Premierage/Previewage: Wheat Heralds Sixth Set With "Hey Eugenio," Gigs With Eldridge Rodriguez Saturday

[Photo: Paul Chiera / remixed by Clicky Clicky] The rituals of summer are nice, but it is bittersweet seeing them come and go after looking forward to them for so long (said the guy who just got back from an annual beach jaunt -- Ed.). And maybe this is how fans of area indie rock veterans Wheat feel: without delving into any hard analysis, drummer Brendan Harney agrees with our observation, that it seems like the band -- makers of shoulda-been hits including 1999's "No One Ever Told Me" or the even older, heart-punching ballad "Soft Polluted Blacks" -- typically plays shows in the summer and then largely uses the cooler months to hole up and write songs, or play Sudoku, or do whatever it is rock luminaries do. Summer inevitably fades, and only the promise that another one's coming makes that kinda OK. So, yeah, Wheat is playing a show this Saturday in Cambridge, Mass. (more on that below), but what can they offer as a salve once the show is but a memory?

Cheer up, Francis: it just so happens the act is closing in on the completion of Blazed, the sixth full-length of a 20-year career during which it has made records with Small Factory's Dave Auchenbach and renowned knob-twiddler and Mercury Rev guy Dave Fridmann and perhaps even another Dave, who knows? The forthcoming set has been under construction for about a year, and Mr. Harney reports the band is "getting into the final stages of getting the vocals down right, and making sure everything is nip and tuck." A final track listing won't be set until the songs are all complete, but two tunes destined for the forthcoming collection are already in the wild. What's more, we're pleased to premiere for you today a third that is said to have made the proverbial cut, namely the little pop wonder "Hey Eugenio," which you can stream via the topmost Soundcloud embed below.

To recap the recent moves, the band released the subdued bouncer "Walking Song" to fans back in February, and followed it up with "Stay Up Late" in May. Newcomer "Hey Eugenio" is a charming and detailed miniature, a simple love song, according to Harney. The deconstructed number's lyrics pour out like sweet and thick syrup among playful electric piano, tastefully understated guitar licks, canned percussion and a rising firmament of synth. Will the band play it and/or other new tunes at the aforementioned rock show? Oh yeah, about that: pay attention. It's this Saturday at the fabled Middle East Rock Club, and it is an early show, with doors at 7 and Wheat performing at 9. So don't show up at the usual time and be caught flat-footed, unrocked and likely mocked. Hitmakers Eldridge Rodriguez will open the show with a full-band set, and we strongly suggest arriving in time to see that foursome turn in what is typically a fiery performance. Perhaps Cam's fabled white suit will even make an appearance? We make no promises. Either way you should get yourself a ticket right now, arrange an Uber, weed your garden, trump your towers, whatever it takes to ensure that you will be at the rock show. Rock show.

Wheat: Facebook | Internerds | Soundcloud

Stop What You're Doing: How Lorelei Transcended Its Influences And Produced The Undersung, Prescient Post-Rock Classic Everyone Must Touch The Stove

[By Edward Charlton / UPDATED] Time, place and personnel. These three elements proved to be everything for Lorelei, a misfit trio of adventurous indie musicians whose debut long-playing album, Everyone Must Touch The Stove, turned 20 years old in September.

The time was the early 1990s, when the so-called alternative ethos loomed over both the musical underground and overground, experiencing its first identity crisis when grunge penetrated the purview of high school dances and topped the pop charts. The place was Washington, D.C., where the narrowly realized punk idealism of the '80s had ebbed, giving way to a fertile and diverse scene whose possibilities seemed limitless in the minds of many of its players. And so it was with the band; Lorelei was a challenged and ever-changing project, which -- through a series of fortunate and formative experiences -- chanced upon the ideal combination of the three aforementioned factors to create an expansive, experimental and startlingly prescient indie rock album. Indeed, the long-player Everyone Must Touch The Stove foretold much of the coming post-rock movement, whose influence helped shape the next two decades of sub-popular independent music. Lorelei continues to perform live occasionally, and is poised to announce at least one special performance for the end of 2015. More about that below.

Following a series of terrific compilation tracks, singles and the beautiful Asleep EP -- recordings whose sounds closely tracked to the group's rapid development and lineup changes -- Lorelei committed 10 of its most refined and experimental pieces to tape at home and Geoff Turner's WGNS studios in Arlington, Virginia in 1994. Released a year later by the esteemed Slumberland Records, Stove was Lorelei's final statement until a 2006 reunion precipitated the 2012 comeback LP Enterprising Sidewalks. Slumberland calls Stove "a brave album, blending together a vast array of sounds into a bold statement of the possibilities of pop and rock, heading off in a hundred different directions at the same time, but still remaining a cohesive whole." Mr. Turner below positively assesses the record as "unyielding." Clicky Clicky does not disagree on either count.

Opener "Today's Shrug" sets the tone with shifting melodies, guitar feedback and the act's endlessly creative and sturdy rhythm section, all of which underpin evocative lyrics and uniquely emotive vocals. Throughout the album, highly technical, stereo guitar effects workouts ("Thigh For A Leg," "Throwaway," and the otherworldly centerpiece "Inside The Crimelab") mingle with power-pop rockers ("Newsprint," "Stop What You’re Doing") and polyrhythmic acoustic instrumentals and interludes ("Day," "Windmill") for a curiously wandering and dreamy listen that seems to exist both within and without the era in which it was created. Even now, Stove's terrific songwriting and artful textures intrigue new fans discovering the record for the first time. While it is Clicky Clicky's experience that we rarely encounter a musician that says they were directly influenced by the band (even Allmusic.com paradoxically has nothing to say about the record), it is pretty much the rule that every musician to whom we have introduced Everyone Must Touch The Stove finds it inspiring. To loosely paraphrase one of them, the time is right to reintroduce this exceptional record to people and give it the critical appraisal it deserves.

We had the honor of speaking this fall with Lorelei drummer Davis White, guitarist/singer Matthew Dingee and bassist Stephen Gardner, as well as revered engineer and producer Geoff Turner, about the creation of Stove, their thoughts on the Mid-Atlantic indie-pop scene of the '90s, and the legacy of the record today. Each of them gave highly considerate and detailed answers to our questions, for which we are very grateful. Our exchanges below transport us back to that hopeful, youthful and, above all else, inventive time two decades gone. Press play on the record and join us on our deep dive into Lorelei's 1995 classic, Everyone Must Touch The Stove.

Clicky Clicky: Tell us about how the band first began.

Davis White (drummer): Stephen and I met at an American University dorm party, in September of 1990. Our bands had played a show together earlier that summer and he recognized me. We hatched a plan to start a band faintly resembling Charlatans UK after Christmas break. Stephen was 14 and I was 29. Neither of us really belonged at such a party, so [it was] quite an unlikely meeting. For brevity and to avoid distraction, we will mostly ignore the myriad early line-ups [of Lorelei] from January to September of 1991 involving (original guitarist) Dave Cerf, Stephen and I. That is a story for another time, and I don't want to short-change all the other fine folks we played with. This period produced our first single "The Bitter Air," so it wasn't a total washout. But I would say Lorelei, as we know it today, began with this post-note from Stephen's mom, "Matt from the Lilys called." It has been folded away in my Boss tuner since that day in August 1991.

