Today's Hotness: Halfsour, Fall Seattle, Rocketship

>> We suppose there might be some quibbling, especially as how one defines "big" or "Boston" has some bearing on the matter, but it seems indisputable anyway that the first big Boston album of 2016 comes courtesy of Halfsour. The trio's terrific debut long-player Tuesday Night Live, which streets next week, boasts scads of brisk tunes fizzing with hooks. The first preview track "Porch Sittin" presented a hardscrabble garage sound a la Parquet Courts, but the great strength of the set is its variety of approaches to power-pop (emphasized by the traded-off lead or doubled-up vocals from Zoe and Matt). An outsized melody, caffeinated strumming and explosively boxy snare conspire to make set highlight "Pop Art Pop Tart" a breathless banger. The song careens from verse to pre-chorus to chorus, marrying scritchy guitar chords to just enough jangle to conjure thoughts of Peter Buck. The swinging hip-shaker "Pleasantly Whelmed" also shines brightly, and hints perhaps at Halfsour's purported small-g genesis as a Guided By Voices cover band. The verse of the slow-burning, syncopated "I.K." recycles the classic Beatles "Ticket To Ride" riff, and bursts its seams coming out of a manic chorus with an angular guitar solo that buzzes like a fridge. There's just a lot to like. Tuesday Night Live will be released in a limited edition of 300 LPs and (virtually) unlimited CDs by Jigsaw Records Jan. 29; pre-order the set right here. In addition, Baltimore-based Nebraskan Coast is doing a run of cassettes for Tuesday Night Live, so watch this link for availability, quantity, color, etc.; the label has also done tapes for Princess Reason and Wildhoney, in case you were wondering. Halfsour previously released via Ride The Snake a dandy of a split EP with Boston luminaries Reports in late 2014, which you can purchase from Jigsaw right here.



>> We're longtime fans of Brighton, England's Faux Discx label, in part because the outfit supplies a keen look into a vital slice of the UK underground. Interestingly, the label's latest is shining a light on a terrific act native to these United States, namely Reston, VA space-pop foursome Fall Seattle. The act's self-titled debut, due next month, was two years in the making. And the wait was worth it, based on three very dreamy preview tracks that cast big guitars and sublime melodies within songs the hint at a firm push-and-pull between dream-pop and reigned-in, post-punk influences. The brisk opener "Carol" pairs punchy bass and clangorous, chiming guitar stabs for a spiky composition perfectly topped by a charming, adenoidal tenor. Fall Seattle quickly turns lush on the succeeding track, the winning "Wanda Jackson," which sets sparkling guitar leads against murmured vocals to deliciously gauzy effect. The glimmering strummer "Time" feels especially romantic and recalls the understated and underrated California Snow Story, an act that, incidentally, recently announced its return. An earlier version of "Time" from 2014 is also well worth a listen, although there are few if any structural differences between the two versions, and the differing production values reveal nothing revelatory; it's just a good song that you should listen to more than once, yeah? Faux Discx releases Fall Seattle Feb. 5 in a limited edition of 100 cassettes, and you can already pre-order one right here. Hit the embed below to stream the aforementioned three cuts, which also happen to open the record. We don't see any information about a release show or touring, but we suspect if you watch the band's Facebook dojo information will be forthcoming. Fall Seattle formed in 2012.



>> Given Rocketship's primary auteur Dustin Reske is a bona fide pop genius, it's safe to assume that when it feels like his song is trying to make a point, it probably is. The thought came over us as we listened to the act's dazzling new single "Sleeping Pills," a deliriously upbeat and bright pop gem whose lyrics steadily reference certain of the band's classic recordings. When the old album and song titles caught our ear, we took a look to see if the lyrics were on Bandcamp, and we were pleased to find them there. They describe a relationship in trouble, but we couldn't help but wonder if it wasn't Mr. Reske's relationship with the music industry itself that he was actually singing about. An unedited version of an interview he gave last year, posted to the Rocketship web site, details Reske's forthright opinions on the problems with the business of music. Given that, it's easy to construe lines like "We shared 'A Certain Smile...' but you sold everything, it don't compute, now there's just a certain sadness and ambiguities about the loot" in more than one way. Speaking of Rocketship's older stuff, a Kickstarter for the reissue of the band's absolutely titanic 1996 Slumberland LP A Certain Smile, A Certain Sadness on vinyl is said to be starting next Wednesday or Thursday (!!!), and in the aforementioned interview, Reske stated a new Rocketship record titled Thanks To You would follow quickly on the heels of that reissue. If "Sleeping Pills" -- which previously had only been available at Rocketship's surpassingly rare 2014 live dates in San Francisco and New York -- is any indication, the new LP should be very satisfying for fans. Stream "Sleeping Pills" via the embed below, and start scraping together your cash for the big Kickstarter next week.

