Tomorrow I turn 23 and I’ve been listening to unreleased Salem songs since I was 19. I started on soulseek, downloading all of the tracks uploaded by NadiaKay. This consisted of $KVr1 and 2, and a few oddballs and one-off remixes (i.e.: Radiohead Reckoner remix). I made a playlist called “Salem Treasure Cove” and became fairly obsessed with songs of theirs that you couldn’t easily find on YouTube or Spotify. It was a fun secret.
Every few months, I would cycle back to this music, and become engulfed in it once again. I would listen to Trapdoor for the first time in a while and remember why I liked it so much in the first place. Or, a deep cut would appear in my liked songs while driving and lead me into the same hole I opened a few years ago.
Today, alone in my boss’ studio in New Bedford, I plugged my computer into his speakers and, since I didn’t have wifi, played the Local Files that I had uploaded to Spotify. Withoutu came on, a track from $KVr1 where Heather mumbles through a yearning speech about someone who must have recently left her (at the time). At high volume, while I drank black coffee from the Portuguese soup store, the song was realistic and cathartic.
I shuffled through this album and a few YouTube mixes of theirs a few times, some with Heather and some without. I ended up back in Cranston a few hours later doing computer work and suddenly remembered Heather’s solo project, Golden Carriage. The documentation of this project is a YouTube video uploaded by Fooly Cooly of 9 songs of Heather doing vocals and probably synthesizer work, and her partner and artist Paul Kopkau accompanying her in various ways. The specifics of their collaboration on this project is pretty ambiguous, but his voice appears a few times, and apparently he also left a comment a few months ago on the video that either he or YouTube deleted.
The Golden Carriage songs are arguably better than any Salem project, even though they are pretty different in genre and approach. Holistically, they are tighter and more emotional, not relying on a prefabricated aesthetic to make meaning. Heather is also an amazing vocalist and her lyrics are great, too.
I am a poet of the salons of my apartment.
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I eat smoke and dream and occasionally call you
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I watch the city lights get thrown into focus
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Are you quiet when you sleep, or do you stay up jacking off to the thought of me? ‘Cause it's a Renaissance we live in, so it's okay to be a pervert ‘cause you’d be just like me.
I ran into Heather in Venice Beach this past July while I was visiting my now ex-girlfriend. She was sitting with Paul at an upscale cafe called Giusta and it took me a few minutes to realize why she looked so familiar to me. I didn’t approach her, but it was cool to see her in the flesh. Then, I got dropped off at LAX and went back to Providence for the summer, still religiously listening to undermixed, overproduced Salem songs.
