Tanlines-Brothers

The synthy excellence that is Tanlines will be releasing their debut album Mixed Emotions on True Panther Sounds all the way into the distant future that is March 20. In the mean time, the band has dropped their first single, "Brothers" from the album. It's incredibly warmth for an electronic song, with the sound of waves crashing on a beach loop through out while minimalist keyboard and guitar work are used throughout to build the song to higher and higher points. LCD Soundsystem style lyrics come spewing out as questions without answers are asked about life and those around you. Tanlines have produced a stunning, melancholy pop song, and maybe 2012's first great song.

(mp3) Tanlines-Brothers

Links:

Tanlines' "Offical" Website
Pre-order Mixed Emotions here, from True Panther Sounds

Video: Youth Lagoon-July

This is Youth Lagoon's second video to accompany a song off their astounding debut The Year of Hibernation. The second to have the genius of Tyler T. Williams create it. And the second to be utterly visually and emotionally stunning. There's something to using nose bleeds as an abstract metaphor for one's entire world falling apart. Just watch it and be amazed, and try to avoid making to many Melancolia connections while you are.

Links:

Youth Lagoon on Facebook

Sweaters & Pearls Discography

7 Inches is the ever excellent blog that combs through the vast magnitude of singles that are released at a mind numbing rate, and manages to fine a great piece of wax for everyday of the year. Now, like so many blogs, they have moved into the record making business. With that comes the birth of Sweaters & Pearls Records, a commitment to colored vinyl releases, and showcasing some of the best unknown indie rock around.

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The Ceiling Stares/The Super Vacations split 7"

Sweaters & Pearls first release is a split between two "The" bands, as well as a "split" release with Velocity of Sound Records. The Ceiling Stares "A Tunnel Through Air" is a great, hodgepodge of a indie rock song, filled with a fuzzed and drugged guitar line, melodic keyboard undertones, Television like breakdowns, and chanty-esque vocals. It sounds utterly familiar, yet out stop just enough to never be be to place how. The Super Vacations are the perfect counter point to the Ceiling Stares. Buzzing, fast paced guitars and songs that bring to mind the less stoney work of the Fresh & Onlys. The band ha quite mastery in making guitar shifts from sunny to tense, tight, and bleak, as best demonstrated on the opening riffs of the appropriately titled "Hexing". Excellent post-punk with a little California beach garage placed within them.

Stream: The Ceiling Stares-A Tunnel Through the Air


Stream: The Super Vacations-Hexing

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Fat History Month-A Gorilla EP

Truly, I was not expecting much from a band called Fat History Month. A best, I was hoping the 7" would be some sort of passable guitar rock that was stupid in the right ways. Boy was I wonderfully proven wrong. Contained within these bright banana colored grooves are four, beer soaked indie rock tunes which are some of the best I've heard of the genre in a while. This is what's played in basements, by guys are drink too much in order to get over the pain of their lives, while said pain drips into their songs as well as a general decrease in ability to play, but this somehow compliments the songs even more. It's as if Andrew Cedermark decided to cover the Silver Jew's "Secret Knowledge of Backroads" and take that sound as the basis for an entire band. From the opening notes of "Gorilla" the guitar dissonance builds to heart breaking levels that by the time "Heart Takes a Beating" you know the band isn't joking. It would be much more brutal if the music wasn't so great.


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Soccer Mom-You Are Not Going to Heaven EP

A title as harsh as You Are Not Going to Heaven should be the dead give away that Soccer Mom are not the twee band their name suggests. Instead, you get the awesome mixture of Rather Ripped era Thurston Moore fronting a shoegaze band that has listened to too much early '90s indie rock. This 10" has a wonderful balance to it, while taking so many cues from classic indie rock, Soccer Mom's ability to jump one style to the next keeps the band alive and thoroughly excellent. Simply compare "(A) Natural History", which sounds like "Incinerate", to "Unwanted Sounds" which conjures to mind "Only Shallow" by My Bloody Valentine. But it all works into a cathartic combination of everything great of indie rock, mushed together in a blender, and spread over these six tracks. Warm, loud, and fuzzy in all the right ways, Soccer Mom make music to submerge one's brain into, just perfect guitar music to disappear into and never look back.