Matthew Dingee (guitarist/vocalist): I guess I shouldn't be shocked that Davis has this note. He and Stephen are excellent documentarians. I will say I was definitely formerly of Lilys by that point. [Lilys mastermind] Kurt [Heasley] had been squatting at my apartment while I was in Lilys, which was an awesome arrangement as far as I was concerned (my parents were less enthused). I learned a ton from him and enjoyed it. But that arrangement came to an end, and shortly after I was told by Archie [Moore, of Velocity Girl] that he was my replacement in Lilys. I only mention this because I cannot recall if it was Archie, Kurt, or Mike Schulman who suggested I call Stephen. Regardless, thanks to whomever pushed me in that direction.

DW: Stephen and I had seen Matt a couple of times in Lilys and enjoyed his playing style, recognizing a major The Cure influence. We were ecstatic when he expressed interest in joining us. Dave had moved away to attend his first year at CalArts. So Matt was thrust into playing our legacy material as the replacement guitarist. We played like this for a couple of months, but the old set wasn't sounding very good. By November we had whittled down to a more productive and satisfying trio. We quickly worked up a new set based around songs Matt had written prior to meeting us. The trio first played a fall concert prom at Stephen's high school. To illustrate the timeline, Nirvana's "Smells Like Teen Spirit" was riding high on the top of the charts. Two or three of the high school bands covered the song that night. Matt observed that it was going to be "a hard fight for us to compete with all this grunge."

Stephen Gardner (bassist): I got an early start with music through my older sisters and the typical mid-'80s entry point of The Smiths, The Cure, New Order, etc., choosing to learn bass because one of them said it was "cooler than guitar." I followed them straight to the Dischord scene. People always ask us about being from D.C., and while the music [there] had a huge impact on me, it was the fact that there was this totally youth-organized, completely accessible, all-ages environment of kids doing their own thing that was the biggest influence and created a sense of perpetual possibility. Anyway, by 1990 I had played in a few short-lived hardcore bands and had a show with one of Davis's many other bands, Repercussion, who I had seen several times by then. He, sounding like Joe Jackson and playing a mandolin in a band that was somewhere between thrash and early [Elvis] Costello, was hard to forget. A friend and well-known D.C. photographer, Colby Caldwell, whose photos are on most of the Lorelei records, had gotten me into 4AD stuff and my discovery of a succession of EPs from Lush, Pale Saints, Ride, The Boo Radleys, Slowdive and My Bloody Valentine shifted my whole perception about what was possible -- that there was maybe a way to combine the vitality of Rites Of Spring with the harmonic complexity of The Smiths, all wrapped up in this new depth, texture and space I was hearing on these records. [I was] [c]onvinced I needed to start a new band to make that happen...

CC: What was your experience with the people and places of the Mid-Atlantic and D.C. indie-pop/rock scene from 1990-1996? How do you view that era now? In the context of the label's roster and also in hindsight, Lorelei "makes sense," but at the time did you feel like what you were setting out to do fit well within the regional scene, or did you feel like Lorelei was doing something new and alien?

MD: To us the regional scene boiled down to Dischord and then the labels behind Pop Losers: Slumberland, Teen Beat, and Simple Machines. Within that scene, I was staunchly pro-Slumberland and fairly anti- everything else. Slumberland grew into a tight knit family of friends. Mike and I listened to a ton of records together around this time. It was quite an education. It's hard for me to put into words just how important the relationships built at that time are to me. Slumberland is my tribe and I'm still happy they haven't kicked me to the curb.

Lorelei as a three-piece didn't start off too far afield from Lilys, though much less refined. We played with bands on other local labels and enjoyed that. But fitting in was the last thing I wanted to do. To Mike's credit, he didn't seem to worry too much about whether the roster fit together. He put out records by the bands he liked. He just happens to have inscrutable taste and so it all fits together in the end. For example, despite the fact that we sound nothing like Small Factory, I'd go completely mental when they played. They were so good and played with such enthusiasm. I wanted to do that.

SG: For all the freedom and self-expression that was happening in the punk scene in 1990, it was pretty clear that, sonically, there tended to be a pretty narrow universe of acceptable sounds and interests, particularly from fans of that stuff. I was always a bit confused about that contradiction, but it was clear to me from the beginning that Lorelei was not going to fit in there or find much following in those circles. But, through Vinyl Ink, the 9:30, and DC Space, the wider world was right there, and I think probably everyone involved in these "other" D.C. scenes has the same basic story of being turned on by D.C. punk and applying that energy and method to whatever else they were into.

We found our way to Slumberland right away through my job at Smash Records and trips to Vinyl Ink in Maryland. I had met Mike Schulman, who worked at Vinyl Ink, and learned he had a label and of his legendary knowledge of just about every genre and phase of modern music. I think the Jane Pow single was the first Slumberland release I heard and I remember being blown away by "Warm Room." On that alone, Dave, our first guitarist, and I walked to Vinyl Ink one day in the spring of '91 with a demo and handed it to Mike. He was the first person we gave it to and, luckily, he quickly helped us get our first show -- with the Lilys -- and the 7" followed thereafter.

From there on, the label and the people interested in it and the bands on it became our home base, both because of and in spite of the diversity on the label. Davis and I still stayed connected to our punk roots all the same, and living in Arlington, Dischord, Teenbeat, and Simple Machines stuff was always around. But, the other Slumberland stuff was surely the least popular of any of the scenes in DC. It's hard to know if we were facing explicit hostility or just indifference, but our entire career was mostly spent playing to 30 people in D.C. However, it's important to remember that despite all these labels and bands coming out of D.C. at the time, it was really a pretty small group of people locally that were coming out to see shows of this punk and indie stuff anyway, so the pot of people who might care was always small to begin with, so we are probably wrong to feel too slighted. Each label tended to have its own core of folks and we'd occasionally politely play together, but the only time I feel like this whole punk/indie community really shared a common scene was when everyone would converge at Fugazi shows.

CC: How would you describe the progression that the group saw between the "Bitter Air" 7", "Mimesis" from the ...One Last Kiss comp, the Asleep EP and then the full-length?

MD: You can hear the transition on Asleep. Seeing and meeting Moonshake and Stereolab really connected some previously unconnected dots. Specifically, the Krautrock motorik sound connected with "On the Corner," World Domination Enterprises, and Adrian Sherwood. Plus a heavy dose of Beach Boys and The Wedding Present. I was already listening to more aggressive stuff (The Birthday Party, Skullflower, No Wave) and playing with Mike Schulman and Dan Searing in a post-Whorl noise project. By the time we were working on the Asleep tracks, we were trying to accommodate all these disparate sounds and not rule anything out. Despite having the shoegaze label thrown at us, we were hardly staring at our shoes at this point. There was a fair amount of equipment destruction, blood, sweat, and tears. We practiced at least twice a week for several years and played out a fair amount. With the confidence that comes from playing all the time, we had grown more and more adventurous by the time Stove rolled around.

SG: This is when Lorelei starts to sound like ourselves, I think -- plenty of clear influences, but some weird strands of DNA mutating them into something else. All that was influencing our writing in 1993 and when we went to the UK that fall to promote the EP, we had started working on a few Stove tracks, like "A Thigh For A Leg" [and] "Newsprint."

Although the tour was a disaster in many ways -- proving again that I, all of 17, should not have been left to manage most of the booking and business affairs of the band -- it was crucial to the album in two respects. First, we got to meet and see some of our favorite bands on their home turf, which raised our own expectations of what our next release could and should be. Secondly, having met our makers, so to speak, we confronted the reality that we really didn't fit there, either -- we were too British for America and not American enough for the UK. This had the effect of pushing us away a bit from the Asleep songs and our past influences and making us more determined to follow our impulses and play to our strength -- our diversity of interests -- with more confidence.

