Jason Lytle

As if the robotic pep talk that is “In It to Win It” wasn’t uplifting enough, the latest single from Brad Sucks’ first album since 2012, A New Low in Hi-Fi, is the story of inspiration, mortification, and redemption. With its Grandaddy vibes, the mumblecore indie-pop single was an excuse to mend bridges with the indietronica icons after a perceived ill-fated first impression with vocalist Jason Lytle.

Happy birthday Jason Lytle (Grandaddy). You’re the pilot. Cover photo for MAGNET by James Elliot Bailey. Watch our new MAGNET television episode with Jason:

To celebrate its 20th birthday last year, Grandaddy's much-loved album The Sophtware Slump received the standard re-release treatment, including B-sides and demos, along with a curious addition: the reimagining of these songs in a brand-new approach which stripped away its lush, layered elements in favor of simple reinterpretations on the piano. Founder and songwriter Jason Lytle titled the new release, fittingly, The Sophtware Slump on a Wooden Piano.

It’s been 20 years since Grandaddy released the spellbinding dystopian masterwork that Jason Lytle conjured alone in a farmhouse in rural California. So much has changed in the two decades since, yet there’s a comforting symmetry in the news that the band’s solitary creative force has spent lockdown alone sweating over another work of obsessive genius.

Last month, indie veterans Grandaddy reissued their 2000 sophomore album The Sophtware Slump, this time as a box set. But it didn’t take long for vocalist Jason Lytle to share even more music. The singer hand-picked two songs that hold personal meaning and reimagined them with pensive covers. Lytle released...