Lakeshore Record Exchange's AlternativeMusic.com Blog

Nate Will Not Return

2012-01-18T11:52:00.000-05:00

This week I have selected The Fall's Ersatz GB. It was released late last year, but as a fan, I must include this as this week's pick. While it may not be their best album, they still have a few very rockin' tracks that get yer foot a'stompin. At this point, the legacy of Mark E Smith outshines the music. He has been notorious for firing his band every couple of albums so the fact that they have made 3 or so albums together is something worth mentioning. I hope to see them live someday, as I have only heard remarkable things.

For fun, I have included a lengthy review of this album. I have never deferred to a second reviewer but I think Tjames Madison succinctly and very entertainingly tells the tale of the new album. I don't think I could have said it any better myself:

Rock your ears off with Nate Will Not Return here:

Buy Ersatz GB here.

I Know

2012-01-11T12:15:00.003-05:00

If you don't know who David Lynch is, well, I don't know what to tell ya. He's only one of the most fascinating people of the twenty first century! His album, Crazy Clown Time has received many reviews last year and it made my top twenty of 2011 list. In honor of his upcoming birthday on the 20th, I have selected his album as my pick of the week. It's like a soundtrack to a non-existent film. The single that people have heard, "Pinky's Dream" with Karen O is misleading, as there are not many female vocals on the album nor is it a rockabilly album. This isn't like listening to the Twin Peaks soundtrack or Julee Cruise. However, if you are versed in some of Lynch's films or have watched him on Twin Peaks, then this output should not be that surprising of an album for you. There is plenty of tense, repetitive bluesy music permeated by reverb and echo. His interest in transcendental meditation comes through in the spoken word track, "Strange and Unproductive Thinking"and even in "Noah's Ark" and "Football Game". They might seem like strange ramblings through some kind of vocoder but they are worth a listen. His lyrics are more or less what you might expect: simple, fragmented, and a bit dull on the page, but threateningly voiced in his high, twanging pitch. There is definitely nothing else like this album at the moment.

Check out the ethereal grooves of "I Know" here.

Watch my favorite Lynch segment from the Twin Peaks Series!

Buy your copy of Crazy Clown Time here.

We Are Back!!

2012-01-05T12:22:00.002-05:00

Happy New Year! It's time for the first selection of the year and while I have no new release to report, I do a re-issue that I am pretty psyched about. It's LFO's debut album from 1991 (yikes!), Frequencies, which came out late in 2011. Rereleased on Warp Records, this takes us back in time to when techno felt like a new genre, when terms like "Acid House" and "Dance Music" were pretty concrete terms.

Sheffield's techno duo of Mark Bell and Gez Varley have only released only two records and not many more singles while they worked together, the pair's apparently meager contribution would hardly seem to bear out the claim that they were one of British techno's most important, agenda-setting groups. Nonetheless, early singles have indelibly marked British techno with Detroit's progressiveness, electro's funk, and an unflinching, uniquely British experimentalism.

Taking their name from the foundational component of the synthesizers -- the low frequency oscillator (kind of like calling a rock group "Power Chord") -- the pair were approached by Warp in the late '80s after tapes the pair had put together on some junky, second-hand equipment caught the ears of local DJs and the dancefloors of local clubs. Both Bell and Varley admit to roots in the early- and mid-'80s hip-hop and electro invasions, as well as the more obvious British acid house explosion, and their affectation for thick, electronic breaks, vocoder samples, and sparse, modal melodies derived largely from that source. (LFO were also one of only a few -- with 808 State and Coldcut -- to find domestic reissue through the New York-based hip-hop label Tommy Boy, making obvious a connection between British experimental techno and American hip-hop and electro-funk.)

Releasing their bass-heavy debut in 1991 to universal acclaim, the pair were silent for the next five years, with rumors of a follow-up surfacing from time to time failing to produce anything. LFO finally resurfaced in 1995 with the ironically titled "Tied Up," followed several months later by Advance. The group also remixed tracks for Björk and the Sabres of Paradise, but dissolved the partnership soon after. Varley went on to a solo career, while Bell began an intermittent production career, working on tracks for Björk's Homogenic LP of 1997 and Depeche Mode's Exciter from 2001. After resolving what Warp called his mid-range crisis, Bell returned with the third LFO full-length, Sheath, in the fall of 2003 (officially, it was the first without Varley).

So take a listen to "We Are Back", an apt selection for both the resurgence of this classic album and for the first blog of the New Year! Get your headphones on, this jam is bassy!!!

Buy your copy of LFO Frequencies here.

Top 20 of 2011

2011-12-30T11:04:00.025-05:00

Here's the Manager Picks, NOT including any various artists compilations, singles collections or REISSUES. The Reissues are their own category. But if you missed any of these picks this year, stock up while we're in the new releases doldrums!
Happy New Year!!!!

#1 The Horrors--Skying

#2? Polly Jean Harvey--Let England Shake

#3 Lady Gaga--Born This Way (I know you guys are gonna barf, but hey, we need 1 pop LP)

#4 St.Vincent--Strange Mercy

#5 LCD Soundsystem--London Sessions

#6 The Field--Looping State of Mind

#7 Wagonchrist--Toomorrow

#8 M83--Hurry Up, We're Dreaming

#9 Battles--Gloss Drop

#10 Cut Copy--Zonoscope

#11 A Tie!! Thee Oh Sees' Castlemania and Carrion Crawler/Dream

#12 Tom Waits--Bad As Me

#13--Little Dragon--Ritual Union

#14 Brian Eno--Drums Between the Bells

#15 Disk Jokke--Sagura

#16 Tim Hecker--Ravedeath, 1972

#17--Bjork--Biophilia

#18 Gil Scott-Heron & Jamie XX--We're New Here

#19 Holy Ghost--Holy Ghost

#20 David Lynch--Crazy Clown Time

What if We All Stopped Paying Taxes?

2011-12-29T10:54:00.003-05:00

Sharon Jones and the Dap Kings are probably one of the best current bands that are making soul music today. Whenever someone would cite Amy Winehouse in the beginning of her huge success, I would always turn them in the direction of Sharon Jones. Few singers as skilled as Sharon Jones at stuffing notes with ache and meaning might be willing to invest in a sound so fully occupied by the likes of Bettye LaVette and Tina Turner in the Ike years, too. She was born in Augusta, Georgia, sang in her church choir and with the support of her community she got the nerve she needed to move to Brooklyn with her family and there she immersed herself in 70's disco and funk and planned to make her own record. She got steady work as a backup singer for gospel, soul, disco, and blues artists, most of it uncredited. In the '80s, however, Jones' sound was deemed unfashionable, and instead of pushing ahead with her soul diva's dream she went back to church singing. She also took a job as a corrections officer at New York's Rykers Island.

It wasn't until the late 90's that Desco Records would discover Jones and she released several singles with the labels' house band, the Soul Providers. During this time she began to be known as the "Queen of Funk". It wasn't until 2002 that she released her first full length release, Dap Dippin' with Sharon Jones & the Dap-Kings. Since then she has toured extensively and made follow up albums, 100 Days, 100 Nights and Learned the Hard Way.

There is nothing modern about Soul Time!, yet it sounds both refreshing and contemporary. The exceptional musicianship and impeccable vocals may not be to everyone’s taste, but for 40 very happy minutes, you can revel in SJDK’s very discrete world.

Just how does one pick a soul track? I went by the title, which was unexpected for me, to find the band jammin' out to some current events and getting political. I didn't think someone could sing a song about taxes since the Beatle's Tax Man.
Lend me your ears!

Buy your copy of Sharon Jones and the Dap Kings' Soul Time! here.

Douche Beat

2011-12-21T11:25:00.003-05:00

French producer Mr. Oizo has been kicking techno's ass since 1997, getting his start directing the video for Laurent Garnier's "Flashback" single, as well as the long-form video Nightmare Sandwiches starring and featuring music by Garnier. That year, he also moved into music production, with his debut single "#1" appearing on Garnier's F Communications label. After the video, he was tapped to direct the commercial that launched Levi's vaunted non-denim line of trousers. The eccentric advert -- featuring a puppet named Flat Eric maniacally bobbing his head to the music in the passenger seat of a Chevelle while a nonplussed human driver concentrated on the road -- soon became famous across Europe, and the single (also on F Communications) hit number one all across the continent. The rest, as they say, is history, as his debut album, Analog Worms Attack came out the following October.

If I had to categorize Mr. Oizo's newest album, Stage 2, into a genre, perhaps tech-house would be an apt suitor. I tend to think of it as whacked out, glitchy, tongue-in-cheek techno, A.D.D.-addled and quick to jump onto the next thing. It's unlike anything out in the mainstream and has a lot of frenetic qualities. I am quite amused by "Douche Beat", the featured track. For those that do not know, I am (not so) secretly plotting to overthrow Skrillex and Deadmau5 someday...and here's Mr. Oizo beating me to the punch with a song that sums up a lot of the current club scene.

Have fun with this.

Email me, marta@alternativemusic.com to special your copy!!

Sister

2011-12-13T11:19:00.003-05:00

The Black Keys are back and this time they have enlisted the help of super-producer Dangermouse!!! Ah yes, that's why it sounds less bluesy-soulful like Brothers and more polished and with added flair containing layers of cheap organs, fuzz guitars, talk boxes, backing girls, tambourines, foot stomps, and handclaps. 'This is not the Black Keys I know and love', you say, but alas, the distinguishable retro vibe is still there amidst all the bells and whistles that Dangermouse brings.

Upon first listen, I really wasn't so sure about this one. My reaction was "ehh" as it has been with their previous albums. Yet as I hear it more and more within the shop, the pop "fungus" created by Dangermouse grows on me and I can't help but to hum along and sing a word or two, even when I think I am not paying attention. I can't help but to notice the arrangements of the songs--they seem to be arranged in groups of threes that go together. The mini-groupings within the album seem to sound the same and then they move onto something else; some organ, some 80s rock, something a bit more like a ballad. There is some sort of bygone era pastiche going on here, like playing like a collection of 11 lost 45 singles, each one having a bigger beat or dirtier hook than the previous side. All that sad, this is an addictive little album. I wanted to avoid it amidst its hype, but I can't get some of these buggers out of my head. Watch out!

Here's one to get stuck in ye olde noggin:

Buy your copy of El Camino at the shop or here (the booklet features all pix of, you guessed it, El Caminos!)

Tomorrow Comes Today

2011-12-01T10:45:00.002-05:00

While this is not new material, I still feel the new Gorillaz Singles Collection is worthy of this week's pick. It has all the jamz, in chronological order, which I like. We can trace their steps from "Clint Eastwood" to "Dare" to "On Meloncholy Hill". Gorillaz is far and away the most successful of Damon Albarn's side projects, selling millions of records worldwide, headlining Glastonbury and Coachella, and holographically sharing a Grammys stage with Madonna. The group's artistic success has also kept pace with its commercial success, giving Albarn a way to combine most of his musical distractions into an oddly cohesive whole. In retrospect, the key to the project may have been enabling Albarn to abandon the frontman role and become the man behind the curtain, both figuratively and (up until recent live shows) literally. If you don't think that hiding place isn't therapeutic for Albarn, consider that Think Tank, the 2003 Blur album that essentially became an Albarn solo joint, also attempted to blend all of these interests, to less satisfying results.

The oldest songs don't even sound dated. That's why I've selected "Tomorrow Comes Today" as the featured track; it's just as great today as it was back then, cruising around with the windows rolled down.

Buy your copy of Gorillaz Singles Collection here.

Chem-Farmer

2011-11-23T12:41:00.004-05:00

!!!! Thee Oh Sees make me wanna scream !!!! But seriously, this prolific San Fran band is headed by frontman John Dwyer,keyboardist/singer Brigid Dawson, bassist Petey Dammit, and drummer Mike Shoun. With unspeakable chemistry and an instinctual bond that borders on telepathic, the band has taken its wildly cacophonous and setlist-free live show to must-see status, turning music venues populated by arm-folding spectators into anarchic riot scenes. In fact, they just played the Bug Jar this past Monday! An Oh Sees show is a place where combing the floor for your shoes when the house lights come on becomes ritualistic, where getting kicked in the face by a renegade crowd-surfer provokes a shit-eating grin instead of a scowl. Most of the band's best albums serve as recorded documents of their live sets; you can practically hear Dwyer swallowing microphones and spitting upwards to the rafters.

2011's Castlemania was the poppiest and most melodic we’d heard Thee Oh Sees yet, but Carrion Crawler/The Dream completely flips the script, capturing the range, energy, and freedom of their notoriously raging live performances in a way none of their previous records have. Recorded in June around the time of Castlemania’s release, this could be attributed to the addition of Lars Finberg (the Intelligence), who joined the band on tour as second drummer and makes his recorded debut on this release. And while Castlemania begged speakers to bubble over with eccentric effervescence, the assault of driving double-drum rhythms and scuzzy bass riffs on freakouts “Contraption/Soul Desert” and semi-eponymous “The Dream” threaten to blow them clean out.

Please rock out to Chem-Farmer below and take a peep at a video while yer at it!

