EXCLUSIVE NEW DOWNLOAD: The Units - High Pressure Days (Headman Rework)
I don't remember exactly when I heard "High Pressure Days" for the first time but I remember being shocked to learn it was made at the end of the '70s rather than at the beginning of this century. Whether that says more about the pioneering sound The Units had going for them or the adeptness with which bands like The Rapture were able to rip them off, I don't know, but either way the song's a genuine post-punk classic, all (up)tight, trebled lead lines, barked vocals and fumbling, existential funk bass. This rework comes courtesy of Headman, the recording alias of Relish Recordings boss Robi Insinna, who offers up a fairly loyal take on the track, not wanting to mess with it too much, keeping things tight, if slightly more grounded by bass weight. Relish are re-releasing this plus the original on 12", while there's also a remix from Rory Phillips, who himself bathed in the post-punk revival around the century's beginning with a residency at late London club Trash. Come to think of it, the first place I heard this might well have been at Trash, so there you go - circularity.
Sounds Like: The Rapture, Talking Heads, Late of the Pier's "Bathroom Gurgle"
DOWNLOAD: Nisennenmondai - Destination Tokyo
(Photo: Kim Hiorthoy)
Destination Tokyo, the new, recorded-in-one-take album from Japanese post-punk trio Nisennenmondai hits stores on August 4th through Smalltown Supersound. The extendedly jamming title track is below, a nine-minute expanse of repeating notes and beats–bird calls, plane sounds, and single coil guitar noodling also appear sporadically–that is nothing if not hypnotizing.
Sounds like: Yura Yura Teikoku, ESG, Sonic Youth
Nisennenmondai - Destination Tokyo
Previously:
DOWNLOAD: Johnny Foreigner - Feels Like Summer
If Johnny Foreigner know anything it's how to get people excited. As in grin-struggling-to-escape-face, covered-in-a-stranger's-sweat excited. Here, the Birmingham three-piece combine that know-how with the onset of summer and things go nuclear - because, let's face it, there is nothing as exciting as being able to walk to the off-licence in just a T-shirt for the first time. Feel the heat in guitars that fizz like beer cans shaken and left in the sun too long and a sudden explosion of delirious gang chants. Johnny Foreigner's as-yet-untitled second album will be released sometime later this year. Let's hope it's in time to catch a tan.
Sounds Like: early At The Drive-In, Los Campesinos, Blink 182
EXCLUSIVE NEW DOWNLOAD: AA - Suicide Fever
The short-lived Belgian band AA played only five shows, recorded twice–once as their first rehearsal, once in a proper studio for only four hours–and would probably have been forgotten had the upstart Brooklyn label Softspot Music not decided to reissue their one and only record. The Essential Entertainment EP initially existed in 1981 as 900 seven-inches on "Sexy Robot Records," or more truthfully, the then-super-young band's made-up label. Its four songs were among the five or so the band wrote, including "Suicide Fever," the languishing piece of post-punk you can download below. A more detailed–and humorous!–bio is available at their artist page, just don't sleep on this one. A definite gem.
Sounds like: The Bush Tetras, The Fall, Liquid Liquid
DOWNLOAD: Patten - Version (Test Mix) + Grey Gold (Test Mix)
Posted at the band's MySpace page last week, Patten's new tracks are pure, post-generic finery. Most propulsive is the early mix of "Version", a sullen-eyed surge through the disco-not-disco of Liquid Liquid, the ferrous post-punk of This Heat and the type of overloaded, industrial drum-machinery you'd expect to find clattering and staggering from behind the bouncers guarding the best clubs in east London (Reeperbahn, stand up). "Grey Gold" is calmer, recalling the probing, ambient gestures of fellow Londoner Arch M, but both tracks thrill in their progression from last album There Were Horizons (available here), a record whose artwork seemed shot from a spyplane to map with cartographical rigour the alien terrain the trio's music now stalks. Get in early on this - both have been tagged as 'Test Mixes', and RCRD LBL eagerly awaits GLAQJO XAACSSO, Patten's next planned release.
Sounds Like: Liquid Liquid, This Heat, Arch M
EXCLUSIVE NEW DOWNLOAD: Maximo Park - Let's Get Clinical
Say what you like about Maximo Park and their strange taste in hats - what's proven is their capacity to craft interesting guitar-pop songs. Set to return with third album Quicken The Heart next month, the Novocastrian quintet decided to extend their remit this time around, looking to incoporate "strange noises" into the push and pull of the mix. So, "Let's Get Clinical" boasts an 808 fed through a guitar amp, Ibizan synth pangs and singer Paul Smith trapped in what sounds like an art-metal breakdown about two thirds of the way in. Chastening stuff. As usual, Smith's lovelorn lyrics tend towards the perverse, ("last night's dirty lips were wrapped around that glass / creeping past your flat next door, the empty bottles on the floor") but any raised eyebrows are calmed by the "oohs" and "aahs" of his band's backing vocals, the dutiful burble of guitars and sedated synths housing the singer's meticulous lust like a padded cell.
