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This week's free song download is a great, intimate remake of Plush's "I Found a Little Baby" by Joe Pernice (of Skud Mountain Boys, Chappaquiddick Skyline and Pernice Brothers fame), taken from his forthcoming record, It Feels So Good When I Stop (out on August 4). The musical companion to his upcoming book of the same name, the album finds Pernice covering several of the music references in his novel, including songs by Sebadoh, the Dream Syndicate, Del Shannon, Todd Rundgren, James and Bobby Purify, and more. This Week's Featured Downloads
Copenhagen's Slaraffenland (which translates to "land of milk and honey") first caught our ears last year when they were touring with fellow countrymen Efterklang, and now comes this tasty treat from their upcoming album, We're On Your Side, out September 15 on Hometapes. Propelled by a growling bass and stuttering 4/4 beat, "Meet and Greet" is a hypnotic slice of orchestrated rock with fluttering guitars and horns supporting a gang of singers, while exclusive B-Side "My Bad Ways" skitters across an expansive pop plane. The band's Sunshine EP from 2008 is also available on Other Music Digital, and comes highly recommended as well.
Italians Do It Better appear to have access to a veritable disco goldmine with producer Johnny Jewel on board. Desire is the Chromatics/Glass Candy man's latest project, and this time he comes accompanied by Nattie (also of Chromatics) and Canadian vocalist Megan to produce some of the finest slo-mo disco of his already estimable career. With Chromatics he exorcised his love of Goblin and Claudio Simonetti's Italo excursions, with Glass Candy it's all a little more Blondie-centric, and with Desire, Jewel has allowed himself to go 'cosmic.' Forging long, sprawling tracks with silky smooth hooks and gloriously deadpan vocals from Megan (occasionally sounding more Debbie Harry than Debbie Harry herself these days, this one has some Blondie too) he's hit on a winning formula, and while it's not so far removed from his previous projects, II manages to be his most refined full-length to date. The album reaches its boiling point quickly when it gets to potential single "Mirroir Mirroir," a track that excels thanks to the charming American inability to pronounce the word 'mirror.' With slippery vinyl-sampled disco percussion and a sing-a-long chorus, the track somehow manages to hit that middle ground between dancefloor-friendly and home listening. I'm expecting hip re-edits to emerge on Hypemachine sometime soon, but I would be very surprised if any of them achieved the same effortless vibe as the original. The band hit another winner with "Don't Call," a track that brings back buzzing memories of mid-'80s chart hits but without the needless pomp and gloss. The inherently cheesy vocal melody from Megan is somehow elevated from sugary syrup into hip credibility. In the wrong hands it would simply buoy up the current trend for pointless retro nostalgia, but with Jewel at the reigns we instead have a track you'll want to leave on repeat for a worrying length of time. Packed with darker moments to offset the pop excesses (check the basement vibe of "Under Your Spell"), there's enough here to easily push II into the "best of 2009" lists come December. Fans of Nite Jewel, Chromatics et al. (I know you're out there), you'll kick yourself if you miss this album. I'm off to play it some more. -John Twells
Although he may be better known for his work behind the boards (having had a hand in records from folks like the Animal Collective and White Magic), New Yorker Rusty Santos has also maintained a parallel career as a performer. With a few solo records already under his belt, last year Santos convened the Present with collaborators Jesse Lee and Mina, and released an abstract album that traced stream of consciousness piano, guitar, and drum fragments across some beautifully ambient pop textures. Now, just months after releasing their first record, the Present return with a sophomore effort that shows the band developing at an amazingly rapid clip. Despite its freeform approach, World I See retained some trace elements of conventional band structures, but the follow-up Way We Are is more immediately experimental, highlighting more than ever the importance of Santos and co.'s post-production expertise in the sculpting of these six pieces. Tracks like "Saltwater Trails" and "Space Meadow" deal less in overt melodies and rhythms, and more in the reshaping of familiar tones into what sound like field recordings of synthetic terrains, with robotic birdsong chiming in against vague ocean sounds that at some point were sourced from acoustic instruments. Better still is the closing title track, a thirty-minute collage of ebbing and flowing dronescapes that are slowly punctuated with drums and distant piano, creating a richly crafted piece that not only accentuates the band's strengths, but serves as perhaps the Present's greatest (extended) moment in their brief history. Coming on like some strange hybrid of GAS' laconic drones and Brian Eno's inventive soundworlds (with a little bit of grimy New York noise thrown in for good measure), Way We Are is an excellent listen from end to end. -Michael Crumsho
