Another set of great blog posts

Earlier this year I linked to some posts on other blogs that contained music I loved. And now I'm doing that again. Here goes

Everything Fudge related on Willfully Obscure (1, 2, 3, 4) - I might have mentioned Fudge before but I didn't put up any music. Before seeing these posts on Willfully Obscure I had only heard Girl Wish from a compilation. Having liked that song and knowing the band was from my home city I wanted to hear more. Spavid has put up downloads of the band's singles, first album, and even two v/a releases containing tracks by two bands with member of Fudge. I recommend Drive and Girl Wish from the singles and Waterfall from Peppermint Stick Parade.

Birdsongs, Beesongs Compilation by Eardrums - Since last year Eardrums has been putting out seasonal compilations for free. These compilations feature a wealth of recent indie pop bands and always contain a few gems. Check out the newest compilation called Birdsongs, Beesongs. Ony volumes A and B are out right now but two more should follow in the future.

Remember Fun/Emily Flexi at I Wish I Was A Flexidisc - Every post at this blog is great, but I particularly like the Emily song. I'll try to remember to post some Emily stuff later on.

Cold Cave - Love Comes Close

Cold Cave opened for Crystal Stilts and Comet Gain at the Black Cat last week. I had never listened to them before and didn't know what to expect beyond the genre tag of darkwave which I admittedly know little about. I just knew there would be synths (and there were a few). For sure this band was the low point of the night since the other two bands put on great performances (peaking at the Stilts' performance of their new single Love is a Wave which may be their best song yet). Still, I liked this song enough to look Cold Cave up and find it and download the mp3 from MySpace.

Love Comes Close is great because it isn't entirely synth and has a nice but minimal guitar riff. The singer obviously takes inspiration from Ian Curtis in both vocals and writing and this track reminds me of early New Order. Cold Cave has a few singles out but this track is unreleased. Check them out on MySpace.

Love Comes Close mp3

Red House Painters - Rollercoaster

Red House Painters isn't a band you want to listen to when sad. It leads to nowhere. Kozelek's songs are too depressingly beautiful to ever drag you out of a ditch.

Nor should you listen to Red House Painters when happy, because it will make you unhappy.

I guess you just have to be content in staying low. I need to stop listening to Rollercoaster but I can't.

I thought you'd come over
But for some reason you didn't
Glass on the pavement under my shoe
Without you is all my life amounts to

Katy Song mp3
Strawberry Hill mp3
Rollercoaster Part 1, part 2

Amesoeurs - Amesoeurs

I read about the debut album from this band being a mix of black metal and indie pop. That's a good description, but only if it is also mentioned that the two genres mix between songs rather than within them. The songs where the female sings are great and do a better job of mimicking post-punk than a great deal of the more popular revival bands. The good songs flow from poppy guitar work with Joy Division-ish bass lines to shoegazey walls of sound and its all overlain by sweet female vocals.

I can't stand metal so I have to skip a few tracks from the album. I really hope the band goes on to focus on the poppier sound. I read that the girl singer has a solo project so maybe that will be worth looking up.

The good tracks are Les Ruches Malades, Faux Semblants, Video Girl, Le Reine Trayeuse, and Amesoeurs.

Preorder from Tower (best price I've seen)

Faux Semblants mp3
Download album

As a side note I have been spending way too much time playing Broken Picture Telephone. It's basically an online version of the telephone game but instead of whispering a phrase around a circle you try to convey a consistent message while alternating between pictures and words. Try it out!

The Vandelles - S/T EP

Recently I have gotten into surf music so I thought I would follow up on a previous post by uploading The Vandelles' self titled EP. This isn't surf but the influence can be clearly heard throughout the EP. The 60s girl group influence is also obvious with the -elles suffix. I'd call the music surf-y noise pop and it is great! Fizzbombs are a good comparison and I wonder if The Vandelles have listened to them.

So this EP. Noise pop is "in" right now, with Wavves and The Pains coming out as best new music on Pitchfork, but The Vandelles have escaped attention. They certainly deserve some recognition for this EP. Swell to Heaven sounds you're submerged in the surf with half of your ears peeking above the crackling foam. Lovely Weather is another great song, with a loud guitar starting things off noisy real quick.

This self titled is a great debut and I can't wait for the album that is supposedly coming this year. The surf approach is great and I'm on the prowl for more of this sound. So if anyone reading knows some send me a message!

