New podcast is up - Episode 6

The 7inches podcast (episode 6) - itunes feed here

Your up to the minute seven inch news coverage for the tristate area. 

This week we cover:
The great Drag City, Ty Segall, Gemini debacle of 2013.

Post by Drag City Records.

The roundtable review of Gemini from The Firenote, The Polyvinyl 4-track seven inch club?!!!!!, The WFMU Record fair and the new Rough Trade shop in Williamsburg.

Darren’s pick for the week is the Mud City Manglers on Mind Cure Records - great record store releasing a new single from a new Pittsburg band every month.

Jason’s pick for the week is the new Minks record on Captured Tracks, Tides End and has trouble explaining why he's completely loving it.

The seven inches hotline is free for scared singles: (347)770-1469
Leave a message about the show and 7" singles we should check out.

Check out Darren’s releases over at Velocity of sound.

Minks at Mercury Lounge 11-21-13

If the success of The Minks debut, By The Hedge was a result of the collaboration between Amalie Bruun and Sonny Kilfoyle then Tides End, his new record on Captured Tracks can be attributed squarely to the singular vision of Sonny who’s not only managed to push through the burden of a sophomore release but has done it solo.
Not that it was easy, he banished himself to the far end of eastern Long Island where he discovered his own kind of Grey Gardens where he wrote from the perspective of those forgotten Gatsby’s in concise, nostalgic dance sounds. This is especially true in his matured vocal. On “Funeral Song” Sonny buried himself under an electronic warble but everything on Tides End finds Sonny clearly confident and qualified to deliver on these optimistic melodies. The record ends up as something of contradiction; a romantic electronic album that’s comfortable sounding immediately dated in it's analog synth sounds and their digital approximation of strings or harsh square sine waves. It's these unnatural sounds he's attempting to overcome through thoughtful, organic pop like the sweet spot of New Order melancholy. But in the end the machines don’t matter, these are great songs thanks to a human slant.
But how comfortable can you make tracks built with rigid machines? The Minks avoid the pitfalls of a static show behind laptops because these tracks are after all guitar based pop songs at their core. In their synth and bass live setup which they debuted the end of this summer, Sonny is unassuming and familiar, joking with the audience before continuing to nail nearly every track from Tides. It’s not often that the entire front row of the audience spontaneously starts dancing, but the epic opening bursts of "Painted Indian" compels most everyone and that’s the kind of record this is, balancing sentimentality and abandoning irony while referencing The Pet Shop Boys and Soft Cell. But unlike those bands there isn't an ounce of futuristic posturing, it's a sincere performance that relies on the strength of the songwriting.

He manages to get away with reclaiming those ‘80s sounds while walking the listener through a conceptual album, an impossible handicap. It’s a perfect marriage in spite of everything working against him; having writers block and recording in an uninspiring utility room at the base of the Williamsburg Bridge but finally proving to himself and an audience that he’s capable of a lot more great records.

Pick up Tides End direct from Captured Tracks

Brad Laner on Drawing Room Records

You might not know anything about Brad Laner and that’s a shame. The multi-instrumentalist is probably best known for founding Medicine which was the US’s answer to My Bloody Valentine’s Loveless in the early ‘90s. He then went on to start Electric Company, a solo glitch / avant-garde electronic project and has worked with countless musicians including M83, Vetiver and the Vas Deferens Organization. As of 2007, Brad started to release solo work under his own name and Drawing Room Records just released this single in advance of a full length, Nearest Suns scheduled to come out on the label later this year.

A-Side’s "Highly Morning" opens with loose, empty room drums and a strummed, metallic sounding acoustic. A slow, somber country style with ever changing, impossibly big arrangements modern sounding and focused on letting tiny pieces shine, from kettle drum to the laborious acoustic twangs. A lumbering guitar solo skitters in under the densely layered, Iron and Wine style intimate, breathy vocals. A tom and bassline come together in a deep groove adding up to a polished ‘70s Fleetwood Mac style sound when Animal Collective type vocalizations and strange keyboard moments break that mellow afternoon feel. At every turn we’re in for massive piles of experimentation, from moments of rim shot centric rhythms to twinkly keys of standing wind chimes. It’s a playground of styles and instrumentation that collects in this snowballing epic pop.

