Today's Hotness: Ringo Deathstarr, Boston Does Boston

>> The 2014 album announcements are coming fast and furious these days, with Clicky Clicky faves Speedy Ortiz, Krill and The War On Drugs all making (albeit expected) disclosures of this sort in recent days. We noted yet another over at the Clicky Clicky Facebook page Monday, but given our enduring love for noise-pop heroes Ringo Deathstarr we wanted to reiterate here the news: the Austin-based trio will release a new collection, Gods Dream, in the U.S. in 2014. The set is being released first in Japan Dec. 18 via the Vinyl Junkie label, so if you are in Japan, feel blessed. A preview track, "Flower Power," is already available to people of all nations; in addition to being awesome, the song features guest guitar work from the legendary Swervedriver fronter Adam Franklin (we should note here that Swervedriver also issued to the wilds of the Internerds recently two new songs that are terrific). "Flower Power" opens with two barking guitar chords and a rhythmic red herring; after the first half-minute the song explodes into a four-on-the-floor belter that re-centers the beat and then gets progressively heavier and more manic with each passing bar, until an oasis of melodic, calm interrupts the frenzy and resets the song, allowing it to establish a slow, elegiac groove. This being Ringo Deathstarr, the serenity persists but unsurprisingly crumbles, giving way to a final 40 seconds of grind. "Flower Power" is an auspicious taste of a record we expect we will listen to quite a lot in 2014; there is as yet no information about a label or release date for what is hopefully an inevitable domestic release. Vinyl Junkie's web site indicates the record has nine tracks, including three that are exclusive to the Japanese release, so maybe Gods Dream is actually an EP? Hard to say what a domestic release will look like until it is announced. While we wait, stream "Flower Power" via the Soundcloud embed below. We reviewed The Deathstarr's 2011 debut full-length Colour Trip here, and its 2012 collection Mauve right here.



>> It's the sheer magnitude of the effort that impresses us most about Boston Does Boston, a new, two-disc benefit compilation that features local independent rock combos covering one another's work. Proceeds from the sale of the set will be donated to the Animal Rescue League of Boston, which means the set gets our vote pretty much right out of the gate. Besides the production costs of the CDs, everything else related to making Boston Does Boston happen was donated -- right down to the studio time, the art and the mastering -- which is pretty wonderful, and speaks to the kindness in the music community in our fair burg. The running order of the formidable collection is daisy-chained across 26 songs, with each artist or act covering a song by the next artist/act performing the following track. So, for example, Clicky Clicky fave Ted Billings (who is actually now based in Brooklyn) covers former Elevator Drops guitarist Garvy J.'s "Celebrate," then Garvy J. covers Sarah Rabdau and Self-Employed Assassins' "Pavement Prophet," and so forth. The biggest hooks might just be in I, Pistol's blazing version of The Michael J. Epstein Memorial Library's anthemic "Amylee." Relatively new power-pop act Parks' take on Corin Ashley's "Badfinger Bridge" is another one that will have you hitting the "back" button on your IPod (or having you root around in there for Mr. Ashley's criminally-lost-in-the-shuffle-by-us 2013 collection New Lion Terraces -- hear it at Spotify). Boston Does Boston is a lot of music to take in all at once; perhaps that makes the holiday season the best time to release it, a time when folks might have a chance to put their feet up and really dig in. There will be not one, not two, but three CD release shows, beginning tomorrow night at Brighton Music Hall. Full details of the three events can be found here, here and here, and you can purchase the collection via this Bandcamp page. Can't make it to the show? Want to do more than just buy a CD? There are lots of different ways to support the very good work the Animal Rescue League performs. Read more about that right here.

The Elevators Drops | One Night Only | Middle East Rock Club | Dec. 18

After allegedly reforming in 2006 only to stealth release a fourth record (if you include the odds 'n' sods collection Epidose 1) more than a year later and disappear back into the ether, storied Boston psych-pop trio The Elevator Drops are reforming for a single show Friday, Dec. 18 at Cambridge, Mass.'s Middle East Rock Club. One odd Tuesday or Wednesday night this band pulled an 18-wheeler on to the lawn of the prominent anti-frat at our undergraduate institution and played one of the most bizarre and amazing sets of music we've ever seen. Allow us to recycle a paragraph from our Nov. 2006 item:

