>> Benjamin Shaw is a favorite of this blog, and longtime readers will recall that the Londoner's music can be dark and challenging, as well as stunningly beautiful. Mr. Shaw's latest release, his fifth long-player by one count, is amusingly titled Guppy, a name that suggests something cute and inconsequential, adjectives that reasonable minds will never apply to Shaw's music. Guppy presents a series of contemplative, textural compositions and recalls his two most experimental releases, 2010's sinister wonder Rumfucker and 2013's increasingly abstract Summer In The Box Room [review]. The set opens with the gloomy, doomy dirge "Pride Of Canada," a side-long wink at Shaw's Canadian roots; the feedback and throbbing parts momentarily for a couplet from Shaw, resumes, then recedes for more sly lyrics and an unsteady denouement. "Good Arrows" patiently thrums a bass line out into eternity -- through occasional clouds of spectral voices and implied, supporting chords -- and echoes the work of classic Louisville post-rockers The For Carnation. Despite Guppy's ominous opening, there are moments of uncharacteristic serenity (the first in the catalogue to our memory) in the poignant, affecting "Fishing With Dad (No Dad)." The number asserts itself mildly via impulses of piano, pizzicato strings and streaks of field recordings that conjure reveries of a long-gone dawn in a perhaps never-was great outdoors. The collection ends very strongly with the beautiful, almost benevolent droner "Not Today, Satan," whose persistent density makes for a neat bookend to a fairly magical record. Tokyo-based microlabel Kirigirisu released Guppy July 13 in a limited edition of 72 compact discs and as a digital download; the CDs are hand-numbered, packaged in a paper sleeve, and come with two stickers, which we recall is the standard deal with Kirigirisu releases. Purchase Guppy in either format right here, and stream the entire collection via the Bandcamp embed below. We feel compelled to remind readers that Shaw's There's Always Hope, There's Always Cabernet, released by Audio Antihero, was our third favorite record of 2011 [list]. Also worthy of note in these electronic pages is another Kirigirisu release issued July 13, Nathan Derr's Abscessant. Mr. Derr hails from Portland, Ore., home of our beloved Lubec among, of course, many others, and his new collection of nine ambient compositions is perfect for late night zones or leisurely days at the library. Abscessent is available in a limited edition of 50 CDs and you can stream the entire set via the second embed below.
Another year. And one in which, frankly, we didn't get to spend nearly as much time enjoying music, experiencing it live and interacting with the cool people who make it, as we would have liked. There was a lot of life lived in 2014, a fair amount of crap to deal with. But all of it made the music we did listen to all the more precious to us. Listed below are the songs we carried in our head through long hours of work and all-too-fleeting hours of leisure, sometimes just during a dark 6AM walk or a, well, dark 5PM trot to the parking garage from the office. Oh sure, there were other massive tunes and tunes of note: who can forget Johnny Foreigner's insanely great cover of The Wannadies' legendary single "Hit?"Playlounge's fuzz-ball anthem "Zero?"The War On Drugs' entrancing "Under The Pressure?" Or basically all of She Sir's phenomenal Go Guitars? But, as we said introducing last year's list, the 10 songs listed below were the songs we sang to ourselves most throughout the year, and the songs we consumed most often according to a messy pastiche of ITunes playcounts and Last.FM scrobbles or whatever. Sure, there was no shortage of incredible songs this year, and our aim here is to make sure you hear at least these 10. But before you dive in, we'd like to acknowledge the crucial contributions to Clicky Clicky of Senior Writer Edward Charlton and Staff Writer Dillon Riley. When we are in our busy spells such as the one we're swirling in presently, these guys ARE the blog, they ARE the brand, and we sleep soundly at HQ knowing they are out there in the trenches of indie rock when we can't be. So thanks to them, and thanks to you for reading the blog this year. Expect to see a year-end list or two from Mr. Riley, as well as our own year-end albums list, before Christmas rolls around. We leave you with a quote from the immortal Homer J: "No, no, no, don't stop a'rockin'."
1. Johnny Foreigner -- "Le Schwing" -- You Can Do Better [buy]
This is a classic Johnny Foreigner ripper, sort of in the vein of "The End Is The Beginning" from way back in the demo days, but better, because somehow this band keeps getting better even 10 years on into its existence. It's also sort of a throwback to the sort of tunes that the band was writing for Grace And The Bigger Picture, songs about touring the world and messing up relationships at home. It certainly doesn't hurt that the band released a tremendous video to go along with the tune to coincide its recent South African tour. All of the Birmingham, England noise-pop titans' 2014 long-player You Can Do Better [review] is terrific, and we suppose we could just have easily have chosen "Shipping" or "Stop Talking About Ghosts" -- whose defenestrating chorus "the hardest part is letting go" may be the biggest chorus on the album. But there is something so comforting about this one. Cross those fingers that somehow -- with all of the personal stuff going on in the lives of the bandmates next year -- we get Johnny Foreigner back on U.S. soil for a tour in 2015 to support Lame-O's domestic release of the set. Devestator....
"...flew into America looking for a revelation, ended up in Washington, got our shit stolen..."
2. Krill -- "Turd" -- Steven Hears Pile In Malden And Bursts Into Tears [buy]
Honestly, sometimes we think "Fresh Pond" is the better song. Hell, even the title track from Krill's 2014 EP Steve Hears Pile In Malden And Bursts Into Tears is incredible. But there is something perfect about the central metaphor of "Turd," and how its coarseness plays against the bright but tangled intellectual exercises fronter Jonah Furman is working through with his lyrics. Over and above that, it is the stirringly honest sentiment -- so uncommon among the set-piece artifices of rock music -- that makes the tune so special. As we said in our non-review [non-review] of the EP, if you'll permit us to quote ourselves: "The more we listen to Steve the more the narrative recedes, and the more we just hear the line from "Turd" over and over: "If I could just keep a commitment, maybe I'd be happier?" Real talk. What a song. What a record. We can't wait to hear Krill's next LP, which will be issued in February.
"...if I could just keep a commitment, maybe I'd be happier..."
Spoiler alert: Lubec's The Thrall is in our year-end album's list, too, and that's because all of the record is as strong as this incredible song. But let's just focus on this one for now. The production is beautifully dreamy, the vocal lines breathy and somnolent and referencing the classic Heasley/Sorrentino sounds from the earliest Lilys recordings. But there's also tremendous guitar playing here, vocals that reference Classical mythology, superlative melodies that cascade around the listener as every element in the arrangement seems to dance gracefully around where the song leads us, like birds coaxing the listener to follow. So much is happening on "Sunburn!" Why the exclamation point? We don't know. But "Sunburn!" teaches us to not question the process, because the results are so amazing. We reviewed The Thrallhere in September.
"...what comes next when nothing is enough..."
