Faux Seattle Has Fallen

After taking in the jagged exorcism that is Brisbane band Clever's new track, it feels a jump to be launching into Fall Seattle, the eponymous debut record from the North Virginian quartet. Out through the excellent Faux Discx label (Sauna Youth, Monotony, Hookworms, Tense Men), it is a lucky dip of  the past, reappropriated in bedrooms, kitchens and basements, crystallising into a sonorous sojourn sparkling with jangle and noise, introversion and extroverted emulsions. There is a Deerhunter-meets-The Raincoats-meets-Grandaddy esoteric clarity to opener 'Carol'; a sundrenched meander through Lotus Plaza's back garden on 'Wanda Jackson'; a Yo La Tengo hopped-up malaise to 'Time'. 'New York' could be Ratcat trying their hand at Dinosaur Jr, a suitably fractious racket with cavernous space that still feels intimate amid the throat-tearing catharsis. The twang and meandering space of 'Boyhood' has me entranced - it is the central song, and the centrifugal force of the album, somehow slowing everything down but bringing it all into focus. The opening drums for 'Blau' is ominous before the onslaught, a shimmering menace not unlike the inimitable Women (which is why it is probably my favourite track here); 'Suburban Stain' is a guitar dream, off the books via the Books; the jumped up yet broody pop of 'Nothing You Can Hold On To' meanwhile sets it all free. 'Demon Son' takes us into black-spark shoegaze territory, albeit with bottom-of-the-well reverb sparseness in fits and bursts (another great song). Fall Seattle close up shop with 'Separation Anxiety', a mild, contemplative that burbles and percolates, a sepia-burnt daydream rumination on all that has come before. This is an incredibly strong record - there have been some Real Estate comparisons (which I can see in part), but despite my constant attraction to band signifiers above, the bowerbird genre splicing here makes the album a unique and highly rewardable listen. I really like this one - you should all grab Fall Seattle here.

Digging Up Stupid Stags

Amongst the first bands that I remember "discovering" at the start of this blog, LA five-piece StaG's debut album Rifle Meeker is one that I have found myself travelling back to, especially when one of its tracks (usually 'Whatapity' or 'Everything Is Plaster') cold-cocks me from out of the ether of the computer playlist. I thought it was a welcome diversion down the rabbit hole that Bradford Cox, Noah Lennox and Lockett Pundt have dug for themselves - read and listen here. Since then they disappeared off my radar for a bit, but the band have just released new EP Dig Up Stupid, a five song effort that has some pretty great elements in it, especially the excellent opener 'Even If It Hurts' (a song that plays on the frenetic guitar pop dismantlings of the likes of Krill, although not as roughshod and serrated - and is more anthemic). They are clearly more upbeat in their approach. It's always nice to be reminded of a small band that keep doing their thing, and the work ends up being this rewarding.

Kicking Goals, Son!

This has been a long time coming. I’ve been a fan of Boston band Soccer Mom since their inception back in 2010; they were the subject of one of the first ever Sonic Masala interviews (an element that has come in fits and bursts, but has included the likes of Civil Civic, Angie (Straight Arrows/Ruined Fortune/Circle Pit), White Walls, Batpiss and Alpine Decline amongst others); my write-ups find a small space in the nether regions of their press releases. And yes their moniker is incredibly misleading. But if you haven’t jumped rampantly on their bandwagon, no need to go back to the beginning. Simply dive headfirst into the distorted world of their debut self-titled album – it’s an exercise in calibrated tension, serrated guitar lines opened up to the sky, a series of noise and nuance that embodies what guitar rock should be.


Start with opener ‘It’s Probably Not Your Fault’ – my favourite track on the album, because it IS Soccer Mom. Crawling out of an aluminium bin with the requisite fast-approaching din, we enter the kind of loud-sedate territory that Archers Of Loaf made (make?) their own, creating a cacophony of fuzz and cymbals amidst the sonorous chorus, everything tempered with gazed-shoe precision (including the feedback-toying close). Its that sense of frivolity and earnestness tagteaming amongst the chaos that makes them such an enthralling listen. Elsewhere the is the swirling guitars and disembodied of vocals of ‘Orejas’; the glazed dreaminess of ‘No One Left’; the anguished stutter of (im)personality on ‘Dry Mind’; and the crowded instrumental interlude in the middle of ‘Hideaway Sands’ is the kinda things that coalesces into a vibrant catharsis of crossed strings and smashed slings that Deerhunter-via-Sonic Youth revel in. The brooding closer ‘Open Heart Surgery’ is more openly abrasive, still tempered by crooned insistence, but offering an expulsion that to be honest doesn’t even need to come - if you aren’t an acolyte by album’s end, why are you still here?

