I used to work in an office with a guy who played drums for the band Asobi Seksu. When he told me the name of his band, I found the moniker to be strange, inviting, and enchanting … till he informed me it was a Japanese translation of the English-language term “sport fucking” (which the band had lifted from Fight Club). Ann Arbor quartet Pity Sex have chosen a handle that is no less dubious in origin than Asobi Seksu, and it’s made doubly so by the fact that the band doesn’t even bother to glamour-cloak it in non-English. Oddly, though, Pity Sex and Asobi Seksu have more in common than just their dispiriting monikers: Both bands are quartets that play blissful and gigantic-sounding shoegaze pop with alternating female-male vocals and overdriven guitars. Pity Sex — drummer Sean St. Charles, guitarist/vocalist Brennan Greaves, bassist Brandan Pierce, and guitarist/vocalist Britty Drake — emerged in 2012 with the six-song Dark World EP (which you can check out on the band’s Bandcamp), and they’re now set to release their first full-length, Feast Of Love. We’ve got the Greaves-fronted album-opener “Wind-Up” for you to spin today, and if it means anything, it’s one of my favorite songs of 2013 — all feedback and fat, fuzzy guitars, glorious melancholy and insane pop hooks. I honestly love it. Listen.
For certain segments of the population, including some of us who may be reluctant to admit such things, an adorable Zooey Deschanel dance routine is pretty much audio-visual crack cocaine. And that group of people (which, let’s be honest, probably encompasses Stereogum’s entire readership, as well as its staff) should enjoy the living hell out of She & Him’s new video for “I Could’ve Been Your Girl.” Deschanel herself directed this one, in which she tries and fails to get the attention of her bandmate M. Ward. This probably makes band practice awkward. Watch it below.
Today, Sally Shapiro released Elsewhere, a remix album of her most recent full-length Somewhere Else. Among refits from Young Galaxy, Little Boots, and Nite Jewel is this Dan Lissvik’s flip of Shapiro’s “If It Doesn’t Rain.” Both versions are darkly emphatic, but Lissvik takes it late night, seedy Miami. Check it out below.
In the video for “Iodine,” the latest single from Copenhagen electro-poppers When Saints Go Machine, a mysterious radiation-suited figure drives an old-school ragtop out to the middle of the desert, descends into a bottomless pit, and explores the crystalline cave he finds down there. You know, normal Sunday-afternoon stuff. Kristian Nordentoft and William Reynish direct the slow but absorbing clip; watch it below.
The-Dream’s new album IV Play is now a week away from release, and on its latest single, the slippery but heartfelt “Where Have You Been,” he teams up with the former Destiny’s Child singer Kelly Rowland. Both singers showed up on The Tonight Show last night to perform the song and to show surprising levels of onstage chemistry. Watch the performance below.
With the 50 And Counting tour, the Rolling Stones are back on the road rocking arenas. Prior stops featured special guests Dave Grohl, Tom Waits, Katy Perry, Keith Urban, and Gwen Stefani, but on this particular night the Stones (including former guitarist Mick Taylor) shined all by themselves. Check out the photos in the gallery above and the setlist below.
BTW alumni TEEN’s Kickstarter-funded EP Carolina is out next week, but you can stream it with us first. The sisters have crafted five tracks of complex psych-influenced but wholly unique indie pop that was produced by Daniel Schlett, who was also responsible for DIIV’s Oshin. I would tell you “Circus” is a stand-out, but I’d also tell you “Cannibal” is a stand-out and so on. Each track has exists in its own hyper-detailed, hypnotic space. Check it out below.
In Portland punks the Thermals’ video for “The Sunset,” the second single from their new album Desperate Ground, badass bassist Kathy Foster gets a star turn. She plays a boxer training for a big fight with, as far as I can tell, the camera operator, and she also gives us her version of Rosie Perez’s dance from the Do The Right Thing opening credits. The band co-directed the video with Jeffrey Rowles, and you can watch it below.
