Florida on shdwply records

Just found out about this release from a Volcanic Tongue email. As soon as they mentioned Gary War I had to put on his full length and track down Shdwply records. Turns out Shdwply is based in VA and Florida is right in my backyard! That sentence doesn't make sense. In fact they are playing Sept 18th at Zebulon.
I have been searching all morning to see if Gary War had anything to do with this other than being on the same label, someone correct me but, he had nothing to do with this release as far as I can tell. He has played with them on at least one song on their myspace, but I don't think it's on this single. Oh well.
From what I'm hearing on their myspace it's coming off like a somber bedroom 4 track project. Like Kurt Vile, I wonder how this is going to be reinterpreted live. They can be two separate things, but at the same time like with Blank Dogs, you aren't going to hear the record. Can that be good? Sure. It's very different. If you have to hear everything by someone, and I do at least once, then by all means, check it out. The vibe is going to be very different when this goes on tour. It has to be.
Sometimes it's acoustic guitar with warbly phasered vocals, a little stream of consciousness beck, or like real estate, huge sounding, a little bit stoner 70's psyche. Lots of slurring layers of chorus vocals. They stay pretty clean, it's thankfully not attempting to join the no-fi club of impenetrable songwriting. It is however a part of the weird punk whatever which is getting bigger by the day also.
It's taking it's time to deliver, and I'm into that, like Gary War Raytheonport, it grew on me and puts me in a good mood, just by quietly convincing me in the background.

I found a video for Icarus one of the tracks on this single. This verse makes me think of some of the weirdo later Jason Lowenstein experiments I was never really into. Vocal heavy, the chorus is a nice change of melody against the opening. It really picks up in an epic way towards the end with a touch of creepy. It's a weird combination of an almost uplifting satanic hymn.

I'm in it for the 3D glasses...email Matt, he's got a few left.

Shdwply says:

Out on August 1st 2009

3D cover with glasses.
Limited to only 300 hand numbered copies.

Pre-order is available:
Paypal: $6.00
FREE SHIPPING IN U.S.A.
Contact: mattdbeck (at) gmail

Volcanic Tongue said:
Fantastic all-analog recording with Gary War at the helm from this new Florida-based Shdwply signing. The A side has a heavy massed-vocal west coast 60s psych feel, with a track that might have turned up on the first Quicksilver Messenger Service LP rendered in the perfect underwater production style of Gary War. The flip might be even better, a dark downer folk ballad that combines the kinda haunted chorale style of Jakob Olausson with a doomier biker/eschatological private press feel that peaks in martial drumming and sad arcs of wailing twin guitar that you kinda wish would go on forever. Shdwply have the most authentic modern umbilical to the heart of 60s psych and this might well be one of their most plugged in blats yet. Could really do with an album from these guys but this hand-numbered edition of 300 7” complete with classy 3D glasses more than plugs the gap. Can’t stop spinning it. Highly recommended.

Podcast Episode 58 with special guest Ryan

My friend Ryan came over to listen to some singles and shoot the shit. We play Woven Bones from the Hozac singles club and the Wavves single from Young Turks and guess what?
We start talking about video games, thanks Nathan.
Episode 58 - 17min

Then I let Ryan hold my Oscar.

Phil and the Osophers on Factual Fabrications Records

Lucky from Factual Fabrications contacted me about giving this Phil and the Osophers release a listen. Turns out the 100 or so copies they pressed are sold out, but maybe any interest would convince them into a repress. God knows most of the cash pressing 100 of these went to the masters and setup fee's. Give them a reason to go for in for the whole 300 this time.
Factual also just released the full length from Phil and the O's on CD or red and blue cassette... nice. They have quite a few releases behind them actually, and I'm having trouble finding any remnants of where this originally was available...

There's a lot of room to breathe in these tracks, but that's no surprise since they recorded a lot of the tracks from the full length with a mic and garageband at home for their bassist to rehearse to.
Oh, garageband, how many seven inches have started with you.

A-Side: Uses of a Man...there's a great effortless haphazard quality to both of these tracks that gets me on their side right away. They're endearingly loose, with catchy changes every other measure. It even feels like it must have been an early version of the song. It hasn't been played to death and over rehearsed. Not that I'm hoping they perfect anything with no room noise, and cut and pasted performances. That's what's making this great, the honest, home recorded quality. I'm convinced with those self imposed limitations it always leads to a more exciting, immediate sound everytime.
This track really goes a bunch of different places, with drastic tempo changes, stuttered single note melodies and layered slightly distorted vocals. There's a weird haunting quality to the verse, the melody is completely not connected to anything happening musically, it's pretty unique, but they're making it sound way to easy at the same time. It's deceptively simple, I think maybe a little laid back, but when you get in and examine these pieces, there's a lot of great songwriting that isn't so everyday and either takes lots of work or (and dammit if this is true) just comes to you everytime you sit down at the microphone. I can't decide which.
B-Side: 'Cheap Livin'
Ok,... I wrote down Talking Heads somewhere on a piece of paper listening to this and it had to be while on this side. That exact guitar tone and staccato delivery...almost reggae, based in that sound, but at this point having as much to do with that new wave/punk? kind of late 70's sound. High treble brief bursts of chords.
It's also definitely due to Phil's vocals here, the inflections ending in high falsetto questions...very David Byrne, and not just 'Once in a Lifetime' either. A young sounding demo session Byrne. Smart lyrics, that I'm just barely catching in the 10th listen or so. I have to say the name was a sticking point, but they've won me over....not unlike Nodzzz. No sense name, but then I wouldn't want them trying to hard, it would be a completely different animal.

Good, honest, down home, not country, clever, not overdone, tunes.

