Mathemagic / Young Prisms split on Atelier Ciseaux Records

Just got word about another great split on Atelier Ciseaux...I'm just about able to spell that without copying and pasting from their website by now. After that Jeans Wilder / Best Coast split, AC decided to make this a regular occurrence, and this single is the second single in this series...two bands I haven't come across anywhere else so far, but are both serving up ethereal electronic shoegaze from across two continents, Mathemagic heavily serving up hall size echo and Young Prisms setting a candlelit scene in Better Off Dead with saxophone.

Mathemagic, 'Breaststroke' on the A-Side has that strong sampled delay sound of Ducktails, the staple foundation of a ringing, bell-ish percussion reverbed into a new sound. That kind of repetition tricks your brain into near ignoring it after the first minute...and there's a lot of other elements finding their way to the surface, fighting for attention, but this essential delayed glass harmonica sound can simultaneously be just there and better than everything else.
Heavy chorus on the vocals give it that dreamy shoegaze sound, with drawn out syllables, it's an exercise in the longest sentiment ever. Sort of Beach Fossils and Ducktails met on the beach and keep passing each other, checking each other out. They might meet, but they're both there for the weekend, so they don't get serious but they think about each other....a lot.

Young Prisms' track 'These Daze', could be related to Crystal Stilts, that attack on a specific laid back reverb...loving a particular pedal setting and never letting go...or it's going back to the Psychedelic Furs, or Lush... Blur...it's got that super slow dance feel, the vocals are right exactly in the middle of the mix, but that goes for everything...it's all on a level playing field, all of the sounds taking their time to fade away...and you know what? I just realized there's no drums on this track. How is that even possible?

MATHEMAGIC // YOUNG PRISMS split 7"

A or B Mathemagic : Breaststroke

B or Young Prisms : These Daze

Climbing over a wire fence. Lying down at the bottom of a pool. Empty. Picturing the waves. On old-fashioned tiles.

The Jeans Wilder/Best Coast split 7'' was just an introduction, a magical one. This new record is out/will be available on August 24th. On one side, MATHEMAGIC, children of the wave, Toronto's beaches. On the other (side), the wild YOUNG PRISMS, from San Francisco, who've already released several magnetic tracks on Mexican Summer and Transparent.

A retro sunset printed on a sleeveless shirt. The sound of the ocean on cassette tape. Two contemporary ripples of a dark and/or bright shoegaze.

"These Daze" is a previously unreleased song. And "Breaststroke" was only available - until now - as a digital download via Paper Bag Records.

From the French label that I wish would open a branch office in Brooklyn, Atelier Ciseaux. Using google translation that means, try the usual mailorder distros, fusetron, SS etc.

Soccer Mom - Self Released

Soccer Mom contacted me about a single they just released from my second favorite city, Boston. Home to Mission of Burma and the Pixies, Boston seems to historically nurture some truly original bands. It may have something to do with the art schools, the east coast, the self marginalization of it's residents...they are outsiders to whatever popular scene is happening anywhere else. They aren't swayed by any trends, being brought up outside of them, and no one there cares about any of that bullshit. It's tempered by that physical distance from NY or Providence, they're free to make their own independent scene and be supported locally by an audience.
That's the one thing that sucks about local radio going by the wayside in most cases, they would be championing a band like this...could Mission of Burma have done it without the kind of local support they got from radio, clubs etc? I think they would have stopped paying live or releasing anything. The older you get the more pointless it seems.

A dissonant quiet distortion fades in on the Don Cab titled A-Side, 'Bill Cosby in Glamorous Chains'. Chords come in with lots of effects, a slightly Dinosaur Jr. sounding guitar melody, and layers of distortion going My Bloody Valentine even...I'm gong to have to reference a solid combination of the '90s, a couple parts shoegaze, one part jangle electric, one part alienated loner dirty fuckup sound. They ended up in the same sonic place as *Film School, referencing that era, and continuing a lot of those threads....and like Blood on the Wall they're paying as much homage as probably creating something they've been wanting to listen to in the first place. That's always a great direction, and Boston's lack of limelight might have something to do with that... blindly going where no one else is attempting to go.
Except Olympia's, Broken Water who ended up in nearly the same shoegaze-revisted, experimental guitar direction. The drums are massive, the vocals are buried in that layered way, the guitar sustained forever....I'm glad to hear this sound come back, sure I'm nostalgic for it but the guitar is still the best. I swear there's some synth sound in here, but the liner notes say otherwise. It's got an earnestness that a first single inherently has, and this could be me projecting, but between the influences on their collective sleeves, and lack of a single 7" label, they are in it sincerely for kicks, and it shows.
What they have against Bill Cosby on the other hand, I'm not really sure.

The B-Side 'High on Dad', starts with a great bassline from Danielle Deveau, and yes, just like their "It's educational!' counterparts, it's a nice enough melody that lulls you a little into thinking you know where this track is headed. By the time the vocals come in it's utterly perfect timing, to hold back for this long, I have to commend that, it's a Slint nod for me to attempt this mix of instrumental song with an explosion of vocals that are at that point in the track, unexpected. The
the washes of distortion get completely overwhelming with a soundtrack feel.This is a great B-Side, a song that's so catchy and will be some kind of staple rare track, but not played much live.
Instead of the dream pop of *Film School, which quickly became derivative shoegaze, this has strong foundations of drone and distortion experiments. That's where this is going to stay relevant is building on this great foundation. But that's where it can also go wrong. To criticize Soccer Mom in saying we've been here before, and I just want to hear the original era bands is too easily writing them off...this sound is just as valid today, especially if you fondly remember the 'alternative' and watching 120 minutes for the 2 or 3 good videos with Dave Kendall.
Damn good.

Soccer Mom is a 4-piece band from Boston, Massachusetts that began years ago, on another coast, as the individual writing and recording project for Dan Parlin. Over the course of time, and through a variety of people and places, the band absorbed new members and evolved to its current physical manifestation, featuring Dan Parlin (guitar, vocals), Danielle Deveau (bass), David Kaplan (drums), and William Scales (guitar). The band aims to explore intimate connections between contrasting ideas, finding balance between melody and dischord, clean tones and chaotic feedback. They also just like to get together and make noise. The vocals are often sparse and help to quietly deconstruct conventional song structure. Influences include but are not limited to Sonic Youth, Swervedriver, Polvo, Jawbox, My Bloody Valentine ….

