Today's Hotness: Pop Ambient 2007, TGTBTQ, The Texas Governor

>> Essential read Brainwashed here alerts us to two new releases for the coming week that we failed to include in our final Rack And Opinion of the year last week, so we acknowledge them here. First, superlative German techno label Kompakt releases Pop Ambient 2007, the annual installment of its ambient electronic music compilation series. We have the 2005 issue (and reviewed it here for Junkmedia) and it is incredibly dreamy. The big draw for the 2007 set (according to the marketing verbiage) is the rare, rare, rare Gas cut "Nach 1912," which has not been released on CD previously. You can stream a sample of it and the rest of the compiled tracks at Kompakt's site here. A second release of note this week that Brainwashed hipped us to is Deadbeat's 12" Version Immersion, song samples and the details of which you can check out here at ~scape. We reviewed Deadbeat's Something Borrowed, Something Blue for Junkmedia here in 2004.

>> We sat on the link to the forthcoming second The Good, The Bad And The Queen single "Kingdom Of Doom" until this morning when we could give it appropriate attention with a cup of coffee and the headphones. And we think it is strong enough to share up, for those of you who didn't hear it at Stereofork and Pitchgum or whoever it was that posted the track earlier this week. We didn't think that much of the song until the smudged guitar drops in right ahead of the chorus, but we were sold right then and there. Hear it for yourself below. The Good, The Bad And The Queen is led by former Blur/Gorillaz dude Damon Albarn and includes Clash bassist Paul Simonon among others. The band's debut will be released late next month.



>> We didn't intend to write about the Texas Governor set we took in last night before we went, thinking it would be nice to see something without feeling the need to analyze it, but a couple things stuck out. First, sometime in the fifteen months or so since we saw the act last they dropped their bass player and band leader David Goolkasian, former bassist for the apparently resuscitated The Elevator Drops, has switched over from second guitar to bass, cutting the quintet to a quartet. Secondly, perhaps as an even clearer nod toward the return of The Elevator Drops, The Texas Governor included the former band's "Be A Lemonhead" in its Saturday set. Finally, intrepid fan H-Dawg From Accounts Receivable posed a question to Mr. Goolkasian after the set regarding the possibility of an Elevator Drops tour next year, and the bassist said no plans were made as of yet. The Elevator Drops will release a fourth record, OK Commuter, Feb 14, 2007.

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