The band continue to connect, playing alongside the likes of Weekend, Whirr, Speedy Ortiz and Nothing, bands in particular that embody the yin and the yang of Soccer Mom’s aesthetic. I know there will be albums this year that will grab my attention harder and for longer, but this is such a solid opening gambit longplayer, especially having listened from the beginning, that it’s hard not to get rabidly excited. Well done guys. Soccer Mom is out now through 100m Records – you should definitely get this.

Blissing Out On The White Poppy

Cristal Dorval has been exploring the heady terrain of the aural narcotic drift for some time now, first as part of My Friend Wallis and now under the nom de plume of White Poppy. Her self-titled record, out now on Not Not Fun, is the closest yet she has reached to distilling the ephemeral gauzy dreamstates of her mind into a mesmeric worldview. Equal parts New Age-aping guitar-as-spaced-synth circling loops (something akin to Mark McGuire), early Deerhunter youthful stargaze, fallen angel anguish and exhausted elegies - White Poppy is a blissful slide into a kaleidoscopic realm that doesn't shimmer so much as explode, a sonorous opiate mainlined through the mind. Dorval threatens to drown in her own dazzling vortex, yet it is all a ploy - she is the master of her domain, a Machiavellian Syren drawing unassuming listeners into the abyss. White Poppy is darkness disguised as light, and vice versa - a cunningly ambiguous yet seductive wraith of an album.

Enough with the amorphous euphemisms. White Poppy is the real deal, a lysergic fever dream stuck between heaven and hell, and you need to get it now.

Frenchkissing Over A Dream Shake

Who is keen for a Dream Shake? The eponymous debut LP from the Virginia Beach duo came out this week on Frenchkiss Records, and it's an album that slides down easy, tastes great and give you the warm and fuzzies well after the wax stops spinning - even if it's a little sugary at times. Not unlike a Royal Copenhagen Ice Cream Toblerone thickshake. Man, I really could go one of those right about now...

The nine tracks here, made up of names of women from 80s and 90s television shows, are delivered with the slightest of hazy, sepia-tinged, fuzz cauldron echoes, a crunching sound that can start to leaven things out after a time. Still, it's undeniable that Dream Shake knows their way around a solid hook, and when you create early-Deerhunter gems like 'Samantha', you are onto a great thing. This is a fresh new take for the band (formerly called We Are Trees - the shift of name was a good call), and there is more than enough here to come back to - and hold high hopes for the future.

You can buy Dream Shake here.

Beijing's White (K)Nights

Tenzenmen have some more quality releases from China out, with White Night being one of the best. The four-piece from Beijing noise travellers Chui Wan (named after Daoist philosopher Zhuangzi’s “Qi Wu Lun”, a mystical work on the relationship between nature and human life - the spirit of Zhuangzi’s thought is reflected in the modern Chinese idiom “When the wind blows, every sound may be heard therein”), their debut LP is filled with that mantra - quite often a song's hook or melody becomes buried in ephemeral sound, exotic sonics, and abrasive noise. It's not hodgepodge instrumentation either; instead careful composition that provides this layering, and creates a voice that seems to echo out of the ether, a spirit with mischievous, irascible intent. 'Swimming' could be a languid pop song but for the tinnitus-level whine and woozy delay; 'Berber' resides in My Disco terrain, but with bubblings and sonic touchstones that psych frontiersmen like Hear Hums incorporate colouring in the gaps; 'Another Kind Of Love' has all the markings of Deerhunter; and eleven-minute closer 'Tomorrow Never Knows' feels like a cross-section of Boris, Clinic, The Black Angels and the theme tune to The Burbs. Suffice to say, I fucking love this record.

A strident statement of intent, White Night leaves nothing in the back pocket, and is all the better for it. You can get White Night here - it really is great.

