Today's Hotness: Night Dew Call, Katie Dey, TV Wonder

>> We love encountering evidence of the universality of indie pop, identifying acts from around the world mining the sounds of Anglophilic '80s guitar pop. That the "cause" side of the equation has traveled far and wide perhaps shouldn't be surprising any longer in our Internet-connected age, but the "effects" thrill us nonetheless. The very location of a band can seep into its interpretation of the form, and in sometimes subtle and effervescent ways complement the timeless aspects of the little genre-that-could. Be it in sound, language, spirit or even general enthusiasm, when it is good it is icing on the cake. Which is why recent digital singles from young Ukrainians Night Dew Call have caught our collective ear. Straight outta Pobho, the dreamy and twee four-piece craft dancey, clean and crisp singalongs for late night bar crawls amidst the open-collared breeze, as in its tune "Someday." "You'll see me around someday" promises a pleasant mid-range singer (in perfect English, we suppose it is worth adding for our lyrically fixated readers). The bending "ohs" and the earworm guitar line that opens the tune recall touchstone acts like The Smiths to some degree, but the brisk pacing and relaxed but confident guitar solos suggest that this band needs no help understanding how to execute an effective entrance into a three-and-a-half minute sleeper anthem. And so bring on the Globalism, we say. Download "Someday" for any price right here; that number as well as two other digital singles from this year, "Citizen" and "Schedryk," can be streamed via the embed below. -- Edward Charlton, At Large



>> We were quite entranced by Melbourne, Australia-based electro-acoustic sound manipulator extraordinaire Katie Dey's 2015 full-length debut, asdfasdf, taking note of her stunning and original twists of melody and sound. The songs were fairly singular, offering modernist, post-pop tones and pitch-shifted vocals that sounded painstakingly crafted. Just about a year later we now have the first fruits from Ms. Dey's follow up, flood network. Due Aug. 12 via Texas-based Joy Void Recordings, the album is heralded by a brace of preview tracks: "Fear o The Light" and "Only to Trip and Fall Down Again." The tunes indicate a slightly more rockist approach when compared against last year's model, with steady drums grounding impressive and unique EQ artistry and fuzz. Still, dubbing the tunes conventional, however, stretches the definition of that word toward the breaking point. "Fear o The Light" -- seemingly a counterpoint to asdfasdf's "Fear o The Dark" -- marries white-noise beauty to a steady, acoustic guitar-led folk-rock structure before Ms. Dey sets to work shifting her lovely vocals into hyper oblivion. The tune "Only to Trip and Fall Down Again" aspires toward blooping electronica that pleasingly echoes Clicky Clicky-faves The Books at times (that's an extreme compliment from this publication, don't you know), although the rhythm tracks' organic feel is more exotica than futuristic. This reviewer is expecting the majority of music press to adore Dey's inventive release: if only the overground was routinely this exciting. Joy Void is releasing the set on Pink/Blue/Yellow/Clear, Blue/Pink or Blue/Yellow splatter vinyl, color combinations that perhaps come close to approximating the amazing and original talent cut into the grooves. Pre-order flood network right here. -- Edward Charlton, At Large



>> This writer was absolutely in love with TV Wonder's Bird Sounds EP, which was released last year by the routinely excellent Faux Discx. The short set was a highlight of a pretty cracking year, and the Dutch quartet appear to have made the most of it, garnering slots performing with American indie heavy-hitters such as Viet Cong (now Preoccupations), dream-pop delighters DIIV and the mighty Detroit four Protomartyr. On top of this, the band has recorded two new songs for a cassette Geertruida Records issued late last month. "Glazed" and "Fixed Aesthetic" continue in the vein of the Sonic Youth-inspired jams of the aforementioned EP, but incorporate a pinch of additional clarity and studio punch. "Glazed" opens with a surprisingly major-key garage shuffle before introducing the more dissonant guitar interplay characteristic of the band's music. At the eighty-second mark, the band reacquaints listeners with its post-punk gloom and tension, and it is a delight to hear once more. From there TV Wonder locks into a groove so sinister that when the song's care-free opening chords return, they're run over flat by detuned anti-solos that capture the youthful anxiety and explosiveness this band expresses so well. It's just a great steamroller of a song that makes the most of its few, simpler parts. "Fixed Aesthetic" sticks more to the gloom side of the TV Wonder coin, but, again, the combo switches gears midway to a new part that captures a dreaminess and dread reminiscent of the late, great Women, while also still having its own stark and minimalist European voice. TV Wonder are on a roll, let us all pray they don't stop. Boston fans familiar with the shoe-brand cross-marketing phenomenon Converse Rubber Tracks will be interested to know TV Wonder recorded these two tunes in a single day as part of Converse Rubber Tracks Amsterdam. Order "Glazed" / "Fixed Aesthetic" on cassette right here, or click through the embed below to acquire the digital files. -- Edward Charlton, At Large

That Was The Show That Was: Eagulls | Islington Assembly Hall, London | 19 May

Hotly tipped UK five Eagulls took the stage at London's Islington Academy Halls Thursday night looking every bit a part of Britain's noteworthy post-punk lineage. Fronter George Mitchell had outfitted his gaunt frame in black slacks and tucked white shirt; sonically, the Leeds-spawned act's performance felt similarly lacking in color. Roughly splitting the set list between 2014's stirring eponymous long player and this year's moodier and more atmospheric Ullages, Eagulls presented various interpretations of the hopelessness peddled by forebears including The Cure some three decades ago. While the Cure comparison intrigues, such comparisons carry expectations, and Eagulls seem to still be working out whether to embrace or elude these expectations as it seeeks its place in the canon.

