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This Week's Featured Downloads

Japanther
Skuffed Up My Huffy
Menlo Park Recordings
$9.99
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OTHER MUSIC MP3 EXCLUSIVE! Ian Vanek and Matt Reilly were both Pratt students when they formed Japanther in 2001, and have since gone about redefining what one normally expects from a punk rock band. Sure, they’ve played more than their share of bedrooms, not to mention designing their own record covers and making zines -- typical DIY stuff. But how many groups do you know that have accompanied synchronized swimming or written a score for -- and performed live with -- a puppet show at Miami’s Art Basel and the 2006 Whitney Biennial? So, four albums, a handful singles and EPs, and hundreds of basement parties later, Japanther releases their fifth full-length, Skuffed Up My Huffy, which captures the energy of their spastic live shows in glorious lo-fi surround sound. You can practically smell the burning of overheated amp tubes while you listen. Their breakneck speed performances can easily be compared to another duo from the Northeast, Lightning Bolt; however, Vanek and Reilly’s songs are steeped in fun, anthemic, hardcore tradition, where political messages are masked with pop references. But again, not so typical, the band augments their bass and drum arsenal with telephone mics, thrift store keyboards, drum machines and samples recorded on old cassettes.

And while Skuffed Up My Huffy has punk rock flowing through its veins, the album is sequenced more like a hip-hop record with lots of spoken word dialogue and beat collages tacked on to the beginnings of the songs. After the Motorhead meets Suicide opener “See Evil” fades out, we hear a brief manipulated snippet of the “big boys don’t cry” interlude from 10cc’s “I’m Not in Love” and then the Ramonesy “Summer of 79” kicks in, complete with lots of ooooohs, and references to gas shortages and Jimmy Carter. A few tracks later we get to live show favorite “$100 Cover;” although three minutes long, only a minute and forty-five seconds is actual song, the rest being a playful montage of toy Casios, hip-hop beats and radio static. Still, Vanek and Reilly manage to keep the punk rock torch burning bright while interjecting some 21st century-styled art school flavor. It’s not so far removed from old Dead Kennedys and Germs records but thankfully, I don’t expect to see any liberty-spiked kids walking down St. Marks Place with Japanther logos painted on the backs of their jackets any time soon.

-Gerald Hammill

President
Take Music
Friends
$9.99
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OTHER MUSIC MP3 EXCLUSIVE! When DC-based Q And Not U broke up, the three members all pursued new musical projects, and Harris Klahr, the lead guitar player, became President. Take Music is quite far removed from the angular, post-punky dance rock of his former band, and instead focuses on electronics. On Klahr's MySpace page there is a photo of his record collection, and at the front of one of the rows is Manuel Gottsching’s E2-E4. And the Ash Ra Tempel man’s proto-techno classic looms large over parts of Take Music, in particular on the great “Coils of Oils,” where the undulating keyboard washes and squiggles mix with an African highlife-inspired rhythm, and on the downright bangin’ “By the Wall,” where Klahr does a nice, subtle white boy soul croon over a monotonous Juno synthesizer backing. Elsewhere, there are a few really good minimal techno tracks; the Basic Channel-influenced “Rising Towers” would be the prime example, some dreamy, ambient sounds, and an electronic pop nugget in the form of “In the Sun.” A thoroughly surprising record that appeared seemingly from out of nowhere, I can see Take Music appeal to fans of a wide variety of styles, including Morr Music indietronica, as well as old school electro and techno, and the aforementioned E2-E4.

-Baxter Cardona