DUCKTAILS / BIG TROUBLES VICE MIX

MIX: Ducktails / Big Troubles - Winter Olympics 88 Euro Promo Vice Mix (sendspace)

Heads up to this mix over at the Vice Music Blog made by Matt Mondanile on account of the UK/Europe tour that he (as Ducktails) and Big Troubles and Julian Lynch have just embarked on. This is a killer mixtape in the ultra-hypnogogic mode of ridiculously good Aussie rock solids, new romantic synth seduction and other heavy jams ala the Dolphins Into The Future guest mix a few weeks back.

TRACKLIST
David Foster - Winter Games
We All Together - Tomorrow
Enuff Z'Nuff - New Thing
Sinitta - Cross My Broken Heart
Jo Jo Zep and The Falcons - Hit and Run
Simple Minds - Glittering Prize
Bruce Hornsby and the Range - The Valley Road
The Smiths - Frankly Mr. Shankly
The Apartments - Fever Elsewhere
Howard Johnson - Say You Wanna
Mark E - Often Think To Myself
Naked Eyes - Voices in My Head
Cleaners From Venus - The Jangling Man
Deacon Blue - Love and Regret

TOUR DATES
May 20 - Brooklyn, New York: Real Estate, Julian Lynch, Big Troubles, and Family Portrait @ The Bell House
May 21 - Hoboken, New Jersey: Real Estate, Julian Lynch, Big Troubles, and Family Portrait @ Maxwell’s
May 25 - Barcelona, Spain: Ducktails @ Primavera Sound (Parc Central del Poblenou)
May 26 - Barcelona, Spain: Ducktails @ Primavera Sound (venue pending)
May 27 - Barcelona, Spain: Julian Lynch @ Primavera Sound (Pitchfork Stage)
*May 29 - Bordeaux, France:
May 30 - Paris, France: Ducktails and Julian Lynch @ Villette Sonique (La Geode)
May 31 - London, United Kingdom: Ducktails, Julian Lynch, and Big Troubles @ Hoxton Square Bar & Kitchen
June 1 - London, United Kingdom: Julian Lynch, Ducktails, and Big Troubles @ The City Arts & Music Project
June 2 - Sheffield, United Kingdom: Ducktails, Julian Lynch, and Big Troubles @ The Harley
June 3 - Glasgow, United Kingdom: Ducktails, Julian Lynch, and Big Troubles @ Captain’s Rest
June 4 - Aberdeen, United Kingdom: Ducktails, Julian Lynch, and Big Troubles @ The Tunnels
June 5 - Edinburgh, United Kingdom: Julian Lynch, Ducktails, and Big Troubles @ Sneaky Pete’s
June 6 - Leeds, United Kingdom: Julian Lynch, Ducktails, and Big Troubles @ Brudenell Social Club
June 7 - Dublin, Ireland: Julian Lynch, Ducktails, and Big Troubles @ Workman’s Club
June 8 - Manchester, United Kingdom: The Deaf Institute
June 9 - Cambridge, United Kingdom: Ducktails, Julian Lynch, and Big Troubles @ Portland Arms
June 10 - Ghent, Belgium: DOK
June 11 - Amsterdam, Netherlands: Julian Lynch, Ducktails, and Big Troubles @ De Nieuwe Anita
June 12 - Brussels, Belgium: Ducktails, Julian Lynch, and Big Troubles @ Ancienne Belgique
*June 13 - Paris, France: NEED HELP
June 16 - Lisbon, Portugal: Julian Lynch, Ducktails, and Big Troubles @ ZDB
June 17 - Guimaraes, Portugal: Julian Lynch, Ducktails, and Big Troubles @ Centro Cultural Vila Flor

HONEY RANGE

MP3: Ducktails - In The Swing (Elk Remix)

Brookyln via Michigan sample-lover Elk adds some literal arcade dynamics to one of our favourite janglers from Ducktails' poppiest album yet. Elk adds more layers to the song, bringing ultra spacious tiled-room ambience, reverberant vocal mumblings, and someone's conversation leaking in. Elsewhere (on his just-released debut album) he mixes "electronic pop, Philip Glass samples, tropicalia, shoegaze, and flashes of the cerebral," but this one's pure afternoon bliss, subtly building on the Duck's refracted pastorilia.