On opener "Lemontrees," Mr. Mitchell's vocals were a curiosity, and echoed the anguished yelp of Robert Smith. Yet later, when the quintet covered Human League's "Seconds," Mitchell struggled to achieve the expected nuance. Even so, he did make for an engaging focal point, bopping around the stage like a drunkard staggering home from the pub. This did little to distract from a problematic live mix, however. His vocal melodies often rhythmically followed the lead guitar lines, but the sound was so muddy the standout track "Euphoria" was largely indistinguishable from its neighbor on Ullages, "My Life In Rewind." On big choruses, Mitchell sounded overwrought, sometimes jarring. Elsewhere his slurred syllables were as blurred as the grainy visuals projected behind the band.

On its recordings, Eagulls deliver well-honed dynamics, but Thursday the band presented a persistent wall of sound that swallowed up some of the music's depth and texture. At best, the constant chug of guitars -– recalling now and again The Smiths' colossal anthem "How Soon Is Now" –- served to glamorize the despair that is a post-punk band's stock-in-trade, but the lack of dynamics weighed down the performance, particularly as Eagulls hit a succession of mid-tempo tracks mid-set. Tunes from the band's first LP fared much better, particularly the fevered "Yellow Eyes." As Mitchell sang "I can't see it," fans must have been inclined to believe him, as he wended his head around, eyes shut tightly. The rocker "Possessed" from the first LP is an ever-reliable set closer and Thursday night was no different, with Mitchell snarling the title atop guitars that buzzed and shimmered. Its impact on the crowd was clear, and the song's amplified ferocity was a reminder of what a fine live act Eagulls can be when it play to its strengths. Traams and 99 Watts opened. -- Theo Gorst, Special Correspondent

Eagulls: Facebook | Internets

30: The Cure's Standing On A Beach - The Singles

One of the larger milestones celebrated in the music press this week was the 27th anniversary of the release of The Cure's epochal classic Disintegration. A remarkable record, to be sure, and deserving of great praise. But we'd be remiss if we didn't mark in these electronic pages a different milestone, the release of the first The Cure record we ever owned, issued this day 30 years ago, a record that can rightfully be said to have played a part in spawning this publication. Wikipedia provides inconsistent information regarding its release date, stating in different places May 6 and May 19. As the former was actually a Tuesday, the then-traditional day of the week for new releases in the States, we're going with May 6. So happy anniversary, Standing On A Beach - The Singles.

The facts of our first exposure to The Cure are increasingly remote, but we distinctly recall seeing the video for "Let's Go To Bed" in our grandparents' basement (they had one of those old-ass cable boxes with the three tiers of oblong buttons that was attached to the teevee with a cord like an astronaut to spacecraft). The catchy, curious song was blessed with steady MTV rotation, likely as much because of director Tim Pope's intriguing, egg-smashing, back-painting video as the fine pop song-craft. We suppose MTV might have played other singles between LGTB's release in '82 and that of the singles and b-sides compilation Standing On A Beach in early May of '86, but we can't recall seeing another Cure video until the re-release of the titanic indie pop tune "Boys Don't Cry" as a single to herald the issuance of said hits comp. Not that we were really looking. Until Diamond Dave left Van Halen in mid-'85, our focus was very, very heavily tilted toward metal.

Yes, we understand that a singles-and-b-sides comp doesn't qualify under certain purist definitions of a proper record. To a certain extent we even share in that bias. But the record. Oh, how the record blew our mind when a cherished childhood friend popped the Standing On A Beach cassette into a Sony Sports Boombox (remember the yellow jawn with the rubberized, sand-proof buttons?) during a trip that spring and pushed play. It was during a camping-type outing, and there was plenty of fun to be had, but all we wanted to do all day was get back to the tape deck and press play again and again. At the time in '86, at the tender age of 12, we knew not of the terms "indie rock," maybe not even "college rock," so we recall the aforementioned friend arguing that The Cure could be lumped under the dubious descriptor "soft hardcore." Which sounds ridiculous now, as even then we had some understanding of contemporary punk and new wave, but that should give a sense of how the breadth and depth of Standing On A Beach left us awe-struck and grasping for ways to describe it.

