November 17, 2008

Today's Hotness: Faunts, Primitive Painters, Adebisi Shank

Faunts
>> Tomorrow Edmonton-based indie quintet Faunts issue a digital-only set of remixes, the more ethereal of which (Mark Templeton's gauzy remix of "Places I've Found" in particular) were the perfect soundtrack for Sunday morning coffee. The obviously titled Faunts Remixed contains 14 tracks pulled from the band's first two records, High Expectations/Low Results and the M4 EP. Remixers include Cadence Weapon, a fellow from the jarringly named Shout Out Out Out Out and Faunts themselves. Friendly Fire is offering two MP3s to tease the release, and we're posting them below. The act intends to issue a new full-length collection, Feel. Love. Thinking. Of., in February 2009. The original version of "Memories Of Places We've Never Been" was issued on the aforementioned High Expectations/Low Results, and also previously appeared on the Friendly Fire Recordings Sampler 2007.

Faunts -- "Memories Of Places We've Never Been (TH White Remix)" -- Faunts Remixed
Faunts -- "M4 (Part II) (The Paronomasaic Remix)" -- Faunts Remixed
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[buy Faunts Remixed from Friendly Fire right here]

>> We previously discussed Orange County, Calif.-based indie rock sextet Primitive Painters here in early 2005 (we regret saying its music was "a bit wimpy" -- if we had a do-over we'd say something like "heart-on-sleeve"). Now that there is news of a new full-length from the act, let's review: Primitive Painters recorded a really great demo called Dirtclods in the early '90s that sounded like the atmospheric British guitar rock of the day injected with a bit of SoCal punk energy. The band caught the ear of UK label GT's, and rerecorded the stuff from the demo, added some more stuff, and released a debut that was also called Dirtclods. This led to some confusion for us when we upgraded from our cassette dub to CD a couple years ago. We were puzzled upon receiving the CD that the songs sounded different, and it turns out our cassette was the demo, which we learned a couple years back when we pinged singer Dennis Crupi. Primitive Painters broke up in 1997, but Mr. Crupi and founding bassist (and now guitarist) Patrick Homa reconstituted the act in 2002 with a clutch of new players. Around the same time the band was named one of the 129 greatest bands from Orange County and released the short set EP33. Its new collection, Say It 'Til You Mean It, was self-released earlier this month, and while we have only heard what's posted at Primitive Painters' MySpace hacienda, we feel pretty comfortable saying its best stuff is even better than the best old tunes. Where the Dirtclods demos were fairly spare, the production on Say It 'Til You Mean It is lush, in places particularly imaginative, and there are tons of big guitars and bigger melodies. The updated Primitive Painters sound is reminiscent of "Regret"-era New Order, although obviously without Peter Hook's trademark bass noodling. Anthems like "Harm" and the New Order-referencing "Throw Your Heart To The Wind" establish a new beachhead for Primitive Painters. The sextet celebrate the release of Say It 'Til You Mean It with a show Dec. 6 in Fullerton, Calif.

>> You owe it to yourself to click this link and witness the COMPLETE. ROCK. MAYEM. perpretrated by Irish spazz-core trio Adebisi Shank in glorious full-screen video. How much speed are these guys on? How does guitarist Lar get those crazy sounds out of his arsenal of pedals? Why didn't several of the audience members' heads just explode like so many M80'd melons? We simply can't process this. This 16-minute set captured Oct. 17 at The Fighting Cocks in Kingston, England is the most bonkers thing we've seen in we don't know how long. So many questions. Why is the bass player Vinny wearing a full head veil? Did the BeatCastTV editors add some sort of strobe effect to the footage and speed it up, or is this band just going off like crazy? Spectacular, and a little more ear-friendly than fellow English grind merchants Rolo Tomassi, whom we've been meaning to mention in these electronic pages lately.

>> Notable ghost logos: Ghostly International. Johnny Foreigner. Larytta.

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