Buy your own copy of Carrion Crawler/The Dream by stepping into the shop or emailing marta@alternativemusic.com

Say Somethin' (Joel Ford Revoice)

2011-11-16T16:19:00.002-05:00

King Midas Sound is a collaboration between Kevin Martin (God, Techno Animal, the Bug) and vocalists Roger Robinson and Kiki Hitomi. They came out in 2007 on the Soul Jazz Records compilation, Box of Dub. KMS linked with Kode9’s Hyperdub label, where they made their proper debut in October 2008 with “Cool Out,” a relatively rugged A-side backed by remixes (of tracks that had yet to be released) from Dabrye and Flying Lotus. Another 12”, Dub Heavy: Hearts & Ghosts, came in June 2009, containing dub versions of tracks that -- once again -- had not been released in original form. The despondent “Meltdown” led off October 2009’s 5 Years of Hyperdub compilation and previewed Waiting for You, King Midas Sound's debut album, released the following month. For me, this was quite a distinctive album of the time due to its throbbing bass (in a non-cheezy dub-step kind of way), vocal treatments and how it sounded like hip hop or R&B of the future.

Now we have Without You, a remix album two years after the fact. It's not really a track-by-track revisit, and there's a deep focus on some songs in particular-- like the Kiki Hitomi feature "Goodbye Girl", which gets three different reinterpretations from three different remixers. Each mixer brings a special treatment--either minimizing the song even more, such as with Flying Lotus' version of Lost, which also features the record player static featured on his own songs. I really dig it when I can hear the remixer's touch or even a complete reconfiguration to the original, rather than just as extended version of the song, as we used to hear with 80's 12 inch dance singles. It's another ball game entirely on Without You. There are "remixes" and "revoices" by the likes of Flying Lotus, Scritti Politti's Green Gartside, Ford & Lopatin's Joel Ford, Gang Gang Dance, Cooly G, D-bridge, and Kuedo to name a few. This album is a bad-ass, I highly recommend it. Then you should go back and listen to the original. Nothing else really sounds like this at the moment in the shop.

Listen to Joel Ford's revoiceing of "Say Somethin'" here

Buy your copy of Without You here. or email marta@alternativemusic.com

Angel Is Broken

2011-11-09T15:26:00.002-05:00

Bradford Cox is an interesting fellow. When he is not busy with Deerhunter, he sings atop his solo project, Atlas Sound. Parallax is the third official release and in case you were wondering, refers to the visual phenomenon that affects the perception of objects’ relative positions depending on the viewer’s distance from them, a term typically used when speaking about stars. Yet, it seems like an appropriate title; Cox references distance, motion, and emotion on this set of songs, oscillating between the sparkling pop he does so well with this project as well as Deerhunter and the hazy experiments that are all Atlas Sound. He seamlessly moves between blurry edges and glorious pop. I was already getting the inkling that he is the next Sparklehorse (Mark Linkous) and on this record, I hear it even more, but sans precious xylophones and 4-track hiss. But that tenderness, that vulnerability and vocal experimentation between light and affected, sneers and melody that Linkous characterized can be heard through Cox. I don't know what his official position on Sparklehorse is and for my purposes it doesn't matter--the similar vein alone is enough to fulfill my interests and to see Bradford Cox as someone special amidst the many trending musicians now.

Parallax feels like a more complete work than any other Atlas Sound record, with the differences between the songs less distinct and everything flowing together more naturally. There are no such loose strands here, and the closing "Lightworks" ends the album wonderfully with a tremoloed guitar shuddering against Cox's hankering vocals. There's no kraut-rock-y jam this time, like the one from the last album, with Laetitia Sadier, which kind of disappointed me, but, to have another song like that just for the sake of it wouldn't be a good move either. That lightness of touch is on display throughout this album, bringing the listener closer to Cox's brittle self-examination. I don't know what it is about Cox that seems so small, alone, and cut adrift from the world, but the way these songs breathe suggests he's more comfortable in his own skin, allowing him to draw his audience closer than ever. It's that artist-created inner world that gives the work a sense of authenticity and honesty. You just can't fake that tenderness.

Picking a stand apart track doesn't seem right, but hey, take a stab at "Angel Is Broken".

Buy your copy of Atlas Sound Parallax here.

Raconte-Moi Une Histoire

2011-11-02T09:09:00.002-05:00

M83's Anthony Gonzalez is back with Hurry Up, We're Dreaming, a delightful synth pop gem, spanning more sounds and moods than any of M83's previous work, resulting in a collection of impressionistic moments rather than a grand statement. My first impressions of it were somewhat blase, a bit too heavy handedly ripping off the 80s, particularly Men At Work, but upon subsequent listenings, I found it to be an album channeling our inner child, trying to tap our psyche and get us to feel both exaltation and melancholia, focusing us on memories of when we were young and felt optimism towards the world and that anything was possible. Surprising to me, I read that this album was heavily influenced by Smashing Pumpkin's Mellon Collie and the Infinite Sadness! We still hear the familiar vocal stylings that Gonzalez sings and Zola Jesus' Nika Rosa Danilova sings on the opening track, "Intro". He also takes us through tender piano, slap bass, sax solos (so Clarence Clemens!), and children's choir. Somehow it works across this double album because it is polished and it is clear that Gonzalez has honed in the sounds he has already given us and he has settled into a clear artistic vision.

More than any of M83's other albums, Hurry Up, We’re Dreaming feels like a destination to explore; while it may not be quite as striking as Saturdays = Youth, it delivers a welcome mix of classic sounds and promising changes.

Listen to"Raconte-Moi Une Histoire", or tell me a story, about a magical frog. Some might consider this a throwaway, but I am fascinated with songs that turn the absurd into a delight.

Buy your copy of Hurry Up, We're Dreaming here.

Talking at the Same Time

2011-10-26T13:42:00.003-05:00

Tom Waits--that bastard, wild-eyed, character of an uncle we all wish we had is back with his first album in seven years, Bad As Me. Alongside Mr. Waits is his longtime collaborator and wife (and saint!), Kathleen Brennan, his son Casey on drums, Keith Richards, Flea, and Charlie Musselwhite, amongst a few others. As a whole, this album is filled with short songs, the longest being just over four minutes. Long time fans will find nothing terribly new here, which is not a bad thing at all. Waits is characteristically weird, tender, gruff, bluesy, and woozy. He has has formula down, however idiosyncratic it is. Most of these songs are slower love songs that trace a lineage back to his earliest material. There is less strange vaudeville akin to Frank's Wild Years than one might expect but when he caters to his more sensitive side, we see what a gem of a songwriter he is. Don't get me wrong, this is not typical songwriting, however, he sounds less like a muppet and more of an old blues singer. There's enough variation here that all that oldness and weirdness-- all those frantic, busted melodies, all that carnie growl never gets tiresome. For all his indulgences, Waits never lingers too long; these tracks are concise and expertly edited, and Bad as Me feels as new as it does ancient. It's the kind of music we're all gonna be glad we have come winter. I guarantee listening to this album is like drinking a fine bourbon.

Take a listen to the third track, Talking at the Same Time here. Get a load of Waits' take on the state of the economy set to a blues backdrop.

Buy your copy of Bad As Me here.

2011-10-19T09:23:00.003-05:00

Kompakt's super producer Axel Willner is back, as The Field, with Looping State of Mind. I get very excited when there's a new release from this German label, as it has a pretty reliable track record of quality output. His first singles and debut album, From Here We Go Sublime, were like ambient records disguised as both experimental techno and luscious pop. On his third release, Willner orchestrates very dense soundscapes that pluck from shoe-gaze, deep house, noize, and of course, techno. It's not entirely the same repetitions one would expect from him. The rhythms on are more varied than anything the Willner's done before. He's come so far as to make his earlier albums seem like a warm up compared to level of integration and complexity he has achieved currently. On Looping he packs all seven tracks with curveballs, and each new direction feel successful, vital, surprising. I find this is an album that I need to hear played really loudly. I can't wait to get my copy and rock out to it at home!!

Listen to this jam, It's Up There.

Buy your copy of The Field's Looping State of Mind here.
or email marta@alternativemusic.com

Scale It Back

2011-10-12T10:47:00.003-05:00

Finally!! DJ Shadow seems to be back in his skin, with The Less You Know is Better, his latest release. My initial reaction was that it sounds like someone put their arms around him and shook him the crunk out of him and now he is back to his old self. The only travesty is that it took so long to get there...several albums have passed since The Private Press, the last album I bought. Less You know picks up where the Private Press left off, as it is reminscent of that sound and also of his collaboration with James LaVelle with UNKLE. Pitchfork panned this album, giving it only a 4.5, but then again, I am assuming that the average age of the reviewer is about 23-25 and they wouldn't have been really into the emergence of Shadow back in 1996. In 2011, every new band has to be hip, cool, a throwback to what young 20-something can understand. For all of us who are in our thirties and beyond, this might be the album for you!

In case anyone needs a refresher, DJ Shadow, nee Josh Davis, was a key figure in developing the experimental instrumental hip-hop style associated with the London-based Mo' Wax label. His early singles for the label, including "In/Flux" and "Lost and Found (S.F.L.)," were all-over-the-map mini-masterpieces combining elements of funk, rock, hip-hop, ambient, jazz, soul, and used-bin finds. There was nothing really like in the early 1990's. When his sound began to mature, Mo Wax released the 40 minute opus, "What Does Your Soul Look Like" in 1995, a heady concept for a hip hop instrumental, yet topping the British Charts!

Davis grew up in Hayward, California, a suburb of San Francisco. He had already been fiddling around with making beats and breaks on a four-track while he was in high school, but it was his move to the Northern California town of Davis to attend university that led to the establishment of his own Solesides label as an outlet for his original tracks. There he hooked up with b-boys and Blackalicious and Lyrics Born, and through college radio his mixtapes were heard and began spreading around the hip-hop underground. Shadow's first full-length, Endtroducing..., was released in late 1996 to immense critical acclaim in Britain and America. Preemptive Strike, a compilation of early singles, followed in early 1998.

Fast Forward to 2011, Shadow is back on his turntables, scrounging up countless bits and pieces of vinyl history. The Less You Know...is his first studio album in five years and sounds closer to his humble beginnings than the past couple albums. This is quite a contrast from the previous album, which was heavily rap based. Instead, Shadow focuses on plumbing the depths of his record collection, occasionally flashing and scratching like in his salad days, but just as often pulling slabs of forgotten wax -- metal riffs, piano balladry, bygone acid-rock burnouts, crystalline female folkies -- to state his case for him.

One such vocal, "Scale it Back" features the sultry voice of Little Dragon's Yumiki Nagano. Take a listen here.

Buy your copy of The Less You Know here.

Stop

2011-09-28T10:24:00.003-05:00

The first time my coworker heard me put in Twin Sister, he said, "Is this Feist?" Noooo, definitely not. Long Island's dream pop quintet Twin Sister makes music that's meant to feel comfy and lived-in, with a good amount of subtlety. Their first EP, Vampires with Dreaming Kids, was self-released that year. After their first live show out of town, at SXSW, they toured with tUnE-YarDs and Xiu Xiu before putting the final touches on their second EP, Color Your Life, which followed in 2010. In 2011, Twin Sister signed to Domino Records and released their first full-length, In Heaven, that September.

Twin Sister keep the songwriting focus small and detailed. More interested in documenting life's minor moments than the big, transformative ones, they sing about things like recommending movies to friends or having an awkward crush go unspoken. Little stuff, but meaningful in its way. Take "Stop", for example, a track breathily sung by guitarist Eric Cardona and featuring a sultry R&B thump. It reads heavy romance on first listen, but that's actually not the case. "I keep telling myself to stop, to feel if I like it," Cardona sings, describing a new relationship he's trying to be responsible about. It seems he doesn't want to rush into sleeping with this person-- someone's feelings could get hurt that way.

Get dreamy with me and take a listen to Stop here.

Buy a copy of Twin Sister's In Heaven here.

Lazy Bones

2011-09-21T10:32:00.003-05:00

San Francisco's Wooden Shjips play a minimal, droning brand of garage-styled psychedelia with a noticeable '60s Krautrock influence. Immediately I think of local bands The Priests or the Veins. The band's vocals slip beneath waves of throbbing minimal rhythms, while fuzztone guitar and shrieking organs jump to the foreground. When bandleader Ripley Johnson assembled the group in 2003, he wasn't interested in playing gigs or becoming famous; rather, his original intention was to find a group of non-musicians for the purposes of creating innovative music. On their Thrill Jockey debut, engineer Phil Manley (who handled the recording and mixing chores for Johnson's side project Moon Duo's latest album Mazes) was brought in, making this the first WS record to be cut in a proper studio. Mastering was farmed out to Sonic Boom and Heba Kadry. The end result is the most expansive Wooden Shjips album yet,full of the fuzzed-out, murky, and distorted excesses that are the band's trademarks. The San Francisco psychedelia that Johnson claims as his biggest influence takes a back seat to both the MC5 and Loop.

Wooden Shjips are very much sticking to their signature sound on West. Even with its increased focus on classic-rock virtues, the album isn't really a collection of riffs and wails and choruses; it's more a muscular sort of vibe-out-- badass ambient music, if you will. As hard as the band can rock, expansive nod-out music is still its focus, and the album works best when you give yourself over entirely to its pounding grandeur. Frontman Ripley Johnson sings in a narcoleptic mutter that never displays the slightest bit of feeling, and his numbed monotone never disturbs the mood by leaping out of the mix to grab you.

If you're as much a vinyl fetishist as I am, you'll be interested in getting a copy, as LPs straight from Thrill Jockey are a beautiful aqua hue!

Lend your ears to "Lazy Bones" here.

Buy your copy of Wooden Shjips' West here.

