Off the back of the release of their stellar Pull Me Into the Open Sea EP, dream pop duo PostLast select some of their all-time favourite tracks – featuring Mariah, Radiohead, Men I Trust, Blonde Redhead and more.
Stephen McHale:
Radiohead – Weird Fishes
It’s hard to pick just one song from Radiohead but I always find myself coming back to this one. There are so many things to love about it lyrically and musically, but in terms of an influence on my writing I’ve definitely been inspired by all the layered, cyclical guitar patterns that build the tension as the song progresses, a technique I regularly use with PostLast. I also love the fact that it ends with an entirely new section of music, another idea I find myself regularly coming back to in my own writing!
Men I Trust – Show Me How
I discovered this band on Spotify very recently, Julie and I were already well into the writing process but as soon as I heard this song I thought that it was a perfect mixing reference for what we are doing. Huge fan of the spacey guitars and breathy vocals, the drums and bass are grooving really hard but still somehow keep the overall feel of the song really light and flowy, and the jazz influence in the chordal harmony is a real treat. It ticks lots of boxes in terms of what I enjoy hearing in a song!
Síomha – Right From The Start
I was so impressed with Síomha’s album Infinite Space when I heard it for the first time a couple of years ago, and I was even more impressed when I got to see her play it live! She’s an incredible guitarist and singer. The production and the playing on the album is just fantastic, and I love the way she both uses the Irish language and keeps the influences of Irish music present in her songs while still embracing harmonic and rhythmic influences from further afield. I picked this track in particular because it’s the one I’ve listened to most and we actually used some of vocal reverb effects as a reference when we were mixing our tracks!
Radiohead – Idioteque
It was too hard to pick only one Radiohead song so I picked two! I first heard this on a compilation CD I got free with Q magazine many years ago and I was instantly hooked. I’d never heard anything like it before and although I didn’t understand it at the time I think part of what kept me listening over and over was all the time signature changes and the unpredictable lengths of each section. These unexpected rhythmic changes in addition to the eerie, unsettling sampled sounds meant that repeated listening was a really rewarding experience.
Julie Hough:
Mariah – Sokokara
When we started working on PostLast, it was in such close proximity to other projects that I had going on. Whenever I’m in a period like that, I turn to a lot of irreverent music to help me feel lighter – and with that I’ll also turn to music with no lyrics or in a language I don’t understand. I absolutely love Utokata no Hibi for when I want to insert some joy into the mundane. It’s so dreamlike and textural, and I love the way it plods along at this contented walking pace. And you can dance to it. Having made a lot of angry or frustrated music, I find it very inspiring to put on something joyful that is playing with sound in such a fun way. It’s still got a kind-of distorted reality to it, but you can tell they are having fun.
St. Vincent – Landmines
I had a big St Vincent obsession around her first few albums, especially as I was just starting to write lyrics myself. I was now looking at artists not just as a fan, but in order to ask ‘how did you do that?’ It was the first time I’d really appreciated the kind of storytelling that can go into alternative pop – the kind of illustrative lyrics that, for me anyway, I thought had only existed in the singer-songwriter / acoustic world before. This put me on to really getting into writing lyrics that were personal but which could also be very visual and dystopian, and I think it’s still influencing the way my brain looks at lyrics today.
Blonde Redhead – Dr Strangeluv
When we were approaching the PostLast sound, we really were keen to inject a sense of spaciousness and air, and I think Blonde Redhead do this so well. I’m a huge fan of Kazu Makino’s vocal and her approach to melodies, and the cyclical quality of the guitar parts. It all adds up to a beautifully drenched sound, with a forlorn, alien quality. Sad pop in space.
Cassandra Jenkins – Delphinium Blue
I was so happy when my friend Mark linked me to this album. I was on the train into Dublin and had exactly an album’s length of time to kill. I’m pretty sure I will have that journey imprinted in my retina for the rest of my life; taking the train down the coast, then walking from Connolly to Capel St, seeing everyone’s facial expressions lit up in HD just because of what I was listening to. I also saw the Portal for the first time and got extra emotional (I have a special place in my heart for the Portal. I think the whole album is a masterpiece. It’s so patient and swings so beautifully from atmospheric soundscape to straight-up crunchy indie. The whole record is divine, but ‘Delphinium Blue’ absolutely floored me. (Thanks Mark!) PS: As I write Cassandra Jenkins will be playing in Dublin on November 20th and you should all go.