Sorry, it's is totally sold out from Factual Fabrications records and Phil's myspace, but they have a live show on BTR you can check out, or contact them and demand a repress...or get the full length....or see then at Union Hall in Brooklyn Sept 9th. It's up to you. Or go read other blogs in your newsfeed....bastard.

Young Widows - Bonnie Prince Billy split on Temporary Residence Records

While on my Young Widows kick, I remembered this first release in the series, the split with Bonnie 'Prince' Billy and pulled it out of the 'to review' pile.
This is another great split colored vinyl...almost clear on one side with white streaks and bright green on the other. I love this, and thinking that these were $4 on the site, they are not making any money on this series, just getting a beautiful piece out to fans of the people on these splits and maybe making new ones of Young Widows.
The Young Widows track is 'King of the Back Burners', nice title, very Don Cab. I'm really liking this one, it's very shellac sounding to me, lots of room noise, really clean, gated, separated sounds. The same guitar bursts, the crunchy bass hits right along with the kick. It's all recorded great, I love this huge really detailed sound. It's inherently loud, but still has all these nice subtleties. Vocally it's even a little more shellac-esque, not so macho yelling. The whole thing builds to a stutter finish...Another plus.
I'm going to check out the other two after this, My Disco and Melt-Banana, just to see how these Young Widows tracks play out.
The Bonnie 'Prince' side has Will singing with someone else not listed in the liner notes, and I think a keyboard bassline, it's pretty minimal, could be an electric bass preset or something. It's typical Will at first, mostly vocal melody driven. I wonder if he starts every song as an a capella version and fills in the guitar. He's successfully reached a perfect balance of staying under the radar and not being overexposed or having tracks end up on the next Garden State soundtrack, while releasing more music than is nearly humanly possible. He's a machine. There's really nothing I don't like, certain songs don't hit me right away but I'll want to hear them more eventually.
Surprisingly there's some electronics here, some kind of moog or early synth and I don't know what era I'm in all of a sudden. I can't get over how he continues to do these really surprising things for having the amount of material already behind him. When he comes in over the entire instrumentation with a booming monotone voice: 'Souls / in a moment of sharing / look back' really loud while he's quietly singing the same lines underneath in that call and response way.
Then just as the song is winding down, it comes back stronger with wailing voices taking over in a final chorus. I don't know how he keeps doing it.

Completely sold out at the source but Discogs has a couple available for sale from members...they look like they are all UK based, but it's something.
And it also looks like Insound still has it also.

Young Widows - Pelican Split on Temporary Residence Records

Got the last two in this set from Temporary Residence recently and finally got around to listening to this one yesterday. Young Widows have some powerful friends....I haven't heard of these guys before this and they've teamed up with some heavy hitters on these splits from Temporary Residence.
First of all TR, put together a nice release here, each quarter face of this puzzle, which is art in the style of The Young Widows latest and it's printed with high gloss ink on the matte black sleeve, which you can't exactly tell from inside the shrink wrap. Then the vinyl itself is split light yellow and dark red. I wasn't expecting these details and that always makes a split like this even cooler.

The Young Widows track 'Mid-Western starts with a far off feedback guitar until lots of slow booming toms come in. I really like where this is going with the distorted guitar strums come in. They're playing with the stop start huge drum massive sound, but and I'm sorry to say, the vocals just kill this for me. It's the throat yelling...I couldn't get past it with Isis either. When it comes to metal, the only thing I can really get into is the instrumental. I don't know why.. the vocals just pigeonhole it too much for me, it places it in too much of a particular time and place.

I haven't heard the recent Pelican releases like the split with These Arms are Snakes and Ephemeral yet so I can't really compare this track 'Inch Above Sand' except to City of Echoes...this immediately sounds optimistic, hitting those higher distortion harmonics, that are just slightly dirtier than the huge bass lows that they get into on tracks. They keep repeating this high scale melody that goes low and then it all stops for the drums to take over, and it all quiets down...it pauses for a minute and then rocks the melody all over again with solos over it. It's kind of taking both the catchier melodic and sub bass doom in this last part...according to Hydrahead this track is going to be on the new album, but leave it to those guys that this is a demo version, or the one of the full length will be in a different key. To be fair the track listing says 'An Inch Above Sand', so this could be an abbreviated version....

2000 copies and then it's gone forever. Vinyl collective it seems, still has some copies.

Superchunk - Crossed Wires on Merge

Doug Mosurock wrote a great history of Merge on their 20th anniversary...how they've managed to succeed for so long, the history behind starting up the label, how Superchunk recognized something special about their Chapel Hill scene...everything, really amazing. Check out the subsequent articles in indyweek.com.
The label is insanely impressive... I just noticed this single from Superchunk in an email from Merge and decided to give them a listen.
I missed them in my indie rock high school education apparently, I don't think I ever came across these guys and it's impossible to give them a objective shot at this point...it sounds pretty hard rocking, guitar dueling with crunchy rhythms. I'm sure they inspired a million bands, it rocks pretty hard and would be perfect loud.
The vocals sound a little dated ...over-emo vocals, but they're back after 8 years, and I don't think anything on their myspace is from their upcoming release. It will be interesting to see how this evolved in the last 8 years. It's not really my thing but I totally respect what they did with the label and their band. There's a lesson to be learned from bands these days on how to make the most of your talent and not whore it all away.
Anyway, their new single is on Merge of course and the download coupon includes both tracks and a demo version, another good move...

Locrian - interview -

Photo: Kelly Rix

André and Terence from the band Locrian played Public Assembly, July 5th as part of A Show No Mercy Pitchfork Metal curated show with Anal Cunt, Fuck the Facts, Gwynbleidd and Copremesis. We had been emailing back and forth about getting together for an interview after the show to talk for a minute, after they sent me a few of their singles months back. It was dark, plodding, really heavy.

