Golden Apples formed in 2021 with multiple longtime familiar faces from the Philly DIY scene (members of Kite Party, Cave People, Nona, Amanda X, lowercase roses, and more), and they’ve already released three albums in as many years–their latest, Bananasugarfire, is out today via Lame-O Records (order yours). Original band leader Russell Edling says, “This record really feels like the band. My favorite parts of the album are where I can hear someone else’s idea taking form,” and those ideas come through in the form of bright, hazy pop offshoots like jangle pop, sunshine pop, and psych-pop.
For an even better idea of where Golden Apples are coming from on this album, Russell made us a list of six other albums that influenced, with commentary on each pick. Read on to see what they picked and what they had to say about each one…
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6 ALBUMS THAT INFLUENCED GOLDEN APPLES’ BANANASUGARFIRE
Sparklehorse – Vivadixiesubmarinetransmissionplot
Mark Linkous weaves an endlessly bleak and beautiful world in this record. I gravitate to albums that have a certain sprawl. This was not my first favorite Sparklehorse record, but it is the one I find myself going back to the most at the moment. I would also say I feel like this record is masterful in that it has a consistent vision. While the subject matter and the approach varies endlessly, the sensibility is unmoving. As I understand it, Linkous wrote this record almost as a therapy / reinvention process for both his songwriting and in some ways his personhood. I can’t really claim that I was going through that exact same thing with Bananasugarfire, but to an extent, I did try to reapproach the way I write songs, and the way I present ideas. I’ve never written overtly joyful songs before. All I want is to be a happy man.
Aphex Twin – Selected Ambient Works Volume 2
This music fills me with so much feeling. I feel like it supplies absolute dread, like a white fog of pain, I feel seen by these songs. I know our music is nothing like this, but what I love about this record is how gestural and impressionistic all the songs are. I like to think that I try to approach songwriting in a similar way at times. Also there is something about knowing that this music was written in someone’s bedroom, an unending puzzle to be picked up and put down over and over. I was reading about this record and I learned that Richard D. James had all his recording equipment set up constantly, and he would try to write and record in the intermittent stages between sleep and wakefulness to capture ideas that came in those moments. I was asleep for nearly the entire writing + recording process of Bananasugarfire.
Broken Social Scene – You Forgot It In People
When I listen to this I can still conjure feelings I had when I heard it the first time. I was afraid of indie rock. I heard the opening of “Capture The Flag” and it reminded me of other new “indie rock” sounds I had just been exposed to; Magnetic Fields, Yo La Tengo, Velvet Underground and Nico. I was 15, I had no idea about context, but I was afraid of it because this stuff was not Rancid. There was space, there was subtlety and nuance, it felt like old people music, the language was obtuse and opaque, and colorful in a way I hadn’t experienced. I went through a musical renaissance at that age mostly due to an older sister’s boyfriend’s record collection. I remember pausing the Anti-Flag CD in my headphones on a car ride so I could listen to the Broken Social Scene that was playing in the car without my sister and her boyfriend knowing I was curious about their wimpy art music. When we got where we were going I discretely asked if I could borrow the CD and honestly it began a total shift in my perspective on music, one that was more profound than any that have come since. This album opened my eyes to the potential of music production. These songs feel like paintings or entire worlds. I loved the Beatles and everything at this time of course, but again, had no real context, and You Forgot It In People was my “studio-as-instrument” moment for sure.
The Notwist – Neon Golden
So much of Bananasugarfire for me is going back to my roots, and kind of reconciling how I’d gotten estranged from them. In my heart there is a lot of whimsy and curiosity (in addition to the rotten strawberries). Not sure when I first heard The Notwist, but they immediately became rooted in there, too (my heart). I think it was Neon Golden first, but when The Devil, You + Me came out, I was in college and I saw them at the First Unitarian Church. I was so proud because the singer had the same guitar as me (though I suspected his was vintage and nicer). Something I love about this record is how much they blend digital and analog sounds. Embracing new technology in a way that feels otherworldly. Why make a guitar sound like a guitar when you can make it sound like a gang of crows? Or maybe you can make a ride cymbal sound like like a million cicadas breathing down your throat. Something else I love about The Notwist is the way the lyrics come across. Something fascinating happens when lyrics are written in someone’s non-primary language. Little phrases just have this tinge that sticks out and feels interesting. Have you ever been all messed up?
Pixies – Doolittle
These are all just some of the best songs I’ve ever heard, but they are raw and fun and so vibrant. Metallic shimmering. Black and gold and yellow, pink, it just sounds like a good time. I wanted Bananasugarfire to feel like this too–an open space to be safe and strange in. Sometimes I think Mimi’s singing reminds me of Kim Deal a little; it can be so expressive and evocative. I feel like I took a real songwriting class when I heard this album of mostly Pixies demos called Frank Black Francis, it came out when they did a reunion in the early 2000s. I got that CD and listened to it constantly. You can hear a phone ringing in the background, and he is mumbling “okay gonna have a guitar solo here” and stuff, but you really can hear the songs, the magic of how they’re composed and the wondrous absurdity of some Frank Black’s imagery.
Eight – Delight in Eight
Eight is Mimi’s band. It is one thing to be aware of a masterful artist. Everyone knows that Brian Eno exists and yes he is this like unreachable master of sound and thought and everything, and we all love what he has made. But I got to be there in Mimi’s life while she was creating and recording her masterpiece, Delight in Eight. I got to see what it looks like to watch someone narrow in on an idea, a lyric, a chord, and I feel like I got to see flowers growing in fast motion right before my eyes. Her sensibility is something so genuine and resolute, that now I can really appreciate moments in this album where she pushed and pulled against it, and moments where she fully embraced it. Having Mimi as a collaborator and muse for the creation of Bananasugarfire was so crucial and cannot be understated. Bananasugarfire would not exist if it weren’t for Mimi, and all of her endless talents.