Cruel

2011-09-15T09:50:00.003-05:00

Before she began composing and performing her own quirky, intricate pop songs, Annie Clark proved her musical prowess as part of Glenn Branca's 100 Guitar Orchestra, as guitarist and background vocalist for the Polyphonic Spree (on their third album, Fragile Army), and as a member of Sufjan Stevens' touring band. Contrast has always been a major part of her music, and Strange Mercy's juxtapositions of harshness, softness, truth, lies, cruelty, and kindness feel especially pointed and potent. Most apparent is her use of opposing sounds; working with producer John Congleton, she focuses on luxurious strings and woodwinds that float above wobbly keyboards and ugly, distorted guitars that emphasize that these songs are under pressure. Less obvious are the emotional shifts many of these songs undergo, and how they blur the album’s contrasts.

On the title track, Clark goes from vulnerable to protective to violent as she sings “I’ll tell you good news that I don’t believe/If it will help you sleep,” and on “Champagne Year,” she confesses and deceives at the same time. “Cruel” is Strange Mercy's definitive track, putting inspired lyrics like “They could take or leave you/So they took you then they left you” atop strings and woodwinds straight from a vintage musical and a messed-up, fuzzed-out guitar solo. The song gets increasingly anxious as it closes, a pattern Clark repeats throughout the album; indeed, while these songs are some of her most fragmented, each song on Strange Mercy is tied to another.

Strange Mercy is St. Vincent's most reflective and most audacious album to date, and Clark remains as delicately uncompromising an artist as ever.

Take a listen to "Cruel" here.

Buy your copy of St. Vincent's Strange Mercy here (get it while it's hot!).

How Deep is Your Love?

2011-09-07T15:47:00.003-05:00

It's kind of hard to believe that New York's Rapture have been around since 1998. Once hailed by some writers as the second coming of Gang of Four, the Rapture were the flagship band of the post-punk revival that swept through the indie underground during the early 2000s. They debuted on Sub-Pop with an EP, added keyboards, were produced by DFA, and blew up with "The House of Jealous Lovers", an infectious punky dance anthem of 2003. The album Pieces of the People We Love followed, which had a couple of top 40 singles in the U.K.Pieces of the People We Love, was released three years later by Mercury and involved production input from Ewan Pearson, Danger Mouse, and Paul Epworth. Tapes, a stylistically broad mix album, came out through !K7 in 2008. Safer left the following year and it would be two more years before the band would release another studio album.

In the Grace of Your Love is a more mature Rapture than we have seen before. The opening track, "Sail Away" makes me think of "Come Sail Away" by STYX, a concern initially. However, it features singer Luke Jenner straining to hit the high notes, completely unlike STYX. Yet I kind of like that aspect of that song. Nearly a decade after "Jealous Lovers", they're a patient, skilled rock band unafraid to look uncool.

Listen to How Deep is Your Love? and get sucked into their piano-driven tour de force here.

Buy your copy of the Rapture's In the Grace of Your Love here.

If Love is the Drug Then I Want to OD

2011-08-31T10:04:00.003-05:00

Such campy titles can come from none other than Brian Jonestown Massacre's Anton Newcombe. Anyone who has followed the band knows that they have been no stranger to dischord. They have broken up several times and gone through members frequently over the past twenty one years. Despite a continued lack of major distribution, the Brian Jonestown Massacre earned the largest profile of their career in 2004, when the band became the unlikely focus of an award-winning documentary, DIG!, which charted the trials of Newcombe and those of his rival, Courtney Taylor, leader of the Dandy Warhols. In 2008, the band reinvented itself with My Bloody Underground, featuring yet another lineup and a hint of shoegaze and noise pop. Who Killed Sgt Pepper? followed shortly after, being made available in streaming format at the end of 2009 and receiving an official release on January 1st, 2010. Currently, Anton is distributing their music himself through his label, The Committee to Keep Music Evil. For vinyl fanatics like myself, this makes buying their records challenging because the price point is through the roof!!

While The Singles Collection (1992-2011) is not as essential as Tepid Peppermint Wonderland, it is a nice alternative that delivers a wide spread of Brian Jonestown Massacre material. The band’s music will always be overshadowed by Anton Newcombe’s debauchery and tantrums, and there are so many albums that it’s not easy to dive right in (although, the five albums from 1996-1998 are all excellent), but this compilation provides a nice starting point. The 22 remastered tracks are taken straight from vinyl 45s and cover a range of styles, from ‘60s influenced psych to gnarled garage rock, and in later work, shoegaze -- including two drone-based songs that Newcombe released under the name Acid. Fourteen of the tracks were previously unavailable on CD, and some suffer from fidelity issues, but that doesn’t make them any less appealing.

Get yer ya ya's off to "If Love is the Drug then I want to OD" here.

Buy your copy of The Singles Collection here.

Brush the Heat

2011-08-22T15:47:00.003-05:00

You may have heard Little Dragon before, making a guest appearance on Gorillaz's Plastic Beach. One could say that Damon Albarn was out to showcase their best qualities; the serene voice of Yukimi Nagano adding serene touches while Håkan Wirenstrand's keyboards give the album super-saturated textures. Little Dragon originate from Sweden, debuting in 2007 with their self-titled album.

Ritual Union, the band's third album, does not stray from the sexy, futuristic sound of their previous record, Machine Dreams, or their team-up with Albarn. They are crafting moody synths, nearly subliminal bass lines, and impossibly crisp snare hits. A few of the songs, like the sleek title track and the brisk, funky "Nightlight", rank among the group's finest work. All through the record, Little Dragon are extremely effective in delivering the most attractive elements of their style, resulting in a set of songs that come across like the ideal soundtrack to a night on the town in some exotic sci-fi city.

I think this is a pretty good album from start to finish and picking just one track was a challenge. Take a listen to "Brush the Heat", with its haunting harmonies.

Buy your copy of Ritual Union here.

Moving Further Away

2011-08-11T14:44:00.003-05:00

My favorite new shoegazing, black-clad British gentlemen, with teased out hairdo's are back with Skying, their third full-length album. The Horrors were fortunate enough to burst onto the scene in 2006 as critic's darlings thanks to NME. Their debut single, Sheena is a Parasite/Jack the Ripper generated a ton of buzz that summer. They DJ'ed at the Troubled Minds club night, had to reschedule in-store appearances because of crowd concerns, and released their second single, Death at the Chapel. They also reissued Sheena Is a Parasite as a limited-edition DVD single. The song's startling video was directed by Chris Cunningham and featured actress Samantha Morton as Sheena. Late that summer, the band signed to Stolen Transmission in the U.S. and released a self-titled EP that fall.

Flash forward to 2009, with their mixed shoegaze, post-punk, and goth album, Primary Colours, which was released by XL that spring and earned several critical raves, including NME's Album of the Year. I happen to think of that album as the offspring of the Cure mixed with the Chameleons and My Bloody Valentine. That The Horrors' sound can be heard as a catalogue of influences is nothing new for this band. They've routinely been tagged as "record collector rock" for their unabashed aping of influences from the Cramps to Can-- and indeed their well-selected covers indicate a group that has spent some time in record shops. I think these kids are quoting responsibly and taking their influences and working in their own sounds.

In Skying, I think they are blending the sounds of Psychedelic Furs with Simple Minds, if I had to make comparisons. I enjoy them so it is not a problem for me. The album is a bit lighter, more atmospheric, slightly less melancholic. It's more melodic and more pop. Yet somehow the Horrors' chameleon act seems more cohesive and convincing -- or perhaps it’s just less shocking to hear them give their music another complete makeover. The main remnant of Primary Colours is that album’s production, which the Horrors embellish further with dense layers of synth, guitars, and vocals. Skying's centerpiece and lead single, “Still Life,” defines its approach, with sparkly mid-‘80s keyboards and brass that only strengthen the feeling that Jim Kerr sang this song over the credits of some long-lost John Hughes movie. Though “Still Life” isn’t as striking a salvo as Primary Colours' “Sea Within a Sea,” it’s just as striking in its own way, and even if nothing here quite matches their previous flashes of brilliance, Skying reflects the Horrors' growing abilities. Not only do the bandmembers stretch the muscles they developed on Primary Colours with workouts like “Moving Further Away” and “Oceans Burning”, they also turn in some downright poppy moments like the towering “I Can See Through You” and “Endless Blue.” While the Horrors' main skill still seems to be embodying whatever styles catch their fancies as completely as they can, they put more of their own stamp on these sounds. Regardless of where they end up next, the Horrors have already traveled much further than most listeners would have imagined.

Listen to my track pick, Moving Further Away here.

Buy your copy of Skying at the shop or here.

Plumb line

2011-08-03T10:42:00.002-05:00

Tis the season of reissues and deluxe editions of pre-existing albums. Everybody's cashing in, both new and old bands alike. Despite this, I am pleased to see the Archers of Loaf getting attention again with the reissue of their first album, Icky Mettle, originally released in 1993 (gasp!). In the heyday of indie rock, the early to mid-nineties, they were critic's darlings and most people I knew were cranking their CDs in their cars during roadtrips and while cruising around town. The Archers hailed from Chapel Hill, North Carolina, a scene also boasting of Polvo and Superchunk. They met while attending UNC.

Their music was frequently likened to a more intense, raucous version of Pavement's postmodern pop, and indeed they shared key elements: fractured song constructions, abstractly witty lyrics, clangy guitars, and lo-fi production. More rooted in punk and noise rock, however, the Archers took the dissonance, white noise, and angularity to greater extremes, and played with more enthusiasm in concert. Icky Mettle was a well received then several more accomplished albums followed before the group called it quits in 1998.

Perhaps I am a bit nostalgic for the original days of indie rock, or it's just a quirky connection I have to their lyrics, but "Plumb Line" had to be my track of the week, despite other good releases. "She's an indie rocker, nothing's gonna stop her, her fashion fits...": these are words I have sung under my breath in relation to myself over the years many, many times.

Wax nostalgic yerself, with "Plumb line" here.

Buy your own copy of Icky Mettle here.

Panutup

2011-07-29T11:57:00.003-05:00

Hailing from the small town of Svelvik, located just southwest of Oslo, Norway -- an unlikely but proven city to breed and export influential electro artists -- Joachim Dyrdahl, otherwise known as diskJokke, makes acid house beats perfect for moving dancefloors and lays down chilled cinematic pop ideal for lounging. After going to school to study mathematics in a Trondheim university, he relocated to Oslo and started combining his classical and electro-disco backgrounds as a producer. He met up with Prins Thomas, who released two of diskJokke's tracks as 12" singles on his Full Pupp label.

Sagara was commissioned by Norway's Øya festival, which provided Dyrdahl the resources to travel to a place of his choosing and study music. After sampling musicians in Bali and Java, Dyrdahl abandoned the idea of a dance album and instead focused on incorporating the tones and modalities of Gamelan music into pillow-soft mood pieces.
The album travels in a slow build towards my favorite track, Panutup, the most transcendent song which lifts the tonal haze, meandering into Vangelis-esque synthesizer pop and then, unexpectedly, into a few blissful minutes of full-on 4/4 beat that feels, on arrival, like the aural equivalent of a tropical sunrise. Dyrdahl spins this sudden percussion into an uplifting Balearic anthem before fading it out again. Which is not to suggest that the rest of the album feels like it's missing anything, or is in any way inferior to Diskjokke's dance-oriented output.

Treat your ears to Panutup here!

Buy a copy of DiskJokke Sagura here.

Mozaik

2011-07-20T10:16:00.002-05:00

Zomby’s Dedication is not your garden variety dub-step. It’s not the sound that’s peppered into the latest Britney Spears album, nor a Katy Perry remix. Yet, it is not a carbon copy of Burial, and it’s not wobbly or dirty like an album by Distance. What we have here ladies and gentleman is stripped down dub. While the overtones on the album are somewhat melancholic, and hey, that’s kind of what the pioneers of the genre were going for, after slowing down U.K. styles of Two-Step and Garage (not your father’s garage rock), they’re not enough to be outright depressing.

Zomby as a producer has extracted from many electronic music styles—synthy 80’s sounds, electro, video game soundtracks, and ambient music. Prior to Dedication, he had released a number of EPs in which one could say served as sketches for his experiments. If you visit his Myspace page, for instance, the varied songs you will hear are pretty different from his current output. That is exactly what lured me into Zomby—seeing that he has roots in mixing classic raver kid club cuts, all the way to synthy gems that signaled to me that Zomby was interested more in craft and not trend; beyond someone trying to make a name for himself in the latest hip subgenre in techno, which by the way, has been around for nearly a decade.
Since Dedication isn’t as wobbly or grimey as other albums within the genre, it might seem subcategorized as comfy ambient music. However, it’s too jittery and restless and rhythmic to work. Yet it’s not quite the album one might buy if one is a hardcore dubstep fan. This is precisely the quality I like about Zomby—not tightly fixated to the expected parameters of the genre, bringing instead crunchy beat experiments with ethereal sound-washes, the kind made by a studio loner stringing together little oddities. It’s definitely headphone music—so many nuances that you want to be able to hear every last snippet.

I believe that the songs on Dedication build up to a moment of dark euphoria, as oxymoronic as that may seem. He alternates between average length songs and some which are under a minute long. It’s definitely a journey, with the denouement being “Mozaik”, the sixteenth and final song. While this appears on other blogs as the single, it makes the most sense after hearing the fifteen tracks before it. Enjoy and shake your booty a little!

Take a listen:

Get your copy of Zomby Dedication here.

Take My Soul

2011-07-12T15:51:00.003-05:00

Thievery Corporation's Rob Garza and Eric Hilton are back with Culture of Fear, their sixth studio album. By now, most people are familiar with their sophisticated, impeccably crafted musical soundscapes that reflect not only their broad appreciation for diverse styles of music (everything from Brazilian bossa nova and Jamaican dub reggae to vintage film soundtracks and psychedelic space rock), but also their take on the complicated times in which we live.