There's always that little bit of doubt in the back of your mind when the music is so menacing that you could be meeting in alley with a couple of maniacs, but of course they ended up being really nice couple of super nice guys who have an insane amount of music knowledge, and they even passed up some karaoke to talk with me the day after the 4th of July.

7Inches: So did you guys come from a visual arts or more of a musical background?

Terence: It's kind of both, when we were younger we both played in bands. Both of us had a big interest in prog and metal when we were young and I think hardcore in the 90's was kind of like the one place you could maybe not be a guitar genius or have lots of money for good equipment and get away with it and play some kind of metal. But we went to school for really weird stuff. André has a masters in anthropology and I have an bachelors in religion and philosophy and an then I got an MFA. We met through a mutual friend going to school at the Art Institute (of Chicago). And he was like the only guy there who was not ironically into metal and hardcore.

7Inches: So you met in Chicago while going to school?

André: Yea I went to the University of Chicago.

7Inches: Did you start right out playing this experimental ambient metal or has it evolved?

Terence: That friend that I went to school with was in a band with André. I'm in a band with my wife, and we were looking for a cellist, Kelly (André's wife) plays the cello so we were talking to her and then André came and he plays a thousand instruments so we started the band as a 4 piece and then an opportunity arose. Andre and I always talked bout Hardcore and Heavy Metal, Brian Eno and Robert Fripp, all this stuff we really liked and we wanted to try something more aggressive then the quartet.

7Inches: So Locrian existed as a kind of string quartet in the beginning?

André: No, that was Unlucky Atlas, my old metal band was offered a show I couldn't do it. I was like 'I kind of want to do this show', I felt like I wanted to play music out more, I was finished with my grad school, so I asked Terence, 'You want to do an noise thing?' A week before I saw this band Number None play at the Empty Bottle and I was really impressed. They were like a drone duo and I thought we could do some noisier kind of stuff. We just didn't really think about it much and then we were like oh shit we gotta think of a name for this project and Kelly said 'Oh you should call it Locrian', so that was it, sounds good. So we played this show and we thought maybe people are going to hate this. Basically we got paid in these huge drinks, so we were both kind of wasted. We had like a cymbal that Terence brought and some people in the audience ended up playing it and that turned into our first recording 'Setting Yr. Jetta on fire' which actually turned out pretty well for only playing together for a week.

Terence: But then when we played with Bloodyminded for the first time, Mark Solotroff was always really encouraging, he kind of got it, what we were trying to do.

André: He used to play in this band, Intrinsic Action, which were a really seminal kind of early power electronics group, he used to live in NY for a while, he worked at Bleeker Bobs.

Terence: He has really broad taste, we played this show with him, cause I was a fan of Bloody Minded and what Mark was doing with his label... he was putting out like a lot of the stuff out of Michigan like Charlie Draheim and a lot of the Wolf Eyes guys solo projects. I saw the connection between the noise I was into and power electronics and all that stuff so we thought, 'Lets play with him', from there he's always put us on good shows and released our seven inch and just put out an LP for us. That's the 7" you reviewed actually. The Plague journal 7".

Photo:Lenny Gilmore

7Inches: You guys played at Lucky Chengs last night, the drag cabaret bar in the east village, how did that go?

Terence: It was awesome, we had a great time, it was a good turnout, interesting bill. Lussuria was like dark ambient, Sleep Museum is on the same label, BloodLust!, we were just excited to play with them, we asked to have them play and Robert was great. Sean from Martial Canterel came out.

André: Alan Dubin came out from Khanate he's a super nice dude.

Terence: It was great, really fun, really low key, crazy atmosphere.

André: People apparently wanted an encore...and we were like really?

Terence: We never had that before.

André: I don't think you want an encore. We played and then we were like oh shit...

Terence: It was good, we were going to do that set tonight but I'm happy we did the set we did.

André: We had like a more metal set, kind of like the second track on Drenched Lands, but then we were said 'Let's just do what we're doing now, maybe we'll get heckled.'

7Inches: I loved the visual aspect of the show, it was unexpected and definitely adds to the overwhelming sound having that haze from the smoke machines and candles everywhere.

Terence: Yea I don't think we're that interesting to look at, so you've got to obscure it somehow.

Photo: Lenny Gilmore

7Inches: So how did you end up on this bill?

Terence: We had a booking agent, she kind of started the conversation and we were just followed up.

André: Originally it was supposed to be with Gnaw, Alan Dubin from Khanate, his new band. We said 'Hey Alan we'd love to play this show', because I guess it was up to him. He liked it, but he didn't end up playing tonight unfortunately.

Terence: They ended up going on tour or something...

André: Brandon apparently has a bunch of friends that are my friends

Terence: He knows Peter Sotos and Philip Best from Consumer Electronics.

André: We went to the same college and he knows a lot of my friends and we apparently didn't know each other. Buffalo's really not that big for us to not know each other....

Terence: But he kind of had similar interests in metal and noise so he kind of knew where we were coming from and put together a fucking weird bill.

André: The same really dynamic bands...Similar to our Lucky Cheng’s show because really every group was different from each other.

7Inches: It's interesting to see all these bands together, exposing people to maybe some new stuff they wouldn't otherwise hear, including you guys, in the mix. What's your process for writing your material?

Terence: Playing live...the transitions, we know the sections, the four sections, so we know where the next movement is going to be, we don't know when...we kind of look at each other and we kind of feel, 'Alright he's moving into this other part and then I'll bring this down'. It's very intuitive, it can suck if we intuit incorrectly, or if we have weird equipment fuckups which happen quite a bit especially on my end.