With the release of Standing On A Beach, The Cure became the band that first fired the synapses that still fuel our music obsession. The record was a revelation: setting aside all of the singles that didn't crack MTV, let alone garner commercial radio airplay (for the latter, that was pretty much all of them), listening to Standing On A Beach triggered a tantalizing, even troubling thought: if all of these b-sides are so excellent, then what else is MTV, commercial radio, Rolling Stone and Spin keeping from us? What else were the gatekeepers -- the lamestream media, if you will -- not telling us about? The answer, as we're certain all of this blog's readers know, was quite a lot. And so we began searching, digging more deeply, and in the process became the music fan we are today.

It's worth noting that Standing On A Beach was released in a number of configurations across as many formats, and that the cassette was the greatest of them all, as it contained all of the b-sides and certain exclusive mixes. Wikipedia does a good job of breaking all of that down, but the greater point is that those b-sides were exceptionally hard to track down in the pre-Internet era for those of us who wore out the tape. Might an announcement be in the offing, of a double-LP reissue of Standing On A Beach? Frankly, we expected that for Record Store Day, and were disappointed that it didn't materialize. And we expect that was the last meaningful window for the release of such a thing. At the next five-divisible anniversary, Gen X-ers that comprise much of the likely market for such a trinket will be that much further removed, the present vinyl resurgence may have vaporized. Sure, the Join The Dots compilation largely obviated the need for such a reissue, but the comp is sort of overkill, innit? And, of course, not on vinyl. In all of its iterations, Standing On A Beach was manageable, the discrete era it addressed particularly meaningful, and it's our feeling that a vinyl reissue of the original cassette version of Standing On A Beach would be splendid. But it seems like it will not be.

Let's have an upbeat ending to this overlong celebration, though. The Cure are touring this summer, 33 shows in 26 North American cities as well as festival dates and a show in New Zealand. The legendary act plays a long-sold out show in Boston June 16. Might they perform the compilation on the tour? Not likely. But either way we have the music, and we've posted YouTube videos below for you to enjoy which recreate Standing On A Beach. Try to hear it all like it's May of '86 again. Thanks for reading.

The Cure: Facebook | Internerds

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: Fog Lake, Sediment Club, Blank Realm

>> A year in the making, Fog Lake's terrific long-player Victoria Park arrived late last month, and it sounds like the cool morning before a stifling hot summer day. The release, the third long-player from the St. John, Newfoundland-based act, is informed by both a beautiful melancholy and an ungraspable yet quenching nostalgia. Fog Lake is centered around the songwriting of talented introvert Aaron Powell, whose music here drones and hums, presenting spectral voices and thrumming piano chords and more than a little mystery in a blurry but entrancing pastiche that recalls the dark wonders of Cat Power's "What Would The Community Think?," for example. Fog Lake began as a solo project for Mr. Powell about seven years ago. Historically, he has written and recorded alone, but this changed with Victoria Park, on which he was abetted on Victoria Park by the synth playing of Kenney Purchase on a few songs (Powell also relies on additional players when performing live). The collection is consistently enchanting, but points of interest include the relatively uptempo and anthemic "Antidote," whose drone is spangled by distant snare and Powell's reedy tenor. The highlight of Victoria Park is the absolutely haunting, poignant album closer "Dog Years," a mesmerizing video for which was released to the wilds of the Internerds earlier this week; we strongly recommend you watch that right here.Orchid Tapes released Victoria Park June 30 in a limited edition of 115 white cassette tapes; unsurprisingly, it is already sold out. Orchid Tapes was quick to bring to market a second edition of its other recent hit, Katie Dey's tremendous asdfasdf [review], so it is very likely a second edition of Victoria Park will materialize shortly. In the meantime, stream the entire, excellent release via the Bandcamp embed below.



>> Like Empire State noiseniks Palberta, New York City-spawned no-wavers The Sediment Club bring a refreshing, random logic to its DIY house-show squealing, traits that make the veteran trio's careening, desperate music the perfect summer spazz-rock cocktail to complement the season's scorching weather and bizarro political times. Lead single and title track "Psychosymplistic, Psychosymplastic" unravels the act's curious madness in grand, pounding fashion. The swooping, elastic bass, staticy noise-guitar and Austin Sley Julian's yelping vocals contribute equally to the tune's chaos. The result is an aggressive listen sans many of the typical trappings peculiar to aggressive punk music. Mr. Julian's intensity and the ridiculous lines of the chorus challenge listeners to consider what precipitated such a pleasingly ramshackle -- yet air-tight -- attack. How did The Sediment Club get to this? What's beyond life's random accidents and puzzling combinations of sound and action? Maybe, just maybe, that's all life really is, and The Sediment Club are here to soundtrack the gradual melting of all preconceived notions into a dense, modern soup. Psychosymplistic, Psychosymplastic will be released by Wharf Cat Records July 24 on limited edition LP, CD and digital download. The LP is available in an edition of 100 pieces with hand-screened sleeve art; the CD is packaged in a special clamshell case with fancy sticker and apparently noteworthy bar code? Pre-order any of the formats right here. The Sediment Club formed in 2008 and touts a formidable back catalog of LPs, EPs, tapes and singles, much of which appears to be listed at its web dojo; check it out. The band plays a house show in Boston at something called Scorched Ear tonight -- ask a punk for deets. Listen to "Psychosymplistic, Psychosymplastic" via the embed below. -- Edward Charlton