Chui Wan - Another Kind Of Love 
Chui Wan - Tomorrow Never Knows

Hits From The Box #59 - Can't Sleep, ATP'll Eat Me

 

I've been having trouble sleeping lately. Partly to do with the fact that I'm recovering from surgery, true – but also because its less than a week before ATP in Melbourne. The playlist is a-comin, but to tee things off, I had a pretty high watermark moment last week. I got to interview Aidan Girt, he of Godspeed You! Black Emperor. The only print interview in Australia! I can’t claim that it was an easy interview, or even my best – but it was good enough that he extended the twenty minute interview by an extra twenty, laughed a lot, and really seemed to enjoy talking about Crass and Chuck D. So the excitement is palpable. Couple that with the anticipation of seeing said band at ATP (on top of soooooo many other top notch acts, not least of which are Swans and My Bloody Valentine), but also tomorrow night at the Tivoli – its too much! My lil ticker can barely take it – and my head surely cant. Ill try to calm down by seeing Thee Oh Sees on Thursday – who am I kidding? ITS GREAT TO BE ALIVE!

Ahem, but here are some other reasons that life is pretty sweet – it’s Hits From The Box time.

 

Let’s start with Earth Rod. I know very little about them, other than they feature members of Leicester sluggers Thee Ludds who I have featured in the past and am a big fan of (funnily enough it took their split with The Growlers for me to discover the latter band – and that was a special moment indeed – I still can’t get enough of their ‘Graveyard’s Full’ track). The trio have a few trashy tracks for perusal, and they are understandably fast paced, cacophonous and shambolic fun.

 

 

Not far away in Nottingham is the teenage trio Kagoule, whose Monarchy/Mudhole 7” comes out through Denizen Records at the end of the month. There is a lot of wild noise here, yet it is all reined in, a controlled anguish, shoegaze without the gazing at shoes; grunge without the flannelette; post-punk without the leering contempt and social commentary. Yet none of those omissions prove to be costly – this is a dreamy yet ominous form of rock that avoids being airy or self-important. It’s an impressive little record, with a lot of gravitas emanating from a band so young. Definitely keep an eye out for these guys – their debut record (out later this year) could be a sleeper gem. They also are launching the single in Nottingham on Saturday, with a Midlands romp over the rest of the month – check em out if you can.

 

 

Let’s change tack. Wry Climate are a guitar-driven indie rock band from New York that is more in line with the likes of Beach Fossils and Lotus Plaza, albeit more inclined for swirling feedback fades to fill in the gaps between understated contemplations. ‘Comfort Decay’ certainly fits that reference to Lockett Pundt’s solo endeavours, but there is an elongated sprawl here that evokes his “day” band Deerhunter, awash with colour and light as it soars above the sawing guitars. This is the first taste of an upcoming EP – jingle jangle.

Wry Climate – Comfort Decay

 

Hailing from Brooklyn, and mining similar territory, is quartet Lazyeyes. Their EP is out now, and whilst this isn’t as clean cut and relies on reverb too much (it’s an effect that is becoming too much of a fall back without adding enough to the equation), these four tracks hold indelible hooks. Again, that Beach Fossils connection could be made, or even early Dylan Baldi if the bubblegum had soured earlier, but he hadn’t discovered his 90s rock roots. Its moody and melodic, shimmering in the distance, a mirage within the concrete jungle.

 

 

Back to England now – the village of East Malling, to be exact. Its south-east of London, looks nice on Google Earth. Anyway, Tom Greenwood contacted me about these tracks he started playing with a couple of days before New Years Eve. On New Years day, whilst most were nursing headaches, heartbreaks or the toilet, he endeavoured to write an entire album. Ambitious – I was too busy watching Gremlins and drinking ale at a pub in Wimbledon next to a wet shaggy dog. There is a album in that too, probably…anyway, this is the first taste, ‘Give Up’. I hope he doesn’t take on his song title, because this is a warm and soaring track about persistence – it’s actually fairly life-affirming, in a finger-snapping, lysergic kinda way. it's got heart, and I’m won over, at any rate. I'm looking forward to the next instalment to this NY burst of creativity. (Seriously though – write a song about watching Gremlins and drinking ale in a pub in Wimbledon next to a wet shaggy dog).

