Nada Surf’s Matthew Caws isn’t big on organized religion, but when the spirit does move him, it always has a soundtrack. And that soundtrack has come a long way over the last 16 years. You’d be hard-pressed to discern so much as a whiff of snarky 1996 hit “Popular” amid the bracing, impeccably crafted power pop the trio hammers out with breathless efficiency on its new release, The Stars Are Indifferent To Astronomy (Barsuk). The transportive power of music is something Caws touches on quite frequently on Astronomy—that is, when he can tear himself away from more pressing concerns for our fucked-up planet. Caws will be guest editing magnetmagazine.com all week. Read our new Q&A with him, and check out our cover story on Nada Surf in last month’s issue of MAGNET.
Caws: I credit my sister with expanding my horizon past the Who (whom I still love), the Stones, Hendrix, etc. We’d both heard the Police on the radio, and I bought her a copy of Zenyattà Mondatta for her birthday, and that was somehow the catalyst for her really diving in, curious to know more about new music. She started listening to WNYU and got a subscription to Trouser Press, and before we knew it, her side of the room (which we shared, with bookcases down the middle as a wall) was jumping with the sounds of XTC, the Sex Pistols, Gang Of Four and bands with amazing names like Liquid Liquid and Medium Medium. When she went off to college, she got a job at the radio station and would send me tapes of her show called Plastic Passions. I would go up and visit her, bringing a box of 10 blank tapes and staying up all night recording as many albums as I could. R.E.M., Joy Division, the Cure, the Soft Boys, so much music that would enrich my life for decades to come.
Video after the jump.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IL45YOtbuy0