>> Brisbane, Australia four Blank Realm caught our ear recently with "River Of Longing," a kaleidoscopic guitar-pop number that does justice to antipodean nation's infamous psych-tapestry heritage. From its upcoming sophomore album Illegals In Heaven, due out via Fire Records on Sept. 4, the band showcases dynamic and colorful guitar melodies that dance around singer Daniel Spencer's tossed, playful vocals. The knowing, casual allure of Mr. Spencer's delivery brings to mind that of Canadians Kevin Drew and Brennan Canning of Broken Social Scene, the commonality being brutally earnest but inviting melodies. Speaking of melody, that is the name of the game for Blank Realm; at times the band seems to have so many ideas that they nearly overwhelm the comparatively simple chords and structures that underpin "River Of Longing." The song's opening guitar chime provides a sturdy foundation for song's big, wiry hooks, an opening salvo coated in warm delay and echo that not only recalls Johnny Marr's note-dense playing in The Smiths but also something a little more modern, like the halfway point between The Church and the sunny, synthesizer-driven style that usually comes with music that feels this bouncy, sexy and hopeful. Illegals In Heaven was available in your choice of black or limited pink-and-white vinyl, but the limited edition pink-and-white edition has already gone the way of the dodo bird, so, sorry. Pre-order the black vinyl, or the handy CD or digital download versions, direct from the Blank Realm Bandcamp right here. -- Edward Charlton



http://www.firerecords.com/site/index.php?page=release&releaseid=00000001300

Today's Hotness: Literature, Lattimore/Zeigler, Mooncreatures

>> We make every effort to stay abreast of the Philadelphia music scene, even as we lack the time to cover every single development from the fertile scene. We were surprised, then, to learn recently of Philly indie-pop unit Literature, whose sophomore album Chorus will be released later this month via Slumberland. The group is following up 2012's wonderful Arab Spring, which dropped shortly after Literature moved to Pennsylvania from Austin (which, we suppose, explains why these cats weren't on our radar). Literature has also appeared on various notable compilations in the intervening years and played events such as the NYC Popfest, and supported such Clicky Clicky-approved acts as Brown Recluse,Sic Alps and The Pains of Being Pure at Heart. And so, unsurprisingly, the new set sounds right at home in the Slumberland catalog. On lead single "The English Softhearts," Literature distinguishes itself with effective keyboard playing (which switches warm synth tones mid-song) and dances with the bright Smiths- and Orange Juice-styled guitar work. If there's a member of the band playing both that and an electric guitar throughout the tune live, props to them. Also notable is lead singer Kevin Attics' voice, one among a fine procession of anglophile Yankee singers that aims for an accent but ends up with something ultimately more exotic and in-between (Nota Bene: this isn't meant as a slight, but rather is intended to illuminate a phenomenon that this reviewer famously enjoys). Mr. Attics succeeds at this more than most, sounding legitimately British (or at least an expat?) and much like a recharged and exuberant Alasdair MacLean of The Clientele. While "The English Softhearts" trades in all manner of classic dynamic tics, the best part of the song is the four-bar bridge toward the end, where pillowy synth-strings and a deep bass line seal the deal on the implied elegance to which the band earnestly aspires. The second preview tune, the elegant dreamer "New Jacket," is no less excellent, pairing nervy guitar jangle and wiry leads with a glistening, icy ambience that feels urgent but timeless. Chorus is set to arrive on CD and vinyl via the legendary Slumberland Aug.19; pre-order the set right here, and consider taking advantage of the label's limited time offer of a bundle of Chorus and Arab Spring. Has the label ever steered you wrong before? -- Edward Charlton



>> In-demand Philly studio guy Jeff Zeigler, the busy engineer behind Clicky Clicky-approved records by artists like A Sunny Day in Glasgow, Kurt Vile, Nothing and Purling Hiss (as well as the frontman for the visionary Arc In Round), this past winter teamed with harpist Mary Lattimore to craft a pleasantly meandering set called Slant Of Light, which will be released by the esteemed Thrill Jockey label Sept. 22. As this blog can't foresee anything not to love about Zeigler's work (we eagerly, eagerly await his long-anticipated solo record), this collaboration seems certain to deliver compelling ambient/post-rock optimal for autumnal daydreaming. Although the four-song tracklisting has been announced (and a version of the lead track "Welsh Corgis In The Snow" previously graced Zeigler's Soundcloud at one point, but is understandably now absent), at press time no preview single from the record has been released. The press materials announcing Slant Of Light, however, point to a compelling live video of the pair performing an untitled piece last summer that indicates what fans can expect from the duo's debut. Lattimore's harp makes unbelievably beautiful and avant garde sounds strained through a Line 6 delay while Zeigler manipulates the mix in real time and lays in smooth, pulsing bass synth chords. The twinkling and ethereal work demonstrates a masterful patience and exciting sense of play that makes us especially eager to catch the duo live. It does plan to make appearances to support the set, which can be pre-ordered right here. The record is being sold on CD and vinyl, with the latter available in a limited edition of 500 pressed to white media. Interface with the video below. -- Edward Charlton



