Cursive - New album, original drummer, fall tour, I miss FlamingGlobes

[MplsTaper]

Time to see if I'm the only around here interested in this album. Paging FlamingGlobes to this goddamn thread.

NPR write up on the new album out October 5th: For A Wracked World, Cursive's 'Vitriola' Returns To A Reckless Sound

For Vitriola, his new record as Cursive — out Oct. 5 via the band's own 15 Passenger label — Kasher is returning to a sound not heard since 2000's Domestica or 2003's The Ugly Organ; an emotional turbulence marked by daggers of slanted guitar riffs and swooping cello, alongside a wracked rhythm section that spurs on the mania. Founding drummer Clint Schnase has returned to the fold, while touring member Megan Siebe is the first cellist to appear on a Cursive record since 2003, a dynamic rounded out by guitarist/singer Ted Stevens, bassist Matt Maginn and Patrick Newbery on keys.

https://cursivevitriola.com/shows

[Disco King]

Wow, feels like I've been waiting forever to hear a peep from Cursive.

Their last album was terrible, so it's nice to hear that they wanna revisit their older sound, but we all know the pitfalls of trying to recapture former glories. Happy Hollow and Mama, I'm Swollen were pretty good, despite also having a different sound from their rougher older stuff, so I'm not so concerned that the new stuff sounds like Domestica as much as I'm concerned that it sounds good.

[MplsTaper]

Extremely valid points Disco King, let's hope for the best.

On an unrelated note, I'm going to Tim's living room show at a stranger's house in Phoenix tomorrow night. Last time he did one of these tours Patrick N. was with to add keys and percussion but it sounds like this time around it's just Tim and his guitar.

[toase]

what happened to flamingglobes ?

[MplsTaper]

Originally Posted by toase

what happened to flamingglobes ?

Wish I knew. It's a reference to this thread he started and the fact that he is missed.

http://forums.netphoria.org/showthre...hlight=cursive

[MplsTaper]

Cursive put the new single "Life Savings" up for free download.

https://cursivevitriola.com/track/1528659/life-savings

[smashingjj]

CONVURGIVE

[smashingjj]

Originally Posted by MplsTaper

Cursive put the new single "Life Savings" up for free download.

https://cursivevitriola.com/track/1528659/life-savings

That's my friend's band's name. https://lifesavings.bandcamp.com

[MplsTaper]

Damn it, Cursive is going to get sued into oblivion!

(I'll check out your friend's band)

[FlamingGlobes]

Bringing back a cellist is probably the wisest decision Kasher has made in a long time. They really lost something when The Ugly Organ line-up fell apart.

[FlamingGlobes]

Originally Posted by toase

what happened to flamingglobes ?

I am The Recluse.

[MplsTaper]

New song Under the Rainbow

STEREOGUM: Why did this feel like the right time to come back to Cursive?

KASHER: Well, there certainly wasn’t the decision made to do a Cursive record because I wanted to touch on these topics. We’d already decided that we were going to do a Cursive record, and then Trump went into office, and we were inundated with all of this insanity.

STEREOGUM: At what point had you decided you were definitely going to do another Cursive record?

KASHER: I started in July of 2016. It really was all just kind of coincidence. There wasn’t anything that I felt like I needed to express lyrically that I felt like I needed to do a Cursive [record].

Two years before that, [guitarist] Ted [Stevens] and I were talking a lot about how we were going to be doing a [record label] 15 Passenger, which was a really long time passion project of [bassist] Matt [Maginn’s]. So Matt’s worked at Saddle Creek, he started Team Love Records. It was Conor [Oberst]’s label, but they kind of poached Matt from Saddle Creek and asked if he’d get Team Love going for them.

[Matt] wanted to own all of his catalog. That’s essentially what he wanted out of it. But the more we talked about it, the more we said, “We could release anything if we wanted to,” and that kind of got us excited about doing a Cursive record. So… it became a “maybe” at that point. I don’t know why we can’t make those decisions faster. I think maybe it’s just me.

