If news of the New Guantanamo Coachella party didn't get you fired up, here are a few other unavoidable groaners from the week. You had throne-watcher supreme Jay-Z's “Open Letter” over the contrived Cuba trip-White House kerfuffle hype, then your boy RiFF RAFF is slated to guest on the soap “One Life to Live” as a self-referential art slinger named Jamie Franko as a nod to the Spring Breakers actor Alien (whose character was modeled after RiFF by director Harmony Korine),and we got more beefs as we saw Morrissey versus the departed former PM Margaret Thatcher, while Brad Paisley and LL Cool J's “Accidentally Racist” duet almost harshed our commencing baseball season mellow. As you take a minute to respond in a Hank Hill head-shaking fashion, we beg you to consider the following-—in no particular order.
A cable came in from our buddy Al Lover (who has just signed to Stockholm/London imprint PNKSLM Recordings for an upcoming 7″ release) about Bergen, Norway's Electric Eye who he just played a show with last night, with another tonight in Norway. As a gift we present you the quartet's single “Tangerine”, followed by Al's own world drummed remix. “Tangerine” takes you into the citric eye of the storm as guitars, sitars and all sorts of things fly overhead where you are locked into a trip that dips out right under ten minutes time. The “Lake Geneva (submarine edit)” utilizes what sounds like jagged analog electro to further tease out (or perhaps tase out with electric darts) guitar soliloquys of their own, summoned squelches and squall. “The Megaphonic Thrift” suite of “Broken Glass/Yellow Fingers” is displayed with the “Raindance Mix” where you begin to understand that these Norwegian electric warriors seek out to sound like everything their name embodies. Then closing up shop is the one and only Al Lover who remixes the Eastern leaning buzz of “Tangerine” to sound like a sailing trip around the world, all accomplished within 4 minutes and 16 seconds.
Electric Eye's LP debut Pick-up, Lift-off, Space, Time is available now from Norway's Klangkollektivet and the world over via Fuzz Club Records.
Muscle Shoals emcee Gene the Southern Child joins up again with Parallel Thought to give a little something for the Florence, Alabama set that contend with the careless shooting of guns and hard headed egos in the South on the title joint, “Artillery Splurging”. An album conceived of in the summer of 2012 before the recent much publicized shooting tragedies and subsequent national gun debate; Gene and Parallel present something different that deals with descriptors of hometown academic deficiencies, domestic unrest and violence in the heartland of the AL that gets little to no attention in the Northern and Western states. Following up last year's A Ride With The Southern Child collaboration, the two spin it between Gene's syrup skating flow with Thought's equally vicious hypno-tech viscosity. Gene speaks some fact about folks that be splurgin' their guns and mouths about beefs amid some of the spaciest basement ambiance that goes deeper than the most cavernous trap shoot. Get a listen to the title cut off Gene The Southern Child & Parallel Thought's Artillery Splurging dropping May 7 from Parallel Thought LTD.
(photo by David Armstrong)
The Bay Area's treasured indie jangle stars The Mantles get helium headed on the new single “Brown Balloon”. Michael Olivares throws out any revivalist tags to write (or rewrite) tags of his own while making new infectious humble crafted garage hooks to influence those suspected influences of yesterday. Under the auspices of producer Kelley Stoltz, the indie sound displacement gets even trickier on the long-awaited forthcoming album, Long Enough To Leave, slated for release June 18 from Slumberland Records. Their record release show for Long Enough To Leave is June 14 at San Francisco's Rickshaw Stop.
Grab a listen to Princess Century 's single “Giving It Away” written, produced and mixed by Austra/Trusts' Maya Postepski. Creating a more compact and mechanical version of her percussion from Austra and terrains sparser than Trust; the attitude is adrift, and aloof and artier than a hundred No New York comparisons. With minimalist album art made by Maya to match the rich international translating synth pop and big hearted vocals, her album Lossless is slated for release on April 29 with mastering by Psapp’s Carim Clasmann at his Fishtank Studio.