Contact these guys via their facebook, or website to get a copy of this...no label required.

The B-Side track, courtesy of Clickity Clickity Music blog:
Soccermom -- "High On Dad" by clicky clicky music blog


*=I'm only referring to the Film School who released a self titled album...the rest of their work is dead to me...and that goes for I Love You but I've chosen darkness....I've painfully come to the conclusion listening to your respective followup albums....it's not me guys...it's you.

Dimples on Mexican Summer

I remember my friend Travis buying an album from Dimples at the salvation army, based mostly on the sleeve, which was a suave African American gentleman in a yellow suit with dimples... and someone was pointing at them. It was the most ridiculous thing we'd ever seen. Was it a concept album? A kids record? You can't possibly take this guy seriously. I don't think I ever listened to it, but you had to buy it. 10 years later Richard 'Dimples' Fields is back! On Mexican Summer!

Dimples latest incarnation is a huge departure from early Dimples R&B, this sounds like a terrible LSD freakout in the desert, '60s...like Wounded Lion fronted by a drunk Jim Belushi, (is there any other kind?) or Make Up's Ian Svenonius. This guy has some god dam personality, the vocals are such a fantastic mess, it's one thing to have a psyche-influenced jam rock sound, but he would sound great over anything. He can pull of this laid back, almost lounge Motorhead sound...I just want to hear more. It's bluesy, even Silver Jews, full of messed up soul. They're taking the falling apart so seriously.
The lyrics are out of control...he's got to be the complete package to pull off this narrative on 'Professional Violence'...there's saxophones, kazoo's...it's classic sleaze rock. I'm so impressed they didn't add any effects on the vocals, but they know they don't need a god dam thing.

Then they went as far as to take back the Dimples name for christ sake...this makes perfect sense. They'll make you a believer.

Dimples presents a marrow-deep comprehension of rock’s most striking moves, strips them of their parts and leaves them up on blocks, as a warning. “I Can Feel You” chugs and chings through a nervy, slicked-down run through West Coast punk delinquency; “Heaven Blotted Regions” throws out the band and leaves Parme alone with a guitar and a drum machine, ripping out the sort of sleazy, Leisure Suit Larry-esque, yet highly personal ballad that sticks to the wall with effortless attitude. Two great goddamn songs.

From Mexican Summer....are they psychic?

Br'er / Hermit Thrushes split on Single Girl Married Girl Records

Br'er creates sprawling eclectic compositions that teeter between free form modern classical and eccentric pop. Someone who can put together cello, a warbling handsaw (played by Edible Onion's own Darian) and a harp gives you some idea of the mind able to conceive of these dense layered compositions. It recalls a romanticized dusty nostalgia of old black and white photographs in the attic, broken ancient machines from carnival side shows in the basement. You want to go look, it's probably the most interesting place you've ever been, but you wouldn't be surprised to find a part of a body under that drop cloth.

Br'er utilizes all kinds of production on 'Answer back Al', painstakingly recording live gong strikes to electronically chopping up a shaker to produce inhuman tempos, which changes constantly throughout the track, massive changes, abruptly stopping and having no relation to each other. It's completely scizophrenic, theatrical and impossible. It remains an organic experiment, there's a constant interplay between the sweet familiar sounds of classical instruments and the sometimes harsh machinery of alien sounds. To even be able to envision this, to plan for the recording process...I'm having a hard time wrapping my head around it.

'Endometriosis' is as complex as the medical condition... done with a haunting simplicity and gypsy rhythms of Beirut. Benedict's vocals remain a delicate element, an angelic Sufjan sounding soprano. The whole time spent building of an immense fragile song structure which then is shattered with the clatter of a washing machine?...I know it's in there somewhere.. All of this combined with the imagery of the sleeve and insert it breeds a kind of unsettling package. Half nightmare and half redemption. Benedict is an incredible talent you hear immediately the first 30 seconds, the range of emotion and single minded composition is insanely rare. Right alongside Xiu Xiu, creating a baffling, unique audio cabinet of curiosities.

Hermit Thrushes have a lot to live up to on their B-Side and they answer back with 'What happened to your hand'. It's an intricate acoustic guitar finger-picked oddity like Gastr del Sol's weirdo minimalism, the starts and stops, the untuned guitar bursts. This evolves into Firey Furnaces explosions of operatic rock, intricate outstretched narratives and moments of complete unharmony. Choruses of unusual vocals and instrumentation.
Bone and Shell, the next one (yes this is a 7") is deliberately scattered, carefully on the verge of collapse, ambient sounds of kids playing punctuated by bursts of metal, they're playing with everything here...it's an ensemble of like minded chaos and the results are overwhelming. I'm glad I can enter both of these worlds in small doses of 7 Inches because it feels like a full length.

Amazing sleeve art from Sam Heimer, it's a great overall collaboration, really well thought out...these three work together creating this accessible freak show.....a really crazy ride from both sides.

Available from Single Girl Married Girl Records or Edible Onion.

Roman Ruins Pastor/al on Gold Robot Records

I actually helped to fund this kickstarter project a while back and it was great to finally get it in the mail. Hunter (from Gold Robot) and Graham (Roman Ruins) collaborated with each other by Hunter sending Graham a painting based on his song and then graham writing a song based on a painting and then vice versa...on for a while I think...
You know Hunter should talk to Bravo about turning this into a 'Next great artist' type of show with teams of artists and musicians collaborating together, you'd have to narrow it down a bit to visual 2D artists maybe, illustrators or something, just to get rid of the weirdo conceptual sculpture. They would get 24 hrs to create an image and then the musicians would have 24 hrs to interpret the work and some jerk useless panel would decide which was the most successful...or have an audience vote, american idol style.

So what does that sleeve image have to do with the music? It looks like this lowly piece of wood is exploding, the layers of rigid technology are covering this natural organic form, and I think there's a lot of that idea going on with these two tracks.