STEREOGUM: You never had a contract or anything with Saddle Creek, right?

KASHER: We never signed anything with them. I’d been on Saddle Creek until I put out my solo record, No Resolution.

STEREOGUM: Sounds like the separation process was amiable.

KASHER: Yeah, probably between Matt and [Saddle Creek founder] Robb [Nansel] it was probably amiable in the sense that they… just didn’t talk about it? [Laughs.] But I know me, as a liason, I’m really good friends with Robb and friends with Matt, and it was just kind of… We went through steps. It was the slow but pleasant breakup. Robb at Saddle Creek was like, “Hate to see you go… Maybe before we decide that you’re doing that we can set up an umbrella and you’ll run your own label under Saddle Creek.” And I’d go to Matt, who would be like, “No, I’m doing my own label.” And I’d say, “I think Matt just wants to do it on his own.” You know. That kind of a thing.

But it’s nice to say that Saddle Creek wanted to keep working… they wanted to figure something [out].

STEREOGUM: So much of Vitriola deals with a feeling of existential despair — and search for catharsis — as society hurtles towards a certain dystopia. On a personal note, how do you manage to retain hope when every day brings more unsettling news?

KASHER: I do attempt to maintain a respect and admiration of humanity.

Particularly, my wife — she definitely has an influence on this record, which shouldn’t be a surprise, I suppose. You’re influenced by the people you live with, you know? This is going to sound like I’m blaming her, but I’m not blaming her for anything. We were having a playful discussion-fight for a little while about humanity. I’m a cynic, I’m a pessimist, but I love humanity. I really believe in humanity, I’m a human being, I know what the experience is like, and so I love all human beings. And she has a tendency to be like, “I think humanity is a virus. I think it’s a plague and that human beings are terrible.” She doesn’t really mean it, obviously she loves people and loves her family and friends. But she opened my eyes; my glasses are a little too tinted, you know, as far as like, “Humans are great! They mean well!”

These last couple of years have been a real eye-opener as well, as far as her point of view [goes]. There’s just an awful mean streak in humanity in the way that you can see it being bred in groupthink and group mentality. Like, with racism, there’s a very easy example with that. It’s like, this country just needed somebody to be like, “You know what?”

STEREOGUM: Yeah, like “Hey, it’s OK to be racist!”

KASHER: Yeah, yeah. And then so many people are just like, “Damn straight! Yeah! Absolutely.” It’s just like, holy shit. It’s really ugly.

I had an interview the other day ask about the dystopian elements of the record. Very nice guy, but he was like, “Do you actually think that’s reality?” And I was like, “Well to start, it’s fantasy. I’m writing fictions and doing what-ifs. But all those what-ifs are stemming from becoming almost daily conversations of “Where are we headed?”

Just yesterday morning I was reading a Times editorial on how we’re so much closer to the Fascism of Poland and Hungary. And I read through it, and the examples they’re offering, it’s like maybe you hear one of those on a Tuesday, then you hear another one the next Thursday. If you put them all together, you’re like, “Oh, oh shit.” There’s actually a conservative party that’s trying to dismantle our democratic elections.

Look at the conservative base that still tries to uphold the integrity of the process and of the constitution. They’re the ones people were leaning on to be vocal. Almost all of them — except for maybe McCain, who just passed away — have changed their tune. And that stuff makes me start to think nefarious, fantastic thoughts of like, “What are they talking about behind closed doors?”

STEREOGUM: In terms of songwriting, I’m hearing a lot of theatrical, early-Cursive orchestration going on. Like, “Pick Up The Pieces” could have appeared on The Ugly Organ.

KASHER: If there’s any album we wouldn’t want to rehash it would be that one, because that would be the most sellout move on our part. [Laughs.]

