I just got back from a weekend in Quebec for the M pour Montreal festival. Three days, 21 bands and a lot of Boreale beer (cause I figured out how to order it en francaise). In the coming days I'll be tell you about some of the best of Montreal - from bands of many to bands of few. Bands with keytars and bands, like today's We Are Wolves, who got on stage wearing huge tribal looking masks covered in pyramid triangles strapped to their backs, effectively doubling their size.
We Are Wolves similarly stood in a triangle - a standing drummer flanked by a bass/guitarist and a keyboards/beatboxer. With all the detached cool of the Faint and the much-missed howl of Death From Above 1979, these 3 Montrealers use their instruments as weapons. On "Fight & Kiss" the riff is so driving and sexy they dare you to keep your hands to yourself. "Magique" is a metallic throb through an incomprehensible vocoder and "Coconut Night" is a song made for trouble. All the more intriguing, We Are Wolves puts out record with Oxford, Mississippi's Fat Possum. Grab these songs and try not to get arrested, it makes customs much more difficult.
Sounds like: The Faint, Death From Above 1979, Kraftwerk, Lemonade, Anavan
Man, auxiliary percussion is the best. All "More Cowbell" T-shirts aside, doesn't a righteous tambourine or enthusiastic handclaps just make your pop music day? Friendly Foes know all about that shit, and they know how to make your pop music day. With Ryan Allen from Thunderbirds Are Now! working main vocals and "yeah yeah yeah" backing vocal fist pumps form Liz Whittman, this is a band that loves choruses and tambos and propulsion and Elvis Costello and Superchunk. Speaking of which - there was a Superchunk T-shirt in the day that had an Scooby-Doo style van with the arm of a dude throwing horns out the window. Simple, to the point and full of power - kind of like Friendly Foes' first full length Born Radical on Gangplank. These guys get "it," so if you want "it," grab "Get Yr Shit Together."
Sounds Like: Guided By Voices, Spoon, Superchunk, Thunderbirds Are Now!
Leave it to the weirdo mecca of San Francisco to produce a smart psych rock band in Maus Haus that practices the biggest rock perversion of them all - complete lack of guitars. Hailing from the Bay Area, Maus Haus combine a paranoid insomniac vibe with playful pop lines and cleverly cinematic lyrics that make them out to be the bastard child of Kraftwerk hanging with Captain Beefheart that would obviously have a video starring Simon Le Bon and the boys. That is an admittedly nutso sentence, but it's hard to pinpoint exactly what Maus Haus is - other than totally rad. RCRD LBL offers up "Reactions" and "Rigid Breakfast" - 2 cuts from their new album Lark Marvels.
Sounds Like: Silver Apples, White Noise, Black Moth Super Rainbow, Dexy's Midnight Runners
Download: Maus Haus - Reaction
Download: Maus Haus - Rigid Breakfast
Maus Haus' RCRD LBL page
Icy Canadian spacerockers Faunt throw their hat in the remixed and re-interpreted album ring with Faunts Remixed, out today. The sparse, clever, cinematic dream-scapes of Faunt's original tunes go through a wide array of treatments, from the indie-tinged to dancefloor bangers and abstract electro acoustic dreamy numbers to expansive and clever re-inventions. Grab T.H. White's remix of "Memories of Places We've Never Been" and, exclusively at RCRD LBL, The Paronomasiac (Nik from Shout Out Out Out Out)'s remix of "M4 (Part II)." Faunt Remixed is a record that can live just as comfortably in your headphones as it does as the "hey! what is this?!" soundtrack to a party.
Sounds Like: Secret Machines, Radiohead, Underworld, Cadence Weapon
Download: Faunts - M4 (Part II) (The Paronomasiac Remix)
Download: Faunts - Memories of Places We've Never Been (T.H. White Remix)
Faunts' RCRD LBL page
Welcome to the final installment from Sneakmove Minicomp. For the lowdown on what's come before and all the info on the project, listen to the 60 second wonders from Volume 1 and Volume 2. In Volume 3, we've got a whole new batch of brilliant brevity curated with care by none other than Bomarr of Restiform Bodies. Listen to delicate static from Shayne Keator, indie Rhodes piano crooning from Back Ted N-Ted, thick electronic manipulation from Principles of Geometry, seductive rainbow cooing from Coppe, Brit-tinged kooky acoustic folk from Tunng, chugging big-band deception from Otis Fodder, video-game blippery from Copy, dirty spunky electro from Lord Grunge and Superargo rounding out the comp with bleeps, wheerps, heys! and breakneck pinball turn-arounds. Grab all 3 comps for a solid 30 minutes of 29 schizo tunes, proudly presented by Sneakmove and RCRD LBL.
Sounds Like: Meanest Man Contest, Restiform Bodies, Tunng, Bonde Do Role
Minicomp's RCRD LBL page
Previous Downloads:
Sneakmove Minicomp 1
Sneakmove Minicomp 2
I suppose it's real easy to write off 5 Swedish girls just out of high school making sugary sweet pop music, but if you did you'd be missing out on some of the kitchiest fun this side of the Pixies Three. The combination of Northern Soul, girl group innocence with the powerful vocals of those soulful white girls out of the UK come together in a three and a half minute burst of tears tinged hopeful pop perfection on "Hitten," - translation "the hit" in Swedish. Sugar never sounded so good.
Sounds Like: The Pixies Three, The Ettes, Johnny Boy, the Okmoniks, Adele
Download: Those Dancing Days - Hitten
Those Dancing Days' RCRD LBL Page
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Anavan might just as well have titled Cover Story, out today on Slanty Shanty, There's a Party in my Pants - Not Everyone's Invited but Everyone's Definitely Coming. Featuring slippery synths, blush inducing bass lines, sinister build ups and explosive climaxes, Anavan have crafted an essentially LA party record. "Queen" sounds like Jay Reatard fronting Justice, "The Perfect Sound" makes your brain feel like snorting pixie sticks in the 8th grade, "Take It Back" is the soundtrack to a dirty aerobic video from 2011 and "Off To A Fighting Start," is gives Sweet a run for it's synth grandeur, but is cool and less homoerotic and more everyonerotic. Coming from the fertile ground of LA's The Smell, these three kids have a mad robotic noise all their own and should come with a warning: Anavan is highly addictive.
Sounds Like: The Tings Tings, HEALTH, Lightning Bolt
Download: Anavan - Queen
Anavan's RCRD LBL page
Previous Downloads:
Download: Anavan - The Perfect Sound
Download: Anavan - Traumatology
Download: Anavan - BOOM
Think Danzig fronting the Allman Brothers Band. Or ZZ Top joining forces with John Lee Hooker. It may sound as improbable as Run DMC walking this way with Aerosmith, but Night Horse combine the blues sludge, the perfectly snarling howl, the dueling guitars and the thundering drums of those unrepentant rockers and add a sinister swagger all their own. If psychedelic blues rock metal was a genre, the band that would pop up on AllMusic would be Night Horse. These five dudes are creating such epic stompers on The Night Won't Hide You that it takes just 7 songs in 37 minutes to make you want to steal a hot rod, grab a pin-up by the waist and make some serious trouble.
Sounds Like: Burning Brides, Priestess, Ancestors, Buffalo Killers
Download: Night Horse - Don't Need Your Lovin'
Download: Night Horse - Wicked Love
Night Horse's RCRD LBL page
