Archive for June, 2009

FUTURE ISLANDS – FEATHERS AND HALLWAYS 7"

Wednesday, June 17th, 2009

2009, Upset the Rhythm
01. Pinocchio; 02. Happiness of Being Twice

Future Islands haven’t released anything new in like forever so this is a real treat. A double A-side out on Upset the Rhythm. They’re also working on a new LP hopefully packed with those “ecstatic electronic rhythms” and “euphoric fun trips” we’ve grown accustomed to. It should be out sometimes this year on the same label.

Stream Pinocchio and other tracks on MySpace.
You can download the live versions of the tracks over at WFMU.
Buy.

Via Bmore Musically Informed.

WHITE DENIM – FITS

Wednesday, June 17th, 2009

2009, Full Time Hobby

01. Radio Milk How Can You Stand It; 02. All Consolation; 03. Say What You Want; 04. Hard Attack; 05. I Start To Run; 06. Sex Prayer; 07. Mirrored And Reversed; 08. Paint Yourself; 09. I’d Have It Just The Way We Were; 10. Everybody Somebody; 11. Regina Holding Hands; 12. Syncn

New album by White Denim, a follow-up to last year’s excellent Exposion. Not as good on first listen, but hey, that’s just the first impression.
“…An exhilarating rush that channels garage rock, psych, hardcore, classic rock and much more besides, Fits achieves what Crystal Antlers’ ear-splitting Tentacles didn’t quite: the spasmodic appropriation of multitudinous music styles into three-minute epics…”
Whole album is available for stream here. You can check out the new video for I Start to Run on their official site.

Radio Milk How Can You Stand It

I’d Have It Just The Way We Were

GANG GANG DANCE – FIRST COMMUNION 12"

Wednesday, June 17th, 2009

2009, Warp

01. First Communion (Original Mix); 02. First Communion (TV on the Radio Mix); 03. House Jam (Hot Chip Mix)

Gang Gang Dance have a new single out on Warp. Two tracks off of last year’s excellent Saint Dymphna get remixed. Buy it here.

First Communion (TV on the Radio mix)

You can download the Hot Chip mix for free if you sign up to this newsletter.
Gang Gang Myspace.

BEACH FOSSILS

Tuesday, June 16th, 2009

Another one man act that’s getting blogged about a lot lately. Doing fuzzed out underwater beach music, but less distorted and more melodically driven than his so bored counterpart’s. I was unable to find any info on an upcoming release except that he might release something on Woodsist in the near future.

SOUNDS LIKE
Tropical poppy bliss. “All we have to do is nothing at all under the sun.” Lovely.


Daydream


Lazy Day

Befriend him and tell him how awesome he is on MySpace.

BLANK DOGS – SLOW ROOM 7" + WAITING 7"

Monday, June 15th, 2009

2009, Captured Tracks
01. Slow Room; 02. Anywhere
2009, In the Red
01. Waiting; 02. Splitting

Some new 7-inches from Blank Dogs. Not bad, but not great either.
“…Slow Room sounds like New Order playing a two-minute concert from inside a can of fizzy drink. It’s all still thin and heavily coated in effects, but there’s definitely a proper musician emerging from the rubble of cheap synths and even cheaper fourtrack recorders.” Get it here.
Waiting finds the band drifting ever closer to C-86 Brit-pop terrain and incorporates more guitar than synth.” Buy.

You can listen to 2 new tracks below.

Slow Room

Splitting

JEANS WILDER – ANTIQUES

Friday, June 12th, 2009

2009, Night People
01. Castle Walls; 02. Ghost House; 03. Ramen Blues; 04. Vapor Trails; 05. Song For Joseph; 06. Surf’s Up; 07. Black Out; 08. Sugar Water; 09. Evening Gown; 10. Deep End Of The Pool; 11. M’ Lady Moth

Jeans Wilder is the guise of San Diego’s Andrew Caddick.

SOUNDS LIKE
Hazy lo-fi bedroom pop. A pretty accurate description from his Myspace page – “Jeans Wilder is new loner fuzz under the rug bedroom pop that sits both on the sunny side and under the night time. Nostalgic, hazy, real pretty and low key, this one shines when it needs to for sure. Hushed melodies abound and peak through the weird fog for a little bit of glory in the sun when the feeling is suited. Play at night on your headphones, thinking about lost love, abandoned dreams, and what’s next.”
Get Antiques here.

Evening Gown

Ramen Blues

AXOLOTL – OF BONDS IN GENERAL

Thursday, June 11th, 2009

2009, Loci
01. Untitled; 02. Untitled; 03. Untitled

The project of Karl Bauer, violin + vocal + other instrumental music + electronic processing.

SOUNDS LIKE
…He toured with Animal Collective last year. A great follow-up to 2007′ Memory Theatre. In his own words, “After 3 years I have finally completed what I think is my best record, Of Bonds in General, which will see a small run of 200 CDR’s this week via Fusetron, Volcanic Tongue, and maybe a few other places, and then finally a proper LP courtesy of the wonderful Catsup Plate records sometime this summer. Digital Download will also be available.”
Axolotl @ Myspace.

Untitled 03
Edit: Removed on request. “…there will be a proper, mastered mp3 download available in a couple months. I really want people to hear it proper.”