For more of Princess Century's electro-contempo dabblings check out her Soundcloud as well as the Vic Cheong directed video for Postepski's “Giving It Away”, styled by Sojourner-Truth Parsons and filmed at Big Slice Warehouse #9, in Zurich, Switzerland.
Also check out the Princess Century video for “Twin House” directed by Kate Young, and Leah Finkel, from her forthcoming debut album Lossless that gives strobed flashes of synth-induced moods of dark evening times with a panic run for the ghostly imaged sand and shores of wondrous mysteries.
Paul White's “Street Lights ft. Danny Brown” gets switched up with the Dabrye remix. Heralding from Ann Arbor, near Danny's hometown of Detroit, he puts on an industrial and Ghostly-esque edge with dance horns that ring out like samples cut from split second portions of the Skype call tone.
Samuel Hill presents The Everywheres, from Halifax, Nova Scotia, bringing us the drifter dreams of “Someone Disappeared”. Samuel Hill enters the audio frame like a garage weary troubadour into a desert dusted saloon as the guitars twang and rattle with sidewinder sung progressions. The debut self-titled album from The Everywheres drops June 25 from Father/Daughter Records.
LA's Ryder Bach is the creative front of Body Parts who releases the Matt Sobel directed video for his A-side single, “Rest While You Sleep” available now b/w “Perfect Water” from New Professor. Boasting that no green screens were used in the making of Ryder's visionary quest to the benefits of soundful rest; film locales from Death Valley, Santa Cruz, and Venice Beach all provide back drops for interpretive dances to match the song's resounding inspirationals.
Pusha T dropped the cut for the ballers, who, like T, can put them “Numbers On The Boards” that is produced by none other than Mr. Kanye West and DJ Don Cannon. While elements of the production might have you miffed as Kardashian's beaux bro gets experimental with can kicking and clinking sample distortions amid dusted up boasts.
Cobalt Cranes released their debut LP Head In The Clouds on their imprint Anticc Records this week and shared the single “Salvation”. The center core Kate Betuel and Tim Foley jump off their 2010 EP debut In Media Rez for pursuing the 90s dream-garage-dream whilst purusing through the plastic jewel cases not zipped up in Case Logic hatchback ready binders.
Meet Brooklyn's Gondola who make music for get away spaces on urban rooftops. Having just released their 4 song self-titled 7″ EP, they present the perfect epitaph for 2013's closing of spring while ringing in the new season of mellow smiles and sun. Opener “We Are the Map” is the initial call to “let's get lost”, throwing the compass off further with the au naturel whirling tornado of sound with “Lazy Limbs”, hymns for the hopeful but broke with “Liberty Flats”, to the epic and fitting closer “Decoy” that moves with an organ driven rhythm and a sleep-talking gentility. Practically a full-length whittled into a 7″, Gondola's self-titled is available now from Bandcamp.
Hooded Fang keeps the garage resurrection erect on the title track's necromancing full energy off the forthcoming Gravez LP available May 27 in the UK and May 28 in the States from Full Time Hobby.
Peep Tripwires getting gaze-y with their performance of “Catherine, I Feel Sick” live in London this past February 2013, filmed and edited by George & Louise Nindi. Their release Spacehopper will be available June 18 from Frenchkiss Records.
As the third and final from the Todo Muere series, The Men share “B-Minor” in a high energy fashion that speeds up punk jangles with power pop surf chorus waves but shreds. I mean seriously, really shreds. You can find this leftover wonder on Todo Muere Vol. 3 available April 20 from Sacred Bones as of the celebration that is Record Store Day in small batches of 1000 pressings. Catch them on their national tour in effect now through June 29 where it will conclude at the NYC 4 Knots Festival, South Street Seaport.
White Prism drops the single, “Play Me, I'm Yours” from their self-titled EP out April 23 featuring Australia by NYC's Johanna Cranitch playing it super cool over icier key-programmed presets and beats.
King Tuff's reissue of Was Dead will be pushed back to May 28 from Burger Records due to the following difficulties, direct from the desk of King Tuff:
“Unfortunately the release date for the Was Dead reissue has been pushed back due to problems at the manufacturing plant. Employees at the plant were found with their clothes torn off and twigs in their hair, listening to 'Dancing On You' and performing primitive love rituals instead of making records. Sorry for the delay.”
