Today's Song of the Day, as chosen by Cheryl Waters, host of the Midday Show on KEXP, is "The Everlasting Gobstopper" by The Veldt, a 2023 single on 5BC Records.
Flashback to 1989. North Carolina-based identical twins Daniel and Danny Chavis had formed The Veldt just a few years before, inspired by soul, Sun Ra, and shoegaze. They began recording the LP The Everlasting Gobstopper with Cocteau Twins guitarist Robin Guthrie on production, but despite this dream pairing, their label, Capitol Records, shelved the project.
Jump back to 2023, and the album will finally see the light of day, via The Veldt’s own 5BC Records. Guthrie has returned to remaster the LP, and the album features backing vocals from his Cocteau Twins bandmate Liz Fraser. While the full album won't be out until the fall, the group has shared the title track as a teaser.
“As the benchmark of the new sound we had started to develop, The Everlasting Gobstopper was a throwback to our younger days of our family getting together on holidays, when Willy Wonka would be playing, and the certain atmosphere would be filled with a sense of love and security,” Daniel Chavis shared in a press release. “Upon reminiscing about this, my brother Danny came up with a riff and then called it The Everlasting Gobstopper as a lullaby to put his baby daughter to sleep. Thus was born this sound that would develop into what we have right now. This is significant – the birth of the sound that we have come to develop until present, because back then we were quite a different band. Robin pretty much shaved off all the excess and led us toward the sound we have now, so The Everlasting Gobstopper is the cornerstone that Robin helped us to lay for our own unique sound, which we still have to this day.”
