Tag: Optic Sink

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Kurt Vile’s Memphis Pilgrimage

Kurt Vile (Photo: Adam Langellotti)

Certain musical artists are so unorthodox that it’s hard to compare them to their peers. In a process akin to world-building in film or literature, they can’t be assessed in conventional terms: They’ve woven together such disparate influences as to be standing alone in a universe of their own making. For the past 15 years or so, no one has epitomized this quality more than Kurt Vile. 

For starters, that’s his real name, not a clever, punk-infused spin on Bertolt Brecht’s songwriting partner, Kurt Weill. That’s but one clue that this auteur, far from being a calculating hipster, is coming from a place that’s disarmingly sincere. Indeed, his lyrics so defy traditional rhyming schemes and meter that they register more like conversational incantations, meandering excerpts from a diary, dream journal, or friendly chat that Vile intones word-for-word, beat-for-beat, throughout a song as one would with rhyming verses and chorus. And he sings these incantations over music that seamlessly blends elements of classic rock, psychedelia, folk rock, and noise rock as if the entirety of rock history occurred in one simultaneous Big Bang, not spread out over decades. 

Yet Vile appreciates those eras preceding him with the fidelity and care of a music historian. That’s one thing that’s bringing him to Memphis. But it’s not the Memphis of the Sun, Stax, or Hi labels that so many pilgrims have enshrined. This is the gonzo Memphis of the ’90s, when alternative artists flocked to the Bluff City primarily for one reason: Easley-McCain Recording.    

Doug Easley and Matt Qualls at Easley-McCain Recording (Photo: Neal Bledsoe)

When Doug Easley and Davis McCain moved from their backhouse studio to a larger location, the former Onyx Studio on Deadrick Avenue, they did so at the dawn of the ’90s, a time when indie music’s star was rising. Their approach, melding exacting engineering standards with an improvised, everything-but-the-kitchen-sink approach that defied the overly sterile approach of most studios, was perfect for artists who wanted to deconstruct the elements of rock history and refashion it into something more alien and unpredictable. For a young Kurt Vile, the aesthetic of records made at Easley-McCain then was a revelation.  

“I can remember when Starlite Walker, the Silver Jews record, came out,” Vile says today. “I was just a teenager in high school, and I maybe even cut school to go to my local suburban Philadelphia record store, and I took it home, and those voices just cut right through. There was an introduction with Steve [Malkmus] and David [Berman] saying, ‘Hello, my friends …’ Then David’s voice just cuts through: ‘Troubles, no troubles on the line …’ I would say that’s the first Doug Easley record that hit me super hard. And I was, what, 15?”

One can trace a straight line from that album, full of Berman’s own poetic/ conversational incantations, to Vile’s body of work. But that was just a fraction of Easley-McCain’s output at time, and young Vile began soaking up other albums cut there. “Pavement’s Wowee Zowee was my gateway drug!” he quips, then rattles off another half dozen seminal works recorded at the Memphis studio. 

“I also love Jon Spencer’s Orange,” he says. “And Washing Machine by Sonic Youth. ‘The Diamond Sea’ [the album’s closing track] is probably my favorite epic, long song out there.” Like those ’90s classics, Vile, in his own way, seems to be rebuilding rock history from spare parts. Having started as a home recordist (with even his 2009 Matador Records debut containing two tracks, “Overnite Religion” and “Blackberry Song,” recorded in his home years earlier), it’s understandable that the Easley-McCain aesthetic, which seemingly preserves home recording’s anything-goes spirit in a professional studio setting, would instantly appeal to Vile. Indeed, while passing through Memphis years ago, he made a pilgrimage there, or at least to Easley-McCain’s current home on Kelly Road, which has much of the vibe of the old Deadrick location. “When I saw that place, finally, it had all those vibes in there,” says Vile. “It’s got that cozy house, chill vibe. It’s not sterile. Everything’s organic and blends together, more than I’ve ever seen in a studio.” 

That home vibe is so important to Vile that, after having made many recordings in professional studios since his Matador days, he’s come full circle and mainly records at home now, albeit in a dedicated space with more high-end equipment than when he started. That makes it all the more notable that next week he’ll be doing sessions at Easley-McCain. “We went through Easley and all the lights flashed,” says Vile. “It’s this other place. You’ve got to step out and go to another professional zone, eventually. But, like I say, it’s professional, but it’s got the cool kind of grit as well, and that’s what feels cozy. Not to mention, it’s Doug Easley! With a nice young guy, Matt [Qualls], who really rules — a nice young guy with energy to help, who’s really good.”