4. Beach Slang -- "American Girls And French Kisses" -- Cheap Thrills On A Dead End Street EP [buy]
At first we actually thought this number was a bit corny. But it is just so outrageously catchy, the pace and energy so invigorating, the stutter at the chorus, and the forthright emotion driving it all so wildly engaging. Dare we say it recalls the great Jawbreaker, as does the rest of the terrific Cheap Thrills On A Dead End Street EP. Simple hooks, straightforward emo punk: even here there can be magic. It's exceptional songs like "American Girls And French Kisses" that reward the optimism of the serious music fan. The real headscratcher is why Beach Slang tucked this tune away as track three on this EP. But one listen will certainly lead to 30, maybe even 50, and then an hour or so trolling YouTube for live clips (there are some good ones, too). More songs like the four on this EP and we fear Beach Slang will become so successful that we'll get sick of them. But sick of this song? Probably never.
"...I hope when I die I feel this alive..."
5. Benjamin Shaw -- "You & Me" -- Goodbye, Cagoule World [buy]
Here's another tune sort of hidden away -- track six on Benjamin Shaw's wonderful seven-song set Goodbye, Cagoule World. But Clicky Clicky, as we've trumpeted many times before, will not be thwarted when it comes to finding the best jams, no matter where bands try to hide them. Label Audio Antihero made an uncharacteristically brilliant move in October, re-releasing the tune as the lead track on an EP alongside some truly stunning covers of same from other acts in the AAH stable, and we highly recommend that release to your attention. And each cover version underscores what a terrific song Mr. Shaw has here in "You & Me," from the charmingly comedic and sardonic lyrics to the affecting melody. Not content to just make a remarkable pop confection, of course, Mr. Shaw also richly appoints the tune with fine touches, like the tremeloed organ tucked into the right channel. Shaw is a treasure, and we hope he takes half as much satisfaction from his work as we get from it, and that he continues for a long, long time to come.
"...save a decade for a new leaf, and a hostile reception, for you and me..."
6. Pile -- "Special Snowflakes" -- "Special Snowflake" b/w "Mama's Lipstick" [buy, only three left]
Oh God the weight, the endlessly cool heaviness, the crooked and explosive mega-blues of Pile's "Special Snowflakes." Seeing Pile play this one live at the completely INSANE Mean Creek record release show last spring might be our live highlight of the entire year. The songcraft of Rick Maguire is stunning, and perhaps never more so than on this single, an almost-suite filled with metal parts, whipsmart dynamic, wildly inventive drumming, and Mr. Maguire's limber, stentorian vocals, whose contortions illuminate his dark lyrical imagery. But, oh God the weight. Pile. PILE.
"...now it's too tough to tell if ever he was real..."
7. Speedy Ortiz -- "American Horror" -- Real Hair EP [buy]
It continues to be Speedy Ortiz's world, and we're all just living in it, and the band's towering 2014 EP Real Hair certainly made us feel fortunate about it. The lead track from the short set, "American Horror," offers generous helpings of scraping guitar greatness, with textures and melodies reminiscent of the big rock sounds of Pavement's Brighten The Corners or a heavier reading from the book of Crooked Rain, Crooked Rain. Fronter Sadie DuPuis' narrative of dealing with a loved one's struggles is gripping, and how she modulates her voice from the song's final chorus to its final moment is one of our favorite things about 2014, period. We've been singing this one in our head all year, and we don't really see that stopping any time soon.
"...baby ya feel so crazy, you keep me up for a whole week..."
8. Soccer Mom -- "It's Probably Not Your Fault" -- Soccer Mom [buy]
"Probably." Leave's some room, doesn't it? Soccer Mom and its self-titled LP should have been the biggest story in the Boston scene in 2014; unfortunately the act has already called it a day. If it's any consolation, we've still got their amazing record. Ironically, "It's Probably Not Your Fault" deals a bit with consoling, seemingly with coping with powerful loss. Co-fronter Dan Parlin's singing is gripping, and the melodies in the song are very engaging. But it is the bludgeoning, excoriating ending that provides the tune's most exciting and dangerous moments.
"...hopefully can replay what's left on my mind, it takes all day..."
9. The Weaks -- "How To Put An Audience To Sleep In Under Two Minutes" -- The World Is A Terrible Place & I Hate Myself And Want To Die EP [buy]
The best thing about this song is that it is actually more than two minutes long. Well, OK, that's not the best thing, but it makes us laugh every time we listen. The Weaks, emo's little band that could, decisively delivers on this kinetic belter. Massive choruses, pick slides, crushing drumming and clobbering bass playing render "How To Put An Audience To Sleep In Under Two Minutes" undeniable. Co-fronter Evan Bernard's lyrics ring so true, his singing is so unassailably so heartfelt, that it's hard to believe The Weaks haven't made a mint on just this song alone.
"...Dreams ending in white picket fences, dreams ending, the world isn't quite so big..."
On an album that captures the sound of a band almost literally growing, this track in particular presents Richmond futurepop goliaths White Laces just totally going for it. Powerful rhythm tracks propel the song, furnishing a foundation for the tune's ricocheting, chiming melodies. Fronter Landis Wine's vocal become increasingly desperate and exercised as "Skate Or Die" rockets to its thrilling conclusion. Then, quietly, the song's final moments quietly shudder, reiterating its opening seconds, a twitching, winking film of oil shifting on a membrane that provides a subtle indication that the tune is a Jeff Zeigler production. "Skate Or Die" is ripe with huge moments, the kinds of moments that make it among the best songs of 2014.
"...you say it's fine, you won't come down, you want the lights, but hate the sound..."
>> Our natural inclination is to slag off Audio Antihero for releasing a single for the best song from its recent Benjamin Shaw release some six months after said release, but of course the little London label that could has beaten us to the punch, pre-emptively dubbing the single -- actually an EP -- a "cash-in." Despite the weird timing, the You & Me EP is neither a crass money grab nor a strategic misstep, as Mr. Shaw's stand-out tune -- which we spotlighted in our review of the charming full-length Goodbye, Cagoule World in April -- is supported by three exceptionally good cover versions from others unfortunate enough to be tagged with the descriptor "Audio Antihero artist." Indeed, Shaw's marvelous, wry and jaunty original is complemented by terrific and distinctly different versions from Jack Hayter, erstwhile Bostonian Cloud and Broken Shoulder. One of our favorite musical elements of the original is the burbling synth line, which recalls Hypo's amazing "Nice Day." Cloud has taken that piece of the tune and layered delicate layers of icy guitar and angelic, edgeless vocals over top. Mr. Hayter toys with the meter of the lyrics and renders the tune as a Joe Cocker-esque sea shanty, his papery tenor speeding up and slowing down over alternately syrupy and sticky pedal steel. Experimental droner Broken Shoulder plays to its formidable strengths, rounding out the EP with a strong, other-worldly and five-minute-plus rendering that sounds like the scattering remnants of a dream about the original song. Audio Antihero released the You & Me EP Oct. 6 as a digital download, and we unreservedly recommend it to your attention. Stream the short set via the Bandcamp embed below, and click through to purchase for the ridiculously reasonable price of £1, which you should do, before Jamie Antihero starts talking about shutting down the label again.
