Mike Wolf
RCRD LBL BLOGGER
- Location: NYC, NY
- Number of Blog Posts: 73 Mike Wolf's My RCRD LBL Profile
EXCLUSIVE NEW DOWNLOAD: D. Charles Speer & the Helix - Shorty, A Bastard Cat
(Photo: Victor Harshbarger)
You can’t not like a song when the first line goes, “I’ll be your bastard tonight,” especially when it comes in a full-throated voice like D. Charles Speer’s. “Shorty, A Bastard Cat” is some boogie rock of the highest water, gathering a half century of American music traditions — Bakersfield country and deep-Texas psychedelia, chiefly — into a rollicking concoction that’s kinda like whipping out a fission bomb in the middle of a saloon fight: Everyone just goes, “Whoa!” Speer (a.k.a. Dave Shuford of No Neck Blues Band) has a posse of real heavies in the Helix (Hans Chew is a badass on the piano); their album Distillation arrives next month on high-quality vinyl and download from Three Lobed (pre-order and hear another tune here). “Shorty” closes the album in full gallop, toward the horizon where the desert meets permanent sunset. Play me out, Johnny!
EXCLUSIVE NEW DOWNLOAD: OOIOO - O O I A H
This new OOIOO specimen bursts out of the gate with a firm commitment to being totally bananas, the four Japanese ladies — led by the million-megawatt Boredom Yoshimi P-We — chanting the title “O O I A H” like they're spinning some spell of majestically silly magnitude. Oh and, then things get weird (which shouldn’t surprise BORE fans): The drums stay in intro mode, the guitars go into epic scorching solos and the synths get squashed under the feet of these mountain goddesses. Suddenly the song ends and you feel like heaven must owe you a hundred bucks or something. Grab the unpredictable psych-rock-synth-wave track (courtesy of the Thrill Jockey gang) immediately and commence extensive study, then look out for Armonico Hewa, OOIOO’s sixth (!) album, later this month.
EXCLUSIVE NEW DOWNLOAD: Christy & Emily - Lover's Talk
Christy & Emily’s music is like night air — calmly moving, a gentle swirl of warm and cool, a surrounding thing. “Lover’s Talk,” the beautiful first offering from Superstition, the Brooklyn psych-folk duo’s sophomore album, hits new heights in shimmer, with their voices hovering lucidly above a reverb-glaze of picked guitar and plinked keyboards. Bass, drums, loud audiences — not missed. This is private music for public settings. The album comes via the UK label Big Print next month, and once you've sat a spell with the song, you'll know there'll be something else to be thankful for come then.
EXCLUSIVE NEW DOWNLOAD: Spectre Folk - Falling Off the Map
If this new Spectre Folk jam was dropped into the next Michel Gondry film, it could cure millions. As it is, “Falling Off the Map” is the first blurt from Compass, Blanket, Lantern, Mojo, the new album coming ’round the end of the month (on Arbitrary Signs) by this side/solo project from Pete Nolan, drummer-skater of Magik Markers and one of NYC’s raddest. The honeyed song drifts along on gentle, trippy impulse power; it makes your heart feel psychedelic. Grab the track below, and check out a lysergic video directed by Raymond Salvatore Harmon for another song from the album here. And — stay mellow.
DOWNLOAD: Will Stratton - Who Will
When you’re having a textbook fall like we are in NYC — perfectly cool and crisp air, leaves a-turning, everyone looking sharp in their favorite sweater — it’s hard not to hear this mellow stunner of a dream-pop song by Will Stratton and retrofit it to the season. The young singer layers tasteful reverb over pillows of strumming and harmony, recalling Mojave 3 at their best; it could equally soundtrack the beginning or the end of a romance, and that’s just what autumn feels like. “Who Will” leads off Stratton’s No Wonder, which drops next month; you can catch him October 20 at Cake Shop for a CMJ day party, or just grab this bittersweet tune and see how it suits your season.
EXCLUSIVE NEW DOWNLOAD: Sky Larkin - Smarts
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Sky Larkin is one of the berzillion international bands jumping through hoops to get their U.S. visas in order to play at CMJ this year. If they have any trouble at the border, the Leeds, England, trio should just flash their “Smarts” — the fresh, hard-crunching pop tune sounds like the work of an American band (from the mid-’90s golden age of indie, no less). For anyone bummed about not coming out for CMJ, Sky Larkin is also one of the many overseas acts taking the opportunity to do some sightseeing in the States — club-stages, strangers’ floors, places like that. Their tour starts tomorrow night at Spaceland in L.A.; check all of their dates after the break.
Previously:
Sky Larkin - Matador (Lull's Channel Switch Mix)
VIDEO THRWBCK: PJ Harvey - Dress (1991)
When PJ Harvey first showed up it was kind of just flat-out exciting. She was a lot of things (sexy, forceful, punk, English), and none of them put her in any particular genre. She was alternative when that still seemed to mean something. Come to think of it, she's still sort of a genre of her own. "Dress" was her first single, and it'll always sound hot.
EXCLUSIVE NEW DOWNLOAD: 3 Shades - Thank God For Beatniks
“Thank God for Beatniks” is the title track from 3 Shades’ November release on Germany’s Alien Transistor, and it sets the album’s tone nicely: Over a slinking beat designed to make head-nodders look their coolest, the Munich quartet — which includes two thirds of the versatile veteran group the Notwist — snakes together spare melodic patterns on guitar, organ and glockenspiel with mysterious indie-noir lyrics like “I am no one, I am not me” and “All these streets I must find cities for.” Makes you think Europe is all about sexy kids in turtlenecks talking politics and film over unlimited cigarettes and coffee at cafes on overcast days. (Wait — isn’t it?) Wordsmiths Fat Jon and Mike Ladd pull guest spots on the album, which is a cool rip from start to finish.
EXCLUSIVE NEW DOWNLOAD: Orchestre Poly Rythmo de Cotonou - Malin Kpon O
Among reissue labels with a specific focus — a time, a place — you’ll find none finer than Analog Africa, a favorite of Afro-minded DJs and fans the world over. As its name implies, the imprint dusts off the jaw-droppingly rich and diverse treasures of Africa’s happening ’70s, and its next sack of gold (coming in November) is a must-must: the second volume exploring Benin’s crazily prolific Orchestre Poly Rythmo de Cotonou. Don’t think of this as “just” some Afro-beat excursion — these cats absorbed and mastered every style of music that flashed across their viewscreen. Prime evidence is “Malin Kpon O,” a 1975 jam supreme that Analog Africa has been cool enough to share with us, with hot guitar licks and psychedelic organ bursts arranged around a killer Afro-funk rhythm. This magic could not have been made anywhere else in the world.
EXCLUSIVE NEW DOWNLOAD: Heather Woods Broderick - Old Son
This Heather Woods Broderick tune just opens up like a clearing. The Oregon-based singer has a sense for earthy minimalism, much like her brother Peter Broderick, who plays on and recorded From the Ground, his sister’s debut (out on the cool-rostered Australian label Preservation). “Old Son” starts off as a pretty but simple folk song, then adds vocal tracks, bells, strings and other stringed things, and soft handclaps. And now you’ve got something that’s still pretty and simple — there’s just a lot more of it. Good stuff for us pensive sensitive types.
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