>> Perhaps, as this reviewer would like to think, London-based "reverb-pop" outfit Mooncreatures took seriously our executive editor's March lament regarding a two-year release gap, as it is already queueing up the release of a second title in 2014, a cassette called Sand Maps. While the noteworthy and cinematic prior release Gaslamps was reason enough for celebration, Sand Maps presents still more of the band's impressionistic ambience augmented with fresh dynamic elements that point to the project's continued evolution. The mysterious duo -- which we now know includes Rhys Griffiths and Martyn Dunn -- proffers windblown, dreamy new age/wave within a specific and fragile analogue/electronic context that is singularly their own. This time out, however, on songs such as "The Shallows," the act somewhat surprisingly arrives at something resembling a noisy, traditional rock song, complete with full-blown guitar solos and palm muting -- not what one would generally associate with the typically steady-yet-soft project. Opener "(sea cure)" ratchets a short-delay loop pedal after the first 39 seconds and doesn't let up. "Salt Sea," "Pacific Theme (Solar Effect)," and "Tender Stems, Desert Winds" all tread in territory similar to their previous releases, but retain much of the the delightful affectations -- vocal sibilance, rich synths, and heaps of delay. "Landgrab" perhaps best pulls at the heartstrings, its yearning melody and subdued beat attaining an admirable floating effect while tasteful reverse-delay threatens to derail the tune, just like the harsh gales of the English moors where these two creative minds at least telepathically reside. Sand Maps was released July 18 by the new London-based and Beko Disques-affiliated label Balloon Festival in a limited edition of 40 pea-green cassettes. Buy it here. -- Edward Charlton

Regolith A2E1: Sean Tracy Is A Songwriter

He rumbles the thunderstick for Boston anxiety-pop phenoms Chandeliers, he blasts the bottom end for Boston-and-New Hampshire-based shoegaze goliaths Bedroom Eyes, he does a bunch of other stuff, too. And now Sean Tracy is doing Regolith, Clicky Clicky's still new-car-smelling, month-long songwriting challenge. Attentive readers will recall it was just last month that we unveiled the results of Regolith Series 1, which featured scene stalwart Reuben Bettsak, and which produced this pretty dynamite collection of music (some of which will be performed this Sunday). We are very excited to have Mr. Tracy as our next songwriter-in-his-own-residence for this tripartite series. He's a New Hampshire native that has been keeping it real in the greater Allston/Brighton for several years, and we've been a fan since way back in 2010, when we put Chandeliers on a very hot bill at Precinct in Somerville, MA. As we mentioned supra, Tracy is also now playing bass in another Clicky Clicky fave act, Bedroom Eyes, which just released a totally sick new track called "Wild Sins" that we've embedded below. Incidentally, both acts he now plays with contributed tracks to our 2012 RIDE tribute comp NOFUCKINGWHERE. We think membership in two of the city's best bands is reason enough to bamboozle a gal or guy into doing Regolith, don't you? Either way, Tracy graciously has taken up the gauntlet and recently began work in earnest. We'll be sure to keep you apprised, as is the Regolith way, but before we go too much further, let's get acquainted. -- L. Tiburon Pacifico

CC: What is happening with your various projects right now?



 ST: Chandeliers is coming out with a full length LP this year. It's 12 tracks we recorded in January, that were written over the last two years or so. I'm really excited about it, and can't wait to put it out. We're doing a 2-day trip [this] week, out to Connecticut and Philadelphia, two places we have never played before, and planning a longer tour once we have records to sell.



Bedroom Eyes just released a single for a compilation and, besides that, we're finishing up some material that was tracked before I joined the band. That should be out soon. Besides that, we're writing new songs for an EP that we'll hopefully record later this year.



 I played in/play in a band called Dye (briefly, emphasis on briefly, called Kardashians). It's now mostly a recording project consisting of me and my friend Sam. We played two shows before he moved to the west coast and we have yet to release anything, but have 6-7 recorded songs that I really hope we will release this year. We practice as much as we can given the distance, maybe 2-3 times a year.



 CC: What instruments do you play? When did you start playing them?



 ST: I play guitar (7 years), bass (5 years), and I can play drums a little. I have a kit, but don't really (never) play it. I can also "play" keyboard, if pressing keys and hoping they make pretty sounds counts as playing... [it does. -- Ed.]



 CC: How long have you been writing music?



 ST: I guess ever since I got my first guitar. I always tried to write my own parts, really simple ones at first, even though I couldn't really translate the ideas into actual playing. I actually sort of learned how to write songs by recording my own stuff with Garageband when I was around 19 or 20, and that's when I started messing with multi-tracking, learning how to mix audio, junk like that. And then after being in a band that worked on songs together, and seeing how that process went, I kind of eventually started working on more complex parts and full songs of my own.



 CC: What are your songwriting influences? Do you feel like there's an influence on your music that is obvious to you but might not necessarily be apparent to a listener?