 

 

And not far away, in Bristol, we have Joe Sherrin AKA Milo’s Planes. Sherrin drums in both Let’s Kill Janice and Me, You & Thomas (both bands being on the Howling Owl Records roster), so he is a dab hand in the local scene. Milo’s Planes has been the name for his solo material, but this time around he has fleshed it out some. In the past year alone he has written an album and 4 EPs worth of material. This is his latest set of demo offerings, initially only intended for Sherrin’s girlfriend before she convinced him to show the world. It’s all recorded into one microphone in his brother’s room, hence the overriding ride cymbal – yet it all complements each other. There is a laconic griminess to these recordings that fit in well with Sherrin’s songwriting, a mixture of DC garage punk and indie off-kilter melody – think of a more dissonant Superchunk or Black Lips doing Pavement covers. I really like this stuff – it’s the ground zero of something that could be quite productive. Hey, I really didn’t like Yuck when they first came out and they turned out pretty good – this has similarities, yet I'm already a fan. Can’t go wrong there.



Happy Tuesday!

I'll Only Get Fresh On This Long Slow Dance

I've mentioned in the past that it took me seeing San Franciscans The Fresh & Onlys live (supporting Deerhunter no less) for me to truly appreciate what they did, as on record I couldn't get past the poppiness of their tracks - it all felt staid to me. I've since become a convert. This year could see me become a zealot though. What with great solo records from Tim Cohen and Wymond Miles, and now their impending LP Long Slow Dance (out September 4 through Mexican Summer), the quartet are doing all they can to "rectify" their past undoings (this last comment is aimed squarely at me, folks, before I get the backlash and death threats - although is any F&O fan straight enough to get that wound up? I know that I'm not...) The album physically looks beautiful, and if the two singles that have been released (which you can get as 7"s) the album will be the aural equivalent.


See what I mean about the beauty of the package? Get in fast and grab any/all of these releases here, here and here.

VIDEO VACUUM - Lower Dens, JEFF The Brotherhood, OFF!, Slug Guts

It's been a while since we had some visual spirituals, but now I have a plethora of tracks that blow the casbah sky high, so let's give work the forks and watch them together like old times, yeah?

First up is another recording from those amazing cats over at They Shoot Music, Don't They? This time the aural offender is Lower Dens, chilling out in Barcelona after some down time from the Primavera Sound Festival back in May, playing some semi-acoustic toons in a square...with a friend in support(I TOLD you there was a Deerhunter connection today!) The two tracks here are 'Candy' and 'Nova Anthem', and it is, as is to be expected, pretty darn amazing.





It's great to hear that garage-trippers Jeff the Brotherhood are winging their way down to Australia in January (even if it is for the Big Day Out - sigh...), and they will be raring to rip into their new material off Hypnotic Nights. I heard someone at Splendour In The Grass on the weekend say that the album sounded like Weezer "or something like that where I'd enjoy it as a teenager but not give a shit when I grew up." Hmmm... Not sure what kind of a comment that is. Anyway, 'Sixpack' is slick and a lot of raucous fun. And yes, this track sounds a LOT like Weezer - even more than usual.



OFF! kicked off a triptych of video clips with the board spinning meltdown of 'Cracked', and now here are the final two-thirds of this "opus". Both starring Dave Foley (Kids In The Hall), the songs are 'Borrow & Bomb' and 'I Got News For You', and the clips encapsulate dodgy community television so well that I cannot believe that Teen Talk isn't the real deal (the look on Foley's face at 2:00 is priceless).



Finally we have the claustrophobic band clip for 'Scum', Brissie degenerates Slug Guts' single from their new Sacred Bones-endorsed LP, Playin' In Time With The Deadbeat. It's a typically Slug Guts song really, which means it is pretty damn fine. They may not reach the heights of the Aussie reprobates that they idolise, namely Venom P Stinger and Feedtime, but they give it a red hot shake, their feverish dirge never sounding more genuine.



NOW GET BACK TO WORK!

Hollowing Out The Stars To The Other Side

This EP has been around for donkeys' years (well, March), but seeing as I have a Deerhunter-related post coming up later in the day, I thought I'd air this one out too.