VIBES – PSYCHIC 7"

Thursday, June 11th, 2009

2009, Not Not Fun
01. Psychic; 02. Dead Horses; 03. Night Court; 04. Prisms of Fame

Super group with members of Pocahaunted, Robedoor, Magic Lantern, and Fantastic Ego.

SOUNDS LIKE
“NNF’s loosest cannons return to the recording fray with, Psychic, a blown-out briar patch of basement garage fantasy masquerading as obscurist protest funk–and the band’s first vinyl statement. Recorded in Eagle Rock on a ‘last legs’-style four track, the EP’s four songs are jacked deep in the red, with fuzz bass, wah shrapnel, vocal sloganeering, and drum racket all fighting for tape room.”

Psychic

Night Court

GLASSER – APPLY EP

Wednesday, June 10th, 2009

2009, True Panther Sounds
01. Apply; 02. Glad; 03. Learn; 04. Apply (Tanlines remix); 05. Glad (Lucky Dragons remix); 06. Learn (John Talabot remix)

Glasser is L.A. based Cameron Mesirow with help from Matt Popieluch and Charles Burrus who pretty much compiled her entire EP using Garageband in shoe stores and on transatlantic flights.

SOUNDS LIKE
“…Kate Bush using the rhythmic influence of Arthur Russell and the emotional inflections of Karen Dalton. She uses her voice as an instrument in ways that continually stun us”, says True Panther. We say weird and ethereal.

Glad

And a remix by Chairlift that isn’t on the EP, but that we really really like, so we thought you ought to have a listen.

Apply (Chairlift remix)

The EP was released on May 26 but went out of stock pretty fast. Orders began shipping again yesterday! The limited edition 12″ was pressed on clear vinyl with a package featuring a 3-layer silkscreened op-art spinning wheel designed by Tauba Auerbach.
Glasser’s played shows with Vuk who we’ve already written about and is one of her top friends on MySpace.

INTERVIEW: WOMEN

Tuesday, June 9th, 2009

So we caught up with Patrick Flegel from Women a couple of nights ago at one of their shows and decided to ask him a couple of questions.

NC: Almost a year has passed since you released the album, the new stuff that we heard tonight, is that going to make it onto an EP or are you working on your next album?
Pat: Well, first of all, the album is only half an hour long, thanks for buying one by the way, and we didn’t really expect anyone to give a shit about it, thought that we would just record again, like right after, but then we started touring a lot and stuff, touring more than we expected so it’s kinda been a drawn out thing where we hadn’t had as much time to record as we would like. We’re off from August on indefinitely so from that point on we’ll just be recording in a house.

NC: How long have you been playing together?
Pat: Mat’s my brother and the other guys I’ve known since I was like in grade school so a really really long time…
NC: Awww…
Pat:It’s adorable! [makes a face]

NC: How long did it take you to find the sound you wanted?
Pat: Erm, I don’t know if we’ve got it yet [laughs]. We need our own sound guy and new gear and stuff. We’re planning like a whole phase two of the band that would be totally different. We’re planning on overhauling the whole operation.

NC: You played the Primavera festival?
Pat: Yeah!
NC: How was that?
Pat: Oh, that was fucking amazing! I saw Sonic Youth and Neil Young, and the Vaselines and… all the bands that were excellent so… It’s nice to see how good the bands are and then you know how good you have to be.

NC: Have you ever played to a big crowd like that before?
Pat: Not really, it was pretty crazy.
NC: You usually play smaller venues…
Pat: Well, it varies, like, sometimes we’ll play in front of 15 people somewhere in Ontario or like, I don’t know, two thousand people if we’re playing a show with Mogwai or something.

NC: Do you like it better in Europe or in America?
Pat: Europe for sure!
NC: Really? A lot of bands say that, why is that?
Pat: Well, first of it’s like a more interesting place to be, just as for walking around down town, the architecture… Also, the people are way, way nicer. The people are just really nice to me, and they really love music. It’s fun.

We talked some more afterwards and found out that the album cover is actually a picture Pat cut out from a Chinese medical textbook. Their merch was ridiculously cheap so we bought up everything.
Check out the rest of their tour dates at their MySpace.

LITTLE GIRLS – TAMBOURINE EP

Tuesday, June 9th, 2009

2009, Paper Bag Digital
01. Youth Tunes; 02. Tambourine; 03. Imaginary Friends; 04. Venom; 05. Last Call

SOUNDS LIKE
Yet again, some murky, noisy lo-fi pop. “Little Girls’ sound is driven by ‘youth and nostalgia’, says Josh who has been creating and playing music since his early teens. His influences come from the 80′s no-wave post-punk scene and the early 80′s golden era of hip-hop…” I don’t really hear that hip-hop influence, but youth and nostalgia are here. The title brings to mind certain 90′s noisy twee band…
Tambourine EP is out now, you can get it here. Previous release, Thrills 12″, is sold out, unfortunately. Little Girls @ Myspace.

Tambourine

Last Call

AIDS WOLF – PAS RAPPORT

Monday, June 8th, 2009

2009, Self-Released

01. Police de la quéquette; 02. P’tit débile; 03. Elle est si cochonne; 04. Débande; 05. Hot dog élégant; 06. Polie la poilue; 07. Flaque de vomi/restitu

Experimental noise rock band from Montréal, “two guitars, drums and insane warbling”.

“This was our limited edition (80 pieces) 14 minutes Spring tour tape.” You can download the whole thing here. Band Myspace.

P’tit débile

Polie la poilue