B-Side’s “Sideshow” appreciates Red Jacket Mine’s disregard for rigid genres or the typical structure of a chorus. Brad deliberately avoids the way a song should build to predetermined moments and lets the track come up with it’s own bizarre logic. In the way it switches into this slow, dirgey carnival rhythm with Brad’s laid back harmony vocal smoothing out the off-kilter beat over the warble of reel to reel machines off axis. Bee Gees harmonies glamming up a futuristic slow jam. Completely schizophrenic and anti-dance all while utilizing precise, clean elements. If you peeled back some of these layers, there’s a version of the darker junk psych of Gary Wars New Raytheonport hiding back there. I love that he encourages this solo fighting through different speeds of tape, but it goes further than just the organic tape, it’s randomized or digitally manipulated somehow… an unsettling effect for what started out as essentially a sunny pop song comes off as fairly disturbing, foreshadowing some kind of glitching horror or chaos. The sound of a chalkboard full of equations, you could pick apart any one of them and get sidetracked for days. A full length should keep everyone busy for a while, let alone a new full length from Medicine themselves coming out on Captured Tracks in the near future.

Pick this up on black vinyl from Drawing Room Records.

Top 10 7 inches of 2011 with Darren from VOS

TOP

Darren, from Velocity of Sound and I talked about our top 7" picks for the year.
Spoiler Alert.

Darren:

10) Wilco - Dpm records

9) The Ketamines - Hozac records 

8) Fresh and Onlys - Sexbeat Records

7) Raw Blow - self released

6) The Boomgates - Smart Guy records

5) The Vivian Girls - Polyvinyl Records

4) The Lower Dens - Sub Pop

3) D Watusi - Cass Records

2) Diarrhea Planet - Infinity Cat

1) Tim Cohen - Captured Tracks

Jason:

10) Natural Child/Liquor Store split on Almost Ready Records

9) Snakeflower 2 - Southpaw Records

8) The Whines - Mt. St. Mtn. Records

7) Ty Segall - Drag City

6) Jeff Novak - Trouble in Mind

5) Real Numbers - Floridas Dying

4) Grass Widow - HLR Records

3) Art Museums - Dul-Ci-Tone Records

2) White Stripes - Third Man Records

1) Jay Reatard - Shattered Records

Now go listen to us play excerpts and defend our picks - download the show here (48mb).

Stay tuned for an upcoming TOP 30! with Styrofoam Drone as I reserve the right to completely change the entire list.

Catwalk on captured tracks

Captured Tracks are already up to their second single by Catwalk, out of Oxnard, CA. I thought I still have one of his singles from Yay! at least two years ago, turns out it's the same guy and he's still crafting catchy pop, giant reverb on the vocals, swirly shoegaze wall of guitars.

One by words is driven by this deep bassline groove and the hi hat, with huge guitars way off in the background. When you can tame that chaos into pop like this, there's nothing better. The massive echo can at times remind me of that nostalgic '60s garage sound and then they take it just to the point of indie rock '90s underground pop.

Home is exclusive to the B-Side. I keep coming back to that Beach Fossils full length because it's perfect beginning to end, really consistent and so weirdly simple sounding, the guitar, just odd enough percussion...I could go on. Catwalk is a super pop evolved Beach Fossils sound, the same deceptive simple melodies and great songwriting that will get you through the rest of the terrible winter snowdays. Two hits, this B-Side will be missed.

Thank god for facebook, you can listen to it over there. I really hope their are kids out there tonight starting bands and putting the tracks on facebook, or bandcamp...or mediafire for god sake, Oh Yay I booked us a show! Really? Where? The Titanic!
Can't wait.

CATWALK- "ONE BY WORDS" 7"
Catwalk's 4th 7" (2nd on C/T) is the beautiful "One By Words." Washed in echoed guitar and propelled by a pulsating bassline, "One By Words" is an instant classic. "Home" is another winner and will be exclusive to this 7". Look for the debut Catwalk LP later this year as well as a short tour with Pains of Being Pure At Heart on the West Coast.

Get it from Captured Tracks, who hopefully will be instrumental in bringing these guys to the East Coast soon.

