Premiere: Space Mountain's Slack-tastic "Gargantua"

Space Mountain, the mid-fi slack-rock project of Boston denizen Cole Kinsler, has been quietly making music for a couple years, but its profile can only rise on the strength of its forthcoming sophomore collection Gargantua. The eight-song set, slated for self-release Oct. 23, distinctly echoes the fully baked sounds of the remote but ever-relevant '90s underground, records like Silver Jews' classic Starlite Walker or Beck's unfairly forgotten goldmine One Foot In The Grave. But Space Mountain is actually most strongly influenced by its contemporaries. In a post for Heartbreaking Bravery last year, Mr. Kinsler discussed finding an open and accepting community in the Boston music underground, particularly among Exploding In Sound bands and their affiliates. The influence of this community, especially that of LVL UP and its affiliated projects, shines brightly on Gargantua, but Kinsler's songwriting is not content to simply stand in the collective shadow of his favorite bands. Indeed, Gargantua showcases winning songcraft, layering gritty guitar chords over sturdy, un-fussy rhythm playing while Kinsler dispenses observations via terrifically understated vocals.

We are pleased to premiere the title track to Gargantua in these electronic pages today. As with his best work to date (we're thinking late 2014's heartfelt head-nodder "Love Song" and the beery, easy-vibing Gargantua track "Andromeda"), "Gargantua" waxes profoundly with a cloudy wisdom seemingly beyond Kinsler's years, although not without a wink informing us not to take this all so seriously. Kinsler introduces the tune -- which below he refers to as the record's "thesis statement" -- with a minute of pastoral acoustic guitar and chimes, but thereafter it proceeds to an early, crunchy apotheosis, before piloting a subdued verse expounding on the old adage about journeys and destinations (you know the one). The song, and thus the record, ends with the lyric "Ain't that the cheesiest phrase I know." It's a grand summation for a composition that doesn't shy away from poking holes at put-on introspection. You can stream the track below; below that we invite you to read a brief exchange about Kinsler's songwriting, roots and future plans for Space Mountain. Earlier today he also unveiled via Facebook the opening cut to Gargantua, the up-tempo strummer "Big Brains," so we've included that embed below as well. Pick up a digital copy or order a limited edition white cassette tape of Gargantua direct from Space Mountain right here. -- Dillon Riley

Space Mountain: Bandcamp | Facebook | Soundcloud

Clicky Clicky: When did you start the Space Mountain project? Has it always been a solo venture?

Cole Kinsler: I started Space Mountain in 2013 during my last year at school. I would record stuff in my dorm room when my roommate wasn't there. I didn't want to annoy him. On the first album, I had a few friends help with extra vocals and stuff like that. Jordan from High Pop did the drums on that one. For the last few recordings though, yeah, it’s just me.

CC: What drove you to start recording? How long have you been making music?

CK: Towards the end of my time at college I was getting pretty into some local DIY bands. The World Is A Beautiful Place And I Am No Longer Afraid To Die went to my school, and they were really great to see at house shows. It was around the same time I discovered Spook Houses, Alex G, and other stuff that ended up being pretty big touchstones for me. I realized people my age were making great music, which was exciting. At that point I became more interested in songwriting and recording. The earliest I started making music was probably 2012. My friend and I would fool around with Garageband, and we started writing a few songs here and there.

CC: Since you play all the instruments, how does a Space Mountain song come together? Where and how are they recorded?

CK: Songwriting basically happens by playing guitar a lot, and thinking about what I want to say. I usually just like to start with a feeling or thought and go from there. Some songs take longer than others. The first song on the album has probably been kicking around in different forms for a couple years now, while the others happened much faster than that. I find that whatever I'm reading at the time will have subtle influences on my writing, too. I record everything in my room. I use one mic and just do one instrument at a time. Usually I'll start with guitars and bass and just keep building from there. It was a lot of trial and error when I first started, but I think I'm improving my process.

CC: Anything revelatory about the Space Mountain moniker? What does it mean to you? Why not record under your own name?

CK: It doesn't carry any real meaning. There's a rollercoaster at Disney World called Space Mountain that's pretty neat. I'm partial to mountains and astronomy. I just like how the words sound. I considered using my name, but it just felt lame.