CC: What was it like in the time and preparation leading up to recording Stove?

MD: It took what felt like forever for anything to come out. Both in terms of how long it took us to create new songs, as well as the length of time it took a release to reach listeners. Thus I didn't want to include anything from a prior release on the album. Lorelei is all about not repeating. We only started repeating set lists recently (because we have less time now to practice now than we did then). In fact, we had lots of songwriting... guidelines let's say... one of which was that Stephen and I very rarely, if ever, intentionally played the same chord or note at the same time. Repeating a track would have been heresy. That said, Stove, like the rest of our output, is hardly lacking in epics. There is a reason there is a track missing from the vinyl: It would not physically fit!

SG: Our first session for Stove was in February 1994, and we had spent the previous fall and early winter, after returning from our UK tour, writing the first batch of songs. Since we wrote collaboratively during practice sessions, the writing process usually took a long time, and I think we felt pressure to get into the studio, both to capitalize on whatever momentum we had gotten from Asleep, and because the clock was ticking on the band. I had deferred college a year in the fall of '93 to keep things moving with Lorelei and work some before hitting the books again. I think we all knew that the band's future was somewhat in question once I left for school, and that this was our chance to make a great LP. Our own expectations were set high, and having developed a better understanding of the recording process and done Asleep with Geoff Turner, we were anxious to try new things out.

Geoff Turner (engineer, producer): In that time period my studio WGNS was recording records for local independent labels like Teenbeat, Simple Machines, Dischord, Jade Tree, et al. Lorelei was a good fit for our place. They were all recording enthusiasts and had their own studio. They were also hopeless record-dissecting geeks. Listening back to the album 20 years later, I'm pleasantly surprised by how unyielding the record is, with odd song structures, abrupt time signature changes, and sonic bombast. It's really epic, but not an album with tons of what you'd call (in early '90s speak) "cross-over potential."

CC: What was it like recording with Geoff?

DW: I had known Geoff in passing from the '80s hardcore scene. A friend of mine had joined a Dag Nasty offshoot band and they were recording at WGNS. I tagged along. Sitting in the control room, the convenient Arlington location and equipment impressed me. "How do I get Lorelei in here?" I wondered. We had been using a studio in Maryland for "Bitter Air" and "Mimesis." Due to year-long bridge construction it required a very inconvenient drive to get there. The band were reluctant (to varying degrees) when I suggested using Geoff's studio for the upcoming Asleep EP — worried we would end up with an "American-" or "punk rock"- sounding record and wanting to remain loyal to our previous producer. Matt and Stephen were students; being the only full-time worker, I probably strong-armed them into accepting WGNS by refusing to pay for anyplace else. Conflict is how Lorelei works, something the other mates celebrate more than I do. More examples to come, dear interview reader! Geoff quickly won over the guys via a studio tour, and the recording and mixing sessions went well for these four songs.

SG: I was a big fan of Geoff's earlier bands Gray Matter and Three, particularly of Gray Matter's Take It Back EP. It's probably true that I was longing for a Guy Fixsen production -- which we'd eventually get to do on Enterprising Sidewalks -- and depressed that such a thing was obviously impossible when Davis brought up WGNS and Geoff. But from my recollection, I was excited about working with Geoff and secretly hopeful that he'd turn out to be someone from my early cast of heroes that was actually into what we were trying to do. He turned out to be just that, plus exceedingly patient with our strange band dynamic, relentlessly positive, open to trying just about anything, and full of good ideas. He really was a good fit for us...

DW: After [our] sobering tour of England for Asleep -- documented in Robert Salsbury's [tour film] "If You Don’t Try, Nothing Ever Happens" -- we agreed the next step would be an album. There was a feeling that if the band broke up without being able to produce even one album, it would render Lorelei a failure. My slacker job doing graphics at a print shop did not pay enough to record at WGNS again. We borrowed ADATs and microphones from my previous band and did most of the tracking ourselves. We recorded at Stephen's house in the woods of North Arlington. Committed to continue working with Geoff, we were able to do select overdubs and mix the album with him. The first session produced "Thigh For A Leg," "Newsprint," "Windmill" and "Stop What You're Doing." Geoff seemed to enjoy the freedom that came with not making a spartan punk rock record. His own projects Senator Flux and New Wet Kojak were very innovative and somewhat before their time. Geoff saw that we were game for complicated sound-effects and unnatural timbres. Nothing was automated, so the effects were done live during the mix, often requiring three sets of hands and 20 minutes of set-up. There was a look of joy on his face when he heard the finished effect. Trying to keep Geoff happy and hiding any major band dysfunction from him was my goal for a time.

MD: We mixed some of the tracks in Avalon Studio in Bethesda, MD, which was well-equipped. I very distinctly recall that Geoff used every single piece of equipment in the place for the climax of "Crimelab." He genuinely seemed to enjoy that we wanted to push what could be accomplished in a studio at that time. He was a willing and enthusiastic collaborator. Geoff also put up with a significant amount of in-band bickering, which I didn't appreciate nearly enough at the time. Thanks, Geoff! I'm not sure why he tolerated us, honestly. I'm not sure I would have had the patience if I were in his shoes.

WGNS was a comfortable place to record, which is crucial. We didn't have to explain ourselves to Geoff. He got what we were about. So in that way it was huge relief to not have to go into a hostile environment and record. It sounds stupid now, but at the time we really were concerned that if we went to Inner Ear, for example, that our record would come out sounding... not like us. Just getting someone to try what you wanted to try in a studio was not a given. There were plenty of places that would have happily taken our money and not helped us much at all. I can't recall a single instance of Geoff discouraging us from trying something. As Stephen mentioned, Geoff was infinitely patient with us and I'm eternally grateful.

DW: Yes, the second set of songs were mixed four months later at Avalon. Geoff had worked out a deal with owner Steve Murphy to use the studio during down time at a discount rate. Matt had borrowed Stephen's 4-track and composed most of the remaining songs in a couple of weeks. The arrangements were done quickly and recorded at Stephen's house while the songs were still fresh. I was barely able to make it through many of them during tracking, as the drum parts were trickier. "Throwaway" has a particularly bizarre, looping beat, but it wasn't jungle-inspired. The band had rejected my initial, simple 2-4 snare. On the spot I came up with the stupidest rhythm I could think of to appease them. The joke was on me, as it sounded perfect. Matt adjusted his part to fit the new syncopations and off it went.

Overdubs were done over the next two weeks. The heavily-layered guitars were tri-amped through a Danelectro 3x10 combo, Acoustic 4x12, and Fender Bassman, live-mixed to one track. Looking at the tracking sheet, we had 4-7 tracks reserved for guitar out of the 16 available tracks on the ADATs. The unusual instruments [borrowed] from the Woodlawn [school] instrument room for this session included a double bass, some tuned woodblocks, conga drum and the Gardner family piano. Through a fortunate error, a cheesy orchestral percussion track on "Crimelab" did not get transferred to the 24-track mixing tape at Avalon.

"Crimelab," "Today's Shrug," and "Quiet Staid Debt," were mixed on a Friday night and Saturday at Avalon. My insistence that we dial-down the excesses on "Debt" -- as I wanted prominent, uncompressed, crystal clear, jazz-drums -- well, it sure put me on the bad side of Geoff and the group. I left the session mid-day, after that track was mixed, having worn out my welcome. "Day," "Throwaway," and "Pillar" were mixed without me. This explains why (among other "innovations") the snare drum is panned 100% left on the last track. Snickering aside, when I first heard these mixes I was struck that the final product "didn’t sound like anything else." We had finally achieved a unique band voice. If it was unmarketable, so be it.