>> Oh, how we have forsaken The Sun Parade. The Northampton, Mass.-based quartet's terrifically catchy Heart's Out EP was released a month ago, and the set's immediate and revved-up folk-rock tunes have been in steady rotation at the Clicky Clicky dojo ever since drummer Noam Schatz dropped the record on us a few weeks back. Mr. Schatz, long-time readers will recall, previously detonated the cans for the late, great Mobius Band. Schatz has spent time with a bit of musical this-and-that since the end of Mobius Band, but The Sun Parade is the first touring act he's joined up with since the mid-ish oughts. The Sun Parade was out last month with the popular-with-many-people-and-now-Boston-Calling-veterans Lake Street Dive, and we can't imagine its snappy numbers didn't find favor with the headliner's audience. The foursome's Beatles-fed Americana foregrounds sturdy vocal harmonies in its big choruses, punctuates its point with scads of scritchy rhythm guitar, and applies some pretty ripping lead guitar now and again, too, while all the while Mr. Schatz's physical playing spurs the compositions ever onward. EP highlight "I'm Still Here" works itself toward a frenzy in its final quarter, as does the groovier cut "A Plane To New Zealand," but the former tune's crafty chord changes and fluid harmonies in the chorus make for ready hooks that will be hard for listeners to shake. While out on tour The Sun Parade recorded the obligatory Daytrotter session, so if you chew through Heart's Out and need more music, keep your ears open for that. The act has scattered live engagements during the remainder of this fall, including a show in Providence next weekend, and you can check out all show dates right here. Stream the title track to Heart's Out via the Bandcamp embed below, and click through to stream the whole magilla and to purchase the short set on CD or as a digital download. It's worth reminding you that Schatz isn't the only Mobius Band alum with new music out there: last month we reviewed Cookies' excellent LP Music For Touchingright here. That act is led by former Mobius Band fronter Ben Sterling.
It's a long rain jacket, is what a cagoule is, to answer what is likely the first question any American has about this record. The second question is probably something along the lines of "Benjamin who?" Even so, longtime Clicky Clicky readers will recall Benjamin Shaw's sublime 2011 set There's Always Hope, There's Always Cabernet [preview], and perhaps other of his releases. Mr. Shaw, simply put, is among the best London has to offer, a songwriter both morose and sly, a man whose ghoulish songs are stunning, detailed tableaus of rich absurdity, beautiful putrefaction and boundless despair. While it is not sonically as of-a-piece as the aforementioned Cabernet or the fantastic 2013 instrumental set Summer In The Box Room, Shaw's latest long-player Goodbye, Cagoule World is nonetheless a marvel, illustrating both the breadth and depth of the talents of this underlooked fun trick noisemaker.
The record features Shaw's characteristic, charmingly dour reportage on slow doom and slower decay, around which he has arranged into an immersive aural collage a surprising and rich array of exquisitely crafted sounds. There's the lonely vibrato guitar leads quietly hammering themselves in the head, and the demented and aimless saxophone, in "Always With The Drama." The mid-tempo, canned swing of "Break The Kettles And Sink The Boats" hints only slightly at the shuddering boxed rhythm that opens the instrumental "A Day In The Park." But as good as Shaw's instrumentions sound, it is his incisive and decimating lyrics that resonate most powerfully. After a protracted, spectral introduction, the album opener "No One" presents a vivid, indeterminate and potentially terrifying narrative with only a single lyric: "No one can love you like I do, 'cause you never, no you never, leave the flat." Is this a description of a quiet, prim relationship? The quiet taunt of captor to captive? Whatever is happening in the song, it has taken the last great single-lined song -- Built To Spill's towering (and apparently rarely performed) "You Are" from 2001's Ancient Melodies Of The Future -- and bent it tantalizingly toward Shaw's "Endgame"-esque aesthetic.
This is not to undersell Shaw's penetrating wit (we'll leave it to Audio Antihero to do the underselling -- OOOH BURN! -- Ed.). As beautiful and human as the aforementioned moments are, the easy lilt and sardonic lyrics of the booby-trapped "You And Me" make it the closest thing to a pop hit among the songs of Goodbye, Cagoule World -- while, of course and in true Shaw fashion, aiming to torpedo pop convention. Over a serene epilogue, a bed of wavering synth tones that recalls the bed of Hypo's microhouse anthem "Nice Day," Shaw bullet-points the makings of a lamestream lyric: "so here's a line about the system, and here's a line that's quite funny, and here's a pop culture reference, and a lazy refrain, like 'you and me.'" Shaw's distinctly smart and singular voice -- whipsmart and deeply affecting, and we're using "voice" in the figurative sense here -- puts him in the rarified company of non-hitmakers of the day including Krill's Jonah Furman or Los Campesinos!' Gareth Paisey.
Goodbye, Cagoule World will be released as a compact disc and digital download by the aforementioned, venerable mess of a label Audio Antihero April 21. The first 100 pre-orders of either format will also receive a Benjamin Shaw-endorsed stress ball, if they click the correct button on the Bandcamp page here. A stress ball seems rather ridiculous given the transcendent futility consistently portrayed in Shaw's music -- so wait, maybe it's perfect, actually. The release of Goodbye, Cagoule World will be feted at a show April 29 at Servant Jazz Quarters in London, but if you'd prefer not to wait as long as all that, Shaw will also appear Wednesday at London's Ivy House. For the time being, the entirety of Goodbye, Cagoule World can be stream right here at GoldFlake Paint. We've also embedded the title track and "You And Me" for your listening pleasure below.
>> We haven't gone through our archives to see how often we've said it, or how consistently, but we've got a standard rap about odds 'n' sods collections. At best, such a collection gathers together relatively inconvenient-to-gather stuff. In the best-case scenario -- and this is certainly dependent on the band -- the stuff evidences exciting chance-taking that presents a broader set of possibilities, or even a broader stylistic scope, than what ends up on a "proper" album by the act in question. [DELETED LONG ASIDE ABOUT PINK FLOYD]. But we're not talking about Floyd today, we are talking about Boston treasure Hallelujah The Hills. Its terrific Portrait Of The Artist As A Young Trash Can, released Tuesday, is an exciting collection of non-album singles, coulda-shouldas and curiosities (the most curious of these is an unsolicited dance remix Hallelujah The Hills received of "Wave Backwards To Massachusetts"). The 21-song set also contains three new songs, including "Confessions Of An Ex-Ghost," which recalls a similarly excellent pop classic from Love As Laughter. It speaks to the overall quality of Hallelujah The Hills' work that its loose ends don't sound like session seconds compared to the new tracks and singles. Hallelujah The Hills' not-so-secret weapon is the facility with which fronter Ryan Walsh's voice conveys myriad emotional dimensions. Compound that with the fact that he's a brilliant lyricist -- clever, self-effacing, often dead-on with a Malkmus-ian deadpan -- and a cracking coterie of collaborators and it's easy to see why there's gold at every turn here, from the spitting vitriol of the overdriven live version of the stomping shouter "(You Better Hope You) Die Before Me" to the breezy and whip-smart strummer "Honey, Don't It All Seem So Phony." Hallelujah The Hills played its last show for the foreseeable future last Friday at the Sinclair in Cambridge, MA, and now intends to turn its attention to writing and recording a new album. The act's most recent long-player was 2012's No One Knows What Will Happen Next. We think you can stream all of Portrait Of The Artist As A Young Trash Can via the Bandcamp embed below, which you should do, as it will make you whole.