Two grails of early decadent, detached, cold, German synth-disco pop, circa '79(!) and '80. Although, it's sort of unfair to call Gina X "pop" since it cut such an imitated template in underground circles, both then and now. (Vocally: ADULT. and Miss Kittin. Stylistically: Appeared as the lead track in Andrew Weatherall's influential Nine O' Clock Drop compilation, plus reissue honors by the Tigersushi label.) In general, the best capsule description of Gina X is: decadent German Grace Jones with disco-Visage production. Vocalist, Gina Kikoine and producer Zeus B. Held created cold and lurching, yet glistening, hedonist disco that was to be in their own words, "the absolute union of music, poetry and travesty." If you wanna experience an actual personality and not just a 'persona' behind the detached female vocal style, look no further than here. Nice Mover is generally considered the better of the two. It occupies a much more dimly lit room, but still has the dark and slinky Grace Jones groove mentioned earlier. The hits "Nice Mover" and "No G.D.M." (Gina's homage to Quentin Crisp) are on this one. Also killer is the chugging disco jam "Be a Boy" (predating Book of Love's "Boy" by almost 10 years), as well as "Exhibitionism" (another slinky sexplay manifesto) and "Black Sheep" (a prance-disco rally cry for the disaffected). Gina Kikoine's vocal style may have been copied many times over, but her lyrical audacity is hard to touch.
X-traordinaire is a tad more "synth disco" but still vintage enough to remain special. Included are the classics "Striptease" and the arthouse Xanadu epic, "Opposite Numbers." This album also includes a definitive Gina X jam, "Do It Yourself," which presents the most perfect reason to be a masturbation enthusiast: "I can do it myself very well / 'cause I know what I want!" The genuine poppiness and sheen of X-traordinaire" clashes with the subject matter and delivery in way that will make you laugh out loud. (I did.) Both are classic and essential to listeners ranging from the hipster disco set (you'll play it out) to the Neu Deutsche Welle fan with a funny bone (you'll collect it and secretly love it), to the lingering electroclash torch carrier (this will blow your mind). -Scott Mou
I think the sun must have slowly but surely gone to the heads of those folks over at Not Not Fun, either that or the weed got much stronger. Over the last few months, their output has shifted from a gaggle of drone-heavy acts to some kind of suburban white funk, of course this is still with a heavy psychedelic bent, but man, it's some shift. It couldn't have come any sooner really, with the delayed summer weather finally here and Ducktails flying off the shelves, it seems the world is ready for some heavy basslines and shifting noise. Heavy Deeds does exactly that, reframing the loose post-Sunburned funk style for the hipster generation, taking a loose groove and letting the white noise rise and fall throughout the album's duration. Each song melts into the next concocting some kind of stoned funk-mantra, and the result is almost hypnotic; the groove Sun Araw drums up is gloriously involving, and enjoyable with or without chemical enhancement. -John Twells
Circle's Tulikoira begins ominously with some atmospheric reverberations and echoing vocals, teasing the listener with guitar feedback fading in and out until purposeful metal riffs chop up the calm with an all-out assault. The song snakes in another direction toward the middle -- incantations sung by a deep baritone slow down the head banging pace to a slow burn -- then the rhythm picks up again, aided by bells and ushered out with crashing cymbals and low rumbling feedback. On the second song, "Tillihnhu," the smile-cracking metal operatics continue. There's even an AC/DC like yowl mid-song. And of course, Circle has their own influences; King Crimson and Magma come to mind, especially with Circle's own made up language, Meronian, though none of the above use minimal, sometimes atmospheric electronic infusions (a la Suicide) like Circle has injected into all their releases. This album, though, is very different from the almost all instrumental Pori (the first that I ever heard which seemed to be easier to find than the obscure Finnish-only gems). While Pori treads the post-rock lakes of Tortoise and Trans Am, Tulikoira dives in and creates a whirlpool of varying heavy rhythms and sounds. The last song is the best example. It meanders into several planes of existence: metal, opera, and even a prog-electro percussion that sounds like the merging of traffic if Stereolab, Oneida and a Jim O'Rourke outtake were highways. Now's the time to catch up on Circle's back catalog and have some fun. -Lisa Garrett
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