return to the song to yell too, his Texas accent curving around an exasperated, “I guess it never made a fuckin’ difference to you.”

It’s impossible to discuss this album without acknowledging just how many people are on it; in addition to the Treaty Oak Revival frontman’s appearance, Zayna Youssef from Sweet Pill joins Wegrzynski and Henry Shields to kick your teeth in on “You Wanted Us, You Got Us.” Later on, “West of West” features Nate Hardy of Microwave, who contributes what might be the heaviest moment on the entire LP. It all starts to feel like a totally deserved victory lap, a testament to how big emo (or post-emo) has grown over the past few years, and a reminder of how much Ben Quad has grown since they met each other on a Craigslist post over their love of Microwave and Modern Baseball. 

SWIM: Y’all have called this album a kind of evolution for Ben Quad. How would you describe Ben Quad’s evolution since I’m Scared That’s All There Is, sonically? Since that album, y’all have also toured pretty nonstop (I think I’ve seen you guys three or four times on different tours over the past few years) – How would you describe Ben Quad’s evolution since your debut beyond the sound? Any ideas on what’s next after Wisher?

VIVEROS: I’m Scared That’s All There Is was cool because it was basically us doing emo revival worship with a little bit of a modern twist. Since then, we’ve just been throwing more and more influences into the kettle. I love that you can trace through our discography and see us gradually adding influences of screamo and post-hardcore. This new stuff has country, electronic, pop, and so much more thrown into the mix, and I’m just excited to keep growing that sound moving forward. 

Beyond sound though, I think we’ve grown in a lot of ways since the ISTATI days. We’re way more road-worn. When we released ISTATI, we hadn’t actually done a proper tour. Now, we’re releasing this new record on like our sixth full US tour. That alone has given us so much perspective on the world and many chances to meet a lot of talented and insightful people. I’d say our biggest area of progression has been in the confidence of our songwriting abilities. We’ve put out a handful of releases at this point, so sitting down and writing songs just feels so natural now. We’ve learned to just go with our gut when it comes to making music. I think any writing roadblock we encountered during the recording process was sheerly because we were afraid of sounding too honest or vulnerable. 

At the end of the day, if we think it sounds good, then that’s all that matters. As far as what’s next after Wisher, I have no idea. Maybe we’ll make a real butt-rock record. Some real Breaking Benjamin type shit.

Anything is possible when it comes to Ben Quad. At its heart, that’s what Wisher is about: testing how far post-emo can stretch, showing off the possibilities of the sounds they can craft, and clearing a path for what’s next. On Wisher, Ben Quad ain’t the fucking same anymore, but who would want them to be?

Around this time, three years ago, Ben Quad released “You’re Part of It,” where they chanted endlessly and heart-wrenchingly about how they were just waiting for all of this to fall apart. Unfortunately, with Wisher, they’re just going to have to keep waiting, because this album is universe-engulfing and none of this is falling apart.

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Caro Alt (she/her) is from New Orleans, Louisiana, and if she could be anyone in The Simpsons, she would be Milhouse.

Tiberius – Troubadour | Album Review

Audio Antihero

During my sophomore year of college I recorded a breakup album. It was not very good. When I was writing it, I thought it was a raw—dare I say important—portrait of a self-loathing lover scorned. When I go back and listen to it now though, I find that it’s actually just mean and annoying, a dishonest collection of songs that feature little to no introspection. The main problem is that I ultimately just wanted the person I was writing about to hear the album and feel bad for me, a last-ditch effort to get them back. I was pretending to look at my heart while actually targeting theirs; it was a doomed pursuit from the start. 

When you try and fail at something, it gives you a greater appreciation for those who approach the same task and succeed. People who are able to paint their pain without bitterness coming through as the dominant force make me take note, because I know how hard that can be. This is the main thing that struck me when I first listened to Tiberius’ third album, Troubadour. Throughout the record, we hear about people in Brendan Wright’s life and how they made Wright feel, but the lens through which we see this is consistently pointed inwards. That’s not to say there’s no anger towards others or spiteful words on Troubadour—there’s definitely some of that—but when we do get those ugly feelings, they’re almost always tempered with self-reflection. 

Take, for example, the album’s fourth track “Tag,” where Wright sings: “Went to her apartment when she’s on a date / I’d rather hang with her than not at all / Lying on the lap of some dumb fuck that she doesn’t even like.” No argument from me, definitely anger there, both in the words and in Wright’s vocal affectation, but, this anger is almost immediately cut with the realization that “I just can’t let you know that I despise to be apart / I need to take this time to learn to be alone / And to really be alone I have to be alone.” The song gains a lot from this quick shift in viewpoint, which seeks the internal root of the emotion; it transforms what could be a simple “fuck you” into something more substantial. 