buy

TOP 2010 SONGS: Shea

Hey doggies! Honestly, I've been kind of dreading this end-of-year list season, partly because the whole process of ranking music always feels pretty unnatural to me, but I also thought it could be a struggle finding enough material that I felt truly excited about. I think for the most part I felt pretty jaded about a lot of music in 2010, but looking back and putting together this list made me realize there was still a whole bunch of stuff that is really exciting, forward-looking and fun. Like Richard, my list ended up being super Olde English Spelling Bee heavy, but what can ya do, "label of da year" and all! Enjoy:

10. Bathcrones - False Teeth
Psychorama out through No Pain In Pop // myspace

"Infusing those shimmering club-friendly beats with the mesmeric positivity of new age synth muzik never felt so right or so real; a track to be played at clubs with skyward waterfalls and inter-dimensional soundsystems".

9. Hype Williams - Untitled 03
S/T 12" out through Carnivals // myspace

Real potent jammer from these masters of the mystique, whose material feels indebted to weird mass internet culture and their subsequent hacking of it. Slowed down, codeine-fuelled drawl, decaying vocal jibberish and dank beats infused with Eastern bombast; this is dense listening for sure.

8. Autre Ne Veut - OMG
S/T out through Olde English Spelling Bee // myspace

"O.M.G."; who would've thought big kaleidoscopic blooms of synth-pop and super sensual off-kilter R n' B grooves would sound this great together?!

7. Gem Jones - Glows Dim
Gem Jones / Part Time Cruiser split out through CGIF // myspace

"Gem Jones imbues his reels with a strange 80s pop sheen which still manages to shimmer through all the murky tape dust, sounding like a lost Ariel Pink demo with its star-strewn synths and perfect bassline bounce"

6. Coyote Clean Up - Pollution Shampoo
2010 CE out through Deathbomb Arc // myspace

Glowing, blissed out club that looks like pink clouds and sounds like giddy light-headedness

5. Dirty Beaches - True Blue
True Blue 7" released through Zoo Music (SOLD OUT) // myspace

Seriously, after listening to this croony ballad on repeat for months and then seeing him swigging whiskey from a hipflask, pulling a comb from his top pocket and slicking his hair back "Live In Concert", I'm starting to think Alex Hungtai is a bona fide outsider Elvis and this is his "Blue Moon".

4. Ducktails - Hamilton Road
Hamilton Road 7" out through Olde English Spelling Bee // myspace

Richard is right-on with "picket fence pop"; this is the coziest hit of 2010!

3. Rangers - Deerfield Village
Suburban Tours out through Olde English Spelling Bee // myspace

Totally evocative, sepia-tinged opener to one of my top LPs of '10. Moves at a real comfortable pace just like a Sunday night suburban family drive.

2. Greatest Hits - (You're Just An) Uptown Girl
Digital single out through Olde English Spelling Bee // myspace

Straight glam and maximal F.U.N. from these Bushwick popstars; "Girls Just Wanna Have Fun" but these boys just wanna hang at the mall w/ babes and do drugs at dance parties.

1. Outer Limits Recordings - $20 Dollar Bill
Unreleased; other 7"s out through Transparent & OESB // youtube channel

Easily my top-played jam of the year, and it's not surprising with a big goofy care-free hook like that, loose falsettos all over the place, held together by a classic pop structure and rendered real murky but still golden.

As Max and I had the same #1, here's the video for my #2>

GREATEST HITS "UPTOWN GIRL" from OLDE ENGLISH SPELLING BEE on Vimeo.

OTHER FAVES:
Big Troubles - Bite Yr Tongue
The Sweethearts - Burnin Through the Nite
Teengirl Fantasy - Vibes
Wild Nothing - Live in Dreams
Golden Axe - Free Time
Salem - Asia
Jeans Wilder - Sparkler

TOP 2010 SONGS: Richard

I tell ya, this year's just ZOOMED past! A combination of extreme hours at my (old) job, putting on shows in Newcastle, BLOGGING, ultra overseas vacationing and a high-level membership in "chillers delite" meant my attention span has shriveled even further into nothingness. Life is tough but HONESTLY I get kinda worried about that and not listening to things closely enough etc and the way things are going and shit but it doesn't change the fact that there was a heap of "killer jams" out this year! Also just realized how horrendously OESB-heavy this list is but oh well. Boo ya:

10. Wild Nothing - Bored Games
Gemini out through Captured Tracks // myspace

Fav train song for sure. Straight up 80s moper pop bliss.