Links:

The Ceiling Stares' Website
The Super Vacations' Tumblr
Fat History Month's Bandcamp
Soccer Mom's Website
Buy all this wonderful vinyl here, from Sweaters & Pearls Records 

Decoder Magazine & Crash Symbols

Along with the new year came a radical change to one of my favorite blogs, Get Off The Coast. Due to it no longer being just the work of Jheri, Get Off The Coast morphed into Secret Decoder to better represent the sprawling music obsessed collective it had become. Along with the name/site change came the even better news that Secret Decoder would also exist as a physical, magazine supplement filled with deeper, richer articles about all the bands and record labels that Secret Decoder/Get Off The Coast had been digging up and rapid blogging about for years. Secret Decoder is currently producing its first issue, and has set up a Kickstarter page to help with the funding. I need not say how worth while and deserving this project is, and every dollar helps. Speaking of, any dollar donated to the project gets one a digital copy of Decoders' first mixtape (streamable below), which also serves as the perfect sampler for what's to the come/be covered within the first issue.
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Speaking of Secret Decoder related works, the blog's label Crash Symbols is still in full force, cranking out cassette and digital releases at a rate that rivals their blog updates. That rate in fact makes it very easy for fellow bloggers to occasionally miss a release or two from the label. Thankfully though I caught hold of the label's release of Noah Wall's debut cassette Hèloïse. Hèloïse is an incredibly warm record, filled with sprawling synths that submerge the listener in a mental, crystal clear sea with the sun always over head.  Noah Wall could have easily created a simple chillwave record, but his music is smarter than that, taking light dashes from tropica and darkwave (in sound and structure accordingly), it's more reminiscent of Broken Social Scene's more ambient and free form pop than normal electronica. Lightly stunning, beautiful music.



Links:

Support Decoder Magazine here, on their Kickstarter page
Noah Wall's Website/Bandcamp
Buy the Hèloïse cassette here, from Crash Symbols

Nima: Demon+Wet Dream Cassette

While desperately looking for some music to accompany my sleepless night last night, I stumbled upon an old cassette I had received from Kevin from Bridgetown Records. It was by an artist called Nima and was a compilation of sorts of some of her previous releases, properly dubbed Demon + Wet Dream. The music is utterly simple: various synths, a busted and lo-fi drum machine that booms and pounds throughout, and Nima’s frail voice to accompany all of it. It’s also incredibly haunting and beautiful music. Nima bends her various synths to near Microphone’s levels of build up, making them sounds almost like celestial organs. Not to mention Nima’s voice is so wispy and lovely, at times it seems she’s not sure if she’s even speaking the right language the voice seems so lost. A little akin to Youth Lagoon, but suplimente the gloriouse build up of each song with lo-fi. This is music to soundtrack the background of the snowy winter scene of an indie flick.


Links:

Nima on Bandcamp
The tape is sold out, but can be aquired through Rok Lok Distribution

Plastic Flowers-Strange Neighbors

As my favorite time of year, winter, is upon us, that also means large cascades of dark and gloomy music start to fill my computer and inbox. Nothing in recent memory exemplifies this better than the A-side to Plastic Flower's newest single "Strange Neighbors". It's a sneaky little song, starting with a simple beat as Sean Earl Bread's monotone and distant lyrics slowly guide the song, accompanied by guitar lines so reverbed and effected that you can picture them curling into oblivion. By the time the song come to the climax, it almost seems like it hasn't changed at all, but it has. The drum beats come in ever so quicker and harder as Beard just repeats over and over "We won't be friends". A perfectly heartbreaking song for these cold December days.  

(mp3) Plastic Flowers-Strange Neighbors

Links:

Plastic Flowers' Website
Buy the Strange Neighbors 7" here, from Weird Records

Earthquake Party-vs. Pizza Cassingle

There was an instant reflex in me to call Earthquake Party the best Times New Viking rip off ever and leave it at that. Scuzzy sounding instruments, boy/girl vocal trade offs, and songs about drugs and nonsense. But past all that, Earthquake Party are just as drawn to snotty pop punk as indie rock. How else would a less than a minute long mini spaz like "Nails & Hammers" exist next to a slow burner like "Brians"? It's the A-side "Pretty Little Hand" that steals the show though. I have not heard a songs so wonderfully additive in ages. It has just the perfect fuzz sound to buzz in a ear for years to come. Plus are there better lyrics than "All I want is a pretty little hand filled with drugs and candy!"? No there isn't. This is a proper cassingle (1 A-side, 2 B-sides) tailor made for that shitty boombox that you started using to play cassettes.