CC: How was the experience of recording the album? Fond memories and stand-out experiences?

DW: After transferring the ADAT to Geoff's 1-inch 16-track machine, we did a couple of overdub sessions for the first group of songs. I remember walking into his studio and Matt was flat on his back singing "Windmill" into the bottom of a piano. I knew it was going to be a weird afternoon. Stephen directed me to "help unload the car." We doubled-up on marimba, Matt played a dissected Hammond organ that Geoff was fixing, some group percussion was added, [it was all] totally spontaneous and enjoyable.

SG: I remember very little of the first session, but recall that we took over my house for the tracking, with different instruments set up in different rooms so we could experiment with additions once we got basics down. I remember playing the xylophone parts on "Quiet Staid Debt" on my bathroom floor. In those pre-Pro-Tools days, we spent a lot of time getting takes right or overlooking imperfections for the sake of overall sound or feel. Davis did all the engineering, which was a godsend, and I think Matt and I did overdubs separately with him. We had very little money for the band and almost always lost more than we made per show, so the fact that Davis was a good engineer with lots of his own and borrowed gear was a big advantage. If we had had to pay someone to engineer during the tracking phase, we would not have been able to spend nearly as much time as we did on those songs.

MD: I recall that we did the basic tracks fairly quickly because, again, we were playing often at this time, and so the songs were well-rehearsed. Then we spent forever and a day on overdubs because we were definitely in a "more is more" frame of mind. I can only imagine what we would have created if we had access to a tool like Ableton Live back then. We would have gone ballistic.

Then, vocals were also done fairly quickly. I was being petulant and wanted the vocal delivery to feel "live," or at least sound like one cohesive performance. So I think some of the tracks might even be one take. There was a fair amount of punk attitude in me at this time, and I suppose that's where it shows the most. It was like "Fuck it. Doing it in one take. Not worth the time. Let's mix again!" We did not scrutinize every line like we do now. If there is anything I would change about the record, it would be most of the vocals ("Crimelab" and "Windmill" are okay, but the rest could use some assistance).

GT: My memories of recording this album are almost completely fragmented. Obviously this album was mixed in a pre-ProTools, analog console world, so all of the dynamic and tonal changes, shifting effects, and fader moves were mixed down live by hand to the master tape. When I think back to the sessions, I just remember all of us sitting in close proximity over the board debating mix moves. I joined in these debates willingly. There were a lot of manifestos delivered during the sessions, but I don't recall much stress or hassle. They indulged in constant but good natured goading and ridicule amongst themselves, but that was all really funny and OK. I don't remember eating good food or going out much, [so] we must have been working really hard.

"Inside The Crimelab" still stands as one of my favorite mixing sessions and I’ve had déjà vu back to that day while working with other bands. We built this mix that was so geometrically crisscrossed with delay paths and wobbly instrument treatments that it was completely disorienting even to us during the mix. That song still has that temporal rift effect for me listening back 20 years on, the beat and stereo space just seems so bent by the mixing.

Matt would go out into the studio, actually I believe we sent him into the tiny studio restroom, to record these crazy emo-fueled shrieking freakouts, like cathartic vocal outbursts. These were overdubs and were mixed in low during the parts of the songs when the guitars detonated your speakers. I can't remember which songs had these screaming tracks, but on re-listening I'm imagining that I'm hearing them on every song all over the album, which is cool.

The band really acted as their own "producer" and by the recording of Stove they had devised an arrangement wherein each band member assumed the role of executive producer for certain songs. So Davis's opinion (for example) was given the most weight for the recording and mixing direction on that particular song and became like his mini-fiefdom. This worked out really well, brought variety to the album and cut the endless discussions and bullying to a minimum.

CC: There seems to be a lot of less-conventional recording techniques and details within the songs, including very uniquely panned tremolos, delay sounds and distortion effects. What’s going on there? What inspired that? How much of it was a reaction to other things happening at the time?

SG: Partly, this comes from just getting deeper into the recording process and listening much more for production. Davis entered the band already knowing what he was doing in the studio, but Matt and I both came to really understand production through recording in Lorelei, which in turn, changed the way we both listened to records and what we wanted from our own. As cliché as it may be, we had come to see the studio as another member of the band and wanted to put that new member to work. The other factor is that we had way more gear at our disposal than normal in the mixing process, so part of this is just the desire to use all the toys we had.

DW: Geoff and the band would ponder each of the 16 instrument tracks with a "what can we do to this" attitude. Sometimes, one simple change, such as "Crimelab's" distorted conga drum that Geoff came up with, would redefine the song. This would influence the next effect, and the one after that, until we ran out of patches. The bass guitar was spared any tinkering and had a simple chain throughout. It was recorded direct, then run through a Peavey tube preamp during the mix. Stephen didn't yet have his amazing Acoustic 360 bass "refrigerator" for much of the recording of the album, unfortunately.

MD: I believe Lydia Lunch said something along the lines of "Do anything but start a guitar/bass/drums 3-piece" in regards to the birth of No Wave. I became enamored with the idea that our setup was just done, cooked, over. That resulted in my trying to torture and mutate the guitar sound into something else. Mainly because I could not adequately play anything else, but also because we recognized that mutation in the bands we enjoyed. Look at Slowdive and Seefeel: guitars are certainly there, but they hardly sound like a guitar plugged into a RAT distortion pedal and then into an amp. [T]hat is essentially what most bands around us were doing and I just found that... underwhelming.

But the other thing to mention here is that Lorelei as a three-piece has always had alternately tuned guitars (inspired by Sonic Youth and Bailter Space). "Stale Houses" [from Asleep] is the last song I played a traditional tuning on. I use an open tuning (EAEABE), and that combined with distortion and EQ helps me generate this giant, full sound that lends itself to the effects and manipulation you hear on the record. That sense of experimentation, wanting to have a unique guitar sound, being inspired by noise, controlling and warping of sound is there from the very start and continues through all of our material.

CC: How was the public and critical reception to the album at the time of its release in your view? Was there a tour in support?

SG: We finished mixing the LP in June or July of '94 and it would take over a year for it to come out. Like all of our releases, the time it took to get the record out was a complete killer. These delays were always due to some combo of our incompetence, Slumberland's challenges with money, distribution, etc., and just the way things worked then. My recollection is that the release was essentially ignored. Part of that was our fault. I was already starting my second year of college, so we had really reduced the amount of shows we were playing, plus we had all started other projects to fill in for Lorelei while we couldn't play together. Of course, we didn't have a press or booking agent, and didn't tour for the record because, by then, time was limited and we could never seem to make touring cover our costs. So, it was pretty much destined to fail, but in addition to these self-inflicted factors, I'm sure we faced the normal hostility or disregard we had experienced from most of the US music press. I think The Ropers' All The Time, which was released together with Stove by Slumberland that same week, faced a similar response. While there was some solace in the fact that other great records [of that time] like Bark Psychosis' Hex and Disco Inferno's DI Go Pop... which seemed to be springing from the same well as us, were getting ignored, too, we struggled to understand what to do about it.

CC: So what happened next?