CC: Tell us a bit about the piece you wrote for Heartbreaking Bravery last year. How does it fit into the Space Mountain timeline, and how have the Boston scene and the experiences you've had influence your own recordings?

CK: I moved to Boston after school to look for work. I saw Krill's Lucky Leaves release gig and kinda just fell down the rabbit hole from there. I discovered a ton of albums that year that would end up being super inspiring to me. I was hearing Pile, Fat History Month, and a ton of other stuff for the first time and kinda freaking out. During a year of uncertainty in a new place, it was huge to be able to stumble upon such a rich music scene. That show I mentioned in Heartbreaking Bravery in particular was just kinda the pinnacle. I had already become a pretty big Pile fan, and it was very special to see Rick play acoustic for the first time. But really, there have been so many shows where I feel like I'm seeing something really special. Kal Marks shows, Ovlov shows... too many to name. I don't know if all this directly influenced my recordings in any way, but it made me even more certain that I was going to keep making music.

CC: How did this new record come together? How does it compare to your previous offerings to you, and how is it being released?

CK: I tried to take my time a bit more with this one. I think it's better than my last stuff, but who knows. As long as I feel an improvement or progression with my music then I'm happy. I've always felt self-conscious about my music, and it has been hard for me to actually believe people when they tell me they like it... but I'm getting there. This one was mastered by Carl Saff, and I'm putting out a short run of cassette tapes.

CC: You've said the title track is your favorite off the record, why is that?

CK: I recorded that one last, and it just came together really quickly. I had some lyrics floating around for a while that I wanted to use, and it ended up working in a really nice way. I think it's kind of a thesis statement or something for the album... a good way to close.

CC: Will there be Space Mountain gigs once the record comes out? What would the ideal configuration be?

CK: I think so! Ideally, Space Mountain is a rock band. For the time being I'm still solo, but I've been trying to put a *real* band together. We'll see.

Today's Hotness: Frog, Thin Lips, Propeller

>> London-based Audio Antihero has made a cottage industry of identifying smart, singular talent on both sides of the Atlantic for the past five years, and while the label claims to be shuffling toward a planned obsolescence, it also seems to autonomously keep doing its thing like a mis-programmed robot in spite of label head Jamie Volcano's efforts to wind things down. And so at the end of the month Audio Antihero gives us the sparkling and weird debut full-length from Queens, New York-based lo-fi duo Frog. The act is comprised of guitarist/singer Dan Bateman and drummer Tom White, but if you are imagining something garagey a la White Stripes, you're well wide of the mark. Unless, that is, you stop that last sentence at the word "imagining," because the pair's bottomlessly wistful record, which is really actually titled Kind Of Blah, often feels as if only Messrs. Bateman and White's collective effort thinking about all things Frog keeps its ethereal and other-worldly music from popping like a speech balloon in a comic strip and dissipating like a fever dream. Kind Of Blah presents a very personal, sepia-toned collection of songs. Layers of clean guitars, humming synth chords, polite drumming, and murmured vocals pile up just high enough to offer a perch from which to peek through a smeared window at an innocent and imaginary New York.

The band's list of influences name-checks Hank Williams, Silver Jews and The Meat Puppets, and its songs boast ready hooks and a trebly sound that recall the AM Gold of the '60s and '70s, but even all of that only partially accounts for the strange wonders of Kind Of Blah. The entire set feels like it exists outside of time; the title of "Wish Upon A Bar" seems more appropriate for a Garth Brooks record, but the reality is the tune's pastoral drone feels like a constant, noisy dawn. "Knocking On The Door" sounds like Tinariwen's concurrent approximations of Traffic's "Can't Find My Way Home" and Supertramp's "Goodbye Stranger." Yes, we really did just type that sentence. The most sonically dense and emotionally potent point on the record is the crashing crescendo of the relatively rocking "Photograph." Astute readers will discern that we've yet to even mention any of the preview singles for this record, which we reckon is a testament to the inherent breadth and depth of Kind Of Blah as an album. The collection was recorded in a derelict bowling alley under a cafe in Queens and it will be released by Audio Antihero on LP and as a digital download May 25. The record is already available for pre-order right here and the three preview singles -- "All Dogs Go To Heaven;" "King Kong;" "Judy Garland" -- are available for streaming below; Frog previously released a self-titled EP on the Monkfish label in 2013. The duo's next live engagement is tomorrow night at Palisades in Brooklyn, and full event details are right here.