 ST: Very, very many. I guess the biggest influences are my favorite bands, mostly jangly guitar bands from the '80s, and c86 bands: McCarthy, The Bodines, The Smiths, The Jesus & Mary Chain, My Bloody Valentine, '90s Slumberland stuff, especially Black Tambourine and Henry's Dress. Early Modest Mouse, '90s Kinsella-sphere emo, like Cap'n Jazz, American Football, Joan of Arc (that first album), The Promise Ring, and other stuff like Sunny Day Real Estate, Braid, early Fugazi, and older punk bands like Minor Threat, Bad Brains and The Wipers. For more contemporary stuff, Grouper, Deerhunter and Broadcast. Is this too many? [No. -- Ed.]



 I've also got a real place in my heart for old doo-wop stuff, like from the '50s and '60s. Not that I think that sound influences what I write, but I really admire how simple, in terms of structure and lyrics, that most of those songs are. But you can still tell there's real emotion that goes into it.



 CC: How would you describe your songwriting (not recording) process. Are the songs planned out, or is the process more organic, with single chords or melodies developing into parts, which then develop into songs? Or do you have a back catalog of riffs/parts/progressions that you mix and match until they find a home?



 ST: Well actually, I write quite a bit by recording. If I have one or two parts that go together, I'll record it and listen for how another part might work its way in there. Hearing something play back usually helps me decide what works and what doesn't, and where structural things and transitions should go. It feels a lot different playing a song vs. hearing it recorded. It's almost like how I "proofread" a song.



 Typically I'll have a few parts that will not really have a set order/duration, but almost always the part that comes to me first ends up being the chorus, and I kind of work the other parts around that.



CC: Do you normally write your songs alone, or are you used to writing with others? Will this project change the way you typically write?



 ST: Most of the songs that I write, I write by myself, so this is actually somewhat normal for me.



 CC: Where will you be doing your writing and recording throughout this project?



 ST: My bedroom/apartment, and maybe some in my practice space.



 CC: What are your goals/aspirations for this project?



 ST: My goal is really to push myself outside of my comfort zone, and by that I mean, actually PRODUCE something. Since I was 19, I have started writing and recording literally dozens of songs, some finished, many more unfinished, but zero that I've formally released. It's partly an insecurity thing, but it's also an attention span/schedule thing: I have ADHD, I work full time, I play and practice in two bands, and I have a girlfriend. There's not a lot of time in between for me to focus on songwriting, and this is a really good excuse for that, and it's just a cool idea for a project, too.

What else can we tell you? Here's the Face book deets for that show Chandeliers are playing in Philly Saturday night: all of our Philadelpia pheoples should hit that. The threesome is back in Allston Rock City April 30 supporting this bill at O'Brien's toplined by Streight Angular. Enough of my yakkin', how about some songs?





Related Coverage:
Today's Hotness: Bedroom Eyes
Today's Hotness: Chandeliers
Review: Bedroom Eyes | What Are You Wrong With
Bedroom Eyes Record Release Show With Sneeze, Lube, Kal Marks And Big Mess
And Then Some Days We Get Awesome Mail 12
Clicky Clicky Music Presents... N O F U C K I N G W H E R E
Young Adults, BDRM Eyes, Chandeliers and The Living City | The Box Fort, Allston Rock City | Jan. 28
Today's Hotness: BDRM Eyes

That Was The Show That Was: Built To Spill | Paradise Rock Club, Boston | 8 Nov.

A Built To Spill concert is a practice in mutually respectful attentiveness. Not to put the band in a bad light, but one gets the feeling the Boise-bred unit methodically delivers the same set whether the room is half empty or a sell-out, as the Paradise Rock Club in Boston was on Friday. Which is totally fine, 'cause Friday night ruled. Led by indie rock lifer Doug Martsch, the act has for decades now wrought thoughtful, measured guitar music that aims straight for the head. As a songwriter, Martsch is at his best when he's stuck in his own mind, fabricating tangible dreamscapes that swoon and rock. A Built To Spill record -- or show, for that matter -- doesn't incite dancing, but more of a gentle, eyes-closed sway in time to the beat.

After impressive opening sets from The Warm, Parasol, and Slam Dunk, Martsch and Co. quietly took the stage and opened with a number from 2006's You In Reverse [review]. What followed was a set that leaned heavily on Reverse and 2009's There Is No Enemy. While those records aren't entirely indicative of the sound the band built its name on, the guitar heroics and jam-band vibe of the songs from that era shine just as brightly onstage as anything in Built To Spill oeuvre.

The band thankfully didn't ignore its older material altogether, and it may be that the songs they played off 1994's titanic indie pop effort There's Nothing Wrong With Love were the most warmly received. However, the set's biggest surprise may have been "Else" off Keep It Like A Secret. The tune's rolling high-hat stutter tranfixed the crowd, setting the stage perfectly for the first set's closer, "Carry The Zero." If the former song was all silent disbelief from the assembled mass, "Carry The Zero" was a downright sing-along by comparison, one that had the crowd hanging tightly with Martsch's high, inflected tenor to the end.

