Resurrecting the CD: High-Fidelity Nostalgia and This Week’s Best New Tracks
I might have a problem with “adult money.”
I don’t usually splurge, but I recently got my wife’s blessing—my “Jiminy Cricket” for financial decisions—to pull the trigger on a graduation gift to myself. I’m finishing my degree this summer, so the timing felt right to finally deal with the thousands of CDs I have sitting in storage.
For years, these discs have been tucked away like the Ark of the Covenant at the end of Raiders of the Lost Ark. I was prolific from the early 90s through the mid-2000s, hitting local record exchanges and walking out with stacks of used CDs for five bucks a pop. I eventually moved to digital and streaming, but I missed the fidelity.
I bought a Brennan B3.
It’s a 2TB high-performance audio jukebox that rips CDs to WAV or FLAC files. It holds about 4,000 albums, pulls its own metadata, and best of all it has an onboard amp that powers my old-school, giant Cerwin Vega speakers from my college party days. It’s not cheap, but it’s way more versatile than the high-end component players I was looking at. Honestly, I’m ready to stop streaming so much and actually own my music again.
The New Music Rundown
Despite the “gear talk,” we still have some killer tracks to get through this week.
Culture Wars – “(Tokyo)”
The title is a bit of a mystery since the word “Tokyo” never actually appears in the lyrics. This track is just solid, top-to-bottom indie pop-rock. It reminds me of early Vertical Horizon or the guitar style of early Coldplay—lots of acoustic rhythm topped with clean electric “sprinkles”.
Fantastic Cat – “The Waiting Room”
The Cat is back. Sometimes I feature an artist multiple times because I believe in them so much I want to provide a “gateway drug” song to help them click for you. It took me years to “get” Wilco until I saw a live version of “Impossible Germany,” and then it all made sense. Fantastic Cat are just incredible songwriters, and this track is as clever as it is catchy.
Dylan Santiago – “Bedhead”
This one caught me because of how raw and “human” the production is. It’s built around a baritone ukulele, which you don’t hear often on this show. There are no MIDI triggers or perfect samples here. You can hear the slight imperfections in the drum strikes and cymbals, which gives the song its soul.
Man/Woman/Chainsaw – “Nosedive”
This was my personal gateway song for this band. The strings provide a beautiful texture against the vocals, and the underlying track is simple but effective—a pulsing synth and a straight-ahead drum part. My favorite bit is the ending, where they layer voices until it’s just a massive chorus of sound.
Four songs this week. It was a bit of a grind to find the right ones, but these are worth your time. Go support these artists, and I’ll catch you next week.