During our senior year in college we were pulled to a show on campus for a band we knew nothing about. The show was in the middle of the week or on a very beat Friday night, and as far as we can recollect there were no opening acts and the show was minimally attended. Which was too goddamned bad because we saw one of the most exciting and bizarre shows of our then 22 or so years. Yes, it was The Elevator Drops, and if we are recalling this correctly the trio showed up to the residence hall hosting the show in a giant, gleaming white 18-wheeled truck. Or at least that is what they pulled away in after the show as we stood with our mouth agape at the wonders we had just witness. You see, when The Elevator Drops took the stage they did so in make-up and in-character as evil clown robots strung out on heroin. Their movements were rigid and pop music glorious and weird. We have always had a hard time explaining the spectacle of the band that night.

All of The Elevator Drops' records appear to be out of print. We're posting a track from Epidose 1 below, which is not really representative of the band's recorded output, but it is a beautiful ambient track that shows how much range the trio had, and just how amazing of a band this really is. Uhh, "was."

The Elevator Drops -- "If You Were Invisible" -- Epidose 1
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[buy Elevator Drops records from MusicStack right here]

The Elevator Drops: InterWeb | MySpace | Flickr | YouTube

Today's Hotness: Fields, Mercury Rev

>> Loyal readers may recall that six weeks ago we guest posted at Keep Hope Inside, which along with Another Form Of Relief pretty much holds it down for us as far as British music blogs are concerned. Keep Hope Inside celebrated its second anniversary by asking like-minded souls to post about their favorite British record of the prior two years. And while we weren't too good at following directions -- we picked an American EP released by a British band -- we deemed London-based Fields' excellent 7 From The Village EP as our favorite (non-Johnny Foreigner-issued) record while also throwing in our take on the band's major label debut Everything Last Winter. The guest post, now that we re-read it, is pretty comprehensive. So check it out here.

All of the blather above is just background and context for some real news, which is that we received through proper channels this afternoon a brand new and apparently finished track from Fields. It's called "Worst Love," and it's a low-key but well-appointed and orchestrated acoustic strummer with some bleepy sections, pianos, lead guitar lines, more bleeps, and so on. One thing that it definitely is: an improvement on the demo of the track that has been posted at Fields' MySpace since March, which we wrote about here. The new version of "Worst Love" benefits from real drumming and instrumentation gently situated throughout a stereo field that seems to waver from a light gravitational push and pull among twinkling electronics and natural reverbs. We're still hopeful the band has another urgent uptempo rocker like its now-classic "Brittlesticks" up its sleeve, but "Worst Love" ain't too shabby. The tune will be on Fields' forthcoming sophomore set, which is as yet untitled but expected to be in stores (at least in the UK) by the end of the year. Grab the MP3 below and revel.

Fields -- "Worst Love" -- Preview MP3
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[buy Fields records from Newbury Comics right here]

>> A new Mercury Rev track made the rounds of the Internet today, and we love its decidedly non-organic feel. As the band's music retreated from the early, guitar-driven semi-psychedelics of the early record Boces and into the contemplative, more traditional balladry, we were slightly disappointed. Sure, there are few songs released in the last decade more beautiful than "Holes," from Mercury Rev's breakout 1998 set Deserter's Songs, but we love the overblown early tracks like "Bronx Cheer," "Something For Joey," and "Snorry Mouth." The new track is called "Senses On Fire," and while it is not a return to form in the sense that the tune sounds like something from Boces, it is a pronounced step away from the naturalistic Mercury Rev sound that won the act substantial acclaim. Instead, "Sense On Fire" deploys drum sequencers and an arsenal of synths to create something approaching a dance track. Really. The vocal does little more than repeat the title over and over again, but singer Jonathan Donahue's voice is very pleasantly reminiscent of David Goolkasian of The Elevator Drops, and honestly if we hadn't been told beforehand we probably would be more likely to believe "Senses On Fire" is an Elevator Drops track than a Mercury Rev track. Hit this link and snatch the file from Pantsfork and hear it for yourself. Mercury Rev intends to release two records on Sept. 29; Strange Attractor will be given away for free, and Snowflake Midnight is going to cost you -- unless you steal it off the Intertubez.