Today's Hotness: Crayon, Rocketship, Gretchen Lyme, Bare Pale

>> A dusty blue, early '90s Toyota Corolla: we can picture it in our head, we can smell it, we can see the cassette tapes it contained. And when we think of riding in the great Pete Torgo's car during our later college years, we think of Crayon's "The Snap-Tight Wars," a tremendous, hook-laden indie-pop classic we likely listened to often traveling north and south through New England lo those many years ago. In hindsight, the trio's song presents as a relic of its time: indeed, our (basically) middle-aged self is not as comfortable with the nakedly heartfelt lyric "I wore you as an emblem of, as a badge of my worth" -- delivered in bassist and fronter Sean Tollefson's distinctive, adenoidal vocal -- as our romantic and stupid 20-year-old self was, but such sentimentality at the time scanned as powerfully real. Now it seems representative of a sweet naïveté that perhaps hits a little too close to home when we honestly appraise our 20-year-old self. But of course, that is only one part of "The Snap-Tight Wars," whose cracking drumming, pulsing bass lines and squalling guitar in the chorus reveals a punk heart and renders the song a most-serviceable rocker. The production is lo-fi but clear and electric, and the song was perhaps the first major calling card for the little band from Bellingham, Washington. Or at least it was for us. "The Snap-Tight Wars" appeared on Crayon's terrific, sole full-length release Brick Factory, which is being reissued Tuesday by Athens, Georgia's Happy Happy Birthday To Me Records. HHBTM's reissue -- which at least roughly coincides, mathletes, with the record's 20th anniversary -- is actually Brick Factory's first release on vinyl; the 2014 issue has been pressed to yellow media in a limited edition of 500 pieces, and is also being released as a cassette. Purchase of the LP includes a digital download of 21 bonus tracks -- tracks from 7" singles, comps, 4-track demos and never-before-heard, unreleased songs -- and deluxe pre-orders include yellow vinyl, a cassette and button and apparently even more songs. The very fine people of Crashing Through Publicity have secured permission for us to offer a stream of "The Snap-Tight Wars," which is embedded below, and we highly recommend that if you have not yet gotten with the now sounds of 1994, get with them now and pre-order Brick Factory from HHBTM right here. Crayon did not survive 1994; Mr. Tollefson and drummer Jeff Fell not long after formed the consistently excellent indie-pop juggernaut Tulleycraft, which we wrote about here in these electronic pages as recently as April 2013, when the act released its wonderful sixth LP Lost In Light Rotation.



>> Well, what do you know? Like an old friend showing up at your front door, Sacramento-spawned dream-pop heroes Rocketship returned Oct. 31 with a new, surprisingly subtle tune. Released digitally on Nonstop Co-Op (an enterprise that appears to be connected to the band in some manner, and whose Bandcamp now contains what appears to be the entirety of Rocketship's catalogue), "That Old Black Magic" also was included on something called A. Kaffer's Halloween 2014 compilation, about which the Internet has basically nothing more to say. Though this reviewer was only previously familiar with the band's mid-'90s output -- most notably its titanic 1996 Slumberland Records set A Certain Smile, A Certain Sadness -- new song "That Old Black Magic" hews close to Rocketship's tradition of technicolor melodies, unadulterated harmonies and pristine pop production flourishes. Incidentally, if you'll permit the tangent, Rocketship's web site contains this exciting nugget: A Certain Smile, A Certain Sadness is to be reissued in the spring of 2015! [We will buy the shit out of that! -- Ed.] The lineup that made the aforementioned collection has long since disbanded, but the project led by pop savant Dustin Reske has been recording sporadically ever since. Now based in Portland, Oregon, Mr. Reske continues to map delicate pop case studies and the deceptively simple and almost overpoweringly sweet "Black Magic" is no exception. Downplaying the band's once-signature organ lines, the song instead complements the foregrounded vocals with rich strings and flutes and a spiraling harpsichord arpeggiation. The result is something more along the lines of a baroque-pop gem than the shoegaze- and noise-pop-indebted sounds of Rocketship's past. Which is in no way meant as a slight; there is a classic wartime vocal group charm and warmth to the new tune. Stream it via the embed below, and click through to download "That Old Black Magic" from Nonstop Co-op's Bandcamp. Rocketship was reconstituted as a live concern last spring, performing pop festival shows in New York and San Francisco, and we're hopeful that this new song (and Twitter chatter about a video) evidences that the act may yet be a going concern, that Reske still has more pop delights to reveal. -- Edward Charlton