Visit The Vandelles on MySpace. I don't know if you can still buy the CD, but it's being rereleased by SVC records soon.

Swell to Heaven mp3
Lovely Weather mp3
Download EP

The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy - Primary Phase

I read the HHGttG series in middle school and they immediately became my favorite series of books. Douglas Adams' writing is hilarious and the Hitchhiker's series beats any other science fiction novel in terms of comedy.

Before the books were written the HHGttG was a radio show written by Adams for the BBC. The story has actually been retold multiple times but Adams always made sure to vary things between the radio show, TV show, and novels so no one is a copy of the other. Recently I have been listening to the radio show and must say that it is great.

The radio show takes the form of 30 minute episodes. There are twelve in the original series which includes the Primary and Secondary phases produced in the 70s. In 2003 the series was picked up again by the BBC and an additional three phases were created. The show is incredibly well done and worth listening to even if you have already read the books.

The files are too large for Mediafire so I had to make a split archive. Download all four parts then extract "Primary Phase.zip.001"
Download Primary Phase (1)(2)(3)(4)

The Ecstasy of Saint Theresa - Pigment

This EP is the first (and my favorite) release by the Czech shoegaze band The Ecstasy of Saint Theresa. Pigment and the following album, Sussurate, both washed in with the wave of shoegaze in the early 90s. After Sussurate the band began to play electronica so I have not given any later albums a listen. But the first two releases, in particular the album, follow the MBV/Cocteau Twins sound.

There are four tracks on the EP and to me 1& 3 stand above the others. Maybe it has something to do with both titles containing apostrophes, but more likely the reason is that What's and Who's are poppier than Square Wave and Honeyrain. Still, the two lesser songs take notes from Loveless and are not bad at all. So listen to 1 & 3 if you like Isn't Anything and 2 & 4 if you like Loveless. Hopefully you, like me, love both and listen to the whole EP!

What's mp3
Who's mp3
Download EP

A flexi mix

I recently discovered the awesome blog I Wish I Was A Flexidisc. This guy has put up a ton a obscure flexis that are mostly from the C86 era. After listening to a few I recognized and wanted to hear I decided to go and download them all and there are certainly some gems. Here is a mix containing 12 of my favorite tracks so far (haven't listened to everything yet). Add this blog to your RSS feed!

Track Listing

1. Heaven Is Blue - The Groove Farm
2. All You Ever Say - The Mayfields
3. Everytime I Open the Bottle - The Morrisons
4. Forevermore Starts Here - St. Christopher
5. Happy Birthday - The Bluebells
6. I Don't Need You - The Enormous Room
7. I Know I'm Nothing Special To You - The Williams
8. If You Were the Only Girl in the World Would You Take Me - The Soup Dragons
9. Roundabout - Esmerelda's Kite
10. Skink - A Riot of Colour
11. Spin - The Darling Buds
12. Twist Me - Splendour in the Grass
    

Hopefully the tracklisting and album/artist tags work properly. This is my first shot at making a mix downloadable.

Download mix

Dirty Looks - Dirty Looks and Turn It Up

Dirty Looks was a power pop band from Staten Island, New York that formed in 1978. They are one of the best power pop bands but sadly receive little recognition and are even overshadowed by a crappy glam metal band of the same name.

Dirty Looks recorded two albums. The self titled is fantastic. Nearly every track is great and 12 O'Clock High is the best power pop song ever. Theband doesn't fall victim to the generic power pop sound and lyrical content that so many groups of the era adopted. Many of the songs have a darkness to them; they are songs for the lonely and confused youth. Dirty Looks makes me want to hop a train and leave the known world for awhile.

Turn It Up only has a few good tracks, apparently due to trouble in the studio because the producer/label wanted a more mainstream sound. Various issues caused Dirty Looks broke up in 1984.

You can buy a 2 CD set containing both LPs plus some live recordings at Amazon.

12 O'Clock High mp3
Accept Me mp3
Download Dirty Looks (Part 1)(Part 2)
Download Turn It Up

Ceremony and Thrushes live on WMUC

My college's radio is horrendous so I've taken to listening to other university stations online. Right now the University of Maryland has some great shows and DJs. They also pick up awesome bands for interviews and live performances. Today Thrushes and Ceremony were on the show. Thrushes is a shoegaze/dream pop band from Baltimore and Ceremony is a shoegaze band from Fredricksburg (look here for my post on their split LP with Screen Vinyl Image).

