Today's Hotness: Walrus, Red Sea, Wildhoney

>> If the allegedly impending spring has you in the mood for some Syd Barrett-inspired psych pop, well, you are not alone. Enter Walrus, a sextet based in Halifax, Nova Scotia, led by brothers Justin and Jordan Murphy. The act's dazzling and impressively realized new EP Glam Returns highlights the band's modern, compact and sunny take on the style. Across four songs simple chords, richly delayed vocals and burbling organ unravel to reveal bright, quirky songwriting. Standout track "Bulash" is buttressed by whooshing synths and circularly applied tremolo guitars that imbue the verses with a bouncy, almost tropical feel. The hazy vocals recall those of popular beat group Tame Impala. The most thrilling section of the song arrives at the tail end of its first minute, when a shouted, echoing blast of vocals and guitar announces the chorus. The choppy guitars here elevate the energy from that of a lysergic psychedelic fever dream to more mod-leaning aggression; it jolts the listener from the cozy bed of effects defining each instrument. Walrus draws heavily on powerful strains of our collective psych past, and on all four cuts on Glam Returns the band's enthusiasm and love for the style is both evident and contagious. Glam Returns was issued digitally via Bandcamp last month, and it will apparently be released on cassette via Out of Sound and Poncho Records March 27, in time for Walrus' planned jaunt out of town to destinations including Fredericton, Ottawa and Montreal. The EP, according to a recent interview, contains older material that the band doesn't perform live much these days, and Walrus hopes to have a full length out later this year. In the meantime, dig in to Glam Returns via the Bandcamp embed below. -- Edward Charlton



>> "We love to sound as one would love to food." That's the opening line of the Bandcamp bio for Atlanta's Red Sea; theirs is some of the best music (food?) this reviewer has encountered so far in 2014. The quartet's brilliant recent EP, Yardsticks For Human Intelligence, is presently available as a free download, and it is an art rock tour de force. Brainy, knotty, and alluringly catchy, this is the kind of stuff one would play for someone who claims they are "bored with music" (though really, why would you hang out with an asshole like that? -- Ed.). It's that good. This four-song selection follows up on a similarly sequenced EP from 2010, and, interestingly, these tunes appear to have been recorded in 2012. While that may make one wonder about the present state of Red Sea (keep your blouse on, they just played a hometown show last week), it also adds to the mystery from these compositional mavericks. The band just has so much on offer. Opener "Tandem Style" menaces with almost taunting vocal work and jumbled rhythms, which are interrupted by high-pitched slashes across the bridge of the guitar. Very quickly one senses that these guys are operating within their own, singular sound world, one in which it's normal for a singer to fluctuate from evoking Nico to Kermit the Frog to an opera singer within the span of a verse, one in which any of the more aggro-avant fret work of Thurston Moore is fair game for the plundering. Highlight "Grapes" cascades through mysterious section after mysterious section over the course of six minutes. Despite hard stops, one-offs and dramatic arpeggios, the piece never loses inertia; one particularly memorable bridge drops in at the two-minute mark. A generously textured noise section closes the tune out with exotic pedal work. The balance of the EP, comprised of the numbers "Down With The Crown" and "Vacant Ring," features more shifting, schizophrenic earworms. The steady, cool strum of the guitar work, despite the erratic changes, calls to mind Women and their prickly, post-punk masterpiece Public Strain. Indeed, at times, Yardsticks For Human Intelligence even feels like a possible extension of that band's legacy in an instrumental sense. Red Seas' EP offers an arresting look at a very compelling young band, and we recommend you listen very closely to what it has to offer. Stream Yardsticks For Human Intelligence via the Bandcamp embed below, and click through to download the tunes. -- Edward Charlton