SG: We played several shows that summer and fall of 1995 and into the winter with the release of the LP, for which we had a single record-release show in D.C., being pretty sick of the songs by then since they were all more than a year old. We had written a new batch of songs during the summer of '95, most of which we recorded then but didn't mix until 2001, long after we had disbanded. Our last show was in early 1996 in Baltimore at a strip club that had occasional shows. One of my best Lorelei memories was of Matt taking a running leap, guitar-first, into the stripper'’s pole, with the pole working like a giant slide against the fret board. With me back in school in Massachusetts, everyone with new projects, and us with an LP we felt proud of but that failed to register with nearly anyone, it seemed pretty obvious that the time had come to pack it up. Luckily, the end was not acrimonious and, despite lots of challenges between us, I think we all left the band as friends, feeling like we had accomplished something important and with our respect and admiration for each other intact. This was obviously essential to our later work together.

DW: Band activity was next to zero after a brief flurry of shows to promote the album. Tired of dealing with the acrimony, I had adopted a "teamster" persona by this time, contributing only minimally to anything new. We limped along during Stephen's college breaks until Matt decided to move to San Francisco. I was sad to see him go, but relieved the band was over. When I heard the news, I gave out a dramatic 20-second exhale.

MD: We moved apart. I released a Lorelei EP on my label Textilesounds. Then I moved back to the area in 2006 and we made Enterprising Sidewalks, which we hope folks will also find and enjoy over time.

CC: One of my favorite music articles is Nitsuh Abebe's Pitchfork piece "The Lost Generation," which includes Stove as a defining work of the hard-to-categorize post-rock movement. What are your thoughts regarding that? Do you feel that there was "something in the air" during that time that led to the kind of innovations that he mentions?

MD: It’s nice to be included in the same breath as Disco Inferno, Laika, Pram, Main, etc. I'm not sure I would put Stove at the same level as Laika or Main. They are operating at a different level.

I do rankle a little bit at being put into the "Followers and Fellow Travelers." I don't know which one applies to us, but it feels a bit like the "also rans." I mean, we are American despite not being from Chicago. And if you look at when our record was recorded... there is no way we are a follower of any other American band that you would describe as post-rock. We were recording at the same time as those "Lost Generation" bands. So, for what it is worth, we were there. We were there in that same head space at that same time. You would have had to come to D.C. to see it, but it was here to see.

But in the end we're all quite pleased that the record has found an audience over time. None of the divisions in sound, place, time, [or] label matter as much any longer. At times it was frustrating, but for the most part it was an exciting time to be making music.

It makes sense that a band as forward-thinking as Lorelei would not take much time to pause and consider the nostalgia and historical context of the first chapter of its career. One could argue that this was exemplified quite effectively by its comeback record Enterprising Sidewalks, which further expanded the trio's sounds and philosophies within a contemporary context. This author was also, admittedly, unsure how to cap this interview following their sense that Stove saw little fanfare upon release. It's a shame, to be sure. But, in the weeks following our conversations with the band, a silver lining materialized. Lorelei has just disclosed that -- partially inspired by this interview -- it will play Everyone Must Touch The Stove in its entirety at The Black Cat in Washington, D.C. on Dec. 28. While more details about that special event are forthcoming (and we will be sure to alert you within these electronic pages), it is yet another important step toward ensuring that this special piece of art not only establishes its proper place in the pantheon of innovative rock music, but also bends the ears of a new generation of women and men who -- like the members of Lorelei 20 years ago -- enjoy the thrill of pure discovery. For fans in the market for a copy, Slumberland currently has the CD on sale for a ridiculously reasonable price. If you're not already listening to the record as you read these words, stream the entire set via the YouTube embed below.

Lorelei: Facebook | Interzizzles

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

Review: Slowdim | Slowdim

Given the slow, incremental progress that brought Slowdim to this point, the Boston indie pop quartet's sparkling, self-titled debut full-length evinces a remarkable degree of carefree ease that almost certainly belies the sweat and hours ploughed into it. Indeed, Slowdim streets this week as an exclamation point at the tail-end of a series of digital singles, compilation tracks and EPs, a tour de force of bright, melodic guitar pop that situates songwriters Paul Sentz (formerly of This Car Up, who we wrote about here in 2009) and Eric Ryrie (ex-The Shills) at the peak of their powers (sorry, boys, it's all downhill from hereLOLZ -- Ed.). The giddy momentum of opener "Up Stream" and the equally buoyant follow-on "Wishing Well" propel the collection with such energy that its spiraling final number, "Leave Our Names," comes too soon every time.

Certain of the music on the new record will be familiar to fans. Slowdim issued the ridiculously catchy album track "Money" as a single in Feb. 2012, and a year earlier the quartet released the Spirals EP (which now appears to be something of a rarity, as it has been removed from Slowdim's Bandcamp page). The EP featured early versions of "Don't Cough Me Out" and "Wishing Well," and the impressive evolution of the former song -- from a welterweight, hook-laden chant to full-blown, arena-ready rocker with ripping guitar solos -- illustrates the power and payoff of the quartet's wood-shedding over the last few years. Indeed, there is nary a songwriting misstep on Slowdim.

But while its songs are worked over, they are not overworked. To be sure, there is plenty of flourish -- the swoony "ooohs" complementing Eric Ryrie's reedy tenor on the sweet ballad "Can't Stop Falling;" the glimmering guitar appointing the verses of "Wishing Well" and "Birds" -- but there is nothing superfluous. Even when Slowdim stretches out, which they do ably during their shoegazing epic "Uh Oh," layering guitar upon guitar upon guitar to form a curtain of dense melody and noise, the record does not meander long, as the uptempo strummer "Laid Flat" immediately puts the record back on pace. Bassist Ana Karina Da Costa's voice plays a strong role backing up and harmonizing with those of Mssrs. Sentz and Mr. Ryrie, and is crucial to the overall sound in the same way as Phoebe Summersquash's was for Small Factory (or, for you Philly old-timers, Kara Lafty's was to Moped).

Slowdim surpasses the quartet's prior efforts by every metric, but its ultimate success manifests in the same way: listeners are left wanting still more music. While rock and roll inevitably suffers when we try to assign to it didactic intent, the lesson of Slowdim's long-awaited LP clearly is take the time to do it right. Two tracks, the aforementioned "Up Stream" and "Leave Our Names," are currently previewing on Bandcamp; stream them via the embeds below. The foursome plays a record release show at Great Scott Thursday with support from Night Fruit and Fedavees; all the details are at this Facebook event page, and hopefully the band will have product on-hand as there is no way to pre-order Slowdim as of yet.

Slowdim: Facebook | Twitterz | Bandcamp

Be Prepared: Tiny Idols Vol. III, Transmissions From The Indie Underground 1991-1995 | 6 July

The rejuvenated Snowglobe Records returns next month with the third installment of its increasingly crucial Tiny Idols indie rarities compilations. And Vol. III is a doozy, featuring seminal tracks from important but under-appreciated acts including Small Factory, Poole, Fudge and The Coctails. The series is curated by our former Junkmedia colleague Mark Griffey, and based on the track listing he has certainly outdone himself once again. Tiny Idols Vol. III: Transmissions From The Indie Underground 1991-1995 will be released July 6 on Snowglobe Records, but you can already pre-order it at this link. Here is the full running order:

1. Sardina -- I'll Be Around
2. Small Factory -- What To Want
3. Vacation Bible School -- Sugar Juice
4. Hazeltones -- Delirious
5. The Coctails -- 2000
6. It Thing -- Send
7. Poole -- Loon
8. The Christines -- Too Close
9. HoneyBunch -- Endure Me
10. Witch Hazel -- Just Don't Try
11. Apollonia Heck -- Today is a Fine Day to Die
12. Radon -- Kibbles and Bits
13. Glue -- No Surprise
14. Honda -- Bruce Jenner
15. Zoom -- Balboa's Cannon
16. Zen Frisbee -- Crazy Steven
17. Baldo Rex -- The Girl With 10,000 Holes
18. Kicking Giant -- Satellite
19. Crayon -- Pedal
20. Her Tears -- Ultra Crush
21. Fudge -- Girlwish
22. Aleka's Attic -- Senile Felines

