WE WANT EAZY

Apostle Of Hustle - Eazy Speaks

Andrew Whiteman is one of my guitar gods. I'm also an unabashed Broken Social Scene fanboy so naturally, I've been all over Apostle Of Hustle since their inception. Eats Darkness sees Whiteman and co expanding their palette by dabbling in some more unconventional sounds and textures. "Darker" vibes also seem to be seeping a little more into their Cuban-infused jams but it's a sexy kinda dark. Eazy Speaks is an example of this - there's a driving rhythm, urgent guitars and a much more agressive sound to what I'm used to hearing. However, Whiteman's vocals and the stop-and-go drums ensure your hips never stop swaying. Lastly, I've read that this song is "a tribute to a deceased poet from LA", and with lyrics like "I drink rain and piss out acid", I'm just going to assume that the deceased poet they're referring to is Eazy E. My stamp of approval is so big right now, there's an indent on the record.


[Apostle Of Hustle MySpace]

[Eats Darkness will be released on May 19th. Get it from Arts & Crafts]

ANTELOPES

Turtle Ambulance - Money
In channeling something called Bueno Pues (don't know what the heck this is) by wearing it like a plastic talisman or a toy cellphone Turtle Ambulance come out with super bubbly High Places style shit and sure it's covered in 'free hugs' vibes but it's kinetic and vibrant, creating skewed toyish worlds and dreaming about Caetono Veloso or just beaches. They look like super cuddly beardy bros as well which fits right in with these jumbly tropics.



[Turtle Ambulance MySpace]

NEVER WANTED YOU SO MUCH

Marble Sounds – Come Here

The Dodos – Biggest Light Of All

Two picks from just an exceptionally beautiful compilation of covers of Kath Bloom’s songs, pieced together by Chapter Records. I spoke to Guy Blackman, the label’s founder, on the phone the other day and he laughed like he wasn’t heaps amused and sighed and said “Jeez, what a labour of love.” Well, it was worth it. Tribute albums are often dodgy but the quality of the covers on here is insane, especially given the scope for fucking up the sad-eyed subtlety of Kath Bloom’s originals. With the possible exception of The Concretes’ take on Come Here, the song that revitalised Ms Bloom’s career with its appearance in Before Sunrise, the cover versions on Loving Takes This Course are simple and elegant, never trying too hard to break from the source material. With a different set of songs that approach might have disappointed, but on these simple folk melodies it allows the musicians to expose their own idiosyncrasies in a way that sounds natural.



[Kath Bloom MySpace / Marble Sounds MySpace / The Dodos MySpace]

[Buy Loving Takes This Course from Chapter Music]

NEW MIKA MIKO

Mika Miko - I Got A Lot (New New New)
Of course Mika Miko play the funnest/bodacious punk around (that's no secret) and the new PPM-released We Be Xuxa sees their wild eyed nonchalance cleaned up JUST A TOUCH and channeled into more expert scruffiness still w/ Roseanne feelin's and total radness. I saw them in a sweaty basement thing in Barcelona in December and one of the most simultaneously polite and mental 'mosh pits' (lolz) went totez wild for the whole set. They had a big old red telephone that they'd converted into a microphone which matches right up with their gossipy/chewing gum punk bop. That's an idea that could only be improved if said phone was a Garfield or maybe Alf phone.



[Mika Miko MySpace]

[Buy We Be Xuxa from Post Present Medium (released May 5th)]

FIZZY YOGHURT

Ancient Crux - Strange Situation
Got a big urge to post more Future Sounds bodaciousness but first something a little bit more (though only partially) retrograde. Ancient Crux's pop is a mixture of that white guy/pants a little too short/socks visible thang and also a dusty faux western dryness, only slight, though, against their wonky wandering guitar lines that also have this funny little sparkle, bizarro doo-wop backing up against their pop after chucking it in their tote bag and letting it jumble up against the bits of tobacco and other personal belongings, grey and yellow bits and things from the 90s.



