retreat from the sun

Certain Songs #2696: that dog. – “hawthorne”

September 22, 2023 by Jim Connelly Leave a Comment

Album: retreat from the sun
Year: 1997

. . .

One of the things I’m not sure of is why retreat from the sun’s three greatest songs are all named after places — which makes the lower case stylization of the song titles even artier or weirder or funnier or something — but here we are, as “hawthorne” followed hard upon the heels of “long island,” and “minneapolis,” and was somehow more powerful and melancholic than either one.

Which, as you know, is utter catnip for your humble scribe.

Certain Songs #2695: that dog. – “long island”

September 21, 2023 by Jim Connelly Leave a Comment

Album: retreat from the sun
year: 1997

. . .

Brad Wood was the producer of retreat from the sun. If you look at his Wikipedia page, you’ll see that he produced a whole bunch of records, including two more of my all-time favorites, Liz Phair’s Exile in Guyville and Pete Yorn’s Musicforthmorningafer, both of which were everything-but-the-kitchen sink debut records.

Certain Songs #2694: that dog. – “minneapolis”

September 19, 2023 by Jim Connelly Leave a Comment

Album: retreat from the sun
Year: 1997

. . .

“minneapolis” isn’t quite an answer song to “Left of the Dial,” — the newly remixed version I can’t hardly wait to hear when Tim: The Let it Bleed edition comes out later this week — but it kinda plays in the same ballpark, though the relationship described in “minneapolis” was clearly far more intricate if not more intimate.

Certain Songs #2693: that dog. – “never say never”

September 18, 2023 by Jim Connelly 1 Comment

Album: retreat from the sun
Year: 1997

. . .

that dog.’s first two albums — the 1994 self-titled and 1995’s Totally Crushed Out spent too much on the avant side of their post-Breeders avant-pop conglomeration.

But on their third album, 1997’s retreat from the sun, they leaned straight in to the pop, and produced an album that I think is one of the finest records of the entire year — the only ones I loved more were Whiskeytown’s Strangers Almanac and a little thing called OK Computer — and a record that has a handful of songs that I would put up against anything else that came out that decade. Or ever, as we’ll see.