The A-Side, 'Why Party?' is my question exactly. Why do we have to settle for the obvious booming rave track? Can't we have an intelligent slow jam like this? All clear, crisp production, with a nod to past decades, and a nearly Ariel Pink sound...and it sounds the best at 45. When you hear someone really almost showing off with the amount of production, it can be an amazing thing. I know he enjoyed the process of recording it as much as I'm into hearing the channel separation, the out of place sounds. It comes through on these two tracks, every possibility has been explored, all the variations have been worked out. Then there's elements like this organic live bass guitar sound that keep it grounded...they aren't just pressing buttons, the human element is always here, either triggering sounds or traditionally playing the instrument. It's the most successful type of heavily electronic music for me, the kind that isn't tied down to the technology...if it fits, it's in.
This track seems to get more atmospheric as it goes on, losing part of it's core melody..or just not relying on it as much, maybe giving in to a uncontrolled movement for a minute.

The B-Side, 'The Comedown', has a Magnetic Fields sound; the childlike choice of sounds, an unnatural rhythm with weird homemade elements. They always seemed to be pushing sounds like Graham here, always in support of the main composition.Graham is really conscious of creating an entire experience, it sounds impressively in the moment, with the sheer amount of sounds keeping the layers always surprising. That can be an exhausting experience, but there's always with an underpinning of a strong melody. How ever many crazy directions it's going, however ambient the nature of this track, it always involves a complex way of getting there.

You lucky bastards can actually purchase it as Hunter had some copies left over....you're welcome.

Artist: Roman Ruins
Title: PASTOR/AL
Format: 7-inch colored vinyl (opaque orange)
Run: 500
Cover Design: Hunter Mack
Release Date: July 6, 2010

Description:

This record is the result of a collaboration between Roman Ruins (Graham Hill) and the artist Hunter Mack. Originally launched as a Kickstarter project which financed this two-song 7" vinyl record along with a limited art print, it is now available to the general public.

Colossal Yes / The Good Fear on Gold Robot Records

Hunter from Gold Robot was kind enough to send me his latest single in what looks like the beginning of an ongoing split series pairing artists from different geographical regions together. These two, Colossal Yes and The Good Fear couldn't be further apart, from opposite sides of the country in fact.

The Colossal Yes , 'Backbiter Blues' includes member Utrillo Kushner, from Comets on Fire. The Colossal Yes is possibly a full time solo project at this point, it's been a while since CoF released a full length. I'm hearing a piano driven direction and his penchant for a massive epic narrative under the guise of this lazy country inspired number. According to the liner notes it was recorded with a single ribbon mic, and that's a feat in itself really, and it has to be the best way to record this kind of heartfelt blues country, that live feel just adds to the ambiance, if you don't already hear it, it just confirms they solidly can deliver a song. I have to respect abandoning all studio post work entirely, like that painful Will Oldham sound on Arise therefore, if you can pull it off, it really makes a huge difference. So many bands could benefit from this raw feel...then to press it on vinyl and really... you're there. I even get a Songs:Ohia feel on this one... maybe it's the sax solo in the middle, an elevated country style...there's more to them than the guitar twang. You're listening to talented guys in a room, getting live tones from an amp you would die for thinking everything should be recorded like this.

The Good Fear has a B-Side similar tempo track, 'Be Like Us'. Stripped down acoustic with Zack Holland's deep Mark Lannegan cigarette growl. A sustained Rhodes organ wails over barely a beat to keep it decidedly melancholy, but it's not long before they change tempo and flex the entire band into a huge sound, with Zack belting the chorus. I'm starting to second guess if this is even the same voice. That's where they go from somber alt-country to a conducted massive rock sound. In addition to the geographical separation, you've got two very different recording philosophies represented, The Colossal Yes shows off going for a pure sound in a live situation and the Good Fear gets up close and personal building layers of vocals and epic emotional highs with all the precision a multitrack can offer.
Two sides of similar blues country rock, offering entirely different acoustic experiences...both impressive.

Artists: Colossal Yes / The Good Fear
Title: Split Series Entry I
Format: 7-inch colored vinyl (Opaque Gray)
Run: 500
Front Photograph: Elise Irving
Back Photograph: Rett Peek
Inner Label Design: Leandro Castelao
Release Date: July 13, 2010

The first entry in Gold Robot's ongoing split series which pairs artists from different geographic regions together. Featured here are Colossal Yes (Oakland, California) and The Good Fear (Fayetteville, Arkansas). Artwork is provided by photographers from each region (Elise Irving from California, and Rett Peek from Arkansas).

Get it from Gold Robot Records.

Forest Swords on No Pain in Pop

I went on a bit of a Ducktails / Panda Bear kick this weekend. Off in the woods, you gravitate towards a calm soundtrack to not shatter the nature...but I've never heard Ducktails sound so sinister. In the city it reflects that kind of chaos of noise, it fits in, the mindset...but in the middle of silence, the sounds are so alien, so unnatural....I never thought of them that way before. That album turned on me. I had to turn it off...too creepy.
That's where Forest Swords is going for me this morning...it even uses that same reverb, twang guitar that Matt does, but adds those chorus-y panda bear style vocals, a tiny bit here and there. It tends to sound more dream-primitive then the kind of joy Person Pitch has inherently running throughout. The slower tempo of 'Rattling Cage' steers it into that modern psyche area, and in general it's just eerie. Working around Pocahaunted or Robedoor's sensibilities, with just a little more structure.

And it's import only from our friends across the pond at No Pain in Pop...harass the usual suspects...fusetron, etc.

After an acclaimed EP on Olde English Spelling Bee, Liverpool's Forest Swords returns with a strictly limited debut 7" on No Pain In Pop. Managing to mix Burial's sample strewn claustrophobia with a twisted r'n'b swing and organic swamp grooves, this is two tracks of perfectly executed skeletal pop.

Order includes 2 extra Forest Swords 320kps mp3s emailed upon dispatch.

Interview with ...Music Video?

I talked with the guys from ...Music Video? this week about the state of social networking, their music videos, evolving into a live electronic band and working with Fort Lowell Records on their latest single.

Download it here (30mb)..

Cult of Youth review in the forum

This Cult of Youth full length review is banished with the rest of the giant records to the forum. Go check it out, ...Music Video? interview coming later today....

Close your eyes EP on Chaffinch Records

Another one from the batch from Chaffinch Records, another 4-way split from various artists with connections to this nontraditional folk/indie label.