Ex-Deerhunter Colin Mee (possibly still a deer hunter though, I never asked him) formed what would become Hollow Stars four years go as a side-project from his main band. It's since spiralled out into a mutant mass of psychedelia drenched in goth New Wave, surf rock and interstellar travel, most notably in their latest EP Neshama. Seriously, this is some strange stuff, yet strangely alluring. The way it shifts around, Mee's vocals wavering through the mix like an otherworldly Lou Reed or Matt Berninger, you can't help you are listening to music that has slipped through a crack in the fabric of space, that only those from a parallel world were intended to hear. And an aside, Mee is still keeping in with his old buddies, as Hollow Stars just completed a tour with Lotus Plaza, Lockett Pundt's ace side project.


Neshama is out through Coco Art, you can snap it up here.

Hollow Stars - Eastern Sky
Hollow Stars - The Other Side

Pastoral Pastiche Pop Amongst The Nomadic Firs

The solo warped outpourings of Tennessee's Ryan Boos, Nomadic Firs' self-titled record is something of a anomaly in that it had been gestating for six years, is a pastiche of colours and ideas that have coalesced into finite songs, and yet is cohesive much farther beyond what is thought possible from such an amalgam of sounds and grooves. Reminiscent of the breakout hazy debut album by Unknown Mortal Orchestra (especially on 'Vines'). There is a rustic underbelly to these jams that echoes from Boos' rustic life (he owns a petite farm with his wife), and it is these pastoral colourings that infuse Nomadic Firs with a sense of elegiac beauty. That sense of being at one with nature is akin to some of the randomness that comes of the Inner Islands label, except Boos is much more of a pop song traditionalist. The experimentalism even evokes Deerhunter ('In The Morning') or the Beta Band ('Cover Bombs') at times, but above all this is an album that rewards in myriad ways, often all at once.


You can grab Nomadic Firs in cassette form (with it's own knitted holder!) from Crash Symbols here. Well worth it my friends.

Nomadic Firs - Vines
Nomadic Firs - In The Morning
Nomadic Firs - Cover Bombs

Lotus Plaza Grows Outward At A Distance

There isn't much that comes out of the Deerhunter collective's stable that I am not a fan of, and whilst it's Bradford Cox's antics that gain most of the attention, the rest aren't laying idle either. Guitarist Lockett Pundt's output as Lotus Plaza is nothing to be sneezed at, and on latest LP Spooky Action At A Distance he truly comes into his own.

Sure, tracks such as 'Strangers' don't stray too far from the DH format of shimmering sunny psych shoegaze (hope you can pronounce your s's - that phrase is a spit-sprayer...). It showcases a number of things, not least how integral Pundt is to Deerhunter's writing process, and how on this album he has stepped up into the sunlight, discarding the ambient netherworld for a front-line assault on glorious guitar pop swathed in warmth. What's more, Spooky Action At A Distance is an album with a spectral magic built into its mainframe, for every time I have listened to this record (and I have listened a lot), a new track takes precedence over all others. Whether it be the glossy ambling of 'Strangers', the ascendant glory of 'Out Of Touch', the sparse folk gravitas of 'Dusty Rhodes', the bliss out shoegaze of 'Monoliths', the harmonious, uplifting 'White Galactic One' - seriously, each track holds its own emotions and memories, real or imagined. It is this sense of a musical equivalent of fireflies in a jar that this album evokes - there is a glow in between the spaces of these compositions, and when Pundt opens them up, the light envelops you whole.


True, this is a glowing review (pun semi-intended) - but it is well worth it. Spooky Action At A Distance (out on Kranky) can be bought here - don't be surprised if this becomes an underground hit for years to come.

Lotus Plaza - Strangers
Lotus Plaza - Out Of Touch

Predicting Another Bloody Success In The Surf

West Beach, Florida's Surfer Blood had a stellar 2010, what with their massive debut LP Astro Coast making them the new Weezer (IE when Weezer was good) and side projects such as the Jesus Lizard-heavy Weird Wives kicked some serious arse. Well they are hitting back out into new territory this month on their new EP Tarot Classics (on Kanine Records) In some ways its more of the same, esp[especially on the catchy opener 'I'm Not Ready'. However 'Miranda' is a catchy Elvis Costello meets - you guessed it - Weezer blast, whilst end-track 'Drinking Problem' is a fantastic sidestep, a bit of Deerhunter/Atlas Sound/Lotus Plaza styled airiness pervading throughout. They are great songwriters, and vocalist John Paul Pitts' voice is as clear and enervating as ever. Ive been bagged out by my interest in this band in the past, but seriously, there is something about Surfer Blood which is like drinking an ice cold beer after spending an hour mowing the lawn in summer's mid-afternoon haze. A truly enjoyable yet refreshing experience.

