Since forming in 1996, Martyn Leaper and the Minders have morphed from Elephant 6 darlings to twee-pop anarchists, throwing love bombs and denouncing nothing. Most non-fans remember the Minders’ auspicious 1998 debut, Hooray For Tuesday, and its unfairly derided follow-up, 2001’s Golden Street, but the band was active until 2006’s slight-but-lovely It’s A Bright Guilty World. The Minders’ only interim release has been the second web-only iteration of their odds-and-sods Cul-De-Sacs And Dead Ends. In the gap, Leaper wrote and demoed new songs when he could crowbar it into his 40-hour work week. Along with renowned producer Larry Crane (Elliott Smith, Sleater-Kinney), Leaper began finding the thread of Into The River, the first actual Minders studio work in a decade. Leaper will be guest editing magnetmagazine.com all week. Read our Minders feature.
Leaper: It must be said, 2016 has been a rough year. If losing David Bowie to cancer and Prince to an overdose wasn’t enough, the spectacle of the election has nearly sent everyone in America over the edge. The shocking result of the U.K. Brexit referendum convinced me that the U.S. must pay attention to what can happen when a body of voters go out for blood. One only needs to look at what happened during the summer with the outcome of the Brexit vote. Stupidity took hold of the U.K. back in June, and as the media reported after the votes were cast and the results came in, many voters in Britain suffered from the stark realization that what they had just voted for was going to wreck their lives.
I am hopeful that this country’s electorate will cast their votes thoughtfully and not allow a catastrophe to occur like the one that happened in Britain. In some ways, the Brexit event might help many voters in the states keep a steady hand, and realize that casting a protest vote in such an important election is not only stupid but also very dangerous.
I can see the light at the end of this crazy election-year tunnel. And I believe the outcome will be fine.