>> A couple years ago we were just finishing up a long stint of travel for the day job, which required of us a lot of airplane trips to the center of the good ol' U.S. of A. and back again. We were pretty well exhausted by all of this -- not the travel, but the work -- and one of the rare pleasures of it all was sitting down on the airplane, closing our eyes, and listening to Broken Shoulder's tremendous debut long-player Broken Shoulderrr. The set, still available for purchase via Audio Antihero right here, is a trance-facilitating pastiche of melody and noise, pretty and engaging and just challenging enough but not so much so that one can't listen to it while resting. On an airplane. Over the last couple years the music of now Tokyo-based Broken Shoulder has varied stylistically somewhat on succeeding releases, embracing at times more chaos than melody. We are pleased to hear something of a return to the sound of that debut collection on the band's latest, Title Track. The highlight of the collection is the closing number "What Is Thirteen?," which arranges field recording, droning guitar arpeggiation and other sonic elements into a gently churning aural roux that seems to spread in every direction all at once before receding into an insectoid buzz and urban crowd noise. Title Track is available for purchase as a digital download and CDR via Broken Shoulder's Bandcamp right here, and we've embedded the entire set for streaming below. The CDR's are packaged in a handmade paper sleeve with fancy stickers, if that's the sort of thing you like. The collection was recorded in January 2013 at mastermind Neil Debnam's home in Japan and mastered by the great Benjamin Shaw (who, incidentally, just played what he claims will be his final live gig in London). Stream Title Track via the embed below; whether you purchase a plane ticket as well, well, we'll leave that up to you.
>> This publication regularly decries the glut of contemporary guitar bands that have "discovered" reverb and find the genre tag "surf" a convenient descriptor for weak material, but that doesn't mean we don't ever find a band we like making surfy sounds. Take for example Israel-based guitar-pop unit Soda Fabric, a quartet that recently released a third digital single from its planned EP titled Tears On The Beach. The tune is called "She Hides Her Soul," and in its first moments its splashy electric snare and clean guitars come across as a little too benign. But the song steadily gathers intensity and bursts with a delightfully unhinged mania at each chorus: fronter Moosh Fabric's vocals decompose into throaty shouts, Shachak Fabric pelts the crash cymbals until the din resembles a sheer, but palpable, curtain of white noise. "She Hides Her Soul" was released to the wilds of the Internet April 25, and you can download it from Bandcamp right here, or stream it via the embed below. There is also a kitschy video for "She Hides Her Soul" that features a girl dancing in animal-print underwear and chewing gum at the same time; if that is your thing, you can watch it right here. There is no release date at present for Tears On The Beach, but the art is on display right here along with a pledge that it is "coming out soon," in a limited edition. Soda Fabric is plotting a tour of Germany, according to this post.
>> London-based propagator of beautiful noise Benjamin Shaw will release Feb. 25 a new collection titled Summer In The Box Room on the newly minted Glass Reservoir Records. A preview track, a spooky, discordant instrumental titled "Oh Jesus, Close The Curtains," was posted to Soundcloud in the last day or so. The song arranges a series of drones and some three-legged-cat piano into a curiously gripping, quasi-cinematic sequence of audible events. Mr. Shaw's last full-length recording, There's Always Hope, There's Always Cabernet, was issued by clever facsimile of a record label Audio Antihero in 2011; we dubbed it a "[h]opelessly beautiful, crumbling chamber pop masterpiece" and named it as one of Clicky Clicky's favorites of that year. Concerned about a potential blow to Audio Antihero's roster, such as it is, we traded messages with the label, which assured us Mr. Shaw has not abandoned ship and the label and Shaw continue to discuss working together on future projects. Summer In The Box Room's art is already posted to the Glass Reservoir Records web site right here, and a detail of same is posted above this item, but order details for the record are as yet unavailable. In the meantime, there is an album trailer of sorts at YouTube here. Watch this space, or one quite similar to it, for further information, and stream "Oh Jesus, Close The Curtains" via the embed below.
>> Portland, Ore.-based sculpt-pop concern Lubec has placed online for a limited time two brilliant demos of songs from the band's planned sophomore set. The unsurprisingly sonically adventurous tunes include the chugging, anthemic hand-clapper "Adam" and "Many Worlds," a dense strummer with attractively layered vocals. The pair are offered at no charge -- get them while the getting's good! Lubec's full-length debut Wilderness Days compiles a dozen early tracks from the band's oeuvre and recently began shipping to fans after various production delays, as attentive Clicky Clicky readers know. Publicly available details of the forthcoming long-player are few and far between, but the notes to the demos do report the set is "currently being engineered and produced by Robert Comitz at the Frawg Pound in Portland, OR. To be completed Spring, 2013." Spring, my friends, is not terribly far off. Start getting excited now.
The legacy of largely overlooked but wholly genius indie rock duo Nosferatu D2 has experienced yet another unlikely echo, as an enterprising reporter with PRI's "The World" radio program last month once more amplified the startling singularity of the defunct Croydon, England band. Featuring interviews with fronter Ben Parker, who these days is writing plays and fronting an expanded version of his Superman Revenge Squad, as well as Audio Antihero Records founder Jamie Halliday, the radio piece is embedded below, and is very much worth a listen. We've written perhaps more words than anyone about Nosferatu D2 and Mr. Parker, who formed the band with his brother and largely architected its uncompromising attack: clean but aggressive guitar, thermonuclear drumming and more desperately dark lyrics than often could be contained by the meter of the verses. "The World" reporter Brendan Mattox gets great stuff. Of the band's dissolution in 2007, Parker tells him, "I think I realized how angry we were. And how I almost had to put on this angry persona to play the gigs for Nosferatu D2." And then Mr. Mattox breaks a little news, which is now made manifest: today, almost three years after Audio Antihero launched with its maiden title, Nosferatu D2's We're Gonna Walk Around This City With Headphones On To Block Out The Noise, the label is releasing for free a remastered version of a live recording of the Croydonites' final show.