9. Teen Inc. - Friend Of The Night
digital 7" out through iTunes // myspace

Someone tweeted about these guys (OPN or Megazord or someone?) describing them as "total game changers" and that's so right on; crystal clear funk/pop w/ actually ridiculous slap bass talent and generally amazing technical prowess.

8. The Samps - F.X.N.C
The Samps EP out through Mexican Summer // myspace

Hard to pinpoint an exact best Samps track (the Windows 69' Edition (On TV) mix is where it's at) but this one probably taps the best into the weirdly sleazy and retroactive house glory their impatient and energetic electronica is characterized by.

7. Ducktails - Paisley Pattern Arcade Shift
Ducktails/Strangers Bored Fortress split 7" out through Not Not Fun // myspace

Love these slightly more fuzzy Bored Fortress cuts of Arcade Dynamics jams "In The Swing" and "Arcade Shift" (perhaps not as much as "Hamilton Road"'s balladry but (spoiler) I think Shea has that on his list) because they're still the homeliest/most picket-fency pop around.

6. Games - Midi Drift
Games That We Can Play 12" out through Hippos in Tanks // myspace

Real heavenly headphone jam, set up in soft 80s movie clouds and artfully balances some split between "emotional"/"life-changey" feelings with the necessary half-awake haze.

5. Big Troubles - Bite Yr Tongue
Worry out through Olde English Spelling Bee // myspace

Good to see these "hyper-chic" Ridgewood pop guys battle through the video-related controversy (D:!) to maintain their status as most amazingly blissed-out and fuzzy nostalgic rockers.

4. Monopoly Child Star Searchers - A2 (excerpt)
listen // Bamboo For Two out through Olde English Spelling Bee // last.fm

Spencer Clark's signature jungle jams really hit their stride on this one; not sure whose guesting on this jam (Dolphins Into The Future? James Ferraro?) but it's as mesmeric as it gets.

3. Autre Ne Veut - Demoneyez
S/T out through Olde English Spelling Bee // myspace

ANV's images of soldiers are "cries for our shared humanity" and soul/Top 40 R&B infused pop like this soundtracks the weird truths of modern mainstream culture/life as much as ultra icy and (failed) futuristic landscapes. Real catchy and "soul"ful for sure.

2. Sun Araw - Deep Cover
On Patrol out through Not Not Fun // myspace

Total anthem; this "amniotic dub" just rolls and rolls, wrapped up in hefty histrionics and just drenched in smoke.

1. The Sweethearts - Burning Through The Nite
I Need My TV 7" out through Olde English Spelling Bee // Burnin 7" on Transparent (UK) // vimeo

I keep trying to work out if this'd sound better in more clearly definied hi-fi but even with the signature mutated tape gunk all over it there's no hiding the "pop perfection" inside this gem, Sam Merhan and Zak Mering dialing in 1-900 romance to the car phone on their super distinct night drive.



OTHER FAVS:
Squadda B feat. Young Boi - Legendary
Oneohtrix Point Never - Ouroboros
Deerhunter - Helicopters
Panda Bear - Slow Motion
Destroyer - Chinatown
Raw Thrills - Skyline's Lookin Fine

ARCADE DYNAMICS

Back in my hometown for two weeks (Christchurch city hands up!), livin it up at my parents' place, working at a cinema, biking around remembering weird stuff, and this new Ducktails track could not be more apt in soundtracking remembered suburban feelings and home comforts. "Laid back" is the state of mind here for sure; sounding a lot more Real Estate-y than the synth hypnotics of say, Landscapes. Actually, this reminds me a bit of those jumbly pop songs like "The Mall" from the early Ducktails II cassette, executed w/ amateurish charm and rendered all halcyon and bittersweet.

[Ducktails Bandcamp]

L8 WINTER MIX

Rose Quartz L8 Winter Mix (43mb)
Kind of weird; I woke up yesterday after literally weeks of grey/overcast skies and it was super sunny and also snowing horizontally out the window, real bright and amazing but certainly an odd/"day 2 remember" kind of thing. Anyway, this is uncharacteristic of my Winter experiences here in post-industrial Newcastle upon Tyne where it's generally dark (not in an overly bad way, there's just a lack of light). Anyway, these songs feel defining and in some strange way set into these variable daze so I thought I'd put them together in a way that creates an appropriately fuzzy mood.

