She’s been dropping the Swan Songs on bandcamp and what have you for a few years now. This is collecting those works. She opened for the Throwing Muses show in Boston that I went to a couple of years ago, played with them for a few songs during the encore where they did songs from The Real Ramona and prior albums from when she was in the band.
The Car Seat Headrest album that is out now post recall is pretty good. Reminds me of something but I can’t place it.
Just a heads up, an Australian artist I have always really liked, Paul Dempsey (frontman of the band Something for Kate) released an album recently:
Larry Kinging it…
…loving that Plaid single as well, especially as something outside my normal wheelhouse that clearly hits elements that are within my frame of reference. It’s just a really good, interesting song.
…Thank you for posting the Creation documentary, which leads me to a recommendation of the Magic Shoppe EP that dropped back in February. It’s called Interstellar Car Crash, and all four songs are wonderful takes modern psych. Sorta like Spacemen 3 (you’ll swear that the song “Salventius” is about to kick into “Revolution”) or Spiritualized only louder and a bit more immediate. Best of all, the songs are terrific.
…Unpopular opinion that I can’t get out of my head after watching the Tom Petty documentary: Tom Petty’s career is better and more important and musically valuable than Alex Chilton’s. Think of the weird parallels–both guys growing up about the same time in the South. Chilton gets the immediate success but ends up deciding he doesn’t care nearly as much about pushing things after a few setbacks. Petty has a slow start and it takes years, but fuck. Dude wants to be a rock and roll star, as the cover he’d later do suggests. Fire your friends in your band? Well…shit, if you gotta, OK. Do this, do that? Well…Petty learned to play the game, how to twist what folks wanted to his own ends to get himself a chunk of power. And then when he got that power, screw you all. He was gonna use it to do what he wanted to do.
…Speaking of classic rock, Cheap Trick’s ex/current/ex/it’s complicated drummer Bun E. Carlos has recorded a bunch of songs. Mostly, I’d shrug at that, because, whatever. But dig: one song he’s recorded is “Armenia City In The Sky”, a 1966 song that kicks off The Who Sell Out, a song written with Pete Townshend by Speedy Keene, later of Thunderclap Newman fame (“Something In The Air”). This is one of my favorite weird The Who songs ever, a track that I swear Yo La Tengo sampled in 1996, and just a brilliant song. Even cooler: Bun Wilco’s John Stirratt for vocals and instrumentation. So…yeah. Dig: http://ultimateclassicrock.com/bun-e-carlos-armenia-city-in-the-sky/
…I love Sloan. No secret there. I love The Flashing Lights, too. Shit, I just love everything about the 1990s Halifax scene. And so Chris Murphy of Sloan and Flashing Lights/Super Friendz front man Matt Murphy (no relation, btw) and Inbreds main guy Mike O’Neil made an album under the nom de rock TUNS (which was the old acronym for the big university in Halifax, Technical University of Nova Scotia…and it no longer exists.) The TUNS album is due in August, but the first single got previewed last week and it’s terrific. “Mind Over Matter” has Matt Murphy on lead vocals, with cotton candy harmonies from the other two guys.
…Off to check out the Tanya Donnelly comp and the new Twin Peaks.
Solid live solo piano cover of Jawbreaker’s Accident Prone by Julien Baker
Didn’t know twin peaks has a new one out. Thanks triggy!
JESUS GOD IN HEAVEN!
I was hoping Twin Peaks would bring some noise and energy. Didn’t expect them to bring the loudest, rowdiest show I’ve seen in… maybe ever? From the opening chord, there was near-constant moshing and crowd surfing throughout the set. Just killed it.
These drunk misfits rock. GO SEE THEM LIVE!
Seems I killed this thread. I shall bring it back to liiiiife!!!
First Women then Viet Cong now Preoccupation (but they still sound like Women and Viet Cong.) i.e. F*CKING GREAT.
Loving Gallant’s first album that was released this year. Never gotten into R&B as a genre, but this guy and his ‘alt-r&b’ (or whatever you call it) is great. For those so inclined, my fav track is Jupiter, it bowls me over every time I listen to it.
As the kids say: “Yasssss!”
Mitski album is up on NPR and it’s great. Some other good recent releases from Moon Face (a Spencer Krug of Wolf Parade side project), White Lung, and The Hotelier.
Also pretty interesting is the Astronoid studio debut album Air, I’ve seen it referred to as dream thrash, merging elements of dream pop and thrash metal, think Deafhaven but with ethereal vocals. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xb3RjfOvXBA
It’s out everywhere now including Spotify.
Stereogum has their top 50 albums so far this year up, spoilers a bunch of stuff I’ve posted this year made their cut
http://www.stereogum.com/featured/the-50-best-albums-of-2016-so-far/
That Mitski album is really the first thing this year that’s gotten me really excited. Oh wait, Radiohead was damn good too.
I’ll be seeing her live this week. I saw her open for Speedy Ortiz last year and she was great then, really looking forward to her in the headline slot.
First track from the upcoming Kindling LP due out in August, shoegaze with some drive to it.
Every once in a while NPR plays something in their interstitial music between stories that really catches my ear. If that ever happens to you, remember you can always go to their website and track the music down.
This morning it was Inner Babylon by Sons of Kemet. They also played Going Home by Sons of Kemet in that interstitial segment, which was also really nice.
I’m just absolutely loving all the music I can find by the band this morning on Youtube. Sad to see their albums have no reviews on Amazon. I’ve never seen that before. Even the most obscure music I’ve seen has at least some reviews on Amazon!
Anyway, check it out, it’s good stuff.
Any Hybrid fans here? I was intrigued by them in their early days after they had the best track in the original SSX (Unfinished Symphony). But I became a huge fan after their second album Morning Sci-fi came out. Their mix of electronic music with symphony orchestra music is intoxicating to me.
The third album was great, for the most part, and the fourth album had its moments of brilliance. But they’ve only been doing soundtracks ever since. Ghost Recon’s soundtrack and Driveclub, and a few movies, going from Man on Fire collaboration to movies I’ve never heard of. So it’s been a long wait for Album Five.
Well, I check in on them this morning, and according to their facebook page, one half of the original duo left the band last summer (Chris Healings) to work on DJing and soundtracks. Which leaves Mike Truman, along with Charlotte, who I felt was the weakest part of Album Four. Hmmm. Not sure how to feel about a Hybrid without Chris Healings. From reading the sleeve notes and interviews, I always got the impression that Mike Truman did most of the music, while Chris Healings was the one that was in charge of integrating samples and conducting the orchestra music that is a huge part of the Hybrid sound. So I always viewed Mike Truman as the most essential part of Hybrid, and he’s still around. The facebook post said that after Chris left the band last summer, they basically started over on Album Five, and are nearly done now. So I guess we’ll see how the departure has effected the band soon enough.
Bernard Butler just tweeted out that he’ll be playing on the next Tyde record. Guess he’s touring North America on his collaboration with Ben Watt and Darren Rademaker snapped a pic with the two of them together at Barney’s show in SoCal.
The Mountain Will Fall - DJ Shadow is out
And it is amazing.
The title track “The Mountain will Fall” is spectacufuckinglar.