Despite its pointed title, Culture of Fear is not quite as politically minded as Thievery Corporation's previous studio album. While dubwise tracks such as “Overstand” and “False Flag Dub,” along with the Mr. Lif feature “Culture of Fear,” continue the themes of 2008’s Radio Retaliation, a higher number of cuts -- including “Take My Soul,” “Where It All Starts,” “Is It Over?,” and “Safar (The Journey)” -- feature the duo’s heavy-lidded grooves with seductive female vocals, particularly Rochester's own ex-pat, LouLou. “We’re probably more radical in our political beliefs than most of the hardcore punk bands,” Hilton says, “but at the same time, we’re realistic about what we can actually do. We feel like our role is to be commentators.” Adds Garza: “The best thing we can do is try to open people’s minds.” For both Hilton and Garza, the seeds for their shared philosophy were sown while growing up near the nation’s capitol, which has spawned an abundance of progressive punk bands over the years, such as Bad Brains, Minor Threat, and Fugazi. “We’re influenced by that mentality, but the music doesn’t need to be about super aggressive guitars or hard-charging beats to convey that feeling,” Hilton says. Their musical palatability serves as a means of more subtly purveying their ideologies without turning a potential audience off to them.

Thievery Corporation is my brand of "easy listening". It does not make them weak, nor unimportant or a duo to write off. Rather, it's what I put on when I want a consistent, mature, and intriguing journey as I am working.

Take a listen to Take My Soul, featuring LouLou here.

Buy your copy of Culture of Fear here.

What About Us?

2011-06-28T16:42:00.003-05:00

The Montreal-based duo Handsome Furs formed in 2005 around the talents of Vancouver transplants Dan Boeckner (frontman of Wolf Parade) and Alexei Perry. The husband-and-wife team released the atmospheric Plague Park in 2007, utilizing drum machines and world-weary melodies to distinguish the band's debut from Wolf Parade's own output. Plague Park earned accolades for its electronic twist on indie rock, with Rolling Stone likening the band to "a dingy version of the Cure rocking some hipster dive bar," and the growing buzz prompted Handsome Furs' return to the studio in late 2007. The inspired duo recorded Face Control drawing upon its recent Eastern European tour for lyrical cues. I got a kick of placing Vladimir Putin on the back cover and a snarling, frothing at the mouth doberman pinscher on the front.

On Sound Kapital, they return with a naked lady with tattoos on her naughty parts. I don't know what this has to do with the album, but it's deviously attention-getting. This album differs from the previous one in that they drop some of the more obvious 80s sounding synths and the songs are more varied. It's also cohesive from start to finish and a real head-bopper. It's fun and the perfect soundtrack to the start of summer!

Take a listen to What About Us, a deep cut that catches my ear here.

Buy your copy of Sound Kapital here.

Corprophagist (A Bath Perhaps)

2011-06-22T16:17:00.002-05:00

It's Thee Oh Sees! If you haven't checked them out yet, now is the time! These San Francisco dudes rock my socks off! Their sound is retro, a garage-psyche-rock vibe with plenty of feedback, but they do it right. I think they succeed in replicating that sound and that they are authentically driven towards it, not being trendy. However, while the average Oh Sees album is a heavy exercise in psychedelic murk, Castlemania sounds surprisingly light and pop-oriented, if only by this band's standards. This album sounds less sinister and more playful than the bulk of their previous output, and if a lot of this is still going to seem chaotic and off-putting to anyone not flying a similar freak flag, it's an easier way in to Thee Oh Sees' curious musical world than any of their albums to date.

Choosing just one song as an entry point is quite difficult with them, so here's
Corprophagist (A Bath Perhaps), featuring a sample of church bells.

Get your own copy of Castlemania here.

Kick the Can

2011-06-15T10:05:00.003-05:00

My favorite duo from Hamilton, Ontario is back with It's All True, their fourth studio album (excluding Body Language, which is their compilation of various dance songs).
For all the sonic shimmer, not much exposure is needed to realize that the album concerns an embittering relationship. A strong indication comes 40 seconds into the opening "Itchy Fingers," the point when Greenspan delivers "I'd rather crush you with a paper folded, just to see you die" with belligerent ebullience. As ever, the duo’s sound is remarkably amorphous, combining 1980s synth-pop with R&B touches, multiple basslines, and truncated rave riffs. Jeremy Greenspan's vocals are amongst my favorite on the genre, as his intonation at times is reminiscent of Cabaret Voltaire, to a hushed bedroom whisper, simultaneously vulnerable and affirmative.

It's All True sounds like the album the Junior Boys have been moving toward their whole career. It's got the same low-key mixtape-from-a-lover charm as Last Exit, but sacrifices none of the appealing slickness of their last few albums. They are hitting their stride, along with the large helpings of dancefloor joy, some of the album's most immediately arresting moments are its sparsest and most fragile. Take the second song, "Playtime", a slow number seemingly about love lost and hurt. The emotional resonance is not the pitying kind that comes across from some folk singers, rather, I feel staid, contemplative, and soothed by the synths. If you have been following their career, this album will not be of a great surprise, but you will see that they are a duo that has perfected their sound and hopefully will continue in this direction for a long time to come!

As usual, I present you one of the deep cuts, dear readers. Listen to "Kick the Can", a Kraut-rock inspired gem here.

Buy your copy of It's All True here.

Rolls Bayce

2011-06-08T09:17:00.002-05:00

Battles is comprised of drummer John Stanier of Helmet and Tomahawk, guitarist/keyboardist Ian Williams of Don Caballero and Storm & Stress, and guitarist David Konopka of Lynx (Tyondai Braxton, son of avant garde composer Anthony Braxton, left the group in 2010 to pursue his solo projects). Even without Braxton, they still provide their post-rock playfulness and charm. Instead, they have opted to bring in some guest vocalists such as Gary Numan (!), Matias Aguayo, Blonde Redhead’s Kazu Makino, and the Boredoms' Yamantaka Eye. Not bad, eh? The result is pop from another planet, unfettered by conventional structures but still remarkably immediate and catchy.

The instrumental songs bear the strength of Mirrored's staccato drumming yet bringing in island-inspired steel drums, but not so much that we are singing "irie mon"! There's a true sense of joyfulness in the playing. Drummer John Stanier says, "I don't think challenging, new music has to be super serious all the time. That's really boring to me and pushing boundaries should not be boring." True, I don't think there's a dull moment to this album.

Take a listen to this short ditty, "Rolls Bayce".

Buy your copy of Battles Gloss Drop here.

Feed Your Demons

2011-06-02T11:42:00.002-05:00

It must be an emerging trend--making soundtracks to non-existent films, or those in the listener's minds. While 1972's Blacula was a legitimate yet campy franchise, this Blakula is actually the duo, The Diaphanoids, who tend to make concept albums.
On Permanent Midnight, they imagine what would happen if Blacula defrosted in 1977, posed for Robert Mapplethorpe, went dancing at Studio 54, wrote poems with William Burroughs, shared spray cans and brushes with Jean Michel Basquiat, jammed with Miles Davis and the Velvet Underground, starred in David Lynch's movies, got addicted to heavy drugs and alcohol, experimented with sexual partners, lived in baroque palaces and shooting galleries, and became more human than human then got crushed by the city sickness.

The music is both unique and at the same time 'classic'. Musical touchstones range from funk, 70s disco, psychedelia, avant-garde, no-wave vibe, cinematic atmospheric sounds, nightclub sleazy jazz to slow-mo bluesy grooves. Every track on the album has been played by real musicians, orchestral ensembles and choirs. I think it's a fun album, seamless progression, a great energy and it makes you shake your butt and tap your toes.

Get your groove on with "Feed Your Demons" here.

Buy a copy of Blakula's Permanent Midnight here.

Heavy Metal Lover

2011-05-24T15:01:00.003-05:00

It shouldn't be a surprise that Born This Way would be the pick of the week. It's been a decent new releases week, however, the Pop Spectacle that is Haus of Gaga trumps most picks. This is her finest collection of songs yet--hard to believe this is only her second full-length album, as there is a large leap in maturity and polish from The Fame. I know if I was 25, I'd feel like a real slouch in comparison! From start to finish, she is taking the listener on a journey--literally, as a female moto-bot and figuratively as she has us considering spirituality, family, love, and high self-esteem.

The mood is darker, with sultry bass lines and techno that's inspired by Iron Maiden, as she says in interviews. Gaga channels stadium rock and divas from Madonna or Whitney Houston. I was impressed at how the album showcases her voice, revealing her strong, wide vocal range. She brings us through many moods and if you crank it, your foot will start tapping and your head will be bopping. Overall, this album is highly entertaining from start to finish, with no fillers. She may be right, this could be the best pop album of the decade.

Take a listen to one of the hot deep cuts, Heavy Metal Lover, here.

Buy your copy of Born This Way (get it while it's hot!! LP comes out 6/17) here.

Theme from "Rome"

2011-05-17T16:00:00.003-05:00

I love a good spaghetti western and I love an album based on themes, overtures, and/or moods. When I heard that Jack White was teaming up with Dangermouse to make Rome, I was shocked and excited. A soundtrack for a non-existent film, it brings to mind Ennio Morricone. You can hear composer Daniele Luppi's love and respect for the brooding romanticism, fragile delicacy, and almost psychedelic spaceiness of classic Italian soundtracks in just about every note. In his partner Danger Mouse, he's found not only a similarly smitten collaborator, but a producer who's made a career out of accurately capturing the atmosphere of old records without (usually) coming off sterile. And they've got the moody vibe of those 60s soundtracks down on Rome, as much due to the vintage recording touches as to the Italian movie industry personnel the duo drafted in to lend their hard-earned feel for this music.

One can't really select a single stand out track, as they all work off of each other, so here is the first song, "Theme from Rome" that sets the stage for this epic album. Enjoy!

Get your own copy of Dangermouse & Daniele Luppi's Rome here.

Thru & Thru

2011-05-11T13:49:00.002-05:00

Brooklyn's Gang Gang Dance are Back with Eye Contact, striking a better balance of song craft and atmosphere. The band's previous record, Saint Dymphna, had admirable futurist-pop ambitions-- collaging elements of hyphy, grime, techno, and contemporary R&B into a psychedelic stew-- but it sometimes came off overcooked. s stiff and over-considered. It's a tighter and more focused record that pares back the band's habit for noisy embellishment and psychic jewelry to reveal taught rhythms and catchy hooks.
I found myself thinking it's gone into New-Age meets Dead Can Dance territory, but that's not a bad direction. If anything, it signifies that the band has grown considerably and have matured over the past decade.

Take a listen to one my favorites, (even though this album really needs to be heard all the way through), "Thru and Thru" here.

Get your copy of Eye Contact Here!

Contact High

2011-05-04T09:46:00.002-05:00

Melbourne's Architecture In Helsinki are back and more synthy than ever! I would almost think they started hanging out with Cut Copy, the way they concentrate on creating ultra catchy numbers and a pure pop sensibility! Recorded over two years at the band’s studio space, the royally-titled Buckingham Palace, the band enlisted friend/collaborator Francois Tetaz to aid them in creating dance floor-ready rhythms that are as sophisticated and romantic as they are move-inducing. According to songwriter Cameron Bird, the LP is all about “being at one with our ideas, obsessed with popular music and falling in love with our hometown. We wanted to build a record to get lost in. A record that always feels exactly what you are feeling.”

Moment Bends makes good on the single’s promise, with Architecture in Helsinki moving forward by looking back -- not only to their own skills with hooks and melodies, but to ‘80s synth pop too. “Desert Island” captures the album’s feel, its artificial tropical paradise coming across like a strange but appealing hybrid of Wham! and Matthew Wilder's “Break My Stride.” It also features some of Bird's finest singing to date, falling somewhere in between his earlier wispy vocals and his forced throatiness on Places Like This. Much of Moment Bends finds the band discovering a happy medium between its old and new sounds, as on “Everything’s Blue,” which tempers Places Like This' attempts at funk with a fresher and more natural approach. Architecture in Helsinki don’t so much borrow from the ‘80s as they embody them, whether on “Denial Style”'s Paisley Park pop or “Contact High”. At times, the pristine sonics overwhelm the actual songs, and the lone ballad “B4 3D” closes the album on a slightly anticlimactic note, but overall Moment Bends is a fun, positive album that gets us ready for Spring to finally arrive!

Take a listen to one of my favorite tracks, "Contact High" here.

Buy your copy of "Moment Bends" here.

Penny Loafers

2011-04-26T16:23:00.003-05:00

In Greek mythology, Daedalus was known as an inventor, although Alfred Darlington (nee Weisberg-Roberts) also cites the character Stephan Dedalus in James Joyce's A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man -- as well as the ship in the Japanese cartoon Robotech -- as equally valid reasons for his namesake. Despite the fact that he was formally trained on double bass and bass clarinet, had studied jazz at USC, and could play additional instruments such as the guitar and accordion, Daedelus chose to go the electronica route, often incorporating samples from the '30s and '40s into his IDM and left-field hip-hop.

On Bespoke, Daedelus takes a few cues from cosmopolitan house and stuttering techno figures and adding guest vocalists Bilal, the Bird and the Bee's Inara George, and multi-instrumentalist Amir Yaghmai. It's a good thing he added vocalists, as this gives the songs focus when they otherwise would be free flowing beats without much direction. My album pick is "Penny Loafers" because I love the juxtaposition between Inara and what would otherwise be a run of the mill instrumental hip hop album. I have to say this is the first Daedelus album that caught my attention for more than one listen.