Today's Hotness: Whistle Jacket, Whirl

>> We walk the streets of this city every day and we still don't know where all the bands spring from. Well, we do, of course, but we're constantly surprised when we encounter another one we like. And we certainly like the quirky pop of Whistle Jacket, which has just self-released an eighth full-length called Hello Heart. The collective is fronted by Michael Leyden, who long ago must have grown tired of hearing the adjective quirky attached to his work. But Mr. Leyden's high, nasal vocal delivery -- reminiscent, yes, of Alec Ounsworth -- and jangly, jaunty accompaniment (somewhere between early Small Factory and Hands And Knees) certainly fits the bill. The proceedings are a little too chamber-poppy to be dubbed pure twee, but there is a light-heartedness throughout Hello Heart that makes the record incredibly listenable. The fact that a message board poster two years ago dubbed Whistle Jacket "fascinatingly bad" only adds to the mystique (the message boarder goes on: "Every time [Leyden] opened his mouth it came as a shock. Every single time. It was amazing"). Maybe the band just can't get it together live, maybe it can, but Hello Heart is absolutely worth a listen. The opening track, "Microphone," disturbingly opens with a suggestion of Sting's "All This Time," but fret not, it passes, and once the beat comes in the track ascends into poignant, whimsical indie pop heaven. Amen.

Whistle Jacket's "Microphone"

>> We present your new shoegaze crush, Whirl -- not to be confused with Whorl [gratuitous link to page containing MP3 of one of our favorite songs of all time]. The former act, a Northern California-based sextet, recently self-released its debut EP Distressor, seven tuneful tracks swirling neck-deep in guitar attack with ethereal vocals bobbing along the top of the mix. The demo can be freely downloaded here, and cassettes of same are available directly from the band for USD $2 if you email them at the address listed here. You're wondering where this lines up with the classic shoegaze canon, so we'll tell you: we hear Chapterhouse and Slowdive, and we expect you'll hear the same. Distressor broods and shudders and nods and, as we noted supra, swirls. Nick from Whirl was cool enough to allow us to give away a track, so we submit below for your approval the thrusting standout "Meaningless."

Whirl's "Meaningless"

Today's Hotness: Postulat, The Answering Machine (Again)

>> We've received a lot of emails lately about two of our favorite '90s acts, Kam Fong (really, two emails recently) and Small Factory. As we quipped to one of our correspondents, we are ready for the Small Factory reunion. Just sitting here waiting for it. Ready. Waiting. Pretending it's sunny, even... Anyway, while a reunion of the Providence, RI-spawned trio seems unlikely, we were excited to see action at SF bassist and singer Alex Kemp's MySpace dojo. Mr. Kemp, now the creative director of a music production company and based in Los Angeles, reports in a bulletin that he has formed a new project that goes by the name Postulat with Norwegian singer/songwriter Kristin Øhrn Dyrud. The band name sounds kinda European techno or darkwave hip-hop or math-rocky, right? It turns out Postulat is none of these things. Instead, the duo offers densely arranged, somewhat reserved rockers and uptempo pop ("Magic World," "Say You Will"). The production is pretty glossy, sometimes clever. Kemp's vocals are evenly weighted with Ms. Dyrud's, and otherwise largely stick in the background, although he gets a verse in the bouncy "Say You Will." The pick of the six songs posted at Postulat's MySpace lean-to may be the quiet, bleep ballad "Gift," which we recommend you go stream straightaway.

>> If you couldn't tell from all our recent posting and Twittering about Manchester, England-based indie pop phenoms The Answering Machine that we are excited about their debut record, well, you just haven't been paying attention. We were bantering with a fellow from their label today, who was cool enough to extend to us permission to post the title track of the quartet's forthcoming full-length Another City, Another Sorry. You'll recall we pointed here to RockSellout's post with that very MP3 in it early this month; if you didn't heed our exhortation to go download the track then, we insist you do it now below. Another City, Another Sorry will be released by Heist Or Hit Records in the U.K. in May. As we reiterated Wednesday, the album is preceded by the exceedingly excellent single "Cliffer" Feb. 9, which can already be purchased in the U.S. at Rhapsody.com.

The Answering Machine -- "Another City, Another Sorry" -- Another City, Another Sorry
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[watch the Heist Or Hit site for pre-order information]

>> While it seems patently obvious to those of you paying attention to such things, we thought we'd point out this week had the first new release day of the year we were very excited about. We've been too busy to get out and buy records, but when we do we'll definitely be picking up Morrissey's Years Of Refusal and Psapp's The Camel's Back. Psapp's next single will be for the album track "I Want That," and the duo is currently working on a video to promote the tune. The single will be released in the UK on March 30. You can get The Camel's Back at EMusic right now.

Today's Hotness: Swirlies, Pat Leonard, Small Screen Light Show

>> This is our 1,000th post. Yeah. It would have been nice to have had some big retrospective with shiny pictures and stuff that goes ping to mark the occasion, but then again, that's not our style.

>> So we were minding our own business Saturday at a social event when we happened upon two former members of Boston chimp-gaze superstars Swirlies goofing around in a basement practice space. After convincing said players that in fact the band had had fans, and that we were one of them, we turned to the charming young fellow at our elbow and asked if he knew any of Swirlies' records, to which he replied in the negative. We thought about this later and realized that there is something about being a certain age at a certain time that insulates you from a lot of good music that was created previously. So while almost any music fan can list off certain of the tracks from AC/DC's Back In Black, for example, few could tell you that Swirlies' Blonder Tongue Audio Baton featured a number of amazing tracks, including "Pancake," "Bell" and "His Life Of Academic Freedom." And that's just that one album. So, in the interest of public service to the lower-cased youth of today, we are posting "Pancake" (the original version) and "Bell" below. A funny thing about Swirlies is we were going to draw a parallel between the band and Philadelphia's Lilys concerning how both bands have had scads of members over the years, and when we went to Swirlies' Internet Home Page and scrutinized its bio we learned that the two bands actually have a one former member in common (that would be Mike Walker). While we were at Swirlies Web HQ we were surprised to see that the current iteration of the band will be playing three East Coast dates at the end of February, including a Feb. 28 gig at The Middle East. In other news, apparently a tribute comp is in the offing, which features -- among other things -- a version of the track "Pony" by indie pop luminaries Surefire Broadcast. More info about the comp, which was slated for release this month free via Archive.org, is here.

Swirlies -- "Bell" -- Blonder Tongue Audio Baton
Swirlies -- "Pancake" -- Blonder Tongue Audio Baton
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[buy Swirlies records from Newbury Comics right here]

>> We admit we can't name a Moving Targets song off the top of our heads, but we've heard the Boston post-punk band's praises sung by many since moving to Cambridge in 1999 including the chaps from Mission Of Burma. As reported elsewhere, Moving Targets bassist (and short-time Lemonheads drummer) Pat Leonard passed away last month, and there is a show in his honor this Sunday at All Asia in Cambridge. Bands confirmed for the evening include Varsity Drag, The Wynotts (ex-Jerry's Kids), American Pulverizer (featuring Marky Mussel and Kenny Chambers of Moving Targets) and many others. The night kicks off early -- 6PM early -- and there is a block of time left open midway through the bill for a special guest appearance. We can only speculate who that might be, although certain bands whose names begin with Mission or Bullet would make for a very exciting surprise. WMBR DJ Joanie Lindstrom -- who is famous to us for once having interviewed Uniform Choice -- will be holding things together between sets. You can inspect the full lineup for the show right here.