On March 5, 2007, the band performed on a bill with two other then-young acts that have since gone on to much wider acclaim: Los Campesinos! and Sky Larkin. No one apparently knew at the time this was to be ND2's last show, and the cracking bill speaks optimistically about the prospects for all three acts. Los Campesinos! had just release a debut single and was weeks away from signing with Arts & Crafts. Notably, Gareth Campesinos! was an ND2 fan and championed the act's full-length upon Audio Antihero's release of same in 2009, giving the full length what was likely its biggest boost up until "The World" aired its piece a couple weeks ago. Much like We're Gonna Walk Around This City..., the live show recording was previously available -- at least back in 2007 -- as a free download on Last.FM, although, originally the opener "Colonel Parker" was omitted because the first few seconds weren't recorded. Audio Antihero has enlisted label signatory (and brilliant recording artist in his own right) Benjamin Shaw to remaster the live set, which is now available for free download right here. Considering the basic manner in which we expect this audience recording was made, the sound quality is quite good, and we highly recommend you acquire this important document of an amazing act. It includes tracks not present on Nosferatu D2's sole release (although completists will recognize certain of them from compilations released in recent years). Chief among these rarities is the taut rocker "Man At War With Himself," an unforgiving and desperate tune splattered by drums that abruptly halts well short of two minutes after hinting at a chorus that ends before it becomes obvious. It's a special song from a remarkable snapshot of a band taken from us before its time. Listen to "Man At War With Himself" via the embed below, then click through the get the entire eight-song set.
Yeah, that's right, 36 friggin' songs for four pounds. Since we just spent four pounds on the Yr Friends EP, Americans, we can tell you that works out to about $6.50. We'll do the math for you -- this compilation, expertly curated by Jamie Volcano of Audio Antihero Records, asks that you pay something like $.18 per song (at a minimum, donations of a greater amount are encouraged and welcome), with all proceeds going to a UK organization that aims to eradicate Sudden Infant Death Syndrome. Even without telling you about the amazing music on Some Alternate Universe, certain of it exclusive, this is a no-brainer. Don't be a dumbass. The official release date is March 5, but Audio Antihero appears happy to start taking your money immediately, thank you very much.
So what we're talking about is a win-win. Help a reputable research organization curb a heartbreaking medical mystery and get dozens of great songs all for the price of just a couple pints and the pub. Do it now.
And here we are at the end of 2011. If you had told us a year ago that the things which transpired this year were coming, we would not have believed you. While for much of the year, and much to our frustration, music had to take a back seat to real life, that only increased its importance to this writer. Cross-country flights soundtracked by Broken Shoulder. Getting up to speed mornings listening to Rival Schools. Quiet weekends with J Mascis, summer vacation with Algernon Cadwallader and The War On Drugs, doing dishes with the The Henry Clay People. And when we could, we saw shows that kept us smiling long after they were over, not the least of which was the seismic bill we co-presented in late October featuring The Hush Now, Soccermom and Chandeliers. We even found time to draft major pieces on favorite acts Haywood (here) and Johnny Foreigner (here). But largely constraints on our time and tons of stress often meant quality over quantity when it came to the blogging life; fortunately in 2011 there was no shortage of exceptional music to keep us sane. Below are our favorite 10 records of the year. We are very excited for what 2012 will bring, even if it only brings a little more time to catch up on everything we didn't have time for in 2011. Thanks for reading. Stick with us, there's a lot more Clicky Clicky where this came from.
1. Johnny Foreigner -- Johnny Foreigner vs. Everything -- Alcopop!
Now that it's here, it's hard not to feel like everything was leading up to it, from the band's very first single in 2007 onward. Johnny Foreigner vs. Everything is a fully DIY proposition that is remarkable in its vivid realization -- especially considering the small amount of money involved in creating it. It's also a defiant statement from a band that has fought for everything it has got, including its continued existence. As fronter Alexei Berrow told us here in October, "It feels like there are a lot of people waiting to be like 'O Johnny Foreigner fucked up, inevitable, how predictable.' Vs. Everything is us making these possibly imaginary folks eat their stupid words." And, man, the record delivers the fire and hope, the desperate melodies and sublime sentiments. If you haven't already, make sure you hear the best record of 2011.
[review / buy / Spotify]
2. Benjamin Shaw -- There's Always Hope, There's Always Cabernet -- Audio Antihero
While this list of favorite records for the most part illustrates which albums we listened to most in the last 360 or so days, it also speaks loudly about what we value in the music we spend our time with. Benjamin Shaw's There's Always Hope, There's Always Cabernet is perhaps the best example of what we value most: an artist with a singular personality, a unique vision or world view that is ably and creatively captured in the stereo field. Mr. Shaw's chamber pop showcases a charming dourness and humor, cloaked within deftly arranged guitar, piano, strings and ambient curiosities. His vocal delivery is remarkably personal, and the resulting collection here is as cozy as it is ghostly. Each song presents soft and sharp elements, like a bag full of knitting, while making sure that there are as many melodic hooks as there are noisy cul-de-sacs. It's enchanting, and it is easily one of the best of the year.
[preview / buy / Spotify]
3. Age Rings -- Black Honey -- Midriff Records
The one that almost got away, Black Honey was shelved for more than a year during its difficult gestation. Somehow band fronter Ted Billings was able to gather up inspiration that had sifted through his fingers and complete the collection, some four years on from its inception. It's a marvelous, rootsy rock record with a vast arsenal of hooks supporting Mr. Billings' raw, heart-on-sleeve sentiments and wry sense of humor. Black Honey is a thrilling collection, from the bombastic openers "Rock and Roll Is Dead" and "Black Hole" to the haunting closer "Caught Up In The Sound." It was a real feather in local dynamo Midriff Records' cap to be able to put it out, and it feels like a gift every time we listen to it.
[review / buy / Spotify]
4. Destroyer -- Kaputt -- Merge Records
Oh, how we loved this one from the very first time we put it on, perhaps the most obvious sign that even before we climbed all the way up the umbilical noose of '80s MTV, we were immersed irretrievably in early '80s commercial radio. It bothers us that Kaputt is viewed by many as tongue-in-cheek (the video for the album's title track didn't help matters), as we genuinely love the recycled soft-rock sounds and "Miami Vice"-cool found on the record just about as much as all the "critically compliant" Brotherhood vibes. Of course, embossing Destroyer auteur Dan Bejar's characteristic witover top of Kaputt's confections makes it that much more irresistable. Every song on the record is a hit, and it is at the top of mind every time we sit down to put on a record. Another Bejar coup.
[buy / Spotify]
5. The War On Drugs -- Slave Ambient -- Secretly Canadian
We listened to this for hours and hours in the middle of a hot summer, and it reminded us of the boiling South Philadelphia summers of our mid-20s. The city's unbroken mesh of hot brick rowhouses, each one its own oven, windows thrown open to the constant street noise, noise that buzzes like the constant aural din that underpins Slave Ambient. A din, we'd argue, that is like a dialect unique to Philadelphians. We long for our days in that city often, and in a way Drugs fronter Adam Granduciel has given us the gift of hearing a piece of our history again amid his hypnotic, mesmerizing creation. Slave Ambient's icy coctail of Philly FM radio and motorik reverie gets better every time we indulge it. Each time we put the collection on we nudge the volume knob northward to sit back and bathe in a Bartowski-esque Intersect of musical data points, freejacking decades of Petty, U2, the Dead and on and on and on and on...