>> Given the often isolated (isolating? -- Ed.] nature of ambient and drone music, a recent split-single featuring two particularly creative Glaswegian practitioners of same struck this reviewer as somewhat unusual. The pairing, however, is a great one, and together the mysterious synth artist Mosca and the fuzz-droner Gretchen Lyme proffer eight shifting, bending instrumentals that engage listeners with spooky, mindful zones. Mosca leads the charge with monochromatic yet expansive "Fire," a gorgeous and layered drone seemingly employs random application of pitch shifter to bend the piece in and out of focus. Panned, square-wave fuzz and gradually building volume ultimately overwhelm the aural space, but the piece carries such a cool, mid-range smoothness that it never becomes a chore for listeners. "Impulse" goes a more cinematic route, pitch-shifting an extract of an interview with a notorious serial killer and pairing it with a sad, slowly modulating synth melody that ultimately hones in on the discourse with laser precision, somehow coloring a strange, wistful beauty over a horrible dialogue. Gretchen Lyme's more dynamic tunes, however, steal the show, building upon Mosca's horrorshow blueprint and adding more movement and texture to the proceedings. "EggsEggsPeanutLegs," the absurdly titled standout, achieves this in spades. After a three-minute intro that transports the listener along creepy carnival alleyways, windblown streets and a distant, distorted rock guitar concert, a clattering electronic beat arrives. The rhythm establishes sufficient energy that allows the piece to gradually collapse upon itself in a schizophrenic cycle that shifts between a placid, icy calm and a free-jazz happening. "EggsEggsPeanutLegs" offers the sort of cerebral, unexpected musical twists that mark the best experimental music. Stream all of the self-released digital split via the embed below, and click through to grab the pay-what-you-like download, which was issued to the wilds of the Internerds Oct. 18. -- Edward Charlton



>> London shoegaze duo Bare Pale's twisting, turning rock couldn't be more dead-on, in terms of our tastes. The pair's latest effort, the brooding beauty "You Owe Me," lopes forward toward a mid-tempo buzz-kill, its clean and bent guitar strums sounding weighed down by a sense of grief, perhaps destroyed friendship. Down-tuned open chords and distant snare cracks lend the song an indistinct sense of menace and space, despite the relatively pared-down band set up. The three-minute number's strumming pattern and constantly warping notes recall The Swirlies and the legendary Boston act's classic 1993 BlonderTongueAudioBaton anti-anthem "His Love Just Washed Way," particularly in how the tune slowly bends and slides toward a slow-burn catharsis. There's a grittiness in the production, too, that gives "You Owe Me" youthful and homegrown vibes, touches of realism that increase the tune's emotional heft. "You owe me, everyday" the singer almost murmurs, right before the song erupts into a tangle of fuzzed-out guitar perfection. There is as yet no word on a follow-up to the tune -- hopefully a full-length set -- but if "You Owe Me" is any indication, we'll be writing about Bare Pale in these electronic pages again. The act self-released "You Owe Me" as a digital download Oct. 15. Stream it via the Bandcamp embed below, and click through to score the download for a single pound sterling. Bare Pale previously issued a cassette EP titled If It Is in Nov. 2012 and an even earlier demos set, both of which can be still be heard at Bandcamp right here. Bare Pale's next live engagement appears to be a show at London's Sebright Arms Dec. 16. -- Edward Charlton

Today's Hotness: Samira Winter, The Bilinda Butchers, Kittyhawk

>> We noted here in our electronic pages last fall the departure from Boston to the west coast of dream-pop luminary Samira Winter. In the intervening months she has kept busy, putting together a new band, germinating new demos and executing fairly regular gigs in and around Los Angeles and, more recently, up the coast. A trip early this year went south to Ms. Winter's native South America, where she played a handful of shows and, somehow, managed to find enough time in Curitaba, Brazil, to record a superlative, short set of sparkling music, which will soon be released on cassette by LA's Lollipop Records. The collection, Ms. Winter's first solo release, is titled Tudo Azul, which (the Internet tells us) literally translates to "all blue," but figuratively means something more like "everything's cool" to Brazilians. The title certainly jibes with the EP's sunshiney, carefree vibe, which is readily accessed despite the fact that three of the four songs on Tudo Azul are sung in Portuguese. The title track leads with a descending melody that hints at the first tune on Ms. Winter's band Winter's debut EP Daydreaming, which we wrote about here in January 2013. "Tudo Azul" soon reveals itself via a lightly syncopated rhythm and hand percussion, embedded keyboard tones and organ, and tidy vocal arrangements. And, of course, pretty guitars. Every song is a winner, but opener "Eu E Eu" brings the most sizzle, with its snappier tempo, crashing cymbals and overdriven guitar in the verse. The sessions for the EP were produced by a fellow named Rodrigo Lemos and engineered by Lucas Pereira, who we mention by name here because, really, these are presently the only two names we know in Brazilian indie rock. Tudo Azul is available in a bundle that includes a limited edition CD, t-shirt, and "surprise goody." If you hate waiting and/or surprises, the EP is also presently available as a free download via Bandcamp, at least ahead of the cassette release on Lollipop. The label issued a cassette version of the aforementioned Daydreaming EP late last year; it is now sold out. Ms. Winter's music is a delight and with each successive release her rise seems all the more inexorable. So why not like now the thing that everyone else will be liking two years from now?