[Ancient Crux MySpace]

SKYSCRAPER MOSS

I DID IT MYSELF

Curren$y - Scared of Monsters

Curren$y - Star Power

Curren$y (Feat. Fiend) - Coupes & Leers

Scared of Monsters is the lead single from Curren$y's This Ain't No Mixtape and contains some of the most vivid and interesting wordplay I've heard in a while. At first he seems unassuming but it's a great way to win people over: it them with something subtle but clever and before you know it, shit's all wrapped up. By the end, dude pretty much won me over with "And I’ll be damned, nevermind, I put it behind/DeLorean doing 85, I travel through time". And whether they be hard or soft, he flows comfortably on a variety of beats (look no further than his FREE mixtapes for evidence) and that seemingly casual delivery is just a way for him to make it look easy.

Star Power, is a little musical interlude for those who've ever wondered what happens when a rapper scores a Super Mario Bros. Starman. Coupes & Leers can be found on his Fin... mixtape. I've included it as it's just fun hearing him rap over Camp Lo's "Coolie High", an all-time favourite jam of mine. So after years of playing the role of weed carrier to some of New Orleans' more well known luminaries, from various No Limit rappers through to Weezy, I'm more than happy that Curren$y finally took things into his own hands. Forget your mixtape-a-week rappers, support the real.

[Curren$y MySpace]

[Buy This Ain't No Mixtape here.]

FAKE BLUES

Real Estate - Atlantic City
Wowwwww, Matt Mondanile's other band transfers Ducktails' homeliness with a slight and distant surf jangle, full of smiley reverb and road trip echos (of course). It's easy to tell this Real Estate track is written by Mondanile, and joined by the lushly imagined terrains of Martin Courtney, Alex Bleeker and Etienne Duguay, there's this different liquidy twee feel in all these guitars and summer instant gratifications and a sort of muted ecstasy, all swimming trunks and lemonade and all that. They've got a nice paradox going on in their name being Real Estate (with all their Magic Eye record covers and sonic dreaminess) because even if these pop songs are cast in a certainly solid type of nostalgia, it feels lifted straight from the imagination; those 'real imaginary places' that Mr Mondanile talks about are in full force.



[Real Estate MySpace]

[Buy Atlantic City Expressway from Underwater Peoples]

LOLFRED

I know I shouldn't a) follow Fred Durst on Twitter or b) post his Tweets on this blog but I really feel like we can all learn something from his uncompromising 'tude and can-do approach to life.

Like that time about 20 minutes ago when he was like:

@freddurst We need a show called American Metal that searches for the absolute sickest undiscovered metal bands/singers on the planet. I'm waiting.
18 minutes ago from Tweetie

...I like how he only wants the "absolute sickest" bands on the "planet" for his show called "American Metal". and then how he's like, "I'M WAITING". TAKE NOTICE, PLANET/AMERICA: FRED DURST WANTS SOMETHING AND WILL POST PETULANT TWEETS UNTIL HE GETS IT.

And then like five minutes later:

@freddurst Okay. I'm producing it. Done deal. Stay tuned.
13 minutes ago from Tweetie

Who knows what went on in that five minutes. Maybe Fred felt the world needed to know his post-Limp Bizkit creative output could consist of more than just looking a bunch like Jeff Bridges in Iron Man:

NOTHING THAT CAN STOP IT

Kid Sam – We’re Mostly Made Of Water

There are things you don’t expect, like a middle-aged woman from Scotland singing I Dreamed A Dream from Les Miserables convincingly, or two cousins from Melbourne on a label no one’s ever heard of releasing a folk rock record which is basically perfect in every way as their debut. First albums are meant to be full of ideas and rough as guts, but this is fucking smooth as, too: immaculate production and orchestration with sounds that take you by surprise. There’s walls of sound and then ambient expanses, layers of hair metal riffery and low fidelity distorted drumming; real beautiful in parts, with these lyrics that are I guess what you could call poetry. I mean, “Let’s jump into the river / We’re mostly made of water” is not a justification you would ever use in casual conversation, but it sure sticks with you.