This all works especially well because the record’s path of reflection is not linear; we’ll get a track like “It Has to Be True,” where it feels like things are getting figured out, followed by “Moab,” where we once again find ourselves in despair. Too often, the road to self-actualization is portrayed as a one-way journey, but on this album, it’s presented much more accurately as a rollercoaster; ascendant acceptance that can be followed by a sudden, vindictive drop, only for us to rise again moments later. This is something that’s well encapsulated on “Sitting,” where Wright sings, “Am I starting to have fun? Am I starting to have hope? / Am I starting to be let down? Am I down again?”

There are so many different sounds and genres traversed throughout the record that it feels impossible to touch on them all in a short review. This range makes each song feel huge, with even the shorter tracks having distinct movements that stick with you. After I first played through the album, I thought that I had a few songs stuck in my head, but when I listened back, I found that what I’d been mentally replaying was actually just different parts of “Sag.” I love how this is done because you never get bored as you jump from moments that sound like Uncle Tupelo to moments that sound like DIIV to moments that sound like Modest Mouse, sometimes all within one song. There’s gazey post-hardcore, gut-wrenching emo outpourings, and wide-open indie country soundscapes. To seamlessly switch from one sound to another like this without ever feeling frenetic or scattered is truly impressive, and it all results in a great experience for the listener. 

Existential country rocker “Moab” is probably my favorite song on the record. I thought I might be tapped out on country-influenced alternative music, but I was wrong. Perhaps it’s the vocal inflection in the opening verse when Wright sings “plans her day while laying down for bed,” but something about the song conjures images of the country music I used to listen to as a kid in a way that modern alt-country rarely does. I also love the track’s more anthemic back half, which slows down and brings some indie influences to the table, sounding almost Band of Horses-esque. 

A sonic thread throughout Troubadour that I found to be particularly effective is the subtle use of non-core-to-the-band instruments to make certain moments really stand out. For example, at around 2:45 of “Tag,” bouncing piano chords come in out of nowhere to give things a groovy little boost; similarly, I loved this really reedy and dissonant sax that’s deployed about a third of the way through “Redwood,” giving the song some extra edge as it ramps up. These aren’t the biggest moments that will necessarily knock you over, but cumulatively, they add up and keep you engaged through multiple listens.   

I’d be remiss to talk about Troubadour without mentioning trees, which loom large over the journey the record takes us on. Where this most struck me was on “Sitting,” particularly the lines: “I need to leave again / Meander ‘round the trees / As if I’m looking for the sign / As my brother sings to me / What I'm feeling is alright.” As I listened to this, I thought back to Wim Wenders’ 2023 film, Perfect Days. When I saw the movie in theaters, they had a pre-show clip that featured Wenders and the film’s star, Koji Yakusho, discussing the concept of “komorebi,” a Japanese word that refers to the sunlight as it’s filtered through leaves and trees. This is core to the film, as Yakusho’s character is always able to escape and find joy by photographing the trees in the park where works. The main thing I took away from Perfect Days is that appreciation for the beauty of komorebi—or nature more broadly—is something that’s incredibly centering.

This sort of naturalism is woven throughout the record. In Wright’s own words, Troubadour was written during a period of time where the relationships in their life were changing significantly, likening that experience to ego death. For months, they “found solace in nature and the constant of the trees,” explaining that, for a period, “I felt utterly connected to the universe in a way that was completely outside my sense of self. I was everything all at once, and it was one of the most profound experiences I’ve ever had.”

As we see Wright’s journey through Troubadour and the way that nature and trees factor into it, I’m left feeling the same sense of power. That centering is key to everything. That’s why, by the time we get to the end of the roller coaster with “Barn,” we’re ultimately somewhere placid and peaceful, even if there is still some sadness along with it. It’s why we get reflection rather than just anger and why the album has such depth. It’s what separates those who can make a work like this—something truly reflective—from those stuck lashing out in attack mode. With that as the foundation, everything else clicks into place and we’re left with a really special record. These types of experiences are never linear, nor are their conclusions definite. In the case of Troubadour, the ending is satisfying, not because we’re at the end of a journey but because we feel like we’re finally on the right path. We’re left with reasons to keep pushing, and sometimes that’s all you need. 

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Josh Ejnes is a writer and musician living in Chicago. He has a blog about cassette tapes called Tape Study that you can find here, and he also makes music under the name Cutaway Car.

Stop Streaming, Start Listening

You know that James Baldwin quote that’s something along the lines of “Every writer has only one story to tell, and he has to find a way of telling it until the meaning becomes clearer and clearer”? Well, sometimes that’s how I feel with this blog, and this post might be my most concerted effort to articulate that yet. 