I can tell the short story of how I hated [The Ugly Organ] for a while. I think it’s what so many writers go through, just like, “I write so much stuff. That’s ONE of my records. That’s A record. I don’t know what the big deal is.” I’ve since come around to really respecting and appreciating it. I respect it for affording me such a long career. It’s like The Ugly Organ has buoyed me to a place where I can be a good writer, and that’s great. I really respect and appreciate that record. And I do like that record. I just needed to get away from it.

[But] there’s something that the last few years I feel like I did glean from The Ugly Organ, which I think is important. The Ugly Organ DID influence this record in this instance: I think it’s so important to look back at what you write. I’m not very good at it because I don’t really want to very badly. But I try to do it. I think I’ve done it more in the last few years because of what we’re talking about.

I started thinking, what is it about the overall message of that record? I thought about “Staying Alive” as the last song on that record and what a positive message that was. It’s actually a song written by Ted Stevens, which is telling as well because I’m not a positive guy. I don’t know that Ted necessarily is either, but he’s probably a little more spiritual in an earthly sense, I suppose. But that did have a profound effect on me and an influence on this record. Talking to myself, “You are so dark, and you had times and maybe more and more lately where you aren’t allowing you’re only writing the pessimistic side and cynical side of yourself and you are not offering any way out.”

And I believe in the message of The Ugly Organ. That’s a really long-winded way of saying that that record did influence [Vitriola’s hopeful points].

STEREOGUM: That sounds very self-aware to me. I also especially loved the piano interlude on Vitriola, “Remorse.”

KASHER: I’m always happy when people bring it up, because it gives me an opportunity to mention Patrick Newbery wrote that. Unlike the other projects that I do, I want Cursive to be more of a community effort. Patrick came on as a hired player for Happy Hollow, and this is the first record that we asked him to be a writing member with us. So he sent in some really cool stuff. And that’s the one that made the cut.

We wrote a lot of extra songs for this record. I think we recorded 21 songs, and probably like really like 18 of them. We just had a lot of material to work with. I’m just kind of glad that “Remorse” always stayed on the record. It was basically taking the place of myriad other hard-rock, pop, catchy… actual songs.

STEREOGUM: What was the editing process like with 21 songs to choose from?

KASHER: We wrote a lot of stuff that would usually make a record, but this record started being [thematically] shaped by songs like “Free To Be” and “It’s Gonna Hurt” and “Remorse”… We had other songs that were very catchy, but would be more punk-rock, heavy, upbeat, aggressive, angry songs, we just couldn’t figure out how to place them into what we were doing.

“Ouroboros” was going to be the album opener for so long. It ended up just being a kind of a polarizing to so many people. When we were sending it out to people, and not everybody liked that song, basically. So it got pushed to the middle of the record and that was a compromise I made. [Laughs.] And I think that’s fine.

There are a lot of songs that I confidently thought, “This song will be one of our first singles.” And nobody liked it. I think I know, looking back, why some of the stuff that I was convinced that was gonna be strong stuff really wasn’t. It was like “Gentleman Caller” or “Butcher The Song” on The Ugly Organ… I think if “Gentleman Caller” didn’t have its long denouement. That would not be a very popular song. Just the very jarring, aggressive, discordant first part of that song. That’s just another side of me that I really like a lot. So I think I had a couple of songs that were like that that I was like, “Everyone’s gonna love these!” And it was just like, nobody did. [Laughs.]

And that’s OK. We ended up recognizing that there was something much moodier and heavier. And songs like “It’s Gonna Hurt” ended up setting the pace for what this dark, moody vibe was going to be.

STEREOGUM: I do like that Vitriola is such a tight, quick listen.

Yeah, I’m glad that it feels like a tight listen, too. For the longest time I was comfortable with a 12-song record, or more. And I really appreciate the editing that the whole band and Mike Mogis as a producer wanted to do. It really is a 10-song record. Any extra anything was like, “Ahhh, I don’t know. That might be the one song too many.” And also again, we could have put other single-esque, proper rock songs on there, but chose to do something like “Remorse” instead.