>> Mere days ago we made a sidelong reference to San Francisco dream-pop act The Bilinda Butchers, and now, as if on cue, we've got new music from the trio. It's spirited new tune "Edo Method" is anchored by fuzz bass and sharp rhythm tracks, which serve as a sturdy foundation for a percolating guitar melody and yearning vocals. The song is our first taste of the act's forthcoming debut full-length Heaven, which will be issued by Orchid Tapes July 15. Despite the name of the label, Heaven will be available domestically as an LP pressed to white vinyl in a limited edition of 250 pieces; every 50th order (so, you know, 50, 100, etc.) will received a bonus in the form of a test pressing of the collection. Fastcut Records will release a CD version of Heaven as well as a 7" in Japan. Heaven is a concept record concerning the diary documenting the tragic life of a woman living in late-Edo period Japan. It's unclear whether the conceit of the album is fictional, and you can read more about it here, but it sounds like everyone dies in the end, and it doesn't get much more real than that, eh? BOOM. Blew your mind, didn't we? Despite that downer, "Edo Method" is a tremendous, emotionally affecting and feedback-spangled jam, and one that abides by the adventurous pop aesthetic of the band of The Bilinda Butchers' namesake, which if you don't know, is My Bloody Valentine. We previously wrote about The Bilinda Butchers and their excellent single "The Lover's Suicide!" (whose B-side featured a cover of Rocketship's "Love So Estranged"( right here in April 2013. Pre-order Heaven from Orchid Tapes right here, and stream "Edo Method" via the Soundcloud embed below. The Bilinda Butchers have two dates booked around the release of the LP, July 17 at The Chapel in San Franciso and July 20 at The Echo in Los Angeles, and we're going to go ahead and assume that these are release shows, so plan accordingly.



>> Can we make an entire Hotness blurb based on the flimsy premise that one band is not a different band? Well, let's see. If there is a moral to the story, we suppose it is that if you cover the hits of Thompson Twins you are probably going to get our attention. Such was the case with a band called Kitty Hawk, who not only take their name from a place at which we vacationed in the late '70s, but who also covered Thompson Twins' "If You Were Here" for the 2005 American Laundromat Records compilation High School Reunion: A Tribute To Those Great '80s Films. The comp notably features former Blake Babies/Lemonheads guy John P. Strohm, Matthew Sweet and Frank Black, among others. But that's not the point of this blog post. The point of this blog post is we were very surprised to see last week that emo powerhouse Count Your Luck Stars Records had signed a band called Kittyhawk. And we thought to ourselves, "nah, couldn't be..." And it turns out we were right. The two-words-and-a-space Kitty Hawk eventually changed their name to Kitty Karlyle and we will now let them gracefully slink away from this blog post. The one-word-no-space Kittyhawk, it turns out, is actually something of a supergroup based in Chicago fronted by sometime Into It. Over It. collaborator Kate Grube; the quartet also features members of leading hitmakers of the day Dowsing, Joie De Vivre and Pet Symmetry. More importantly, Kittyhawk is fucking awesome. Its songs from a four-way split with Droughts, Frameworks and Prawn released in late 2013 tout big guitars and ample application of glorious feedback and guitar chords that just hang there in silence and lead lines that spiral around the terrifically poignant narratives put by Ms. Gruber. Count Your Luck Stars will release Kittyhawk's full-length debut Hello, Again Oct. 14th, which seems like a terribly long time to wait. That said, there is a whole lot of back catalog in the form of split singles and an EP to tide you over, all of which you can listen to at the foursomes Bandcamp dojo right here. Better still, for local folks anyway, is that you -- YES YOU -- can see Kittyhawk this coming Wednesday night at Roggie's. That's called serendipity, FOOL! Stream the amazing tunes "The Daily Dodger" and "Food Fight" below, and then get thee to Roggie's midweek to be rocked most steadfastly.