Thrushes were up first and I was surprised at how good they sounded. I listened to their debut album, Sun Come Undone, a while ago and nothing caught my ear. On the show they played new material that will appear on an upcoming releases. I especially like the second song, Trees.

Ceremony sounded great too. They played my favorite song, For Her Smile, and a few I had not heard before. In the interview they mention an already recorded album coming out this year. Cool!

You can download the complete radio show from WMUC's website. Right click and "save as" the Third_Rail_Radio_1800_2100 mp3. And tune in tomorrow at 1 PM for a live recording of The Pains of Being Pure at Heart!

Ringo Deathstarr

I am so glad to have stumbled upon Ringo Deathstarr through a listing on Pheer.com. I saw them live last year and bought the EP at the show. Just a fantastic band. I think this CD came out in 2007 and there is still no followup. But I just read that the EP is being rereleased on vinyl this March by Fan Death Records! And there will be more vinyl releases by the band this year. Give this EP as listen if you like shoegaze/noise pop. I had it on repeat for a while last year.

Go to their MySpace to find the dates for their March shows where you'll most likely be able to pick up the vinyl for cheaper than mailorder.

I can't wait to see them again in Arlington. And it's a house show too. Before they played in a tiny pizza place and it was perfect. Here's to small venues. Oh and The Vandelles will be there too. Another EP worth hearing; maybe I'll post it in the future.

Starrsha mp3
Sweet Girl mp3
Download S/T EP

Beyond the Implode reissue on Siltbreeze

Siltbreeze continues to be an awesome label with a reissue of four tracks from Beyond the Implode. BtI released a lone 250 press EP in 1979 and since then their songs have appeared on Chuck Warner's Messthetics compilations. This 7" from Siltbreeze includes two tracks from the EP and two unreleased tracks. There are only 300 copies so if you love 70s DIY music like the Desperate Bicycles hurry up and get your order in over at Siltbreeze.

This Atmosphere mp3

HoZac Hookup Klub

Like 2008, 2009 looks to be a good year for 7 inchers. HoZac Records recently announced a singles club. $65 (US residents) gets you ten singles mailed over the course of the year. The pressings are limited to 500 and won't be available anywhere else.

The bands will be:

DUM DUM GIRLS
http://www.myspace.com/dumdumgirls

IDLE TIMES
http://www.myspace.com/idletimesband

WOVEN BONES
http://www.myspace.com/wovenbones

ART THIEVES
http://www.myspace.com/wearetheartthieves

FLIGHT
http://www.myspace.com/inflighttunes

WHITE MYSTERY
http://www.myspace.com/whitemysteryband

TEEPEE
http://www.myspace.com/teepeeasel

MOTHER OF TEARS
http://www.myspace.com/motheroftears

BOX ELDERS
http://www.myspace.com/boxelders

TEETH (side project of BLANK DOGS and SPIDER)
http://www.myspace.com/teethareforeating

Just the Dum Dum Girls, Box Elders, and Teeth stuff warrants signing up for the club. And knowing HoZac the rest of the groups will be great (the last three 7"s were killer).

Head over to HoZac's MySpace and sign up for the newsletter for ordering info.

Blog posts worth checking out

I try to keep the content here fairly original and not repost stuff readily available on more popular blogs. So I'm going to link to some of the best posts I've seen recently.

Singles of the year (2008) at The Finest Kiss - I've heard most of the releases on this list and agree with all of them. Definitely give Catwalk, Sexy Kids, Twig, and The Tartans a listen. A few of the mentioned singles can be found on my blog as well (Nodzzz and Moscow Olympics).

Metro Trinity's Die Young at Take the Pills - I listened to Just Go over and over last week. It's an excellent song.

Just Waiting For a Friend at Another Day On Earth - This guy sent me a random friend request on MySpace last week. Apparently he is writing, recording, and posting songs every day of the year. As with any other incredibly prolific band you have to dig around to find the good songs. This is my favorite so far.

Dum Dum Girls on Skatterbrain - Another noisy pop band from California. Yay!

Real Estate at Cum Horizon - "Breezy lo-fi beach pop that'll make you forget about the harsh winter months" is a good description of this 7".

