#5 on the 2024 Bacon Top 31 — Phosphorescent

January 27, 2025 by Royal Stuart in Top 31, 2024

Revelator and Oh, Canada Soundtrack by Phosphorescent

Slow and steady. That’s Phosphorescent’s modus operandi. Matthew Houck’s songwriting vehicle may very well end up being my most favorite band of my lifetime. There are others that are in the running for that title, and it changes with the tides, but as of right now, no other band has more consistently answered the question “Hmmm, what should I listen to right now?” over the last 15+ years. I’ve gone up and down on where to slot Houck’s albums in amongst the rest of a year’s output – he’s fallen into the bottom half twice (#20 in 2010 and #19 in 2022), and has been the absolute best of the year twice (#1 in both 2013 and 2018 – the only artist to have done so two times) – but any one of his albums, and even those that came out earlier than 2009 when I started logging my Top 31, would be a fine choice to put on, in any mood, at any time, during any season.

Revelator is his ninth album, depending on whether you count live albums (that would make it 10), or do not count his 2022 effort that was released one song per month throughout the year (which Wikipedia does not have listed ¹, and would therefore make it only eight total). Like all eight of his other albums, it’s a slow burn of low-fi alt.country bliss. Houck’s voice gets scratchier, his delivery lazier as time goes on – but neither of these things are negatives. Like Tom Waits over time, Phosphorescent albums get more nuanced and rough-around-the-edges.

Be sure to hit play on the title song, above, or on these two other videos he’s released in support of the album: “Impossible House” and “The World is Ending.” The latter, “The World is Ending,” marks the first time an original Phosphorescent song was not written by Houck. Instead, it was written by his musical collaborator, partner, and mother of his children Jo Schornikow. There is no earthly way you’d be able to tell that difference if I hadn’t put it in writing here, as the album flows through the song without friction. In addition to Houck and Shornikow, the album was recorded with Jack Lawrence from The Raconteurs and Jim White of the Dirty Three.

We were lucky to get more than one Phosphorescent album in 2024. In addition to Revelator, Houck created the soundtrack for the film Oh, Canada, starring Richard Gere, Michael Imperioli, and Uma Thurman. I have not yet seen the film, but thankfully the soundtrack has been released for us all to enjoy. According to Wikipedia, director Paul Schrader “wanted something anti-anthemic” for the film, and deemed Phossy’s style as “officially anti-anthemic.” I don’t know about “official,” But I 100% second this emotion.

When my wife and I saw Phosphorescent perform at the Rickshaw in Vancouver back in October 2024, Houck revealed the upcoming soundtrack and played a few songs from it. He described the songs as having been old OLD Phosphorescent songs that he had reworked for the film. It will not surprise you to learn that these songs sound very much like contemporary songs from Houck, which is to say, he’s not aged one bit.

Another hallmark of Houck’s songwriting is the depression they evoke. Aside from Houck’s #1 2018 album, C’est La Vie, which is surprisingly upbeat in content and tempo, most Phosphorescent albums are slow and sad. Fantastic, wallow in the doldrums, tear me all the way down so I can climb back up kinda sad. This assessment will not be new to anyone who’s listened to Phosphorescent. After playing two songs at the show in October, Houck told us, “What I’ve learned is, right now, about the third song in is a pretty good time to let everybody know that it’s straight ’bummers’ from here on out” – which caused us all to burst out laughing, because the likelihood of that being true was great (See for yourself: watch my video of him saying that followed by a beautiful rendition of “The World is Ending”). But in the end, the rest of the show, like all of the shows I’ve seen him perform, had a great mix of loud and soft, fast and slow. A Phosphorescent performance is unlike any other, and worth traveling great lengths to enjoy.

The years between Phosphorescent records are both exciting and anxious. While Houck has never really stopped making music, it for some reason never feels like a sure thing that he’s going to keep going. He’s built up quite a legacy over his 25 years of making music, and I suppose I should be content with the wealth we’ve been given. But he keeps giving us more greatness, and like the spoiled children we are, we will always wont for more.

^{1. But thanks to me making my first-ever contribution to a Wikipedia page, it now does.↩}

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#1 on the 2018 Bacon Top 31 — Phosphorescent

January 31, 2019 by Royal Stuart

C’est La Vie by Phosphorescent

The number one album of 2018 is by Matthew Houck, aka Phosphorescent, and it’s not the first time he’s enjoyed the top spot of the Top 31. His last album, Muchacho, was #1 back in 2013 (and the album before that was #20 in 2010, one of many rankings over the past 10 years that I clearly misjudged at the time).

