2011 Thus Far...

So here's a a quick break down of the stuff I've thought was super rad so far in 2011:

Arbouretum - The Gathering

Austra - Feel It Black

Bass Drum of Death - GB City

Cold Cave - Cherish The Light Years

Cough Cool - Cough Cool EP

D. Charles Speer & The Helix - Leaving The Commonwealth

Death Grips - Exmilitary Mixtape

Deap Sleep - Turn Me Off EP

Demdike Stare - Tryptych

Destroyer - Kaputt

Dum Dum Girls - He Gets Me High EP

Eternal Tapestry - Beyond the 4th Door

The Ex - Catch My Shoe

Explosions In The Sky - take care, take care, take care

Food Pyramid - III

Food Pyramid - New-Omni Directional Healing Techniques

Ford & Lopatin - Channel Pressure

Gang Gang Dance - Eye Contact

Iron & Wine - Kiss Each Other Clean

J. Mascis - Several Shades of Why

Jeremy Jay - Dream Diary

Kurt Vile - Smoke Ring for My Halo

Liturgy - Aesthetica

Low - C'mon

Martial Canterel - You Today

Mi Ami - Dolphins

Mike Watt - Hyphenated-Man

Milk Music - Beyond Living EP

The Mind Spiders - The Mind Spiders

Mock Duck - Alters of Radness EP

Moon Duo - Mazes

Omegas - Blasts of Lunacy

The Oscillation - Veils

Peaking Lights - 936

PJ Harvey - Let England Shake

Psychic Reality - Vibrant New Age

Rival Tribes - Tiger Paint EP

Sic Alps - Napa Asylum

Six Organs of Admittance - Asleep on the Floodplain

The Skull Defekts - Peer Amid

Sports Bar - Sports Bar EP

Sun Araw - Houston Abstros 7"

Teenage Panzerkorps - German Reggae

Thee Oh Cees - Castlemania

Times New Viking - Dancer Equired

Total Control - Pyre Island 7"

True Widow - As High As the Highest Heavens and from the Center to the Circumference of the Earth

The UFO Club / Night Beats - Split 10"

Useless Eaters - Daily Commute

The Weeknd - House of Balloons

Wet Hair - In Vogue Spirit

White Hills - H-p1

White Laces - White Laces EP

WIN WIN - WIN WIN

Woods - Sun And Shade

Various Artists - Deluxe Double Fold (Night-People Compilation)

A collection of artists associated with the Iowa City tape label. (Download)

Night-People is a small label out of Iowa City that has been one of the labels popularizing cassette tapes in recent years. Their tapes are often silk-screened, one-of-a-kind musical artifacts. This compilation pulls together 19 bands associated with the label, past/present/future. The music ranges from garage to shoegaze to minimal electronic to weirdo-experimental.

Of the bands on the comp., I've only heard of four of the artists previously: Dirty Beaches (recently hyped-up, but IMHO a bit overrated), Dan Melchoir und das Menace (quirky out-sider pop, this song "Pretty Torn Up" shows a real improvement to other stuff I've heard from him), Trailblazer ("Don't Need It Anyways" blissed-out/metorik beat, the more I hear from them, the more I like) and White Woods (f. Melbourne, AU. Velvet Underground/Galexie 500 homage. Last year's Bellplay cassette is the only release on this label that my poor ass actually purchased.* "Groundswell" is not only an excellent closing track on this comp. but is best song of the 19.)

Overall the compilation is very solid (the only song I didn't like was "Style Promotion" by Yves Son Ace). The artist that jumped out at me that I haven't heard before were: Crome Dome "CMA" (spooky, keyboard driven drone akin to Zola Jesus, also from Melbourne), Eklin "Polan" (f. The Netherlands. Spooky, vocal-heavy kraut-rock), and Lantern "Get Out Of My Mind" (f. Montreal**. This track kind of stood out. A super fun, upbeat proto-punk garage jam, reminded me of The Stooges/early-Germs).

Check out the compilation, there's a lot of great stuff here from a lot of relatively unknown artists that deserve a deeper following. Night-People Records is offering the comp. as a free download on their site. www.raccoo-oo-oon.org

*I picked this up at FEEDING TUBE RECORDS in Northapmton Massachusetts. They carry most of the Night-People releases, along with a tons of great records and tapes. If you're ever in the area, check it out. Plus you might be able to catch local resident Thurston Moore performing an impromptu solo show.

**What's up with Montreal? It seems like all the best punk that nobody seems to be doing is radiating out of the that cold city.

Similar: Velvet Underground, Galaxie 500, Animal Collective, The Stooges, Suicide, Zola Jesus

Rating: 8.0

Night-People Records

Released: Spring 2011

Bad Indians - Sounds from the Big Room

Lo-fi Psyche/Garage from Ann Arbor, MI.

This is a new cassette from Bad Indians a psyche-garage outfit from Michigan. They are offering the cassette via their Mediafire site so download it if you like psyche-rock or garage rock. Solid tunes here. The cassette is a bit all-over the place as an album. You can tell that the band is still honing their sound here.

In a way it's almost like there is two separate bands/influences going on. On one hand there's a hazy psyche-garage vibe which reminds me of very old Black Lips. The song "Where I'm Living" is the best one of these songs. The other style/sound that this band plays is a stripped down psychedelic style that reminds me a bit off Galaxie 500. I felt that this sound was a lot better. The songs "Baby Doll" and "I Can't" (which reminds me a lot "Walking With Jesus" by Spacemen 3) are great and are the best of this side of the band. They also have a spegetti-western-country vibe to some of the songs as well. Another distinctive feature is Bad Indians use of male/female vocals which I always think is a great idea for bands to incorporate (why is it that only crust-punk bands and Arcade Fire seem to get this?).