And yet, for Vile, it’s just as important to play a live show while here. That will happen on Tuesday, October 22nd, at Hernando’s Hide-A-Way, just before he and his band, the Violators, start tracking with Easley. “We’ve been together so long now as this unit that we know how to just set up and perform for the people and for ourselves. And ideally you want to set up like that in the studio as well. We like to start a session at the end of a tour or something. So we’re booking this one show to perform in real time, and then carry that over to the studio. Also, I’m really excited to play with Optic Sink. I met them last time we played. I just love the vibe in Memphis. Within a really short span, I tapped into the scene pretty quick.” 

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Music Music Features

Top 10 Memphis Albums of 2023

boygenius – the record (Interscope Records)

Memphian Julien Baker first teamed up with Phoebe Bridgers and Lucy Dacus back in 2018, but the 2023 version finds the trio mapping grander horizons. With a sound big enough and produced enough to conquer the world, it still retains much of Baker’s intimacy, as all three artists offer confessions of love and transgression. The new album encapsulates a Gen Z zeitgeist: “You were born in July, ’95, in a deadly heat …”

Cloudland Canyon – Cloudland Canyon (Medical Records)

This latest from Memphis’ best kept synth secret is becoming a sleeper hit of sorts, especially the bubbling, burbling “Two Point Zero,” pairing pounding beats with wistful melodies like classic New Order. Chris McCoy called one track “a bouncy castle of ’80s synth pop,” saying another “drips with the narcotized seduction of Warhol-era Velvet Underground.” Extra points for Elyssa Worley’s guest vocals on “LV MCHNS” and others.

Chad Fowler, George Cartwright, Kelley Hurt, Christopher Parker, Luke Stewart, Steve Hirsh, Zoh Amba – Miserere (Mahakala Music)

Chad Fowler’s unique Mahakala imprint, focusing on sonically unrestrained music, is both composed and freely improvised, and here he’s joined by onetime Memphian Cartwright and others, including Tennessee’s rising “free jazz star” Zoh Amba. The dynamics and emotional arcs that develop, with Hurt’s haunting vocalizations matched by piano, saxes, flutes, guitar, and rhythms, are deeply moving for deep listeners.

Candice Ivory – When the Levee Breaks: The Music of Memphis Minnie (Little Village Foundation)

Ivory’s found the perfect producer in guitarist/bassist Charlie Hunter. Both regularly push back against jazz orthodoxies, and this ostensible roots album is really a work of alchemy, conjuring Afro-Caribbean rhythms, virtuoso blues guitar, and gospel pedal steel in a seance with Memphis Minnie. Some are stripped-down acoustic blues, some are stomping jams, but all are dominated by Ivory’s powerful and nuanced voice.

Tyler Keith – Hell to Pay (Black and Wyatt)

Keith has a way with a phrase: The words of the title song roll off the tongue like fallen fruit. That’s just what these big, pile-driving rock songs need. And pairing steamy Southern tones with the primitivism of the Ramones allows the words’ meanings to breathe. Most importantly, you get plenty of chant-worthy choruses over ace guitar riffs.

MEM_MODS – MEM_MODS Vol. 1 (Peabody Recording Co.)

Sounding like a lost ’70s soundtrack, this album ranges from Augustus Pablo-like dub to funk bangers to smoldering Isaac Hayes-like ballads. Ear-catching synth sounds abound. Naturally, a trio of veterans like childhood friends Luther Dickinson, Steve Selvidge, and Paul Taylor are adept at “studio painting,” but this also finds these players pushing themselves, especially Dickinson, who focuses on bass and keyboards. Peabody’s first release in decades.

Moneybagg Yo – Hard To Love (CMG/N-Less/Interscope Records)

This Memphis icon continues to pull apart at the seams of his own myth. While the hit “Ocean Spray” celebrates the joys of being out of it in a world of botheration, he checks himself with tracks like “No Show” with the words “I fill my body up with drugs ’fore I even eat/Percocets, Xans, codeine, you don’t wanna see what I see.”

