Standing at the Gates: The Songs of Nada Surf's Let Go

Outside of The Beatles, I don't think I've ever been more infatuated with an album 15 years after its release than Nada Surf's Let Go. Quite simply, it's perfect. And in the past year it's risen rapidly to my top five of all time. That's the glory of music. You just never know when and how it'll hit you, yet I couldn't be more grateful. Treading Water? C'mon. That's just not fair to the other kids out there making music.

Nada Surf has been celebrating the anniversary with ones of those tours during which they play the whole album during the first set. Get all the dates here, but man what I wouldn't do to get to the Atlanta show in May.

The band also recently announced a covers album called Standing at the Gates featuring the likes of Aimee Mann, Rogue Wave, The Long Winters, Ed Harcourt, and more. That'll be released 2/2 and won't come close to the original, but hey, we can't listen to the same album over and over and over again, can we?

Pre-order the covers album here and download the original here.

Your Aimless Dreaming Has Found A Targeting

Well, it's not a new studio album, but we'll take it. Nada Surf is releasing the simply-titled digital release B-Sides, which collects, um, B-Sides from the last four studio albums. Of course, b-side is a bit of a misnomer these days particularly when we're talking digital releases, but I digress. It's greatly appreciated when a band actually releases these compilations for us fans that simply can't get enough.

1. No Quick Fix 
2. From The Rooftop Down 
3. Fools 
4. Concrete Bed (original) 
5. Au Fond Du Reve Dore 
6. Whose Authority (acoustic) 
7. I Like What You Say (acoustic) 
8. I Wanna Take You Home 
9. Everyone’s On Tour 
10. Je T’Attendais 
11. The Future (acoustic) 
12. Looking Through (acoustic) 
13. When I Was Young (acoustic) 
14. Waiting For Something (acoustic) 
15. Clear Eye Clouded Mind (acoustic) 

Nada Surf's B-Sides is out at your favorite digital retailers on September 23.

Official | iTunes | Amazon

As Quiet As I Can

Two of my favorite voices have joined forces as Minor Alps. Nada Surf's Matthew Caws and Juliana Hatfield recorded a full album's worth of tunes they're calling Get There. It's out October 29th and it's risen to the top of my fall release wish list.

Preview Buried Plans below...



Official Site

It's Weird How You Never Lose

Yesterday Nada Surf premiered their new stop-motion video for Jules and Jim. Check it out below or here.


A tad creepy if you ask me. Nada Surf's tour returns to the US in December and comes tantalizingly close to Iowa. Check out all the dates here.

Official Site | iTunes | Amazon MP3

Elusive Energy

Nada Surf recently released a video for Waiting for Something from their outstanding album The Stars Are Indifferent to Astronomy. The tune is one of the catchiest on a very catchy album. The video features a beautiful locale, cactus mutilation, sideboob, and pirates. Kinda.



If you want a real treat, check out their wonderfully different version of New Order's Bizarre Love Triangle, the latest entry in AV Club's Undercover series. They have a knack for great covers. If I Had a Hi-Fi remains my favorite covers album to date (even besting Matthew Sweet and Susanna Hoffs - quite an accomplishment if you know what a rabid Sweet fan I am!)

Nada Surf also started their summer tour yesterday. Four shows in Texas, zero in Iowa. Sigh. Here are all the dates. Nada Surf has elegantly risen into my top five favorite bands currently recording and performing. Very few bands consistently make better music.

This New Peace I Can Feel It Now

I'll be the first to admit that I've been uninspired this year. Hell, look at Too Poppy and it's too obvious. I don't know if it's a down year with music or if I'm simply out of it. I go through phases and after a strong five+ years of intensely casual obsession I was due.

But when I hear Nada Surf is releasing a new album - boom. Instant inspiration. In the age of digital distribution and the mainstreaming of "indie" music, bands that have stuck it out for the long haul deserve our continued support and admiration. Nada Surf is just such a band.

The stars are indifferent to astronomy is the name of the new album not just another of my non-sequiturs. Evidently Nada Surf will "transport you to a new and wonderful place in a beguiling rush of beats, chords, hooks and words" ten times over on the new album. That's what they all say, but Nada Surf has set the precedent over and over. The new album is out not soon enough January 24 and they are touring in 2012. Inspired.

Download When I Was Young free!

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Break the Silence

In a break from my norm, one of my favorite albums of the year so far is Nada Surf's If I Had a Hi-Fi.

It's not that I don't like Nada Surf - I do, very much. It's that Hi-Fi is an album of covers, which I'm typically indifferent toward. But Nada Surf owns every cover as if it was their own composition so the entire album seems less like a mix-tape than most cover albums. The song selection is unmatched in balancing the well-known (Enjoy the Silence, Question) with the lesser-known (Electrocution, Evolution). This balance is tricky, but the flow of the first five songs alone justifies the entire album's existence.

