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.

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

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