The Jameses - Haunted Rider on Mayo Factory

I've been listening to The Jameses based on Captured Tracks glowing mention of getting copies of this single to sell from Mayo Factory...and it's weird. At points on 'A Haunted Rider', they sound like something between Belle and Sebastian and The Clinic...a sort of bouncy English ....(what the fuck was the period in England, like the Happy Mondays shit? It wasn't shoegaze? New Romantic? Fuck it, it was terrible) It's not reminding me of that...but it's working in a lot of different ways. Sort of dance-y even, the electronics are deliberately obscure...maybe even outdated. It's got the jangly guitars....maybe it's the vocals, the layers of harmony and the jangle of the guitar but I'm getting an electronic Shins sort of a feel.
It's a weird one to pin down.
Something like Gual Lo, has such weird electronics that it's like early...and I'm going English again....Human League....but probably how they sounded to someone back then when they were in the middle of it. but it's modern, Crystal Castles overwhelming glitchy sounding, but then with that real simple almost background vocal style...it's a good contrast to the dense dancefloor soundtrack. They literally play a scale of notes up the keyboard in a way that doesn't sound ridiculous. But then the '5th Dimension', gets all Neon Indian...and raves out.
I'm tempted to give this a chance based on the fact that Captured tracks hasn't ever steered me wrong yet...and they have a full length scheduled with these guys so I know it's true love.

Captured Tracks says:

Captured Tracks is in love with The Jameses, we were lucky enough to secure copies of their self-released debut 7". It's bright, slightly psychedelic pop that has it's own feel, a lot of things come to mind, but check their MySpace to draw your own comparisons ("To The Shores of Lake Placid" maybe?).

"Lo and behold, it, like everywhere else, has plenty of varied strains of underground digging up towards the sun simultaneously and if the ones who've shown up with their bathing suits and sun screen are a sign, then let's jump the gun and call this the summer of Florida, even though their seasonal variations are ambiguous at best. So far, we've gone out on a limb for Jacuzzi Boys and Lil Daggers and Matrix Infinity, and now we'd like to throw another branch out for the breezy garage pop of The Jameses.

If this is the sound of West Palm Beach, I'm ready to retire." -Impose

Or the Jameses themsleves say:

The Jameses debut 7 inch on mayo factory. $6ppd. Send payment to threeheadedlion(at)gmail.com as a personal payment.

The Minks - Funeral Song on Captured Tracks

Now, looking at that Minks cover you'd expect this might be going a Blessure Grave sort of direction, a little dark, coming from those days of pure youth depression. There's something romantic about taking that road in high school. To be a little bit of a weirdo.
I would have had a huge crush on that girl. Especially since she looks like she doesn't care. That's what can be mean about movies, you get a sense that those awesome loners actually exist and every single second they're alive is the fucking coolest, and your life is ridiculous. If there's one thing I could tell jerk, 16 year old me, it's that they aren't...no one is, you don't have to try to live up to that impossible and stupid expectation. Those are fake stories, live your life doing whatever the hell you want.
I care a lot less now that there is some distance between myself and 17 seconds....and maybe there is this whole new group of artists turning back on that Cure era and reexamining how it could not be so dramatic....maybe get a little more relevant? I could use more music like that.

The A-Side, Funeral song captures that sort of turning point for New Order when they lose Ian and start sounding almost dance-able, super airy synths, and ultra clean...he keeps singing about summertime...and the title is funeral song? Am I just hearing this wrong? Great use of that pitch wheel portamento (the casio taught me that word). This vocal effect is crazy...kind of a phaser and then jamming a finger on the tape wheel? It's crazy.
I would be staring out the bus window for an hour riding to school. No one understands me. I would probably have a hard time with the young version of 7inches....he was probably annoying. It's not so bad, listen to this kind of happy song from the Minks, and think about a funeral. School's almost over and you can be depressed at home for months.
The B-Side 'Drunk Punks' has all of these era's sounds perfectly, thank god people still remember how to dial in that chorusy bass, really high pitch jangle electric...almost harp sounding.A lot of other swirling distortions flying around, layers of delay. I think they keep the tempo up and it keeps it from getting bogged down the way some of the early Cure does for me, but then that sets an immediate tone of oppression. Minks are trying to break out of it in a Psychedelic Furs way. It has such a New Order heavy main bassline with that guitar dropping in for a chord here and there, Blue Monday...like an early demo...I like this a lot, they're really in the early nineties alternative zone.

Get this one on Captured Tracks.