Surfer Blood have picked up the support slot for the run of Stateside Pixies shows - very nice! If you can, make sure you get tickets for that. For the rest of you, bide your time - rumours afoot that the touring bug continues to bite...

Surfer Blood - Voyager Reprise
Surfer Blood - Miranda

EXCLUSIVE ALBUM STREAM - Icarus Himself Gets His Cultural Career On

Well, it is a week of firsts here for Sonic Masala, starting with this, our first ever WORLD EXCLUSIVE (I think, at least our day starts before most other bloggerinos so we should get first dibs!) I was getting ready to post about Wisconsin psych-folksters Icarus Himself and their sophomore longplayer Career Culture. Its an ace album full of delectable twists and turns, and I feel a real find for the tail end of the year (influences include Kurt Vile, Deerhunter, The Who and David Bowie - nice!). As I said, I was going to post about it - but then I got permission to stream the sucker in its entirety! The album isnt out until October 11 (through Science Of Sound Records), but on this glorious day you can have at it for the next 24hrs! So enjoy peeps, then head here and pre-order it!

You're welcome.

Career Culture by Icarus Himself

And if that aint enough - here is their very cool video for 'On Your Side'! Im the gift that keeps on giving!!!

Shooting Seagulls With Little Deadman

Formed in early 2009 in San Diego, Little Deadman is Spencer Rabin, Anthony Levas, Brian Dall, and Tyson Wirtzfeld. Sure, their tracks have the inevitable reverb and echo soakings, and there are elements of California calm, confidence and cool floating throughout. There's the resurgent embrace of 60s guitar music, as most evidence with the whimsical 'The Lunatic'. There are even elements of the musical magpie Bradford Cox in some of the musical stylings. All of these things I enjoy. But as a stand alone release, their new EP Shooting Seagulls is solid in its own right, especially the title track which is also available as a 7" via Single Screen Records. There's promise of a full length debut early next year. Ill be keeping an eye on these guys...

Little Deadman - Shooting Seagulls

A Wind Shear Down Waskerley Way

Ive just been spending the past day and a half, solely listening to the title track off Waskerley Way's new EP, Wind Shear. In my humble opinion, this is the best thing he has put to tape to date, hands down. Its 9 minutes and drifts along at a sunny, laidback pace, before opening up in the back quarter with soaring guitars - I was not expecting something with such an epic, all-encompassing sound! There are Deerhunter/Bradford Cox vibes here, which of course appeals to me straight away, yet everything is in its right place on this track. If there was any doubt that this guy was the goods, this should put your minds at ease.

Pick up the EP from his Bandcamp here.

Waskerley Way - Wind Shear

StaG Meekly Floats Past The Rifle

This week you will see a few albums that I've received from small bands over the last month and, although its taken me forever to get to them, they are ace. First one of the shelf is Rifle Meeker, the debut album from Los Angeles-via-Boulder, Colorado band StaG. StaG. It shimmers with so many Panda Bear references it would be overpowering, if Panda Bear wasn't one of the greatest solo artists out there at the moment. And the thing is, it transcends the comparison (if not Panda Bear himself) with the production values. The summery haze that permeates this dream-like existential drifter is so clear and beautiful that it is incredibly easy to find yourself lost in the sound, having inexplicably strayed from the path, and never wanting to find you way back to the real world. What's even more impressive is that this cacophonous beauty has been carved out by two guys who sound like a cross between Lockett Pundtt and Noah Lennox - if that doesn't make you weak at the knees, you aren't a sonic romantic...) And also the auxiliary percussion in tracks like 'Everyone Is Plaster' is warranted, not superfluous, and helps to buoy the soaring vocals. A very effective debut, and one I hope kicks StaG into the outer consciousnesses of all of you...