>> Discovering a band just as they are on the cusp of breaking up is a disappointing story that plays out with some frequency for the avid music fan, and that's where Clicky Clicky found itself a couple years back when The Weaks' Evan Bernard turned us on to Dangerous Ponies. At the time, the Philly-based indie punk act fronted by Chrissy Tashjian was in the process of releasing its terrific Tenderheart EP; then it went out on tour, it came back, and it broke up. Sad face for the music blogger. But we are pleased to note here in these electronic pages that Ms. Tashjian now fronts the steadfastly rocking foursome Thin Lips, and her rock combo just last week issued a jarringly brilliant debut EP titled Divorce Year. The vital collection is more tense than Dangerous Ponies' swan song, likely due to the darker subject matter and not the personnel, as Thin Lips is comprised mostly of former members of DP. But while there is a bit less sunshine on Divorce Year, its four bracing songs are smartly composed and pack an emotional wallop. The syncopated, gripping opener "Nothing Weird" opens big with wiry guitar melodies and a stuttering rhythm, above which Tashjian offers insight into an unsteady romance with her very affecting drawl: "you're leaving today, and I'm staying put, I'd follow you there but I'd just shadow you into a rut..." Seagreen Records released Divorce Year last week in a limited edition of 100 cassettes, supply of which we expect is dwindling rapidly, as Thin Lips recently wrapped a tour with the amazing Hop Along and probably encountered a very receptive audience that likely included some kids who own tape decks. Two of the tunes on Divorce Year were previously issued in rawer form as a demo way back in 2013, a digital release that somehow eluded our attention, so all you completists might want to hit this link to get your ears on early versions of the rockers "Gemini Moon" and "Non-Monogamy Nightmare." Stream all of Divorce Year via the embed below, and click through the obtain the digital download on a paywhutchalike basis. Highly recommended.



>> When there are so many rock and roll balls in the air all at once, it can be a bit too easy to take your eye off one for a good long while. Which helps explain why it's been five years since we last checked in on San Francisco power-pop unit Propeller. Readers with photographic memories (or a willingness to use the search box at upper left) will recall that the act is built around songwriters Greg Randall and Will Anderson, who at least around here are best known as members of the original, left-coast iteration of our dearly departed Varsity Drag (that band played its last show April 30). Since we last checked in on Propeller, it has issued a second full-length and two digital singles, and its most recent offering is the cracking pair "Wish I Had Her Picture" b/w "Can't Feel These Things." The sparkling strummers (songs 26 and 27 in the band's oeuvre, apparently) carry the characteristically sunny melodies and sing-alongable choruses we remember from Propeller's earlier work, and it is still easy to hear the influence of Scottish hitmakers Teenage Fanclub (and maybe a touch of Fresno's The Miss Alans) in these latest two tunes. "Wish I Had Her Picture" presents three minutes of delightful jangle and tight vocal harmonies, and the free, fuzzy vibe continues into "Can't Feel These Things," the virtual B side. The two songs were released to the wilds of the Internerds via Bandcamp April 3, and you can stream them via the Bandcamp embed below. The band plays what we presume is a very rare east coast show May 29 at Leftfield in Manhattan, so if you are in "the city" that day, we would direct your attention to that there gig. One last notable fact: Messrs. Randall and Anderson recently marked 25 years of playing in bands together, which is a remarkable feat no matter how you slice it. Stream "Wish I Had Her Picture" and "Can't Feel These Things" via the Bandcamp embed below. You will be pleased that you did.