Take a listen to my jam, Penny Loafers, here.

Get your own copy of Bespoke here.

Welt Am Draht (Animal Collective Remix)

2011-04-20T11:43:00.002-05:00

Being a somewhat lackluster releases week, I know I can trust in electronic music compilations. This album contains various artists from XL Records doing their best to alter Pantha Du Prince's Black Noise. Originally released in 2010, Black Noise was the minimal techno product of German producer Hendrik Weber. Some have criticized Weber for not keeping up with the times and current trends of electronic music, but for me, his debut with This Bliss in 2007 was a breath of fresh, repetitive air. Perhaps his style is a turn off for some critics because they just don't want to admit that electronic music was BETTER in domain of Underworld/Orbital/Chemical Brothers' late-nineties into the early 2000's. Such is why any connoisseur of that epoch of music will find Pantha du Prince as suitably reminiscent of a synthesizer sound and mixing style they know very well.

As a whole, the XL mixes are decent, although not all are stand out tracks. In some cases the remix is more interesting than the original. A few stand out artists are Hieroglyphic Being, Four Tet, and Animal Collective, whom I would not expect to be remixing Pantha du Prince! Their take on "Welt Am Draht" interests me the most because they bring a 2011 sensibility to a potentially dated sound, incorporating spacey, beachy vocals.

Take a listen to "Welt Am Draht (Animal Collective mix) here.

Get your own copy of XL Versions of Black Noise here.

Slow Motion

2011-04-12T17:20:00.003-05:00

Noah Lennox adopted the name Panda Bear in the late '90s, when he drew a picture of a panda on one of his first bedroom studio recordings. He grew up in Pennsylvania, went to college at the University of Boston, and eventually found his way to New York City, where he met his future Animal Collective bandmates Avey Tare, Geologist, and Deakin. In addition to his work with Animal Collective, Jane, and Together, Lennox has released several solo albums.

Panda Bear could be described as a mix of heavy reverb, sun-woozy synths a la Brian Wilson, droning kraut-surf-ambient-pop songs, high childlike voice, and psychedelic-cum-nostalgic sleeve art.

Tomboy, Lennox's fourth solo album as Panda Bear, was mixed with Pete "Sonic Boom" Kember of Spectrum/Spacemen 3. This album reflects the blissful psychedelia and dream-pop Spacemen 3 and their peers were playing in the late 1980s, a lineage that stretches right back to stuff we now consider classic rock. With its angelic choirboy harmonies over an unchanging synth buzz, even "Drone", the album's roughest song, is a dead-ringer for the way Spacemen 3 songs like "Ecstasy Symphony" merged the pop high of Beach Boys with the woozy downer feel of the Velvet Underground. On Tomboy, Noah Lennox strips away the samples that made Person Pitch so hallucinatory and focuses on guitars, drums, and emotive melodies. A few found sounds make their way into the bookends “You Can Count on Me” and the beatific “Benfica,” giving the impression that Tomboy picks up right where Person Pitch left off, but the album’s overall sound is much sparer: the aptly named “Drone” and the smoky “Scheherazade” are downright minimalistic compared to what came before. Yet Tomboy is just as dreamy and hypnotic in its own way, with Lennox's familiarly looping melodies and structures coated in so much reverb and delay that an intricate collage of samples isn’t necessary to make these songs transporting. Unlike Person Pitch's immersive miasma of sound, Tomboy takes a more song-based approach to Lennox's fondness for Brian Wilson harmonies and melodies. Tomboy was recorded in a basement studio in Lisbon, Portugal, and the album reflects those surroundings, providing a moody cocoon of sound to retreat into instead of Person Pitch's expansiveness. A feeling of loss often shadows these songs, and there’s a newfound sense of urgency, particularly on “Tomboy” and the fittingly soaring “Afterburner.” Despite Tomboy's significant changes, it feels less like a radical shift than a subtle progression; while it may not be quite as dazzling as Person Pitch, it should still please fans of that album and Animal Collective.

Take a listen to my favorite track, "Slow Motion", with its slightly dubby feel here.

Buy your copy of Panda Bear's Tomboy here.

Nail In My Coffin

2011-04-05T14:46:00.003-05:00

The Kills are back with Blood Pressures, a delightful romp into gritty, straightforward rock with a twist of blues. I was slow to discover that I liked the Kills--it was through Dead Weather that I realized that Alison Mosshart is a true bad ass. Any woman who cackled on a song, saying, "I'm Mad!!" is alright with me. In turn, I gave the Kills a thoughtful, open listen and decided, hey, this is worthy of my time!

On Blood Pressures, Alison sounds more seasoned and confident in her vocals, probably a result from recording with the Dead Weather for two albums and honing her inner Ann Wilson rock goddess fortitude. These songs, and most of Blood Pressures, have the dead-cool attitude the Kills have always displayed, but the vulnerability they allow to peek through might be the album's biggest development. That openness is also the fuel for the brightest highlights, which span the seismic shifts between love and desperation that power “Future Starts Slow”'s massive drums and guitars and “Nail in My Coffin”'s tumbling choruses, or the classic-sounding balladry of “The Last Goodbye,” where Mosshart lets her inner Patsy Cline out to croon. Blood Pressures is a darker, slower ride than Midnight Boom, but it shows the Kills can make subtle innovations as well as bold ones, and make them fit their signature sound to boot.

Take a listen to Nail In My Coffin here.

Get your own copy of the Kills' Blood Pressures here.

Accordian McShane

2011-03-29T16:52:00.003-05:00

Oh Luke Vibert!! Anytime this Cornwall native comes out with anything from one of his monikers, it's an instant must listen for me. He records under his given name, Plug, and Wagon Christ, which has been described as ambient and experimental hip hop, but I tend to think there are funk undertones as well. Plug has been devoted to drum and bass and jungle, and the albums under his own name blend post-techno electronica with dub and minimalist techno.

Toomorrow won't be full of many surprises for seasoned fans of Wagon Christ, yet it's not entirely the same ol'stuff either. Clearly he has a penchant for a particular make of synthesizer and drumming presets and similar rhythms that one may have heard on his prior work, but that is more about style than lack of imagination. What I always enjoy are his entertaining song titles such as "Manalyze This!", "Ain't He Heavy, He's My Brother", "Sentimental Hardcore", and "Lazer Dick." "My Lonely Scene" could be a commentary on how he might be a genre of one compared to what other electronic acts are up to currently, as no one really sounds like him anymore and perhaps he is struggling to stay relevant or he just doesn't care about that anymore and accepts his position in the annals of electronic music. He surprised me with some of the slower numbers on this album, yet the song sequences seem to alternate between mellow ambiance, funk, and quirky glitchy numbers. This kind of A,B,C formula reminds of Crystal Castles (II) with its alternating beautiful numbers against more abrasive structures. As one delves past the 7th or 8th track, the album starts to become somewhat predictable. Despite this, I strongly feel it is still worth a listen and definitely a purchase for a collector of late 90's electronica or for those who do not have any Vibert in their collection.

Listen to Accordian McShane here.

Get your own copy of Wagon Christ's Toomorrow here.

2011-03-23T10:14:00.004-05:00

New York City’s The Strokes have been around since 1999, bursting onto the scene in January 2001 with Is This It reaching critical acclaim in the U.K. I admit, I have never been a fan, as I always felt like there was something missing in the hook for me and that they were the kind of band that was deemed compulsory listening. I’ve never been one to jump the bandwagon and the more hype surrounding a band, the longer I will take to even give them a listen.

You can imagine my surprise at Angles. What’s that? Synthesizers? With its slick, polished production, safe enough to be played at Starbucks without offending anyone sound you’d think I’d hate it. Yet it is precisely these factors that intrigue me—the shift in production, turning away from Julian Casablancas doing all of the writing to the entire band exercising the songwriting. This change is palpable as it creates a very cohesive album that flows along seamlessly and not just the same note over and over. Perhaps I’m getting old, but I find that a well-produced album is a good thing and there is always a time and a place for lo-fi. Also, I can’t help enjoying the modicum of controversy surrounding the making of the album: firing of producers resulting in the band producing the album themselves, people not getting along and all the classic studio sessions riff raff. To this I say, “Hmmph! Interesting!”
My featured track, Games, is a catchy, new wavey gem. Angles is a short 34 minutes, mixing soaring melodies, post punk, power pop and synthesizer. It’s an album that needs to be recognized if only for its cultural cache and for the comeback from a five year hiatus to a warm reception.

Listen to Games here.

Buy your own copy of The Strokes Angles here.

Born This Way

2011-03-16T15:56:00.003-05:00

C’mon little monsters, put your paws up!!

I may still be suffering from a GAGA hangover from seeing her on the 4th, or it may just be a somewhat uninspiring new releases week, but the featured track this week is “Born This Way.” This might be your time to vomit, navigate away from this web page, or just shrug your shoulders, but pure, unabridged, ridiculous pop music gets the nod from me from time to time. Mainstream Pop is getting a much deserved kick in the cojones from one miss Stefani Germanotta. Sure, she’s pretty much the Madonna for the younger generation, as the song itself unapologetically rips off both form and content from “Express Yourself”, but hey, if Her Madgesty (Madonna) isn’t pissed, then neither am I. Gaga says she was channeling ‘80s Whitney Houston for the vocal stylings and was afraid that she couldn’t pull it off. Whether she does or doesn’t, Elton John names this as the new gay anthem for the decade. So wave your rainbow flags kids, and get behind this song of pride and self-acceptance! Whoo!

Get your own copy of the Born This Way EP here

In the Air 1

2011-03-08T13:53:00.002-05:00

This week it's time to get conceptual again. When new albums come my way that are out of the ordinary I feel obliged to turn the spotlight on them. Tim Hecker's Ravedeath, 1972 fits into this category. There are plenty of synth and drone artists that make epic music but one of the unique things about Tim Hecker is his conceptual ability. Each of his records, from the cinematic rush of Harmony in Ultraviolet to the dreamed-up cartography of An Imaginary Country, explores a specific theme, often in great detail. For this album, Hecker says, "I became obsessed with digital garbage...like when the Kazakstan government cracks down on piracy and there's pictures of 10 million DVDs and CDRs being pushed by bulldozers."

That idea, the notion of music as a cheapened, battered object, touches nearly every aspect of Ravedeath, 1972, a dark and often claustrophobic record that is arguably Hecker's finest work to date. The album is based on a single day's worth of recordings in a church in Reykjavik, Iceland, where Hecker used a groaning pipe organ to lay down the foundation for its tracks. (Throughout, you can hear the vastness of this place, as sounds ricochet around, bounce off the rafters.) With help from Iceland-based producer Ben Frost-- whose ominous By the Throat is a touchstone here-- Hecker then finished the record in studio, digitally adding synth wash and wailing shoegaze crunch to his live recordings.

The result is a strange hybrid that lives somewhere between the digital and material realms, and it's remarkable how seamlessly the two are combined. For example, in a track like "In the Fog II", it's difficult to distinguish between the organic church sounds and the processed ones that came after. But while there is harmony between the source material, Ravedeath, 1972 is by no means about prettiness or tranquility. Hecker pits noises against one another in such a way that creates a constant push and pull between discord and beauty.

If you can conceptualize Ravedeath, 1972 as an examination of music threatened by technology, there are pretty clear threads that pop up over the course of the record to support that. For one, it seems that the organ sounds Hecker captured back in that Rejkjavik church represent a certain purity of sound and that the digital noise battering it throughout act as the enemy, the corrosive effect. It's important, then, that the album closes with "In the Air III", a track that features almost no interference whatsoever, just the plinking organ by itself. Perhaps Hecker focuses on the notion that music, in its purest form, survives no matter what you throw at it.

Take a listen to In the Air 1 here.

Get your own copy of Ravedeath, 1972 here.

Space Is Only Noise If You Can See

2011-03-02T10:28:00.002-05:00

This week, let's get a little experimental and electronic. Space is Only Noise is the debut album by a 21 year old Brown University student. Nicolas Jaar incorporates lounge pop, African jazz, hip-hop, and sound collage in addition to house and pinches of dubstep. The textures and ingredients of Jaar's music exist in the context of techno-- rhythm and repetition are clearly important to him-- but Space is not dance music. It's too slow, sure, but it's also too diffuse in its methods and results. Pianos, organs, guitar strings, and, most surprisingly, Jaar's voice all fall under Space's sepia-toned veil. This sounds like a lot to take in, but Jaar goes to great lengths to ensure that Space settles lightly. The tracks are short, funny, and always hitched to a melody. He sidesteps impulses-- during the quivering "Almost Fell", for instance, or during "Specters of the Future", during which actual techno threatens-- to drift into full-on ambience, skronk, or extended beat passages.

Space never feels like a showcase for Nicolas Jaar; it's just a modest and well-decorated gathering place for some things he loves, a place for them to interact. This teetering restraint masks the true weirdness of Space Is Only Noise.

Lend your ears to the title track here.

Get your own copy of Nicolas Jaar's Space is Only Noise here.

Take Time

2011-02-22T11:42:00.002-05:00

The Lemon of Pink originally was recorded in 2003, but 2011 marks the remastering of this sophomore effort from the Books. This album combines experimental collage technique with an organic, folky mixture of banjo, guitar, violin, simple vocal melodies, and snippets of conversation. The featured track, "Take Time," takes a simple phrase and turns it into an unphased minimalist backdrop for experimentation. It isn't often that one finds an American artist with such a mastery of collage technique and a desire to incorporate traditional folk instruments and melodies. Like the Notwist or Badly Drawn Boy, the Books open up territory for relaxed electro-acoustic listening without compromising their creative process.