[review / buy / Spotify]
6. Algernon Cadwallader -- Parrot Flies -- Hot Green/BSM
More Philly, people. This time it's fist-banging anthems, lightning in a bottle, youthful vigor. Few things make us wish we were young again, but Parrot Flies is one of them. Somewhere in all the caterwauling and rocking out, there is a well-spring of positive vibes so potent that it not only has the ability to brighten our days now, but also to inspire in us the strange belief that we could go back and enjoy by-gone days more if only we had had Parrot Flies on one side of a C-90 stuffed in the dashboard tape player. Emo the way it was meant to be written and performed by dudes who do it themselves, from recording to touring to releasing their record. To steal a line from Stars, "when there's nothing left to burn, you have to set yourself on fire." Algernon Cadwallader live it, and Parrot Flies is so much delicious proof.
[review / buy / Spotify]
7. The Hush Now -- Memos -- Self-Released
They did it. The Hush Now's third record is a triumph of melody, of songwriting, of will. For years the band has been slugging it out in Boston, turning in increasingly dominating live sets, and finally, with Memos, the band released a recording that matched in execution the passion and energy characteristic of their visceralperformances. And beyond Memos just sounding good and feeling good, it touts the best set of songs the quintet has turned out yet, from the jaw-dropping ballad "Sitting On A Slow Clock" (which featured on our year-end songs list here) to the scorching guitar pop anthems that the band has made its stock-in-trade, Memos delivers, and we can't imagine the overground won't come calling for these guys soon enough.
[review / buy / Spotify]
8. Ringo Deathstarr -- Colour Trip -- Sonic Unyon
It took four years to get it, but we can't say it wasn't worth the wait. On the tail of an increasingly convoluted string of singles and EPs (different collections in the USA, UK and Japan with different configurations of songs, something of a collector's nightmare), Austin-based noise pop behemoths Ringo Deathstarr finally issued a debut full-length. It's an arresting amalgamation of shoegaze, punk and even dance-pop, and it's awesome. The trio is having better luck in other markets (it just toured supporting Smashing Pumpkins abroad and had a few dates in Japan with Johnny Foreigner), but Colour Trip gained some significant traction for The Deathstarr here. And we ask you, what's not to like? The record is a perfect calling card for the band's power, style and attitude, and listeners that write the band off as a My Bloody Valentine clone are both missing the point and just not listening.
[review / buy / Spotify]
9. Soccer Mom -- You Are Not Going To Heaven -- 100m
...the power and the glory, forever and ever, amen. You Are Not Going To Heaven is an exhilarating collection, from the Sonic Youth-styled buzzsaw of "(A) Natural History" to the blackout bludgeoning of the final 30 seconds of "Southern Bells." All six songs here are dynamite. Perhaps the only thing more exhilarating is experiencing the quartet's firestorm live. We honestly feel bad for any band that has to follow these guys on a bill, because after The 'Mom levels the crowd with its blissful and desperate noise (via Dan Parlin's mad-dog death-grip head shake, the steady cool of guitarist Bill Scales and bassist Danielle Deveau, and drummer Justin Kehoe's octopus arms), that show's over, man. It's just over ("...grab your stuff and go and nobody goes to jail..."). This EP is huge, and we can't wait for the next batch of recordings. Boston's next big thing keeping getting better, if not nextier.
[preview / buy / Spotify]
10. Los Campesinos! -- Hello Sadness -- Arts & Crafts
In some way it is difficult to believe that the band that issued the scruffy Sticking Fingers Into Sockets EP in 2007 is the same act that crafted Hello Sadness. But there are a lot easy retorts to that sentiment, too, namely, well, it's just not the same band. The amount of living Tom, Gareth and the rest of Los Campesinos! have crammed into the last five years -- even if measured only by the 75 songs in our ITunes, you know, "band living" -- is quite astonishing. Hello Sadness is so emotionally broad and deep it is like the world's oceans, once you're in the water, it's just water going on forever, amazing songs like "To Tundra" and "Hate For The Island" so breath-taking there's no swimming across. There is a theoretic line between pop and art and this record is perhaps most remarkable for making that theoretic line so wide as one can not be pulled apart from the other at all. Amazing songs, amazing lyrics, so purposefully rendered.
[preview / buy / Spotify]
[*We accidentally deleted this post from late December; here it is in all of its glory once more. -- Ed.]
Well, rock fans, it was a really strange year, one in which we personally and professionally -- and, yes, even to a certain extent here on the blog -- accomplished a great many big things. And all the ups and downs -- transcendent live sets on local stages, solitary post-midnight walks across frozen parking lots in the midwest -- had their soundtrack. Below are our picks for the 10 best songs of the year. These, as usual, are largely determined by our raw ITunes playcounts, although we also gave a little more weight to recent releases that would have been otherwise penalized by coming along later in the year. The list, most of all, is a chance to point to standout songs, regardless of whether the records they are sourced from garnered a slot on our year-end albums list, which we hope to publish before 2011 is gone.
There is an almost complete Spotify playlist of all the tracks that you can access right here; we say almost complete because for whatever reason Spotify doesn't have or won't recognize The Hush Now's wonderful 2011 set Memos. In the few instances possible, we've augmented our copy with embeddable streams, as well, which among other things affords you the opportunity to listen to a nice live recording of Ringo Deathstarr's superlative dream-pop ode "Kaleidoscope." We're already looking forward to big things in 2012. Thanks for reading,and keep an eye out for our aforementioned year-end albums list -- as well as a list or two from Mr. Piantigini -- in the coming days.
1. Johnny Foreigner -- "You vs. Everything" -- Johnny Foreigner vs. Everything
[listen at Spotify]
We struggled over the decision to make this song our song of the year, as opposed to "Alternate Timelines Piling Up." And what it came down to is that while "Alternate Timelines..." is stunningly beautiful and sad, "You vs. Everything" is a self-empowerment song. It's up-tempo. And we need all the adrenaline we can muster these days. Johnny Foreigner is no stranger to anthems, but here the band has finally gone ahead and pointedly created a break-neck paced, fist-banging anthem for you and me. It's one highlight from their year-topping third full-length Johnny Foreigner vs. Everything, which we reviewed last month right here.
2. Rival Schools -- "The Ghost Is Out There" -- Pedals
[listen at Spotify]
Our love for the chorus of this song is boundless. The melody, the ease with which fronter Walter Schreifels looses the syllables from his lips with his immeasurably emotive (tired/sad/happy/wistful/learned/heartbroken) and scratchy voice, the lyrics: it all kills us every time. Remarkably evocative, and yet we haven't any real idea as to what this song is about. But that is a sure sign of excellent songcraft -- the emotion and melody are extremely potent even if the intent is equally as fuzzy. Sing with us, now: "floating in spaaaaaace, the ghost is out there, so you're not alone." We didn't review Rival Schools' 2011 record Pedals, but it kept us company on a lot of cold winter mornings in a far-off place early this year.