A Manchester Collection at Last Days of Man on Earth - An awesome compilation LP featuring a bunch of Manchester punk/post-punk bands. The first Grow Up song is excellent (and they have a CD out on the great LTM label) as is the Manchester Mekon's track (if the melody sounds familiar it's because Joy Divison borrowed it for Love Will Tear Us Apart).

Unreleased McCarthy track

While I was looking through the excellent McCarthy lyrics archive I saw that lyrics were posted for an unreleased song called Who Will Rid Me Of These Turbulent Proles. The site said the track was "Recorded during the same time as Banking... but never mixed, this unreleased and previously unheard track is said to be one of Malcolm's favorites. Unfortunately, band mates Tim and John didn't agree."

It's a great song and would fit well on I Am A Wallet. Malcolm Eden passed it around the internet a few years ago and you can listen to the song here. Right click and "save as" to download.

Meat Whiplash - Don't Slip Up b/w Here It Comes 7"

Meat Whiplash were blatant Jesus and Mary Chain knockoffs but I like the A-side of this single enough to forgive them. This band was around for a very short time and these songs were the only two they ever recorded. They are most famous for being the opening act for the JAMC at North London Polytechnic in 1985. A member of Meat Whiplash tossed a bottle back into the crowd that had been thrown onstage and a riot ensued, resulting in four hospitalizations and a wrecked venue.

Don't Slip Up is a great song filled end to end with a buzzing guitar. It has deservedly been comped a ton. I don't like the B-side too much but it isn't as easy to find online as the A so here you go.

Don't Slip Up mp3
Here It Comes mp3
Download

Lung Overcoat

Lung Overcoat were a post-punk band from San Antonio, Texas that formed in the early 80s. At a time when hardcore punk was springing up in Texas the band took up a style of music that very few in the US played. Their biggest influences were English gothic bands such as Bauhaus. This (unofficial?) MySpace page has a detailed biography of Lung Overcoat.

I pulled two songs from the MySpace and found the rest on Soulseek. Tracks 1&2 are from the first 7", 5-8 from the Climbing Up The Hill 12" EP and the last track is from a compilation. I guess the others come from a Peel session, but I'm not sure.

Internal Silence mp3
Find the Time mp3
Download

Pens

Pens is a three piece punk band from England. They have released a split cassette (sold out) and a split 7" (buy it at Rough Trade if you're in the UK or can stomach paying $8 + shipping for a single). Pete did the best job of describing the trio on the Slumberland records blog.

The above band are called Pens. They’re three girls from London, making what can only be described as Shambolic Pop.
They used to be in the (better named, but worse musically) Look Look Dancing Boys. I haven’t seen Pens yet, but i have seen LLDB. they were, without a doubt, the most untogether band i had seen in years.

There was something refreshing about that. The lack of ego in their playing, the thrill of discovery, the getting to the end of a song as a major accomplishment. This is even more evident in Pens.

Freddie (yes, their myspace picture page confirms it’s about mr Kruger) is everything that a shambling band should be; constantly on the verge of falling apart, it’s held together by the sheer ‘i can’t believe we’re doing this’ forward motion of the song. The vocals are distorted. Everything’s distorted. They obviously just plugged everything into a pedal, thought it sounded punk, and went for it. Fantastic. There’s crosstalk, and stick clicks; it was obviously recorded live on some antiquated four track- not in a Toerag/Daptone posing way, but it’s genuinely all they had to work with.

Pens have an LP coming in February on De Stijl. Here is a zip file with the mp3s Slumberland posted along with the songs on Pens' MySpace.

Freddie mp3
High in the Cinema mp3
Download

Culturcide - Tacky Souvenirs of a Pre-Revolutionary America

Culturcide is an experimental punk band started in the early 80s by Perry Webb and Jim Craine. The band takes popular songs and dubs over them with their own vocals and instruments. It's very poor; you can hear the original lyrics behind what Webb is shouting unless its covered up with a loud guitar riff. But I think this has a positive effect overall.

Tacky Souvenirs is Culturcide's most well-known album and it earned them a few legal threats (though they didn't catch it as bad as Negativland). My favorite songs are Bruce, a comedic critique of "The Boss," and Industrial Band which mocks the industrial genre.

Check out this site for a complete discography and more info on Culturcide. The CD rereleases of the band's catalogue can be found on eBay, Amazon, etc.

Bruce mp3
Industrial Band mp3
Download

Streamable songs on Last.fm

There are tons of little known artists who have uploaded their music to Last.fm. Here are a few surprising finds along with recommended songs. Check them out.

