One of my favorite things about following small artists is observing the sort of “social cliques” that emerge naturally between them. It’s a super organic phenomenon that really just boils down to musicians wanting to know other musicians, but what’s so fun about it is that it really puts the six degrees of separation theory to work. Sometimes when you see a bunch of specific artists working together it makes sense based off your prior knowledge (like if they’re all in a collective together, r.i.p UGLYSTUPIDFRIENDS), but the most fun is when you see a bunch of people you had no clue knew each other popping up in one place. We’ve mentioned before that for AuraLink we have a bot that pings us whenever there’s new music from specific artists we follow, and today one project just kept popping up. A project I didn’t know was coming out, but I sure as hell know the names attached to.

Movie Star (Director’s Cut) is the deluxe edition of Glitch Gum’s 2024 album of the same title, and there’s a lot of new content to be seen here ranging from remixes to live recordings and acoustics. This is a release that would have shown up on our radar either way, but it was made impossible to miss by its features, including Atlas in Motion, stecker, Cossette, Dylan Longworth, and 6 others. Needless to say this is one of those times where I get to enjoy that phenomenon of “I only knew that half of you knew each other, neat!” as a great way to seamlessly dive into what pound for pound is an amazing project.

Just for fun, a perceptual map of my knowledge of the people on this project and how they connect

The project itself balances this super fun line as it bounces between Hyperpop and indie rock/pop, with cuts like Messages and Lidocaine falling squarely in the first category while Please Stop and Growth falling firmly in the latter, and right in the middle we have tracks like Blame On Me acting as tremendous fusions of the two worlds. There’s so much to love in this tracklist, and for those in the know they’ve actually already had over a year to soak in the joys of the first 11 tracks, but as soon as we hit track 12 we’re met with brand new wailing synths and quick thumping drums on Cheerleader, which to be frank feels a lot like a modern adaptation of the energy behind early 2000s punk hits from the likes of Avril Lavigne, or even some mid era Waterparks cuts if you’d prefer to look more recent. It’s up beat, high energy, and an amazing introduction to the second half of this project, which to me feels like the “fun with friends” B side with the variety of remixes and reimaginings. The variety of said reimaginings is astounding and a true testament to the insanely different ways creatives approach the same problem. Cossette’s remix of Lidocaine takes the previously traditional indie ballad, washes it in retrospection, adds some glitter, and leaves us with this gorgeous electronic pop piece garnished with Cossette’s delicately laid backing vocals, adding a soft touch to the piece even before her newly added verse. It’s a bit of an energetic antithesis to the stecker remix of Happy Ending, which while still being engulfed in that retrospective wash feels much darker and contentious in it’s intro. The dark soundscape is for the most part peaceful despite its foreboding nature, but in classic stecker style as soon as that intro is done we’re going back and forth between sparse minimalism and synth layers thick enough to drown in.

Contrary to the prior two remixes, the 440 West remix of Please Stop is fun because instead of transforming indie into crazy electronic sound pallettes it does the exact opposite, taking the previously chaotic groundwork laid out by Glitch Gum and stecker and transforming it into something I can imagine hearing at a local show from a band you just HAVE to track down after the show because you didn’t catch their name (this is what happens when you pull up late to the function Josh). Sly Mouth’s version of Anything also fits that very down to earth feel of a song I imagine would be phenomenal live, feeling mellow with ethereal vocal layering in the chorus that you can get completely lost in. While we’re fixating on live performance though, the entire rest of the album from track 18 forward is nothing but live cuts and acoustics. I’ve never actually seen Glitch Gum live, but if Movie Star (Live) (Live [yes that’s actually the title] is anything to go off of, I can tell you right now it would be an evening to remember. It’s grand, it’s orchestral, and when the build gives way to that synth chord you have a brief moment of total ascention, before being informed that you’re now in Nashville, despite the fact that based on your criminal record you’re not allowed to cross the border from Canada. How Glitch Gum managed this I may never know, but what I do know is that from that moment forward the album becomes something I want to listen to over loud speakers in a crowded space to pretend it really is live. The energy is special in a way that’s so hard to capture in studio recordings, and yet it was done here to a tee. Live is never perfect, it will always have it’s minor quirks or imperfections that studio cuts never have, but that’s what makes live music so special, and Glitch Gum has managed to capture that feel perfectly.

Album reviews are hard to write, because I have this undying urge to gush about every little detail. You’ll notice I had to mention every remix because after writing about the first two I felt it would be criminal to not mention the other two. It’s really a moment of “my lobster being too buttery”, because having so much great stuff to look at in one go means I have to pick what I want to call out specifically, or what I just need the reader to experience themselves, like how absolutely amazing the transitional intro on Lidocaine Outro/Happy Ending feels. All that is to say that this is a deluxe album on a level I do not expect from anyone outside of the top echelon of L.A.’s finest. The variety is perfection, the names here are all top talent, the songs are polished to a tee, and the overall experience is unmatched. It took a year of waiting to get it here, but how could you possibly blame anyone for that with the sheer amount of new material here? I mean Glitch Gum smuggled us into Nashville for god sake? But seriously, this is a project that so clearly was a labour of love, and now that it’s ours we absolutely owe it to everyone involved to make sure it’s heard, because it absolutely deserves it.