TRACKLIST
Superbud - BVM
Obsidian Pond - Sundog Sinners
Coyote Clean Up - Can't Shake The Full Moon
Run DMT - Disaster Babe
Ducktails - Apple Walk
Hype Williams - Problem Chalice
Foxy Baby - Driving At Night
Speculator - Share
Fluker Love - Soaked
Toro Y Moi - You Hid
New Yoga - Lizard Vision

RICHARD'S TOP 20 SONGS OF 2009

Gotta say I've found it kind of hard to remember/figure out which "songs" are my absolute favs this year because a) THERE HAVE BEEN SO MANY GOOD BANDS COMING OUT WITH ONLY JUST A HANDFUL OF EUPHORIC AND INVENTIVE SOUNDS and b) most of them are submerged inside 15 minute long tapes or LPs and thus harder to post on a blog. But whatever, I've had to go with those anyway to "stay true to myself". I think I've lost track of heaps of stuff this year from working craploads and putting on shows in a small English city; I either couldn't remember if these ones were from this year or couldn't fit them on to the list:

Miami Horror - Don't Be With Her
Smith Westerns - Tonight
Black Joker - Watch Out! Part One
Dum Dum Girls - Catholicked
Toro Y Moi - Blessa
Truman Peyote - Sara Delta
Cow's Lips - A Complete Diagram

BUT YEAH, totally loved these next twenty in particular:



1. James Ferraro - Chrome Wave Arena
from Edward Flex Presents: Do You Believe In Hawaii?

I was enjoying all this Skatersy stuff earlier in the year but it wasn't until seeing James Ferraro and Spencer Clark each play solo in Newcastle's ridiculously mystical Mordern Tower that it really clicked. California Games dreams and VHS transcendence glow out of the Zangiefy roars and carbon gnarls, peyote grandeur and a vision that for me is more coherent and instantly relatable to both my own childhood (brings back 6am Saturday morning cartoon sessions, joystick obsessions, KFC towering over teen streets like a "dark tower" indeed) and current aesthetic interests.

[Last.FM / buy]

2. Najavo Bixby - Moonlighting
unreleased

Kind of impossibly ecstatic and I'm not sure how Judd Hower has put this one together, alls I know is every time me and my pals have had two to three beverages and are about to "head out" I'm always reaching for this one. And the second half party drop; sheesh.

[MySpace]

3. Taterbug - Chemical Vacation
from The Savage Young Taterbug CS

Tucked in the greasy folds of these super weird and trebely textures are some of the strongest feelings I can remember from this year and it's great how they're only half disguised under DIY gunk, "boys can be sirens too" for sure, and the hypnotic love on the scrawny wrists is creepy and sincere.

[MySpace / Buy]

4. Real Estate - Atlantic City
from Real Estate / Atlantic City Expressway

There are a handful of versions of it and I'm almost tempted to post the Parasails version (the first version?) but this lush indie pop jam is so homely and warm and at once pastoral and beachy. Totally addictive and subtly inventive in an enormous canon of pop greatness.

[MySpace / buy]

5. Matrix Metals - Flamingo Breeze
from Flamingo Breeze

It's just so weird, the neo-primitive retro futuristic FUN that oozes out of these claps and plastic beats. Taps into the 80s technology commercial feel and past ideas of the future that we're in right now with ridiculous glee and my absolute favourite sort of aesthetics. Just sounds real good.

[Last.FM / buy]

6. Speculator - We Don't Give A Shit
unreleased

THOSE BLOWN OUT DRUMS! And Jesus & Mary chain rips all converted into Hal Hartley-style emotion real sweet and broken.

[MySpace]

7. Ducktails - Landrunner
from Landscapes

It doesn't get any more 90s than this; those drums are pretty daggy (SO GOOD) and the somewhat uncharacteristic washy fuzz on this one makes it stand out from the other tropical greatness. Bodacious linear repetitions.

[MySpace / buy]

8. Dunebuggy - French Playground
from Dunebuggy CS

Trust Ryan Garbes and Charles "Taterbug" Free to blow their mutant pop/punk in chunks like these. Can't stop obsessing over the defunct Americana and genius John Candy/family film/summer camp feelings. Somehow it drips w/ "free highs" rather than unease, interesting amongst all the wide-eyed fuzz.

