The Pinkerton Raid – “Blood In My Eyes” (Song Premiere)

The Pinkerton Raid

Today I’m thrilled to bring everyone the latest single from The Pinkerton Raid (solo project of singer-guitarist Jesse James DeConto), called “Blood In My Eyes.” The song, which comes from the upcoming album entitled The Highway Moves the World, tackles the theme of disintegrating friendships and not knowing where to turn to next when picking up the broken pieces. DeConto shared this about the new single:

”It’s a paradox—to tell a good story, you need all the messy details, but how do you do it without airing other people’s dirty laundry? ‘You own everything that happened to you. Tell your stories. If people wanted you to write warmly about them, they should have behaved better.’ Anne Lamott wrote that, though I don’t totally agree with her, so I won’t name names. I feel more protective of the people I care about, or once cared about, or that I just know have feelings of their own—even if they might have hurt me. Two wrongs don’t make a right, you know? My mom taught me that, and it’s at the core of “Blood in My Eyes.” It’s easy to name hurt, but it’s much harder to identify the causal chain that led to it, much less assign blame and start handing out punishment. One of the reasons I write songs is to express the pain in a healthy way. With this particular song, I was trying to capture something I think we all experience: We all feel hurt; we have a pretty good idea who hurt us; but we’re also pretty sure we share some of the blame; so we don’t trust our own experience of the situation—we’re blinded by our own pain. Deep down—more than vengeance or anger—what we really want is for things to go back to how they were before. And holding on to that hope is a lot more difficult than being mad about what went wrong. With “Blood in My Eyes,” I suppose I’m trying to manifest that kind of hope for you, me or anybody else who needs it. Forgiveness is good for its own sake, whether or not there’s any reconciliation with whoever it is that hurt us.

If you’re ready to take the next dramatic step with The Pinkerton Raid, they’re waiting for you to join the ride. You can also pre-save the track here.

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Apple Music Replay Gets Expanded Highlights

John Voorhees, writing at MacStories:

Many of the statistics you’ll see as part of your latest Replay will be familiar, but there’s a new twist too. For the Replay 2022, Apple has added a Highlights Reel, which is a video of cards animating on and off-screen with highlights of the music you listened to in 2022. As the cards animate on and off your screen, the music that defined your year plays in the background. Replay’s highlights are only available on the web, and the Highlights Reel looks best on an iPhone, but it can be viewed in any web browser.

This is pretty cool and a big step up from what they had before. Being able to share the stats as images is nice, but I wish I could share the full reel, or a better “recap” of the entire year in one compact image. The closest is probably that last image in the reel. (They must not be counting anything listened to in your downloaded library, because there are two albums I played more than the one they have here, but both racked up a lot of plays as advances. Yet another reason I (and a few others) still use Last.fm.)

And, while I know I’m basically alone on this island, the year isn’t over so none of these count yet.

MYNK – “Boundaries” (Video Premiere)

MYNK

Today is the perfect day to introduce everyone to a new, London-based band called MYNK. On their debut single, “Boundaries,” the band channel the best parts of brooding indie rock with pop sensibilities into an anthemic package. On this debut single, MYNK shared:

The track is about the boundaries we set in order to function in  different situations/relationships; the crossing of sacrifice and habit meets somewhere in the middle to maintain a connection. It’s about the relatable internal questioning of ‘do I/don’t I?’ and where that  takes you, and how you can lose yourself in it.

If you’re ready to be swallowed whole by this great-sounding single, you’ve come to the right place. I was also able to catch up with the band for a brief chat about their new music below.

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Liner Notes (November 27th, 2022)

Thanksgiving

Welcome to a lazy holiday version of the newsletter. This week I tweak my task management system, revisit some bands I haven’t listened to in a while, and break out the holiday/feel-good movies. There’s also a playlist of ten songs I think are worth your time, and this week’s supporter Q&A post can be found here.

If you’d like this newsletter delivered to your inbox each week (it’s free and available to everyone), you can sign up here.

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Happy Thanksgiving

Today is Thanksgiving here in the states so we will be on a much relaxed posting schedule. Hope everyone has a great day filled with good food, good drinks, and good people. Come join us in the forums if you’re looking for company.