(mp3) Earthquake Party-Pretty Little Hand

Links:

Earthquake Party on Facebook
Buy the vs. Pizza cassingle here, from the band's Bandcamp

Fun Fun Fun Fest 2011: Day 3 (Part 2)

Ted Leo and the Pharmacists



Ted Leo and the Pharmacists set is one of those sets that will forever be spoken about in Fun Fun Fun Fest lore. Leo told everyone that he was filling sick and wouldn't be able to perform the best of sets, but that seemed like a lie as he ripped through cuts from The Brutalist Bricks. If this is Ted Leo at sub par, he most be a ball of pure energy in top form. He saved the great moment possible of the whole fest for the finale though. Danzig had on Friday completely fucked up his set, going on an hour late, cutting his set down and eliminating all the planned Misfits material, and then told the crowd to basically riot. Yes, he truly is as much of a douche as people say he is. However, Leo decided to repay Danzig's debt by dawning a black wife beater, bad wig, and launching into four Misfits songs. While this isn't out of character for Leo (see his TV Casualty project), it was just awesome to see him do it here. Needless to say a large chunk of the crowd went nuts for the songs, and Leo and co. cemented their reputation as some of the best guys in punk.





Architecture in Helsinki



Architecture in Helsinki's set was surreal in a number of ways. These were five, scientist looking and dressed Australians performing electro dance pop almost completely with electronic instruments (even the drums they had were more machine then kit). At certain points they even engaged in synchronized dance routines to some of their songs. The thing was, they were doing all of this to Slayer fans who had gotten there early for the band. It was miracle that they didn't get booed into oblivion. However, AIH managed to make it through their set unscathed, though not perfectly. All that electronic equipment backfired on them a lot, the drums in particular having to fiddled with practically between every song to get them working again. Still it was a fun set, made a lot more interesting from the circumstances around it.







Boris



Boris rocked. Flat out rocked. It was the most metal thing I have ever experienced in my life, just a barrage of ear splitting guitar riffs and skull crushing drums blasted out of six foot high amps. The all black attire, the smoke machine that pour out through out the set, the giant gong set behind the drum kit (that eventually made its way into the crowd); Boris love metal to their bone and embodies it so well. Equally impressive is how they take their new, catchier, and less metal material and live, manage to convert it into equally impressive feats of rock bravo. There was nothing brutal about the set, but there was an intensity to it that was ever present, and rose it proper heights. Shredding never sounded so good.







Black Lips



I think this was the proper way to end my Fun Fun Fun Fest experience. With the utter wonder and chaos that was the Black Lips. They literally started the show off with a bang by throwing lit firecrackers into the the crowd. From their it got as crazy as a Black Lips show gets, the crowd become a giant mass of colliding bodies and garage rock infuse octane. Toilet paper was thrown, light swords were waved and flung, and people drunkenly song along to the songs at the top of their songs. Black Lips on their part helped with the chaos, never slowing the set down for any of the slower or more psych tinged songs in their discography, and just transferring the energy of the crowd into more manic forms of "Short Fuse" and "Katerina". There were moments were you couldn't even see the stage because of everything that was going on, but it says too much that it was OK and the giant drunken, high, crazy crowd singing along was all you needed.

Fun Fun Fun Fest 2011: Day 3 (Part 1)

Davila 666



I was a little disappointed in Davila 666's set. Coming from Puerto Rico, with six members and very catchy garage-punk songs in tow, one would think it would all add up to a great set. Yet it never rose above standard garage rock standards. They lacked a certain energy to them that I had seen with other bands, like they were performing just due to commitment and couldn't wait to get off. At least they pulled off a great cover of "Hanging on the Telephone".