As is customary, Built To Spill closed out its set with impressive covers; this night the band proffered versions of Dinosaur Jr.'s fuzz-rock classic "Sludgefeast" and The Smiths' "How Soon Is Now." The evening ended with Built To Spill's own bona fide classic, "Car," an apropos closer, and a gentle suggestion that Martsch legitimately owns a berth among those indie elites. Built To Spill's current fall tour kicked off almost a month ago and runs all the way up to the night before Thanksgiving; the remaining dates -- including some post-Christmas multi-night stands -- are listed below. -- Dillon Riley

Built To Spill: Internerds | Facebook





11.12 -- Grog Shop -- Cleveland Heights, OH
11.13 -- St. Andrews Hall -- Detroit, MI
11.14 -- Metro -- Chicago, IL
11.15 -- Turner Hall Ballroom -- Milwaukee, WI
11.16 -- Barrymore Theatre -- Madison, WI
11.17 -- First Avenue -- Minneapolis, MN
11.18 -- Blue Moose Tap House -- Iowa City, IA
11.20 -- The Rev Room -- Little Rock, AR
11.21 -- Granada Theater -- Dallas, TX
11.22 -- Fitzgerald's -- Houston, TX
11.23 -- Stubb's Amphitheatre -- Austin, TX
11.24 -- Tricky Falls -- El Paso, TX
11.25 -- Club Congress -- Tuscon, AZ
11.26 -- Vinyl -- Las Vegas, NV
11.27 -- Urban Lounge -- Salt Lake City, UT

Prior Built To Spill coverage:
YouTube Rodeo: Built To Spill's "You Were Right"
That Was The Show That Was: Built To Spill, Dinosaur Jr, Meat Puppets
Review: Built To Spill | You In Reverse
Built To Spill/Treepeople: Tour News And Gratuitous '90s Flashback

Review: Los Campesinos! | No Blues

Attentive readers will notice that, for all the plaudits we've bestowed upon what we'll call the modern Los Campesinos! catalog, we've not actually reviewed said records. That lack of critical attention is inversely related to the great esteem in which we hold the records in question. Part of our absence of engagement with the long players Hello Sadness and Romance Is Boring -- each among our favorite records of 2011 and 2010, respectively -- is certainly related to lack of time, to be sure. But there is a larger reason: the aforementioned albums, as well as the we-refuse-to-call-it-an-album album We Are Beautiful, We Are Doomed, represent a sort of critical absolute; to a certain extent, if not flat-out perfection, they are certainly a benchmark against which all other records released in those years are measured. The Cardiff-based indie rock act's clever orchestration, terrifically sophisticated lyrics, impassioned performances, sweeping dynamics and powerful and palpable emotional impact, well, very few do it as well, and it would be hard to convince us that anyone does it better.

Even so, while it is a remarkable and bracing collection worthy of similar consideration and accolades, none of the above is the first thing we think of when we listen to Los Campesinos!' latest collection No Blues. What we think about most often is that we can't believe the record almost didn't get made. Indeed, tucked into the band bio distributed to the press is the startling revelation that Los Campesinos! nearly called it a day prior to the making of No Blues. To whit, here's a quote attributed to guitarist Tom Campesinos!: "We'd spent a lot of time in the months leading up to recording deciding if we should continue with the band at all." This is a bottomless bummer, as it underscores that a day will come when there is no band called Los Campesinos! Not a surprise, sure, bands come and go, but the realization provides an additional slant to the lyrics "we all know we're gonna die, we're a speck of dust..." from the chanted chorus of the No Blues album cut "A Portrait Of The Trequartista As A Young Man." Of course, that lyric is probably about some English footballer, which is another reason we've historically been reluctant to analyze Gareth Campesinos!' lyrics in the "modern" era, as interviews repeatedly indicate -- and the aforementioned band bio emphasizes -- that his lyrics are just as likely to be about sport (OMG did MTV really use the phrase "bro down" in relation to Los Camp... ugh -- Ed.) than affairs of the heart. Indeed, the swaying ballad "Glue Me" includes the line "I'm diving into headers, put this pretty face where the boots are flying in," and, of course, "we connected like a Yeboah volley."

But -- quite obviously, yes -- what makes Los Campesinos!' music succeed is what makes all music succeed: how it is perceived and received by the listener (whether or not that listener knows who Tony Yeboah is). They just happen to succeed more readily, as they stand head and shoulders above the majority of their contemporaries. Despite operating at that elevated level and making "serious albums" -- whatever that means -- for the last five years, the sextet remains remarkably deft at crafting singles as potent as the fizzing, lighter fare with which it made its mark. No Blues' singles are the undeniable anthem "Avocado, Baby" and the bubbling, mid-tempo gem "What Death Leaves Behind." Many songs could claim highlight status on No Blues, as strong as it is, but perhaps the most obvious single would have been "Cemetery Gaits," which both puns on a Smiths classic and builds a droning, synth-spangled verse from a guitar part that recalls The Cure's absolutely crushing "To Wish Impossible Things." The album closes with the fittingly final-sounding "Selling Rope (Swan Dive To Estuary)," an uptempo confessional that is remarkably bright and cheery given the events described and the troubling, irksome possibility: might this be the last recorded song we hear from Los Campesinos? In terms of theme, it reminds of Frightened Rabbit's devastating "Floating In The Forth," with its imagery of flinging one's self into a body of water to end things. "Selling Rope" seems to describe a suicide ignored: "there's no ticker-tape, no golden gate, no carnival and no parade, just one, one for sorrow." We're hopeful that the excellence of No Blues gains whatever recognition and success is necessary to ensure that Los Campesinos! doesn't slip from our figurative grasp, and into a sea whose bottom is already littered with the wrecks of countless rock bands. Because losing Los Campesinos! would hurt to a degree not inverse to the deep joy its music has brought us.





