Altered Zones

"It seems to me that there are three places you can stumble on [an idea for a song]. One, of course, is just that you have the fortune of an idea falling out of the sky fully formed. Another way is to sit at a keyboard, sit at an instrument and just fucking play around for hours and hours until you find something that kind of surprises you. It’s kind of like forcing that moment of inspiration to come. And the third way is by making a mistake. Like when you're in the middle of something and something gets put in the wrong place and it works perfectly."

-- John Maus in a 2008 interview with Zak Mering of Raw Thrills/Greatest Hits/Vital Caress/The Sweethearts, dug up from the Misshapes archives. We Must Become The Pitiless Censors Of Ourselves LP is out sooner than later on Upset the Rhythm

MP3: John Maus: "And The Rain"

Vital Caress is yet another project from increasingly prolific glamour dude Zak Mering (of Raw Thrills, Greatest Hits, and The Sweethearts). We don't have many details, but it looks like Zak is fresh into 2011 with pal Reuben Perelman and some new and typically ramped-up plastic pop. This one's somewhere between the more levelheaded songsmithery of his recent So-Post cassette, the '50s/'60s loverboy vibes of his Shakedown LP, and the gunked-out aesthetic that saturates all his work. (Rose Quartz co-premiere)

Vital Caress is out this month on The Pop Manifesto, also home to Magick Mountain, Blood Diamonds and Typical Girls