We're Trapped Inside The Song Where The Nights Are So Long: Clicky Clicky Speaks To Krill's Jonah Furman About Deep Shit Like Divisions Of The Self And The Beast Within

[Images by Jonah Furman and Noah Furman] Time And Relative Dimension In Space is a mouthful of words, which is why it is almost always acronymed, but it has some bearing here, so please indulge the introductory tangent. It's a fictional thing from a teevee series and series of books, the TARDIS is, and on the outside it appears to be a large phone booth (it's not a proper phone booth, but most of our readers are American, so let's just go with "phone booth"). The important thing to know for now is that while this time-traveling, spaceship thingo appears to be the size of a phone booth on the outside, it is (as a result of unspecified extraterrestrial magic/technology) impossibly larger on the inside. Which is a lot like the music of Krill, the Boston-based post-punk trio whose music angularly jangles and thumps while the fronter, the titular Jonah Furman whose name you see above, sings about bugs and fear and loathing and psychological mutineering and negating the self and Dostoevsky -- the harder you listen, the bigger (and deeper) it all gets. Which is, coincidentally, a lot like what we experienced when we cobbled the interview together.

Cards on the table: this was conceived as a bit of a perfunctory exercise. We're friends with the fine people at The Ash Gray Proclamation blog, who are hosting a benefit show this Saturday for Toys For Tots down in Plymouth, MA. So we thought, hey, let's see if we can help promote the cause by running a timely feature with one of the bands. Synergy! Shake your groove thing! Having vibrated heavily to Krill's 2013 LP Lucky Leaves [review here], the choice of who we wanted to interview was easy. However, the incredibly forthright and thoughtful responses below from Mr. Furman -- who is quick to emphasize he is but one of three dudes who comprise Krill, and that Krill is not "his" band -- exceeded our expectations for the feature many times over, and it became clear very quickly that this interview was going to outsize the convenient excuse upon which it was premised. Indeed, the exchange below prompts that jarring realization that, at least for Furman, the music of Krill is not as much about self-expression as it is a framework used to explore big ideas about philosophy and life. The ideas Furman spit-balls in response to our clumsy interrogation are so large and pure they potentially seep into everything, their ontological protoplasm sliming and absorbing by (our own excited) extrapolation things as far-flung as Bad Brains' I Against I and Silver Jews' Starlight Walker, not to mention works by David Foster Wallace and Dostoevsky, and on and on and on. The ideas extend, we are told infra, to Krill's forthcoming EP, Steve Hears Pile In Malden And Bursts Into Tears, which was formally announced today over at the Gum de Stereo. We're grateful to Jonah for the generous gift of his time and the focus and attention he brought to our exchange. As we mentioned supra, Krill performs this Saturday at the New World Cafe in Plymouth, MA as part of For All Good Kids, The Ash Gray Proclamation's Toys For Tots benefit show that also features Hallelujah The Hills, Guillermo Sexo and a special opening set from The Hush Now's Noel Kelly. The show will rage and all the details are right here. Now, on to the interview with Krill's Jonah Furman.

Clicky Clicky: 2013 was probably something of a mindfuck for Krill. Early in the year the band was confronted with the prospect of Lucky leaving, the band's future was uncertain, you lived in a mansion and then you didn't live in a mansion. Now, at the other end of the year, the LP is out to not-insignificant acclaim and you are signed to Exploding In Sound and presumably you are not homeless. If Present Day Jonah could pull some sort of tesseract move right now and go back in time to talk to Endless Winter 2013 Jonah, would you tell yourself "everything is going to work out?" Would that have been the most important thing for the band to know?

Jonah Furman: man, knuckle deep on the first one, good. yeah well hm, let's see. the whole story of krill's history is so tangled as to be boring and i always have trouble answering the q of "when did the band start?" but september/october 2012 was definitely our first tour and the first time that krill was our main thing. i was broke as hell and depressed and my girlfriend had just moved to siberia and i started reading a lot of dostoevsky that december, and listening to [Fat History Month's] fucking despair and thinking about will, commitment, suffering, weakness, and krill. i was constantly talking about breaking up the band and that was months before luke got into grad school. 'theme from krill' was [a] half painful cynical thing about the band breaking up, the twisted bug in me that tends to self-destruction, and then it was beautifully reinforced by 'lucky leaving,' which he announced in february. the other half i guess is the hopeful side, saying 'tho it's over this moment will be tattooed in time forever' and alluding to how we did sort of create a whole universe of meaning for ourselves, thus the self-reference (which i could go on and on about). anyhow i'm not really answering your question am i. what happened? so luke said he was splitting & at first we were thinking that'd mean a 'hiatus' but aaron and i didn't want to do that so we decided either we'd break up or we'd find a new drummer and then ian came along and moved out to boston and the engine churned on. without getting too personal about stuff, life is surprisingly, shockingly the same between November 2013 and November 2012 ~~ living in the Whitehaus (a different sort of mansion) with no heat (same as last winter) with USD $11 in my bank account, feelin sorry for myself like a chump. More blogs have written about the band and we play more and better shows now, and, yeah, like i said, the engine churns. So it's not like we're livin it up by any means, but yeah, I guess the external validation has helped a bit? How do I not sound like a whiner? But also what I wanted to say (god this answer is too long) is that the suffering and the is-krill-gonna-break-up thing was crucial to the whole thing, and for a while (to our detriment, in trying to get labels to release it) we called LL a concept album about our band breaking up. & truth be told, the next thing, Steve Hears Pile etc...., is also about breaking up ~~ so who knows? Good thing i can't teserract, i'd fuck it all up.