The Room - An early 80s post-punk band that really sounds more like C86 than Joy Division, but they put out records long before the rise of indie pop. Listen to Things Have Learnt To Walk That Ought To Crawl

Valley of Kings - A post-punk band from Connecticut. Listen to Happy Hour

Nasty Facts - An English punk band. Listen to Drive My Car

Dreams So Real - REM-ish band from Athens. Listen to Love Fall Down

This Poison! - Short lived indie pop band from Scotland. Listen to Driving Skills

The Servants - English indie pop band. Listen to The Sun A Small Star

McCarthy - Anarcho-pop. Just fantastic. Listen to anything, though I Am A Wallet is my favorite album.

Creepy sounds from Saturn

Saturn is a source of intense radio emissions, which have been monitored by the Cassini spacecraft. The radio waves are closely related to the auroras near the poles of the planet. These auroras are similar to Earth's northern and southern lights. This is an audio file of radio emissions from Saturn.

The Cassini spacecraft began detecting these radio emissions in April 2002, when Cassini was 374 million kilometers (234 million miles) from the planet, using the Cassini radio and plasma wave science instrument. The radio and plasma wave instrument has now provided the first high resolution observations of these emissions, showing an amazing array of variations in frequency and time. The complex radio spectrum with rising and falling tones, is very similar to Earth's auroral radio emissions. These structures indicate that there are numerous small radio sources moving along magnetic field lines threading the auroral region.

Time on this recording has been compressed, so that 73 seconds corresponds to 27 minutes. Since the frequencies of these emissions are well above the audio frequency range, we have shifted them downward by a factor of 44.

The Cassini-Huygens mission is a cooperative project of NASA, the European Space Agency and the Italian Space Agency. The Jet Propulsion Laboratory, a division of the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena, manages the mission for NASA's Science Mission Directorate, Washington, D.C. The Cassini orbiter was designed, developed and assembled at JPL. The radio and plasma wave science team is based at the University of Iowa, Iowa City.

from NASA

Listen to Saturn's radio emissions

Sounds like background music from an old science fiction movie. Well, there's your science lesson for the day.

I want to believe! Haha

I Was A King - Losing Something Good For Something Better

I first heard these guys on a free compilation from Eardrums which features their song "Norman Bleik." It instantly reminded me of JAMC so I searched around and found I Was A King had a CD out.

Losing Something Good is the band's first effort and though the album sounds more minimal and lo-fi than Norman Bleik it is still great. It only lasts for 17 minutes but that short time is filled with noisy pop songs mixed with lovably lo-fi, warm tracks that don't take more than a minute.

I Was A King have a self titled album coming out later this month in Norway, their home country. They also found a US label which will be releasing a 7" in late january and the s/t album sometime in April. You can find more info about the band and its upcoming releases on MySpace. Losing Something Good For Something Better can be purchased through CDBaby.

Best Wishes mp3
Break Away mp3
Download album

Mix #3 - Celebrity Music Party

Songs about famous people sung by not-so-famous people.

1. Felt - Penelope Tree
2. The Go-Betweens - Lee Remick
3. James Dean Driving Experience - Sean Connery
4. The Bodines - William Shatner
5. Television Personalities - Where's Bill Grundy Now
6. Angst - Neil Armstrong
7. The Briefs - Silver Bullet
8. Minutemen - Bob Dylan Wrote Propaganda Songs
   

Dead Leaf Echo - Pale Fire

Well this is cool. I never expected much to come out of this blog. I started it because I had way too much free time and figured I could spend some of that time introducing others to the bands I like. But last week I was contacted by the promoter for a group called Dead Leaf Echo. He offered to send me a copy of Pale Fire, the band's second EP, and after listening to some songs on MySpace I accepted.

Dead Leaf Echo come from New York and play shoegaze/dream pop with a tint of new wave. Think if Slowdive were from Manchester. Pale Fire starts off a bit rough with Warm Body which sounds out of place among the five tracks that follow. The second song, Thought Talk, is a better representation of the rest of Pale Fire with its male/female vocals and transition from soft and dreamy to noisy guitar sound about 3/4ths through. Other standout tracks are Tears and Cry The Sea.

You can listen to some tracks from Pale Fire as well as order the CD on Dead Leaf Echo's MySpace page.