7Inches: Yea, you guys have a lot of equipment piled around the stage.

Terence: I use a lot of analog stuff that loves to not work some days.

7Inches: Did I see a reel to reel?

Terence: Yea I use a reel to reel.

7Inches: What's on the tape?

Terence: It's some synth sounds but it has this nice tone that I can bring in and out and then adjust this other tone to make it sound like static or this weird tremelo and I'm running it thought this amp that kind of overdrives it. It's got this nice visceral quality.

André: It's got this nice warm tone that you can only get from analog.

Terence: And I use a four track so that has like 4 other sounds running.

7Inches: I think that's the great thing with that hands on analog approach is the performance part is better as opposed to the guy-with-a-laptop.

Terence: Yea, you have to be paying attention to what's happening, I mean obviously laptops can crap out and cause a lot of issues, but the analog stuff you have to be very sensitive. We've played a lot of shows where we show up and something doesn't work and we have to go and figure that out. Suddenly a tape doesn't work or a synth is not wanting to tune...

Photo: Lenny Gilmore

7Inches: So did you already have the tracks you were going to put on the Bloodlust single recorded? Did you record them specifically for that release because of the limitations in length with the format?

Terence: We had played it before live, it was something that we would talk about, we knew we had the Plague Journals side, and then I think the more we improvised the B-Side we used the studio more, I used like an oscillator I found there.

André: I used like a space echo which was this big analog tape delay. The first track we developed right before we played a show at the MCA in Chicago, it was a drone series that Terence organized because he was an artist in the 12x12 series and he did a video of Sunn O))). He had a drone series where Lichens who is Rob Lowe who's played in the 90 day men, and TV on the Radio collaborator, played. Bird Show played who are Town and Country, bunch of stuff. White Light played, our good friend Jeremy Lemos’ band.

Terence: He recorded the 7" actually, he's working for Sonic Youth right now, he does all their monitors I guess.

7Inches: I was wondering about the recording process, if you are involved with the mastering side? Where do you go after the basic track is recorded?

Terence: Most labels don't care how it gets done. I mean it's kind of on you, if you can do it yourself it's cool, you know if it sounds what they think is quality. We love working with Jeremy, we just actually collaborated with him cause when we recorded with him he also recorded Unlucky Atlas, we always feel like he's kind of a member of the band, he's pretty honest.

André: He'll tell you if something sucks.

Terence: Yea, which we really appreciate. And then he'll also be like why don't you try it through this speaker and this amp or try this pedal?

André: He has a lot of ideas.

Terence: We like that.

André: The next time we do a full length we'd love to do it with Jeremy, because he knows where we're coming from

7Inches: So do you guys have vinyl collections of your own?

Terence: I do

7Inches: Is that what led you to release this on the 7" format? I noticed you have cassettes..., all kinds of formats.

Terence: I think that there's just...If you know the hardcore background, punk scene you always bought vinyl. My dad gave me his record collection, so I have this crazy record collection. I love the 7" and LP. The artwork is beautiful, it should be, this engaging thing. And with vinyl you can do so much with the format, you can do colored vinyl, locked grooves...all this interesting stuff. I think in our day and age a CD is just how you transfer something to your computer, very few CD's are objects you engage with, you know spend time with. We try though, like with the Drenched Lands CD it's like an interesting object, it comes in this nice packaging. And we love the 3" too, it's very obsolete media.

André: You have to have this certain type of....you have to think about when you want to play it. Although I guess you can just rip it to your computer and put it on your Ipod. Every format has its own interesting peculiarities, like with the 7", we like that because you actually have to take it out, put that on the record player and put the needle down and then flip it over, it's only like 6 minutes long, so you have to engage with that to a certain extent. It makes whoever is listening to that feel less alienated from what we're playing...of course they're only 300 so...

7Inches: There's the limited idea of this artifact and for me also and that I have music ADD, I can only pay attention sometimes for one song at a time...I noticed the split with Katchmare sleeve is printed really nice, offset, embossed with metallic inks...did you have anything to do with that?

Terence: That was Nick who does Katchmare. “Plague Journal” was part of the series that Bloodlust does, it was a private 7" series...there actually was a shortage of white vinyl, so he stopped the series. I think he did one or two more after ours. It's great, it has Aaron Dilloway, Prurient, Charlie Draheim...

André: Red Rot, all these people we really respect.

7Inches: And you were a part of that series. That's great.

Terence: Yea we were really honored to be a part of it.

7Inches: You have more dates coming up?

Terence: Tomorrow's DC, Richmond is Tuesday.

André: We're playing a really eclectic set for that too, i think Geologist from Animal Collective is playing. Then Our Brother the Native and Religious Girls.

Terence: and Teething Veils, Greg's band, our friend. When we play DC we always play with this guy Greg Svitil, he has this band called the Antiques, Teething veils is his solo project is really tripped out, reverbed, slow acoustic guitars.

André: Really pretty. It's at the Velvet Lounge

Terence: Then we're in Richmond at Nara Sushi

André: they got this guy Wrnlrd to play, a rare appearance, he doesn't play out much at all. So we're excited about that.

Terence: Baltimore with The New flesh...really raw nasty rock, they're cool they run this label, they put out a solo tape of mine. I saw them in Chicago and they were phenomenal.

7Inches: What’s your solo project?

Terence: T. Hannum, then we play Philly. That's going to be interesting, We play with T.O.M.B., this black metal band called Woe, God Willing and Panther Modern, then we're in Pittsburg with Requiem, then Columbus, and that's where begin the rest of the tour with the Human Quena Orchestra.

