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: This museum was recently re-modeled and is very much worth a visit. They have loads of incredible old movie cameras and early televisions as well as hands-on areas where you can make animated videos and email them to yourself, act something out in front of a camera and have it turned into a flip-book, dub new dialogue onto movie scenes ranging from The Wizard Of Oz to School Of Rock, dub Foley sound effects or play the very first video game. They just had a great exhibition called Jim Henson’s Fantastic World. The best part was that the walls of the exhibit were lined with his story boards, where you could see some of the breadth of his imagination.
Video after the jump.
