I’ll spare you the obvious quip about why you probably haven’t heard of Secret Boyfriend until now. Oh, wait, no I will not!
As circumstance would have it, the project of North Carolinian Ryan Martin, founder of the Hot Releases label, has taken the secrecy of its intimacy to a whole new level — in fact, to an extent that’s forced obliviousness to the musical lovin’ that he’s provided since around 2009 or so. Let me italicize the musical part of that phrase; there are no legal boundaries being crossed or straddled in a non-consensual manner here. Instead, Martin and his alias have so far kept the anniversary-celebrating and the sweet “Good morning :)” texts deep in the underground, a few live shows to supplement the limited cassettes, and… fuckin’ hell, that’s what I call secret. Who’s tired of all the sneaking around?
Secret Boyfriend has a new album out December 9 (his first genuine LP, as it turns out) entitled This Is Always Where You’ve Lived, sponsored by (in a notable step into the limelight) the UK label Blackest Ever Black. “Potent” and “fully realized” though the album may be, I’ve had the chance to listen to some of it, and it’s nothing if not heterogeneous. It’s not quite folk. It’s not quite noise. Were we still in the age of antenna-based cable, you might find the best description during a thunderstorm. Here’s the official release page, and there’s a little SoundCloud preview embedded on that page too.
This Is Always Where You’ve Lived tracklisting:
01. Summer Wheels
02. Silvering the Wing
03. Form Me
04. Flashback
05. Remarkable Fluids
06. Beyond the Darkness
07. Dream Scrape
08. Glint and Glow
09. Have You Heard About This House?
10. Last Town
11. Deleted Hill
12. This Is Always Where You’ve Lived
• Blackest Ever Black: http://blackesteverblack.bigcartel.com
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