CC: In "Theme From Krill" we learned there is a bug inside the narrator. Lucky Leaves was initially sold as a USB lodged in a cheeseball. And the forthcoming EP is about two dudes who are apparently inside a Pile song, at least in a manner of speaking. All of which makes me think of the Silver Jews song "New Orleans," where in the coda Mssrs. Malkmus and Berman chant "we're trapped inside the song" over and over. That would be a great song for Krill to cover, incidentally. But it also makes me think about how Krill likes to think about things that are in other things, sometimes hiding, sometimes revealing. So far this is a pretty terrible question, right?

JF: this question rules. actually asking about like 'what are your songs about?' which is pretty crucial for a band that writes songs that mostly are about stuff. i don't know that Silver Jews song, I'm gonna listen to it now.

OK i got distracted and wasted 30 minutes on the internet. where were we. ah, yeah. that's a great question. i mean, maybe it's not a great question but it's talking about actual interests and yeah i'd say krill lyrics are deeply concerned with stuff 'in' other stuff, mostly split versus whole selves, being torn or being unified, which just today i was thinking about how maybe that'll be the next krill full-length theoretical scaffolding -- r.d. laing's 'the divided self', f.m. dostoevsky's raskolnikov, d.f. wallace's lane dean jr., drew beckmore's 'everything unseen'. i could go on and on but maybe won't. i'll talk krill theories all day long though, helps me figure out what they actually are. incidentally you got me back on one of my favorite songs, silkworm's 'couldn't you wait.'

CC: Before we jump topics, what else can you tell me about Steve Hears Pile In Malden And Bursts Into Tears? We know it's an EP, we roughly know the larger concept at work, and we know it will be released on vinyl and digital. Did anything surprise you about the EP, after you had recorded it and were able to sit back and listen to it straight through?

JF: i can tell you lots of things about the EP, way more than you'd care to hear. first to answer your q: i'm sick of the fuckin thing by now and can't really stand to listen to it anymore after mixing, mastering, all that. it's to some extent an artifact, being Luke's Final Act before he left the band. i don't think it's all that cohesive as a 'concept album' and there are 1 or 2 tracks that didn't make the cut that would've fleshed out the concept but basically... I ripped the title from this weird academic exegetical essay called "Dostoevsky Reads Hegel in Siberia and Bursts Into Tears" by F. Laszlo Foldenyi (sp.?) that basically talks about how Hegel said history doesn't happen in Siberia and how Dost likely encountered that bit of Hegel while he himself was in fact in Siberia and the idea is that Malden is Siberia to Allston's Germany and Steve and Mouth are these two kids who live together in Malden and want to form a band and be friends with Pile but are so deeply in their own way and so outside of the 'scene' and 'conversation.' I mean it goes quite a bit deeper than that, and more tangled, in that the character's names and basic positions are ripped from a Pile song, "Steve's Mouth," in which there's this great line: "Steve woke up sitting on his own head, sobbing, couldn't breathe. He had a dream that Mouth died because Steve had to eat." -- which, yeah, again is about self-destruction, divisions of the self, your Mouth separating and being treated as a whole full entity... I don't know, the idea was that Steve is this infinite outwardness, wanting to form this band and go on tour with Pile but feels crushed by the external world, like he can't possibly match up, and Mouth is this infinite negativity, wanting to kill himself or leave boston or basically just abandon all dreams. which, you know, are two factors krill dealt with and deals with a lot... i don't know. it's not really a cohesive thing, like i said, but it's sort of about krill, pile, dostoevsky, boston, and depression, in five disjointed tracks.