[Kid Sam MySpace]

[Buy Kid Sam from Two Bright Lakes]

OUTSIDE

Repairs - Lottery
This is super claustrophobic and yeah way more Night People than the rest of the latest pop outpour on Captured Tracks (a ridiculously good drop of cassettes and vinyls this March) and from Melbourne, too. Looks like they've only got four songs so far but they're total grey dub/doom kraut w/ slug rhythmics. 'Lottery' is actually pretty chill compared to the other three which are real swirly and disoriented. Wish I still lived in Australia/actually lived in Melbourne as well as Brisbane and Sydney. Actually this sounds way more like it's come from underneath a dusty Queenslander really, kind of weird really cos I assumed this was from Oakland or some other place I've never been, thinking of my own imagined/misplaced context. Really great rusty lo-fi though.



[Repairs MySpace]

[Buy Repairs from Captured Tracks]

SO MOVE AROUND

Sunset Rubdown – Idiot Heart

Ha ha, I bet Spencer Krug plays Dungeons & Dragons (not that there’s anything wrong with that). This track is from the fourth Sunset Rubdown album, Dragonslayer, out in June, and it’s insanely good, stupidly epic, frenzied and hypnotic with this classic-rock type bombast that makes me think of River Deep, Mountain High. There’s also those signature Spencer Krug lyrical touches: ominous, arcane, aggressive and actually kind of mean. This is a dude who doesn’t really do tender but the way he’s a jerk is so creative you stick with it. Interestingly, he told Stereogum he isn’t that crazy about the last Sunset Rubdown album, Random Spirit Lover, and that Dragonslayer is more live, spontaneous, etc. In retrospect, RSL hasn’t had a lot of staying power. I got enthusiastic about it at the time but I recognise now that was probably more just excitement about a new Sunset Rubdown album. Anyway, whatever. It looks like Spencer’s got his sense of humour back:



Oh, and I don’t believe that any dude who follows up a back catalogue of songs called "The Men Are Called Horsemen There", "Winged/Wicked Things" and "Colt Stands Up, Grows Horns" with an album called Dragonslayer doesn’t play D’n’D. Just saying.

[Sunset Rubdown MySpace]

[Sunset Rubdown at Jagjaguwar]

EXOTIC TYPE SHIT

El Michels Affair - Heaven & Hell (Raekwon)

El Michels Affair - Cherchez LaGhost (Ghostface Killah)

El Michels Affair - C.R.E.A.M. (Wu-Tang Clan)

I've had a love affair with Wu-Tang Clan since primary school. Having listened to perhaps nearly their entire catalogue including solo releases, side projects and weed-carrier-related albums (of which there are A LOT) I consider myself somewhat of a Wu-Aficionado. So I'm pretty stoked on these jams. Brooklyn band El Michels Affair have long been turning out cinematic soul/funk music and on past occasions have played as the Wu's live backing band. They've even released a series of 7"s entitled the Shaolin Series, instrumental re-interpretations of classic Wu beats from as far back as '05. Now they're on the verge of releasing Enter The 37th Chamber, an album's worth of goodness.

I honestly couldn't believe some of the songs they chose to cover could be bested over their original forms, even with live instrumentation. I mean, half the charm with the the production was the ruggedness and blunted-out vibe which permeated Wu beats no matter how polished they were. However, listening to these songs fleshed out with live horns, drums and some amazing guitar work, they've proved me wrong. Is it too early to ask for a "Volume 2"?

[El Michels Affair are signed to Truth & Sould Recordings. Peep the MySpace and buy the jams.]

[Buy Enter The 37th Chamber from Fat Beats Records]

BICYCLES

Brilliant Colors - Highly Evolved
I'm always a sucker for airy jangles and Captured Tracks have got the goods once again with this 7" from Brilliant Colors. Even if their's actually not an enourmous amount of colour it's cool cos they ditch it for controlled Aislers Set-y pop with those only slightly weak vocals a top the chilled jangles that totez reminds me of living in NZ, sitting on my veranda listening to The Verlaines and shit. The B-side has more chug to it but 'Highly Evolved' is lovely and lackadaiscal.



