That Which Is Good: Stand-Out Stuff Found In Our Inbox

>> Super Collider's Cristian Vogel has formed a new band called Night Of The Brain, and the quartet will release its 10-song debut Wear This World Out, written and recorded in Barcelona, Tuesday. The teaser MP3 "The Theme" is very strong, a dreamy tune driven by a thumping bass line and draped with various computer-crafted textures. "The Theme" succeeds by remaining true to a hard-to-name but unsettled mood for four-and-a-half minutes, even as bassist Mike Hermann takes a bit of an odd solo or as drummer Cristobal Massis begins more urgently beating his crash cymbal at the song's close. Check it out.

Night Of The Brain -- "The Theme" -- Wear This World Out
[right click and save as; check out the video here]
[buy Wear This World Out from Kompakt-MP3 here, eventually]

>> We dug very much Foundry Field Recordings 2006 set Prompts/Miscues, particularly the wistful strummer "Buried Beneath The Winter Frames," so we were excited to see news of the band's next record. The Columbia, MO-based quartet's new EP Fallout Stations is termed a "companion piece" to Prompts/Miscues and includes both new tracks and rarities all relative to the concept of the 2006 collection (which we recall as being a Cold War/robots are going to get us kind of thing, although honestly it's been months since we've listened to it). Anyway, "Transistor Kids" is the preview track from Fallout Stations. It commences slowly with a long piano introduction, then snaps to attention with a beat, guitars and vocals that indeed make the track sound part and parcel of the earlier record. Fallout Stations streets Tuesday on Emergency Umbrella and the band plans to tour widely in July and August.

Foundry Field Recordings -- "Transistor Kids" -- Fallout Stations
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[buy Fallout Stations for Newbury Comics here]

>> This album stream of the self-titled debut from Austin-based quintet Peel may be the nicest surprise of our spelunking trip into our virtual mail bin. It's dense and melodic and distorted and loud and has buried vocals and it sounds like 100 different hungry indie bands from 1994, cut with a healthy dose of millennial digital trickery. Wow, glancing at their press, that's pretty much what The Onion said about them, too. Anyway, people seem to want to call these guys post-Pavement, which we suppose is passable, but we'd argue that Peel offers more of a garagey Monkees-ish melodicism and Flaming Lips-esque thrash. And then later in the record they toss in a little AM Gold stuff as well. Peel isn't actually too far removed from excellent Oklahoma-based trio Evangelicals, now that we think about it. You would do well to check out the Peel below. The band goes on tour for a couple weeks beginning June 8, and given how solid their album is we think it's worth heading out to see them, so we're posting the dates, too. Alas, there's no Boston date, but this isn't all about us, is it? Peel's Peel was released on Peek-A-Boo April 2, and shouldn't be confused with the also excellent Coctails record Peel.

Peel -- "Oxford" -- Peel
Peel -- "In The City" -- Peel
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[buy Peel from Newbury Comics here]

06/08 -- Denton, TX -- Hailey’s
06/09 -- Shreveport, LA -- Jackrabbit Lounge
06/10 -- Mobile, AL -- Cell Block
06/11 -- Birmingham, AL -- The Nick
06/12 -- Atlanta, GA -- Smith's Olde Bar
06/13 -- Wilmington, NC -- Bella Festa
06/14 -- Washington, DC -- The Black and the Red
06/15 -- Brooklyn, NY -- The Battering Room
06/16 -- New York, NY -- Piano's
06/17 -- New York, NY -- Piano's
06/20 -- Fort Wayne, IN -- The Firehouse
06/21 -- Chicago, IL -- The Darkroom

>> We liked very much this video preview of the forthcoming Montag set Going Places, which Carpark releases Tuesday. The video was apparently created in conjunction with Secret Mommy mastermind Andrew Dixon; longtime readers may recall we greatly enjoyed sampletronica project Secret Mommy's collection Very Rec and wrote about it here for Junkmedia a couple years ago. Going Places is Montrealer (or Vancouverite, depending on which sentence of his bio you believe) Antoine Bédard's third Montag record, and the collection contains input from notable indie luminaries including M83 and Amy Millan, among others. Bédard's blend of pastich and electropop is very enjoyable. The title track from the his new set is a romantic yearner that reminds us of a contemporary take on Yaz. "Best Boy Electric" is more upbeat, even jubilant, as if the narrator from "Going Places" has finally secured the reassurances he longs for so badly from the object of his affection. Again, the track sounds like Yaz or early, more innocent Depeche Mode.

Montag -- "Going Places" -- Going Places
Montag -- "Best Boy Electric" -- Going Places
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[buy Going Places from Newbury Comics here]