3. Benjamin Shaw -- "Home" -- There's Always Hope, There's Always Cabernet
[listen at Spotify]
There's Always Hope, There's Always Cabernet will be lucky if it garners footnotes in the year-end lists of the wider, music-writing masses. But the fact is that as soon as we heard the record we sort of felt like someone had handed us a suitcase stuffed with a massive amount of unmarked bills. Or kittens. Well, ghost kittens. With bloody fur around their mouths. Dressed up as tiny little brides and grooms, top hats and veils, little holes for the tails, the whole bit. But anyway, Benjamin Shaw's record is a massive achievement, one that offers a singular but remarkably whole and detailed world view. That is no more apparent than during this epic song. We've seen other writers discussing Mr. Shaw's record that seem to suggest that the rich sonic appointments get in the way of the presentation, of, presumably, Shaw's voice and acoustic guitar. We vehemently disagree. The production on Cabernet is magically vivid and balanced and perfect, as "Home" perhaps best exemplifies.
4. Los Campesinos! -- "Hate For The Island" -- Hello Sadness
[listen at Spotify]
Gareth Campesinos! continues to decry when necessary the application by misinformed writers of the label "twee" to his band's music. Perhaps if he could get everyone to listen to "Hate For The Island" as many times as we have, he can save his breath and go back to tweeting about football and dames. The song is perhaps the most convincing argument that can be made to support the idea that while Los Campesinos! clearly began it's career as scrappy indie poppers, the band's present and future is more cerebral. This song is almost art rock, and the artfulness with which it is made speaks volumes about the massive talent that is propelling the
collective into a band middle-age that seems more promising with each new record.
The show-stopper from the band's best-of-2011 album isn't a big guitar anthem -- well, there are those, too -- but this bar room ballad, the definitive live version of which the band delivered to open its triumphant tour homecoming show in October. We've written for years about The Hush Now, and have seen them at least a dozen times live, but the band was still able to surprise us with this heart-string tugger. When the horn solo gently nudges itself in the door, it reveals a heretofore unrevealed facet of the band. Fronter Noel Kelly, who provides the horn solo here, probably can't rival Chet Baker on brass, but certainly the vocal performance on "Sitting On A Slow Clock" is worthy of the classic Chet Baker Sings. We reviewed Memoshere in September.
Another of noise-pop phenoms Ringo Deathstarr's perfect pop songs, in the mould of its early gems "Sweet Girl" and "Your Town." As the band broadens its pallet to incorporate more dynamic, electronic rhythms and bassist Alex Gehring's vocal contributions become more prominent, it is nice to hear that fronter Elliot Frazer is still willing and able to return to this creative well, apparently at will. Slowly spiraling guitar chords, yearning vocals, simple but unbeatable melodies. "Have you seen her, she's a kaleidoscope...?" Perfection. Check out this awesome live version from last summer. We reviewed Colour Triphere in May.
7. Age Rings -- "Caught Up In The Sound" -- Black Honey
[listen at Spotify]
Sadness and beauty and inevitability, this song's packed with all three and sheds chunks of all of them as its spring-loaded trudging drives the tune from behind a curtain at stage left, across the spotlit center stage, only to disappear behind the curtain at stage right, like a four-minute Beckett play. From its recursive opening lyric to the gently twirling backing vocal that carries it out, "Caught Up In The Sound" is a breathtakingly vivid, down-in-the-mouth love song. As we observed in our review, the song is the perfect closing track to the Midriff re-release of Age Rings' Black Honey, which we reviewed here in October.
We were really afraid this record was going to get hated on by the wider critical populace of the Internerds, as we'd seen (and heard, on the Sound Opinions podcast) some express distaste for the latest collection from Dan Bejar's Destroyer. Not because we need to have our love for this validated -- the relative anonymity of certain of our selections are certainly a testament to that. But as we were saying to the Koomdogg during a forthcoming episode of the CompCon podcast, we just found it hard to believe that a songwriter known to be a shapeshifter (in the same vein as our hero Kurt Heasley of Lilys) was going to be penalized for making a record that many would prefer to pigeonhole derisively as "soft rock." Our pal Bill from Soccer Mom actually has a great genre identifier for the smooth sounds of Kaputt -- "errand rock" -- which references the music his mom played in the car during his suburban upbringing. We totally get that. But we also think that there is a sufficient amount of New Order present in Kaputt along with the other smooth sounds to satisfy even the snootiest indie rocker. Either way, the collection is wonderful, and its dreamy chorus immediately wormed its way into our head and has never left. "Sounds, Smash Hits, Melody Maker, NME, all sound like a dream to me..."
All of this song is wonderful, and, indeed, all of Parrot Flies is wonderful. But this song has a moment, a huge, huge moment, that makes it the defining song Algernon Cadwallader's sophomore set. It's when the singer is shouting -- and he's always desperately shouting -- something like "and there's nothing bittersweet about that, and now something, something something something THE CHINATOWN BUS something something something" etc. Having never taken the Chinatown bus, we don't know why we find the reference so evocative, but we do. Something about the freedom to make mistakes, the freedom of being young and unencumbered by Life's Big Things. Something about joy, which is something that pervades not only this song, but the whole of Parrot Flies. We reviewed the record here in August.
10. The Henry Clay People -- "The Honey Love He Sells" -- This Is A Desert EP
[listen at Spotify]
This is a pretty damn excellent song, life-affirming in its outrageous pacing and punchy delivery. But what perhaps makes this so invigorating, such a breath of fresh air, is that we swear mere months before this EP came out, The Henry Clay People announced something like a hiatus from music. And as we quipped elsewhere, we're glad the hiatus didn't "take," because this song is a barnburner.
Hopelessly beautiful, crumbling chamber pop masterpiece from charming London-based wretch Benjamin Shaw. There's Always Hope, There's Always Cabernet is sometimes like a blinky star you can't always see directly, and other times like a skeleton in a bridal gown that disintegrates in your arms as you gently waltz it into the surf while the packets of rat poison are kicking in. It's a majestic thing, this record, and each and every one of its songs. There's Always Hope, There's Always Cabernet is the sound of a man smashed to bits by a hammer and haphazardly reconstructed with clear tape, a mostly-ghost anchored in place by an enlarged heart and necrotic liver thought-bubbling songs so deeply sad you can drop pebbles down in them and wait and wait and never hear the splash. Spectral vocals condense and then decompose between the headphones, static unexplains itself in the foreground, violin patiently loses its mind, guitar and piano and synth take turns at half-heartedly asserting traditional structures.