[Here comes the worst segue you will ever read in an interview published in this or any publication in the post-Gutenberg-era -- Ed.]

CC: So you're playing this Toys For Tots benefit show Saturday. Can you remember as a kid having an obsession with a particular toy? In your experience, with regards to toys or otherwise, have you ever gotten something you wanted badly, and then realized that wanting it was actually more satisfying than having it?

JF: used to play a lot of magic cards as a kid. one time i bought a pack and told my parents, after the fact, that i didn't really want it and they asked why i bought it and i made up an excuse about how maybe one of the cards could be valuable and i could sell it and then my dad sort of tore me a new one about how gambling works and i remember him taking out a pair of dice and showing me what an idiot i was. what you say about wanting is more resonant, of course, and maybe a shitty thing for me to talk about as a person who comes from a privileged suburban background, the mechanics of wanting, but yeah, makes me think about DFW's thing about how there is no reciprocal feeling of success to match the aching desire of fame, addiction, achievement, progression, ascent. but fuck, jay, probably not cool to tell the tots the toys will solve nothing, that the beast is yourself and you cannot be sated, right?

CC: Clicky Clicky can magically turn you into Oprah. If we did, in fact, turn you into Oprah, and you were able to give a single gift, any gift at all, to an entire studio audience of deserving kids in need, what would you pick for them?

JF: funny how quickly, when ian asked me the other day what i want for hannukah, i blurted "$5k" and how deeply that resonated with all three of us. capitalism (or current dearth of capital to my name) has maybe temporarily sullied my capacity for appreciating/remembering the wonders of the gift economy but i really do think that's one of the Ways Out of the dilemma of the split, self-negating self. fuck am i talking about. crayons & paper should be enough.

CC: I'm intrigued by your speculation, or at least optimistic positation, which is surely not a real word, that the gift economy, or the wonders thereof, is a potential solution to the split, self-negating self. Because I think this is important. Do you think the solution for peace in the house of the divided self is... kindness? altruism? Or, I guess to stay more true to the line of your response, having the capacity to appreciate/recognize kindness or altruism?

JF: At the end of college i was working on this thesis that i abandoned, sort of about a lot of things, many threads of which have surfaced in krill stuff over the past couple years. I guess the idea, most broadly, was an investigation (but more navel gazing) into the move from ends to means, or "the eclipse of ends" (which is how I saw it put in a book just yesterday (this stuff still, as you can see, deeply occupies me)). so it was this elaborate thing about how economic/cultural/ethical/communicative translations have fucked up our relationship to any sense of value, and the next step would be to see maybe how one could maybe traverse these occluded paths to value w/o being naive or regressive. Or maybe by being naive/regressive, not sure, I'm still totally fuzzy on it. But the cheesy and simplest example i came up with is how currency translates objects into a commensurable value (exchange-value), overpowering the sense of the object as the thing that it is -- a chair = $ instead of a thing to sit on, yknow? All this stuff is hamfisted and overly academic, and part of my whole problem with the thesis itself was that what I'm interested in is mostly the human experience of these shifts (if they're even valid at all) rather than their intellectual history. Anyhow, through some twists and turns, largely centered on the totemic figure of David Foster Wallace (but other stuff in moral philosophy and elsewhere) i got hooked on the now-a-little-played-out idea that if you have a system of means that swallows all, the only way to destroy or overcome that system (w/o being naive or regressive) would be to turn it against itself; thus people talking confusingly about dfw 'ironizing irony' (& the other example that comes to mind is this metaethics thing that would take slightly longer to explain) and also, in my opinion, ideas about self-hate, self-incrimination, knowing-you-are-fucked, because your only tool against your fucked self is your fucked self, the self having eclipsed all other things.