MINKS - Funeral Song - Captured Tracks
"As generous a kiss-off to Summer as we could hope for, MINKS' 'Funeral Song' came virtually out of nowhere. Like if Robert Smith gave birth to a baby, and the baby was actually a cassette of Cure demos that had a lot more staying power than actual Cure demos. Ostensibly we could say this song is reactionary: abandoning the good vibes and surf jams of the warm months of '09 in favor of something colder. Rigid bass lines over icy, high-register synth whine. But the song has a lot more heart than that, so long summer time repeated endlessly until it not only makes sense, but makes frigid cold seem welcoming."--Fader

Beach Fossils on Captured Tracks

Just caught this latest single from Captured Tracks on a Facebook 'news' posting...no, I'm not above doing whatever it takes to find out about singles, in fact I think I first heard about Dustin in New York magazine for gods sake, although I don't know that it immediately made me want to check these guys out, I think I might have figured it could be some kind of vanity project from a friend of someone working there, or a hype machine was shoving it into inboxes everywhere and this one stuck. Oh, snap judgements.
But a single from Captured Tracks on the other hand made me finally give them a go...I'm also not above thinking I can really be a music snob sometimes. Their myspace tracks are giving me a Real Estate feel, especially this one 'Daydream', and it couldn't be more perfectly named. Laid back minimally effected guitar, heavy on the chorusy reverb boys of the beach vocals that put it in an almost shoegaze place. (whenever I hear this slow layered dream sound, it takes me back to The Ocean Blue). Tracks are built around mid tempo creative picking, and either heavily gated drums or possibly a cheap drum machine, it's a real mellow combination, the end of the night, last drink need to sit down, enough of the punk rocking.
I find myself wanting to go back to that Real Estate album a lot, and Beach Fossils would fit right into that classic sound, Real Estate just updated that whole alt-country genre with some damn catchy songs...not to sing along with, but let wash over...I guess if you put Nodzzz with Real Estate in some kind of TransChamps situation, then I think this is what you'd get, more up front vocals, the minimal catchy guitar....looking forward to catching them at The Market Hotel on the 27th and pick this up in person...finally.

"Brooklynite Dustin Payseur records dreamy, slightly fuzzed pop as Beach Fossils. Yeah, another "beach" band, but the word "fossils" rightly hints at nostalgia that goes deeper and more distant than a few summers past."

Roman Soldiers on Captured Tracks

Today is easy...Blank Dogs and Gary War together and you have single of the year!

Duh.

The vocals are wobblier then ever, the synth hits reaches of despair a casio in hell couldn't hope for. Every effects pedal in the world was chained together for this bad boy. The endgame of all darkwave pop, and insanely interesting.

Go order it already...from Captured Tracks.

Captured Tracks - gaggle of 7"'s

Before I dive back into the review pile I noticed yesterday that all of a sudden Captured Tracks has another slew of releases I better let you know about before they are gone....starting with the Blank Dogs of course

This one is a no brainer, the 12" EP I haven't listened to too much, nothing stuck with enough to play the hell out of it like Two Sides but a double LP is coming out on In The Red soon, and I'll be looking out for that...so this one is ordered.


What else can I add to the cart? A couple singles caught my attention...I've been seeing the Beets mentioned playing around a lot, so I headed over to their myspace. Turns out they have a full length from Captured Tracks too, so a single should be a good place to start. It's pretty mellow acoustic, full of harmonies, shakers, and country basslines. Recorded far off sounding with plenty of echo and slowly strummed electric.


Next up a single from Little Girls...do yourself a favor and don't search for that on google. Here's the myspace. Heavy electric guitar overpowering blown out vocals and drums that sound like they were recorded pretty flat...at least in 'What we did'. Vocals are way echoed with lots of harmony yelling. Very blank dogs-like, minimal...tons of energy. One of the tracks from this single 'Youth Tunes' is amazing...flat drum machine, repeating sloppy electric melody. Pure 4-track. Layers and layers fall on top. Great song...put it in the cart.


Finally a new one by Brilliant colors, I loved their single on Make-a-mess, so this girlage rock band's new one is a must have as well. Nothing but hits from the Tracks. That makes two singles and no full length.

All of these are avaialble right from the myspace...
There's tons of other stuff, but I had to stop there...you know with the economy and all.