This is part two of the forgotten indie series. catch up on pervious entires:
part one

Intro: Taking a cue from the Forgotten Gialli film series put out by Vinegar Syndrome, which highlights movies from the Italian thriller subgenre that have fallen through the cracks, I’ve created my own indie-rock variety. As is the case with any form of art, what is considered “forgotten” depends on the audience, not necessarily the availability. This series will focus on albums put out around the early aughts, sometimes delving into the late 90s, but I hope to avoid anything beyond 2010, and earlier than 1990. Most of the records spotlighted will be from my personal CD collection.

Context: Music streaming services are not the world. With that in mind, Destination Girl is only available on Bandcamp and has only one song with over 1,000 scrobbles on Last.fm. Dusk in Cold Parlours tops out at 8,574 plays on Spotify for closing track “At Dawn or Dusk,” and similarly, “If/Then” off Flare’s Hung has 8,326 plays on the same service. But enough about metrics, on to the records.

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The Finishing School – Destination Girl
(Track and Field, 2003)

The Essex Green was never a cornerstone band for Merge Records, even at the height of the label’s twee output, but they were a reliable act, guaranteed to move several thousand units every few years when they dropped a consistently good-to-great new album. The band got better with each release, but also, like so many groups connected with the loose Elephant 6 collective, became more and more fractured as the years went on. It became difficult to keep track of all the different spin-off projects, with Sasha Bell being a perfect example, playing with The Essex Green, Ladybug Transistor, and this, her first “maiden solo voyage,” recorded in Sweden and intended to be a “singular, cohesive body of work, loosely designed to tell a story,” according to the press release.

You can hear the influence of Stockholm in this collection of songs, both jaunty and mellow, about the sometimes uncomfortable silence of the backroads, having breakfast in the garden, and the overall journey to feeling comfortable in independence. It’s all held together by Bell’s beautifully bucolic wisp of a voice, calling to mind Sandy Denny and Brenda Lee. Her other bands might have gotten all the attention, but her one and only solo record deserves more attention as a cohesive, audibly pleasing piece of work.

Video:

Lyric:

“I will rewrite all the music to the Bible you are used to / And you could sing your song / For this trip that you are on.”

Rec’d if you like (RIYL):

Nancy & Lee, backpacking through Europe, Sunday brunch

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Norfolk & Western – Dusk in Cold Parlours
(Hush Records, 2003)

Comparisons to The Decemberists are to be expected. Both bands debuted around the same time, are Portland based, released albums on Hush Records, and even share a band member in multi-instrumentalist/drummer Rachel Blumberg. But while The Decemberists were always very loud about their theatrical influences, and literal with their dramatic stories, Norfolk & Western would rather let the listener fill in the spaces between verses—to squint real hard at the faded aural Polaroid to discern the picture.

The music is best described as rootsy chamber pop, mostly operating in whispers and brush strokes, but every so often bursting into loud crescendo, like the flinging open of said parlour door to the harsh elements outside. Band leader/singer Adam Selzer’s voice is brittle, half-sung and half-spoken—closer to Dean Wareham than Colin Meloy. Parlours is one of those rare records that really tells you everything you need to know about the music contained within by the cover artwork: vintage upright piano, wood floors, a single candle burning to ward off the cold winter landscape seen through the window.

Video:

Lyric:

“His wheelchair is sacred / Oh, how you miss him naked / My your loyalty does it shine!”

RIYL:

Transfiguration of Vincent, Appalachian sunsets, Galaxie 500 (but wish they had a pedal steel player)

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Flare – Hung
(Le Grand Magistery, 2003)

L.D. Beghtol was one of too-many artists we lost during the pandemic, his death understandably getting lost in the era’s daily role call of casualties. Beghtol was a multidisciplinary artist, a multi-instrumentalist, the forever-leader of the ever-changing lineup of chamber-pop band Flare, and by all accounts, a beautiful big o’l bear of a man. I could rattle off projects upon projects that Beghtol was a part of, his most famous being the earth-shattering Magnetic Fields songbook, 69 Love Songs, but one of his most accessible solo offerings was Hung, a 70 instrument full ode to Morrissey-esque moping and man love. It’s the best introduction to Beghtol multifaceted work, both for absolute beginners or those only familiar with “All My Little Words.”

Video:

Lyric:

“We met on line — at the movies / Not a chat room this time / A friend of a friend said I should call / (“That’s the way it’s done today”) / Went for coffee, talked for hours / About Sartre / I never saw you again.”

RIYL:

Chelsea laundromats, ballet, the saddest parts of 69 Love Songs