Dig into this week’s Saturday Alternative playlist. The Fitting Room album was Moonwalking into the Future by Fulton Lights.
With production beginning back in March of 2014, the new Fulton Lights album has been a long time coming. The band is the project of Baltimore’s Andrew Spencer Goldman, who describes these past four years as a whole chapter of his life, ending with him putting the finishing touches on the album the night before moving to another country with his wife, his baby and his dog. Moonwalking into the Future was well worth the wait. Goldman creates a space where beauty and chaos collide, where at once we’re engulfed in a world of angular synths, punchy horn stabs and fat, gnarly guitar tones, while at the same time floating in spacey atmospheres and distant textures – keys and mallets, soulful melodies and deep grooves that won’t let go, like on the album’s ethereal title track.
When I asked him about the time spent on the album, he said “It is hard to know how much the 4-plus years spent on this was a kind of perverse and unobtainable perfectionism, and how much was just actually the healthy process of arriving at the sounds I wanted to make and putting in the time to figure out how to do it, from a technical/creative standpoint… The fact that I had a lot going on in my life, having a baby and all. is also part of that and always informing the music.”….. One things for certain – Goldman has crafted a sound that is uniquely Fulton Lights, and that’s something very few artists are able to accomplish these days.
Read Goldman’s full statement below.
It is hard to know how much the 4-plus years spent on this was a kind of perverse and unobtainable perfectionism, and how much was just actually the healthy process of arriving at the sounds I wanted to make and putting in the time to figure out how to do it, from a technical/creative standpoint. There is always a translation problem to one extent or another when you try to convey to other musicians or engineers the idea you have in your head. So you do the best to get what you are going for, but the rest, at least for Fulton Lights process, is in the editing, the mixing, the overdubs. And I just don’t think I could have made it sound the way it does had I opted to draw the line at any point before it was really really done. I was growing into the songs and the sounds. The fact that I had a lot going on in my life, having a baby and all, is also part of that and always informing the music.
As for the A. Spencer EP’s, in some ways one might be inclined to understand them as a vacation from all of that. I had found myself writing the kinds of songs that I had written before I started Fulton Lights in the mid-00’s. Folkier stuff, rock, less curveballs. And so for both of those EP’s there was just some songs, some people playing together in a room getting the recording done in a day or two, bing bang boom. Done. The antithesis of spending four years working on something, mostly alone. And also it let me step away from Fulton Lights for a minute to clear my head about it.
Both processes are valid and have their pros and cons. I couldn’t have done the Fulton Lights one like the A. Spencer ones, or vice versa.
–hour 1—
Violent – Grapetooth – Graptetooth
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What Do You Want Me To Do – Bob Mould – Sunshine Rock
Bellarine – Rolling Blackouts Coastal Fever – Hope Downs
Is It Real? – together PANGEA – Bulls and Roosters
Venus – Twist – Distancing
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Value – All Get Out – No Bouquet
Sing to Me – Cumulus – Comfort World
Double Down – Slothrust
We Appreciate Power (feat. HANA) – Grimes
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Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas — The Beths
Partners in Motion – Wild Nothing – Indigo
Into the Fire – These New Puritans – Into the Fire
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Love Supreme – Ron Gallo – Stardust Birthday Party
People-Vultures – King Gizzard & The Lizard Wizard – Nonagon Infinity
–hour 2—
Every 1’s a Winner – Ty Segall
Tank Top – Starcrawler
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What You Don’t Know – Matthew Dear – Bunny
He’s Got His Mothers Hips – John Grant – Love Is Magic
Landscape – Future Generations – Landscape
Ordinary Pleasure – Toro y Moi – Outer Peace
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Yellow Bike – Pedro the Lion – Phoenix
Shark Smile – Big Thief – Capacity
Christmas Time Is Here – Khruangbin
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The Long Mirror of Time – Daniel Romano – Finally Free
I’ll Be There – Michael Rault – It’s a New Day
Johnny – Basement Revolver – Heavy Eyes
Symmetry & Black Tar – Thomas Abban – A Sheik’s Legacy
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Allentown – Manchester Orchestra & The Front Bottoms
–hour 3–
Here It Comes – Spiritualized
I Know What It’s Like – Jeff Tweedy – WARM
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Lux Prima – Karen O & Danger Mouse
Forgive (feat. Washed Out) – Roosevelt – Young Romance
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—-FITTING ROOM—-
Channel Changing with The Holy Ghost – Fulton Lights – Moonwalking into the Future
Ancient Honkytonk Medicines – Fulton Lights – Moonwalking into the Future
Moonwalking into the Future – Fulton Lights – Moonwalking into the Future
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To Be – Foxwarren – Foxwarren
I Wonder – Mike Krol – Power Chords
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Twenty Fourteen – Dwight James and the Royals