[Buy Highly Evolved 7" from Captured Tracks]

FROM CASHVILLE TO M-TOWN

Young Buck - Cocaine

Young Buck Feat. Sosa Da Plug - Chevy Music

I guess one way you can make a name for yourself is by stabbing someone who took a swing at Dr. Dre in the middle of an awards ceremony and then by beefing with everyone in the rap industry including your former peers in G-Unit. Yes, Young Buck is as volatile as they come but when all that volatility is put to wax, you end up with some of the finest examples of southern rap you'll ever hear. With his most recent mixtape Back For The Streets, Buck has set off to explore the more gritty side of what southern hip hop has to offer. Much credit should also be given to "The Future" for providing Buck with the beats for this mixtape. This is dirty, menacing, down-south, shades on, windows down, ridin' music.

[Young Buck MySpace]

[The Future MySpace]

YARN DUNE

Zola Jesus - Sea Talk
Woah Zola Jesus, never knew you were so good at these burnt/lovelorn ballads, getting out of the sewers, into the desert all triumphant and stuff. This new record feels kind of U.S. Girlsy without the dying American Idol vibe, a little more celebratory or romantic perhaps, mixed in with those torpid guitars and big big electric tom drums, the latter of which sometimes sound buried under sand at a depth that seems curious. It's relatively crisp here on 'Sea Talk' though, even if you can't quite make out the lyrics, the delivery's kind of immense enough.



[Zola Jesus MySpace]

[Buy Tsar Bomba from Troubleman Unlimited]

WHAT'S ROLLING, BOY

Lee Memorial – All These Things

Terse, volatile rock with that grandiose sound The Walkmen are so good at. Sounds like it could shatter any moment in a cloud of bitterness and blue ruin. Lee Memorial are one of the more immediate bands to come out of Melbourne in recent times; it occasionally seems like you can link every musician from that city by six degrees of Kes, with the results often being songs that are obscure in the right ways but not necessarily that rewarding. Lee Memorial features a few well-known names, like Karl Smith of Sodastream, Laura MacFarlane of Ninetynine and Tom Lyngcoln from Nation Blue, which is a little weird in theory but turns out real swell: fragile and shambolic but also muscular and driving, which sounds contradictory but I guess you’ll just have to trust me.



[Lee Memorial MySpace]

[Buy The Lives of Lee Memorial from Dot Dash/Inertia]

YPSILANTI VACATION

Heavy Times - Sunside
Heavy Times - You Need A Different Life
Heavy Times - Dead Dreams
Why let yr songs ever go past 1 minute 30, why make an album over 18 minutes and why not just play the hits. This new cassette from Oakland's Heavy Times straddles this rad beach fuzz/Guided By Voices thing with lasting harmonies and actual substance as well as catchiness. Noise experiments creep into the pop here and there through this short collection of short joy bursts, crammed with a couple of surprisingly chunky melodies. Sun hooks. Can't really find any pictures of this bro apart from one of him pretending to hold a big boner when hes on the beach (it's actually a boner shaped mountain in the background, see below) so maybe he'll be super internet famous soon.



[Heavy Times Myspace]

[Buy Ypsi Vacation from Dinosaur Club]

SNEAKER DUKE

Total Bros - Epic Fail
I'm pretty into this; juvenile Smelly (PEE YEW!!) fuzz punk from two guys named Wiley and Ethan. Maybe it's a little obvious Garbage Pale Kids/hip kind of stuff but it's gritty and messy and house showy enough with bratty melodies that stick. And honestly, what a choice name for a band. Their bromance is certainly boyish but not jockish, bustling and held up by messy chords and fun, most of all, grins/guitars.



