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(Photo: Sarah Cass)
LAKE are a K Records band through and through. An Olympia-based pop collective capable of phrasing melodies in ways plants and giant trees would. "Madagascar" has got an ultra-aerated Steely Dan (no joke) quality to it, the first mp3 from their forthcoming Let's Build A Roof LP bordering on tiki torch territory, but in the least corny way possible. This is jacuzzi pop and it's going on repeat.
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Settling on a Nirvana video for my last throwback as a RCRD LBL staffer took me about two hours. (I get up early.) But this live clip of "School," pulled from their 1991 European jaunt with Sonic Youth, shared no equal. In addition to some great tour outtakes, there's much poetry to be found in their exit: Dave goofs, Kurt detonates, everything is left in it's right place.
Before the Walkmen were the Walkmen, their members were split between Jonathan Fire*eater and the Recoys, two bands in great American cities (DC & Boston) on either side of New York's coastal real estate. Both bands ruled. Right now in Cleveland, the Other Girls sound as explosive and gnarly as the Walkmen did when they first started recording. Guitar textures and rhythms that swirl like storms of razor blades. Insistently.
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Now and again, album and song titles feel like perfectly sensible extensions of the sounds they're attached to. Like appendages you wouldn't put anywhere else. Nurses hit the nail on the head and through the board with "Technicolor," the latest mpfree from their forthcoming Apple's Acre LP. It's a raw chunk of pop psychedelia one could rightly call kaleidoscopic and blissfully polychromatic. Or you could just call it by its name.
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After much initial bristling, Mason Proper's Olly Olly Oxen Free grew on me like mold. That's a good thing! The Michigan fivesome are getting set to make their first trek through the Western United States in support of a new remix EP (and Stellastarr*, I guess) that just started leaving craters in peoples brains last week. In addition to an excellent Ocelot remix of RCRD LBL fave "Lock & Key" the EP is anchored by Olly Olly track "Safe For the Time Being," a silky guitar slip that Wallpaper and The Paronomasaic, in particular, refurbish to stunning effect. So much good free music down there, dudes. A video for the original is also after the break.
Mason Proper - Safe For The Time Being
Mason Proper - Safe For The Time Being (Wallpaper Remix)
Mason Proper - Lock & Key (Ocelot Remix)
Mason Proper - Safe For The Time Being (The Paronomasiac Remix)
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Several years ago my favorite movie in the world was Who's Harry Crumb, a long forgotten detective movie starring John Candy, a guy whom, for whatever reason, I couldn't get enough of growing up. Shit, was that dude funny. Anyway, the movie's climax was soundtracked by this really gnarly Bonnie Tyler track (not an oxymoron) named "Holding Out For Hero" (the big guy!) and it was a purebred piano burner. This dance floor reimagining of Florence and the Machine's "Rabbit Heart" is of the same heart rate-jumping genus, though it's engined by drum machine mania more than ivory pounding. Ridley Scott, if you're reading this, please know I'm looking out for you—this jam is for your next Robin Hood joint.
Florence and The Machine - Rabbit Heart (Raise It Up) (The Lionheart Mix)
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Florence and The Machine - Kiss With A Fist
Box Elders were born in Omaha, but not into the Saddle Creek family with which you might have just made an indie rock brain association. They're a throwback three-piece comprised of the brothers Clayton and Jeremiah McIntyre, two dudes who kick out their 60s garage workouts in the nude so regularly, the above image was about as the safest we could proffer. Check the paisley pop of "Jackie Wood" a look and drummer Dave Goldberg a thought. He sees a lot of naked ass.
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Just two days before he was supposed to take the stage at New York's Bowery Ballroom, his first performance since Primaveragate made him more of a weird indieweb celebrity/whipping boy than most thought possible, Wavves' Nathan Williams shattered his wrist while skateboarding. He played the show in a cast and he played the Pitchfork Festival the same way. Both sets were rad. When he got home he hopped on the Internet to let us know a subsequent show at the Smell in LA was canceled—he had to have surgery. But, he also shared a new track: the Panda Bear-esque, Beach Boys mindspiral that is "Mickey Mouse."
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Seattle's Throw Me The Statue began as the one-man bedroom yowlings of Scott Reitherman. But in recent years they've become a heat rock foursome who seem consistently slept upon. Whether Creaturesque, their full-length forthcomer will attract the kind of spotlight Reitherman's songwriting chops deserve is well, you know. But check the low-end marauding of "Ancestors" and the Built To Spill homage of "Hi-fi Goon," both tracks too addictive to be free.
Throw Me The Statue - Ancestors
One of the weirdest things about Cameron Crowe's Singles was that twenty-somethings were meeting and mingling in warehouses at grunge shows. Campbell Scott catches his first glimpse of Kyra Sedgwick at an Alice in Chains show. Layne Staley is going bonkers and Jerry Cantrell is shirtless. How many people out there do you think met the love of their life at an Alice in Chains show? Dennis Rodman once said that their music was tops when it came to love/babymaking music. I think I just answered my own question.
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