So forgive the Tuff, and look for him near you on dates running from now through August and get another listen to “Dancing On You”.
Hear the first track from JJUUJJUU's album FRST with “Ancient's Future” that includes visuals from Harrison Roberts and camera work courtesy of Ryan Clark, shot on location in White Sands, New Mexico. FRST is available now on 45RPM white vinyl from Beyond Beyond is Beyond Records and JJUUJJUU is slated to perform at both the Moon Block Party: Desert Daze Festival and Austin Psych Fest.
The Pastels announce their performance at Brookyn's Chickfactor 21 Festival June 13 and lend a listen to “Check My Heart”. The Pastels' new album Slow Summits will be available May 28 from Domino Records. Even if you Buffalo Exchanged your anorak sweater collection months or years back; welcome back Glasgow's patron saints of indie/twee everything as Stephen Pastel and Katrina Mitchell interweave their vocals like braids of hair gently kneaded, like golden grains of bread.
Legs drop their single “Go Ask Your Mother” ahead of their modern sound celebration Pass the Ringo drops April 23 on Loglady Records. Jeffrey Harland vocals along with co-conspirator Matt Bullimore having a jangle-a-thon journey through indie rock's free spirited back pages.
Danish quartet Pinkunoizu dropped “Tin Can Valley” that brings the industrious alleyways to the vast countryside from their forthcoming Second Amendment EP, available June 5 from Full Time Hobby with limited edition 12” heavyweight vinyl available from Manchester UK imprint, Everybody’s Stalking. Riffing from the constitutional amendment 'right of the people to keep and bear arms', their 7-minute desperado drone chugger is a fraction of what lead songwriter Andreas Pallisgaard describes a full length that consists of; “…clouds of gunpowder, men on horses, frantic ideas of property rights on a deserted barren continent, weary attempts at defining cultural structures and personal freedom. In fact, this whole notion of freedom that is seen discussed so much in recent years in the world media, is a theme that runs throughout our EP as an ambiguous thread running along various colorful excursions.”
From SL Jones' Trapper's Delight, Jonesy ruminates questions of whether or not wearing religious iconography for secular purposes is blasphemous, or all the intended word play fun you can have with the world 'sacrilegious' on the Aditya Pamidi video for “Sack Religious”.
Silkworm's long out-of-print Libertine album from 1994 dropping June 11 from Comedy Minus One. Get into the what Steve Albini called a 'great album', that also includes the supplementary The Marco Collins Sessions disc.
The new rad ass Radical Dads album Rapid Reality drops May 21 on Uninhabitable Mansions, and we have the equally rad Katie Armstrong animated video for the title track that splashes action moments and water colors in time and tune to Brooklyn's rad rocking trio.
Listen to Woods cover The Kinks' “God's Children” as a B-side to the new Woods 7″ due this July on their imprint Woodsist. Catch Woods on a massive summer tour spanning from May through August. The Be All Be Easy single and cover is a farewell to Wood's recording-live-in-refuge Rear House that has served them well for over a decade. But for now, get pastoral, and get biblical.
Spread the word from the front and backyard lazer-tag friends that Freeze-Tag's Eskimo EP is available now, giving new soundtracks for the new activities and holidays yet to be taken.
“Zombies” are everywhere these-a-days, and they have also caught Portland's Radiation City who have titled their second single from that same phemenon off their forthcoming Animals in the Median album, dropping May 14 from Tender Loving Empire. As their sound throws the classic pop cadences from yesterdays into a blender; Radiation City's free-wheeling-march-to-the beat of their own spontaneity and musical beauty is the reason they have conquered the Western coast shores and are now poised to take on the rest of the world.
Coma Cinema dropped the single “Satan Made A Mansion” from the forthcoming Posthumous Release out June 11 on CD and LP from Fork & Spoon Records with Orchid Tapes dropping the cassette. Mat Cothran presents the many places his project has evolved to from his humble Spartanburg, SC beginnings that saw the releases of Baby Prayers, Stoned Alone, and Blue Suicide where he now delivers poppier empathies for those houses of the unholy one that Cothran describes as vacuous vessels, “for love to live when it dies”.