'This Side' starts out with a track from the Stevenson Ranch Davidians; Let it all go. It's a folky psychedelic track, heavy on production, it takes a lot of isolated recording gear to catch the huge group of players here. They're adding various drone wavery touches and meandering solos to their huge clean sound. The vocals are a Stone Roses vision of California, heavy on effects and creating that mellow jam out in the rehearsal space with tapestries hanging on the wall and candles burning. A safe kind of freakout with friends, holding hands. It's going to be OK.

'Birds of St Marks' is next from James William Hindle and Calvin Halladay, taking on the Jackson Brown song about Nico, (I think). Layering their vocals over picked acoustic and organ, it's a semi intimate affair. A pretty faithful tribute of the original stripping it down further and giving it that S&G harmonization without the hating each other part (I think).

'That side' is 'Molly May' from Rich Amino who I think is also Richard Anderson who lists mistakes among his contributions to this track, but the massive production on this one sounds otherwise, they are buried under the layers of vocals and full band sound. Mostly crafted together as this one man project, it's big band sort of English Hayden with stream of consciousness, folk vocals involving bumble bees.

'Your my lemonade' from Sancho is a cut up, experimental DJ sounding piece, with shakers, staccato bell sounds, all kinds of percussion which give it a sort of demented parade carnival feel. A massive array of instrumentation all chopped together sparingly. Xylophone, and electronics piecing together sliced apart rhythms. As the song progresses it seems to get progressively organic to complete deconstruction. It all into a low backwards sample and disappears off the A-Side.

It's a sampler of various directions the label has taken over the years, they're letting you know they aren't so tied to a particular genre that you ever know exactly what the next track is going to sound like.

Get it from Chaffinch, who is going to have to ship these from thousands of miles away. No one said loving singles was going to be easy.

Doug (still single) gives it a review here.

Kids of the Atomic Age on Unread Records

Christopher at Unread has been pressing singles and releasing cassettes for way longer than I've been seriously writing about singles. He has an extensive back catalog and keeps surprising me with releases from all kinds of bands... like this lathe cut from Kids of the Atomic Age, which Christopher was/is a member...I don't see him listed in the liner notes but I know he'll be joining them on a live tour soon enough, and hopefully they make it to Brooklyn.
The sleeve is silk screened art from Chris; a couple of kids coming together, drunk and singing with a messy typewriter font. It's super nostalgic...the whole thing could be from the late 90's and this was at the bottom of that pile...I guess it's timeless in that way.
This kind of one man 4-track project is always going to exist. It's not about the technology anymore, but the immediacy of capturing these really personal moments. It's a little voyeuristic, and anyone can relate to self doubt and substance abuse.
Then there's the elusive lathe cut...if there is anything more precious than a seven inch, it's the handcrafted lathe cut single. This one is not only clear but super thick, square on the edge even, and the needle can sometimes slide into the side of the groove somehow and give the whole thing an entirely different texture.
The A-Side 'Winter Nights', reminds me of the early home recorded stuff from John Davis, or Calvin Johnson, it's the late night, alone in the bedroom, barely able to lay the vocal track down. It's even Connor Oberst, so confessional and autobiographical in obscure lyric ways that I'm straining to hear, feeling a little bit bad spying on that couple out the back window, fighting in their apartment. I know their happy sometimes.
Slow tempo bassline with minimal drum machine, echo on a xylophone, with layered high earnest vocals... it's the kind of thing that takes courage, people are actually going to hear this after all...hell, you might even have to play with that macho garage punk band setting their cymbals on fire that just got off stage. It takes just as much balls to perform this sentiment.

The second track Pen Pal Antics, sounds a little more upbeat...it's starting a brand new day, throwing away a bad report card. The chorus of voices intermingles with the crackly imperfections and dropouts of the lathe cut, and you're sure just one more play through and it's going to disintegrate. It really adds to the whole mood of this piece. It's a fleeting document, loose diary pages blew off the windowsill and are out in the street.
The B-Side, 'There is no help for you': Bryon has that teenage quality to his voice, that Cap'n Jazz pure emotional delivery....or Sunny Day Real Estate when I wouldn't ever think that it's going to work, but then of course it does better than anything. It has to. There's no pretense to it, not trying to sound like anything else. He uses it to the best of anything on A collection of Songs recorded 1995-1997.
The instrumentation here is way off in the background, the focus is always on the vocals and the content, telling the sweetly pathetic story and from under the hiss of a handcut single, it's the reason seven inches are still great, how it reminds me of pawing through new Sebadoh and Palace singles and then you take a chance on that green sleeve, Needle in the Hay and it doesn't leave the turntable for days.
...and I don't even want to be in this place, crying into my beer. Like two people on the subway reading A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius and not even noticing each other. But it's too late, the kids can't help it.

Get it from Unread Records. If you're into the even more obscure cassette tape format, KOTAA and Chris have got some releases for you. If you this sounds good on 7", it has to get even better on the tiny reel to reel's.

the kids of the atomic age monkier was originally used for the collective songwriting output of a group of friends who randomly recorded sporadic nonsense in the drunken confines of one "members" parents basement. since the early 90s the name has been scrawled onto the labels of many a four track tape, but these days the "kid" has been "out there" and "doing it" with much more sincerity and gusto then the humble origins would have foretold. this new chapter finds bryon endocryn veering from the usual pop structure he has been traveling in over the past few years, as he gives forth three songs in heavy bass/keyboard mode. narry a guitar in sight...the result is honest, unwavering, and catchy as all hell. the new (old) twee? heartbreak and loss? brutal and uncompromising? you be the judge. limited to 50 hand cut lathe copies on clear vinyl, with stamped and silkscreened sleeve. this labor of love cost $10.

The Splinters on Southpaw Records

Southpaw's got another good one on the heels of the Shannon and the Clams and Bare Wires singles, I can paypal as fast as they can release them. Try me.
So here's a new single I had to check out from the Splinters, I think I noticed them coming up a lot in different searches...I even remembered really liking a youtube video they posted...not because it's a super inventive music video or anything, it's just the energy they had from just a backyard crappy show was great, and I reminisced about the promise of certain bands who lose that sincere first album excitement along the way and end up sounding too produced, too stiff, that it deviates too far from why I liked them in the first place. There's something missing the more a band like that records...why was the Vivian Girls, 'Everything goes wrong' album missing something? It was more than being fed up with the sound, because I gotta say freaking Beach House isn't that different when you start listening to the reverb echo soaked effects. I think they suffered from that second album disease where you're trying too damn hard?

