Today's Hotness: Swirlies, Screaming Maldini, Bricolage

>> We're getting excited for chimp-rock standard bearers The Swirlies' show Saturday night at the Middle East, and it would seem the Internet is also in the grips of a minor bout of Swirlies-a-mania. No fewer than three outlets previewed the upcoming shows Thursday, including Philebrity and Boston's Weekly Dig and Bostonist publications. We have an operative based in San Francisco who flew east to catch two of the shows, last night's set at Johnny Brenda's in Philly -- apparently The Swirlies' first show in five years -- and the show Saturday. We're hopeful that said operative will file a review with us that we'll try to get online Friday night. Saturday will not be our first time seeing the band -- we think it will be the third. The first time was at the Indie 500 festival in South Jersey in 1993, and then we saw them in a West Philly basement sometime between then and 1996. Even so, if our recollection is correct, we've never seen The Swirlies get through an entire performance, so anticipation runs high. As Philebrity points out, a large portion of the band's catalogue, including the indispensible Taaang! releases, are available for free download at the band's site here. To get you started, here are a couple of our favorite tracks from the excellent What To Do About Them, which was released in 1992.

Swirlies -- "Chris R." -- What To Do About Them
Swirlies -- "Upstairs" -- What To Do About Them
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[a whole lotta free Swirlies here]

>> It's been a month since we first got an email from Nick of the Sheffield, England-based maximalist pop trio Screaming Maldini, and we're somewhat surprised that it has taken so long for us to make mention of the band's orchestral tunes. Not completely surprised, however: Screaming Maldini is doing something fairly singular by mixing the widescreen ADD tendencies of Scritti Politti and electropop savant Max Tundra with the vintage soundtrack work collected on that The Sound Gallery comp -- and then there's a bit of Frank Zappa thrown in as well. It's quite difficult to peg. But we think you will be completely sold, as we were, by the wondrous tune "The Extraordinary," which we're posting below. There's not a lot of information about Screaming Maldini out there, but the other blogs [ploing! bonk!] that have picked up on the band note the trio are students and certain of them are former members of an act called Situationists; they spent a lot of the summer of 2008 in a Sheffield recording studio; the act is currently unsigned and prepping a touring unit for live dates. Highly recommended. Download away!

Screaming Maldini -- "The Extraordinary"
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[stream more amazing cuts at Screaming Maldini's MySpace here]

>> And one more from the U.K., Glasgow specifically, to round out the week. We are thrilled by the scritchy, post-punk sounds of Bricolage, one of the most recent signings to resurgent indie label Slumberland. A label, we might add, that has one of the best rosters going right now. Bricolage, a quartet, has released four singles since forming in late 2005, and Slumberland will issue the band's self-titled full-length April 14. The obligatory promo MP3 is "Turn U Over," an arresting up-tempo slab of indie pop that was released as a single in November. The tune may not be as strong as the fireball "Footsteps," the band's debut single released by Creeping Bent which reminds us of The English Beat and Haircut 100. You can watch the video for "Footsteps" right here, and as it turns out there is a fair amount of Bricolage videos at YouTube, so fix yourself a drink and settle in.

Bricolage -- "Turn U Over" -- Bricolage
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[watch Slumberland's web site for pre-order information]

Today's Hotness: Sunny Day Real Estate, Max Tundra

>> In some ways, this song was pretty much the end of music. The video above is fabled second-wave emo foursome Sunny Day Real Estate captured live on MTV's "120 Minutes" in 1994. The clip was alluded to by MTV's Subterranean Blog, which recently has been going a long way toward making us not loathe the network. We'll, we expect we'll continue to loathe the network, but at least the online piece has been wiping away some of the tarnish. It appears that the embed code they offer is not a true embed, so if you click on the video above be prepared for a little trip over to MTV.com. It is well worth it, fortunately. Although fronter Jeremy Enigk's voice doesn't seem up to the challenge during this performance. But, even so, this song is amazing. Not quite as amazing as the devastating closer of Diary, "Sometimes," but pretty damn close. If you are one of those odd people that don't own Diary, you need to really take a hard look at your priorities.

>> We were thrilled to read at trusty DrownedInSound that plunderphonic-laptronic-electro-whosey-whatsis act Max Tundra will finally release a new record later this year. Max Tundra is a pseudonym for London-based electronic pop supergenius Ben Jacobs, who has titled his third full-length Parallax Error Beheads You. Mr. Jacobs has been promising a new record for more than two years. Parallax Error Beheads You will be issued by Domino in the U.K. Oct. 13. A single for the track "Will Get Fooled Again" will be issued Sept. 29. A quick spin around the Internets produced no release information for North America, but we'll keep you posted. The most recent Max Tundra longplayer, the sublime Mastered By Guy At The Exchange, was issued eons ago in 2002. However, it was simply the provocative title to 2000's Some Best Friend You Turned Out To Be that first lured us into Jacobs' world. He is giving away the synthy banger "Cabasa" at the Max Tundra MySpace hacienda, but we'll save you the trip and post it below. Max Tundra will tour the UK with Hot Chip from mid-October.

Max Tundra -- "Cabasa" -- Mastered By Guy At The Exchange
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[buy Max Tundra records from Insound here]

>> A new School Of Seven Bells track premiered at Stereogum Thursday, and it is a wonderful piece of beat-driven dream pop. The track, "Half Asleep," will be released as a single (backed with the subdued electro-folk number "Caldo") Sept. 16; those who pre-order through the Ghostly Store or Insound will receive codes for free downloads on the day of the release. The songs will also appear on the full length Alpinisms. The full length and the single will be released by Ghostly. School Of Seven Bells is fronted by Alejandra and Claudia Deheza; the latter woman was formerly with the exemplary dream-pop act Daylight's For The Birds. School Of Seven Bells performs at The Middle East in Cambridge Nov. 18 with M83, making the bill easily the dreamiest of the year in Boston. You'd best buy tickets now, as M83 already sold out the club earlier this year.