[MySpace / buy]

9. Eat Skull - Heaven's Stranger
from Wild & Inside

Way different from anything on the ultra wasted, scuzzy and wild eyed masterpiece Sick To Death but I guess this is what happens in winter when guys like these sit down for a bit and get a bit escapist. Just real beautiful and moving ending-y/driving into the sunset-y but still gritty as.

[MySpace / buy]

10. Fluffy Lumbers - Harry Dolland's
unreleased

Perfect bittersweet teen fuzz pop w/ excitingly familar chord progressions and melody fueled distortion.

[MySpace]

11. Weed Diamond - Walk Away
from Demo

Pretty straight forward lo-fi jam but somehow amazingly catchy too me; it's got those upbeat tropical guitars at a pretty chill level with something mega apt about the name Weed Diamond and the prismic colours and light that comes out of this.

[MySpace

12. Black Dice - Bob
from Chocolate Cherry

In some ways a minor blip on their larger radar but it's just total chillage running down in their typical sludge, stretched out melodies, palm tree imagery all melted and stuff, just really into that feeling eh.

[MySpace / buy]

13. Peaking Lights - Silver Tongues, Soft Whispers
from Imaginary Falcons CS

So circular and peaced out, helped by the mythos of where these guys live (in some Jodorowsky-style valley/forest) somewhere but still straight up analog beauty.

[MySpace / buy]

14. Holy Shit - Rough & Tumble
unreleased

Is this from this year? A total banger either way; schhomp! Drugged out and happy go lucky, tapping into some mean Weekend At Bernies feelings.

[MySpace]

15. Times New Viking - No Time, No Hope
from Born Again Revisited

We all know these guys but they're seriously getting better and better and way more New Zealandy as well; dig on their cover of "Anything Could Happen" and the way the bung organs chime on this one in that summer winds refrain at the very start, pulling off relevant "world views" in a shitstorm of irony that is semi-eschewed by amazing song ability.

[MySpace / buy]

16. Wet Hair - Cult Electric Annihilation
from Psychic Chasms

There's been a few classics from these guys this year especially Ryan Garbe's solo Born Under The Sun tape but this gem is super positive and apocalyptic at once, death party styles, super jammy and loose but somehow pushed forward in that way they do, neo-prog or something right? Totally boss.

[MySpace / buy]

17. Kurt Vile - Freeway
from Constant Hitmaker

I wouldn't hesitate in saying that Kurt Vile is the best "songwriter" to come to the foreground of 2009 and it's amazing to know he's getting better at putting lyrics/chords/feelin's together increasingly cohesively. Nice and conventional folk/pop/indie rock but drenched in spring air and reverb with long hair flailin'.

[MySpace / buy]

18. The Mantles - Don't Lie
from The Mantles

Crazily intricate jangles that grow and grow but burgeon nonstop and look back at our New Zealand favourites. Crazy good pop song, just enough fuzz, slightly obvious chord progression which is EXACTLY what you wanna hear and they just roll with it.

[MySpace / buy]

19. Lotus Plaza - Red Oak Way
from The Floodlight Collective

This real lucid and delay-heavy style is a favourite of mine and I think this is partially because of how amazingly synesthestetic the cover art goes with the general sound is (love the light leakage in a big way cf. my Flickr). So dreamy and with massive colour blur all over.

[Last FM / buy]

20. Blues Control - On Through The Night
from Local Flavor

People say they're somewhat sporadic in their recorded output but these krauted out rhythms matched with both New Agey/Equinochial textures are just totally delicious, submerge more than ever until ten minutes in where the liquid drums come out. Such a beguiling mix of "things" in this one, like their wider oeuvre.

[MySpace / buy]

SHEA'S TOP 20 SONGS OF 2009

Doing these kind of ranked lists really stresses me out and makes me think that maybe I listen to too much music, especially when I have to spend hours trawling through iTunes libraries, external hard drives, radio show playlists, Last.fm charts etc. to make sure there's not a forgotten gem in the digital ether. That said, I do like doing song lists, not just because they're easier compile, but because it's a chance for newer and smaller artists who might've only released a couple of tracks to get some serious recognition. Anyway, listened to so many amazing alien/garage chillin/gutter-dwelling/beach-bum/pizza party/cyborg/memory-scaping/weirdo/new age jams this year and these are my faves, enjoy!