[Total Bros MySpace]

SO SCARED

I Heart Hiroshima – Pink Frost

The Chills – Pink Frost

It’s kind of an understatement to say that this was risky for I Heart Hiroshima because while they’re a great band, no doubt, covering The Chills (or for that matter any other Flying Nun band) is kind of like making a comic book movie: there’s a huge chance that you’ll turn out something that makes the fanboys and girls explode in a shower of hyperbolic rage while the n00bs shrug their shoulders and give a shit about something else. This, surprisingly, is pretty good: it’s more Dark Knight than X-Men 3; definitely better than Watchmen and Hellboy II, as well. I Heart Hiroshima have fortunately (and bravely) tried to make this their own, and while the upbeat, jagged delivery loses some of the subdued regret that made the original such a classic, it makes up for it in surprising ways. You might not have expected Pink Frost to make a good disco-punk torch song, for instance, and I might not have expected to ever type the words “disco-punk torch song” on this blog. Of course, the heart and charm that’s brought I Heart Hiroshima this far make this song so much better than that description might make you believe. Classy stuff.



[I Heart Hiroshima Myspace]

[Buy Pink Frost from iTunes]

SO WE CAN FRENCH KISS SOME FRENCH GIRLS

Japandroids - Wet Hair

Japandroids - Rockers East Vancouver

It's been awhile since I've heard an album that's thoroughly kicked my ass but at the same time put me in a constant state of elation. Kudos to these two Canadian dudes for doing just that. The drums sound big, the rhythms are tight, the guitars sound like a wall of chainsaws about to fall on you and that dual vocal attack is right on. Killer melodies and poppy hooks are sung, screamed, shouted, yelped and whatever else to make sure they're not lost in all that sweet fuzz. Let's dance.

[Japandroids MySpace]

[Post-Nothing will be released on April 28th. Pre-order here]

LIVING ON THE AIR

John Wiese and C. Spencer Yeh - Jungle Jim
I fell off a skateboard onto my left bum/hip and then later on fell off my bicycle onto my right bum/hip so this Easter I'm on the couch watching Comedy Central's endless Two And A Half Men marathon, except I've already seen all of them and I just ate burritos that weren't that great and trying to listen to this new John Wiese release (a collab with C. Spencer Yeh), a scrapey and slurpy bunch of noise compositions that would fit more at home soundtracking Let The Right One In or just dental surgery. It's no gratuitious exercise in ear hurtiness, but that's mostly because it's so texture oriented and those textures come from space, yr mouth, school, moss, the greenhouse, electricity, tombstones. Pretty good.



[John Wiese MySpace]

[C. Spencer Yeh MySpace]

[Buy Cincinnati from Drone Disco (limited to 500 on 'increasingly alientated compact disc form')]

CHI CITY, MAYNE

Teefa (Feat. Newsense) - Martini Martini

Teefa - Clever Girl (Intro)

Okay, I'm gonna have to get my late pass stamped for this. I'll admit that I had little idea who Teefa was until this man featured her music in a video recently. I dug it to the point where I HAD to get her music and find any info as it bums me out when something good slides under my radar. Turns out she got a start as one half of a duo called Infamous Syndicate, the other half being Shawnna (currently signed to Ludacris' Disturbing Tha Peace label). They had some chart success in the late 90s but were dropped from their label. Following a tenure in radio, she released an album independently back in 07 entitled G.A.W. (Grown A$$ Woman). However, unless you lived in Chicago and kept up with the local scene, then you probably wouldn't have known this existed. Which is a shame as the record is all kindsa good.



There's something unmistakably Chicago about the whole affair. The beats bring to mind early No ID and Kanye (sans sped-up vocal samples). There's also something about the aesthetic that makes me recall 90's era Common but nevertheless, the whole thing sounds remarkably fresh. As a rapper, think of MC Lyte's sneer mixed with that consciousness and maturity which underlied Queen Latifah's stuff during her U.N.I.T.Y. days and you're set.

