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July 30, 2006
last day with the IRAs
Blood Brothers' new album, "Young Machetes", will be released on October 10th. 15 tracks. I could not be more excited. Does this mean the long-awaited Liars and Blood Brothers split EP of Doors covers (on Hand Held Heart) will arrive in the near future? Who knows. I've emailed H3 many, many times about it, and I think their patience is wearing a little thin. Let's just cross our fingers and hope that the EP comes out before the end of the summer.
Posted by Kevin at 08:42 PM | Comments (0)
July 25, 2006
The wrath of Yul Brynner
One item of genuinely exciting news and two very sweet rumors:
Fluxblog's lately-favored (and more importantly, Philly-native) A Sunny Day in Glasgow are playing August 3rd at the Khyber, and they're opening, so get there early if you want to see them. The band is currently working on recording a full-length (which apparently needs to be finished by August 31st, for mysterious reasons), and in their continuing tradition of generosity, have put some of the brand new songs up on their website ('Shame, Who Wouldn't Think It's Evil') and on their myspace page ('5:15 Train', and the utterly gorgeous 'Horn Song'). I say 'continuing tradition' because the band's 4 song EP, "The Sunniest Day Ever", is available for $3 or $5 (shipping included) depending on where you live- and this EP is probably the most strikingly beautiful release I've heard in the past few months (the songs are the results of a clinical experiment on a girl group, where the girls are fed handfuls of accreted traffic noise and heavy summer haze and are told to sing into the loneliest places: dumpsters, electrical substations, late-night parking lots, etc.). In closing: I'm sort of in love with this band now. Here's the very sweet demo of 'Shame...' that the band put up:
A Sunny Day In Glasgow - Shame, Who Wouldn't Think It's Evil
Rumors
**This comment recently appeared on the entry I last wrote about the (seemingly-defunct) Philly band Racecar. I tried to email to confirm the info, but no luck yet. If this is true though, it's pretty fantastic.
"I just happen to have some inside information on the band racecar from Philly. They had broken up for a half of a year and are now back together again. The 10 Songs album (the band's last LP) will be released on vinyl with CDs and booklets inside the packaging sometime before the end of the year (in local record stores). Shows at the TLA R-5 and other places are also in store before the year is up. Look for the review on Pitchfork in upcoming months. New music is on the way."
**Some of the guys from Animal Collective have recently mentioned that they're currently working on the sequencing for an as-yet-untitled 'early live box set', to be released on (the always wonderful) Catsup Plate at some point in the near future. Since "Hollinndagain" is coming out this fall, this box set probably won't be out until next spring, but who knows. As far as content- maybe some unrecorded gems like 'Ice Cream Factory', or some of the live shows from the "Danse Manatee" and "Here Comes the Indian" eras (I'm speculating here). No doubt the packaging will be extravagant and pretty.
Posted by Kevin at 09:10 AM | Comments (0)
July 18, 2006
night sweats
One of my friends ran into Pat Noecker on the street the other day and asked him about No Things (which was, to recap, Pat and Ron Albertson from the old line-up of Liars with Christian on vocals)- turns out the band has broken up (which is a shame), but the good news is that Pat has formed a new band, called Powers. Apparently a third member is going to be added some time in the future, but for now, Pat is working with Anna Barie as a duo, and they have three songs up on their site, all of which definitely fit their mysterious self-categorization of 'ghost-punk'.
'With All My Might' is full of desparation and loneliness, and it's frightening, in a specific way. Not in the straight-up gory, chomping on animal viscera manner, but more like threatening: it moves in an unnatural way, lurches, stumbles, bends its joints in the wrong direction (the song exudes the possibility of bizarre forms of violence). Three primary elements make the track- the piercing siren echoes, that short-lived, burrowing bassline, and Anna's voice, which, although it sounds like it's being projected from 1000 miles away, is delivered with the intimacy of a whisper in your ear (like she's screaming to you through an empty transcontinental pipeline, trying to get your attention). The other two songs up on the band's site are mostly instrumental, but are just as pleasantly disturbing ('Do Not Interfere' is particularly intense- definitely the best Ouija board jam I've ever heard). Should be interesting to see what happens when they find that third band member.
Posted by Kevin at 12:19 AM | Comments (0)
July 17, 2006
dative of possession or possessor?
Something new coming tomorrow, but today I just wanted to point out the fact that Fuck It Tapes has a 2X cassette (I had no idea such a thing was possible) version of Jana Hunter's "Black Unstaring Heirs of Doom" (so it includes the album and a bonus tape of live material). And it's only like $9. Go check it out.
Posted by Kevin at 06:20 AM | Comments (0)
July 13, 2006
your face through an expanse of brown cloth
Animal Collective - Cuckoo (live in Seattle)
Of the post-"Feels" songs that the band has been playing out live, 'Cuckoo' is probably the most intriguing- it's a step in a different direction (esp. after the shimmering prettiness of "Feels" and the warm, translucent joy of "Sung Tongs"), but it also harkens back to some of the more damaged songs from "Here Comes the Indian" (e.g. 'Hey Light', 'Panic', 'Slippi')- 'Cuckoo' starts off with a gorgeous little piano loop and small waves of deep, airless beats, all circumscribed by an occasional burst of angry static from the guitars (foreshadowing). Dave's lyrics in 'Cuckoo' are more narrative than usual (more reminiscent of Neutral Milk Hotel subject matter), as he sings in the first verse about "little boy died/you keep rolling past my eyes/singing your songs/life was good now/death's all wrong", and later goes on to detail how he can't feel a thing and can't see a thing (the song's got a pretty disorienting vibe to it). The grit of 'Cuckoo' comes in the chorus, as Dave wails and is overwhelmed by blasts of the aforementioned livid guitar noise, and Panda Bear plays his drums like he's falling down a flight of stairs while attached to the kit (adds to the bewilderment); this is definitely one of the things that Animal Collective does best, I think (or at least it's the part of their aesthetic that appeals most to me)- taking functionally pretty elements and contrasting those constituent parts with textures that are harsher, unusual, or not conventionally mellifluous to make a song that effects dramatic shifts in the listener's overall experience and intensifies the emotional response, etc.
The band has said recently that they're not going to record any of the brand new songs any time soon, so this might not see the light of day until late 2007, and of course, given the band's tendency to dramatically rework material, the arrangement and lyrics will probably change a half dozen times before it's even laid to tape. Anyway, it's one of my favorite songs of theirs as it is, and I hope they decide to include it on the next record. Also, look out for that "Hollindagain" (wrote about it here) reissue this fall. [Buy previous AC albums]
Posted by Kevin at 06:20 AM | Comments (0)
July 04, 2006
No open flame barbecues coolers encouraged
First great thing: Ungdomskulen, the Norwegian band that released two or three of my favorite songs of 2005, have recorded a new song, called "Orindary Son". It's an epic- 7 minutes long (full of their slithery guitar work, the breakdown towards the middle of the track is a highlight), and it's so ridiculously catchy, dudes just have an ear for writing hard-burning, tooth-ground tracks that have perfect verse and chorus hooks. This band reminds me slightly of those Calvin & Hobbes strips when Calvin would be just barely in control of the toboggan as it careened down an improbably steep suburban hill- Ungdomskulen are exciting, funny, slightly dangerous, and extremely satisfying. You can listen to 'Ordinary Son' right here. The band's writing a bunch of songs right now, and they'll probably try to record sometime over the summer.
Second great thing: This seems particularly apropos today, I think it's made the rounds a little bit, but whatever, it's fucking hilarious- (by Brad Neely of Creased Comics)
Posted by Kevin at 01:12 PM | Comments (0)