André: They're from San Francisco, really dark...industrial, metallic with some kind of screaming

Terence: Bleak, it's heavy. They're kind of like old hardcore guys too, they were in this band Creation is Crucifiction, we're pretty excited. They're pretty left wing, with their politics. It's nice to have a band we can agree with on a lot of stuff. Then it's Dayton, OH with Envenomist.

André: And then we end it in Chicago at the Empty Bottle with Human Quena Orchestra,and then our friend Mark Solotroff from Bloodyminded, his brand new project called Anatomy of Habit, which we don't know what its going to sound like. Mark's actually singing instead of being crazy-shirts-off-screaming and scaring people and then its got two guys who were in his old band Animal Law, playing with one guy who plays drums; Dylan Posa, he was in the Flying Luttenbachers and Cheer Accident and this other guy who’s going to play metal percussion.

Terence: Blake, he does Vertonen, like a synth noise band.

André: Then the other guy is from Plague Bringer which is like a grind metal band. I don't think its going to sound like any of their projects it's going to be good.

Terence: Their old band sounded like Bodychoke, or like Swans, early swans, really slow plodding, heavy, intense, I love that stuff so I always excited to play with those guys.

7Inches: The lighting seems like an important element, how has that worked at different venues so far? You guys have your own smoke machine?

Terence: ...and candles and incense. Sometimes at a small venue it works really well because we can fill the space, no one can see us, we're all backlit.

André: I guess ideally, I don't know what we look like from the front but we were hoping to just be silhouettes.

Terence: We've only been doing that like a little while, before that we're just like two nerdy dudes with pedals. Then I saw this video of Neu! and I was like 'They have smoke machines! Sunn O))) doesn't own this shit!”

Photo: Scott Kaplan

They definitely don't...I'm so glad these guys got me into their particular drone experimental metal, they put on a great show, go catch them if they come around.

They mentioned a bunch of releases, LP's cassettes, solo projects, all of which can be found on their blog.

The Feelies preorder from Insound

Insound has been taking it upon themselves to rerelease classic essential vinyl singles. The Ramones, The Replacements...I'm all for this idea that these things deserve to be put out again into the world at the standard 7" single price. Like I've said before I don't need to have the original pressing, I just want the experience of being able to put that single on the record player and try to for a minute think about what it would be like to come home from preschool with this under my arm and put it on the Fisher Price turntable after hearing only god knows what in 1979.
The Feelies were one of those bands that now is on everyone's mind and playlists. They definitely started something that keeps popping up in everyone's conciousness and instrumentation. It's jerky, clean, new wave, before it was probably defined. The bottom line is you have to know about these guys, like the New York Dolls, or Slint, they are a touchstone band that changed lives. Raised Eyebrows is great, and for a B-Side? Amazing, one of my favorites.

More importantly these versions on this single are different from the album versions, so that makes this pretty much essential.

This is the original cover and not the Insound one, which is a little different.

THIS ITEM IS A PRE-ORDER. WE EXPECT IT TO SHIP ON OR BEFORE THE OCTOBER 8TH RELEASE DATE.

INSOUND EXCLUSIVE 7" REISSUE! BACK IN PRINT FOR THE FIRST TIME IN THIRTY YEARS! LIMITED!

VINYL FORMAT. The Feelies debut 7" - originally released October 8, 1979 on Rough Trade - is finally available again! A little-known gem, this single came out before the release of their first album Crazy Rhythms, but was quickly buried beneath the ensuing onslaught of Feelies fan fervor. Now you can hear it again in its original integrity, as it was always meant to be heard! Featuring the two tracks from the original single: "Fa Ce-La" b/w "Raised Eyebrows". Not to be missed! A must have for any Feelies fan.

Did we mention Insound is THE ONLY place this 7" will be available?

Intelligence on raw deluxe records

I picked this up at Ameoba, SF, because I hadn't really seen it anywhere else, I figured I must have missed it from all the distro email lists. Turns out it's still available I found it at Insound, so get it from there or your local shop maybe has one left.
The Finest Kiss blog has a lot more intelligent (ha) things to say about them then I do, so go read his damn fine summary of the band. I was just hearing a lot of noise about their Fake Surfers LP and this single, so I knew I needed to just check them out, and of course this single would be the perfect starting point, needless to say I have since picked up the full length, and the wounded Lion cover out of nowhere really threw me, how did I know these lyrics?
Basically Lars from A-Frames started this project which has since been picked up by In the Red awho released their 'Fake Surfers' which I've been playing a lot lately. In the way I liked the Times New Viing full length, which I still feel is the definitive sound for that moment in time, good or bad, it's what I think was a turning point, some kind of logical conclusion of sound, etc. It's just not something I can put on and work around. It demands all my attention, I mean... I can't even read when that thing is on. I'm torn, I never want to listen to it for that reason, it's a really selfish record.
Fake Surfers will definitely have more longevity for me because they are actually focused on a melody and creating something that isn't an experiment in testing some kind of low-fi hypothesis. This sound is primarily interested in having a good time. Maybe if that's your starting place, and I can hear that, then immediately I'm on your side and cut it a lot of slack.
Fake Surfers is the catchy punk of Nodzzz and the fidelity of Times New Viking, with a lot more acoustic guitars. I think they have a restraint in the writing and recording, minimal at times that reminds me how the simplest things can be the best some times. Maybe it's out of confidence maybe it's the approach, but it's relateable.