Today's Hotness: Colleen, Army Navy, The Bilinda Butchers

>> Given how strongly we were moved by her recordings in the middle of the last decade -- even naming one of her records among the best of 2005 -- we have a hell of a time keeping up with Colleen, the project of one-time (and perhaps current, we've really lost the thread here) French school teacher Cécile Schott. But by a stroke of good fortune we saw Colleen's name dropped in a Facebook status posted today by UK electronic music heroes Isan, along with a link to Fact's exclusive on a new Colleen track, "Push The Boat On To The Shore." The song is from Colleen's forthcoming fourth full-length The Weighing Of The Heart, which will be released by London's Second Language Music May 13. In 2005, we called Ms. Schott "an iconoclast whose singular style seems predisposed to produce resplendent music." Based on an album sampler we've embedded below, that is still completely the case. Colleen continues to create placid, textured, thoughtful and otherworldly electro-acoustic music consistent with her first three records and various EPs and one-offs. Criminally, Clicky Clicky last wrote about Colleen here some six years ago, although fortunately it appears Colleen has not released a full-length since then, based on a glance at her discography. Still, there is plenty of music to catch up on, and we certainly will keep a much closer eye -- well, ear -- on Colleen going forward; it's not worth the risk of missing such intelligent, pure and beautiful music. Check out a sampler of all 11 of the tracks from The Weighing Of The Heart below. We can't find a buy or pre-order link at the Second Language site, but we're hopeful the record will get a domestic release, as The Weighing Of The Heart has "potential album of the year" written all over it. And, well, we don't want to pay import if we can help it. If you are interested in learning more about Colleen, we highly recommend revisiting Ben Sterling's excellent 2004 interview with Schott for Junkmedia right here.



>> We struggle to understand Los Angeles and its indie rock community. The city is linked so strongly to the music industry, has such as rich history of music, and yet in the last decade we can only think of one truly excellent band from LA, The Henry Clay People [Exh. A]. Whenever we've mentioned this in casual conversation (and we readily admit this all may just be ignorance on our part), people always remind us of the very good indie pop act Army Navy, to which we typically say something brilliant like, "Oh yeah, right!" Well, this time it was the band itself offering a friendly reminder in the form of a delectable new freebie. The nine-year-old trio fronted by Justin Kennedy earlier this month issued the digital single "Pickle," a gently rocking number populated with glistening guitars and gorgeous melodies. The swaying strummer hints at a strong appreciation for the Sarah Records aesthetic, perhaps hints a bit at the resolute poignance of Small Factory, and is eminently listenable -- a perfect spring time jam. "Pickle" is a precursor of Army Navy's forthcoming third long-player. Its most recent full-length collection, The Last Place, was issued in 2011 on EMusic's Selects label and the band's own imprint, The Fever Zone. No additional details are as yet available about the forthcoming record beyond the fact that it is already mixed (at least in part by the great Adam Lasus, legend) and expected to be released this year. While you wait, stream and download "Pickle" via the embed below. Also below you will find a stream of Army Navy's cover of Yaz's extraordinary electropop ballad "Only You," which was released as the B-side to the threesome's "World's End" 7" released in August 2012. Army Navy offers up a straight, guitar-centered version, but for those of us old enough to be haunted by the original, its well worth listening.





>> Much is made about the sound in dream-pop and shoegaze, from plaudits for its ethereal release to complaints about "buried vocals," but surprisingly few realize just how sexy the genre can be. For the properly attuned, it can be easy to identify a distinct femininity permeating many tunes. Hell, one could argue that Cocteau Twins and My Bloody Valentine redefined sexuality in pop music. Regardless, that influence has been snatched by certain bands, who have run off to the best parties, leaving stray vinyl behind like photo albums of that one perfect night. You just had to be there. Enter The Bilinda Butchers. Taking their name from one of indie rock's most graceful and mysterious sex symbols, the San Francisco-based duo proffers incandescent, soft-focus party songs on its latest single, "The Lover's Suicide!" b/w "Love So Estranged," which was released early last month. Yes, that B-side is a cover of a song released on a split single by '90s dream-pop legends Rocketship. The A-side is giddily paced and coated in just enough lo-fi studio fuzz and odd warping in the background to approximate quite well the rush of youthful and inebriated celebration. That splash of water at the beginning? It's not dour rain, but rather the fountain outside of the casino, because once the hi-hat beat and driving bass line come in, the intention is pretty clear. The singer's soft vocals bring to mind The Pains of Being Pure At Heart, while the strange, quarter note siren noise that enters a little more than a minute into the tune indicates the band knows its way around some exotic effects pedals. As is often mentioned by this reviewer, the dream-pop and shoegaze scene is regularly plagued by artists that have little substance beneath the dialed-in tones and obvious fretwork generating half-baked ideas that feign some epic purpose. We remain hopeful that the modus operandi of The Bilinda Butchers -- who work as hard to move people's feet as they do to get them to stare downwards -- can be a model for another wave of dream-pop acts. "The Lover's Suicide!" b/w "Love So Estranged" is available as a digital download via The Bilinda Butchers' Bandcamp right here; a vinyl 7" was released by the band's European label Beko, but it has already sold out. Stream "The Lover's Suicide!" via the Bandcamp embed below. -- Edward Charlton

