Get Sic On Top Of The Alps

Just received an amazing bag o' tricks from the excellent Chicago label Drag City last week. The first one to tickle the pants off me has been She's On Top, a three-track 12" trip from the demented San Franciscans Sic Alps. It's pretty much what you expect from these leery sages - which is to say, the unexpected. The title track licks the heels of psych pop blasted from the garage into a spot on the Sun. Don't worry, it doesn't burn up on impact; continuing to wind and grind on its own skewed sense of self. Backed up by two equally stellar selections, 'Carrie Jean' (the demonic spawn of Billie Jean if Carrie White post-cranial murder implosion copped to being the father - an insidious clodhopper of a grind) and 'Biz Bag' (a sensual Big Bopper, running on twelve cylinders, whiskey breath and too much time on its hands). These three songs sound sown in the sands of the Seventies, yet a monumental drought kept them dormant until Sic Alps willed them into being with their tears. Get on top.

You can buy She's On Top here.

Sic Alps - She's On Top

Sicalpglyphics

Who else is excited for the new Sic Alps album? Their last Napa Asylum didn't get the love last year that I thought it deserved, yet after their sneaky little 7" Pangea Globe and now if new track 'Glyphs' is any indicator, they are about to rend apart the space-time continuum. Yes there is fidelity in production, yes there are string arrangements, and YES, it's undoubtedly Sic Alps, Mike Donovan et al (with Ty Segall definitely in tow) doing what they do because they can and because they're good. It'll be self-titled, and is coming out on Drag City on September 11 (no connotations necessary). Pre-order it here.

Sic Alps - Glyphs

Blasted Canyons Live Up To The Name

I posted about Wax Idols the other week, as their guitarist/frontwoman Heather Fedewa/Fortune is one punk rock goddess who slays all and sundry with her barbed hooks. Fedewa created something nasty and delectably palatable there; but I feel that her work on No Future may be underdone, if the self-titled LP from Blasted Canyons is anything to go by.


Hole E SHIT.

This album is pretty fucking incredible. Having taken pride of place on the eclectic and ramshackle Castle Face stable, Blasted Canyons serves as a manifesto that is full of vitriol, is scribed in blood and is wired to tonnes of Semtex. They have been heftily aided in their quest to destroy the world by producer Matt Hartman - yep, he of Sic Alps, whose Napa Asylum was yet another ace record of 2011. Throw Ty Segall into this crowd and you have San Francisco, the cornerstone to the best music made this year. Uh huh - Blasted Canyons is that good. For your sake, get this now.

Blasted Canyons - Blood On The Wall
Blasted Canyons - Death & A Half

Escape From Napa Asylum

I have two experiences that I can highlight about Sic Alps. One was earlier in the year when around at Paul's place, playing records while we drank at 2 in the afternoon, one eye on the incredibly uninteresting FA Cup final and the other on new design issues with the blog. We'd been listening to Glenn Branca and Women's first album, then I decided to throw on U.S. E.Z., an album Id listened to in fits and bursts but not for a while - and I just about drenched Paul's turntable with spat beer. What have I been doing with my life? Why had I neglected these San Franciscans all my life (well, the last couple years) from destroying whats left of my hearing and my mind? I felt ashamed.

Then they supported Pavement. I was massively pumped. Then I got pissed at the Rest Is Noise, and ended up seen half of their final song - which was ace - and once again I was left ruing what might have been a life-affirming - nay, changing - experience. When Pavement came on, I didnt care anymore. I let myself down, and no amount of heyday slackerdom was going to rise me to the heady highs that I should have been on.

So Im not missing this opportunity. Although it doesnt come out til January, I have in my clammy lil hands Napa Asylum, Sic Alps' new LP on Drag City. At 22 tracks, this is a sprawling and yet succinct record of woozy psych noise, suitably recorded as if in the bottom of a very deep rusted out coffee tin, with the occasional fresh production shining through on tracks like 'Meter Man'. Its warped, its scratchy and fidgety, its as schizophrenic as ever, like a guitar pop band of the 60s stuck in a three decade long trip, with various generational tics seeping in over time. Or like Deerhunter if they just turned it up and didnt get all elegiac on us (actually, not a bad thing, but I still occasionally miss the early days). These guys dont know how to play in any other way - and why should we want them to? The first album to look forward in 2011, I assure you.

