We’ve updated our Terms of Use to reflect our new entity name and address. You can review the changes here.
We’ve updated our Terms of Use. You can review the changes here.

Radio MDMA

by Greg Ashley

supported by
hugodoo
hugodoo thumbnail
dusked boognish
dusked boognish thumbnail
thumbnail
/

  • Streaming + Download

    Includes unlimited streaming via the free Bandcamp app, plus high-quality download in MP3, FLAC and more.
    Purchasable with gift card

      $12 USD  or more

     

  • Record/Vinyl + Digital Album

    Includes unlimited streaming of Radio MDMA via the free Bandcamp app, plus high-quality download in MP3, FLAC and more.
    ships out within 3 days
    Purchasable with gift card

      $20 USD or more 

     

1.
A Burning Sphere 03:11
buy track
2.
Hubris in Human Nature 03:03
buy track
3.
Broken Dreams 03:18
buy track
4.
Radio MDMA 03:07
buy track
5.
Medication Number 10 03:59
buy track
6.
Last Trip To Heaven 03:41
buy track
7.
From Hazel To Yellow 03:32
buy track
8.
The Messengers 03:41
buy track
9.
Pour Out the Champagne 02:51
buy track
10.
Philosophy X 04:30
buy track
11.
A Gold World 03:05
buy track
12.
The Place Where 23rd Street Ends 04:34
buy track

about

Greg Ashley / Radio MDMA

Radio MDMA, Greg Ashley’s 9th solo album, and his first since 2018’s Fiction Is Non-Fiction, and his first for Real Charmer Records, is perhaps his best album yet. The 12 originals (two of which are co-written by Hugo Lamy, and one with ex-Thirteenth Floor Elevators’ Powell St. John), are among the final recordings he produced at the Creamery studio in Oakland before his return to his native Texas. And, in many ways, this song cycle documents a protracted farewell to Oakland, whose thriving indie-underground music culture Ashley witnessed being decimated by gentrification. It’s certainly his darkest lyrically, but the bitter medicine of this confessional “dark night of the soul” is washed down with an eclectic mixture of balls-out hilariously cynical Saturday night rockers and Sunday morning despairing country ballads, while exploring yet new sonic territory for an artist (producer, engineer, songwriter and multi-instrumentalist) with an already very diverse discography. File under: Eclectic!

TRACK 1 (“A Burning Sphere”), TRACK 4 (“Radio MDMA”), & TRACK 8 (“The Messengers”), co-sung with Jessica Hartlaub, are reminiscent of 1980s synth rock, with a punk snarl. For listeners familiar with Ashley’s earlier albums like Medicine Fuck Dream and Painted Garden, the bright guitar based mid-tempo power pop garage groove of “Hubris in Human Nature” (TRACK 2) is familiar indie pop that’s made for college radio. TRACK 10 “Philosophy X,” the most nihilistic song on the album, and the only one not recorded at The Creamery, features sonic textures by French musician Hugo Lamy. TRACK 3 (“Broken Dream”), TRACK 7 (“From Hazel To Yellow,” featuring Lewis Patzner’s haunting cello) and TRACK 12 (“The Place Where 23rd Street Ends,” a sequel to his earlier “Goodbye St. Paul St.”), are outlaw country, the kind that can make a cowboy cry, in the best sense of the term, and would be at home on the less-corporate contemporary country stations, or left-of-the-dial “Americana” stations.

In between these two sonic poles, we find TRACK 5 (“Medication #10,” the 10th installment in a series that began almost 20 years ago), a slow minor haunting Cohen-esque dirge with a guitar/synth sound evoking a wind-swept desolate ambience, and TRACK 9 (“Pour Out The Champagne”), with piano accompaniment by the drummer Jimi Marks and vocals by Rosemary Steffy, has a little of the New Orleans barrelhouse meets honky-tonk feel that recalls his 2014 album, Another Generation of Slaves. Yet, even though Ashley uses a wide range of styles on this album, it’s held together by a lyrical sensibility, in which this self-proclaimed sinner and forgiver plumbs the disease beneath America’s attempts to cover-up its tortured soul (at one point he rhymes “American dream” with “bullshit scheme”), and despite the despair here (that’s not too dissimilar to David Berman’s Purple Mountains swan-song), this album is not a suicide note, but ends with a sliver of hope, in ways that could be cathartic.

-Chris Stroffolino

credits

released March 26, 2022

Greg Ashley- Guitar, Bass & Vocals
Jimi Marks- Drums on all. Piano on Champagne
Arlo Perlstein- Piano on Broken Dream
Chris Stroffolino- Piano on 23rd Street
Jess Hartlaub- Vocals on Radio MDMA & The Messengers
Rosemary Steffy- Vocals on Champagne
Lewis Patzner- Cello on From Hazel To Yellow
Photography & Layout by Sarah Wards
Hugo Lamey recorded & performed the music for Philosophy X at his studio in Caen, France
The others were recorded at The Creamery

Side A:
A BURNING SPHERE (Ashley)
HUBRIS IN HUMAN NATURE (Ashley)
BROKEN DREAM (Ashley)
RADIO MDMA (Ashley)
MEDICATION #10 (Ashley)
LAST TRIP TO HEAVEN (St. John, Ashley)

Side B:
FROM HAZEL TO YELLOW (Ashley)
THE MESSENGERS (Ashley)
POUR OUT THE CHAMPAGNE (Lamy, Ashley)
PHILOSOPHY X (Lamy, Ashley)
A GOLD WORLD (Ashley)
THE PLACE WHERE 23RD STREET ENDS (Ashley)

license

all rights reserved

tags

about

REAL CHARMER RECORDS image

REAL CHARMER RECORDS Oakland, California

contact / help

Contact REAL CHARMER RECORDS

Streaming and
Download help

Redeem code

Report this album or account

If you like Radio MDMA, you may also like:

Bandcamp Daily  your guide to the world of Bandcamp

On Bandcamp Radio

Featuring Riley Pinkerton (aka The Rat Queen) from the theatrical NYC rockers, Castle Rat.
listen now