1. Animal Collective - My Girls
from Merriweather Post Pavilion

I had a feeling this would be top even after hearing it for the first time a year ago when it totally hit on some base level and I was basically unable to stop smiling. I'm not sure what gives this song that kind of instinctual appeal, but when I saw it live the other night all manner of social stereotypes (hippies, hipsters, teen stoners, fashion chix, bros bro-ing out, older critic chin-strokers) were unified against all odds by these simple positive mantras and WOOOO!s and it was a pretty weird and amazing thing.

[Myspace / buy]

2. Tonstartssbandht - Black Country
from An When

Continually floors me; beautiful junkyard, sibling savants.

[Myspace / buy]

3. Best Coast - Sun Was High (So Was I)
from California Girls

Lo-fi aches, perfect chord changes, classic pop. Your dream girl group where the leader channels Courtney Love c. "Malibu".

[Myspace / buy]

4. Ducktails - Wishes
from Landscapes

As alluring as the city might be, this just makes me want to hang in the backyard or somewhere in the countryside or play basketball at my old primary school. I think they must sell golden syrup guitars in New Jersey.

[Myspace / buy]

5. Smith Westerns - Tonight
from Smith Westerns

Wish I could be nineteen again and release an album that's really lo-fi with this song on it cos it totally swaggers and aches with coolness. I love that slight pause just before it builds up to the hook where the singer goes "UHh".

[Myspace / buy]

6. Speculator - We Don't Give a Shit
from Friendship Bracelet Vol. 2

More new age more Peter Gabriel more warbly guitar sheen and freeway hits, more from this band plleasszzzzze.

[Myspace / buy]

7. Teengirl Fantasy - Floor to Floor
from TGIF EP

Dudes keep killing it - so many club spirits and parallel dimension glimpses lurking in the dankness between these beats and tweaks.

[Myspace / get]

8. Girls - Lust for Life
from Album

So much romance and sloppy charm squashed in here despite its fleeting duration. Best bits: when the bassline drops in second verse, and "I wish I had a pizza and a bottle of wine", always.

[Myspace / buy]

9. Luke Perry - Avon Lust
from Terminator Ecstasy

Really obsessed with all this retro-futurist weirdness that's around right now, and Luke Perry's Ryan Howe welds it hapzardly into this wonky cyborg pop hit that has been the #1 most played song in Planet Hollywoods across the world for six weeks straight.

[Myspace / buy]

10. Kurt Vile - Beach on the Moon
from God is Saying This To You

Kurt Vile is totally at his best solo, especially when he plays these super evocative desert/lost highway sketches complete with cryptic lyrics and a hook so good he uses it in three songs.

[Myspace / buy]

11. The Parasails - Skylife #2
from Skylife

Also appearing on the Ducktails album Landscapes (as "Seagull's Flight") this track fits perfectly into the pastel-hued heavens of Skylife, perhaps Matt Mondanile's most cohesive effort - totally visual and hypnotic, sounds that look like gentle gusts of wind 100 metres above the ocean.

[Myspace / buy]

12. Dirty Beaches - Low Rider
from Dirty Beaches

That bassline! Fucking so cool and oozing nonchalance. Soundtrack to driving topdown wearing wayfarers and a leather jacket with a cigarette in the corner of yr mouth. Hey Jim Jarmusch, this song is for yr next movie.

[Myspace / buy]

13. Night Control - Good Looks
from Death Control

Intercepted from yr favourite oldies AM station in 2050 in a perfect world.

[Myspace / buy]

14. Oneohtrix Point Never - Hyperdawn
from Zones Without People

There's some super interesting ideas behind OPN's arpeggiated future-memory-utopias but you don't necessarily have to understand them to feel yr chrome heart beating as rays of the three rising suns reflect off the sharp planes of yr face and form a perfect opaque triangle in the sky.

[Myspace / buy]

15. Jeans Wilder - Tough Guys
From Tough Guys/Up All Night split 7"

This might be pretty unrepresentative of Jeans Wilder's oeuvre (super downer sparse guitar songs, which are excellent too), but when he takes that ethos and adds a bouncy reggaeton preset it becomes a loner, downer, weirdo, undeniable pop hit.