Another great experience I had on this record was, more than any other record I’ve done, people were much more vocal about the lyrics. And again, it’s great because it’s coming from a place of love and mutual interest in what we were making. I hadn’t worked with Mike Mogis since Happy Hollow, and he’s been developing as a producer ever since. So I think he’d kind of forgotten how we used to work, and he’s done so many records since then. So we kind of had to readjust to how I work and how he works. But he was vocal about stuff he didn’t like, stuff he felt like wasn’t working.

STEREOGUM: Do you feel like there’s a lot at stake with this new record?

KASHER: I feel like that could be a dangerous and loaded thought. No, I don’t. I don’t think there is. [Laughs.] I have been thinking about that, though. ‘Cause the response has been strong. You can get confused into thinking that there’s a groundswell.

But I’ve just been doing a lot of records for a long time. I don’t want to be the pessimist bummer in the group, because I really love the positive camaraderie [of bands]. But I’m also gonna be the last person to get ahead of myself. It’s just another record. And I don’t want it to be any other way.

https://www.stereogum.com/2013032/ti...ses/interview/

[MplsTaper]

10/18 Kansas City, MO @ Record Bar*
10/19 St. Louis, MO @ Off Broadway*
10/20 Louisville, KY @ Headliners*
10/21 Nashville, TN @ Basement East*
10/23 Tallahassee, FL @ The Wilbury*
10/24 Tampa, FL @ PRE FEST 6
10/25 Fort Lauderdale, FL @ Culture Room
10/26 Gainesville, FL @ THE FEST 17
10/27 Orlando, FL @ The Social
10/28 Jacksonville, FL @ Jack Rabbits*
10/30 Atlanta, GA @ The Masquerade*
10/31 Charlotte, NC @ The Underground*
11/01 Carrboro, NC @ Cat’s Cradle*
11/02 Washington, DC @ 9:30 Club*
11/03 Philadelphia, PA @ Union Transfer*
11/04 Asbury Park, NJ @ Stone Pony*
11/06 Long Island, NY @ Amityville Music Hall*
11/07 New York, NY @ Irving Plaza *
11/08 Boston, MA @ Paradise*
11/09 Hamden, CT @ Space Ballroom*
11/10 Buffalo, NY @ Tralf Music Hall*
11/11 Pittsburgh, PA @ Rex Theater*
11/12 Columbus, OH @ Ace of Cups*
11/13 Cleveland, OH @ Grog Shop*
11/14 Detroit, MI @ El Club*
11/15 Chicago, IL @ Thalia Hall*
11/16 Madison, WI @ High Noon Saloon*
11/17 St. Paul, MN @ Turf Club*
11/18 Omaha, NE @ Waiting Room*
01/18 Denver, CO @ Bluebird Theater
01/19 Boulder, CO @ Fox Theatre
01/21 Salt Lake City, UT @ Metro Bar
01/22 Boise, ID @ Neurolux
01/23 Spokane, WA @ The Bartlett
01/24 Bellingham, WA @ The Wild Buffalo
01/25 Seattle, WA @ The Crocodile
01/26 Portland, OR @ Doug Fir Lounge
01/28 Redding, CA @ The Dip
01/29 San Francisco, CA @ August Hall
01/30 Fresno, CA @ Strummer’s
01/31 Los Angeles, CA @ Regent Theater
02/02 Pomona, CA @ The Glass House
02/04 Las Vegas, NV @ The Bunkhouse Saloon
02/05 Tempe, AZ @ Crescent Ballroom
02/06 El Paso, TX @ Lowbrow Palace
02/07 Lubbock, TX @ Jake’s
02/08 San Antonio, TX @ Paper Tiger
02/09 Austin, TX @ Mohawk
02/10 Houston, TX @ White Oak Music Hall
02/11 Dallas, TX @ Trees

* Meat Wave, Campdogzz support
Campdogzz supports

[MplsTaper]

New album streaming in full below. Road trip with some friends to Madison the Friday they play there and heading back this way Saturday morning for the St. Paul show.

https://15passenger.bandcamp.com/album/vitriola

[toase]

Very interesting thanks

[FlamingGlobes]

I got the album Saturday and have listened to it a handful of times since. Very nice stuff. Not recapturing that unhinged Ugly Organ vibe at all, but definitely their strongest showing since that album.