>> Earlier this month ExitFare hipped us to Seaham, England-based duo The Small Screen Light Show and its brilliant track "I'm Too In Love." It's catchy as hell, and there is a moment in the chorus that is just like a moment -- a certain defeated vocal phrasing -- in sorely missed Small Factory's cataclysmically awesome "Expiration Date." Anyway, head over to E-Fare here and download it, or stream it at the two-year-old band's MySpace cabin right here. Of course, being small-minded, we are curious whether the duo of Mattie Vant and Becca Young (which is augmented live by drummer Craig Stamp) are romantically linked; they seem too young to be divorced a la Jack and Meg White. But we digress. According to a MySpace bulletin The Small Screen Light Show spent some of the past week in Doncaster recording new tracks with Justin Lockey, who in addition to being a guitarist for bands including the erstwhile Mycodenameis:Milo and British Expeditionary Force has also produced recordings including My Psychoanalyst's stirring "We Disagree" b/w "Panaphobia" single and tracks by Late Of The Pier, Hot Club De Paris and Bloc Party. Anyway, back to one of the first points we made, if you aren't familiar with Small Factory, they were superb, and Old Fart At Play just reposted its overview of the band, so have at it here.

Today's Hotness: Bridges And Powerlines, Darker My Love

>> [PHOTO: Ana Blohm] One record we've been enjoying no small amount recently was sent to us by the fellows in Bridges And Powerlines. The set is called Ghost Types and it is filled with big, melodic rockers. Point of interest: Keyboardist and singer Andrew Wood sounds inescapably like Robert Pollard in places, but that, of course, is a plus. Musically the three-year-old foursome leans heavier on synth in places than GBV ever has, but Bridges And Powerlines is no synth-rock act. Instead, the band crafts strident numbers with balanced arrangements that allow push and pull between guitar, bass and synth, with urgent vocal harmonies embellishing the entire proceedings. And there's still room for some quirk, like the stumbling, "Caterpillar"-esque piano in the verse of "Half A Cent" (or did we just hallucinate that?). Album closer "The Last Equation" simply smokes. Another favorite, "Middle Child," swoops in and out on fuzzy synth slithers and then drops nicely into a rocking gear with a descending vocal hook that sounds lifted from the old, good R.E.M. The band has graciously allowed us to post that track, so grab it below and have a listen. Ghost Types was issued April 22 on Citybird.

Bridges And Tunnels -- "Middle Child" -- Ghost Types
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[buy Ghost Types from Insound right here]

>> We've been waiting so long -- so very long -- to hear the follow-up to Darker My Love's self-titled set that we'll take anything at this point. While it may not be true, we feel like we hear from a publicist every few months promising that the thing is coming out, yet still there is nothing. Given the precarious position the record business has found itself in this decade, perhaps it should be no surprise that we finally are hearing something from the L.A.-based nu-gaze rockers via a sneaker company promotion. PF Flyers has partnered with Dangerbird Records to promote "the archival release of the 1956 Bob Cousy All-American," and as part of the promotion four bands including Darker My Love have recorded a version of a song originally released in 1956. DML's tune is a slow, reverby take on Sanford Clark's rockabilly hit "The Fool," and it is totally righteous in a sorta Mogwai (i.e. stoned), sorta Spiritualized (i.e. reverent) kinda way. We're posting "The Fool" below; three additional tracks from other Dangerbird acts can be had right here. And for the record, we reviewed Darker My Love's self-titled set here in 2006.

Darker My Love -- "The Fool" -- PF Flyers Modern 56 Promotion
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[more free rock and roll music right here]

>> Former Small Factory/Godrays fronter Alex Kemp has just posted a new track to his MySpace dojo right here. "From Someone Who Knows" has a jazzy piano lead and omniscient strings riding the mix, but at its core there's Mr. Kemp strumming a guitar and, if you want, you can sort of hear a Small Factory song hiding in there. But the thing is, this arrangement is really good. It feels nice and full like a plastic bag holding cool water. It's been a while since we checked in on Mr. Kemp's goings on, so there are a few other tunes posted at MySpace that were new to us. One we've heard before, "Misery Of Others," is available for download, so we're posting it below. The sum total of all this new music gives us hope that this guy will finally get a record out. As we reported here many moons ago when we wrote under someone else's shingle, Kemp had been playing with Chicago synth-poppers Assassins.

Alex Kemp -- "Misery Of Others" -- MySpace download
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Today's Hotness: David & The Citizens, Small Factory, Silkworm

>> Friendly Fire Records brings news that Swedish indie pop luminaries David & The Citizens have returned with a free four-song digital EP entitled I Saw My Reflection And I Didn't Recognize MySelf. The set -- self-released about a month ago in tandem with fronter David Fridlund's birthday -- contains four piano-anchored winners whose strongest tracks are the dark, cinematic ballad "Anything" and the opener "With Every New Day." Both tracks are certainly worth a lot more than free, but who are we to refuse the largesse of the prolific Mr. Fridlund? The former song reminds us obliquely of Shout Out Louds' epic album closer "Hard Rain," at least in tone. According to a jpg'd letter in the .zip file that contains the songs [1, 2, 3], David & The Citizens at this point is simply Fridlund, as his band members quit en masse last February. But Fridlund is adamant that David & The Citizens is still an entity until he himself quits the band, an action he strongly considered but ultimately rejected last year.

We most recently wrote here about David & The Citizens on the occasion of Friendly Fire's U.S. release of Until The Sadness Is Gone in late 2006. Well, in the interest of accuracy and now that we've actually looked, we most recently wrote here about the availability of the band's Stop The Tape! Stop The Tape! at EMusic around the same time. The entirety of I Saw My Reflection And I Didn't Recognize Myself is available as a zip file. The link is posted below, along with an MP3 of "Anything" to whet your appetite. David & The Citizens' web site contains a bounty of music you can stream and download; hit this link and be prepared to lose the better part of an hour.

David & The Citizens -- "Anything" -- I Saw My Reflection And I Didn't Recognize Myself
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[download the entire EP as a .zip here]
[buy David & The Citizens records from Adrian Recordings here]

>> In the wake of our referencing Small Factory and The Godrays last week we've come across a couple things of interest. First, our friend Matt has posted streams of the two Small Factory full-lengths I Do Not Love You and For If You Cannot Fly here and here respectively. So if you are trapped at your computo and need some exemplary indie rock, there you go. Another thing: while we linked to the Sit-N-Spin label page for The Godrays last week, we made no mention that there are three MP3s posted there from the Godrays final EP Well Composed Death Notice, including the powerful closer "Shark Shaped Ship." We'll post that track below, but hit the link supra to grab MP3s for "Hope This Makes Sheryl Crow Happy" and "Poor Grace" from the EP. And finally, we were able to track via New Jersey's Greatest Living DJ a copy of the "Small Factory Live!" VHS a year or two ago. After some delay, H-Dawg From Accounts Receivable was able to get the VHS converted to DVD for us, and we're thinking that some time soon we'll try to get the thing ripped and posted to YouTube. We've never ripped video before, so if anybody can bullet point it for us in an email, that'd be hot.