Napa Asylum is out January 25th. They are pushing for a European tour around April/May, so keep you eyes peeled, and your trigger fingers over your wallet pockets - its gonna be a wild ride.

Sic Alps - Meter Man

Sic Alps - The First White Man To Touch Californian Soil

Women - A Sight For Sore Eyes

Paul has just posted about the September release of Women's sophomore LP Public Strain. I still remember when I got into the debut album proper - it was only a couple months ago! Id listened to it sporadically, but went over to Paul's to work on the blog, before going to see that infamous Double Dagger @ The Rest Is Noise gig... Anyway, amidst listening to DD's More, Glenn Branca's The Ascension and Sic Alps, I decided to throw Women on - and it raced straight back up the top of my playlist. I still think that Paul's being in the dark about the new album is a travesty - but there is my travesty.

Im more than making amends this Sunday morning however - I have my sweaty mitts on the first taste of Public Strain! Its called 'Eyesore', its the final track of the album, and apparently it is the 'uplifting ballad' that ties the whole thing together...hmm. I think I like that. If this is the positive 'Wind Beneath My Wings' belter, then the rest of the album should be stellar...

Women - Eyesore

Eat Skull - More than just the coolest part of The Lost Boys

Siltbreeze has steadily built itself up into one of the most exciting labels on the planet. With acts such as Times New Viking, Sic Alps and Naked On The Vague on its roster (also Guided By Voices ?!?), expect to hear a hell of a lot more of what they have to offer...like right now!

Eat Skull have been dishing out a scuzzy as fuck noise pop formula for a few years now, alongside fellow Portlanders and Siltbreeze stablemates Psychedelic Horseshit (although PH take the cake in shambolic - don't worry, we'll post in due haste), and have inadvertantly found themselves on a wave of popular music...and yet somehow left behind in the slipstream. Crystal Antlers, Wavves, No Age and their ilk are gaining monumental popularity/notoriety. However Eat Skull deserve just as much of the accolades - even though they probably dont give two shits either way.

1st album Sick To Death really got things rolling, showcasing a band that could grab all of their favourite musical genres and put it through a shiny meat grinder to produce grisly slabs of murky gold (that sounds absolute rubbish, but listen to 'Beach Brains' followed by 'New Confinement' and you'll be swayed). 2009's follow up Wild and Inside was still awesome +, but didnt have the immediacy of its predecessor, despite the incessance of the organ on pop-tart of death opener 'Stick To The Formula'. You can definitely hear bands like the Clean in there - just not as clean. But still cleaner than before - even if less clean is cleaner...

Fuck, let me put it this way - Eat Skull are great. Really really great. Their abominations of pop, punk, garage rock, art rock, and scuzzy no-wave somehow add up to priceless soundbites that can be embraced wholeheartedly - and you will embrace them. They are criminally underrated. Chase down their albums, become devotees, and...eat some skulls...

Eat Skull - Beach Brains

Eat Skull - New Confinement

Eat Skull - Stick To The Formula

Slacker rock gods to worship

SM are heading to Brixton tonight to see the slacker rock gods Pavement. Of course the requisite band members have been busy in Pavement’s absence – Stephen Malkmus & the Jicks / Preston School of Industry / Spiral Stairs etc – butto see them all together again, in what will be my first official Pavement gig, promises to be mindblowing to say the least!

I am also quite excited about the band preceding Pavement tonight, US's Sic Alps. Featuring members of Sisters, amongst many other musical endeavours, Sic Alps may be four albums in, but have definitely been on the up and up over the past 12 months, fronting for the likes of Yo La Tengo and Sonic Youth, and now scoring this coveted gig before playing at the Pavement curated ATP this weekend. I haven’t heard much, but what I have heard has me salivating. There are still tickets for tonight if you really push it, it will be a must see (and will quieten down our Deerhunter gushing I'm sure!)

Pavement -Golden Soundz
Sic Alps - Message from the Law