Reeling from the death of their beloved dog, Cass, and sorting through those universal coming-of-age feelings that plague us all in the wake of life’s sea changes, Preloved’s Michael Watson waded into the woods of Ontario with a portable recording setup and emerged with Willow, their incredible indietronica solo debut.
“Cass is definitely a key centrepiece of the album. He represents my childhood and growth, and that just turned into growing into an adult,” Watson tells me. “When he passed, it was like, okay, this really makes sense now. It puts the songs into perspective even more after the grief.”
Produced almost entirely alone — with small additions from Hannah Judge, their creative partner on musical project fanclubwallet — the album represents the story of Watson’s “life up until now.”
“There was a lot of thinking about me being a preteen when making this album, and that makes sense because that’s when you start to come of age, and you start to grow and become your own person,” they explain.
“It’s the things you prioritised,” they continue. “In a very wholesome and natural way, you weren’t thinking about much other than your friends, your dog, your dirt bike. That’s what it means to me: coming full circle after going through adolescence in the early 20s.”
It’s for those reasons the album feels so relatable to listen to. All of us have experienced, or are currently experiencing, or will experience, our own coming of age, and these soft, homespun indie sounds — intimate as they are — make a lot of room for you to map your own story onto them.
Carter Smith
This week, electronic icon Arca is back with XXXXX; legendary experimental group The Durutti Column drop Renascent, their first studio album in 15 years; Brighton-born punks Opus Kink drop their debut, The Sweetest Goodbye; Philly songwriter Mallory Hawk drops Chinook; indie musician-turned-label founder-turned-indie musician again Elijah Wolf is releasing under his own name once more with track star; and indie electropop artist ggwendolyn drops Superstar Syndrome.
So, Manuel Göttsching’s “E2-E4” is what I call the end of night - the dancer’s track. The dancers are the guys that would be putting baby powder on the floor, doing stands, sliding across. The best way I could describe it is, and at the Paradise Garage which was a memory that stuck in my head - one-thirty in the afternoon at the Paradise Garage, and we’ve been there from like four in the morning.
One-thirty in the afternoon, and there’s maybe thirty-five people in the club - it’s massive. Larry is still playing for those thirty-five people, because those are the guys that are basically throwing themselves on the floor doing these incredibly athletic flips. A lot of them were former breakdancers.
I just remember baby powder on the floor, these guys sliding one end of the floor to the other, because there’s a very hypnotic element to that track that feels like you’re floating in outer space. So that is kind of the “E2-E4”, which then later on was sampled in “Sueño Latino.”
So everything from that track comes from that - that’s the root of that. It’s literally a fourteen-minute track that you turn the record over to continue playing the same track. It’s wild.
I remember buying all of these records as imports in places like Vinylmania and Rock and Soul that were coming from Germany, the UK, wherever they were coming from. A lot of those tracks became big in the New York City club scene, but they were imported from different places. So, I think the other thing is, as a DJ back in those days – it was buying the import, which was necessarily a limited edition.
We DJs were kind of hoarders, we liked to have our secret weapons. So I had this track that you wanted, and I got the last copy, I’m going to keep that as my secret weapon. I think that’s kind of the mentality of why those records became so big, because some DJs would put it in constant rotation. Then it became about who can find a copy of it.
Roger Sanchez is an legendary house DJ, remixer and producer
Isobel is one of those artists who resets your faith in good music. With an itch-scratching blend of folk, pop, and electronic sensibilities, the 23-year-old from Grand Rapids, Michigan is one of the most arresting new voices in the internet indie era. Do start with “undercover,” hot tip. And aren’t we just the luckiest, she’s here to introduce herself!
Describe your sound… The seasons changing throughout the year.
How you started making music… Got on GarageBand when I was 17 in quarantine, muted my zoom classes, and made music all day long.
Best album for a summer day… Bitknot by feeble little horse is my summer album at the moment!
Who you’d most like to write with, dead or alive… I’d love to write with Björk, Elliott smith, Adrianne Lenker, or Fiona apple just to inhabit their mindsets… they seem like people to learn from.
Best book you’ve read… A Prayer for Owen Meany by John Irving.
How to get over someone… Not quite sure I know the answer to this because I think you carry everyone from your past with you.
Dropping at midnight every Thursday, follow our playlist for a taste of the best new music from Curbside Lambsear, ellis, Mollie Elizabeth, Spike Fuck, and Elliott Skinner.
“Everyones got to be different. You can't copy anybody and end up with anything. If you copy, it means you're working without any real feeling. And without feeling, whatever you do amounts to nothing.”― Billie Holiday
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