Los Campesinos!: Tumblr | Facebook | Soundcloud

U.S. Tour Dates:
01.21 -- Boston, MA -- Paradise Rock Club (w/SPEEDY ORTIZ for fuck's sake)
01.22 -- New York, NY -- Irving Plaza (w/ SPEEDY AGAIN, egads)
01.23 -- Washington, D.C. -- 9:30 Club
01.25 -- Chicago, IL -- Metro

Selected Prior Los Campesinos! Coverage:
Los Campesinos! Fifth Album No Blues Due Oct. 29
Be Prepared: Los Campesinos! | Hello Sadness | 14 Nov.
Los Campesinos!/Johnny Foreigner 2010 US Tour Announcement
YouTube Rodeo: Johnny Foreigner, Gareth "In The Bullring"
Today's Hotness: Los Campesinos!

Today's Hotness: Ringo Deathstarr, Lubec, Occurrence

>>A weekend update from Austin, Texas' celebrated shoegaze/big beat terrorists Ringo Deathstarr tells fans who backed the trio's planned sophomore full-length that the record has been mastered, will be out in September, and will be promoted with a three-month world tour kicking off in August and lasting into December. Album backers will, if everything goes as planned, have the album in hand before the tour commences. No word on a title or any song titles yet, but we will watch for new news vigilantly. Ringo Deathstarr's 2011 full-length debut Colour Trip was one of our favorite records of the year; we reviewed it here and we reviewed the band's cataclysmic Boston show, which transpired a year ago today, right here. Colour Trip wasn't The Deathstarr's only release last year: it also issued the bracing Shadows EP, from which the song "Prisms," embedded for streaming below, is taken.



>> Fans of the Portland, Ore.-based guitar pop heroes Lubec got a do-you-want-the-good-news-first-or-bad-news-first? email from the band last week that we think nets out to a win for fans. Or at least those who had pre-ordered the band's Wilderness Days LP, which readers will recall combines the band's previously issued (and excellent) EP Nothing Is Enough! with previously unreleased tracks. Wilderness Days was to be released July 17, but because of delays with the pressing plant the LP will ship about a month later. That's the bad news. The good news is that Lubec is making it up to fans by sending them a free 7" single featuring the dynamite number "You're A Good Idea." The cut was previously available online last winter -- indeed, we wrote about it here -- when the band was pondering the release of a single for the tune "Riptide" (never released). "You're A Good Idea" was recorded at Tape Op Magazine studio in Portland; you may recall us describing it thusly: "a melodic tour de force of kaleidoscopic guitar, simple cascades of piano and punchy bass playing." The single has already been in production and will now ship prior to the LP, but Wilderness Days will still come packaged with the previously promised array of bonus materials. It will also arrive via expedited shipping courtesy of the band. Everybody wins! Stream Lubec's phenomenal track "Cherry Adair" from the aforementioned Nothing Is Enough! EP via the embed below.



>> Cambridge, Mass.-based electronic concern Occurrence surprised fans a couple weeks back with the surprise release of an instrumental collection Future Strangers, which is available for free download via Bandcamp right here. Stripped of sole proprietor Ken Urban's characteristically harrowing lyrics and received neuroses, the eight compositions of the collection crystallize into some of the most focused and nuanced in the Occurrence catalogue. The beats are heavier and the rhythm more urgent in lead track "Twin Brother Shadow Collective." Closer "Dead Techno (for Marla Gibbs)" -- yeah, you read that right -- is a 14-minute epic that would seem to take inspiration from the horrific grinding that begins The Smiths classic "Meat Is Murder," but slackens into a thoughtful swirl before evolving into serial, aggressive salvos of white noise. The real gem of the set is the penultimate track "False Heart," which achieves a pacific balance among swelling faux strings and the steady mid-tempo beat and pulsing tones that overtake them. The songs were created by Mr. Urban over the last two years with input from regular collaborator Wayne S. Feldman. It's already been a very productive year for Occurrence, which released the full-length collection The Apocalypse Is Postponed in January and capped Clicky Clicky's acclaimed Nofuckingwhere compilation with a stinging re-imagining of the title track to Ride's epochal debut full-length Nowhere (Nofuckingwhere is still available for free download right here). Stream "False Heart" below.