[Myspace / buy]

16. Lotus Plaza - Sunday Night
from The Floodlight Collective

Once I went on a night bike ride listening to this and it sounded exactly like my sleepy suburbia, moths fluttering around yellow street lights and dreams rising through humming powerlines.

[Myspace / buy]

17. Blondes - Spanish Fly
Unreleased

"Effortlessly cool, this anti-club track from Brooklyn duo Blondes whisks you away from crowds and strobes to a dark V.I.P. corner where the distant beats actually sound better and the tempo is slower -- there's space to think here, to gaze at the club dust hanging mid-air through yr private disco ball lights, sweat condensing on concrete ceilings above."

[Myspace / buy]

18. Neon Indian - Should've Taken Acid With You
from Psychic Chasms

Pretty sure that twinkling loop and those shooting star synths are what it actually sounds like in the Milky Way. I'm too much of a wuss/nerd to take acid but this song makes me wish I wasn't.

[Myspace / buy]

19. Ariel Pink's Haunted Graffiti - Can't Hear My Eyes
from Can't Hear My Eyes 7"

As much as I love the blurred soupiness of the 'hypnagogic pop sound', it's nice that Ariel Pink renders his 80s cultural totems and aesthetics with a greater degree of clarity. The cock-rock riffage on "Flashback" could equally take this spot, but I'm a sucker for late night lovesick love songs.

[Myspace / buy]

20. Fluffy Lumbers - Harry Dolland's
from Harry Dolland's 7"

"... these hazy guitar lines echo like half-remembered punk pop hitz heard while cruising yr suburban neighourhood, sadder on reflection with all their lost and mixed associations."

[Myspace / buy]

DECK OBSERVATORY

Ducktails - On The Boardwalk
Naturally it's not mega "breakthrough blogging" to post Ducktails (and of course that's the only reason for blogging), especially not around these parts (kind of obsessed) but really I'm pretty sure this stuff (and Parasails and what not) is my absolute fav. Sounds like Matthew Mondanile has hit it right on with this new Landscapes LP , slipping in the occasional "hypnogogic"-style hand drum swirl next to those infinitely warming analog feelins (they come in song form; plastic and sincere and more in the Real Estate school of homeliness) that kind of seem more like still night time beach times than delirious hot heat. Feels real seaside carnival/theme park-y. ALSO, it's made perfect sense hearing it whilst chilling in Berlin/eating kebabs/drinking beers (cool eh?) the last few days in a sort of European heat that seems ludicrous and makes three perfect sweat drops retreat like reverse tears down my temples.



[Ducktails MySpace]

[Buy Landscapes from Olde English Spelling Bee/Volcanic Tongue]

1982 SUMMER SEASON

The Parasails - Skylife 3

The Parasails - Skylife 2 [via RCRD LBL]

So Matthew Mondanile continues to release even more amazing music this year under this new pseudonym The Parasails. Like his work in Ducktails, Real Estate, Predator Vision and Dreams in Mirror Field, the Skylife LP is super chill, full of the best vibes and retains his uncanny ability in creating the most intensely visual and vivid evocations with sound. Somehow Mondanile's warbly guitar and hypnotic synth loops look and sound like gently curling wind swirls, memories where you felt genuinely happy, and scenery like this:

- Shea Bermingham
[The Parasails/Ducktails Myspace]
[Buy Skylife from El Tule]

DUCKTAILS @ THE DOME, TUFNELL PARK

Ducktails live in London supporting Black Dice. Totally wild show; Black Dice played late and turned the room dark and dystopian with this terrifically skewed dance music-style set. Missed the last tube home but got a taxi cos we're heaps RITZY!

SKYSCRAPER MOSS

NEWZ YOU CAN USE #2

Shellac reform for European tour. EVERYWHERE ELSE PLS! Tiny Mix Tapes

Before Hollywood review Brisbanite post rock whippersnappers Mr Maps. Before Hollywood

Vivian Girls debut a brand new track. Pitchfork TV

Montreal artist Amber Albrecht illustrates two songs by The Constellations, in case you need TWO senses of awesome. Said The Gramophone

Word on the street is that ...Trail of Dead have decided to make good music again. Drowned in Sound

Ra Ra Riot do a Takeaway Show. La Blogotheque

Apparently, Mt St Helens Vietnam Band are already important enough to have their own ice cream flavour, which puts them up there with Jerry Garcia and Queen. The Stranger