Today's Hotness: Endless Jags, Parakeet, Dot Dash, Soccer Mom

>> It's taken for granted at this point, to the extent that anyone really talks about it anymore. But the best part about music blogging is the band that randomly emails you, that says "check us out," and that is totally awesome. It might happen two or three times a year. The last one that blew us away was our beloved Infinity Girl (who, of course, next week will open Clicky Clicky Music Blog's Community Servings benefit show at Great Scott in Boston). But last month brought another, Portland, Maine-based indie rock upstarts Endless Jags. The sextet self-released a self-titled EP Oct. 16, and it is packed with dynamic, emo-tinged guitar pop driven by fronter Oscar Romero's impassioned vocals and overdriven by big melodies. The short set was recorded in part and mixed by Shaun Curran at Napoleon Complex in Somerville, Mass. Trivia hounds will recognize that studio as the same that produced Clicky Clicky favorites Soccer Mom's brilliant debut single and towering 2011 EP You Are Not Going To Heaven. Pegging Endless Jags' sound causes one to grasp in a lot of different directions: there's the care-free energy and care-full emotion of the music echoes that of Mock Orange's stellar First EP; the Farfisa that colors large portions of Endless Jags has not been so brilliantly deployed in indie rock since Rocketship's mind-erasingly good A Certain Smile, A Certain Sadness; Mr. Romero's voice is not unlike that of The Walkmen's Hamilton Leithauser. But it is the combination of these elements that makes the EP so potent, from the big crescendoes in opener "Seen Men" to the careening eponymous tune "Endless Jags." We can't wait to hear more from these guys: Endless Jags is a hit!



>> Parakeet, the side project of Yuck bassist Mariko Doi, last week quietly unleashed to the wilds of the Internet a stream of a new EP titled Shonen Hearts. If our minimal understanding of Japanese remains intact, we think "shonen" means "boy," so make of the title what you will. The music on the collection is delightfully smeared and grungy guitar pop. The lead track "Tuomono" layers rich, gritty guitar and bass over a simple rhythm and creates giddy forward movement by overlaying punchy melodies. The title track is a blissful confection that recalls The Primitives. The rest of the collection similarly pits noise against pop; it's not overtly Yuck-y, but there is an element of obviousness and inevitability that makes Shonen Hearts a rewarding listen. The London-based trio's short set is due Nov. 19 as a limited edition gold (we assume gold-colored, not, like actual gold) cassette available exclusively from Rough Trade in the UK. Pre-order Shonen Hearts right here, right now. Parakeet over the weekend played two UK shows with The Walkmen (there's that band name again...); the trio embarks on a short strand of tour dates Nov. 11 with the hotly tipped Diiv, which tour includes stops in Berlin and Cologne in Germany, Kortrijk, Belgium and two dates in London. Parakeet debuted with a single in April, "Tomorrow" b/w "Paper, Scissors, Stone," that we wrote about right here.



>> We've slept on it for weeks ands weeks, but the forever-solid Terry Banks and his band of merry indie veterans in Dot Dash returned last month with a cracking sophomore set, Winter Garden Light, that we've been spending a good deal of time enjoying. Yeah, the title sounds like an installment in the Dragonlance fantasy franchise, but we assure you: this is a very fine collection of indie pop tunes from a coterie of top-shelf scene veterans of bands including Julie Ocean, The Saturday People, Tree Fort Angst, Modest Proposal and legit hardcore legends Youth Brigade. Mr. Banks, et al., craft quality guitar-pop tunes that plant one foot in the future whilst dangling the other in the band's collective college rock past. And like Wire, from whose song Dot Dash takes their name, the D.C.-based act's approach is simple: each tune is an astutely realized nugget of punky songwriting relying on a few chords, aggressive bass work, and swoon-inducing backing vocals. "Writing On The Wall," a stand-out cut from Winter Garden Light, commences with an arresting bass descent paired with Banks' pleasant power-pop patter. Trebly, slapping rhythm guitar follows the vocal, as Banks peels off anthemic lines that penetrate your head like "a penny for your thoughts, my kingdom for a horse." The song closes with perfect snare rolls and a great guitar breakdown evidencing the band's tasteful deployment of delay and minor keys. Winter Garden Light is available now from The Beautiful Music label. -- Edward Charlton