Optic Sink – Glass Blocks (Feel It Records)

Unlike many synth artists who construct tracks “in the box” of a computer screen, Optic Sink composes and performs on actual hardware in the moment, as three post-punk humans recording their basic tracks live. This sophomore album adds bass to drum machine beats from Ben Bauermeister, as Natalie Hoffmann’s dry, disaffected vocals, old-school synth lines, and guitar flourishes add richer soundscapes than the group’s debut.

Rising Stars Fife and Drum Band – Evolution of Fife and Drum Music (Rising Stars Records)

Sharde Thomas (playing, singing, and co-producing with Chris Mallory) takes her grandfather Otha Turner’s music to new heights with this rhythmic tour de force. Mixing tuneful choruses, heavy beats, deep funk, and even touches of Afrobeat’s cascading guitars with their fundamental “drum corps in the yard” sound, this group is forging a whole new genre right in our backyard.

Elder Jack Ward – The Storm (Bible & Tire Recording Co.)

When Memphis’ longtime pastor passed away this April, he had just left this masterpiece in his wake. In true Bible & Tire style, the gritty, swinging “Sacred Soul Sound Section” backs his original songs, but the most captivating sounds come from Ward’s own family, especially when Johnny Ward steps out with “Payday After While” — the track suggesting that his kin will carry his message on.

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Music Music Blog

Gonerfest 20 Friday: Gories Rule OK!

The Gories (Credit: Alex Greene)

Once Gonerfest hits its first full day, as Gonerfest 20 did yesterday, pacing is everything. Is this not what the immortal Keith Richards taught us? (Keith’s other bit of advice? “Always insist on medical grade product…”). And one could not possibly see all the bands present. Yet, all pacing aside, there was a large turnout for the day’s opener, Memphis’ own Optic Sink. We took a deep dive into that group’s new album earlier this week. Now it was time to hear how it would translate to the stage.

Optic Sink (Credit: Alex Greene)

A host of fans were curious, braving the blazing sun to see their 1:30 p.m. set. And while many lingered on the peripheries of Railgarten, clinging to the shade, just as many stood defiantly in the open area before the stage, just to see this one-of-a-kind band up close. And it was clear they were knocked out.

With Keith Cooper added on bass, the group has ramped up their stage energy considerably. Also contributing to this was Natalie Hoffmann’s increasing use of guitar in Optic Sink. And Ben Bauermeister’s increasingly imaginative drum programming ties it all together. As Hoffman alternately strummed or played synth, the rhythms marched on. And the crowd was primed for dancing, doing the Ratchet, the Twitch, and the Energizer Bunny as they baked in the sun.

Other bands kept them moving, and from that point on it was clearly “Aussie Day” at Gonerfest, with Vintage Crop, 1-800-Mikey, Tee Vee Repairmann, C.O.F.F.I.N., and Civic all hailing from Down Under. Many raved about 1-800-Mikey, but for my money Tee Vee Repairmann was the afternoon’s real shot in the arm. Both brought an intoxicating pop sensibility to their punkish underpinnings, but it was the latter band that has “hooks a mile wide,” as the Gonerfest program guide notes.

C.O.F.F.I.N. and Civic, meanwhile, demonstrated the heavier side of Down Under. I sat with friends as the former band played, parsing out their influences. “There’s clearly some AC/DC going on there,” said one. “Yeah, but I hear a bit of Southern Rock in their riffs,” said another. Both were right, as the band, sometimes verging on hardcore, steamrolled all over us. The raw power went to our heads, or was it Memphis Made’s special Golden Pass Gonerfest brew?

The day was not without its hiccups. After a captivating start, local post-punk heroes Ibex Clone were only able to play six songs or so, after which singer Alec McIntire was heard telling the band his voice was shot. Furthermore, the Skull Practitioners were delayed in even getting to town, hailing as they do from that land of sudden flooding, New York City. This left a hole in the afternoon lineup, gamely taken up by the New Memphis Legs, featuring Goner’s own Eric Friedl. Though they were more of a presence a decade ago, it clearly came back to them like riding a bike — a very noisy one.