'Blood on my hands' one of the tracks on this sounds like the Bangles, and I can't shake it... that slow 4-part harmony, and look at that sleeve! It probably was an old photo shoot from Electra...did they photoshop their faces? One of them should be wearing a pair of those giant prescription cokebottle glasses and I would understand the acid wash. I don't know if this is a sincere nod to th? The tracks are squeaky clean sounding, with raw electric, Matthew Melton at the studio controls gives the guitar that same pop punk un-effected sound. To hear this laid back harmony with no echo/ reverb effects on it? It's fucking shocking practically... Or you found some old Bangles 45's.
Jen Kelly from Dusted has a problem with their lyrical content...and I'd agree that between losing a lot of the energy from that live clip I saw, and this low key delivery ...I just don't know that content makes a song...ever, but it can certainly add to what's going on.
I do know I want to see them live...that always separates the OK from the great.

Get it from Southpaw Records.

On their debut SOUTHPAW release The Splinters show us they are perfecting their blend of 90’s grrl rock and mid – fi garage rock, while wearing their influences on their sleeves with their stellar Ian MacKaye and Carrie Brownstein influenced guitar work. Recorded by Bare Wires frontman Matthew Melton to give it that extra charm and authenticity that Melton is know for.

Press of 500

Holy Shit on Porous Records?

Holy Shit is right..... just read about this side project from an Aquarius email this weekend, and spent at least an hour trying to track it down....the Ariel Pink internet rabbit hole is huge, and I wasn't coming up with too many answers.
So far, Holy Shit is Ariel Pink and Matt Fishbeck, according to wikipedia they recorded a full length in '06, this could be the start of another full length project coming soon. He's a little unbelievable... the work ethic is pretty amazing...I've only just found out about his collaboration with the Vas Deferens Organization and then the re-release of FF on Gloriette records?!!! I don't know how he keeps track, let alone fans...none of this is in all one place and it can be a little frustrating, but I guess he knows superfreaks for Ariel are going to find it, so maybe it's better if it's a little buried in the tubes of the net.
Nothing sounds better than Before Today at ridiculous volume on a Sunday morning..it takes over. It's constantly mind blowing...take away all the layers of pastiche from Oddities, or Loverboy and you aren't listening to the '70s or '80s with wax paper headphones, you're fully all of a sudden in the middle of it. Completely amazing it was recorded anytime this decade, and done with such reverence for the sounds, it blows my mind there isn't a sample credit anywhere on the sleeve.
Maybe that's the new direction for the Girl Talk, ultra sample crowd is to start making those samples yourself and then incorporating them into mixes...it makes sense, you don't necessarily want them to be recognizable in the first place and you definitely don't want to pay for them. Plus just trying to duplicate some of those sounds in the first place is going to lead you in a crazy new direction.
Ariel is a genius, I love every side project and this is going to be tracked down...somehow.
Can't find any info about Porous Records, maybe it's like Cooler Cat Records in that it was created on the spot for a one off single....

I also came across this Mutant Sounds post with a shitload of the back Ariel catalog.

Thanks to Aquarius, you can actually purchase this:

HOLY SHIT "Rough And Tumble" (Porous) 7" 6.98
We have been craving some Holy Shit so bad for so long! The last time we got a record from these guys it was the mind blowing 2006 album Standing At Two Harbours, a brilliant washed out pop record that predated the onslaught of lo-fi pop that's exploded in the last few years. The band is Matt Fishbeck and Ariel Pink, and together they are able to create music that rings with a stronger emotional quality then many of Ariel's other great projects. Fishbeck really has such a great understanding of songcraft, and Ariel brings his innovative and recognizable sun baked aura to these two warm and woozy songs. The B-side "Priest Fucks Nin In The No-No" might even steal the show, a long and hypnotizing instrumental that we could hear go on for infinity. But the A-side "Rough And Tumble" ain't no slouch either, total understated gem of a warbly pop nugget. A pretty damn perfect 7", now maybe just maybe, could there be a new full length on the horizon!?

Cranium Pie on Fruits De Mer Records

Got a couple of singles the other day from Fruits De Mer Records out of the UK, and this single from Cranium Pie is actually the final release on their splinter label, Braken because it sounds like the fruit of the psycheadelic sea were too tempting and have completely taken over his operation over there. Two 7" labels!

'Rememberrr', the A-Side: There's the kind of psyche that sounds like a memory. It's a little scratchy, there's some layers of age all over it, you can imagine it's a undiscovered single from 40 years ago, just an overlooked band. Like The Fresh and Onlys who are just a few steps removed from that era with the sensibility, maybe it's the harmonies, but even Hawkwind doesn't sound like this. Cranium Pie is so immediately a part of that sound, it belongs in that time period. Like looking at black and white photographs, it's easy to forget that there was ever color. This is full production, extreme experimentation, in it's initial construction and way after the track is recorded even. It has a massive crystal clear intensely separated sound.
They're playing around in such a major way, the vocals verses back and forth between far off phaser and chorus vocals, it's a page out of Ween's Woman and Man. There's a massive smooth Rhodes organ, and meandering guitar solos. The whole track is done in these different acts or movements. They work into different grooves and let the whole sound slowly fade to transition into something else entirely with liberal use of channel fades and some menacing spoken word right before the massive band jam takes it all out.

There's even an old school computer printer whirring away, the paper is torn off which turns into a crashing wave sound...it's rooted in that old school psyche, but there are great contemporary experiments like this that take it into Flaming Lips territory.
How this fit onto a seven inch is almost defeating the point of the format. It's endless.

'Mothership' on the B-Side takes the tempo down with a rimshot beat and up front uneffected vocals, they even work the Braken label into the lyrics. It slowly builds into a massive chorus 'Take a trip on the mothership somehow.' Atmospheric electronics are in full effect, the ship is taking off, and they almost abandon the 60's era entirely with the chunky synth bassline. It goes without saying you get different experiences with headphones or cranking the speakers. This isn't just a particular slice of this sound they've wanted to explore as part of a bigger direction for the band. This is a seriously sick obsession with this sound, it has to be, because they pull it off so authentically.