A solid release here. My complaint would be that the bands needs to tighten their sound up and figure out what they want to sound like. The psyche-garage thing seems like it's been done to death, but so has the Suicide worship recently (they do a great cover "Cheree", one of my favorite Suicide songs, btw.)

Similar: The Black Lips, Galaxie 500, Suicide, BJTM's Thank God For Mental Illness

Rating: 7.0

Self Released

February 19th, 2011

Sonny and the Sunsets - Hit After Hit

Fun and sunny (ha!) garage-pop from SF.

San Francisco really is the mecca of garage rock. More garage bands seem to come of that city than anywhere else. These bands range from gritty garage-punk like Thee Oh Sees (John Dywer is a "Sunset") to a more traditional AM radio sound like Sonny and the Sunsets. The later sound is typically cleaner-sounding, reverb-heavy and embraces lyrical themes that would not exactly upset your parents.

Now there are a lot of garage bands out there. What makes the genre so appealing is that the songs are simple, fun and easy to play. This also creates a whole slew of bands with little talent getting up there and having fun but not really writing any good songs (which is not such a bad thing).

Sonny Smith is a gifted song writer fortunately for us and does not suffer from this. The songs he has penned for this album are whole lot of fun and will really get you pumped for the summertime-funtimes ahead. The album has a good mix of the typical range of pop-songs that wouldn't be out of place in California in the 1960's (although they do have a modern edge to them). Highlights of the album are the opening track "She Plays YoYo With My Mind" which has a riff reminiscent to "Dirty Water" by The Standels. "Teen Age Thugs", another one of the "hits" is a dance-y number about war or soldiers or something.

I liked this album a lot, it's really fun and it's getting me psyched (ha!) for summer. Woo!

Similar: Thee Oh Sees, Jonathan Richman, Standells

Rating: 8.5

Fat Possum Records

Released: April 14th 2011

Mock Duck - Alters of Radness EP

Amazing-ly grungey punkrock.

Mock Duck is a two-piece outfit from L.A./Tokyo. I came across this in the blogospere. They have a punkrock vibe reminiscent of the late 80's/early 90's sound of the Pac NW. Mudhoney/Wipers really come to mind when I hear this. They also sound a bit like Boris' rock n' roll side (not so much the psyche side) which is obviously the Japanese connection.

This EP fucking rules. I'm really like it a lot. Download it for free from their Bandcamp page below. And may I say, more bands starting out should be putting their music out for free via Bandcamp. If you want to make some cash, release a cassette and sell it at your shows.

Similar: Boris, Mudhoney, Wipers

Rating: 9.5

Self-Released: April 1st 2011

Wizard Smoke - The Speed of Smoke

Blackened Stoner/Sludge/Doom with a dash of Psychedelic

Wizard Smoke (!) is a sludge band from Atlanta, which as we all know is a the unholiest mecca for this kind of shit. They describe their influences as "Satan, Weed and the Cosmos." In most cases I find band's self-descripitions kind of bunk, but these dudes got it spot-on. You can seriously hear all three influences here. Satan comes through the atmospheric black-metal style singing. The Weed had a big part in the writing of the droning, buzzing guitars and sludgy riffs (and the primo choice of band name). And the Cosmos had a hand letting the music get to whole new transcendental level, man...

This is some wicked shit. I love how the vocals are totally evil sounding and are paired with the wicked Sleep-style stoner metal. The opening track "Dead Wood" is a big highlight, as well as "Panama II" and "Witches Brew." One knock on the band is that although their sound is great, the overall songwriting and production could use some work as the album does drag in spots. This will surely develop if the band continues to keep it real.

Best thing is that they are offering the album for free on their website before it is released later this month so go and check it out and preorder the LP.

Download

Similar: Sleep, Black Sabbath, Zoroaster

Rating: 7.0

Self-Released

Release: April 30th, 2011

The Mountain Goats - All Eternals Deck

Folky-Emo, Starbucks/NPR music.

Let me say that when I first listened to this I was expecting something way more alt-country. But what I got, I immediately went "wtf is this emo shit?" I was not impressed. I was ready to fully rip this album a new asshole. BUT as a personal policy I like to give every album I review a full three listens, and on further review this album has a few redeeming songs.

I've never really listened to this band, but I remember they had an alt-country album some years ago when I was at a college radio station. I remember kind of liking it. This album sounds like nothing I remember and that was disappointing. The Mountain Goats are the moniker of some mid-90's lo-fi folk dude, who was prolific back in the day or something but I could care less now. The dude's voice is really whinny and annoying.

But after listening it a few times I really liked the opening track "All These Vampires" and "For Charles Bronson." The best song on the album, "Estate Sale Sign" is also the most upbeat and fun. That song is actually really awesome. But the rest of the album is boring music for white people with "creative" office jobs, a spouse, mortgage and a stupid golden retriever, who live in the expensive part of town with "unique" cafes and restaurants. Barf.

Similar: Wilco, Starbucks, NPR

Rating: 4.5

Merge Records

Released: March 29th, 2010

Listen to "Estate Sale Sign"