The Godrays -- "Shark Shaped Ship" -- Well Composed Death Notice
[right click and save as]
[buy Godrays recordings from Sit-N-Spin here]

>> Habitual readers know that we here at Clicky Clicky keep one eagle eye steadily on Bradley's Almanac, for obvious reasons. We're here to remind you to maintain a zen-quality focus on the site for a post relating to some outstanding acoustic -- and at least for us hard to find -- Silkworm recordings that Mr. 'Nac and we had occasion to discuss over the weekend after said songs popped into our head. We had had the four songs on a tape back in the day, but found ourselves coming up short when perusing our two beer boxes full of cassettes.

Coming To Your Local Bandstand: Evangelicals, Ringo Deathstarr

>> [photo credit: Ringo Deathstarr live by Fred Holten]

>> So remember the other day when we were noting that conspicuously absent from the press info surrounding the impending release of Evangelicals' sophomore set was any tour dates? For a reminder, scroll down. It turns out we were just slightly ahead of our time, as a ridiculously thorough tour has just been announced. Evangelicals will bring their traveling circus of psych rock to the Middle East in Cambridge Feb. 27; the full itinerary is below. As we stated in our review of a 2006 show, "the difference between Evangelicals and the rest of the bands that you see in the middle of a bill on a Wednesday night at an established rock club in a major American city (besides the fact that Evangelicals are awesome), is that the band brings its own smoke machine. And red and green lights and piles of plastic flowers."

02/15 -- Columbia, MO -- Mojo's
02/16 -- Lexington, KY -- The Icehouse
02/17 -- Nashville, TN -- The End
02/18 -- Athens, GA -- The Caledonia Lounge
02/19 -- Mt. Pleasant, SC -- Village Tavern
02/20 -- Norfolk, VA -- The Boot
02/21 -- Arlington, VA -- Iota
02/24 -- New York, NY -- Mercury Lounge
02/25 -- Philadelphia, PA -- Johnny Brenda's
02/26 -- Hamden, CT -- The Space
02/27 -- Cambridge, MA -- Middle East
02/28 -- Princeton, NJ -- Terrace Club
02/29 -- Brooklyn, NY -- Union Hall
03/01 -- Buffalo, NY -- Mohawk Place
03/02 -- Toronto, ON -- El Mocambo
03/03 -- Cleveland, OH -- Beachland
03/04 -- Bloomington, IN -- Waldron Arts Center
03/06 -- Urbana, IL -- Canopy Club
03/07 -- Chicao, IL -- Schuba's
03/08 -- St. Louis, MO -- Bilken Club
03/09 -- Springfield, MO -- Randy Beacon Gallery
03/10 -- Norman, OK -- Opolis
03/11 -- Dallas, TX -- The Cavern
03/12 -- Austin, TX -- SXSW
03/13 -- Austin, TX -- SXSW
03/14 -- Austin, TX -- SXSW
03/15 -- Austin, TX -- SXSW
03/17 -- Tucson, AZ -- Plush
03/19 -- Los Angeles, CA -- Silver Lake Lounge
03/20 -- Visalia, CA -- Howie & Sons
03/21 -- San Francisco, CA -- Hemlock Tavern
03/23 -- Seattle, WA -- Nectar Lounge
03/24 -- Missoula, MT -- Badlander
03/26 -- Salt Lake City, UT -- Kilby Court
03/27 -- Denver, CO -- Hi Dive
03/28 -- Omaha, NE -- Waiting Room
03/29 -- Minneapolis, MN -- Nomad
03/30 -- Milwaukee, WI -- Cactus Club
04/01 -- Dekalb, IL -- House Cafe
04/02 -- Madison, WI -- Club 770
04/03 -- Iowa City, IA -- The Mill
04/04 -- Lake Forest, IL -- The Chapel
04/05 -- Beloit, WI -- Beloit College

>> That Evangelicals date in Cambridge we note supra sounded dangerously close to the date of shoegaze dynamos Ringo Deathstarr's area appearance, so we surfed over to the band's MySpace tent to make sure we weren't heading for a conflict. Fortunately, we're not. As you can see below, Ringo Deathstarr will be blowing the walls down at the Abbey Lounge in Cambridge Feb. 25. It seems the end of February will be quite a busy time for :: clicky clicky :: live show reportage. When it rains, it reports (Colbert pronunciation, please). The Deathstarr will be hopscotching here and back to Texas via Brooklyn at the end of next month, and all current live commitments are listed at the bottom of this item. The band's eponymous EP was among our favorite records of 2007. One tune you won't find on that excellent EP is the demo for "Your Town," which the band is once again giving away at MySpace. We'll save you the trip and post it below. We're not sure how many Small Factory/Godrays fans we have out there, but the breathy vocal of "Your Town" reminds us very much of the odd and beautiful Godrays song sketch "Carkeys, Ponytail and Gum" that closed out the Providence, RI-spawned act's enjoyable Songs For T.V. Stars. Oh how we miss the combined efforts of Alex Kemp and Phoebe Summersqash. To prove it, we're posting that Godrays song below as well.

Ringo Deathstarr -- "Your Town (Demo)"
The Godrays -- "Carkeys, Ponytail And Gum" -- Songs For T.V. Stars
[right click and save as]
[buy the Ringo Deathstarr EP here]
[buy Godrays records from Sit-N-Spin here]

01/22 -- Emo’s Lounge -- Austin, Texas
02/09 -- Vortex -- Beaumont, Texas
02/10 -- Emo’s Inside -- Austin, Texas
02/22 -- Brillo Box -- Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania
02/23 -- The Tank -- New York, New York
02/25 -- Abbey Lounge -- Cambridge, Massachusetts
02/26 -- Glasslands -- Brooklyn, New York

Every Band I've Ever Loved Has Let Me Down Eventually

[Photo CREDIT: Vicky] There are some days when we wish we were the guy who runs the blog Another Form Of Relief, because he turns up amazing music we've never heard of often and, you know, it'd just be easier to cut out the middleman (us). AFOR's most recent post is about the recently defunct Croydon, England duo Nosferatu D2. The fact that the band is no more extends our recent streak of discovering erstwhile UK bands we like a lot to three (the other two being Eddyfink and Distophia). Like :: clicky clicky :: faves Frightened Rabbit, Nosferatu D2 is a brother act, and a duo (although FR started as one dude and ultimately became three dudes). The music -- which constantly references other bands and vomiting in asphyxiating, chain store-filled suburbs -- can be as stark, tense and confessional as early Karate; as misanthropic as vintage Smiths; as obsessed with sickness and decay as Greg Dulli; as desperate and solitary as the aforementioned Frightened Rabbit. In short, this band is the whole package.

Or was. After slogging it out for two years, Nosferatu D2 broke up a couple months ago seemingly at a high point, as their last gig was supporting the hotly tipped septet Los Campesinos! in March (the latter act is now, of course, signed to hip Canadian label Arts + Crafts). That final show was recorded by this fellow and is available for download here. We've haven't gotten to the live tracks yet, but the 10 songs posted for free download at Nosferatu D2's Last.FM page are 1000% quality. Really stunning stuff. While we are supremely disappointed the band is broken up, all is not lost. ND2 guitarist and singer Ben has started a new project called Superman Revenge Squad, which of course AFOR is already all over (read their post here); ND2 drummer Adam is apparently playing in other projects as well. Below are a couple MP3s to entice you, including the undeniable indie geek anthem "A Footnote," but we highly recommend going to the Last.FM pages linked supra and downloading everything you can.

Nosferatu D2 -- "2 People 0 Superpowers" -- Nosferatu D2
Nosferatu D2 -- "A Footnote" -- Nosferatu D2
[right click and save as]

Nosferatu D2: Interweb | MySpace | YouTube | Flickr