Enter the “Eurozone” with Shine 2009's first single that follows up 2011's Realism with word of their album Our Nation coming out this Fall from Cascine. Helsinki duo Sami Suova & Mikko Pykäri comment on the financial profiteering amid samples of operatic vocal outpouring and perfect Euro drum programming that keeps the house influences vibrant and new. Like a collision of falling systems, opportunistic games while rising up with smirking excitement amid the dust and rubble with the “let's make profit, let's do it” confidence surrounded by the abounding monetary preoccupations and situations of myriad possibilities. “I know you love money, just like me, let's make it happen once again, yeah”. Like the storming of the winter palaces for a Finnish spring uprising.
Philadelphia's Nightlands, the project from The War On Drugs' bassist Dave Hartley, dropped the video for “Born to Love” off the Secretly Canadian Oak Island album. The She Policeman video is made from footage of Mr. Hartley having silver-ish make-up applied and from some 6 hours of footage he took with a home VHS camcorder and later edited and reassembled. Catch Dave on the road in the States/Canada from late May through June.
Julian Lynch brings the Sarah Kinlaw-directed video for “Gloves” from the Underwater Peoples record Lines available now. Like a dancing ritual to a red-eyed Velveteen Rabbit or a surrealistic Donnie Darko nightmare; you may be spirited, very afraid, or maybe a bit of both.
Following up their 2011 EPThe Lucky 7, Eddie B. & Harry Fraud dropped their collaborative free Horsepower EP dropped this week via DatPiff that features some of your favorite bros like Action Bronson, Meyhem Lauren, Adrian Lau, Apathy, Maffew Ragazino, Shabaam Sahdeeq, and a few other guest stars.
Download the Horsepower EP here.
(photo by Brian Chan)
Teen Daze released The House On The Mountain EP this week, bringing “Hidden”, “Eagles Above”, “Classical Guitar”, and “Morning House” into your very own home. Recorded over the month of this past March, Jamison describes the inspirations brought about by the gorgeous gifts Spring gives on the side of Sumas Mountaain, in Abbotsford, British Columbia:
“Inspired by the overwhelming beauty of the changing of the seasons outside, and a big empty house with lots of kitchen ware that has been dying to be sampled, I pieced together these tracks over a few weeks. The final piece of the puzzle, and one of the most unique to any Teen Daze recording, is the guitar playing. I would spend the day putting together the beat, and after a morning in the kitchen, I would ask my roommate David (also the bass/guitar player for the live Teen Daze band you'll be seeing later this year) to just improvise over-top of the beat. I'd sample his playing, and a quick mix later, we had a song. Then we'd usually go eat pizza and talk about video games. I'm lucky to have such a talented friend, and I'm sure this won't be the last collaboration you'll hear between us”.
Little Boots' “Broken Record” Hackman remix is a brilliant slice of contemporary house revisionism where Victoria Hesketh's voice become a synthesizer instrumental programmed setting in her own right. Little Boots' new album Nocturnes is produced by DFA's Time Goldsworthy and drops May 7.
Cloud Boat presents the single “Hammerspace” B-side from the Yourthern single en route from Apollo Records May 20. The London duo of Sam Ricketts and Tom Clarke wrote and recorded the hammer mallet beats with an air hushed and wooshed ambiance that recalls tube tunnels and those private drifting spaces of the heart's sanctuary.
Because we couldn't resist a track dedicated to the end of the week, get your weekend officially started with the single “Friday Nights” from a song writing collab between Viceroy and French Horn Rebellion. Catch them at the Brooklyn Bowl Party Ensemble Residency with our friend JD Samson, Jody Watley, Nancy Whang, and more April 19, April 26, May 3 and May 10.
Check out the Ty Olson video of wayward beachside vistas, abandoned pill box trysts and triangles for Postiljonen's “Supreme”, available now through Hybris.
