Review: She Sir | Yens EP [MP3]

There are two phenomenal shoegaze acts operating out of Austin, Texas of which we are aware, and 2010 seems like it will be a big year for both the mighty Ringo Deathstarr and the more cerebral and mysterious She Sir. The latter act, as we noted here in late October, has been promising a follow-up to 2006's devastating full-length Who Can't Say Yes for some time. While the planned sophomore set Go Guitars has been delayed until "later in 2010," Yens reiterates -- more concisely, across four songs and fewer than nine minutes -- some of the dense guitar swirl, reverberant pining sentiments and arresting melodies that made the band's debut so captivating. According to lead songwriter Russell Karloff, "although we have a fair number of new studio recordings sitting unfinished and/or in progress, Yens was our answer to getting something out sooner rather than later."

She Sir has stated that Go Guitars will be "as diverse as it is coherent," and we expect the coherence is more readily apparent across the full length than simply the four tracks here. Yens places less emphasis on dense sheets of guitar, which we admittedly miss, but the point of the EP seems to be to play up the new directions of which the band speaks at its web site. And so the typically magnificent opener "Ginger" offers shoegaze swirl familiar from Who Can't Say Yes, while "Lemongrass" -- which we've posted below -- exhibits a broadened palette centered around organ, bowed strings and bright ethereal vocals. The short closer "Boystown" is even more stylistically distant from the material on the first release, as it touts foregrounded Animal Collective-ish layered vocals underpinned faintly by percussion, organ and guitar.

Mr. Karloff tells Clicky Clicky that She Sir plans a return to the studio in February ("and beyond") to continue crafting Go Guitars. It is interesting to note that She Sir was previously billed as the duo of Karloff and M. Grusha, but the credits for Yens note the four tracks were written entirely by Karloff, with only certain "editing and supplementation" executed by Mr. Grusha and a fellow named Jeremy Cantrell. Yens will be available in digital format tomorrow; a 7" vinyl version will be issued Feb. 15 in a limited edition of 300.

She Sir -- "Lemongrass" -- Yens EP
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Previous She Sir Coverage:
Today's Hotness: Projekt A-ko, Pants Yell!, Shout Out Louds, She Sir
Today's Hotness: Johnny Foreigner, She Sir, Armalite
Today's Hotness: She Sir, Deadbeat, The Radishes
Best Of 2006 Addendum: She, Sir's Who Can't Say Yes

A Weather Recording Follow-Up To 2008 Standout Cove

[A note to readers: with our new family commitments we will institute some changes here. One of these is the shelving of the Today's Hotness feature, which collected newsworthy items into an amalgamated post. Instead we will run more shorter items as we are able to churn them out. Here is the first. -- Ed.]

Portland, OR-based slowcore stars A Weather have spent recent weeks recording a new set that may see release before year-end. The quintet has laid down tracks in its home town at the studio Type Foundry, and as recently as Friday fronter Aaron Gerber tweeted that he was working on vocals for the planned set. There are few details to be had about the new set at this point, but it will include the track "Lay Me Down," according to another tweet. We can only hope this is a cover of Grateful Dead's "To Lay Me Down." Come to think of it, we recall Cowboy Junkies doing a very good cover of that track for the Deadicated comp in the '90s. We'll have to track that down again. The new A Weather set is unlikely to be ready for public consumption before fall or winter, so in the meantime continue to play the excellent Cove to death. That record, in case you don't recall, was one of our favorites of 2008. Read our review here.

Something we've had on our list of things to write about for months and months is three A Weather demos submitted to and made available to the Interwebs by Fat Cat Records. The tracks, which we believe were recorded by Mr. Gerber whilst he was still at Hampshire College in Western Massachusetts, include two versions of "Still Talk" -- one digitally sliced, diced and Animal Collective-ized and the other acoustic -- and "Tonight I Am Letting You Drive." The tracks are memorable, but the digitally tweaked version of the former is sufficiently different from the material on Cove to imbue it with distinctive intrigue. The three tunes are alternately attributed to A. Sweater and Sweater Weather, monikers that are certainly early ruminations on the name that ultimately framed the quintet. Here's "Tonight I Am Letting You Drive."

A. Sweater -- "Tonight I Am Letting You Drive" -- Music For Six Twilights
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06/27 -- The Doug Fir -- Portland, OR
07/12 -- The Backstage Lounge -- Vancouver, BC