In their words, Rifle Meeker is about "living in a city I didn't think was right for me. It's about missing California and feeling like I was stuck along the seventeen-hour drive between Boulder and Calabasas, CA, constantly seeing road signs for places like Rifle, CO and Meeker, CO. It's also about going through a few months of constant panic attacks about issues that were way over my head. I think overall, though, it's an album about accepting that life in my early 20s comes with a lot of transitions and that relying on the constants in my life, that I care about, will make things a bit more manageable." Lofty? Maybe, but easily achieved.

Rifle Meeker is available at their Bandcamp here.

StaG - Whatapity
StaG - Everything Is Plaster

Those Black Lips Have No Bloody Direction

Its been a fast-rising love affair between Atlantan garage punks Black Lips and me. And it seemed doomed for failure when I found out that Mark Ronson was producing their new album, Arabia Mountain. Mark 'Lily Allen' Ronson? Mark 'Im responsible for Amy Winehouse' Ronson? Mark 'my sister has Lindsey Lohan's pubes stuck in her teeth' Ronson? I turned up on the doorstep in tears, ready to throw their chocolates and flowers in their face and deem them bastards and arseholes and that I never wanted to see them again. But they took me into their arms, dried my tears, assured me that Ronson's involvement was purely platonic, he didn't fuck anything up, and that Deerhunter's Lockett Pundtt was always on hand when need. Finally they played me some tracks off it, including this new one 'New Direction' - and the waterworks stopped. I apologised profusely. We got wasted and revelled in each other's company once more. Now Im just waiting for the rock...


Arabia Mountain is out on Tuesday through Vice Records.

Black Lips - New Direction

The Elusive Lushness Of Banjo Or Freakout

Im not sure what made me ignore Banjo Or Freakout for as long as I have. It certainly wasnt a conscious decision - there was even a couple gigs where I spotted the name and thought "I should really check that guy out" - but never did. But then I inadvertently heard '105', the opening track off the Italian-born Londoner's self-titled debut (his real name is Alessio Natalizia). I think it was on Stereogum? Anyway, I heard it, and was sucked in by the warmth and sweetness to it. Sparse beats give the song a lilting feel, with guitars filling out the rest of the rhythm pattern and soft, faraway vocals. The album follows in a similar vein - an ambient pop album. There are influences smattered throughout - Deerhunter, Electric Light Parade, Radiohead, doo wop - and some of the tracks could do with some tightening. But I dunno - this really resonates with me, especially after several concerted listenings. I know in the past month Ive spoken about drone and psych albums being a full album experience - well, Banjo Or Freakout is a full album experience. But this is much more accessible - beautiful atmospherics, textured melodies, and Natalizia's gushy vocals, an understudy to Bradford Cox. This is a lushly created album, with some classic songs. Just don the headphones and drift away, the slimmest of smiles on your face, and you will find yourself considerably indulged.

Banjo Or Freakout is out now. You may have missed him in London earlier this month - but dont worry he lives here, he'll be back! In the meantime the US will be graced with his understated presence - touring the country with Papercuts in March/April.

Banjo Or Freakout - 105
Banjo Or Freakout - Dear Me

Civilian Oak

Baltimore's indie folkies Wye Oak are bringing Civilian to life via Merge Records/City Slang in early March. Its going to be intriguing, as they have employed John Congleton to twiddle the knobs in the studio - he who beefed up the likes of Modest Mouse, Shearwater and The Thermals, adding lushness to boot. And if the title track is anything to go by, we will get a lot of Jenn Wasner's plaintive vocals and lyrics about aloneness, and a lot of Andy Stack's heavy emotive instrumentation - both of which Im more than fine with! 'Civilian' is a great song - one of my favourites for the year.

Wye Oak arent sitting idly by for the album to come out either, currently touring Europe with Cold War Kids (whose new album Mine Is Yours is actually OK - go figure...) before playing two shows in London. They support Cold War Kids at Koko on the 23rd February, but if you wanna just get a taste of the Oak then head to Monto Water Rats the day before (22nd February) - this is also their first ever headlining show in London, so if I were you, this would be the gig to be heading along to. Then they swing back to the US to play tunes with Lower Dens (who swing by London in April with Deerhunter - yay!) and Callers - plus one rad show in Iowa in early April with Titus Andronicus! 2011 - the Wye of the Oak...

Wye Oak - Civilian