Today's Hotness: Drop Nineteens, The Elevator Drops

>> The spoken-word bit in M83's swirling joy of a new single "Graveyard Girl" continues to remind us of a similar (but better) spoken-word section in the middle of Drop Nineteens' peerless droner "Kick The Tragedy," the dramatic centerpiece to the Boston quintet's amazing and out-of-print 1992 Caroline Records release Delaware. Feast your ears below; the bit we're talking about comes about five-and-a-half minutes in. M83's Saturdays=Youth came out earlier this month and the French act will tour selected North American markets between May 20 and June 7. At no point do we expect M83 will play any Drop Nineteens tracks, although that would be awesome. Particularly "Ease It Halen" [thanks for the copy edit, Good Doctor]. For those not familiar with Drop Nineteens, the chimp rock survivors-turned-shoegaze matinee idols-turned Pixies worshipers issued two records and two EPs between 1992 and 1994 before disbanding. Folks with a yen for more can likely track down BBC sessions and even the very, very good Mayfield demos if they look around long enough.

Drop Nineteens -- "Kick The Tragedy" -- Delaware
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[buy -- for a stiff premium -- Delaware from MusicStack here]

>> Something that has been lost in the shuffle here in the last couple of weeks is a brief notice from the mysteriously there-and-then-not-there, possibly re-animated Boston power pop trio The Elevator Drops. According to a MySpace bulletin, the band had accidentally been selling at ITunes since Christmas the demo mixes for the recently issued fourth full-length OK Commuter instead of the finished recordings. The problem has since been rectified, and the band quips that anyone who mistakenly received the demos now are in possession of a collector's item. Those who mistakenly received the demo mixes are invited to write The Elevator Drops at the band's MySpace garage in order to receive satisfaction in the form of a password to a secret site that contains the correct version. The trio has yet to tour in support of OK Commuter, but we certainly look forward to seeing The Elevator Drops live when they do.

>> We've spent a substantial amount of our leisure time recently exploring the possibilities of ditching ITunes in favor of MediaMonkey as we look toward what software we will install on our new machine once it arrives. MediaMonkey -- recommended to us by the boundlessly wise Mr. Pixelnated -- does a lot of things, but one of those things that will have substantial amount of application for us is the ability to transcode files on the fly (such as the Drop Nineteens track above, incidentally). As we've bemoaned in our suddenly weekly Muxtape posts, we ripped a lot of our music to AAC files when we purchased our first laptop of the modern era in 2003. That's become more and more problematic in situations where MP3s are required. So there. Check out MediaMonkey yourself at the link supra if you are as much of a contrarian as we are.

Clicky Clicky's 2007 "Dude, Where's Your Record?" Award Goes To...

...The Elevator Drops. The once-and-future Boston indie rock trio's long-awaited resurrection was to have occurred with the Feb. 14, 2007 release of the band's fourth full-length recording OK Commuter. The set was to have been issued by San Francisco-based digital label On/Off Records, and we've been anticipating its release since this post from November 2006. Needless to say, we're still anticipating, because this record is nowhere to be found. There were some signs of life earlier this year when On/Off quietly issued the digital single "Party Song" b/w "Catastrophe." And while it was exciting to finally see new Elevator Drops material released, those tracks do not equal the cataclysmic pop confections the band had already posted for free download at its MySpace yert earlier this year, "Jules" and "Shake It." Which of course made the fact that OK Commuter has yet to see the light of day all the more disappointing.

A July MySpace message from The Elevator Drops attributes the delay to "production issues with the label," and there has been no update since then. The band of prankster-pop geniuses -- aptly described by On/Off as "subversive, and inexplicably often-doomed" -- imploded in the late '90s while touring in support of the release of their sophomore set People Mover, if memory serves. The act is probably best known for the transcendant indie pop classic "Be A Lemonhead," the amazing video for which you can watch here. Elevator Drops singer David Goolkasian's other project The Texas Governor is on extended hiatus right now, and Elevator Drops guitarist Garvey J is poised to issue a solo record, so we wonder if at this point Mr. J's record is the priority and OK Commuter will have to wait while that album cycle plays out. We'll see. In the meantime, here is a taste of what we've all been missing.

The Elevator Drops -- "Jules" -- MySpace Download Alleged To Come From OK Commuter
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[buy Elevator Drops records from Half.com here]

The Elevator Drops: Interweb | MySpace | YouTube | Flickr