[Tyler]

What's going on out here?

[Tyler]

How about those Ouroboros lyrics though?

[Tyler]

Each of the first three verses its own little ouroboros

[MplsTaper]

I am a parasite
I am a shill
I am that lowly snake
Chasing it’s tail

In the beginning, we were starving under stars
The stars told the farmers when to farm
Farms evolved into corporations
Corporations left us all to starve
And in the end, we’ll start again
Apocalypse will level every monopoly and monolith
Ouroboros

We were blessed with an enlightened intellect
Enlightened intellect made the internet
The internet gave the world a mouthpiece
That swallowed our enlightened intellect
The voice of man has been exposed
As vitriol — don’t gotta read between the HTML
Ouroboros

The writer will obsess over success
Success is like the carrot on a stick
Once the writer finds it’s just a carrot
The writer takes a shit all over it
‘Cause in the end the masterpiece
Won’t be achieved —
Who the fuck is achieving mastery?
Ouroboros

Society has got a heinous case of crabs
Everybody’s got an itch to scratch
This manmade bucket we’re all stuck in
We’re all fucking over each other’s cousin
So, serve it up — surf n’ turf
It could be worse
You could be eating your words or your own foot
Ouroboros

I am a parasite
I am a shill
I am a cannibal
Eating my words

I am a parasite etisarap a ma I
I am a shill llihs a ma I
I am that lowly snake ekans ylwol taht ma I
Chasing it’s tail liat s’ti gnisahC

[MplsTaper]

Noble Soldier / Dystopian Lament has been hitting me hard.

-NOBLE SOLDIER-

Push it back, push it back,
push it out of your head now
Push it back, push it back,
push it out of your head now, my friend
Don’t recall what you saw
Modern life is behind you
Don’t recall what you saw
Freedom’s a dream

Don’t look up, don’t look up
Don’t look into the mirror
Don’t look up, don’t look up
You won’t like what you’re seeing in there
It’s just a shell, just a shell
It’s a vessel of who you once were
Shell shocked, well heeled
Noble soldier —
It’s over, over, over
Push it back now
Push back, push back
Push it out now
It’s over, over
Push it out now
Push back, push back
The life you knew is over

-DYSTOPIAN LAMENT-

I used to fall for love
For family and for friends
I used to fall for unity
Despite our differences

I used to fall for trust
The decency of man
I used to fall for secrecy
’Til a neighbor played my hand

I used to fall for math
A universal truth
I used to fall for science books
Until they were removed

I used to fall for hope
The promise of our youth
I used to fall for change
’Til our youth became recruits

I used to fall for currency
To dictate what I’m worth
I used to fall for ancestry
Now I know we’re fucked from birth

I used to fall for news
I’d check it each morning
I used to fall for freedom of speech
Before the red warning

I used to fall for anarchy
But loved the world too much
I used to fall for rioting
’Til the sentry locked us up

Now I fall in line
Now I fall in line
Now I fall in line
Now I fall in line
Fall in line
Fall in line
Fall in line
Fall in line

[toase]

Originally Posted by MplsTaper

I used to fall for anarchy
But loved the world too much

what does he mean?

[FlamingGlobes]

Probably that anarchy is bullshit posturing.

[toase]

but what does he mean by "loved the world"?

I love saturn

[FlamingGlobes]

The world is dead? Or maybe he moved to another planet.

[FlamingGlobes]

Like Uranus.

[FlamingGlobes]

This seems like a good time to talk about this: I loved the Sega Saturn.

[MplsTaper]

Originally Posted by toase

what does he mean?

toase, I'll message you on discord sometime this weekend.

[MplsTaper]

Official video released today with a festive Halloween theme. Poor Tim.

[FlamingGlobes]

OK, but I didn't see Tim in the video?