'Reading and Writing about Partying' has the fidelity of sandpaper. Starts out with a little nod to surf reverb guitar, just some picking until the main melody takes over. There's a great low end to the guitars that really rumbles, it's a live recorded sound I love immediately. The melody that starts up cut through everything.
Nice breakdown parts that just consist of the kick drum, holding back for a minute until the just plain weird melody starts up again. Is it the joke about intellectualizing partying? Then constructing a great party sng about that. Oh, it's working on all kinds of levels.

'Like (x7)' works with this repeated strong guitar line kind of a scale up and down, punctuated with cymbal crashes. All crunchy guitar, and blown out vocals repeating like like like like like like like all the way to the end where higher guitar harmonies crank it all up to an insane finish.

I'm a little late to catching on, but I'm liking this enough to go track down their first two full lengths.

Intelligence - Reading And Writing About Partying 7" (Raw Deluxe)
Raw Deluxe is pleased as punch to bring you the latest vinyl offering from Seattle's INTELLIGENCE, the pop-assault cluster fronted by dude-wonder LARS FINBERG. The swirl of "Reading" offers an until-now uncharted foray by Finberg and Co. into what can only be described as the carnivalesque. "Like" is, like, totally ridiculous: a powerful stomper with air-tight guitar work, recalling the choicest moments off "Icky Baby.".

Jack Rose/Kurt Vile/U.S. Girls/Meg Baird-Meet The Philly Elite 7” on Kraak records

This sounds like a pretty amazing 4 way split from Kraak, a label based out of Belgium, apparently they had these four over for a festival and talked them into releasing all exclusive stuff to this single. Kurt Vile, alright, can't wait to hear what weirdo thing he's comitted to wax, U.S. Girls, more super weirdo punk and Jack Rose, can't get enought of his instrumental Fahey influence acoustic. I don't know Meg Baird, but she's from Philly, hence the comp name and must be equally interesting. Can't wait for this one.
I'm also just realizing that they are all from Philly...crazy, way to go PA.

So far I've seen this at Scratch records and Fusetron, kraak is sold out already and the other US distro link they have on their site wasn't working for me.

Kraak says:
Meet The Philly Elite | 7inch
MEG BAIRD/U.S. GIRLS/KURT VILE/JACK ROSE
KRAAK loves Philadelphia. In recent years Marshall Allen, Bardo Pond, Espers, Clockcleaner, Fern Knight and many other artists climbed the KRAAK stage. With some of them we developed a modern internet relationship. As if we were young lovers we decided to fly over to their side of the water for an evening of cheese steaks, Rocky Balboa and live music. On 6th July 2009 KRAAK set up a show at Kung Fu Necktie. The Flemish Primitives met the Philly Elite: Jack Rose, Meg Baird, Kurt Vile and U.S. Girls. To celebrate our love we also pressed this very awesome 7" with four exclusive tracks!
Master finger picker JACK ROSE is the mastodont of Philadelphia. His mix of drone infused raags, bluegrass and acoustic folk is as sweet as a crate of Saison Dupont. "mr. Rose visits Washington D.C" is a live improvisation from the first solo tour Jack did with Six Organs of Admittance and Fürsaxa. It's a raw piece dating from before his debut album.

KURT VILE's hit singles were the big surprise of the most recent Kraak festival. Classic American road pop and nineties melancholia. The dude likes his Duvel cold. "I Wanted Everything" is an amazing new song in the melodic Vile tradition, containing the lyrical one liner of the year "I ain't never going to go to work no more".

U.S. GIRLS is Megan Remy. With a reel-to-reel tapedeck, some delay and distorted vocals she became the Philadelphian queen of ultra lo-fi pop music. Sounds like tunnelvision Kinks after serious car accident caused by too much Orval. With "A day at the races" she delivers the shortest but most mind frying track on this 4-way split.

We never had MEG BAIRD solo on stage here, but we did admire her when she came around with her psych folk friends of Espers. On her own she's pretty much digging in the same zone: sixties folk, traditionals, hippy love and tea OD. "Wave crashed on rocks" is a cover of British eighties rock unit Felt.

Columbus Discount Recordings Year Two!

Wow, just got news of this a few days ago, I guess everyone who's ordered in the past gets first crack at another year, another series.
I have to say CDR has been completely amazing, after finally getting two of the three Down in the ground releases 9 months later, CDR didn't have a delay the entire year....and with color vinyl no less! They really have their shit together, it was an amazing lineup of stuff that isn't going to be out anywhere else.
It makes getting the mail exciting again...every couple of months, holy shit, this is why I still go outside.
Pink reason, El Jesus De Magico, TV Ghost, Little Claw, Dan Melchior, and the Cheater Slicks (Just got this yesterday) with a bunch of other stuff I needed to know about. You better believe I'm going through these now. It's impossible to keep up with, I still haven't listened to my last batch. I wished I gave these serious attention the first year, hopefully this one will give me a chance to talk about these.
I guess I just feel a little bad because once it's sold out, is there any point in telling everyone how great the El Jesus De Magic is?
I'm rubbing it in your face!
Oh well.... get in the CDR train.
I swear of Hozac has a year two, I'm going to have to put off that operation for grandma.

Oh, speaking of semi-funny lists of things, here's the list of records (in no particular order) you'll get if you subscribe!

Bassholes
Electric Bunnies
Deathly Fighter
Tyvek
Dead Clodettes
Outer Spacist
Hue Blanc's Joyless Ones
Cheveu
Puffy Areolas
Jakob Olausson
Necropolis
Harrisburg Players, Vol. 2

Oh, and one of those records (we ain't sayin' which) is gonna be a 12" single instead of a 7" and there could always be more spooktacular surprises in store.** This time, there will be a total of 400 subscriptions available and the first record will ship in October, the month after CDRSCY1! is complete.

