July 2, 2009
You guys. America is so great! It's basically The Very Best (Featuring Ezra Koenig). Can you name another country that has a holiday where the sole intention is to celebrate the contribution independent record labels have made on the shape of pop music? Pretty much only the USA. These colors don't run too much.
"Don't tread on me" - James Hetfield.
To help with your civic duty of taking stock of the past year in MP3s, we've assembled a mix of the sunnier side of 2009's highlights. As always, these tracks are totally free, just like America. This weekend isn't just about celebrating music, though. It is also about celebrating the right to drink on roofs with good friends in good weather. So this mix isn't a mood-spanner. It's upbeat! And sequenced for consumption on a cloudless day, with a crew, buddies, BBQ, and booze. Or a patriotic jog. A perfectly timed soundtrack, really, since it never rains these days.
Continue reading Stereogum's Independents Day Party Mix...
Posted at 5:04 PM by amrit in
latest by Lauren Reagan
"In Peoples' Homes" is a somewhat misleading introduction to To Kill A Petty Bourgeoisie's second album Marlone, but as we mentioned when we called the Minneapolis duo a BTW, Jehna Wilheim and Mark McGee are good at smashing expectations. So, no, you shouldn't leave thinking all of Marlone's 10 tracks are sweet, upbeat 2-minute pop songs, because most are five-plus minute icy, shimmering, ambient, distorted, clanging, and haunted Portisheaded excursions that have a different way of locating their hooks. The group recently toured with dark folk labelmates Boduf Songs and are currently finalizing some Marlon videos. It's hard to tell what's happening in the cover art, but this is what's happening here:
Continue reading New To Kill A Petty Bourgeoisie - "In Peoples' Homes"...
Posted at 3:06 PM by brandon in
Tags: To Kill A Petty Bourgeoisie
latest by destro
Girls' pretty up-all-night video for "Hellhole Ratrace" captured the song's romantic somnambulance perfectly. The harmonica-lined "Solitude," which shows up as the "Hellhole Ratrace" 10" B-Side, conjures an after-hours feel, but with a prom-y two-step (a la Modest Mouse's appropriately titled "Sleepwalking") and a half-awake, much older Bright Eyes-enunciation. The track's called "Solitude," but Christopher Owens and Chet "JR" White are anything but lonely in the above pic. Their 12-song Album is forthcoming, which should find them even more friends.
Continue reading New Girls - "Solitude"...
Posted at 1:45 PM by brandon in
Tags: Girls
latest by derek
Longstanding San Diego crew the Black Heart Procession have a new album out in October. It's called Six because it's their sixth album (i.e. don't forget 1998's 1, 1999's 2, or 2000's Three). The band's "number" albums have been my favorite collections, so hopefully this new one, the followup to 2006's Spell, finds the guys in some sort of return to form. The first single "Rats" is dark and slinky. No surprise there. Maybe a surprise? Three Mile Pilot -- Black Heart's Tobias Nathanial and Pall Jenkins' earlier (and pretty super) band with Pinback's Zach Smith -- are releasing a new record and have a July tour set up. Until then, Tobias, Pall, and other Co.
Continue reading New Black Heart Procession - "Rats"...
Posted at 11:35 AM by brandon in
Tags: Black Heart Procession | Three Mile Pilot
When John Vanderslice did "Too Much Time" with the Magik*Magik Orchestra, we suggested that, actually, perhaps he wasn't spending enough time with the so-called "official house orchestra" of his Tiny Telephone studio. Case in point: Check out this lush take on Romanian Names' "Forest Knolls," which features a strumming/crooning Vanderslice backed by four extremely focused operatic vocalists, a steady booming drum, a pianist, and a flautist. (It's like he's becoming the Decemberists in this moment.) Like last time, it was shot by Nate Chan and Yours Truly at the San Francisco Conservatory of Music.
Continue reading John Vanderslice Explores His "Forest Knolls" With The Magik*Magik Orchestra...
Posted at 10:15 AM by brandon in ,
Tags: John Vanderslice
latest by Sophia Santulli
July 1, 2009
Next week, Jesy Fortino, aka Seattle's Tiny Vipers, is releasing her second Sub Pop full length, Life On Earth. Building up and clarifying what we loved about her debut Hands Across The Void, it's one of the year's best. We already posted Life's "Dreamer," now take a listen to the stunning, heartbreaking "Development." To add resonance to the track, read her thoughtful responses to our queries about loss and growth, both spiritual and spatial, via the ghosts of small towns and loved ones. We didn't have room for all of her words in the Drop, but you can see them here in their entirety.
Continue reading The 'Gum Drop XCV: Hear New Tiny Vipers, Win Wilco Goods...
Posted at 11:02 AM in ,
Tags: Tiny Vipers | Wilco
latest by George Bucio
June 30, 2009
It's that time in the cycle where all the Class of '06 BTWs start making noise again. Yesterday the Twilight Sad dropped another sliver from their forthcoming sophomore full-length, today it's their classmates (and fellow OKX alum) Slaraffenland introducing their next set with the appropriately billed "Meet And Greet." The Danish melodramatists -- recent recipients of a grant from Denmark's Art Council that should keep them playing and touring for a good while -- are in fine form on the new LP's lead track, plying handclaps, horns, group vocals, and peripheral bits of ambient electronics to a bed of pulsing post-Kid A art rock. There's a mix of moods, optimistic yet crestfallen, to the "I know what will take your side" chant. Danes are complex characters.
Continue reading New Slaraffenland - "Meet And Greet"...
Posted at 4:51 PM by amrit in
Tags: Slaraffenland
latest by Turd Ferguson
Philadelphia BTW Cold Cave is an interesting entity, straddling noise, synth-pop, darkwave, power electronics, and art/transgressive literature via their Heartworm Press. (You might recognize their current cover star Marti Domination from Cremaster 1.) Wesley Eisold remains the central creator, it seems, but he's joined by a revolving cast that includes ex-Xiu Xiu member Caralee McElroy, the writer (and MJ fan) Max G. Morton, Dominick Fernow (aka Prurient), and J. Benoit. The forthcoming first proper full-length Loves Comes Close features a mix of these forces. See, for instance, the McElroy-fronted "Life Magazine," which offers a sunnier switchup.
Continue reading New Cold Cave - "Life Magazine"...
Posted at 1:49 PM by brandon in
Tags: Cold Cave
latest by Paper Werewolf