>> We've been hearing about Wildhoney through the dream-pop grapevine over the last year, and the band's hotly anticipated 7" EP, Seventeen Forever, proves the hype is warranted. The Baltimore, MD-based shoegaze concern are now previewing the quasi-title track from that upcoming slab of vinyl, which arrives on D.C.-based Photobooth Records April 20, and, man, is this purist heaven. As on the act's previous disc -- recorded by Roomrunner bassist Dan Frome -- Wildhoney channels the best late-80's shoegaze and post-punk and synthesizes it into a fresh, professional 2014 model. "Seventeen" opens with some reverb-saturated surf guitar before a hip-hop drum break erupts, a smooth move straight from the Chapterhouse playbook. Soon after, Lauren Shusterich's lead vocals fly in on a sheet of harmonies that exude a contemporary pop confidence rarely exhibited so early on by such a young band. The crystal clear recording and myriad guitar tracks that surround her recall the same sort of carefully laid out, yet spirited indie rock of Maryland-based forebearers Velocity Girl. The most compelling part of the tune comes during the chorus, when both singers chant "over and over" while the guitars switch over from the chunky chording in the verses to melodic, single-note leads that one could almost mistake for bright keyboards. This grade-A East Coast dream pop not only feels very now and dreamy, but also so purposeful that one can hardly imagine anything but a bright future for Wildhoney. Our recommendation? Snatch up the band's dynamite previous self-titled 45, from 2013, in time to be prepared for this great piece of springtime wonderment here. Stream "Seventeen" via the Bandcamp embed below, and click here periodically for the next few weeks to see when pre-orders the 7" EP will begin. Massachussets and/or New England fans can catch Wildhoney performing at The Flywheel in Easthampton, Mass. March 23 with mighty Boston shoegazers Soccer Mom. Wildhoney plans to record a full-length set in June, according to its tumblaaaaaahhhh. -- Edward Charlton

That Was The Show That Was: Infinity Girl EP Release Show With New Highway Hymnal, Speedy Ortiz and Soccer Mom | TT The Bear's | 5 Dec.

In what seems to be a trend in Boston of late, Wednesday night at TT The Bear's featured a killer lineup worthy of a weekend slot. The occasion was an EP release show for Boston shoegaze quartet Infinity Girl's new Just Like Lovers EP [review]. It was an espcially important show for the band, as its future is presently up in the air, with at least half of the band soon to take up residency outside of Boston's friendly confines. The bill also featured crackling sets from scenemates Soccer Mom, grungy post-punk from Northampton's Speedy Ortiz and Boston-based The New Highway Hymnal's narcotic psych-blues.

Soccer Mom opened the show a little after 9 with a set that included unrecorded material, both "sides" of the foursome's recent digital single, and selections from the band's killer 2011 EP You Are Not Going To Heaven. While their music certainly doesn't shy away from heavy use of noise, it's worth noting that Soccer Mom are particularly loud live. Dan Parlin and William Scales' guitars and their attendant feedback regularly collide and then cut out, leaving an opening for vocals to penetrate the live mix. The 'Mom's newer songs retain the chaotic atmosphere of their older material. The foursome ended its set with songs from their digital single "Brides" b/w "A Canoe Shy;" the latter track and its soaring chorus was particularly impressive.

Speedy Ortiz jumped right into a slew of new songs slated to appear on the band's planned full-length debut; the quartet finished recording the set with Justin Pizzoferrato at his studio Sonelab in Easthampton, Mass. just last week, according to fronter and guitarist Sadie Dupuis. She noted from the stage that certain of the songs in the set were being given their live debut last night. These new tunes fit well within the band's established sound -- sarcastic, awkward verses that give way to big choruses punctuated by dynamic blasts of feedback and heavy drum fills. Speedy Ortiz's lone selection from this year's excellent Sports EP was "Silver Spring," and the live iteration -- complete with a song-ending noise section -- was a highlight of the band's remarkably tight and engaging set. The set closed with a new number touting an extended outro which provided the band an opportunity to nearly destroy their equipment as they ran mic stands and pedals up against their guitars. Wednesday's show is apparently Speedy's last in Boston for a while; the band soon embarks on a short tour with notable Western, Mass. resident Thurston Moore.

Infinity Girl released its triumphant Just Like Lovers EP just past midnight Wednesday morning, but even so it opened its powerful performance with "Please Forget," its typical opening number and a highlight of their full-length debut Stop Being On My Side [review]. Gear issues plagued the opening number, as Mitch Stewart’s bass died almost immediately. Fortunately, Darl from Speedy Ortiz stepped up with a loaner bass and the show went on. Infinity Girl played selections from both Side and Lovers after announcing from the stage that the show was in fact their last for a while, and the set felt like a sort of farewell by the end. The quartet closed with an earth-shaking, nine-minute version of Stop Being On My Side's "Cannons." In its final minutes the song shed its languid groove and climaxed into a titanic cavalcade of noise and feedback, with drummer Sebastian Modak driving the tempo faster and faster as Mr. Stewart stabbed at his bass and fronter Nolan Eley pogoed as he exorcised feedback from his guitar, ultimately sliding his guitar back and forth across the stage by its strap. The players embraced after the cacaphony subsided.