When I started ranking 2018’s albums at the end of December, and I grouped my potential #1 albums together, I groaned. I knew I needed to put Chvrches and Phosphorescent at the top — they were my definite favorites from the year — but had real reservations about doing so because they’d both been #1 their last time up. I’d successfully avoided having any repeat #1 albums in the past, as I think it makes a statement about the band and my tastes I’m not quite willing to accept: am I too predictable, stuck in the musical rut of middle age?

C’est La Vie, Houck’s 9th studio album, and his first in five years, is every bit as good but very different from Muchacho. That’s because Houck is in a vastly different space than he was five years ago (and so, too, am I). In that span, he managed to have not one but two children, get married, and move to Nashville. While his previous albums have been chock full of heartache, pain, and suffering, C’est La Vie bubbles with life and happiness.

Just listen to the track above, “New Birth in New England.” This is not the voice of a drunkenly depressed man, this is bouncy joy. Smack dab in the middle of the song, the bridge is a quiet moment — the slide guitar slows down, the hymnal angel chorus chimes in, and the familiar woosh woosh woosh sound of a sonogram, that first heartbeat that expectant parents hear, proving that there’s life growing inside the mother’s belly, wafts up from the depths. If you haven’t yet been through pregnancy, then that sound may not be familiar to you. But as a father of two, it’s oh so familiar, and comes with such joyous weight, it’s hard not to well up with happy tears any time I hear it. The specific recording on the song is from the first time Houck heard his own daughter’s heartbeat. Magical.

Later on in the album, the song “Beautiful Boy” plainly states the subject of the song — Houck’s now five-year-old son. It’s an ode to every parent’s everlasting fear of being unable to protect their children enough. It’s gut-wrenching and wonderful at the same time. The music of Phosphorescent always seems to pull at those dual strings, but in the past the direction being tugged has been downward. It’s a lovely feeling, finally being pulled in the other direction by a voice I’ve been loving for so many years.

One of the great joys of marriage is being able to share all the things you love, and having your partner fall in love with some of those things as well. My wife patiently tolerates my constant music playing, and she often likes what she hears. She will latch onto certain sounds, especially if they’re loved by the children as well. Phosphorescent held a special place in my heart long before I met my wife, so it was with even more joy than usual that I excitedly watched her own blossoming love of the band. In November, I got to take her to her first Phosphorescent show, and Houck did not disappoint. His performance of “Wolves” (which I managed to record), is performed solo, and shows the full range of his vocal talents. After the song’s few verses, Houck pushes his voice through a repeater, layer upon layer, until it mimics the pack of wolves he sings about. It’s gorgeous and deeply moving.

C’est La Vie has a special power. It feels innocent enough your first couple times through. But then you catch yourself humming the tunes when you’re not listening, filling in the quiet moments with little spoken phrases you can’t quite place. You invariably hear yourself, question the little tune’s origin, and then finally put it together. It surprises you like a random toy left out that’s imbued with the power of phosphorescence — you forget it’s there until you turn out the lights.

Pick up C’est La Vie. And then every other album Phosphorescent has released. After ten years of charting my Top 31 of the year, I can honestly say there’s never been someone as consistently good as Matthew Houck. Join me while I rejoice in his music; you will be pleasantly rewarded, every time.

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2. Love Is Dead by Chvrches
3. Twin Fantasy (Face to Face) by Car Seat Headrest
4. Dirty Computer by Janelle Monáe
5. The Horizon Just Laughed by Damien Jurado
6. Chris by Christine and the Queens
7. Wanderer by Cat Power
8. Tell Me How You Really Feel by Courtney Barnett
9. The Louder I Call, The Faster It Runs by Wye Oak
10. Ruins by First Aid Kit
11. Cocoa Sugar by Young Fathers
12. Loner by Caroline Rose
13. Big Red Machine by Big Red Machine
14. I’ll Be Your Girl by The Decemberists
15. The More I Sleep the Less I Dream by We Were Promised Jetpacks
16. Joy as an Act of Resistance by IDLES
17. Hell-On by Neko Case
18. Superorganism by Superorganism
19. Living in Extraordinary Times by James
20. Thank You for Today by Death Cab for Cutie
21. Black Panther: The Album by Kendrick Lamar
22. Suspiria (Music for the Luca Guadagnino Film) by Thom Yorke
23. Merrie Land by The Good, the Bad & the Queen
24. Room 25 by Noname
25. WARM by Jeff Tweedy
26. God's Favorite Customer by Father John Misty
27. Vessel by Frankie Cosmos
28. For Ever by Jungle
29. Twerp Verse by Speedy Ortiz
30. Remain in Light by Angélique Kidjo
31. This One’s for the Dancer & This One’s for the Dancer’s Bouquet by Moonface

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#1 on the 2013 Musical Bacon Calendar

December 31, 2013 by Royal Stuart

Muchacho by Phosphorescent

Some albums make you want to dance. Some make you want to laugh, or to cry. Or to blast as loudly as possible. Or wake up/fall asleep to. And then there are the albums that make you want to do all of those things. Muchacho is that kind of album. This isn’t an album — it’s a soundtrack for life.