Ceremony



I had no idea about Ceremony's reputation when I saw them, but I learned it fast when they started playing. Immediately setting the tone when their guitarist came out in Prince like attire, their lead singer proceed to climb the stage, singing from the banner that hung on the side as if it were completely normal. He then spent the rest of the stage stocking the stage or jumping into the crowd, always bring this intense insanity to the band's performance, which went well with the fractured hardcore that was being produced by the rest of the band. Ceremony's performance was probably the most intense thing I saw during the whole fest; ugly yet creative hardcore matched by the band members' commitment to their sound.





Nobunny



I have waited ages to finally see Nobunny in person and his Sunday set was everything I had hoped it would be. He came out in his underwear and proceeded to get more perverted from there, making constant remarks for his need for "bunny love" and sticking the mic down his underwear at one moment as well. Still, as wrapped up as Nobunny is in his own devious little world, he never forgets about the songs and he played a garage set as good as a garage set could be when you're front man is wearing a bunny mask. The crowd was just as wild as Nobunny was onstage, thrashing and dancing around to songs in a less than adorable, but still enjoyable manner. It was a wild, slightly surreal, garage rock set. It was Nobunny in person, and it was great.





Zero Boys



The Zero Boys might be old, they might be out of shape, but it was awesome to see them perform on Sunday. Truly under appreciated hardcore legends that deserved more than what they got in punk history, their reunion show proves they deserve their place in the hardcore legacy halls. Paul-Z still had the same sense of energy and humor he had as a 16 year old making those songs, and it came out in the set. Paul-Z even jumped into the circle pit during the last song (how rare is it for a band to even engage with the crowd at all). It didn't feel like nostalgia, but like a great punk band playing all their old hits. The Zero Boys may be under appreciated, but for the 40 minutes they were on stage, they were the heroes they were always destined to be.

Album Review: Youth Lagoon-The Year of Hibernation

I was beyond excited about The Year of Hibernation. After being exposed to the tear jerking beauty of "Montana" (more on that song in a second), I jumped on my computer as quickly as possible to pre-order it. When The Year of Hibernation finally arrived, I tour into the packaging as quickly as possible and threw it on my turntable. As the album began to engulf me I noticed something old. For some reason there were no lyrics to be found anywhere within the packaging, surprising due to Youth Lagoon's Trevor Powers' singing style leads to an obscured sense to what is being sung. Normally this isn't a problem for me; as the large connoisseur of lo-fi pop it's just another wonderful quality and characteristic. But I did something out of character. I jumped on my computer, found all the lyrics, and compiled my own personal lyric book to accompany my listening of the album.

That I feel speaks volumes about the music we are dealing with here. In a time when it takes monumental effort to just listen to 4 song EP all the way through, to be willing (me at least) to want to engage with every aspect of the music is saying something. In this case, how utterly emotionally beautiful this album is. I know that is probably the biggest thing whenever Youth Lagoon is brought up, but that's because of how good they are at it. I think that's mostly to their ability to sidestep nostalgia in the traditional sense, and the way a lot of modern bands trigger it. This is an album completely built around keys and synth, possibly the most used instrument in modern indie music, yet manages to be so much more original with it than others. This is especially true in the way all the songs build to big, cinematic endings. From the moment "Posters" evolves from simple piano tinkering toward beat blasts and perfectly placed guitar work, it's obvious The Year of Hibernation is bigger than just the eight songs contained would have you think. By the time the album reaches it's climax with "Montana", a song so powerful and beyond words that morphs from haunting piano lines toward thunderous piano lines that sound like Powers' might wind up destroying his instrument, the entire magic of the album has sunk in.

Equal parts beautiful and dark, The Year of Hibernation is one the best records, never mind debuts, of the the year. It's subtly majestic in all the right ways, quite when it needs to be, and loud and bombastic when it needs to be as well. It engulf your body for 35 minutes once it starts, and lasts for days after. And you will appreciate every moment of it.


(mp3) Youth Lagoon-Cannons
(mp3) Youth Lagoon-July
(mp3) Youth Lagoon-Montana

Links:

Youth Lagoon's Blog
Buy The Year of Hibernation here, from Fat Possum Records