>> Avid readers will recall that a month ago we wrote about the crushing forthcoming single from Clicky Clicky faves Soccer Mom. At the time we could tell you about "Brides" b/w "Canoe," but we weren't able to share any music with you. That's just no way to leave things. So fortunately we're now able to share with you a stream of "A Canoe Shy" (that's the full title of the tune, yeah) below. The song highlights the Boston quartet's dense, punishing guitar attack, features one of founder Dan Parlin's most affecting vocal melodies, and is also notable for being the first official 'Mom release featuring Mr. Justin Kehoe pounding the skins and hardware. As we said last month, Soccer Mom plays a very hot bill Monday at Great Scott in Boston, an evening that features the hotly tipped Tamaryn and west coast shoegaze luminaries Young Prisms. "Brides" b/w "Canoe" will be released by 100m Records the following day, and you can pre-order your copy right here if you aren't able to get to the show to buy one straight from the band.

If We Ran The World: Slumberland Records 20th Anniversary Edition

Venerable indie pop label Slumberland Records marks its 20th anniversary with special shows in Washington, D.C. Friday night and Brooklyn Saturday night. Full details and links to tickets can be accessed right here. We recall early on in the buzz for these events discussion of secret guests or special guests or some such, but looking at those line-ups, well we think it would be hard to do better than early Slumberland stalwarts The Ropers and Lorelei, who are already slated to play. The latter band, in particular, is near and dear for us, because we think Lorelei's Asleep EP is among the greatest EPs of the '90s (don't get us started). Even so, if we ran the world, and if the artists we are about to name could of course be bent to our will, here is what you'd see. Everything listed in the line-ups linked above, plus Plus PLUS (keep in mind this is all fantasy, it is not even conjecture, we are just totally making this shit up): Friday night would include Lilys performing their classic Slumberland/Spin-Art co-released In The Presence Of Nothing in its entirety; on Saturday night Rocketship would reform and deliver all of A Certain Smile, A Certain Sadness plus the singles of that period. And that's what would happen this weekend if we ran the world. Earlier today Pop Tarts Suck Toasted posted a great interview with Slumberland ringmaster Mike Schulman; check it out here.

Lilys -- "Claire Hates Me" -- In The Presence Of Nothing
[right click and save as]
[out of print / buy in-print Lilys records from MusicStack here]

Rocketship -- "I Love You Like The Way That I Used To" -- A Certain Smile, A Certain Sadness
[right click and save as]
[buy Rocketship records from MusicStack]

Review: The Pains Of Being Pure At Heart | Self-titled [MP3s]

In our estimation the classic Slumberland sound is a product of just the right proportions of melody and distortion, dreampop and shoegaze. Certainly, there are exceptions and outliers: the first period of work from the amazing, phenomenal, superlative (and so forth) act Rocketship hardly relied on distortion at all, while in places on its self-titled EP Henry's Dress buries melody almost completely under a narcotic, face-melting sonic (c)rumble. As we stated previously here, The Pains Of Being Pure At Heart's music bears the hallmarks of the classic Slumberland sound, and so it is appropriate that the venerable label will issue the New York-based quartet's self-titled full-length Feb. 3. Guitarist and singer Kip Berman's not unpleasantly nasal voice comes across like Dean Wareham's, particularly on the single "Kurt Cobain's Cardigan," but like the complementary guitars and synths that characterize The Pains Of Being Pure At Heart's music, it is when Berman's singing is combined with the angelic soprano of keyboardist and vocalist Peggy Wang that the band's songs really take flight.

The Pains Of Being Pure At Heart contains an embarrasment of noise pop riches including the now relatively familiar uptempo gems "This Love Is Fucking Right," "Everything With You" and "Come Saturday." But the amazing thing about the collection is that every song could be a single; there is nothing that could be dismissed as just "an album cut." "A Teenager In Love" boasts that Bowie-esque "Modern Love" double bounce, a Motown-ish vibe and is the most minimal-sounding production on the set. "Gentle Sons" is a dense, throbbing anthem with majestic streams of feedback spangling its closing section. "Hey Paul" feeds back over thundering bass not unlike songs of the aforementioned Henry's Dress. And so everything points to 2009 being a break-out year for The Pains Of Being Pure At Heart. The band's "Everything With You" single, released in December, sold out in about two months; it previously issued a self-titled EP in 2007 and the sublime "Kurt Cobain's Cardigan" single in 2008. The Pains of Being Pure At Heart embarks on a one-week tour of the Northeastern U.S. (plus two Canadian dates) Feb. 7, and we've posted all of the pending tour dates below two MP3s, including one for "Everything With You." We plan to cover that Feb. 15 Boston show, so check back around then for more coverage of the band.