Tone Of Arc, formerly titled Dead Seal, dropped the title track “The Time Was Right” from the upcoming full-length this May 13 off !K7 cousin, No. 19 Music. Derrick Boyd and Zoe Presnick make some funky based out bass electro culture where the bass lines and synths slap like caramel syrup poured over the sampler decks.
BeatauCue dropped the electro-mental banger title track “Lyrel” ahead of the EP's April 15 release from Kitsuné. Be listening for this cut from the Caen, France duo at the forthcoming Kitsuné music curated New Guantanomo party at Coachella. Should be quite the sweltering banger.
As a way of paying tribute to his hero Jill Scott, Baltimore's Substantial dropped the mixtape project Jackin' Jill that reworks and remixes of her work blended by DJ Jav from a variety of Scott's releases. A labor of love that Sub began working on after preventive cancer surgery back in 2011, he spins Jill's spirits into new samples, new heights and newer rhythm kicks. Listen here, courtesy of the Mello Music Group.
Provo, Utah's Polytype sent out their new “Cyclone” of synth enabled sounds, where vocals and keyboards spin in a twister of sound and foreboding feelings. Like an NOAA National Weather Service doppler radar warning of weather extremities; Polytype's musical tornado is one worth getting wrapped up in, warranting further repeated listens. Their album debut Basic//Complex dropped last February and the band will be making the tour rounds in promotion this Summer. Listen and watch their Bandcamp for further incoming details.
SIGILS, aka Felix Herrera, dropped the single “Equinox” of warm, bubbling seasonal ambiance and sustained tones of frequency. SIGILS' Transverse EP will be available April 30 from Track Number Records.
San Francisco synth and sentimentalist Jayson Martinovich is 8th Grader, who gushes out “Diamonds, Silver and Gold” pop toned and radio ready emotions with some synth choices of interest. Taken from Jayson's self-titled debut EP, look for Martinovich further stirring the growing up nostalgia-trend at a series of West Coast shows this Spring and Summer.
SISU give you an outreach of guitar to synth ratios of heart stretched vocals with “Two Thousand Hands” from their Light Eyes EP available April 23 on Mono Prism Records.
Seattle, Washington's Alexandra Niedzialkowski and Lance Umble are Cumulus who make their own kind of indie 'cloud rock' with their new single “Do You Remember” from their upcoming album, I Never Meant It To Be Like This available May 21 via Bandcamp. Amid the guitar passions, reflections stirs feelings of fragility as Alexandra virtually stares you in the eye through your speakers when she asks, “…remember when young meant invincible?” For those that can remember the carefree and indestructible days of yore we applaud you, and for the rest of us you have our commiseration.
(photo by Jonathan Hyde)
Watch Doldrums‘ “Lost in Everyone” video directed by Angus Borsos and frontman Airick Woodhead where a wandering, K-like dystopian figure runs around and gets lost anywhere, everywhere, and as the song suggests; most everyone. Woodhead's track alone conjures electric current orchestrated movements, where the shifts and changes in tone and feeling occur through the series of bending, rising and falling sustains and scratchy percussion sequences. Welcome to the next level, as the Doldrums album Lesser Evil is out now from Arbutus Records stateside and in the EU through Souterrain Transmissions.
Way Yes will release their debut full-length Tog Pebbles May 7 from Lefse, where Glenn, Travis, Maxwell and Timothy encourage your wellbeing in the uplifting modern day revival, “Get Healed” that does just that. “I want to see you get healed, I want to see you laugh again, I will even pray again, just to see you get healed”. And even if that spirit felt sincerity fails to get you on one knee doing a Tebow; then the surrounding animal sound ambiance and soul guiding chant sustains might just take you there on their own natural accord.
Like the Everlies taking the Songs Our Daddy Taught Us appraoch on their historic second album, Dawn McCarthy and Bonnie 'Prince' Billy cover their favorite Everly Brothers classics from “What Am I Living For” to “Somebody Help Me” on their recent Drag City collab album What the Brothers Sang. Get a look behind the scenes and hear how Bonnie and Dawn transform the brothers' Americana rock dynamics into new brews with a behind the scenes look, followed by July through August tour dates.
