Songs of the Week: March 31 - April 06, 2025
“Quick Sickness” by Twin Rains
Toronto’s Twin Rains is back with their first music since their album Laws of the Universe was released back in 2023.
The new single “Quick Sickness” was created while singer Christine Stoesser was sick and isolated with COVID, and felt she was “overdosing on the internet” (we’ve all be there!).
She says: “Spending the whole day online only made me feel sicker and more isolated, so I swore off the internet for the second day of my isolation. That night, I heard the chord progression of the song in my head while I was trying to sleep.”
The song is a dreamy pop song that, unless you listen closely to the lyrics, you might just get swept away with the guitars and beat.
Christine
“Ballad of the Last Payphone” by The New Pornographers
Last month, The New Pornographers surprised everyone by releasing a pair of new singles on a 7” vinyl, through A.C. Newman’s substack, Ballad of a New Pornographer.
Now the band has released the lyric video for one of those songs, “Ballad of the Last Payphone”. The single is a melancholic reflection of the titular payphone, with Newman explaining: “This song was inspired by a Raymond Carver story called “Fat” and tells the story of a person visiting the last payphone in NYC where it currently sits, in the Museum of the City of New York. The narrator doesn't know why they are so fascinated by it, but to us it should be obvious. Obvious to me, at least.”
Check out the video below, animated by Michael Arthur, and head to Newman’s substack where you can become a member & order the vinyl that includes the b-side “Ego Death For Beginners”
Kirk
“Elevator Love Letter” (Stars cover) by Noble Oak
I’ve been excited by the current series of cover songs to celebrate 20 years of Last Gang Records, and none more so than the newest: Noble Oak interpreting the Stars classic “Elevator Love Letter”.
The video includes Patrick Fiore of Noble Oak intercut with pictures and footage from Stars outstanding 25 year career as he delivers a gorgeous version of the song. He notes: “Like so much of the early Last Gang catalogue, the first two Stars records were mainstays in my late high school/early university listening world. I remember first hearing ‘Elevator Love Letter’ in my friend's apartment and instantly being hooked by everything about the song, from the swirling reversed guitar lines to the brutal honesty of Amy and Torquil's words. It brings both me and the teenager in me immense joy to be able to offer up a recreation of this wonderful piece - I'm pretty sure he wouldn't believe it if I told him he'd be doing that one day.”
Other covers of the project include a pair of Metric songs, Maia Friedman’s take on “Love Is A Place” and Dear Boy covering “Combat Baby”; Low Hum’s reinterpretation of “Romantic Rights” by Death From Above 1979; Alice Ivy’s take on MSTRKRFT’s “Easy Love”; Anand Wilder doing the New Pornographer’s “Challengers”, and Cadence Weapon & Dan Only doing “Ungirthed” by Purity Ring.
Kirk
“Ruby” by The Deep Dark Woods
Whoa, this new track (“Ruby”) from The Deep Dark Woods just gave me a flashback to 2011 and their song “The Place I Left Behind”.
Like most everything we get from DDW, it’s a very moody and melancholic, but always has more depth behind it. Lead singer Ryan Boldt says he “wrote it during a strange and difficult time, after the sudden loss of my dear friend and tour manager, Kiko, and just before my daughter was born. It was a mix of heartbreak and anticipation that I will never forget.”
The band’s yet-to-be-announced record should be out in late 2025, and they also released some tour dates, including a stop on October 24th in Vancouver at the Fox Cabaret.
Christine
“help myself” by Yawn
I feel like it’s been a long time since I’ve heard from Julia McDougall, so I was excited to find a brand new song from her new project Yawn in my inbox.
“help myself” is actually the second single released in as many months, and is a wonderful dream-pop jam from the Vancouver singer, which challenges toxic positivity & the pressure to be the “best version” of ourselves.
Julia elaborates “It’s about the various kinds of doubt and darkness that we face, and how the constant noise of social media and mainstream culture dulls our ability to love ourselves. It was inspired by social media ads I was served during the early, frantic days of COVID isolation that were promising me that now was the time to finally ‘get ripped’. It seemed detached from our lived reality that in the middle of a global pandemic, we were being force-fed so-called wellness ads that completely overlooked the psychological and emotional impact we were all facing. The song is about our relationship to ourselves, and how our media consumption habits make it easy to go about our lives without truly connecting to who we are. It’s also about the struggle to find meaning in the mundanity of everyday life – standing in grocery store lines, going to work, going to a work out class, scrolling all the while – and how sometimes it’s impossible to make sense of how the sum of all of these things add up to a life.”
The new single comes with an announcement of Yawn’s debut album, wish i could’ve, which was produced by Jo Hirabayashi (of Jo Passed) and will be available on June 13th!
Kirk
“Aegean Blue” by Common Holly
Last week, Montreal’s Common Holly teased her latest album Anything glass with a brand new single, “Aegean blue”
The gorgeous piano paired with Brigitte Naggar’s ethereal vocals are exactly up my alley, with Naggar explaining, “Aegean blue is a reckoning in meaninglessness and unending pursuit. The words came in a moment of change and of re-evaluating. This song sits squarely in the album’s theme of orienting toward what matters most, doing things differently when they aren’t feeling right.”
Check out the contemplative video below, and mark June 13 for the release of Anything glass!
Kirk
