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New Nostalgia

by Rich Aucoin

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about

‘New Nostalgia’

I always like to tac a set of rules for each recording I do. In the past, this has been something as multidimensional as writing albums to be an alternate soundtrack to Dr. Seuss’ How The Grinch Stole Christmas or Alice In Wonderland or The Little Prince or straight-forward as Release’s rule of vocal samples in all songs or Synthetic’s only synthesizers. Sometimes it’s also been things like doing it on my own like Personal Publication EP or recording with as many folks as possible as We’re All Dying To Live (some 500+ folks on that record). Or it’s a physical rule like writing United States while riding across said country while on tour by bicycle or recording all the festival crowds I play for in the summer of 2012 to make a 20,000 person choir sound to start off Ephemeral.

For ‘New Nostalgia’, the rule was to adhere to the rules of one of those BBC Maestro classes that was being advertised to be back in 2022. I purchased the Mark Ronson course and wrote down a set of rules while watching it, even beginning the song off the same Royalty-Free record he uses as an example of sampling break beats. Doubling the vocal melodies with instruments and reenforcing the main sample break with drum samples were some of the other rules while I tried out different production tips along the way.

In addition to following along with this course, I also had the idea based on the subject manner of the song to re-sample my back catalogue and find discarded and unused moments from outtakes from all my previous records so in the mix are things like the iconic piano from Hotel2Tango in Montreal that was such a signature sound of Arcade Fire’s Funeral album or the Beatles mellotron from Abbey Road that I had the fortune of getting to record for 15min in 2010 while playing my first show over in the UK at The Great Escape (still the most productive 15min of studio time I’ve ever had since what I played in those 15min have ended up now on three albums!). So the track has lots of nostalgia for me hearing elements from the last 14 years of recording.

The song is also the name of this year’s Penultimate Party Tour (as I’m retiring the party shows at the end of 2025). ‘New Nostalgia’ is meant to be a wake up decree after slumbering through the remake/reboot era of 2009-2023; the idea being we’re never going to get new things to be nostalgic about if we just keep making the same things over and over again. The song looks at how we can be nostalgic about the times in our lives where we felt really connected easily to the various communities of which we’re a part but that we need to wake up and continue to make new nostalgia or that’s that for new experiences. So the song and the tour both enjoy the feeling of nostalgia while pleading to not get trapped by its comforting hold.

We need a new nostalgia!

lyrics

NEW NOSTALGIA

we used to feel connected
and needed by our friends

in a way that they reflected
the means before the ends

but then we lost each other
and we’ve barely spoke out loud

do we still see one another
or are we lost now in the crowd?

we need a new nostalgia
we wanna hallelujah

no past is resurrected
and with time your memories die

but i hope we can remember
at least their feeling if we try

cause we used to need each other
and i need to know what’s true:

is it just our time is over
or are you no longer you?

we need a new nostalgia
run it back
run it back
we wanna hallelujah
run it back
run it back

credits

released March 9, 2024
Rich Aucoin: vocals, bass, drums, drum sampling, mellotron, synths, keyboards, programming.
Additional production: Joel Waddell
Mix: Gordon Huntley
Master: Noah Mintz

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Rich Aucoin Halifax, Nova Scotia

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