In some ways, everyone’s a historian; we reflect on our past, rewrite narratives, review documents from before our prime and re-contextualize them so they’re readily-applicable today. That’s doubly true for musicians like Alain Paradis, whose grasp on ’80s music makes his own modern songwriting sound like it came straight out of a time capsule. Paradis’ from Brooklyn, but has recently brought his project Holy Wire down here to Austin. The endeavor’s first iteration was ‘Order of Operations’, a fitting handle for someone as methodical as Paradis, but Holy Wire captures the sacrosanct circuitry of Paradis analog modular synth setup as well as the chords that connect his music across decades.
This morning Holy Wire blessed us with the title track from his latest EP, Twenty Six, which traces the strands of new-wave, post-punk, and synth-pop across three tunes. Abe Sieferth and Joe Lambert (both of whom have worked with LCD Soundsystem) handled the mixing and mastering, respectively, exalting the audio even higher. Thematically Twenty Six tackles the turpitude of your twenties, alternating between fond memories and grief over the end of an era. But you don’t have to succumb to FOMO regardless of your age, considering the “Twenty Six” single release show is 8PM tonight at Hotel Vegas. Holy Wire doesn’t hit the stage until 11PM, so give “Twenty Six” a few spins to familiarize yourself with the lyrics so you can sing along in person.
–Jack Anderson