Dawn McCarthy and Bonnie 'Prince' Billy Tour dates:
July
17 at Vagabond Blues, Palmer, AK
18 at Tap Root, Anchorage, AK
20 at Dawson City Music Festival Dawson, YT, Canada
21 at Dawson City Music Festival, Dawson, YT, Canada
25 at Trinosophes- Detroit, MI
28 at Newport Folk Festival, Newport, RI
29 at Town Hall- New York, NY
30 at Union Transfer, Philadelphia, PA
31 at Sixth & I Historic Synagogue, Washington, DC
August
3 at The Southgate House Revival, Newport KY
Our buddies Lightouts dropped the Jordana Che Toback directed video for “See Clear” from their new album WANT, in conjunction with tonight's record release show at Brooklyn's Union Hall. Bathed in a lights of gold and filmed in oppulent locales, the Gowanus dudes surround themselves with classic early twentieth century styled beauties gazing and grooving cleared eye for the passion power rock that wants it all.
Get a gander at Hanni El Khatib's Yours Tru.ly sesh with “Nobody Move” from the Head In the Dirt album available April 30 from Innovative Leisure.
Tape Deck Mountain's Travis Trevisan drops his self-made red washed video for “Kellies” that blends performance footage with vintage film finds to the fuzzy timings of his synth and drum loops, and creative on screen karaoke-esque lettering. Tape Deck Mountain's Slow Salvation EP saw stateside from Lefse Records and in the EU from the DIY imprint, Mouca Records, with the 7″ inch available here.
Young Hunting followed up their single “Maze” with “Baby's First Steps” that rises from the LA city of endless freeways in the spirit of rebirth, new beginnings, and taking brand new first steps. Their debut album Hazel comes out June 11 from Gold Robot Records.
Ahead of L'Ami du Peuple's release July 2 from Polyvinyl Records; Owen dropped the boot, scoot and shuffler, “Bad Blood” that has Mike Kinsella showcasing off his eclectic learnings from Cap'n Jazz, American Football, Joan of Arc, Make Believe, Ghosts and Vodka, Love of Everything, and Owls with this latest listen.
LA's Kisses brought an unofficial remix of The Embassy's “Everything I Ever Wanted” to the party, the closing cut from the Swedish musical ambassadors' recent pop LP sensation, Sweet Sensation, self-released via International. It's the sound of the proto-90s Balearic dance pop getting sun burned on a summer day on the Sunset Strip. Also in the works, Kisses' second album, Kids in LA comes out May 14 from Cascine.
David Grubbs' new album The Plain Where the Palace Stood comes out April 16 from Drag City, and we got a celebratory video with a 3 headed guitar attack from Paris with love where Grubbs joins Nina Canal and Rhys Chatham as part of the “From No Wave to Post-Rock: New York – Chicago” at the Ecole Nationale Supériore d'Architecture. The three combine powers of droning hums of guitar that could reverse the flow of the Seine, sending the murky waters East of the Allegheny River instead of west.
Bay Area archivist label operators over at Superior Viaduct are reissuing The Sleepers' Seventh World EP and 7″s from The Urinals for Record Store Day, April 20. Relive or hear for the first time the performances from cult legend Ricky Williams of Crime, Flipper, Toiling Midgets, etc that helped put an SF punk badge on a global ripped denim jacket. Check the Viaduct for Record Store Day release info and listen here for the following preview exclusives.
The Sleepers classic lineup of Ricky Williams, Michael Belfer, Paul Draper and Tim Mooney giving you the spirit of Northern California rebellion in 1978. It's the sound of listening to punk morph into many directions, senses and styles before your very ears.
The Urinals o.g. lineup of John Talley-Jones, Kjehl Johansen, and Kevin Barrett are virtually the forebearers for much of today's DIY aesthetic and sound as proven from their self-titled, the Another EP, and the Sex/Go Away Girl EP. Listen as the much covered singles like“Dead Flowers,” “Hologram,” and “Last Days Of Man On Earth” sound as fresh today or tomorrow as they did in the angstier late 70s.
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