Sweeping Promises (Credit: Alex Greene)

By the time Sweeping Promises appeared, after much buzz and anticipation, the crowd was pressed up to the stage, and their sparse, dynamic drive with hints of angular melody and otherworldly vocals from singer Lira Mondal drove everyone mad. With one of the most identifiable sounds in in recent memory, echoing the odd niche that Lene Lovich occupied many decades ago, they were also incredibly propulsive after extensive touring recently. Caufield Schnug’s guitar lines were thin and reedy, a perfect complement to Mondal’s overdriven bass. A power trio, yes, but not in the conventional sense.

For a power trio with an emphasis on power, one needed look no further than the delayed set by Skull Practitioners. With current Dream Syndicate guitarist Jason Victor backed by only bass and drums, they managed to conjure up the biggest sound of the night, specializing in heavy rock with some tasty feedback-swathed soloing from Victory. Between songs, Victor was so amiable that you could have introduced him to your mother, expressing gratitude that their delayed flight had not squelched their Gonerfest dreams, but only deferred them to a later, shorter slot before the evening’s headliner.

That, of course, was The Gories. As emcee Dane Perugini said in his introduction, “If you don’t know who they are, what the fuck are you doing here?” As the group took the stage, Mick Collins, Danny Kroha, and Peg O’Neil were not as jittery as they were when they first played the Antenna Club over 30 years ago, with reunion shows making consummate professionals out of these erstwhile garage-dwelling guttersnipes, but the same energy was there once they launched into “Going to the River.” The two guitars over O’Neil’s soulful thumping hit the crowd like a cool breeze. The sonic palette of the group was far more minimalist and blues-based than many of the heavier rock bands of the day, but the interplay between the three was so perfect as to galvanize the audience. The lust-fueled “Queenie,” with its manic, screamed chorus, was a highlight.

“It’s been 13 years since we played Gonerfest,” quipped Kroha, expressing the band’s love of Memphis, instilled when they came down in the spring of 1990 to work with producer Alex Chilton. But they made it clear that they were proud Detroiters, and saluted the Keggs, a much-loved ’60s group “from the wild suburbs of Detroit,” as Kroha put it. “We’ve got a nice little Detroit contingent down here,” he went on. “Toledo is also represented — the Great Lakes states!”

The Gories (Credit: Alex Greene)

Meanwhile, Collins was fiddling with his guitar, which he clawed at through the night like a feral cat. “Man, this thing is still in tune,” he exclaimed. “Incredible! For us it is…”

Decadent bourgeois concepts like tuning mattered little as the band launched into one classic after another, and not only their own classics. They made covers of Bo Diddley, John Lee Hooker, and the Keggs their own, combining the looseness of the blues with the attack of a Motor City V8 engine. Kroha even rocked a mean blues harp for one number. But it was their cover of Suicide’s “Ghostrider” that brought the house down, as Collins screamed “America, America is killing its youth!” to the wildly gyrating crowd. It culminated in one of the greatest feedback-drenched guitar solos ever heard on a Gonerfest stage. The amp and guitar seemed glued to Collins’ hands as if he was being electrocuted, while the gear at his command howled in protest. And then, all too soon, it was over. The midnight hour approached, the day was done, and as The Gories surveyed the battlefield, the audience before them scattered and slain under the harvest moon.

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Music Music Features

Gonerfest Alchemy

Optic Sink (Photo: Shawn Brackbill)

As Gonerfest heats up this week, and fans, bands, and friends catch up throughout the city, there’s another universe unfolding as well, a zone where musicians hear other musicians and some kind of alchemy occurs. Any resulting collaborations can cause great new works of art to blossom. Case in point: the new LP by Optic Sink, Glass Blocks.

The group’s 2020 debut took the bold step, not often heard in Memphis, of pairing Natalie Hoffmann’s dry, disaffected vocals (more restrained than her work in Nots) with her ingenious old-school synth lines and drum machine beats from Ben Bauermeister (Magic Kids, Toxie). “I really like the tension of a more human voice that is sounding pretty machine-like, but mixed with these actual machines,” Hoffmann told the Memphis Flyer at the time. Meanwhile, it turned out a band in faraway Boston was simultaneously treading adjacent territory.

“Sweeping Promises are amazing!” says Hoffman today. “When that first album came out in the middle of lockdown, I heard it on WYXR and thought, ‘What is this? This is phenomenal.’” As it turned out, Sweeping Promises were also a duo of sorts (bringing in a drummer for live sets), its principal members being Lira Mondal and Caufield Schnug, both focused on their own variety of post-punk minimalism. Their debut, Hunger for a Way Out, was “written and recorded with a patented ‘single mic technique’ just before quarantine,” as their Bandcamp page states.