Next year, we will offer a credit card. The year after that, we'll just be a bank and not put out records anymore. The year after that, we hope to be beheaded in the Great American Cultural Revolution.

Summersteps Records interview Pt 2

Here's my continued conversation with Eric Schlittler from Summersteps.
We talk about another one of his recent releases, the Suetta LP. Turns out in high school someone was listening to the same things I was...Sonic Youth, Unwound, except unlike me they were actually good and 10 years later they commited it to vinyl. Thurston and Byron even wrote it up in Bull Tongue. High school self vindicated!
We nerd out about lost underground records like Bob Trimble, Gary Higgins, the stuff on Mississippi records, Flea market finds, giving away music for free, and vinyl as art(ifact).

Vinyl is back!
Like you need one more place telling you that piece of breaking news.

He has an amazing passion for the label and releasing great music, really great guy. I appreciate it so much he could take a minute and talk to me about his label.

Here it is, Part 2 of my conversation with Eric at Summersteps. MP3 20min.

Peasant -The End- on Paper Garden records

I met Bryan from Paper Garden records at a Bowerbirds show at Mercury Lounge a few months ago, randomly we started talking out on the sidewalk. Turns out he releases records and I write about them.... so it kind of worked out. He told me about a 7" from a band called Peasant that they were putting out soon, and I got this email the other day about the Peasant 7" preorder.

'The End' features Damien DeRose playing an acoustic guitar. It's a quick strummed acoustic track that ranges from really quiet chords barely touching the strings to strumming as hard as possible. I'm getting all kinds of indie folk heartbreakers references....Elliott Smith, Jose Gonzalez, Ben Gibbard....he has that same vulnerability and emotion. Not to mention lyrically:
Are you alone / tonight?
Are you alone / every night?
Forget it.... track one, side one, of bummer mixtapes everywhere are being created as you read this.
At first I was thinking he's got that high falsetto of Elliott, but it's not... he's strong vocally even at these high registers, more like the James Mercer of the Shins. The produced, album version of The End messes a little with the vocal quality...it sounds a little like it's run through a tin can, it's a little flat, like he's singing in a tiny metal box, crawling through an air conditioning duct. This only adds to the sadness of course. Complete this with backup harmony vocals, little quiet ah's in the background, and an egg shaker, and you'd think you'd have the soundtrack for any breakup scene ever. But that's the thing with anyone who attempts this, it's never that easy, to walk that line between heartfelt and just underwhelming overemotional.

The B-Side 'Thinking' is a fuller sounding piano based track that slowly keeps building, measure by measure. Full of back and forth vocals and harmonies with himself. Slightly more uplifting, but there's an inherent sadness to the feel of everything Damien lays down to tape I'm afraid.

The knock out punch however, comes with the Daytrotter Session version of The End. When he starts straining to get the vocals out instead of the hushed, intimate introspective narrative voice, I'm getting the opposite feel here. It's more emotional, in an angry way....now I'm thinking this person deserves to be on their own a little bit. It's a different animal all together.

Paper Garden records is accepting preorders for this single that will be released September 1st. Peasant also happens to be playing Monkeytown here in Brooklyn August 20th, I'm going to go check that out.

“The End” is near! Currently adding the final touches to the 2010 album, “Shady Retreat”, Peasant is giving us a sneak peak of what is to come with a brand new single entitled “The End”. Alongside another breathtaking new track, “Thinking”, and Daytrotter’s live session version of “The End”, Peasant has compiled a charming appetizer to tide us over for the coming months – available as a limited edition 7” vinyl and digitally throughout the U.S. on September 1st.

Lay all over it - Never too fat to fly on Laboratory Standard

I saw that Jason Ajemian is playing a couple of places in Brooklyn this week. Tomorrow, Aug 13th @ Tea Lounge and Aug 14th @ Zebulon.
I saw one of Jason's performances a while back where he conducted an orchestra playing Black Sabbath 'Into the Void' backwards. His brother 'performed' the lyrics backwards as a percussion section broken up into individual pieces of the drum kit attempted to play crashes, high hats and snare sounds backwards. Completely bizarre and amazing. I was blown away by the concept and hearing it being performed live was really one of those special moments where you have to appreciate NY a little more than you did already.
I highly recommend picking this 10" up, in fact I'm amazed that Sun Magi still has this available to order. Although now that I look at it it may just be the Mp3's.


Jason has a lot of projects going on, the list of active bands he's a part of on his website is out of control. I ws browsing his discography when I noticed this single from Laboratory Standard records, and I thought I actually might have it already. I placed an order with them a long time ago and literally just found it in an old box of singles. I knew I remembered that sleeve for some reason.
Apparently both sides of this single originated as a single story/song from his Uncle, and have been reinterpreted by Jason with two different approaches on two sides. It's all delivered by Jason in this jazz sing song spoken word style.
On Side A of 'Never too fat to fly' a saxaphone minimally randomly bleets, an upright bass gets bowed, and a far off snare is played with brushes. It's that kind of beats free jazz where everyone sounds improvised, but this kind of thing has to be rehearsed...it's too chaotic. I'm still trying to piece together the narrative of the story on both sides. There's a lot of great lines, I just wonder if I'm missing out on the bigger punchline. I keep getting drawn away by the music.
The B-Side has two different beats that work together in different channels in headphones. It's not echoed, they are two separate old school breakdown beats.
It's pretty amazing on this release there was this interesting starting point for the music. Another layer to just an improvised jazz session. There's a long an interesting history to the original as well. I like it working on all those levels.

He's making me think this morning and my brain is overheating.

