Will Hermes: New Music + Old Music

2 weeks ago | newmusicoldmusic.substack.com | Will Hermes

At a certain point in life, you realize that the coolest people in the room are riven by anxiety and self-doubt the same way you are. They’re just more skilled at masking it. At least that was one of my takeaways from Pavements — a charming, deeply satisfying, and determinedly bananas new film about the ‘90s indie-rock heroes Pavement.

3 weeks ago | newmusicoldmusic.substack.com | Will Hermes

For your weekend pleasure, here’s some of best new stuff I’ve heard in the past few weeks. Playlist stream links — multiplatform — at the bottom of post. Some notes on the music: Astropical “Me Pasa (Piscis)” - I’ve been travelling, and my partnere and I spent the last few days in Washington DC. Far from discouraging, given the governmental shtshow, the trip was heartening.

1 month ago | newmusicoldmusic.substack.com | Will Hermes

Spiral Stairs flips off the mud-slinging crowd at Lollapalooza in West Virginia, 1995, after Pavement’s aborted set. After 20 numbingly portentous seasons of Behind the Music, the idea of a conventional band documentary seems exhausted if not dead.

1 month ago | newmusicoldmusic.substack.com | Will Hermes

Back in my more active clubbing days — those wacky fin de siécle years when Fatboy Slim (see below) was landing radio singles — there were few DJ acts I loved as much as Basement Jaxx. Their great jam “Romeo” followed a string of bangers, and it dropped in the summer of 2001, months before the World Trade Towers came down and everything in New York City, and the world it seemed, changed.

1 month ago | newmusicoldmusic.substack.com | Will Hermes

I’ve been a bit slow on New Song of the Day posts lately, but I need to ramp back up. There’s no shortage of worthy tracks, as my latest new music playlist documents. Among those tracks was Fiona Apple’s hauntingly world-weary cover of Neil Young’s “Heart of Gold.” She’s been slowly emerging from years of relative silence since her 2020 pandemic cri de cœur Fetch The Bolt Cutters.