Ultimately, tho, I'd say that dfw (and levinas and Dostoevsky and other important people i feel namedroppy for bringing up) resorts to something that maybe is naive or regressive but somehow i don't think it quite is ---- because it still is the form of self-negation, just reformulated, turned inside out, into other-affirmation, through love, god, 'the other,' communitarianism. i guess maybe the next thing, for me, would be that once you've revived this loving muscle and can flex it a bit, maybe maybe there is some place in the deep distance where the golden rule can be flipped, once you've already loved yr neighbor as yourself (and get over the embarrassment of typing that) you can turn it around and love yourself as your neighbor. So: eventually the split self becomes a way to come back to a liveable self-love (or at least non-self-hatred).

Oh, how we enjoyed doing this interview. There are a number of other questions we'd like to put to Jonah (1. there is an underlying presumption here that a divided self is necessarily a bad thing, and a thing that needs to be remedied -- what if it is the natural state of being? Is there a way that it can not be a negative? 2.) Where does religious faith fall in the mechanics of remedying the divided self -- which, again, we are not sure is something that necessarily is unnatural and needs to be remedied? Is using religious faith "naive" or "regressive?"). But we'll save those for another day. Steve Hears Pile In Malden And Bursts Into Tears has five songs and will be released by Exploding In Sound as a vinyl 10" and digital download Feb. 18; you can pre-order the short stack (as well as a couple rad t-shirt designs) via Krill's Bandcamp dojo right here. The blazing, punky title track was loosed to the wilds of the Internerds today as a preview, and for now you can hear it over at that big web site. Krill has a number of other confirmed shows on the horizon beyond Saturday's engagement at The New World Tavern in Plymouth, which of course you should go to, because we said so. For example, the trio is also part of Allston Pudding/EIS's cataclysmic New Year's Eve bill in Boston over at Pizzeria Regina in Allston, which also features Grass Is Green, Kal Marks and Two Inch Astronaut.

Footage: Yuck's "Rubber" [NSFW]

Every new song we hear from London-based indie upstarts Yuck is the newest reason why we love the band. And while the quartet has been giving away "Rubber" for free since October, only today did it drop this visually stunning and curiously provocative video for the track. The clip conflates lingering and rapidly looped footage of dog grooming with lingering footage of a woman washing herself in a shower. It's just weird. But the images have that super crisp quality that you'll remember started cropping up in MTV videos of a certain late era. The song, of course, is perhaps the sludgiest thing Yuck has offered to date, and it is the lead track to a 12" EP released by The Pharmacy Recording Company in the U.K. on Nov. 1. That label will also issue Yuck's debut full-length in the U.K. in early 2011; Fat Possum recently signed Yuck for North America, and will release the full-length here around the same time, as we reported here last month. Fat Possum releases the single "Georgia" b/w "The Base of A Dream Is Empty" in the U.S. Nov. 23 [pre-order], and we posted a video clip for the b-side right here recently. If you have a little extra time, watch this very good video interview with Yuck's Daniel. Two things we did not know: drummer Johnny is actually American, from New Jersey even. And Daniel is heavy into Silver Jews.

Rubber by Yuck

Be Prepared: Lubec | Nothing Is Enough EP Teaser "Cherry Adair"

If you harbored some concern that the nascent Virginia noise-pop scene we chronicled last year with these features on Cinemasophia and Lubec had fallen fallow, fear not. Cinemasophia is no more, but band principal Landis Wine has been hard at work churning out compelling music with his White Laces project (more on that soon). And now we have word that self-professed Lilys disciples Lubec will return this fall with a new, self-produced record and new label.

The label, The Acme Thunderer, is slated to launch Oct. 9, and it will release that day Lubec's very promising, six-song Nothing Is Enough! EP. The short stack of songs will be available on CD, vinyl and digital download, and the collection is one of a half-dozen or so The Acme Thunderer is slated to issue. Other releases in the pipeline include collections from the aforementioned White Laces and Ghost Lotion. Those acts and Lubec play a launch party for the label Oct. 9 at Gallery5 in Richmond, VA. Lubec aims to begin recording for a planned full-length release that it hopes will see the light of day in early 2011, in time for some spring touring and a trip to the annual SXSW music confabulation.

