EXCLUSIVE NEW DOWNLOAD: Wetdog - Tidy Up Your Bedroom
Wetdog ain't gonna win any awards for cleanliness. "Tidy Up Your Bedroom" is as sloppy and bedraggled a jam as the nomenclature here would suggest, all hungover guitars like pin-pain-in-the-brain and vocals casually asking, "Is this pop enough, darling?" somewhere in the background. It's a dirty, dirty mess. Aren't all your favourite bands that way, though?
Sounds Like: The Raincoats, The Sticks, (earlier) Abe Vigoda
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DOWNLOAD: Pylon - Beep
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Because just reissuing a criminally overlooked band's debut isn't enough, DFA are now going the distance and re-releasing the second Pylon LP, Chomp. That is something we might use the word "kudos" for. "Beep," like all great Pylon songs (there are many) is incisive and headspinning, an obviously fundamental part of Thee Indie Rock DNA. Seriously, tell us Karen O does not regularly emulate the way Vanessa Briscoe Hay yells "five minutes!" in this song.
EXCLUSIVE NEW DOWNLOAD: Former Ghosts - Mother
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(Photo: Jeff R. Williams)
Former Ghosts offer a particularly cool adaptation of ’80s-born DNA, a remixture of the elegant Gothicisms that defined the early years of labels like 4AD, Mute and Factory: spectral, electronic, haunted and haunting. “Mother” is from Fleurs, the debut album from the dark-star trio of Freddy Ruppert (This Song Is a Mess but So Am I), Jamie Stewart (Xiu Xiu) and Nika Roza (Zola Jesus), and it’s got so much restrained emotion that the air around it seems to quiver. Fleurs comes out October 20 but the band’s tour starts tonight in Phoenix (full dates after the break). The bad news is that Roza won’t be on this tour due to her studies, as she explains here. The good news is that Freddy and Jamie will.
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EXCLUSIVE NEW DOWNLOAD: Dave I.D. - X–F
Dave I.D.'s music lives in dark places. I know this because I used to live with him and we always kept the lights off in our house to save money on the electricity bill. Dave would spend most of his time in his bedroom with the door closed and the rest of us would stumble past hearing these insane fucking sounds, not knowing if he was making music that took influence from This Heat as much as it did dancehall or if he'd simply installed a factory in there. Well, I guess "X-F" makes it known, unrelenting barrages of drum THWACK cannoning through a fog of haunted-man vocals and synth swirl. It's awesome. What? Nepotism?! I was there a whole year and I never saw anyone from The Guardian, Dazed or Boomkat loitering in the hallway, though maybe if they had been I would have saved money on subscription and postage costs. A missed opp, methinks.
Sound Like: These New Puritans, Placebo, This Heat
DOWNLOAD: Tempo No Tempo - The Rat (Part One)
(Photo: Jonathan Hung)
We'd like to reiterate what we said about Berkeley's Tempo No Tempo when we first championed them back in February–mainly that they are a bunch of unassuming, wiry shredders with kineticism in droves. On October 20th the now-trio release a new, self-released LP, Waking Heat, which contains the songs we posted back then as well as this new one that we think sounds like an exploding box of Slinkys. Take that however you like.
Sounds like: Abe Vigoda, Q And Not U, White Denim
Tempo No Tempo - The Rat (Part One)
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EXCLUSIVE NEW DOWNLOAD: The Rakes - Bitchin' in The Kitchen
It’s been a while since music seemed wild, and The Rakes are the first to admit it’s hard out there for a post-punk/new-waver what with all the tweeting and nicotine patches. We’re apt to agree—how does anyone remain a badass these days? Us plebs don’t know how they manage to pull it off. Calling bullsh*t on the London music scene to run amok in Berlin in double breasted pea coats, smashing soundstages, and spewing off their thorny gang mentality seems to have figured into it. Keeping it fresh with bleach-spotted guitars and that patented blend of breezy hardcore could be the rest. Available as a UK import since March, The Rakes’ third LP Klang is coming to the digital masses on October 20th, courtesy of itunes.
Sounds like: Joy Division, The Libertines
The Rakes - Bitchin' In The Kitchen
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The Rakes - Binary Love (Loving Hands Remix)
EXCLUSIVE NEW DOWNLOAD: Electricity In Our Homes - Hooves
At one point you couldn't move in east London for young bands in black and kohl with monk bowlcuts and stern looks etched upon their tight jowels, but now lo-fi's come along and many of those young bands are slacking out in flannel, walking around declaring everything that meets the eye "rad". That rampant radism's yet to claim Electricity In Our Homes, though - even if their press photos hint at the possibility of a smile, their music remains unrelentingly stern; a post-punk racket that sounds like ESG if ESG were forever stressed out and listened to a lot of Talking Heads records. "Hooves" is taken from the band's new We Agree Completely EP, out through the admirable Parlour Records.
Sounds Like: These New Puritans, Liars, ESG
DOWNLOAD: Gang of Four - Glass (2009)
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It's fairly easy to pinpoint Gang of Four's influences - they've obviously taken some cues from Franz Ferdinand, Bloc Party, The Futureheads and every other band in the UK circa 2003, yet still manage to carve together a sound that's razor-sharp and original, somehow. It's kind of eerie. Anyway, check these young whelps as they slash and groove their way across the UK next month. I think they're gonna be what we in the know like to call "a pretty big deal".
Sounds Like: Devo, The Police, The Jam
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EXCLUSIVE NEW DOWNLOAD: Casy & Brian - SaxT2 + 2 More
Tweaked-out San Franciscan post-punk duo Casy & Brian make us wistful for bloody-mouthed scuffles and the f-it attitude long-gone from our fat, hammy fists. Was there a time when we were wiry, pissed, and stood for nothing? We’d like to think so. Casy & Brian actually do, which dually makes us glad and hurts our joints. We want to see this guys live, real bad. Tracks below hail from both their excellent LP Catbees and the first in the No Fiction 7” series out now.
Sounds like: Assorted Jelly Beans, Wavves, nihilism
Casy & Brian - House On Haunted Hill
DOWNLOAD: Noah and the Whale - Blue Skies (YACHT Remix)
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Noah and the Whale's new album is a pretty remarkable step forward, the slightly self-conscious twee of their debut replaced by orchestras and auditorium gravitas. You can always rely on Jona Bechtolt to lighten things up though and so it proves here, YACHT putting a spring in the whale's step, which is quite an achievement considering the heaviness of whales and the fact that they find it impossible to 'step', as such. You imagine whoever hooked this remix up did so fully aware of the 'Jona and the whale' gag trap it would set for people like me, so I'm going to side-step it and instead tell you about synths that spring over disco stomp and camp vocodered vocals and hope that's enough to entice you into swallowing this up.
Sounds Like: Depeche Mode, Scissor Sisters, Dan Deacon
Noah and the Whale - Blue Skies (Yacht Remix)
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