Get it from the late Braken Records, pretty amazing one man underground scene going on with these two labels, just as much of an infatuation as Cranium's sound. Home grown, personal 7"'s, the best kind.

Christmas on Highfives and Handshakes Records

This one is from Highfives and Handshakes records, the A-Side starts out with 'Pies'. I don't think I ever noticed the kind of super surf feel they have at times, it's stripped down garage, but the guitar carries this high surf melody and Emily really is unleashed to any kind of obvious structures. She really goes out there on her own a lot of the time, it's impressive, she's really confident and it's completely her own. Just in sheer dynamics she's got everything from a Diamanda Galas terrifying scream to a sort of early Bjork sugarcubes wavery personal language. It's not as obtrusive or front and center as either of them, there's plenty of echo and live room sound to keep it grounded with the band, it just can't help but stand out.
The B-Side El Colorado is in a 60's psyche-out place...sort of a hint of Janis...and maybe some Dirty Beaches environmental scene setting kind of sound. It could just be this particular echo, but it sounds pretty much rooted in that era for me. It's a sound that combines a sort of blues and jam out time of the late 60's. It's unexpected.

This one, the Metal 7", you can order from Highfives +Handshakes direct and they'll send it when it hits the shelves on the 27th.






The second single they have out is a clear handcut flexi from an edition of 57 as part of a gallery show they had locally here at the Rare Gallery. Art and seven inches, that's practically too perfect
The A-Side of this one, has more of their surf inspired melodies and with major reverb on Emily's vocal track. She's wailing on this one, getting a little haunted house, there's some pain in her vocal this time, as she draws out the lyrics into howls. But it's not so experimental that it's impossible to enjoy, she's just an impossible to ignore force blowing in your town.
'Punch in' gets more minimal, and the guitar juts in, jarring little bursts of that echo, this time getting all Sediment Club for the B-Side, throwing out the melody for an experimental deconstruction. This combination of surf, new wave, and Emily's, Shannon and the Clams classic delivery and just plain powerful voice is going to keep Christmas interesting for holidays yet to come.

Both still available from Highfives+Handshakes.

I heard they are headed towards Brooklyn after 8/27 including:

9/9 - SHEA STADIUM w/Total Slacker - BK, NY
9/10 - UNION POOL w/ Darlings, Mermiads - BK, NY

Coasting on M'Ladys Records

Caught this mention the other day of a new single from M'Ladys Records, from Coasting, who, believe it or not are also from Brooklyn...I know there are bands from other places....right?

The A-Side, 'Pussy Bow', sets the post-whatever-punk, chunky tone. There's some awkward chant style vocals that turn into yelling rage by the end. A weird repeated melody that really gets into a punk place, and all my worries about the tone of other myspace tracks all going to a safe echo, twee, kittens place are gone, they're in that Best Coast, Dum Dum neighborhood, but then they live just on the edge of cute and dirty punk St.. If they have a little of both of those places, well that's something new. If Frankie and the O's and The Fresh and Onlys combined would that be terrible? Probably since I just tried to force it.

A track not on this single, 'Coasting' is a great instrumental (?!) real loud, great melody, and again it gets distorted and they go all maniac on the drums, I appreciate this is getting dirty...I've heard a lot of cute, and dangerous is more exciting, let's face it.

'Kids', takes it back down again, this gets a little sloppy and HELL YES, they're willing to experiment with this drone chorus and buried vocals, but the intricacies are still there, they're still interested in a solid song.

I just noticed this is a freaking duo...of Madison and Fiona. Thankfully they are playing live so I'm definitely going to catch them myself soon. Hopefully they have a couple of these singles left.

M'LR 018 - COASTING - "THE ONE WE BOTH LIKE" & "PUSSYBOW" b/w "KIDS" 7" EP

BRAND NEW! SHIPPING NOW AND GOING REALLY FAST!

Immensely exciting debut single from one of the greatest groups in Brooklyn. Triple A-sided juggernaut that sounds like summer. And autumn. And the city. And the forest. Incredibly rockin', truly. First 100 copies pressed on vinyl the color of purple lollipops. (Purple vinyl is all sold out, sorry!) GET READY, OK.

Raise your pewter chalice to M'ladys Records.

XBXRX 7" on Polyvinyl Records

My only experience with XBXRX comes from random split singles with An Albatross, and other noise based punk bands, until I finally started checking them out on their own. They fit into the Hella, Lightning Bolt, Aa, sounds... those periods of listening when I want extreme bombarding noise. It feels good to think that I might be annoying someone with the mess. Turns out XBXRX started after seeing an Unwound show, who tends to have that kind of awesome power. But really they had me at Unwound.
I haven't heard their earlier new wave style synth work from those early days but this 10 song EP/soundtrack is typical of their crazy start, stop style of distorted vocals. Taking timing to the limit, it's all about those dynamic extremes, the quietest, the loudest, the fastest. And with a jazz kind of sensibility, they have an impeccable work ethic to pull this arrangements off, like a noisier, less melodic Deerhoof. No one is going to cover them.
I like a band that takes a way of working to it's near end game and rides it out for a while, really interesting things start to happen when an idea gets pushed to the limits like this.
They're under appreciated, they've been around the block, they keep doing it, probably because they like fucking with these limits too.
Bless Polyvinyl for supporting these guys, and their extremist melodies...I know I'm going back to re-listen to their old singles tonight.

O is a 10-song 7”. Yes, that’s right – 10 songs! O is a return to form for the band harkening back to their Sixth in Sixes era.

Accompanying the single will be a Lawrence Cline directed mini-movie for the whole single.

XBXRX’s range of supporters run the gamut of Henry Rollins, Ian MacKaye, Sonic Youth, Peaches, Mates of State, and many more.

Maybe you’ve heard the term “artist’s artist.” That’s XBXRX. The core of the band is two brothers who have had as much as an impact on the SF/Oakland art/punk scene as the Kinsella brothers have had in the mid-West.

Mad Men make 7Inches angry!

