No Skips: A Dateline Double-Feature!
Its Two-For-One Thursday and Katie and Reuben from Dateline welcome Palehound's 'Dry Food' and Jeff Buckley's 'Grace' to the No Skips legacy!
The premise of ‘No Skips’ is simple: I think the advent of music streaming/algorithms has inadvertently made our music tastes very insular. Personally, I’ve found it a lot harder to find new music to fall in love with that’s not just something an algorithm thinks I’d be keen on based on data it’s collected on me.
So to broaden my, and hopefully your, musical horizons, each week I reach out to musicians I love to get their recommendation on an album they believe deserves the title of 'No Skips'— one you can listen to front to back without wanting to skip a single track.
This week we are in for an absolute treat: TWO albums for the No Skips hallowed halls, thanks to Katie and Reuben from the Silver Scrolls nominated band, Dateline! Katie will be making the case for Dry Food by Palehound and Reuben will be diving into Grace by Jeff Buckley. Let’s not waste any more time!
I can’t remember exactly how I stumbled onto Palehound’s music. It would’ve been around 2017. I was and still am a big fan of Jaysom, so I can imagine Palehound probably came up as a suggested artist or something. Their music is so up my alley I immediately became hooked. I did a bit of traveling in 2018 and I have a fairly distinct memory of trying to make the people I was with listen (“No, REALLY FOCUS & LISTEN”) to this album while we were on the road. It was on repeat a lot for me over those couple of years.
I think this is a massively dynamic album. It is one of their earliest releases so the production isn’t too flashy or anything, It is just a solid raw indie rock album. The songs vary from rocky, grungy, and upbeat to pared back and mellow. To me the songs don’t blend into one another, they all really shine. All killer no filler if you will. Ellen Kempner is an incredible songwriter, guitar player, and lyricist so there are so many things throughout the album to hook you. It is an album I can listen to over and over without getting bored of it because there are so many different musical elements to enjoy throughout the songs.
Healthier Folk is probably my favourite song on the album. I love the verses, it just comes in as this chugging, driving rock song that hooked me immediately. The chorus is sprinkled with some prettier sounds and a different feel and then boom back into the distorted driving guitars in the verse that make me kind of have to do a little headbang while I’m listening to it.
My other favourite is Dry Food. This song sits kind of at the opposite end of the spectrum in regard to this album. It is a lot slower and much more mellow but very emotive.
“But you made beauty a monster to me
You made beauty a monster to me
You made beauty a monster to me
So, I'm kissing all the ugly things I see”
- are some of my favourite lyrics of all time.
I haven’t deliberately set out to try to write like Ellen Kempner but I think there’s no doubt that their music has influenced mine. I think the grungy, fun, rock elements in their music has some similarity to some of the music I write. I love to have fun and “rock out” for lack of a cooler term, when I play and I think this genre of music that they make and that I'm kind of inspired to make, really facilitates that.
I discovered this through my best friend as it’s his favourite album and he introduced it to me in High School. I think I was at his house staying the night and he put ‘Jeff Buckley - Live at Chicago’ on through Youtube as the full DVD video was on there at the time. That performance got me hooked on Jeff big time.
Every song is filled with Jeff’s mesmerising vocals that, through unconventional arrangements and mixes, engage the listener and work with the incredible instrumentation to blend elements of different genres simultaneously. I love the moody chord structures and riffs that create drama and the passion with which he plays them. Every song has a different feel, whether that be quiet and nuanced or loud and destructive.
As well as this it is the only album released by Jeff Buckley while he was living - the second album was released after his death from songs recorded during a recording session that he wasn’t happy with, so it’s our only true representation of what a finished album by Buckley is, so we have to cherish it all!
If i had to hook someone in, it would probably have to be Grace. It is epic from the get go with that iconic and hypnotic riff that builds the anticipation of the song and sets the stage for the emotional journey that unfolds through the rest of it.
Otherwise, Lover You Should've Come Over as the chords are beautiful and the lyrics are so filled with fantastic imagery and thought that it feels personal and emotional to him, but it also feels like it can be connected universally as it captures the complexities of a very human experience.
Fom learning songs from Grace on guitar, I often find I try to emulate Buckley’s style of using chords that engage the sixth and add that jazzy quality or try to experiment with chords that have open voicings and extended chord shapes. But he also shows that you can write very cool things with basic chord structures - which I try to do as well.
A huge thanks to Katie and Reuben for bringing two albums to No Skips! I can’t recommend Dateline’s new album ‘It’s All Downhill From Here’ enough, they are on the rise and y’all need to get on the ground floor! That’s THREE great albums to check out this weekend - what a treat!
You can also check them out on tour:
Friday 27th September - Meow, Wellington w/ Mystery Waitress, Flute Journeys
Friday 4th October - Paisley Stage, Napier w/ Lizard Prom
Saturday 5th October - Whammy Bar, Auckland w/ BUB, The Protection
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