Listen to "Take Time" here.

Get your own copy of The Lemon of Pink here.

Need You Now

2011-02-15T16:10:00.002-05:00

Australian indie band Cut Copy are easily one of my favorite groups that have come out within the last decade. Their songs sound like sonic bliss--at the same time futuristic and nostalgic, capturing the laissez-faire feeling of summers off from school when all you have to do is cruise around with friends and laugh at life. Hello Winter, they’re back!!!

Zonoscope opens with a blast of woozy ecstasy in the form of "Need You Now", the sort of track where you don't even realize how much tension the group has built up until they release it, and ends with "Sun God", a marathon 15-minute groove that slowly morphs into a tranced-out Giorgio Moroder thud. In between those two tracks, Cut Copy build a long-form piece of work that moves between genres and ideas and moods without ever sacrificing its dancefloor momentum.

Compared to the last two albums, Zonoscope has precious little guitar crunch, which makes it hard to even call Cut Copy a dance-rock band anymore. And that's for the best-- not just because that combination seems like a less thrilling prospect in 2011 than perhaps it once did, but also because Cut Copy have the architecture of dance music down perfectly and the confidence to execute the genre's moves with absolute precision. Even in the dead of winter, Zonoscope does its job beautifully. Imagine how it'll sound when you don't have to layer up to go outside.

Since they’re all great songs, why not start at the top of the album with “Need You Now”?

Get your own copy of Zonoscope here.

Still New

2011-02-08T18:26:00.003-05:00

With a name like Smith Westerns and an album title called "Dye It Blonde", I thought this would be a band that I would dislike. Yet, lo and behold, I find a good pop sound and melodies that hit you the first time as if they were songs you already knew irresistable. I got sucked in by the midtempo ballads with singalong choruses, pounding piano, and swooping organ, and a loose, frayed-around-the-edges, feel. The production by Chris Coady plays up the strengths of the band like the boyish lead vocals, the super hooky choruses, and the great guitar work. Everything blends together perfectly without sounding glossy or overcooked, and the guitar tone is especially nice, totally overdriven but super compressed with plenty of punch. Of course a sound without songs is like a pretty homebaked cake that tastes like Dolly Madison, and the band deliver a batch of them here that make the total package quite tasty. The rockers like "Weekend," "Dance Away," and "Imagine, Pt.3" have a pleasing swagger, the midtempo tracks (like "Fallen in Love" and "End of the Night") bounce along happily, and the ballads have all kinds of ragged soul. Sounding both end-of-the-night epic and heartbreakingly sad, these songs provide some depth that the first record didn’t have.

For me, much of the album is reminiscent of Electric Light Orchestra without the strings. Dye It Blonde may be a step away from the lo-fi bedroom sound toward the mainstream, but it’s a small step, and they retain more than enough of the songcraft and attitude to keep things interesting. Anyone who liked the debut and was filled with apprehension about what would happen next will be pleasantly surprised, and might even end up liking this record more.

Take a listen to "Still New", a song so sweet that it makes me involuntarily sway and feel that inner happy.

Get your own copy of Dye It Blonde here.

Pow Pow

2011-02-01T18:04:00.003-05:00

LCD Soundsystem. What more can I say? The creative genius of James Murphy takes us into the studio, with London Sessions, perhaps an album resulting from extensive touring in 2010, thus honing their live sound into a single studio session. The track listing reads like a greatest hits compilation and it would have been quite easy to produce just that, regurgitating the same versions of the songs we have come to love. But no, this album is even more playful, funky, and rambunctious than usual, with more cowbell!

When you put Murphy’s unusually elastic and inspired vocals, which range from insistent to hilarious, on top of the band’s sound, you’ve got the 2000s equivalent of Talking Heads when they expanded the group and became a huge force of oddball funk. It’s a more intense and synthesized version, and Murphy is no David Byrne (since he’s more likely to be in a dirty T-shirt than a big suit), but this wouldn’t work half as well if he were. His hopped-up hipster everyman with a bruised heart style is perfect for the band’s small-club intensity, and the album proves that the streamlined sound can translate into more than machine like bleeps and drum machine loops; it’s a vital addition to their already near-perfect catalog.

Take a listen to Pow Pow, a stand out track featuring Murphy's sense of humour with the lyrical stylingists and a penchant for getting funky!!

Get your own copy of LCD Soundsystem's London Sessionshttp://www.blogger.com/img/blank.gif here.

A Flat Tent by WIRE

2011-01-25T10:49:00.004-05:00

It should be of absolutely no surprise that the pick of the week for me is Wire's Red Barked Tree. As an ardent fan of this British group that has been around since the mid-Seventies, any time they put out an album, it's a cause for celebration. They have always been ahead of their time; their first three albums predicted the gradual turning of punk into synth pop, their second “electro-rock” phase predated dream-pop, and the third generation of their sound in the 2000's set the stage for the post-punk sound we are hearing being revitalized. It is also interesting to see that their peers, Gang of Four and Public Image Limited, have also come out of hiding with albums in 2011.

If a second Wire reunion was inevitable, its outcome has been refreshingly less predictable: Not only has the band avoided the easy nostalgia trend of playing its classic albums live in their entirety, Wire Mk III have proven to be more prolific and long-lasting than the band's two storied previous phases put together. Sure, founding guitarist Bruce Gilbert checked out of the current campaign back in 2004, but the band's momentum has continued apace. And there's no reason to suggest this won't continue: The new Red Barked Tree shows the band's vigor, melodic prowess, and capacity to surprise remain undiminished.

That album title is the first brow-raiser: Amid a discography filled with cryptic names (154, A Bell Is a Cup... Until It Is Struck, Object 47), Red Barked Tree presents a disarmingly simple image that's reflected in the album's surprisingly relaxed, pastoral turns (acoustic guitars on three songs) and a lyrical framework addressing the emotional and environmental costs of modernity run amok. Red Barked Tree is a shrewdly sequenced album, and it has to be, given that its impulsive stylistic shifts-- from mechanized thrash to psychedelic folk to nervy power-pop-- mirror the "age of fragmentation" that Colin Newman is railing against. But its 11 songs are more or less positioned along a logical arc, where a sense of ominous unease gives way to violent release before simmering into a peaceful comedown.

Take a listen to "A Flat Tent", one of the less obvious singles that people are writing about here. It exemplifies the current Wire sound!

Get your own copy of Red Barked Tree here.

Age Class by Weekend

2011-01-18T17:11:00.004-05:00

While a lot of Bay Area bands tend to embrace the sunny, psychedelic side of their city's sound, San Francisco’s Weekend have seemingly chosen to embrace their hometown’s foggier side. Formed in 2009 by Shawn Durkan (bass/vocals), Kevin Johnson (guitar), and Abe Pedroza (drums), Weekend quickly made a name for themselves with their post-punk shoved through a shoegaze filter sound. The trio’s pounding bass'n'drum rhythms lay the groundwork for Johnson’s wall of reverb-drenched guitar noise, giving the songs a dark, subterranean feeling. The whole package is tied together by Durkan’s murky vocals, which feel both distant and warm, like hearing a My Bloody Valentine song on a fading radio station, or hanging out with at the Hacienda with Factory Records' bands. Sports is their debut album. Take a walk on the wild side, with the track "Age Class."

Listen here.

Get your own copy of Weekend Sports here.

Heaven's on Fire

2011-01-04T15:57:00.002-05:00

The Radio Dept. were one of the more successful shoegaze-influenced indie rock bands to come out of Sweden in the early 2000s, making waves among indie aficionados on the strength of their critically acclaimed first release, Lesser Matters. Their latest, Clinging to a Scheme, continues the shoegazing and dream-pop tendencies of the group. They have been described as a combination of Saint Etienne and Jesus and Mary Chain. Their short song structure gets right to the point and sucks you in. Take a listen to Heaven's on Fire here.

Get your own copy of Radio Dept's Clinging to a Scheme here.

Nerve Salad

2010-12-15T11:49:00.002-05:00

Producers/remixers James Ford and James Shaw formed Simian Mobile Disco in 2005, following their departure from the experimental electronic rock band Simian.

Delicacies, SMD’s third album, centers around tech-house instrumentals based around slow builds, minimal melodies, and wide-open, between-beat negative spaces as well as a second disc of the tracks mixed together. The tracks are all named after foods, but don't expect any sensual material. Delicacies is a hard-hitting nine-tracker of pounding club cuts, most of them over eight minutes long. Unlike the past two albums, they ditched vocals altogether here, creating an album that caters less to a pop dance music audience and more towards those who like to dance at non-mainstream clubs or for dance music aficionados and makers. Yet like great dance producers from Kraftwerk to Kompakt, they know how to balance innovative sounds with simple, feet-tugging beats. Lacking the retro flair of 2007's Attack Decay Sustain Release or the parade of guest features on 2009's Temporary Pleasure, Delicacies is still a delicious treat for dance fans.

Try my favorite track, “Nerve Salad” here.

Get your own copy of Simian Mobile Disco's Delicacies here.

Lover's Start

2010-11-30T16:24:00.002-05:00

To describe How to Dress Well in a sentence, I would have to say it's lo-fi R&B. Research fellow Tom Krell grew up listening to the likes of Keith Sweat, singing along with the songs, even the high notes. When he hit his twenties he started making droney music. Perhaps his solo moniker marries the two, as these songs are melodic yet distorted, sounding both from decades ago and futuristic. It's a distinctive album amid others that attempt a retro sound. Listen to "Lover's Start" here.

Get your own copy of How to Dress Well's Love Remains www.alternativemusic.com/Artist/1016065.

Stars 4-Ever

2010-11-23T17:12:00.003-05:00

The trilogy is complete. The third installment of Robyn's Body talk ep series is here as the full-length album, aptly titled, "Body Talk". It intersperses the songs from the first two parts with new songs, not merely mimicking the order in which they appeared on the prior albums. If you are looking for a great, pop-dance album, this is it. The songs appeal to a mass audience while throwing in numbers with Royksopp and Snoop Doggy Dogg to spice it up. Robyn signals that she is here to stay and that she keeps up with the the current trends. Take a listen to "Stars 4-Ever", a new song here.

Get your own copy of Body Talk here.

Everybody's Weird Except Me

2010-11-18T16:15:00.002-05:00

Stereolab’s trademark sound -- a droning, hypnotic rhythm track overlaid with melodic, mesmerizing singsong vocals, often sung in French and often promoting revolutionary, Marxist politics --is deceptively simple, providing the basis for a wide array of stylistic experiments over the course of their prolific career. Throughout it all, Stereolab relied heavily on forgotten methods of recording, whether it was analog synthesizers and electronics or a fondness for hi-fi test records, without ever sinking to the level of kitsch.

The group re-teamed with producer/arranger Sean O'Hagan for 2008's Chemical Chords, a collection of short, poppy songs that was released by 4AD. Two years later, the album was followed by Not Music, a collection of material recorded during the same sessions.

The careful song selection and sequencing of this mix is intended to play like a proper studio album, and mostly, it does, even with the 8-minute-plus remixes acting as centerpieces. And while obviously similar in sound to Chemical Chords, the record is suffused with as much joyous synth experimentation, astral effects and flourishes, and buzzy motorik rhythms as Stereolab's mid-career efforts.

Needless to say, if you're hoping for a career-defining endcap, this is not that record. The new, non-remix tracks on Not Music ignore much of Stereolab's omnivorous career-- there's no space-age bachelor pad music, no bossa nova flourishes, and no sign of the rawer avant-garde leanings that shaped their earliest records. Instead, the set continues in the taut, propulsive pop vein of their more recent releases.

Album opener "Everybody's Weird Except Me" is sweet yet dry, using the richness of Laetitia Sadier's nonchalant alto to cut the cuteness of the melody. The track plays off the dichotomies Stereolab have come to love-- old-fashioned pop tropes delivered by whirring, futuristic instruments, with cold detachment rubbing up against whimsical lushness and cerebral orchestrations played with charm. Take a listen and be soothed here.

Get your own copy of Stereolab's Not Music here.

Promises By Nitzer Ebb

2010-11-10T11:26:00.003-05:00

Look who's back after a 15 year hiatus? Why, it's Nitzer Ebb with Industrial Complex! Get ready to shake your fists and do your industrial aerobics! This album sounds just like what one would expect--dancey, synthy, full of attitude, somewhat dark but not very brooding. One reviewer describes their sound like Depeche Mode if they kept to their darker synth sounds. That's a fair description--they're not just recreating the percussive techniques of the past, but updating their sound. Old fans who used to listen to Belief on cassette (like me) will not be disappointed.

Listen to the first track, Promises here.

Get your own copy of Industrial Complex here.

Horse by Brian Eno

2010-11-04T15:44:00.002-05:00

Small Craft on a Milk Sea is Brian Eno's first album on Warp Records, a marriage of design and ambient goodness. This album vacillates between the glowing ambient songs we've come to expect from Mr. Eno and songs incorporating guitar riffs, IDM beats and other electronica. The first track on the album gives you a false sense of security, as it sounds mellow, luscious and what one expects from Eno. From there it's a steady build towards sounds that challenge what ambient music is all about.

Take a listen to Horse, track 5, when things start to get a bit more abstract and the Small Craft on a Milk Sea takes a twist...

Get your own copy of Brian Eno: Small Craft on a Milk Sea here.

