Swim Deep Transmutes Helsinki Lambda Club’s Indie Pop Single “Good News Is Bad News” Into Existential Slowcore Gold With New Remix

Helsinki Lambda Club, photo courtesy the artists

Swim Deep did us all a favor taking the upbeat, Strokes-esque song “Good News Is Bad News” hit song by Japanese pop band Helsinki Lambda Club and finding all the moody, downbeat, introspective possibilities to put forward in the remix. Instead of the admittedly thoughtful indie pop of the 2020 original this one shimmers in slowcore style with long echoing guitar and vocals sounding lost in a fog of reflective moments lingering long in a state of existential uncertainty caught somewhere between romantic feelings, yearning and doubt. It is Galaxie 500-esque in its establishment of gossamer sonic textures and pastoral moods and a fully-realized re-imagining of a song into something new. Listen to Swim Deep’s remix of Helsinki Lambda Club’s “Good News Is Bad News” on Spotify and follow Helsinki Lambda Club at the links provided.

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“On Fire” by Influential Slowcore Band IDAHO is an Elegant and Evocative Call to Indulge Your Humanly Creative Impulses Because Life Doesn’t Last Forever

IDAHO, photo courtesy the artists

Influential slowcore outfit Idaho returns with its first album in over a decade with the May 31, 2024 release of Lapse (via Arts & Crafts on CD, LP, digital download and streaming). Lead single “On Fire” has a title that is perhaps a nod to foundational slowcore band Galaxie 500 but Idaho’s hushed and finely detailed sonics are its own. Liquid melodic lines flow and sparkle and fade in sync with Jeff Martin’s delicately rendered couplets. Call and response riffs intertwine with whorls of psychedelic shimmer all while the song’s layered dynamics complement each other with an elegant grace. The song seems to be one encouraging the listener, perhaps as an initial message to self, to indulge the inner life and cultivate the core of creativity within all of us and do something with it while you can because life doesn’t last forever and let’s face it so many pursuits we’re told matter more and what we often need to do to survive matter a lot less than in the grand narrative of our lives than getting to what is in our hearts to do with the time we have. Listen to “On Fire” on Spotify and order Lapse from Arts & Crafts here.