What the hell is that guy doing with that cigarette! And one of those stacked loader things?
God, what's wrong with these maniacs! The needle is probably a thumbtack.

I would pimp slap this guy if his scotch soaked hands came near my Jay Reatard singles.

The 7"'s feel dirty just looking at this picture.

I have to go wipe them down now.... with my horse hair brushes and cotton gloves.

King Dude on Clan Destine Records

Today I've got another single from Clan Destine Records who released that 7" from Ouija a couple weeks back, Carl mentioned he had another artist, King Dude, who just put out a single on his label and were very different from the Ouija release.
Clan Destine has some pretty eclectic releases on everything from VHS to cassette, all kind of bands I've just barely started to hear about...it's shaping up to be a UK NNF, and although it's going to be slightly difficult picking these up, they have some amazing unique one-off artifacts from really great artists. It's obviously curated with this forward looking underground eye, and I just hope they keep releasing the singles every now and then...it seems like the cassettes are winning out lately in the cutting edge format of choice.
Now I have to figure out getting a cassette deck (again) for the stereo. Hello, Salvation Army, my old friend. There's so many moving parts on a cassette deck...but you can make an endless sample tape, like a mobius strip, which is unique to the format. It's just more complicated...but then like Inception, (and vinyl) there's something nice about it being analog. Do we like to see those parts working?....it makes sense we want to witness the creation. It makes it more real to watch the rollers moving and the tape moving from one wheel to the other.

"The Black Triangle", the A-Side is most definitely some kind of minimal folk, related to something I received from Avant records recently, the Cult of Youth 10", those guys are doing a similar no frills chillwave. Just stripped down goth using really minimal instrumentation... like Blessure Grave, it's all about what you're doing with it in the end.
I also loved the video for this track, this girl wandering in a snowy bleak, kind of volcanic landscape. BG take note, there's no singing at the lens, no posing for the camera, no acting. A video like this just elevates the original track, leaving it open to a lot of interpretation.

The layers of vocals over what's basically an acoustic guitar are working in an echo JAMC way. They're removed from the space the guitar is in.
It's all very dark, starting with the slightly sinister quote on the reverse sleeve: "There is an old God...It does not need our love or praise, it does not need us at all. We need it.
There's a bigger theme of darkness and not in an over the top, theatrical way. It's more subtle than that, maybe a kind of acceptance. You don't have to be raging against the machine with all of the volume, maybe this smaller statement is going to be more memorable.
'Never let you go' on the B-Side expands the single dark singer songwriter into a chorus of singers drunkenly chanting 'Never let you go'. It's not a comforting ballad to someone he's in love with, it's the creepy kind of not letting go where you keep the body of your wife in the rocking chair in the living room and talk to her from time to time. It's a little of a drunken bar shanty as well, slurring the words with each chorus, raising a glass...or it's all the multiple personalities chiming in. They aren't filled with joy, emotionless zombies who 'won't let go?' I get it.
Huge kettle drums pound in occasionally, contributing to the ordered march feel of the track, and I forget that the name of this project is King Dude? I really didn't expect this direction from that name, I have to be honest. And I know that the more nonsensical the indie rock name the better, but this should be the title of Wavves next album, not this minimal super depression.

King Dude 'The Black Triangle' 7"

300 copies worldwide
A Side - The Black Triangle
B Side - Never Let You Go

£4.50 including shipping anywhere.

Get it HERE

Night Beats on Trouble in Mind Records

Trouble in Mind is back again with more bands they want you to get to know through a little how-ya-doin' known as the seven inch vinyl. This latest is from The Night Beats. How these guys manage to squeeze 4 tracks of massive drawn out psyche this EP is a feat in itself. I appreciate that they've probably made the choice to compact these jams a little to get more of a sampling of their sound on the 7". A lot of them sound like the psyche-jam is just getting started when they had to fade it, or they're going for that straight garage punch in the form of a brief echoed screaming nightmare solo.
As I'm going through these latest batch of singles and throwing them on here and there, I had to get to this one next...all the tracks start out with that mellow laid back vibe and then blow up into insane solo's...completely ridiculous. The highest notes, echoed with sustain, are the high points, taking it from drone psyche to practically metal. When it starts to fade out you think 'why are 7"'s only 4 1/2 minutes? Couldn't they have made them 8"? What the hell.'
All I keep waiting for on H-Bomb is the freakout electric ending...there's a ton of echo and it's right on that line of garage and psyche. Shadows in the Night sounds like it's getting a little more current stylistically, it's taken the vocal sound to a sort of early goth place...a sinister Bauhaus huge room sound. Like those haunted house cassettes...I can't tell if it's the type of echo that's making this nostalgic or the arrangement.
'They came in through the window' is so authentic sounding and the solo here at the end is even more amazing then the H-Bomb one...this is a little scary sounding, just a little Cramps, that leather jacket biker rockabilly...it's almost too perfect.

I'm no psych expert, I barely know of a few bands, 13th floor elevators...the usual, so I'm sure people could mine these references exactly, but it's safe to say this single would get along nicely in a set with the Dirty Beaches and Sic Alps.

They are playing tonight somewhere in NY called Seance Houseparty....maybe that's exactly what it is? Or some new weirdo warehouse space. Might take some work to find them, unless you're into seances.

Dirty Beaches on Italian Beach Babe Records

Italian Beach Babe Records sent this sun scorched psyche from Dirty Beaches to check out a little while back. From the looks of their web-store, Italian Beach Babes is a distro site as well for overseas 7inchers to pick up Captured Tracks releases and Zoo Music releases and of course Italian Beach Babe's own offerings. Turns out Conan at IBBR is also in the band Graffiti Island, and the whole label thing started out in putting together a split cassette with friends Male Bonding and Pens!

Dirty Beaches is a solo project from Alex Zhang Hungtai, who currently lives in Montreal, after moving from Hawaii via Taiwan, and like Ducktails, it's a hyper-personal singular vision. If there's one thing about the home recording movement it's that it's allowed musicians like this to play along with themselves essentially, to direct everything exactly how they imagined it. There's no reason for a backup band to reinterpret your sound...well of course live you always have to figure something out....
The possible downside of this kind of easily accessible control is it becomes an easy strategy to record badly, blow out the levels, make the whole thing completely unintelligible, because that seems to be the thing to do. The point is, the best things happen when it's clear an artist is pursuing exactly their particular brand of eccentricities.
Dirty Beaches is a case of someone having such a laser focused unique sound, it just wouldn't have happened if it was divided between 4 players influences.