Peer Gynt (Grieg) by William Orbit

2010-10-26T15:22:00.003-05:00

“This album is a follow up to Pieces in a Modern Style. Some people climb mountains, some people play Sudoku, but I get immense pleasure from doing these remixes…what drew me to classical music is the way it’s put together. I love the challenge it poses and I love trying to unpick it and find out how it works…sometimes taking diabolical liberties and sometimes being totally faithful to the original…”
--William Orbit

Listen to Peer Gynt here.

Get your own copy of Pieces in a Modern Style 2 here.

Solitude Is Bliss

2010-10-21T13:35:00.002-05:00

Tame Impala are a rock trio from Perth, Australia. Innerspeaker is their debut album, a psychedelia-heavy outing that toys with paisley pop, stoner vibes, and an expansive array of swirling guitars.

On first listen, Innerspeaker provides a lot of dots to connect: There are patches of late-60s American psychedelia, buzzy Motor City riffage, and decades of Brit pop, ranging from the pastoral pop of the Kinks to the vivid expansiveness of the Verve to the narcotic warmth of the Stone Roses. Frontman Kevin Parker shares an eerie vocal similarity with John Lennon, both in tone and in the way he allows his voice to soar with each melodic turn or rhythmic surge. Though most of the album is a little restrained lyrically, Parker's rapturous phrasing conveys the meaning. Mixed by Flaming Lips collaborator Dave Fridmann, each component is here is set on an even plane, allowing bass lines and delay-swept guitar bursts to melt into one another, cultivating a uniform feel that's vintage, far-out, and irrepressibly cool.

Listen to "Solitude is Bliss" from Innerspeaker here!

If you want your own copy of Tame Impala Innerspeaker, email marta@alternativemusic.com

Come on Sister

2010-10-13T15:29:00.002-05:00

Like their fellow indie class of 1996 alumnus Wes Anderson, Belle & Sebastian have created their own precious world out of the remnants of ‘60s pop culture, filtering it through the aesthetics of the ‘80s underground, maintaining a style and sensibility through shifting fashions. A new Belle & Sebastian album doesn’t surprise; it reassures while managing to find a few new wrinkles in its vintage threads. Write About Love, their seventh studio album, is cut from the same cloth as its 2006 predecessor, The Life Pursuit -- it’s also produced by Tony Hoffer, who gives Belle & Sebastian a crisp, clean, full sound without turning them antiseptic, with much of it swinging like London in the mid-‘60s -- but it has its own distinct character.

Listen to "Come On Sister" from Write About Love here.

Get your own copy of Write About Love here

No Age--Valley Hump Crash

2010-10-06T14:44:00.003-05:00

Cool Retro Sound from Los Angeles' No Age.

Listen to "Valley Hump Crash" here.

Get your own copy here

OMG - it's OMD!

2010-09-29T12:50:00.003-05:00

They're baaaack!

Check out the track "The Right Side" here:

get one here.

Land Of Giants

2010-09-09T12:56:00.001-05:00

The original press release from June 1, 1982, announcing the release of land of giants debut single Cannibal Dolls/ Seven Men opened with the line; “land of giants - three talls and a girl”. It went on; “Their combined heights are twenty four feet and one inch. From this elevation they are granted perspectives that lesser groups can only dream of.” It ended with; “Their debut single is a rarefied and effortless blend of technology, timing and great height.”

Heady stuff – but then again it was a time of style over substance. The minimalist electro pop band featured Anya Varda (vocals), Henryck Jesiak (synthesizer), John Tucker (programs and synthesizer) and Marc Wonnacott (synthesizer and back up vocals). Jeff Packer of Boys Brigade made a guest appearance providing extra percussion.

That summer, the single was a top hit in Toronto's alternative clubs and receiving regular airplay on alternative radio. That July in Germany, there was a review of the single in Guerilla Beat and that opened the door that made the single available in small numbers through Polydor Germany as an import that Christmas. In New York City the single made it on to the turntables of some of that cities hippest clubs. In September, they recorded Thing Called Love, Fountains, and I Will and a video was shot for Cannibal Dolls (unfortunately now lost). Supplies of the original pressing of the single had run out by Christmas and since the band was talking to record companies the decision was made not to press further copies. Instead the band concentrated on recording further demos. Shortly after that, rumour has it that John Peel played the single on his BBC radio show early in 1983. The next recording session early in 1983 brought a rocky Security Squad, featuring John Tucker on guitar, and an early rap fusion Fire with Fire that had John Tucker rapping alongside Anya's vocals. Music historians might find it interesting that Kenny McLean of Platinum Blond fame joins in on the backing vocals. Later in the spring of 1983, John Tucker became one of the first in Canada to own a Fairlight CMI (computer musical instrument) and land of giants started experimenting with the new technology, which resulted in Just Yet. Rusty Egan of Visage, and Midge Ure of Ultravox fame both expressed an interest in producing the album, but talks with the record companies fell through later in 1983. John Tucker's commercial music business Keen had started to blossom and he left to concentrate on that.

The remaining members took some time to regroup and re think things. A new member (Jon Andrews) was brought in to attempt to put together a live show. This didn't pan out although Jon, Henryck and Anya recorded a three-song demo, under the land of giants banner in the spring of1984. Marc Wonnacott returned to the project at the end of 1984 and later that winter he and Henrych built a studio in Henryck's dining room where they recorded Room with A View, and Key To Your Heart in early1985. Again the tape was well received by the industry, but again, they wanted to hear more. Unfortunately, time had run out for land of giants and everyone decided it was time to move on to other ventures.

Today Anya lives in Los Angeles, Henryck lives in Toronto and is involved with the film and television industry and renewing his interest in music, John now resides in Canada's west and remains active in music scoring and production (still utilizing his faithful vintage Fairlight CMI Series III). Marc is an artist, who still writes songs from time to time and lives in Toronto. John Tucker has re mastered all the material and it sounds amazing.

Check out the track "Cannibal Dolls" here:

Get it here

Matthew Dear - Black City

2010-08-19T12:17:00.003-05:00

Black City is Matthew Dear’s third album on Ghostly International, and it’s his darkest and most engrossing work to date.

Get it here!

What if The Smiths and The Wedding Present had a baby?

2010-08-12T12:49:00.003-05:00

I think it would sound like this - adorable music from Finland’s Cats On Fire!

Get it here!

dead shopping malls rise like mountains beyond mountains...

2010-08-05T17:42:00.002-05:00

ARCADE FIRE - THE SUBURBS

Written, arranged, performed, and produced by the Arcade Fire and co-produced by Markus Dravs, The Suburbs was recorded around Montreal and New York over the past two years.

Check out the track "Suburban War" here:

Get your own copy of "The Suburbs" here.

you are such an idiot idiot idiot idiot

2010-07-29T12:06:00.003-05:00

THE BOOKS - THE WAY OUT

Produced and recorded in the Books' home studio, “The Way Out” continues their tradition of patching together an astounding array of found sounds into a cohesive work.

Check out the track "A Cold Freezin' Night" here:

Get your own copy HERE.

School of Seven Bells

2010-07-22T11:29:00.005-05:00

SCHOOL OF SEVEN BELLS - DISCONNECT FROM DESIRE

School of Seven Bells is Ben Curtis (formerly of the Secret Machines) and twin vocalists Claudia and Alejandra Deheza (both formerly in the band On!Air!Library!). Their latest album is “Disconnect From Desire,” and it is a dream-popper’s dream. My favorite album of 2010 so far - a must listen!!

Every track is a winner, as far as I'm concerned, so start by checking out the opening track (Windstorm) here:

Get your own copy of "Disconnect From Desire" here.

Gonjasufi - A Sufi & A Killer

2010-07-15T12:11:00.004-05:00

A Sufi & A Killer is the debut album by Gonjasufi (Sumach Ecks), released by Warp. The album was produced by Flying Lotus, The Gaslamp Killer, and Mainframe.

Ecks said of the album, "I didn't want it to be too easy for the listener. I wanted it to hurt a little bit. I wanted it to get into a spot in the head that hasn't been hit." Of its title he said, "The Sufi side of life has helped me with my killer side so I try not to attach myself to any label. There's a Sufi and a killer in everybody, man, and I'll be whatever I have to be just to make it through."

Check out the track "Klowdz" here:

Get your own copy here.

stars - the five ghosts

2010-07-08T11:31:00.003-05:00

Returning to work with Tom McFall, who produced the group’s 2005 album “Set Yourself on Fire,” Stars recorded their fifth outing in their home city of Montreal, writing together as a unit in the studio.

Check out the track "Fixed" here:

Get your own copy of "The Five Ghosts" HERE.

Fembots have feelings too

2010-06-24T11:37:00.002-05:00

Swedish singer Robyn's "Body Talk Pt. 1" EP is one of three she plans to release in 2010. Again featuring Robyn teamed up with Klas Ahlund of the Teddy Bears, this EP, though only 8 songs long, runs the gamut from techno to dancehall to Swedish folk!

Check out the track "Dancing On My Own" here:

Get your own copy HERE .

Ellen Allien - Dust

2010-06-09T12:31:00.002-05:00

ELLEN ALLIEN - DUST

Known as a DJ, fashion designer, and label head, Ellen Allien is most famous for her production work. Dust is her seventh full-length as a producer. This time around she worked with Tobias Freund, also a mainstay in the Berlin electronica world. Dust is released by Allien's own BPitch Control label, and Allien describes it as having a “warm immediacy” compared with her previous efforts.

Check out the track "Ever" here:

Get your own copy HERE.

sleigh bells

2010-06-04T13:41:00.003-05:00

SLEIGH BELLS - TREATS

The New York City duo Sleigh Bells emerged in the fall of 2009 with rhythmic pop songs that combine overdriven guitar riffs and sugary female vocal melodies. “Treats” is their debut album.

Check out the track "A/B Machines" here:

Get your own "Treats" HERE.

where did the night fall

2010-05-27T12:53:00.003-05:00

UNKLE - WHERE DID THE NIGHT FALL

Thiis band seems to keep getting better - for me, Unkle has gone from being a band I somewhat ignored, to a band whose releases I look forward to. “Where Did the Night Fall” is the fifth studio album by this British electronic act. James Lavelle employs a whole range of talented guest collaborators, including Mark Lanegan, Autolux, and the Black Angels, to create a sonically dense record.

Check out the track "The Answer" here:

Get your own copy .
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This is Happening

2010-05-19T12:10:00.002-05:00

LCD SOUNDSYSTEM - THIS IS HAPPENING

LCD Soundsystem returns with their fourth album, the follow-up to 2007’s “Sound of Silver.”

Check out the track "I Can Change" here:

Get your own copy of "This is Happening" HERE.

New Pornographers

2010-05-13T11:18:00.001-05:00

“Together” is the fifth album from Canadian-US collective The New Pornographers, featuring Neko Case and Destroyer's Dan Bejar, in addition to bandleader and chief songwriter A.C. Newman.

Check out my favorite track, "Crash Years," here:

Get your own copy of "Together" HERE.

These New Puritans

2010-04-28T13:13:00.006-05:00

THESE NEW PURITANS - HIDDEN

These New Puritans hail from England’s Southend-On-Sea, and consist of Jack Barnett, his twin brother George, Thomas Hein and Sophie Sleigh-Johnson. They first came to prominence with their 2008 debut album, Beat Pyramid.

Their latest release, "Hidden," is one of my favorites of 2010 so far!

Check out the track "Attack Music" here:

Get your own copy of "Hidden" here.

Caribou - Swim

2010-04-21T12:24:00.003-05:00

Throughout his decade-long career under the name Manitoba and now Caribou, Dan Snaith has retained the same brilliant melodicism and musical experimentation, but he’s varied his focus on each release. The latest offering from Caribou, “Swim,” explores the realm of dark electronica and dance music.

Check out the track "Odessa" here:

Get your own copy HERE.

Congratulations!

2010-04-14T12:14:00.002-05:00

So tired
Soul searching
I followed the sounds to a cathredal
imagine my surprise to find that they were produced by
Brian Eno

past the gates
quite stark
the roses trimmed and the windows dark
I see the walls through a limestone crack
not red not blue not yellow but black
and all the space left for you
if the sky was synthesized you'd probably know

he taught me many things
the wisdom of o bleak stratagems
the prophet of a sapphire soul
presented through creative freedoms
and everything i say is true
cuz if i was telling lies it'd probably show

i can tell that he's kind of smiling
but what does he know?
we're always one step behind him, he's Brian Eno
Brian Eno

when I was stuck he'd make me memorize elaborate curses
tinctures and formulas to ditch the chori and flip the verses
my whole foundation came unglued
when i tried to humanize by ambient light
dipping swords in metaphors yeah but what does he know?
he's go the whole world behind him he's Brian Eno
Brian Eno!

he promised pretty worlds and all the silence
I could dream of Brian Peter George St John Le
Baptiste de la Salle Eno

well all alone by the oldest stone where the shade
trees grow the creature by the water feature with a
ghostly glow making sure that time's preserved
well we reap what we sow he's go the whole
world behind him he's Brian Eno

Buy it here.

(Measure)

2010-04-07T12:04:00.002-05:00

FIELD MUSIC - FIELD MUSIC (MEASURE)

Following a self-imposed three-year hiatus, the UK's Field Music returns with a new 20-track double-album of artful English pop. Powered by brothers and co-frontmen Peter and David Brewis, Field Music's line-up now includes Kev Dosdale (guitar and keys) and Ian Black (bass).

Check out the progalicious track "Let's Write A Book" here:

Get your own copy of "Field Music (Measure)" HERE.