Lubec's Eddie Charlton got in touch and gave us the go-ahead to post Nothing Is Enough!'s brilliant "Cherry Adair," whose stream or download you can grab below. Based on the metadata with the file, the song is slated to sit in the center of the EP, but it is certainly strong enough to be a lead cut. The production is a bit remote (think Black Tambourine), but that is solved by cranking the volume, something you'll be compelled to do about a minute in when the first pre-chorus explodes. What first pushes the song deep into genius territory is the little melodic hook in the chorus, "I don't know why everybody seems to know your name." And then there is a transporting guitar solo. Is this what Lilys would sound like covering Silver Jews? We think it is, and we can't wait to hear more.

Lubec's "Cherry Adair"
[stalk the The Acme Thunderer site for pre-order information for Nothing Is Enough!]

Today's Hotness: Assembly Now, Answering Machine, Qui, Silver Jews

>> The electronically affable (we've only ever "met" him via email) Lush, drummer for London indie rock quartet Assembly Now, is now the former drummer for London indie rock quartet Assembly Now. Lush chalks his departure up to musical differences in a departure message to fans. In his stead for the foreseeable future (or at least foreseeable from across the Atlantic) will be John Sutton, brother to current bassist Howard Sutton, meaning now perhaps the rhythm section will have some sort of fraternal telepathy. Or maybe they will just pound each other like the Davies, Robinson and Gallagher brothers. Either way it will be exciting, no? We bid a fond farewell to Lush, who happily answered our questions when we featured Assembly Now in our on-again, off-again featurette Show Us Yours. Check out Show Us Yours #6 featuring Assembly Now here. The band's most recent release, the single "Graphs, Maps & Trees," was issued on the Kids label Aug. 6. Lush drummed on some pretty great singles. Here are the a-sides of the first two.

Assembly Now -- "It's Magnetic" -- "It's Magnetic" b/w "Out On 24s"
Assembly Now -- "Leigh-On-Sea" -- "Leigh-On-Sea" b/w "Tenement"
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[buy the "Leigh-On-Sea" and "Graphs, Maps & Trees" singles from ITunes here]

>> According to a recent interview in the 'zine Noize Makes Enemies, The Answering Machine's next single will likely be for a track called "Light Bulb." According to the parley with band fronter Martin, the track was produced by Robin Houseman, who also produced the Manchester, England-based quartet's excellent "Silent Hotels" single, which streeted June 18 and sold out its vinyl edition of 500 in two days. According to the interview The Answering Machine's next single will be out in November. Will new drummer Ben play on it? We guess we'll find out in a couple months. In the meantime, kids in the UK have scads of chances to see the band live. Check out all the tour dates at the band's MySpace teepee here.

>> More news out of the Johnny Foreigner camp... so the signing was with Best Before as we expected. If you are a "friend" of "the band" on "MySpace" then you got the awesome bulletin the band sent out Friday night showing their names (and BLOOD) on the proverbial dotted line, as well as some shots of the recent recording session at Southern Studios and sundry other scruffy label and A&R types. The planned EP Arcs Across The City may be more of a November thing, as opposed to October, according to the latest missive, and is going to come in a cool package with pop-up art. Did we mention the Southern Sessions were recorded by a fellow named Harvey Birrell, whose credits include the Irish act Therapy? (whose song "Teethgrinder" errr, "Screamager" is totally the band's best jam). After stalking them via the Internet for half a year, we are hoping to get a proper interview with Johnny Foreigner later this fall. Watch this space.

>> Drowned In Sound has an informative and amusing interview with badman rocker David Yow, former fronter of The Jesus Lizard and newest addition to the trio Qui, here. Qui's record Love's Miracle streets next week on Ipecac. To hear Yow tell it, since leaving The Jesus Lizard he's spent most of his time drinking too much and playing with Photoshop. On the new record Yow is mostly singing vocal parts writting by Qui's Matt, but the now trio did write one song together, "Today, Gestation." We reviewed a recently released The Jesus Lizard live DVD here, and our foreign correspondent Zoz reviewed a Qui live date in January here.

>> More news from Drowned In Sound, who are really holding shizz down lately, no? The site reports that there will be a new Silver Jews record in 2008. The band, led by troubled poet David Berman, was to have finished recording the set last month and may be released as soon as January. More details are here.