I’ve written critically about Spotify before: about how the streaming service has made music feel disposable, how they can yank your songs away at a moment’s notice, how they encourage streaming bloat and gluttonous album rollouts, how they’ve alienated the listening public from their own libraries and laid the groundwork for an algorithmically generated hellscape long before anyone realized it was happening. Combined, these articles add up to over 10k words against Spotify, and that’s just the stuff that I’ve written. 

Spotify made fake genres and fake musicians. They underpay artists and overpay bigots. They brought back payola and chased TikTok endless scrolling in a bid for our increasingly worsening attention spans. If quotes like Spotify saying that the company’s “only competitor is silence” didn’t tip you off, this is not an artful app designed by people who care about music. Rather, Spotify is an experience designed around collecting your data, funneling money upwards, and contributing to the “contentization” of music. Everything is designed to keep you in the app to track you for longer, facilitating surveillance creep in the process. There have been entire books written and podcasts recorded dedicated to covering how Spotify is actively ruining music, so all the hyperlinks shouldn’t be too surprising. 

As if there already wasn’t enough to criticize Spotify for, most recently, the company’s CEO, Daniel Ek, chipped in nearly 700 Million Euros toward an “AI defense company” called Helsing. Even though this isn’t the first time he’s reinforced that allegiance, this recent warmongering double-down has spurred a wave of discussion about the place Spotify holds in our lives and what we might be actively contributing toward, either with our $10 monthly subscription or with our time and attention. Bands like Deerhoof, Xiu Xiu, King Gizzard, and Hotline TNT have all removed their music from Spotify in direct protest to this news, sparking a long-overdue reckoning with the application that acts as the de facto hub for all things music. 

While these are relatively modest household names in the indie community (they’re no Neil Young or Joni Mitchell), these artists have acted swiftly and decisively, and one after the other, each making explicit statements about why they’re making this decision in their own words. “We don't want our music killing people. We don't want our success being tied to AI battle tech,” Deerhoof wrote. In an interview with Anthony Fantano, Jamie Steward of Xiu Xiu stated it plainly, saying that “bands lost the battle with streaming.”

In response, many people have been cancelling their Spotify subscriptions (met with a creepy "goodbye" playlist in a feeble plea to reel you in one last time), but hopping from one streaming company to another isn’t the entire solution. Swapping Spotify for Apple or Amazon on moral grounds is laughable—no ethical consumption and all that. Sure, cancelling your Spotify subscription sends a message, but I believe the bigger solution is to disentangle as much as you can. 

All the time, people ask me how I find new music, and the answer is never any one thing; it’s more to do with an underlying curiosity. It’s not just opening Spotify and clicking on whatever playlist the algorithm sputters out; it’s following bands and keeping tabs on their label. It involves digging through related artists and seeing which groups a band is touring with. It’s going to see the opening act or creeping through someone’s Bandcamp collection to discover other albums they've purchased. It’s following writers and small blogs (cough cough) to see what they recommend. In an era where AI threatens to water down and homogenize literally every aspect of life, flawed but earnest human creations and recommendations are going to win out every time.

When you approach music this way, with the idea that your new favorite band could be one click away, something beautiful happens. You’re no longer waiting for your favorite artist to drop another album; you’re making your own luck and digging until you find something that scratches an itch you didn’t even know you had. It’s music culture vs platform culture.

As with all technofascism, I believe that breaking out of the currently designed scroll cycle, logging off, and spending your attention elsewhere is an act of defiance. In that regard, having control over your own files is about as radical an act as a music fan can make in 2025. I currently have over 80k songs in my iTunes library. I say that not to boast, but to show that it’s possible to have a bunch of music you care for in one place. It’s rewarding and worthwhile and intimate and can even be a fun hobby. 

Go download some albums. Spend an afternoon burning all your old CDs. Redeem those codes that came on the little slips of paper in your vinyl. Go into Bandcamp and press “download” on everything in your library, even if it’s just to keep them in a folder somewhere on your desktop. What you might find is that that collection of music feels more representative of you and your taste than whatever Spotify is shoving into your face on the home screen. As you build this library out and listen to it, you might find you need Spotify less and less. 

There’s no escaping the fact that your money is going somewhere evil, so I think most of this boils down to intentional listening. It’s about asking yourself what you want and putting a record on, not letting Spotify tell you what it thinks you want. It’s about engaging with what you’re taking in, thinking about what you consume, and supporting what you enjoy. It’s about being informed, empowered, and making intentional decisions. 

Ultimately, the solution to so much of this is just a modicum more autonomy. The cool thing is, we can grant ourselves that.