Rose Quartz's Richard Macfarlane talks to Ducktails. museum face

NEW DUCKTAILS

Ducktails - White House With Green Shutters
Hey guyz so my internet stopped working again and I'm back down at my friendly local cafe (it's called HEATON PERK in homage to CENTRAL PERK on 'Friends', it's got the red couches and everything!) using the wireless on my MacBook and feeling like I'm missing out on way too much good music. It's kind of stifling and I wish I was actually listening to this new Ducktails track right now but I forgot my headphones, but anyway, he's kickin it on the amazng Wonder Years vibe some more on this new cassette (it's out on Arbor) and it's pretty ace, sooo comfy and warm and making nostalgia out of plastic moulds. I interviewed Matt Mondanile (the New Jersian behind Ducktails) the other day; we talked about babysitting and palm trees and it's up on Tiny Mix Tapes right now! More new music here soooon promise.



[Ducktails MySpace]

[Buy Acres of Shade from Ducktails Tapes]

WE ARE TOTALLY AT THE SHORE NOW I PROMISE

OKAY GUYS, this tropical stuff has been taking over my life and I need to lock it down. Not that any obsessions with High Places, Wavves, Beaches, Holy Shit, Abe Vigoda, El Guincho, Lucky Dragons, or any of the below artists who channel a similar beach/sun god are going to end any time soon, but seriously, what's with all the palm trees in my headphones? All the polyrhythms and bubbles, they're all like that picture up the top there and it's a bit of an overload for this blog and my iTunes and I'm seeking and island, oh, wait, no, not an island, but a mountain or volcano or something. So anyway, because I'm so cool and exclusive I was talking on the phone to Juan from Abe Vigoda the other day (for an interview for +1 Magazine, should be out (free) in stores real soon if yr in the UK) and he was saying all the music he's been liking lately has had this gritty tropical euphoria ie. even Fucked Up's super hardcore roots have been tinged with space/palm trees/glitter as well as the usual blood. Does it come from concrete city life? Global warming? AGHHH. Here's a bumper compendium of the tropicale shit.



Coconot - Verbena De Los Delfines
I kind of feel that El Guincho and Coconot's similarities to Animal Collective are kind of like the similarities between Eagle vs Shark and Napoleon Dynamite; mostly accidental and out of shared interests. Like these films' proclivations to the quirky and daggy, Pablo Diaz Reixa and Animal Collective gravitate to the ecstatic and weirdly human.

[Coconot MySpace]

[Buy Cosa Astral from Bcore Disc]

Palms - Agniezska
Haha. I'm just tripping; this isn't even tropical, it's called Palms, though, and the album is called Midnight in Honolulu, which is pretty darn apt, cos it sounds like the time I went (nearly) naked swimming on a beach that wasn't in Honolulu because we ran for like 500 metres before the ocean floor wasn't all muddy and sticky between our toes and before it was more than (almost)waist deep.

[Palms MySpace]

[Buy Midnight in Honolulu from Rare Book Room]

Ducktails - Let's Rock The Beach
Here's a picket fenced backyard romp through sprinklers and Bill and Sam and Neil are getting excited, letting loose (because you get a girl to laugh, you get a girl to love) and flailing arms. Then, back inside for snacks and D&D. Awesome.

[Ducktails MySpace]

[Buy from Ducktails Tapes]

Reefer - Let It Go
I had this real sexy dream about two of my friends and me hanging on the beach, all lens flarey and hazy. It was in Sydney at bizzarro Bronte and it was sooo warm and sandy and I could hear the ocean woosh like this Reefer album all blue moony and Tahitian which felt strange because when was the last time you heard stuff in yr dreams?

[Reefer MySpace]

[Buy Reefer from Alpha Pop]

MOTIVATION RADIO

Ducktails - Backyard
I just found out about Ducktails when I was checking out some recent playlists of the Guitar Media radio program back over in New Zealand and for some reason the name Ducktails instantly made me want to check it out. Anyway, it's hot sauce for sure, this guy puts out various amazingly designed tapes full of tropical chlorinated water. This is from his new one, Ducktails II. It was recorded in his parents basement and totally smacks of surburban light and picket fences, cosmic and tropical, just for a minute.

[Ducktails Website]