The New Highway Hymnal had the unenviable task of following that set, but made short work of seizing the crowd's attention with its focused, harrowing live renderings of songs from the recently released long-player Whispers. Between the hypnotic groove of the trio's formidable rhythm section, fronter Hadden Stemp's possessed stage persona and spine-tingling yelps, and the shifting psychedelic light show, The New Highway Hymnal was able to skillfully transport the crowd at TT's with its dark, hip-shaking tunes. -- Dillon Riley, Correspondent

Rock Over Boston: Thurston Moore & Kurt Vile | 1.31.2012

[Thurston Moore at the Somerville Theatre, 1/31/2012. Photo by Michael Piantigini.]

"Sonic Youth lives!" shouted one patron last night, during one of the quiet breaks between a pair of quiet songs (why can't people handle quiet anymore? why does it make them nervous?). And it may yet. Or not. Mum is still the word, and this isn't TMZ or something, so I'll lay off the speculating. But this "solo" Thurston Moore, as distinct from the member of any number of one-off projects who produce cassettes full of droning feedback and other interesting things, is a chill take on the fractured art-pop of latter day Sonic Youth.

And if we are indeed entering a post-Sonic Youth era and this is how it is to be from now on - largely acoustic, with an emphasis on subtle coloring and melodies from harps and violins, with only occasional descents (or ascents) into noisy chaos - I'm good with that.

I'd only seen opener Kurt Vile with his backing band the Violators (and this show was billed as such in some places), which certainly gives a tougher, heavier edge to his stuff. Here he was on his own but for some harp accompaniment on a couple of tunes and it's a whole different deal. It just seems easier to get lost in his meandering alternate-tunings and surreal lyrics nearly as effectively as you can on a pair of headphones if you let yourself go. He closed with an unexpected but revelatory cover of Gram Parsons' "A Song For You." I just re-listened to the original, and damn if it isn't now an obvious influence on Vile's style.

- Michael Piantigini

Thurston Moore: Facebook | Twitter | Sonic Youth
Kurt Vile: Intertubes | Facebook | Twitter

[Kurt Vile at the Somerville Theatre, 1/31/2012. Photo by Michael Piantigini.]

Rock Over Boston North Adams: Wilco's Solid Sound Festival

[Photos from Wilco's Solid Sound Festival at MassMOCA in North Adams, MA 6/24-6/26/2011. Photos by Michael Piantigini.]

It rained. Like, a lot. I'm generally skeptical about big music festivals. Overcrowded, hot, overpriced concessions, and acts I'd rather see in a dark club at night rather than a massive dusty field in broad daylight. But I'll be damned if Wilco don't have this all figured out. I doubt you'd find very many of the reported 6300 (at its max) attendees of Solid Sound with anything bad to say, even about all that rain. It was a nuisance at the time (and I have the shoes to prove it), but it already seems like a distant footnote.

Sure, the letters crawling down the clock tower at the entrance spelled Wilco, but the vibe here was more celebration than marketing opportunity. I suppose some more cynical than I (if that's possible) could argue that Wilco's latter-day reasonableness is their weakness, but here at Solid Sound, at least, it was decidedly in our favor. Beers topped out at $5, sandwiches at $6 (with chips!), the crucial rain ponchos were $2, Popsicles were a buck, and bottles of water - also one damn dollar. By Sunday, I was almost begging to be ripped off in some way. The closest I came was the money I seemed to be separated from in Euclid Records' extraordinarily good pop-up record store on site, but since I got a bunch of great records in return we'll call it even. The man I assumed to be the store's owner told me "yeah, for one weekend you might have the best used record store in the country." We may have.

Handpicked by Wilco, the bands at the festival covered a fair amount of territory. The edges of noisy garage psych were covered by festival-openers Purling Hiss and Sic Alps, folkies Sara Lee and Johnny (that's Sara Lee Guthrie, of course) got Saturday started, while indie pop was later covered by Brooklyn's Here We Go Magic. Sixties soul was covered by near-legend Syl Johnson (who loves to talk - justifiably - about how Wu Tang Clan paid him a boatload of money for a sample, and about his recent box set), 70's roots rock by The Band's confirmed legend, Levon Helm, and 80's pop was taken care of by legend-in-some-circles Neil Finn and his new band, Pajama Club.

