simple_torture

Forgot to ask earlier--download code?

I never got shipping notifications with previous Secretly Society subscriptions, but it would show up in my shipping dash. Gives me hope that it'll be here sooner rather than later!

Wow, great to hear! Mine hasn't shown up in my USPS tracking yet, but will keep a closer eye now...

New repress of their self-titled album is available for pre-order now (with a supposed ship date of October). Not the color I voted for, but whatever; I missed it on RSD last year: https://slowdownsounds.com/products/the-bird-and-the-bee-repress-pre-order

Had a weird thing happen, not necessarily vinyl related but figured this is where to ask: so earlier this week I had two items show up in my package tracker of my USPS account. My wife had ordered some candles, so I figured one of them was that, but the others were probably just subscription boxes of some kind. Been following them every few days and today I noticed they're both out for delivery. The thing is: one is out for delivery in my town (in Rhode Island) and the other is out for delivery in Waterloo, Iowa (not my town). How is it that I got a package in my tracker that's being delivered to a different state?

Got a tracking number for the Cherry Tree version today.

One of my favorites as a kid. It's on Disney+ now. If only they would add House Guest...

They've been putting out about two releases per year, so I did hope that was going to be the late-year release in 2020 (although I was expecting a deluxe, 15th anniversary edition of What Comes After the Blues). A new album was basically the only thing I would've liked more than Sojourner. Maybe next year!

That makes sense. Indie exclusive, I would imagine.

Bull Moose has a "shortcake splash" variant: https://www.bullmoose.com/p/34544534/molina-jason-eight-gates-shortcake-splash-vinyl

First single: https://open.spotify.com/track/5uXg7PBGI5yIJpF2K01xKO?si=j9iHzR7wT5qHZNGjacPRyg

https://www.secretlystore.com/eight-gates-jason-molina?ffm=FFM_86ac2bcddf8111e15b7ccef813525ee0 Tracklist Whisper Away Shadow Answers the Wall The Mission’s End Old Worry She Says Fire on the Rail Be Told the Truth Thistle Blue The Crossroad and the Emptiness -- Background info, via press release: Sometime in 2006, or 2007, Jason Molina moved from the Midwest to London. Separated from his bandmates and friends, and never one for idleness, Molina explored his new home with fervor. He’d pick up on arcane trivia about London’s rich history, and if the historical factoids weren’t available — or weren’t quite to his liking — Molina was quite comfortable conjuring his own history. When he learned of the London Wall’s seven gates, Molina went ahead and called it eight, carving out a gate just for himself. The eighth gate was Molina’s way into London, a gate only passable in the mind. Fast-forward to 2008, Molina set off on an experimental solo tour through Europe. While in Northern Italy, Molina claimed to have been bitten by a rare, poisonous spider. A debilitating bout of illness ensued. "I was in the hospital here in London,” Molina wrote in a letter. “Saw six doctors and a Dr. House-type guy. They are all mystified by it, but I am allowed to be at home, where I am taking a dozen scary Hantavirus type pills a day that are all to supposedly help — but they make me feel like shit.” There is no record of a single doctor visit, not any prescription record for these medications. It is entirely plausible there was no spider and that whatever was keeping him indoors during this time was entirely self-induced. While at home, he of course wrote songs. Molina also claimed that during this time, he fed several bright green parrots that would gather in his yard and made short, crude field recordings of them with his trusty four-track. Only once Molina was officially on the mend and re-exploring the streets of London would he learn that those parrots had their own fabled tale. Back in the 60s, Jimi Hendrix — in a moment of psychedelic clarity — released his pair of lime green ring-necked parakeets from their cage, setting them free into the London sky. Now, their descendants are spotted regularly around certain parts of the city. Or so we’re told. Recorded in London around the time of the supposed spider bite and Jimi's supposed parakeets, some of the songs on Eight Gates (“Whispered Away,” “Thistle Blue”) are fully-realized — dark, moody textures that call to mind his earlier work on The Lioness. Knowing what we know about those parakeets and their peppered presence on the recordings, one can’t help but think of that colorful tree of birds on Talk Talk’s classic Laughing Stock, certainly a spiritual guide for much of the set. Other songs (“She Says,” “The Crossroads and The Emptiness”) lay in a more unfinished states, acoustic takes that call to mind Molina’s Let Me Go Let Me Go Let Me Go, and still tethered to Molina’s humorous studio banter. You remember how young Molina was, and how weighty this art was for such a young man. On the closer, “The Crossroads and The Emptiness,” Molina snaps at the engineer before tearing into a song in which he sings of his birthday (30th December), a palm reading and the great emptiness with which he always wrestled. It is a perfect closer and, in many ways, the eighth gate incarnate: mythical, passable only in the mind, built for himself and partway imaginary but shared, thankfully, with us.

If there are any leftovers of the Jens Lekman from this month for sale in the Secretly Shop for members, would appreciate if someone would hit me up. Thanks!

Never from that stage. I've had things get scanned as "Arrived" at the regional hub and then get received the same day (which means they weren't scanned when they left there, when they arrived at my town's PO, or when they left for delivery) fairly regularly (maybe 2-3 times a month), but never all the way from destination to delivery. In two weeks I assume it would've been scanned somewhere.

Springfield, MA has been a wreck recently, too. My packages usually arrive there 1-2 days before delivery (less than 100 miles from mg house). The last couple that have hit there immediately lose their estimated delivery date.