Sounds Like: Field Music, Dexy's Midnight Runners, XTC
Maximo Park - Let's Get Clinical
Previously:
EXCLUSIVE NEW DOWNLOAD: Cold Pumas - Proof Of Man + Jela
Cold Pumas' "Jela" starts at a tempo of 192bpm. It's difficult to see how you go anywhere other than on from that point and, as ears anticipate, the track hurtles along irresistibly, wave after wave of guitar rush and oddball drumming harnessed to the extent that things start to move so fast they appear to slow down. Furtive vocals sense an opportunity and start to float up out of the scrap, dodging the traffic of guitar treble. The whole thing hums with an awesome, jubilant chaos, the textures of This Heat extended once more and banged into new purpose like crudely recycled sheet metal. The tracks they've produced with former Test Icicle Rory Bratwell (now of KASMS) will find their way out through a pair of releases - a 12" with Brighton label 13 Monsters and a split with the excellent and kindred Male Bonding. Suck it up, chumps.
Sounds Like: Abe Vigoda, Ponytail, ...Trail of Dead
DOWNLOAD: The Hundred In The Hands - Undressed In Dresden (Jacques Renault Remix)
(Photo: Sarah Wilmer)
We posted the video for this track last year some time, but we keep returning to it like hungry dogs. So, here now as a full download, Jacques Renault's take on The Hundred In The Hands' "Dressed In Dresden". The first thing Renault changes is the title and, newly "Undressed...", the music follows, apparently enraptured by the sultry throat of vocalist Eleanore Everdell, who becomes a diva beside the stripped down bomp n' clack of a bassline that manages to recall the throb of DFA disco, Talking Heads' "Psycho Killer" and Roxy Music's "Love Is The Drug", which is faintly ridiculous for something so spare. Blasts of horn herald THITH's new found sex, sleazily fading away from the initial burst like a post-cum pull-out; but "Undressed In Dresden" is something more cooly sustained, a tense mosey through the parts of town you'll find bathed in red light.
Sounds Like: DFA disco, Yeah Yeah Yeahs, Antibalas
The Hundred In The Hands - Undressed In Dresden (Jacques Renault Remix)
EXCLUSIVE NEW DOWNLOAD: Dananananaykroyd - Chrome Rainbow (Album Sessions Version)
You're unlikely to find a more exuberant band than Glaswegian 'fight-pop' sextet Dananananaykroyd. Granted, their name is terrible, but once you've got it down (there are four 'n's, two 'y's) it's a perfect match for lunatic guitar workouts that burst songs at the seam, vocal hups 'n yelps adding to the sense of bright-eyed delirium. Another version of "Chrome Rainbow" occupied the b-side of last year's stunning "Pink Sabbath", which was named single of the week by the likes of NME and Artrocker upon release, but this version was recorded while the group were in the studio committing their debut album to tape. Hey Everyone! will arrive on April 6th through Best Before Records - it's a miracle, frankly, that they've managed to restrain themselves for that long.
Sounds Like: Johnny Foreigner, Shitdisco, Blood Brothers
Dananananaykroyd - Chrome Rainbow
Dananananaykroyd's RCRD LBL Page
Dananananaykroyd's Austin Schedule:
3/18 - ASCAP @ Dirty Dog Bar (11.30pm)
3/18 - British Party @ Latitude 30
3/19 - Relentless Day Party @ Dirty Dog Bar
3/20 - Scottish Arts Council @ La Zona Rosa (5.30pm)
EXCLUSIVE NEW DOWNLOAD: Tempo No Tempo - Line Drawing + Two More
(Photo: Jonathan Hung)
Tempo No Tempo began kicking around the Berkeley scene after they all met there in college. Since then, they've ostensibly graduated, played sweaty house show after sweaty house show, and adapted their sound to fit some of the more rhythm-oriented tastes they've developed. The beast remains hard to pin down, though the brittle, cold funk of mid-era Fugazi is as great a place as any to start. "Medicine" is mostly heaving rhythm and cascading bass, little Telecaster larva wiggling through the holes for some added bite. "Line Drawing" is much more delicate, as quietly tapped toms and a repetitive bass figure make space for a really great, Q And Not U-ish vocal melody. Of course, the tunes speak loads more than I can in a few sentences, so I'll just mention TNT are playing Noise Pop on Friday in San Fran and SXSW in March and call it a day. More info over at the MySpace.
Sounds like: Mi Ami, Pterodactyl, Ponytail
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