Elastic Days J Mascis

• 1See You At The Movies03:22
• 2Web So Dense03:37
• 3I Went Dust03:47
• 4Sky Is All We Had03:07
• 5Picking Out The Seeds03:27
• 6Give It Off02:50
• 7Drop Me03:49
• 8Cut Stranger03:23
• 9Elastic Days03:32
• 10Sometimes03:33
• 11Wanted You Around03:30
• 12Everything She Said03:30
• Total Runtime41:27

Info for Elastic Days

J Mascis will release Elastic Days, his third solo album for Sub Pop. “See You At The Movies,” the first song to be released from the album, has a fully evolved sense of identity and loss hanging over it, and features the classic couplet, “I don’t peak too early/I don’t peak at all.”

Best known as the frontman of the influential indie rock trio Dinosaur Jr., J Mascis has also been a solo artist, producer, and film composer. Getting his start as a founding member of the hardcore band Deep Wound, Dinosaur Jr. was founded in 1984 and the group emerged among the most highly regarded in alternative rock. By reintroducing volume and attack in his songs Mascis shed the strict limitations of early 1980's hardcore, becoming an influence on the burgeoning grunge movement. Mascis' body of work continues to inspire a generation of guitar players and songwriters today.

In 1991, Dinosaur Jr. disbanded and Mascis released More Light, his first recording under the moniker J Mascis + The Fog. Members and collaborators of the Fog have included Mike Watt (Minutemen / fIREHOSE), Ron Asheton (the Stooges), Robert Pollard (Guided By Voices), Kevin Shields (My Bloody Valentine) Dave Schools (Hard Working Americans / Widespread Panic) and Kyle Spence (Harvey Milk). Aside from his work with The Fog, Mascis finds himself behind the drums in the band Witch, and most recently playing guitar with garage rockers Sweet Apple. He is also known to perform solo acoustic proving that there are truly no limitations to his abilities. Fans of Mascis' huge guitar wails will not be disappointed by his intimate acoustic performances as he always brings in plenty of pedals to pepper these performances with the sonically enhanced solos he's best known for.

In addition to his own work Mascis has been heavily involved behind the scenes appearing on, producing, and mixing records for a string of highly regarded acts like: fIREHOSE, Tad, Buffalo Tom, Beachwood Sparks, Del Tha Funkee Homosapien, The Breeders and many others. J Mascis has also composed music for film and has occasionally appeared in films such as Alison Anders acclaimed Gas, Food and Lodging.

When the original line up of Mascis, Lou Barlow on bass and drummer Murph re-formed in 2005 for select live dates it was apparent that the years apart had not eroded any of their vitality. Restoring the sound established by the opening hat-trick gambit of Dinosaur, You're Living All Over Me, and Bug, 2007's Beyond continued the band's march into rock greatness by making old ears smile and new ears bleed afresh. The original lineup has now released four studio albums since their reunion, most recently 2016’s “Give a Glimpse of What Yer Not” on Jagjaguwar Records. Mascis’ third solo studio album, "Elastic Days," is out November 9th on Sub Pop.

J Mascis, vocals, guitar, drums, bass, mellotron, tambourine
Ken Maiuri, piano
Mark Mulcahy, vocals
Pall Jenkins, vocals
Pete Snake, vocals
Zoë Randell, vocals

J Mascis
It’s all but inconceivable that J Mascis requires an introduction. In the quarter-century since he founded Dinosaur (Jr.), Mascis has created some of the era’s signature songs, albums and styles. As a skier, golfer, songwriter, skateboarder, record producer, and musician, J has few peers. The laconically-based roar of his guitar, drums and vocals have driven a long string of bands – Deep Wound, Dinosaur Jr., Gobblehoof, Velvet Monkeys, the Fog, Witch, Sweet Apple – and he has guested on innumerable sessions.But Several Shades of Why is J’s first solo studio record, and it is an album of incredible beauty, performed with a delicacy not always associated with his work.

Recorded at Amherst Massachusetts’ Bisquiteen Studios, Several Shades is nearly all acoustic and was created with the help of a few friends. Notable amongst them are Kurt Vile, Sophie Trudeau (A Silver Mount Zion), Kurt Fedora (long-time collusionist), Kevin Drew (Broken Social Scene), Ben Bridwell (Band of Horses), Pall Jenkins (Black Heart Procession), Matt Valentine (The Golden Road), and Suzanne Thorpe (Wounded Knees). Together in small mutable groupings, they conjure up classic sounds ranging from English-tinged folk to drifty, West Coast-style singer/songwriterism. But every track, every note even, bears that distinct Mascis watermark, both in the shape of the tunes and the glorious rasp of the vocals.

“Megan from Sub Pop has wanted me to do this record for a long time,” J says. “She was very into it when I was playing solo a lot in the early 2000s, around the time of the Fog album [2002's Free So Free]. She always wanted to know when I’d do a solo record. [Several Shades of Why] came out of that. There are a couple of songs that are older, but the rest is new this year. And it’s basically all acoustic. There’s some fuzz, but it’s acoustic through fuzz. There’re no drums on it, either. Just one tambourine song, that’s it. It was a specific decision to not have drums. Usually I like to have them, but going drum-less pushes everything in a new direction, and makes it easier to keep things sounding different.”

There is little evidence of stress on Several Shades of Why. The title track is a duet with Sophie Trudeau’s violin recalling Nick Drake’s work at its most elegant. ‘Not Enough’ feels like a lost hippie-harmony classic from David Crosby’s If I Could Only Remember My Name. ‘Is It Done’ rolls like one of the Grisman/Garcia tunes on American Beauty. ‘Very Nervous and Love’ has the same rich vibe as the amazing rural side of Terry Reid’s The River. And on and on it goes. Ten brilliant tunes that quietly grow and expand until they fill your brain with the purest pleasure. What a goddamn great album. (by Byron Coley)

This album contains no booklet.