Take the A-Side, Golden Desert Sun; there's a warped electric guitar drone running throughout, almost sounding like taking a bow to the string and getting those long scratchy, metallic notes. When the vocals start it's literally a lost experimental Doors track, a deep Morrison vocal where the lyric melody winds around the monotonous and is sort of a weird chant. There's a sort of horse hoof slapping ground rhythm out of a woodblock sound. I don't know if it's because it's referencing this hippy, drug, zoned out flavor of that late '60s pop psyche period but he's really captures this Desert idea. The fact that it's one million degrees every day in NYC is just making this hazy sound even more oppressive. I can't even see the oasis. Walking for hours and hours, the water ran out and I'm really about to give up.
A massively distorted 'solo' crackles in towards the end of the piece, and it's a perfect twist to the
serious menacing angle the track is taking. Something just crashed the party.

Night drive on the B-Side fades into a far off cheap synth sound over a stock drum machine. Some larger sounding electronics work their way in, but the layers of horn samples that delay in towards the end take this to a really mysterious and lonely place. Like the sleeve art, it's an old film still and amateur snapshots of vacations...personal and generic at the same time.

Also check out Conan's interview with Dirty Beaches from Nothing Bad Mag. The film influence is more direct than I thought, and his references to Wong Kar-Wai are perfect, it's that warped one step removed idea of 50's bikers...different generation, different culture, it's filtered down into a romanticized reflection of the original, but that's what makes it it's own sound again.

This one is going to be import only from these guys, so check the usual US distro's who should definitely have this.

Dirty Beaches even has another single with Zoo Music which is available of course from Italian Beach Babes...so maybe both of these is worth taking the chance ordering direct.

I appreciate what Conan's doing, getting these singles over to the UK for fans there, but now he's doing to the states what he hated about trying to get Blank Dogs singles!....oh the irony. When will this feud end?
My love hate relationship with the post office extends to the services overseas I think.

"Part cassette culture Elvis, part Alan Vega alienator, this guy’s doing for rockabilly what Ariel Pink did for funk-pop nostalgia" Nothing Bad Magazine

"Like looking into the infinity mirror at a packed night club from some old technicolor movie while good looking people from some other uknown lands dance around you. Strange stuff that feels right in its strangeness." Night People

Jason Ajemian & The Highlife on Sundmagi Records

As soon as I found out this single from Jason Ajemian was inspired by his niece, it immediately changed the first few listens. I thought it was going in a kind of childlike direction, with some deliberate mis-arrangements, and off key notes, but that deliberate twist makes it come together. There's a sort of sludgy, slow tempo haphazard feel, added to the drawings on the sleeve it's an interesting idea to take this naive, and by default, sincere approach to the songwriting. What's a more authentic way to get to that place than with the help of a kid throwing the rules out for you.
It must have been entertaining as hell...that is if he even sat down with this master plan in mind, or it just happened one night, putting her to bed... and of course you have to press that to a seven inch. I have that compulsion almost daily.
'TV/Animals' is a horn heavy arrangement, and by the time it gets to the Animals section it's full on call and response with the band where it becomes Talking Heads meets Foot Village...all pounding drums and the band minus Jason yelling back different descriptions of the animals.
Monsters on the B-Side has a dirty, Tom Waits feel, it's an off kilter blues, the horns on this one range from Tortoise post rock to Sufjan style instrumentation.
The recording has a real room, alive sound, the instruments sound close, probably to help catch those little moments like the sax squeaks or a cracking trumpet phrase...shining a light on the seeming imperfections.
I knew this would end up in a sort of experimental classical compositional place...there's a huge amount of conception and work behind the tracks, nothing is left to chance, exactly....maybe it's in attempting to keep that spontaneity going when you're also forced as a composer to keep applying that mathematical right brain to composing.

I feel like Jason is working in a contemporary classical indie direction, approaching pop culture with a trained ear. I could see any number of his eclectic pieces performed everywhere from Le Poisson Rouge to the Issue Project Room.

"Monsters and Animals" are compositions inspired by Ajemian's 3 year old niece Madeline Rae Ajemian. Monsters started as a repetitive hook the two would sing to go to sleep and distract Madeline's mind from the possible monsters in the closets. Animals was started as a bass tap dance duet when she received her first pair of tap shoes and danced like an animal.

Get it from Sundmagi Records.

Memoryhouse on Inflated Records

I came across this single after an email from WFMU that mentioned Inflated Records and their Ducktails live appearance on WFMU 12" vinyl. Turns out they released one other record and it's this one from Memoryhouse, a second pressing on blue vinyl no less, so I had to check out these guys who were in good company.
It seems that Memoryhouse is a duo collaboration between Denise and Evan who also take alot of polaroids, and release huge scope art books with LP accompaniment. They're the kind of collaboration that straddles a lot of mediums, all of them dreamlike and fleeting. Polaroids are a great tangible representation of this track 'Lately (Deuxième)'. The samples can't be placed, the delay is applied to warbling source instrumentals, and Denise's vocals are a layered chorus in the style of The Spinanes or Lush. I'm surprised there is an edit of this track that will actually fit on a seven inch. They're in no hurry to find a hook, or make it to the next chorus. It would go on a sleepy Sunday mix next to Deerhunter, Chairlift and A Sunny Day in Glasgow.
Now that I'm hearing it, there's practically no percussion and then...OH SHIT, it's like the Softies...of course! That echo on the vocals, the delivery is even the same....so is this twee? Not really, I guess it's chillwave? I don't know what the fuck that is.
It's mellow, they keep it brief, and she's got a great voice. It's too bad it's going to be easy fodder for remixes like the B-Side. There's nothing worse to me than taking these laid back sunset jams and slapping on a rave beat, or cutting up the lyrics, add some block rocking beats to the gentle airness of the originals. Oh well.

A. Lately (Deuxième)

B. Lately (Teengirl Fantasy Natural Mix)

Get it from Inflated Records....you want the Ducktails thing anyway...it's related.