The beauty of bringing a new body of work out on tour is that it allows the artist to find new ways to connect with their own music, oftentimes giving space for a song or collection of songs to grow and evolve. The performer-audience dynamic allows for both the fan and the songwriter to find new meaning and new layers in a piece of work.
Sadly, many of the best records of 2020 never got that chance to grow with an audience. I’ve spent the better part of a year and a half longing to hear what happens with Diet Cig’s Do You Wonder About Me? once given the chance for a live audience to take it in. Although that has yet to happen, the band has found numerous ways to reconnect with the songs and connect to fans without the opportunity to bring it live. They have done filmed livestreams. They’ve commissioned artists to reinterpret the album as a zine. And now they are blessing us with I Don’t Like Driving Like I Used To, and EP of alternate takes of tracks from Do You Wonder… that were recorded during this ever so lengthy quarantine.
This companion to a genius record is coming your way October 1st. You can presave your copy on your favorite streaming platform immediately.
Also breathing new life into their 2020 release is Thao & The Get Down Stay Down. Temples is probably Thao’s most electric record to date, and like the Diet Cig album, a record that helped ease me through the despair of the last 19 months. On October 29th, she is bringing us Temples – Deluxe Edition, where she strips four Temples standout tracks free of the electronic elements and lays them down on acoustic instruments accompanied by strings, no doubt inspired by her neighbors that she introduced us to during her Tiny Desk Concert.
Preorders of Temples – Deluxe Edition will begin soon!