Phosphorescent is Matthew Houck. Originally from Athens, Georgia, Houck has been making and playing music as Phosphorescent for over ten years now. Muchacho is his sixth record in that span. I didn’t discover him until his last album, 2010’s Here’s To Taking It Easy, which landed at #20 on that year’s Calendar. (Although looking back at that list now, I should have put it no lower than #11. Damn.)

You can define Houck’s music as country, acid rock, southern rock, or alt.country, but he’s somewhere in the middle of all of them. Keyboards, horns, violins and lap steel guitars play heavily throughout all of his music, and that’s no different for Muchacho. Houck’s voice is like a worn out tee, falling apart at the seams, the most comfortable thing you own. He has the perfect amount of laziness in his delivery, drug along reluctantly by the music laid out before him. Verging on a yodel but never quite getting there, he can sound like sad old dog or a wounded one, backed into a corner, depending on the story he is trying to tell.

And those stories, those yarns, are amazing. Typically about heartache and sorrow, the tales Houck tells can hit you in the deepest parts of your insides. Yet somehow the music isn’t depressing — it’s encouraging. His is a life lived hard but fruitful, a life best avoided but fantastic to vicariously live through.

As a fine capper for this year’s Calendar, you should now listen to Phosphorescent’s cover of Vampire Weekend’s “Ya Hey,” which Houck performed live on the air at KCSN (California State University, Northridge) on October 3. “Ya Hey” was the best song on Modern Vampires of the City, the #3 album of the year, and hearing it performed in Houck’s quiet drawl puts a dark, melancholy twist on the upbeat song. This could have very easily been a Houck original, it’s so different from the Vampire Weekend version.

2013 has been one hell of a year, a life-affirming, fucked up, killer of a year. For personal reasons, I can’t say I’ll miss it. But the music that’s come out of it, and the enjoyment it will bring me for many many years to come has made it much easier to bare. That music will undoubtedly remind me of the ups and downs of the year, and that will be just fine. As time goes on, the memories will smooth out, and the music will shine even brighter. Phosphorescent’s Muchacho will be with me the whole way.

Coda

When I write about each of these albums I tend to have them playing in the background. Tonight, as I went to flip this record over, in the middle of writing this article, I dropped it onto the top of the record stylus and put a big scratch down the middle of my favorite song, “The Quotidian Beasts.” Strangely fitting. It still plays, but with a terrible hiccup in every revolution.

I ordered a new copy immediately.

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2. Trouble Will Find Me by The National
3. Modern Vampires of the City by Vampire Weekend
4. The Bones Of What You Believe by Chvrches
5. The Worse Things Get, The Harder I Fight, The Harder I Fight, The More I Love You by Neko Case
6. In Focus? by Shugo Tokumaru
7. Psychic by Darkside
8. AMOK by Atoms for Peace
9. White Lighter by Typhoon
10. Hummingbird by Local Natives
11. If You Leave by Daughter
12. Pedestrian Verse by Frightened Rabbit
13. The Silver Gymnasium by Okkervil River
14. The Next Day by David Bowie
15. Reflektor by Arcade Fire
16. We Are the 21st Century Ambassadors of Peace & Magic by Foxygen
17. Lanters by Son Lux
18. Howlin’ by Jagwar Ma
19. Impersonator by Majical Cloudz
20. Dream Cave by Cloud Control
21. Mole City by Quasi
22. Phantogram by Phantogram
23. Julia With Blue Jeans On by Moonface
24. Uncanney Valley by The Dismemberment Plan
25. Event II by Deltron 3030
26. Wise Up Ghost by Elvis Costello and The Roots
27. Us Alone by Hayden
28. Pure Heroine by Lorde
29. Shaking the Habitual by The Knife
30. False Idols by Tricky
31. Let’s Be Still by The Head and the Heart

2012 Musical Bacon Calendar
2011 Musical Bacon Calendar
2010 Musical Bacon Calendar
2009 Musical Bacon Calendar