Asked to make a single for Labratory Standard, LayAllOverIt took Ajemain’s uncle, Michael Ajemian’s song Never Too Fat to Fly and did two versions. One spectral and floating in a
soft doppler effect. And the other side, locks into 2 overlapped back beats. Each side holds half the story dictated in Uncle Mike’s original.

Available from Laboratory Standard or Sund Magi

The crash that took me on PIAPTK

This was another single I added on to my order because I saw the earlies mentioned. I got a single from them a while back, a picture disc, and I was into it, very shoegazy...so I thought I'd try this out.
Mike emailed me right before I left to go to the west coast about coming to NY with some band he knew playing some shows. So I went to Olympia and he came to NY. Ridiculous. Oh well, I just have to go back. I didn't do much in Olympia, I tried to stop by where KRS was supposed to be, but it just looked like an abandoned warehouse. There were a lot of pickup trucks with gun racks...I didn't stick around very long.

Idol records, in Dallas, TX along with PIAPTK co-released this single from The crash that took me ...they have a pretty huge polished sound, on the three tracks here. They describe themselves as pop art rock. It's impeccibly produced...it's crafted for the airwaves and this huge sound.
The first track Purple Clouds sounds really close to what I imagine The Posies, or the Stone Roses would sound like today, that English pop 90's sound. Maybe it has to do mostly with the vocals, Dylan Silvers sounds like Bono practically...that really emotional singing style, everything he says, no matter how he says it sounds good in that super rock way.
The next track Peppermint Orange Flowers (is that like Strawberry Alarm Clock?) is sounding like the Swirlies or the Lilys a bit, sped up, big sounding, minor chords, lots of distortion built up in layers, higher layered vocals, I'm leaning towards this sound a little more than the first track. This leads to 'Into Nothing', this is a slow one, weird vocal effects, violins.
It sounds like they have their work cut out for them recreating this huge sound with a lot of elements and members if they are planning on touring...good luck guys.

It's all on a weird army olive green vinyl, thanks to People in a Position to know.

The Crash That Took Me: Unreleased Songs from the Orchestrated Kaleidoscope Sessions 7". - $5
3 unreleased songs from Dallas "all-star" band The Crash That Took Me, comprised of members of Black Tie Dynasty, [DARYL], MacCavity, The Earlies, etc. Mastered at some studio in England called Abbey Road.

Songs: Purple Clouds, Peppermint Orange Flowers, and Into Nothing.

Wand/Golden Boots Split 7" on People in a Position to Know

Just ordered this and a couple other things from Mike at PIAPTK last week and was listening to them this weekend. The sleeve and vinyl are great, as usual, there's actually two different versions of this screen printed on blue or three color screen on white, you can see both of those on my classy sheet covered/cat barf protected couch. The vinyl itself is a kind of swirled black and pink....more pink than black.

Wand of Wooden wand and the vanishing voice or James Toth has two tracks on the A-Side of this single. His catalog is a little overwhelming, having multiple aliases and recording with all kinds of artists and thus changing the band name slightly on a million labels makes it like some kind of crazy treasure hunt to track everything down. He's got at least 3 myspace pages. It's got to be confusing even for him at some point keeping up with answering friend requests, posting songs. So this is a 'solo' release, hence the Wand.
The first track 'Dirty penny', makes me feel better about taking the obsessive time to track down a good amp and speakers because the deep bassline here is really pushing the low end around. Even at 33 1/3, this single is sounding great, they didn't loose anything in the mix at all. James has a slightly country, slightly folk sound, some other stuff I've heard reminded me of Mark Lanegan, not his signature baritone vocals so much, but stylistically. It's dark country, it's classic, really well constructed...the kind of thing that you can hear the painstaking years of paying homage to the years of singer songwriter tradition before him. 'I'm afraid of little girls', this not only has a great acoustic strummed melody but lyrically this is where James nails it. It's that Johnny Cash story song about the things that don't scare him, except for little girls. Timeless writing like 'I'm not going near the hurricane in a dress', for me he's getting into Townes Van Zandt territory. The kind of thing that doesn't matter what category you try to out it in explaining to someone. It has an instant credibility. I'm looking for credits to see if this is a cover or something just to make sure. But this is the kind of writing that makes his whole body of work stand out. He does more than just attempt to make a go of it with practically traditional country, but it sounds like he's succeeding.

The B-Side features Arizona's Golden Boots. I can't think of another band I've heard recently from Arizona, so right away I'm reading all kinds of guitar, harmonica with some things into the sound, picturing the desert cactus, and miles of sky. It's a great match with Wand, there's a classic country influenced sound but reinterpreted, like Calexico. In 'Passers by (Penelope)' there's lots of harmonies, slow reverbthermin or synth at the end for that anti-folk kick. It sounds like they are playing with that country folk expectation a little bit. Just when the direction sounds all planned out, it goes somewhere else.
The second track 'A nothing', speeds things up a bit, with a lot more electronics, high pitch squeaks, weird percussion sounds, definitely some synth...it's a little Flaming Lips to me. The melody is pitch wheel shifted through a great organ sound. It's even Magnetic Fields in it's future cowboy sound. Alien sounds coming together in a country two step way...they've got that weird combination sewn up nicely here.

For the ultimate in low-fi sound, PIAPTK has this mp3 of one of their tracks cut into a plastic picnic plate.

Wand/Golden Boots Split 7" - A great new split 7" from two of my favorite bands! Tennessee's James Jackson "Wooden "Wand"" Toth and Arizona's Golden Boots. Each artist has two songs, Wand's "Dirty Penny" and "I'm Afraid of Little Girls" and Golden Boots "Passersby" and "A Nothing". Will be on colored vinyl. Preorders get mp3s early!

Get it from PIAPTK...the label is currently on vacation, but they'll ship everything at the end of the month.