To me, Depeche Mode's Enjoy the Silence is the most recognizable tune, but if you had never heard it before you'd swear it was a Nada Surf tune. Their handling of the classic reanimates it to fit in nicely with the band's oeuvre - quite an achievement.

I picked it up a while back during Record Store Day, but they just widely released it earlier this month. Get it and reminisce about old favorite tunes while listening to them through an accomplished Nada Surf filter.

iTunes
Amazon.com MP3

Download the Electrocution MP3 free! Find the link here.

You Have To Be As Attractive As Possible

Nada Surf is releasing a new album in conjunction with a tour commencing in late March. In other words, you need to be at the concert to get the album if i had a hi-fi (although a digital release is expected sometime thereafter) - a covers compilation with some interesting choices.

“Electrocution” (Bill Fox)
“Enjoy the Silence” (Depeche Mode)
“Love Goes On” (The Go-Betweens)
“Janine” (Arthur Russell)
“You Were So Warm” (Dwight Twilley)
“Love and Anger” (Kate Bush)
“The Agony of Laffitte” (Spoon)
“Bye Bye Beaute” (Coralie Clement)
“Question” (Moody Blues)
“Bright Side” (Soft Pack)
“Evolution” (Mercromina)
“I Remembered What I Was Going to Say” (The Silly Pillows)

They've graciously provided Electrocution as a free download just to get you excited. No official release of their much-shared cover of OMD's If You Leave, but you can find that at the link below. Go to their official site to get the full list of shows, some of which are already sold out. I saw them back when they were "popular" but I never appreciated them as I do now.

MP3: Nada Surf - Electrocution (Bill Fox cover)
MP3: Nada Surf - If You Leave (OMD cover) - (via Knox Road, scroll down)

Lucky

Happy Thanksgiving, Too Poppers.

Best news I've seen all day: Amazon.com is having a hell of a saletomorrow now on their top 50 MP3 albums. Five bucks for several on my "to-get" list: Raveonettes, Fleet Foxes, She & Him, Dr. Dog, and Ra Ra Riot, plus favorites by Mates of State, R.E.M., Nada Surf, Radiohead, Coldplay, and Mariah Carey.

Man, I just can't wait to hear that new Mariah Carey.

That Is a Dream it Is What it Seems

Man, if I only had some free time on my hands ... Nada Surf wants you to produce their next video for Weightless.

The contest winner will be chosen by a panel of judges with a proven track record of excellent taste, and Barsuk Records will award the winning entry $3,000.00 cash.

Second and third place winners will receive copies of the forthcoming Nada Surf vinyl box set (due for release this fall, and including all five of the band's studio albums on vinyl, packaged together with a retrospective book of poster art, lyrics, and liner notes), an assortment of Nada Surf t-shirts and CDs and some gear from the good folks at www.dakine. com.

Nice. Get all the details on the contest and upload your video here. You can download Weightless via iTunes here.

We're Digging

Somos afortunados tener nueva resaca del nada.

And you can download Lucky by Nada Surf at iTunes.

AV Club has a lukewarm review here.

I Hear Strings

Nada Surf announced more details on their upcoming album due Feb. 5, which seems so far away.

"There is some hard rock, almost early '80s British metal for a couple of minutes," frontman Matthew Caws previously told Billboard.com. "I don't even know if the record is going in a positive direction or a vitriolic direction. I think it's getting weirder. But then some songs sound like Tom Petty, which is a great thing if it works and a bummer if it doesn't."

Here is the track list for "Lucky":

"Weightless"
"Whose Authority"
"Beautiful Beat"
"Here Goes Something"
"From Now On"
"I Like What You Say"
"Ice on the Wing"
"The Film Did Not Go 'Round"
"The Fox"
"Are You Lightning?"
"See These Bones"

And wouldn't you know it, you can download the See These Bones at theirspace. Neato.

It Don't Matter

Stereogum has a new tune from Rogue Wave, Chicago X 12, which is quite nice. It features Nada Surf's Matthew Caws so you'd expect it to be quite nice. New album Asleep at Heaven's Gate comes out Sept. 18 and promises to be "meloncholic" (sic - hey, it's a Smashing Pumpkins generation.)

MP3: Rogue Wave - Chicago X 12 (via Stereogum)

Squeeze the Air and Keep the Rest Out

Nada Surf is hard at work on their next album tentatively titled Time for Plan A, which, speaking of Barsuk, will be released by the label probably early next year.

The set was recorded in February in Seattle with producer John Goodmanson and will likely feature guest appearances from Death Cab For Cutie's Ben Gibbard, Juliana Hatfield, Harvey Danger's Sean Nelson and the Long Winters' John Roderick.

Sounds like a smorgasbord of intellectual power-poppers. If half the songs are half as good as Always Love, it'll be a masterpiece.