Hoffman wasn’t alone in her love of the band’s debut. Jenn Pelly of The New Yorker recently wrote, “Though written before the pandemic, the record’s anthemic title song became a timely underground hit last year, bursting at its own taut edges.” Finally, at Gonerfest 18 in 2021, Hoffman was able to see Sweeping Promises live only hours after Optic Sink played. That, in turn, led to the two bands sharing a bill a year later.

“We played a show together last August at Growlers and they stayed at my house,” Hoffman recalls. “We had a really fun time and all became friends immediately. And then they asked if they could record the next Optic Sink album, which we hadn’t even started writing! Of course I said yes.”

By then Mondal and Schnug had resettled in Lawrence, Kansas, and after some time well spent cooking up new material, Optic Sink made their way north in the heart of winter. By then, the Memphis group was a trio, with Keith Cooper (Sheiks, Tennessee Screamers) on bass. He leapt into his new role as the group readied material. Unlike many synth artists who construct beats and skronks “in the box” of a computer screen, Optic Sink composes and performs on actual hardware in the moment, as three humans, and record their basic tracks live as such. That makes preparation crucial.

“We were working so hard to get all the songs on the record almost finished before we went to record it,” says Bauermeister. “Yeah, but we didn’t,” he laughs. “There were still one or two that were not fully fleshed out. But those might have been the best ones in the end. That’s a good strategy. Going into a studio to record something, and having only 70 percent of the material ready. If you only have some of it done, that leaves more room for magic.”

Being in Mondal and Schnug’s new space encouraged that magic, not only due to the choice gear of the studio, but also via the charms of the Upper Midwest in January. “We knew it was freezing cold up there. So we knew we were up there just to record. It was snowing and we were away from home. And the room we recorded in was previously a painting studio, a beautiful window-filled room that had this amazing energy.”

On the end result, with Schnug producing, engineering, and adding the odd part here and there, Optic Sink seems to have achieved a new level of cohesion and richness in their sound with Glass Blocks. With the new LP out since last week, and a new Sweeping Promises album, Good Living is Coming for You, out as well, this year’s Gonerfest sees both groups coming full circle when they each take the stage at Railgarten this Friday. And who knows what other alchemy this festival may yet conjure up?

Gonerfest 20 runs from Thursday, September 28th, through Sunday, October 1st, at Railgarten. For details, visit gonerfest.com.

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Film Features Film/TV

Music Video Monday: “Modelesque” by Optic Sink

Last weekend, Memphis’ own Optic Sink debuted Glass Blocks, released by Cincinnati’s Feel It Records, at the Memphis Listening Lab and played the album in its entirety at the Lamplighter. Natalie Hoffman (whom you might know from the band NOTS) and Ben Bauermeister are joined by Keith Cooper, who adds driving bass to their Moog washes and rhythmic beeps and bloops.

“Modelesque” takes inspiration from Kraftwerk with a “so straight it’s funky” beat. (And really, if you’re in a synth band, you should be constantly asking yourself “What would Kraftwerk do?”) The video, directed by Noah Thomas Miller, sees the band getting stiff in some of your favorite bars. It’s strangely compelling.

If you’d like to see your music video featured on Music Video Monday, email cmccoy@memphisflyer.com.

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Music Music Blog

Gonerfest 18: Friday

Sara Nelson and Poni Silver of Kings of the Fucking Sea on stage at Gonerfest 18.

“I feel like tonight, we’re all Henry Rollins,” said MC Joel Parsons from the stage on Friday night of Gonerfest 18. 

Rollins, the legendary Black Flag frontman, was scheduled to travel to Memphis to be the MC for the show, but canceled because of Covid’s Delta wave. So Parsons, his replacement, simply claimed to be the punk icon all night. The pandemic hovered over the event, which was 100 percent virtual last year, but moved to Railgarten for a vax-only, hybrid event this year.

Joel Parsons

Masking compliance was generally very good in the crowd, which swelled steadily as afternoon aged into evening, except when they were drinking Gonerbrau, the Memphis Made craft beer brewed specially for the fest. (“Chuggable!” brags the official program.) 

