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September 21, 2012
Today's Hotness: Earthquake Party, Pile, Screaming Maldini
>> Earthquake Party! is back with three new songs spanning four minutes total, a brutalist pop assault that is somehow impossibly more raucous and frantic than the Boston trio's dynamite Vs. Pizza three-song cassette of a year ago. While the young band does not have a large catalogue of original recordings, it has certainly maximized them: Vs. Pizza was followed in the spring by a convulsing, electrifying video for its lead tune "Pretty Little Hands." The pressurized, careening kineticism of that video persists on the new, triple A-side cassette Let's Rock, OK?, which features the blistering hot numbers "Little Pet," "Hello Weirdo" and "One More Night Could Ruin Us." "Little Pet" recalls vintage Slumberland Records acts, but all three tracks earn the A-side demarcation as the Soundcloud embed below attests. The songs were recorded live to two-track, half-inch tape Aug. 25 at Allston's Mad Oak Studios, and the energy level is so high the tape can barely contain them. Let's Rock, OK? is available in a limited edition of 34 pieces being sold on the trio's current minitour, and we imagine those cassettes are long gone. The imprint Mystic Steamship Co. will sell a second edition of 100 cassettes plus digital download from Oct. 5. Earthquake Party! plays a homecoming show at Great Scott this coming Tuesday, then unwinds another short skein of dates skipping down to Atlanta and back in early October, before returning home once more for shows at The Rosebud in Somerville Oct. 13 and at Great Scott Oct. 18. All that touring costs money, and Earthquake Party! are running a very modest Kickstarter campaign to amass funds for gas, food and lodging. Premiums start for backers pledging at least $5, and run the gamut from a personal postcard from the road to an entire meal delivered to you. Check it out here, and toss some scratch the band's way if you can to help guarantee they'll actually make it back, yeh?
>> Maybe in the "Punk Rock Academy" conceived by the late, lamented Atom And His Package, Pile's new single, the curiously twangy and tense post-hardcore bash-and-pop "Prom Song," would actually be played at the prom. The displays of power in Boston-based Pile's tune gradually obliterate the swaying verses and serene, melodic passages under a pummeling of guitar, bass and drums that hits like an animated .gif of a tsunami: serially, relentlessly. As with the old chestnut "Stairway To Heaven," prom-goers would have to sort out what to do when "the fast section" (or in the case of Pile's jam, the bass-chugging, cymbal-smashing, lead guitar-lashing final 90 seconds) commences, but that's why they invented punch bowls, people. "Prom Song" is taken from Pile's forthcoming third long-player Dripping, which Exploding In Sound will release Oct. 23. The record will be available as a download, digipak CD and a limited edition of 500 vinyl pieces (the first 100 orders will be fulfilled with white vinyl, and apparently the white vinyl is nearly sold out). The quartet rounded out a tour earlier this week in Philadelphia, but it has three Massachusetts dates in the coming weeks: Great Scott in Boston Sept. 27; O'Brien's in Boston Oct. 13; and Sierra Grille in Northampton Oct. 18. A tour to support the release of Dripping commences Oct. 20 with Pile's appearance at the much-anticipated Gimme Tinnitus / Exploding In Sound CMJ Showcase. Pile's debut LP Jerk Routine was issued in 2009; the second LP Magic Isn't Real materialized the following year.
>> What this complete insanity coming from the Screaming Maldini camp? Apparently the second single taken from its forthcoming self-titled full-length debut for the song "Summer Somewhere" will be released via "uber-limited-edition sunglasses!" This according to a recent Facebook status update. The venture has Alcopop! Records proprietor Jack 'Pop's fingerprints all over it, don't it? We've previously written about the single here, so no need for us to reiterate. But seriously? A single on (or via, anyway) limited edition sunglasses! Very impressive indeed, lads and lasses, very impressive.
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