EMA - Past Life Martyred Saints

Love this new song!

I've not really followed her career deeply so I don't know if this is as strong or not compared to previous stuff but this new album is A+

Haven't heard the new one but Past Life Martyred Saints is still amazing 6 years later.

Goes for like $6-7 on discogs these days... what's the deal? Not that it's super indicative of anything except supply > demand but still... did it not age well for most people?

This reminds me that I once opened for her and Downtown Boys and she (and they) were extremely nice & cool

I see her albums pretty cheap in used bins a lot as well. but in general music by non cis male solo artists tends to have diminished resale value (with some exceptions of course)

I'm sure her somewhat avant leanings aren't much help either

i still give past life martyred saints a spin every now and then -- it holds up well, though California doesn't feel like as much of a standout single as it once did (for context, it came in at #3 on p4k's eoy singles list). I don't think i've played anything from the second album since the year it came out

perhaps "suffered" a bit from overexposure, always seemed kind of niche to me in its aesthetic

it's also quite dark so for me personally it's not something I listen to that much

I was very impressed with the theme of the last record. really enjoyed the interviews about the kinds of ideological conversations she would get into and how the best shows were always at the boundaries between the cities and the suburbs, she had her finger on something being able to address those issues without falling into easy condemnations, while at the same time not letting the evil off the hook. what she does isn't always a kind of pop music I intuitively get, but y'know local bay area family means I root for and I thought that last one was going to be her biggest

I hope she doubles down and goes further into it now that 2020's made all those issues even less ignorable

i know i gave the full album a spin at least once but i don't recall much about it. should try it again. "california" was/is tremendous

I listened to this again a few months back, and its still a very impressive record in the way that Fetch the Bolt Cutters is a very impressive record, though my enthusiasm may have dimmed a tiny bit.

PLMS takes me back to an alternate reality, somewhere in 1997, where this album sits comfortably next to Sonic Youth's Washing Machine and Cat Power's What Would the Community Think.

I think the description upthread of how she evokes both the best and the worst of the alternative 90's is otm. Her songwriting - like most of the songwriting of 90's alternative - leaves a lot to be desired, but she's great at evoking a past life. Problem for me with the follow-up albums to PLMS is that the clearer the production, the less evocative of nostalgia her songs get and her sound is all about nostalgia.