The Pains Of Being Pure At Heart -- "Everything With You" -- Self-titled
The Pains Of Being Pure At Heart -- "Kurt Cobain's Cardigan"
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[pre-order The Pains Of Being Pure At Heart from Insound here]

The Pains Of Being Pure At Heart: Internerds | MySpace | YouTube | Flickr

02/07 -- Mercury Lounge -- New York, NY
02/08 -- Kung Fu Necktie -- Philadelphia, PA
02/09 -- Black Cat Backstage -- Washington, DC
02/10 -- Garfield Artworks -- Pittsburgh, PA
02/11 -- Schubas -- Chicago, IL
02/12 -- Neutral -- Toronto, ON
02/13 -- Il Motore -- Montreal, PQ
02/14 -- The Monkey House -- Winooski, VT
02/15 -- Middle East -- Boston, MA
03/13 -- Bell House -- Brooklyn, NY
03/14 -- Talking Head Club -- Baltimore, MD
03/15 -- Local 506 -- Chapel Hill, NC
03/16 -- The Earl -- Atlanta, GA
03/18 -- SXSW - Red 7 -- Austin, TX

Today's Hotness: Zookeeper, Film School, Slumberland Records

>> Longtime readers may recall this post from November expressing surprise at encountering YouTube footage of excellent second-wave emo juggernaut Mineral. The band's 1996 release The Power Of Failing received much play in our old silver Volvo in our final year of undergraduate study. We were equally surprised to get an email reporting that former Mineral (and Gloria Record) fronter Chris Simpson has returned to the world of music after a bit of a hiatus with a new and surprisingly rootsier project called Zookeeper. We've got links to two MP3s below, but make certain you to hit this album stream and listen to the track "Delivery Room," which is our favorite cut on the album. Simspon's ear for a big melodies clearly weathered the hiatus well, and we have to say that the one thing about Mineral's recordings that didn't work for us was all the treble: Zookeeper's broader instrumentation softens the over-all assault. It is a bit jarring to hear Simpson's voice paired with shuffling acoustic guitars and juke-joint organ, but the music is fantastic. Zookeeper's self-titled EP was released last year; a full-length platter Becoming All Things is expected to be released this fall. In a MySpace post last year Simpson stated that he had written and recorded about 40 tracks, so we can likely expect a lot more to come. For those of you itching for some of that old Mineral video footage, here is the band doing the awesome cut "Parking Lot," and Crank! has Mineral music posted here.

Zookeeper -- "I Live In The Mess You Are" -- Zookeeper EP
Zookeeper -- "Tax Collector" -- Zookeeper EP
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>> We just got wind of the news that San Francisco-based nu-gaze quintet Film School, which made a big splash a year or two back for being on of the first bands to have the theft of their gear widely written about in the blogosphere (that was weird), have completed a new record. The set is titled Hideout and it is to be released on Beggars Banquet Sept. 11. Hideout was mixed by Phil Ek, who you may recall worked on all the good Built To Spill records. Film School recently added a different rhythm section and a new guitarist, and it will be interesting to hear whether that makes much of a difference. Film School's eponymous full-length debut was released by Beggars last year; it has several standout tracks including "Breet" and "Garrison" that we enjoy listening to with our ears.

>> Speaking of excellent dreampop type stuff, digital music service Rhapsody recently added some of our favorite recordings to its catalog by licensing a bunch of Slumberland Records releases. Chief among these are Rocketship's flawless and crucial 1996 set A Certain Smile, A Certain Sadness, which we can and have listened to on repeat for heroic lengths of time. It's that good. Another one of our favorites is Lorelei's stirring Asleep EP and Black Tambourine's discography. All of the Rocketship record is classic, and make a point to listen to "The Sky Is Falling" from the Asleep EP. And don't forget that Slumberland offers a generous amount of MP3s through its recently revamped web site. Below are a few of our all-time favorites. We remember the chills we got when we heard this first one, in Brookhouser's van. And we clearly remember hearing the second one on WPRB on the way to a gig at Princeton's Terrace Club, and thinking it was so good we may as well just stop making music. And eventually, about 10 years later, we did.

Velocity Girl -- "My Forgotten Favorite" -- DRYL 10 7" (out of print)
Lilys -- "Claire Hates Me" -- In The Presence Of Nothing (out of print, stop at nothing to acquire)
Boyracer -- "The Useless Romantic" -- More Songs About Frustration And Self Hate (out of print)
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