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From The Desk Of Midlake: “Harper’s” Magazine

JesseSpoiler alert! The new Midlake record is not from the band that you grew to love with The Trials Of Van Occupanther. With each successive album, the members of Midlake transformed, foregrounding a different favorite section of their record collections. Now comes Antiphon (ATO), which announces itself with an opening title track that rocks harder and more insistently than anything in the group’s prior catalog. Midlake again sounds like a new band. And, this time it is: It’s Midlake’s first since the departure of principal singer/songwriter Tim Smith, its first with guitarist Eric Pulido stepping into those lead roles, its first with former touring members Jesse Chandler (keyboards, flute) and Joey McClellan (guitars) officially joining drummer Mackenzie Smith, multi-instrumentalist Paul Alexander and guitarist Eric Nichelson. Chandler and Nichelson will be guest editing magnetmagazine.com all week. Read our brand new Midlake feature.

Harpers

Chandler: Harper’s is the sole magazine to which I subscribe. I’m trying to get some of the other guys into it (Eric Pulido just read an enjoyed an article about “cult infiltration” in a recent issue). Harper’s, in case you didn’t know, is a literary magazine that is the second oldest periodical in America (after Scientific American). It started in 1851 and published authors like Twain and Melville. There is a reason it has stuck around so long: The writing is beautiful, and it covers a variety of fields, like art, music, politics, economy, photography, poetry and just random little funny stories gleaned from other sources. My favorite sections are the short story and Harper’s Index. I even named my son Harper, although it’s also after Harper Lee, Roy Harper and Harpo Marx.

Video after the jump.