Total Hell

The festival’s move to the open-air Railgarten has definitely changed the vibe. Gonerfest is usually something that happens late at night, hidden in cramped clubs, defiantly underground. But these are times that call for change. Goner Records’ Zac Ives said he and co-owner Eric Friedl were skeptical at first, “… but we got in, started looking around, and thinking about our crowd here, and thought, ‘This can work.’” 

Thursday night had started off tentatively, but it ended up being a rousing success. I spent most of Thursday with a camera in my hand as a part of the newly minted Goner Stream Team. The live-stream, under the direction of Geoffrey Brent Shrewsbury, is bringing  the music to the far-flung masses with an ingenious kluge of 20-year-old Sony Handycams, analog hand switchers, and a cluster of mixing boards and dangerously overheating laptops. Gonerfest was actually a pioneer of online streaming, but this year, with the international bands from Australia, Japan, and Europe kept at bay by the pandemic, it’s more important than ever. 

Miss Pussycat and Model Zero’s Frank McLallen.

By the time Model Zero took the stage on Friday afternoon, it was clear Ives was right. The crowd had adapted to the space, which Parsons joked was a “beach volleyball and trash-themed bar.” Model Zero locked into their dance punk groove instantly, and got the afternoon crowd moving with their cover of Buffalo Springfield’s “Mister Soul” and their banging original “Modern Life.” 

Total Hell ably represented the New Orleans trash-metal contingent that has been a Gonerfest staple for years. Nashville’s Kings of the Fucking Sea started their set off by providing noise accompaniment to Memphis’ Sheree Renée Thomas, poet laureate of the New Weird South, before heading off into a set of Can-infused psych jams. 

Nick Allison

Usually there’s several hours after the afternoon sets to change venues, but noise ordinances have forced this outdoor Gonerfest to start and end earlier, so afternoon spilled into evening as Austinite singer/songwriter Nick Allison took the stage with a set that was, dare I say it, kinda Springsteen-y. 

Optic Sink

Another sign that Gonerfest’s audience’s taste has broadened from the old days of all caveman beats, all the time, is Optic Sink. NOTS Natalie Hoffman and Magic Kids’ Ben Bauermeister’s electronic project never sounded better, with the big sound system bringing out their nuances. They, too, debuted a new song that embraced their inner Kraftwerk. 

Sick Thoughts

Gonerfest frequent flyer Drew Owens returned with his long-running project Sick Thoughts. Their set was loud, offensive, and confrontational, and sent beer cans flying across the venue. As Ben Rednour, who was working the Stream Team camera at the edge of the stage, said afterward “When they started sword fighting with mic stands, I knew it was anything goes.” 

Violet Archaea

The Archeas’ album  has been a big pandemic discovery for me, and the Louisville band’s Gonerfest debut was hotly anticipated. Violent Archaea was the charismatic center of attention as the band ripped through a ragged set that reminded us all of why we like this music in the first place. 

Sweeping Promises

The greenest band on the bill was Sweeping Promises. Arkansans Lira Mondal and Caufield Schung have gone from Boston to Austin recording their debut album Hunger for a Way Out, but they haven’t played out much. “I think this is like their fourth show,” said Ives in the streaming control room (which was a tiki bar in the Before Time) as they set up. They’re going to get spoiled by all the attention their Gang of Four-esque, bass-driven New Wave brought from the rapt crowd. 

Reigning Sound’s Greg Cartwright duets with Marcella Simien as John Whittemore and Alex Greene rock along.

The climax of Friday night was Greg Cartwright’s Reigning Sound. After a successful return to the stage with the original Memphis lineup of Greg Roberson, Jeremy Scott, and Memphis Flyer music editor Alex Greene at Crosstown Theater earlier this summer, the “original lineup” has expanded into a Bluff City A-Team with the addition of Graham Winchester, string sisters Krista and Ellen Wroten, and multi-instrumentalist (and dentist) John Whittmore. The Crosstown show had been a careful reading of the new songs from the new album A Little More Time With Reigning Sound. This set transformed the big band into a raucous rave-up machine. (With Cartwright as band leader, set lists are more suggestions of possible futures than concrete plans for how the show will go.) Cartwright invited Marcella Simien onstage for washboard and vocals, duetting with the singer on two songs from A Little More Time, transforming the evening into something between a family reunion and a reaffirmation of Memphis music after a long, scary era.