The record is Mr. Shaw's first full-length, and (as we mentioned here in July) it will be released in the UK by the unwillingly brilliant Audio Antihero label Nov. 21. The collection will be preceded by the laughably un-pop single "Somewhere Over The M6," which Audio Antihero dubs "accidental shoegaze;" it is slated to hit digital storefronts Oct. 17. "Somewhere Over The M6," a stream of which is embedded below, is tied to a rhythm sample that sounds like a boat creaking, or a proto-iron lung wheezing under a cloudy chorus of slowly turning chords. But it is the paralyzingly beautiful "Home" that may be the most stunning song of the collection, a mournful lament that slowly builds a cocoon of noise and melody around itself, twice. Pre-order There's Always Hope, There's Always Cabernet from Audio Antihero right here. Audio Antihero previously released Shaw's EPs I Got The Pox, The Pox Is What I Got in 2009 and the sinister Rumfucker in 2010; the latter EP is currently available as a pay-what-you-want download here and we can't recommend it highly enough. But not quite as highly as Cabernet, which by rights should dot year-end best-of lists you'll be seeing in the coming months.
>> Still-not-dead-yet label Audio Antihero will release this fall a second full-length from ethereal and brilliant folk misfit Benjamin Shaw (third if you count the amazing, more experimental and FREERumfucker release, which we're never sure if we're supposed to count or not). The new collection is titled There's Always Hope, There's Always Cabernet and it will be available from Nov. 21. To remind you that Mr. Shaw is out there, biding his time in a forest north of London, Audio Antihero is issuing ahead of There's Always Hope... a double A-sided single culled from Shaw's sweet and creepy (sweepy?) 2009 debut I Got The Pox, The Pox Is What I Got. "When I Fell Over In The City" b/w "The Carpeteer" will be released -- we presume digitally, but it wouldn't be the first time label proprietor Jamie Antihero had a trick up his sleeve, either -- Aug. 22. We love the video for the latter number, which you can gaze upon right here. Shaw has two London appearances and an Edinburgh show booked among the final days of August. Bearded Magazine, of which we've only just become aware despite having rocked a beard since 1997, is already offering a .wav download of "When I Fell Over In The City" right here, so we suggest you avail yourself of that forthwith.
>> While you weren't looking, a new label collective congealed in the UK and went ahead and signed notable spiky guitar pop band Tubelord. The Kingston upon Thames-based quartet is the first signing to Pink Mist, a joint effort of labels including Clicky Clicky faves Big Scary Monsters along with Holy Roar and Blood And Biscuits. Pink Mist will release Tubelord's sophomore set Romance on Oct. 10. The foursome's first full-length Our First American Friends was issued in 2009 by Hassle Records; Tubelord has also issued a pile of brilliant singles including the debut "Feed Me A Box Of Words" and "I Am Azerrad," both released by Big Scary Monsters in 2008. Two promo tracks for Romance are already making the rounds, and we're particularly smitten with the first, "4T3," which you can stream via the embed below. The title, according to this live clip, is a reference to the number of, ahem, proverbial notches in the bedpost of one of the band's drivers. "4T3" is delicate and mesmerizing, and contrasts sharply with the jittery guitars and pushy vocals of Tubelord's early singles. Romance, comprised of 11 songs, is already available for pre-order in a variety of configurations of vinyl, CD, t-shirt and digital right here. Tubelord plays a Pink Mist showcase Aug. 16 and then will tour the UK to support Romance for two non-contiguous weeks in September and October.
>> The fall record release schedule is becoming very crowded, to an exciting degree. Our heroes Johnny Foreigner will issue their third set, likely titledJohnny Foreigner vs. Everyone, in November, according to an interview fronter Alexei Berrow sat for at one of the UK festivals recently recently. Glaswegian emo standard-bearers We Were Promised Jetpacks will release a sophomore set In The Pit Of The Stomach Oct. 4 on Fat Cat; the lead promo song "Act On Impulse" can be downloaded via the ominous-looking-but-in-our-experience-quite-benign widget below, which requires you to fork over your electronic mail address. As we've twerped on the Tweeterz, we're also expecting new records from Calories, Polvo, and dozens of others we're forgetting right now. Great time to be alive, people.
The charmingly monikered Filthy Little Angels label released Monday its long-anticipated, freely downloadable Pavement tribute compilation Show Me A Word That Rhymes With Pavement. While the collection is uneven, it is not all that much more uneven than historically notable (or at least the first three at the top of mind) tribute comps Step Right Up, Give Me The Cure or Homage. The repertoire on the Pavement comp, of course, is untouchable, but certain of the covers struggle (some fail) to convey either the emotional heft or the Shakespearean wise fool tone set down by Mssrs. Malkmus and Stairs and their cohort. That said, there are sterling covers to be had here, including Mascot Fight's delightful "Carrot Rope" and Olympic Swimmers' moody (moodier?), droning take on the gem "We Dance." Another highlight of Show Me A Word That Rhymes With Pavement is Benjamin Shaw's haunting interpretation of "Starlings Of The Slipstream," from Pavement's flawless Brighten The Corners release. Mr. Shaw's adaptation approaches with a deceptively diminutive scale but builds to a short, tasty cacaphony. Readers may recall that Shaw's I Got The Pox, The Pox Is What I Got EP was released by the fledgling label Audio Antihero late last year. You can download the entire Pavement tribute comp here, but we're offering the cover of "Starlings In The Slipstream" below.
Benjamin Shaw -- "Starlings Of The Slipstream" -- Show Me A Word That Rhymes With Pavement [right click and save as] [download the entire compilation from Filthy Little Angels right here]
>> We're going to start talking about contemporary emo quartet Everyone Everywhere now and probably not stop talking about them for quite a while. The act is based in Philly and creates music not all that dissimilar to that of defunct emo heroes The Promise Ring, which basically means we are genetically pre-disposed toward loving Everyone Everywhere. The label Tiny Engines will release the band's self-titled full-length on May 4th, and we can already tell you the thing is super. "But Clicky Clicky," you're saying, "we want to get with this band now!" Believe us, we understand. Fortunately for you, web 'zine If You Make It is currently hosting a free download of Everyone Everywhere's very good 2008 7" A Lot Of Weird People Standing Around. The single sold out but more recently was reissued by Evil Weevil, so if you need that stuff on vinyl go here. As for the forthcoming full-length, it can already be pre-ordered from the band's MySpace dojoright here. The vinyl version will be a limited edition of 500, with 350 pressed on maroon vinyl and the rest pressed to off-white. We're posting a track from A Lot Of Weird People Standing Around below because it is awesome.
Everyone Everywhere -- "Cool Pool Keg Toss Pete" -- A Lot Of Weird People Standing Around [right click and save as] [download A Lot Of Weird People Standing Aroundhere] [buy the 7" here]
>> So, yes, thank you commenter with the information about the awesome London-based band Yuck, which we first wrote about here last month, and which we now know is a quartet that is sometimes a quintet, two of whom used to be in an act called Cajun Dance Party. We actually discovered some of this for ourselves after scouring the Yuck blog and watching this video of the band playing somewhere at a club called The Lexington. Or maybe the song is called "The Lexington?" The band continues to offer us more questions than answers, but that is how we like it. Yuck issues its undeniable debut track "Georgia," one side of a split single, March 15 on Transparent Records. We are sure we'll have more to say about these guys soon.