[Teefa MySpace]

SOMETHING TO DO

Scul Hazzards – Kerosene

A short one before the long weekend: gleefully noisy Brisbane punx have just released their new single, Slaughtered Pigs, for free via their MySpace page. It’s their first new release in over a year and the first taste of their second album, Landlord, which is basically guaranteed to be the finest thing in Australian punk in 2009 (so maybe that’s a narrow field, but evs). One of the b-sides on Slaughtered Pigs is this cover of Big Black’s Kerosene, and it fucking shreds. Listen to it when you’re sitting around at home on Friday night bored because you forgot to buy booze in advance.



[Scul Hazzards MySpace]

REASONS TO JOIN TWITTER #1

@freddurst It's Freddy D. I'm gonna attack this. No slack. Flip you like a mattress. Yall's tactics need practice. Who's actor? Who's actress? -mornin'
about 9 hours ago from Tweetie

BLACK SAND

Wet Hair - Ordinary Lives
It's a weirdly clean and clear improv that wanders across this new NNF LP from ex-Racoo-oo-ooners; even if it is certainly coated in that distinct woodsy lo-fi gunk and rendered just about as murky as any of their past stuff, it's shiny and sharp-edged and backed with fun casio grooves that plod like some half remembered kids flick, resplendent with preprogrammed major keyboard chords. I think some people question the prolificy or maybe just the aimlessness of these guys stuff but this is pure gold, meandering everywhere at once.



[Wet Hair MySpace]

[Buy Dreams from Not Not Fun]

SWITCHING LANES

Bipolar Bear – March Of Mudmen

Just really fucking outstanding punk from Los Angeles, which is apparently the place to be if you enjoy beating the shit out of guitars and listening to records produced between, say, 1995 and 2002. I think it’s terrific that LA residents have finally realised that they have everything to rail against, what with living in the decadent heart of a crumbling capitalist system etc etc. Although it’s kind of weird it’s taken them this long to drag the pendulum back from celebrity-focused reality shows to DIY fuckoffness but whatever.

[Bipolar Bear MySpace]

Talbot Tagora – Black Diamond

Talbot Tagora feature on the b-side of this new split 10” with Bipolar Bear and totally nail down that late-90s early-00s vibe that’s going on on both sides of the record. This shit is actually making me really fucking excited for punk because it’s been a really, really long time since anyone made records that were raucous enough to make you feel like a badass but also had high-quality, powerful songs that you could invest in and be rewarded by. File both these bands alongside Abe Vigoda, No Age, but also Young Ginns and Les Savy Fav and Fugazi.

[Talbot Tagora MySpace]

[Buy the Bipolar Bear/Talbot Tagors split, Abstract Distractions, from olFactory]

Odd Nosdam – We Bad Apples

Ha ha, this rules. While we’re kind of on the subject, Odd Nosdam’s soundtrack for Element Skateboards’ This Is My Element has just been reissued. Nice work, Element. If I skated, I’d skate to this. Bro uses the same guitar tones as the other bands in this post, but then fucks with it by calling on the powers of Fatboy Slim and Boards of Canada to beef things up. Lol, wut? I can’t explain it but this fucking rules.



[Odd Nosdam MySpace]

[Buy T.I.M.E. Soundtrack from Anticon Records]

I CAN'T FEEL MY FACE

Lil' Wayne & Juelz Santana - Rock Hard

Lil' Wayne & Juelz Santana - No More

I was all about Dipset a few years ago. Anything they did, I was all over. Shit, I even thought Jim Jones was a decent rapper for a little while. Sure, he had that classic verse in "Come Home With Me" and "BALLIN'" will live forever but still... Well, things done changed over the past few years. Inner bickering amongst the members have left the collective a shadow of their former selves and the output has suffered. However, Juelz Santana, the prince of the crew is back with a follow up to the I Can't Feel My Face mixtape he and longtime Dipset collaborator Lil' Wayne put out a few years ago as a precursor to a still yet-to-be-released album. The new mixtape My Face Can't Be Felt is hot. Of course, Weezy has morphed into The Best Rapper Alive but it's great to hear Juelz has also grown. There's a a certain swagger in his voice which wasn't there a few years ago. Maybe he's come to the realization that he's carrying the torch for Harlem these days.