The Be Colony

2010-03-31T12:56:00.004-05:00

BROADCAST & THE FOCUS GROUP - INVESTIGATE WITCH CULTS OF THE RADIO AGE

From their beginnings in Birmingham in 1995, Broadcast’s aesthetic has remained a combination of their love for film, library music and electronics with psych-pop colour – a style which has gained them fans including musicians such as Flying Lotus, Tim Gane from Stereolab, Grizzly Bear, Atlas Sound and Dangermouse.

The Focus Group is Julian House, long time friend of the band and renowned artwork designer. House is co-founder of the Ghost Box label, which in the last few years has birthed a cult of its own with releases reflecting its creators' obsessions with library music, English folklore and the eerie feel of vintage programmes for schools and colleges. His music as the Focus Group offers some of the most enchanting distillations of all the above, instantly complementing Broadcast's own long-standing aesthetic.

'Broadcast And The Focus Group Investigate Witch Cults Of The Radio Age' is their first collaborative release.

Check out the track "The be colony" here:

Get your own copy HERE.

Eyelid Movies

2010-03-24T14:06:00.002-05:00

HER
PHANTOGRAM - EYELID MOVIES

From their Barsuk Records bio:

“Phantogram's music sounds like it's made by a band from the city. Electronic loops, hip-hop beats, shoegaze, soul, pop — each finds its way into their songs. Unexpectedly, the band doesn't live and work in a major urban center, but rather calls the town of Saratoga Springs, NY (population 26,186) home. Despite the cultural influence of local Skidmore College (where fellow beat-experimenters Ratatat formed) and a relatively small scene of adventurous musicians and listeners, Saratoga isn’t exactly teeming with fans of J. Dilla, My Bloody Valentine or Serge Gainsbourg.

But Josh Carter and Sarah Barthel, the duo that make up Phantogram and who grew up in the even smaller nearby municipality of Greenwich, have flourished in Saratoga. In fact, the town itself isn't rural enough for their taste — they drive almost every day another 45 minutes into upstate farmland to a barn they call Harmony Lodge to write and record. Serving as their homemade studio/practice space/think-tank/bat-cave, the barn is equipped with various samplers, tapes, records, synths, drums, and both percussive and stringed instruments. It's there that Phantogram allows their natural surroundings and metropolitan influences to meld together creating beautiful, beat-driven dreamlike pop songs.”

Check out the track "Mouthful Of Diamonds" here:

Get your own "Eyelid Movies" HERE.

2010-03-17T12:24:00.002-05:00

BESNARD LAKES - ARE THE ROARING NIGHT

The Montreal band Besnard Lakes, fronted by the husband and wife team of Jace Lasek and Olga Goreas, has released 2 previous albums, “Volume 1,” and "The Besnard Lakes Are the Dark Horse.”

Their highly anticipated third album, “Are the Roaring Night,” doesn’t disappoint!

Check out the track "Glass Printer" here:

Get your own copy HERE.

Plastic Beach

2010-03-10T13:18:00.002-05:00

GORILLAZ - PLASTIC BEACH

The Gorillaz are a project by Blur frontman Damon Albarn and artist Jamie Hewlett (creator of Tank Girl), involving four animated characters -- 2D, Murdoc, Noodle and Russel -- who make up the hip-hop band. Their latest album, “Plastic Beach,” features an all-star cast of guest artists, including Mos Def, Snoop Dogg, Lou Reed, Mick Jones, Mark E. Smith, Gruff Rhys, and De La Soul.

Regular CD version ON SALE FOR JUST $9.99 for a limited time only!!

Check out the track "Rhinestone Eyes" here:

Get your own copy of "Plastic Beach' HERE.

Permalight

2010-03-03T11:46:00.002-05:00

ROGUE WAVE - PERMALIGHT

Though Zach Rogue spent much of the time before the recording of Rogue Wave's fourth album confined to bed rest with a slipped disc in his neck and a paralyzed arm, “Permalight” is filled with upbeat tracks that are cheerful, danceable, and full of joy.

Check out the title track here:

Get your own copy HERE.

Odd Blood

2010-02-24T13:50:00.002-05:00

YEASAYER - ODD BLOOD

The music of Brooklyn's Yeasayer is an eclectic, genre-bending journey into pop, rock, Middle Eastern and African musics, folk, and dub. Their new album, “Odd Blood,” is on Secretly Canadian Records.

Check out the track "Madder Red" here:

Get your own copy of "Odd Blood" HERE.

Jega - Variance

2010-02-17T13:18:00.005-05:00

Jega (a.k.a. Manchester's Dylan Nathan) has finally completed his brand new record for the Planet Mu label. “Variance” is split into two nine-track discs. Disc one is “light,” evoking a mood of joy and hope, while disc two is “dark,” exploring the darker side of electronica.

Check out a track here:

Get your own copy HERE.

Geeks Rule!

2010-02-10T13:31:00.003-05:00

HOT CHIP - ONE LIFE STAND

Hot Chip formed in 2000 - members Alexis Taylor and Joe Goddard had previously worked together and attended school together in Putney, London. The current line up was completed when occasional collaborators Owen Clarke, Felix Martin and later Al Doyle joined the band full time in 2003.
The fourth full-length album from the band, “One Life Stand,” is perhaps their most accomplished. A bit mellower than the breakout album “The Warning,” but a truly enjoyable listen, with a good mix of danceable tunes and slower ballads.

Check out the title track here:

Get your own copy of the CD or deluxe CD+DVD here.

It's shark week...

2010-02-04T12:41:00.005-05:00

MY BRIGHTEST DIAMOND - SHARK REMIXES, VOLS. 1-4

My Brightest Diamond is the project of singer–songwriter and multi-instrumentalist Shara Worden. Worden has also performed with Sufjan Stevens as a member of the Illinoismakers. While living in New York City, Worden began writing her own material, which had one foot in her classical training and the other in the avant rock she was discovering. My Brightest Diamond mixes elements of opera, cabaret, chamber music, and rock.

Check out my favorite track here:

Get your own limited, numbered, signed edition here.

School of Seven Bells

2010-01-27T11:55:00.001-05:00

SCHOOL OF SEVEN BELLS - ALPINISMS

The Ghostly International label’s School of Seven Bells is comprised of members Ben Curtis (formerly of the Secret Machines) and twin vocalists Claudia and Alejandra Deheza (both formerly in the band On!Air!Library!). Their latest album is “Alpinisms,” and it gives the listener a terrific combination of psychedelic electronica and dream pop.

Check out the track "Wired for Light" here:

Get your own copy here.

Islands

2010-01-20T12:26:00.002-05:00

THE MARY ONETTES - ISLANDS

Sweden’s Mary Onettes follow up their terrific debut. Described by critics as the perfect mix between A-ha and The Jesus and Mary Chain, the foursome survived a difficult recording process (first someone stole the hard drive that held all the music the band had recorded, then the backup hard drive failed), to release “Islands.”http://www.blogger.com/img/blank.gif

Check out the track "Puzzles" here:

Get your own copy here.

Happy Families

2010-01-14T11:56:00.004-05:00

BLANCMANGE - HAPPY FAMILIES PLUS

This digitally remastered and expanded edition of the synthpop duo's debut album includes twelve inch mixes of the hits, rare mixes and the non-album b-side “Business Steps.” Produced by Mike Howlett, this 1982 album features all the early hits, including “Living On The Ceiling,” “God's Kitchen,” “Waves,” and more.

Check out the extended version of "Living On The Ceiling" here:

Get your own helping of Blancmange here.

Fever Ray - Deluxe!

2010-01-06T12:28:00.003-05:00

FEVER RAY - FEVER RAY DELUXE

This deluxe three disc (two CDs + DVD) edition of the 2009 debut album from Fever Ray (a.k.a. Karin Dreijer Andersson, one half of The Knife) includes two bonus tracks on the main disc, a bonus live CD containing 12 cuts and a DVD that features five music videos and more.

Check out my favorite live track here:

Get your own copy here.

HAPPY HOLIDAYS from your friends at Lakeshore Record Exchange!

2009-12-23T11:11:00.001-05:00

Subway - Subway II

2009-12-17T10:59:00.000-05:00

SUBWAY - SUBWAY II

Subway is an instrumental project comprised of two guys (Alan James and Michael Kirkman) and an impressive array of vintage synths. Good stuff here!

Check out my favorite track here:

Get your own copy here.

Going to the dogs...

2009-12-17T10:52:00.008-05:00

2010 DELUXE WALL CALENDARS

If you love dogs like we do, this calendar is pretty hard to resist.

I mean, c’mon - can you say no to THIS FACE?:

All proceeds from sales of these calendars will go to our friends at Smilin’ Pitbull Rescue in Buffalo, NY. Available right now in the store, or by mail order here.

Stir the Blood

2009-12-02T13:13:00.004-05:00

THE BRAVERY - STIR THE BLOOD

As described by the Bravery’s main man, Sam Endicott:

“We finished touring last summer and immediately returned to the world of writing and recording. There was a new sense of vigor and excitement. We'd never felt more excited to be making music. I wrote songs frantically, all the time. I would go out and come home in the morning with my pockets full of napkins that I'd written lyrics on. The songs were darker, stranger. I have often written about rage and violence, but I never put these things into the music before, like it was something I preferred to pretend didn't exist. But more and more it was bubbling to the surface. I came home one day to find that my long-time girlfriend had attempted to kill herself. The ambulance came and she lived, though she was confined to a mental hospital for a while. This had a profound effect on me. It left me very angry. The songs got darker, some of them even violent (like "Hatefuck" and "Jack-O'-Lantern Man," for example.) Other songs became incredibly intimate, more than I'd been able to write in the past ("I Am Your Skin" is a good example.)

We began working with John Hill. He and I had been friends for a few years, and we would make beats and shit on the side. We had always talked about working together on the next Bravery record and eventually it came true; he and I co-produced the album. The band moved into an abandoned church in the woods of Woodstock, NY. We lived there for a while and just recorded as much as we possibly could. Tracks upon tracks upon tracks; songs became buried under mountains of sonic randomness. Everything under the sun. John brought new textures to the sound, effecting keyboards and guitars and new ways that we'd never thought of. The music became dreamier, more ambient.

Then we returned home and began the "remix" portion of our recording. We dug and dug through the mountains of sound, found the Easter eggs, cut them up, rearranged, manipulated. There are some tracks where no one knows who recorded them. For example, the main Wurlitzer riff in "Sugar Pill"- no one remembers doing that. I just found it in the tracks one day. Songs began to immerge. It felt like getting back to our roots, in a sense. Working in a very haphazard, homemade way. Electronic, but in the basement. There was a great sense of energy, like the first album. But like the second album there is a wider range of style. (For example, slow songs like "Sugar Pill" and "She's So Bendable." "Bendable" was written by Mike [bassist] by the way, and features him on lead vocal.)

During this period we all started to branch out creatively, as well. John Hill and I wrote the song "She Wolf" with Shakira, which became a big international hit. We wrote several other songs for her upcoming album as well, and worked on songs for a number of other artists (none of which have come out yet, so I'm hesitant to name names as of now.) Mike started like ten other bands, all of which he writes and sings for. It ranges from super lo-fi garage to rockabilly to R&B to Hawaiian music. He started a record label, Merrifield Records. Also, he became really involved in film, and made the video for our song "Hatefuck." It's pretty disturbing. I too caught the film bug, having directed the video for "Believe" from our second album. I've started writing for film, and have begun acting in some cameo roles. John Conway built a studio in the Central Coast Wine Country of California, and he and Michael (guitarist) moved there for a while to write and record Michael's solo album. His sound is like a modernized version of the Zombies or the Kinks. Michael and Mike have started a clothing line, making high-end suits.

There is a real sense of renewed energy, of creativity flowing like never before. So we named the album Stir the Blood, a line from the song "Jack-O'-Lantern Man;" it's an expression which means to awake passions, get the blood moving. Also, the name reflects the dark, even violent undercurrent to many of the songs. We used artwork by Polly Morgan, who creates art out of taxidermy animals. A nice return to the bird theme from the first record. The album was mixed by Michael Brauer (My Morning Jacket, Doves, a million other things).”

Check out "Song For Jacob" here:

Get your own copy of "Stir the Blood" here.

Flashmob

2009-11-25T11:33:00.003-05:00

VITALIC - FLASHMOB

It took Vitalic's Pascal Arbez-Nicolas over four years to follow up “OK Cowboy,” but it was totally worth the wait.

Check out the track "Still" here:

Get your own copy of "Flashmob" here.

Boys Noize - Power

2009-11-18T12:10:00.003-05:00

“Power” is the second album from German producer and DJ Alexander Ridha as Boys Noize, and follows on from the success of his 2007 debut, “Oi Oi Oi.”

Taking inspiration from electro and techno, Ridha delivers a great collection of tracks. The singles 'Jeffer' and 'Starter' are also included. At times, reminds me of Kraftwerk.

Check out the first track, "Gax," here:

Get your own "Power" here.

The Apple And The Tooth

2009-11-11T11:32:00.002-05:00

BIBIO - THE APPLE AND THE TOOTH

Acclaimed producer and instrumentalist BIBIO (aka Stephen Wilkinson) follows the album “Ambivalence Avenue” with “The Apple and The Tooth,” a companion piece comprised of four new Bibio tracks and eight remixes from names as diverse as Clark and Wax Stag (aka Rob Lee of Friendly Fires).

Check out the track "Dwrcan (Eskmo Remix)" here:

Get your own copy here.