While I'm on a Dipset nostalgia trip at the moment, here's a little bonus from a couple of years ago. A slept-on, little known collab with The Game. Those drums, oooo shit....

The Game feat. Juelz Santana & Jim Jones - We Bangin'

[Juelz Santana MySpace]

[Lil' Wayne MySpace]

[Buy Juelz Santana's music from Def Jam]

[Buy Lil' Wayne's music from Cash Money Records]

NO HASSLE

Timmy's Organism - Tree Thirsty Earthquake
This is pretty way out, it's hard to tell what's going on in here under the quagmire of different guitars and wildin' sludge solos but all up it seems pretty great, real torpid savant pop, maybe a touch forced weird but generally just sounding interestingly ramshackle/taught and feeling a bit like a B monster movie, taped up silver genius drunk on whisky while everything malfunctions. These guys seem like real jokers eh but I think they have a soft streak, even if I keep thinking their name is actually Timmy's ORGASM and not organism. It's a different science class.



[Timmy's Organism MySpace]

[Buy Squeeze The Giant from Sacred Bones]

BARK OF THE TREE

Black Pus - Down Down Da Drain
Black Pus always seem to condense their fuzz through some super weird paper mache microphone and here it sounds like it's done so inside a tornado, going for a kind of skewed breakbeat punk route and freaking more wild eyed than ever, pretty mental considering all this sludge is laid down live; no overdubs (whaat). This is pretty rulin; love each weird new direction they push this stuff!



[Black Pus MySpace]

[Buy Down Down Da Drain 7" from Armageddon Shop]

ANCIENT COME-ONS

Aleks and the Ramps - Antique Limb

New weirdness from Aleks and the Ramps and it looks a bunch like they’ve discovered their (massively white) groove: there’s shimmery synths and shagpile Calypso licks all over this track, taken from a split 7” with Montreal’s Mixolydian. The press release says “If you're unfamiliar with our music, it has been described as: noise-pop, camp indie rock, really annoying, tweemo, haphazard or plain old experimental pop. Anyway, listen to it your darn selves & come up with some new superlatives”, which sounded like a challenge to me, so here are my suggestions for future Aleks and the Ramps releases:

• Post-Calypso
• Awkwardcore
• Twee-fi
• Tupperware soul
• Scared-pop
• White boy glock
• Freak-freak
• Hurdy-gurdy-hop
• Rhythm ‘n’ banjo

YOU'RE WELCOME.

[Aleks and the Ramps MySpace]

TALKIN' BRO IN THE WALL

Eat Skull - Heaven's Stranger
Eat Skull - Oregon Dreaming
GOOD GRIEF, Eat Skull have channelled their Clean/dump vibes more direct than ever, well, at least here on 'Heaven's Stranger' it's pure a crushed cube of their pop; elsewhere it's falling apart as much as usual and sometimes maybe a little too literally ie cymbals that sound like they're coming from yr flatmates room or another MySpace window. They also do some acoustic ballads and they're just terrific at those too, dawn lamenty train track type of things such as 'Oregon Dreaming'. Melody crush! This is so flippin good!



[Eat Skull MySpace]

[Buy Wild and Inside from Siltbreeze]

LAKE FLUERON

Crystal Shards - <>
More from previously digged Night Control and like his excellent Death Control record (collated from an Arthur Russell-style collection of tracks and demos), this older stuff has a similar mystique, just kicking it morning style as opposed to the late night nirvana of the newer stuff. Dodecahedron is right; this is fragmented, built like a faberge egg, you know, man made but otherwise robotic, and inside it's shuffly clutter pop from w/ coloured beads and condensed handclaps. Various textures push “<>” along and lend it that time passing kind of feel while stilted beats keep it above a surface of gravelly ambience.



[Night Control MySpace]

[Buy Dodecahedron from Kill Shaman]

DEEP SLEEPER

Blessure Grave - Insecurity
Night People are certainly know as purveyors of some just, well, scary and super dark shit (in a good way of course) and its particularly good when it's directed as pop, drippy . This Blessure Grave cassette is real capricious considering how generally not-okay it is to sound like or reference Joy Division, but I guess more than just reference it feels like a flippin' séance done way out in the black and white woods, not that they're hiding, just taking some time out with history and it's all coffins, teen probs.



[Blessure Grave MySpace]

[Buy Unknown Blessures from Night People]

Photos: DENT MAY

Dent May @ The Cumberland Arms, March 30, Newcastle Upon Tyne, UK. Photos by Ben Jeans Houghton. PS THAT'S ME SITTING THERE DOWN THE FRONT.





[Review @ Isolationist]

NEW WAGONS

Wagons - Goodtown

Welp, I really didn’t see this coming. If this track is a reliable indication of what Wagons’ third album, The Rise and Fall of Goodtown, is going to sound like, Henry Wagons has decided to fuck this alt. country shit off and make himself a REAL country record. This track features “Oh my lord”s, train references, a possible Biblical metaphor, raggedy band vocals and finger-pickin’ guitar lines as clean as an azure sky of deepest summer. Some Nashville shit, basically. Natch, because this is Wagons, and what’s more, a Wagons track produced by Qua, there are some wall of sound freakouts that mean that Henry & Co. might not score that Keith Urban support slot for a while yet. Although if that’s what they’re going for (and I’m positivie it’s not), they’re going to need to shed some of that humour and emotional depth and everything first. God, I need to stop over-compensating just because I mentioned Keith Urban. WAGONS RULES.



[Wagons MySpace]

[The Rise and Fall of Goodtown is available from April 18 on Spunk!]

WHAT THE YOUNG MAN SAYS

Colin Munroe Feat. Young Buck - I'm Fine

Colin Munroe Feat. Mickey Factz - One More Chance

Munroe is a self-taught multi-instrumentalist from Canada trying his hand at the whole singer/songwriter thing. But unlike the Mraz's and Johnson's of the world, dude cut his teeth producing local hip hop and R&B acts. He was also quite good at it, receiving Juno nods (ie Canadia's Grammys) for his work. This led to him working with the likes Busta Rhymes, Sean Price and eventually putting out a mixtape. It was an interesting tape which featured a U2 cover, a Bob Dylan "Revox" and collabs with Joell Ortiz, Wale and Black Milk among others. If you put together the best moments of Pharrell's solo record, added more jangle and a J Dilla-ness to the beats then you'll be getting close as to what could be described as Munroe's sound.


Now I know that you're thinking - singer/songwriter writing hip hop-infused jams? Shit's gonna be a mess but the thing is, his music's actually quite good. He picks and chooses the right elements of his influences, meshes it all together and what we're left with is singer/songwriter shit that I will probably enjoy more than your parents.

[Colin Munroe MySpace]

ALTER OUR FEARS

glass cake - blanket

Oh boy oh boy oh boy. Lean your weight on this one; it sounds frail and flighty but really it’s as sturdy as anything. Well-constructed. Don’t be fooled by the reedy microphone or the harsh peaking on the high notes; this might sound like the work of a second-class bedroom hobbyist but it’ll stand up to the most thorough listen. glass cake is the work of Michelle Shofet, a resident of Berkeley, California, who does dreamy melancholia with such skill it drags you in and tows you along, unpredictable and purposeful. The tangents in these songs are surprising yet perfectly timed, and that’s what sets them aside from every other singer-songwriter who set his/her tone to wistful-via-melancholic. With a little talent, anyone can evoke a particular emotion, but it takes something more, sincerity, maybe, to MAKE something of that emotion, to make it stay with you.

Michelle Shofet's Album is available as a free download from glass cake’s MySpace.

[glass cake MySpace]