As is fitting the family atmosphere at Solid Sound, the various Wilco side projects well-represented: Mikael Jorgensen's Pronto was missed by this reporter, but John Stirratt and Pat Sansone's The Autumn Defense played to an overflow crowd in the smaller Courtyard C, and Glenn Kotche and Nels Cline were inescapable), Neil's son Liam Finn played a crackerjack set on Saturday. He sounded at times like his father, but with a much bigger, more rocking sound that warrants further investigation.

Courtyard D's brick borders were filled by Nels Cline and Thurston Moore's guitar duo Pillow Wand's squalling one hour noise improv barely 90 minutes after JC Brooks and the Uptown Sound's solid Chicago soul and funk groove had people dancing in the same spot.

Our hosts Wilco headlined playing full 2-hour sets on Friday and Saturday night, and played only a couple of songs twice: their new taut new-wavy single "I Might," and another new one, "Born Alone." The small handful of other new tracks they debuted hinted at a peppier, poppier new album when The Whole Love is released this fall. Any Wilco fatigue I might have been experiencing dissipated rather quickly as they dug into their catalog highlights both old ("Shouldn't Be Ashamed," "I Got You (at the End of the Century)" on Friday; "Box Full of Letters," "Passenger Side" on Saturday) and new ("Impossible Germany," "Bull Black Nova" on Friday, "Hate It Here," "One Wing" on Saturday). A festival like this was made for guest spots, of course: they followed up their "I Got You" on Friday night with Neil Finn joining them for his similarly titled Split Enz classic and Saturday brought some guest guitar work from Liam Finn on "You Never Know," and some vocals from Sara Lee Guthrie (and her bandmate Johnny Irion) on her grandfather Woody's lyrics to "California Stars."

Levon Helm and His Rambling Band closed it all out with "The Weight," of course, though some of us were winding the mountainous Route 2 back home by that point. We saw enough of his set to regret it, though. He's a legend for a reason, and his band has a confidence and a gravity befitting that legend. Glad I got the chance to see him. He does a regular series of concerts in his home studio in Woodstock, NY for a small audience. Might be a worthwhile pilgrimage.

MassMOCA - and North Adams in general - were gracious hosts and it's easy to see why Wilco would want to base their showcase here. Plus, the remoteness of the spot keeps the numbers manageable. It was not at all difficult to keep running into friends - and members of Wilco and the other bands - all over the museum's campus. Might has well have been in a friend's backyard.

-Michael Piantigini


WILCO: Intertubes | Facebook | Twitter | Solid Sound

September Surprise: Noise Addict's It Was Never About The Audience

What a pleasant surprise this is. Though I was an early and avid supporter, I started to lose track of Ben Lee after becoming increasingly disappointed in his music as he matured from the 13 year-old that was introduced to the US by no less than Thurston Moore’s Ecstatic Peace label in 1993 with his primitive cheap keyboard drum machines and guitars and obvious gift of melody and clever turns of phrase and into a more studied and serious singer-songwriter. That early notice was largely driven by the 1994 underground hit “I Wish I Was Him,” (from the Young and Jaded EP on Grand Royal) a back-handed tribute to Evan Dando that would have been easy to write off as a novelty were it not so clever, tuneful, and charming.

Now, I don’t mean to begrudge him his craft, but as I was talking about with a friend over the weekend, the longer you keep at songwriting, the harder it seems to be to recapture the innocence and charm of your early attempts. You’ve done the three-chord pop, what’s next? This is often a good thing: “Tomorrow Never Knows” was a scant three or so years on from “Love Me Do,” after all. Not everyone agrees about such things of course: the Wilco of A Ghost Is Born is not the same band that people fell in love with on Being There (though I happen to love both). For me, Lee’s records started to lose that charm after he dropped the Noise Addict moniker and releasing albums under his own name. After 1995’s Grandpaw Would, they just started to get less interesting.

So, when alerted by a Merge press release that there was a new Noise Addict album – available NOW – and FREE – and LOU BARLOW is IN the band (along with Crooked Fingers’ Lara Meyerratken), I was skeptical that Lee could reach back and recapture that spirit. I’m glad to report that he largely has. According to the liner notes for it was never about the audience, there were arbitrary ground rules, key among them that the songs were written right before being quickly recorded in Lee’s bedroom, just like when he was a teen. That urgency leaves little time for over-crafting and it suits his pop instincts well.

Lyrically, it’s a throwback too. The first track, “That’s How It Goes” opens with the lines “bands make music/writers write about it/sometimes people like it/and sometimes they don’t” and later in “I Heart Your Band,” he mocks with “I heart your band/especially the early stuff.” Elsewhere he goes after “Chris Martin’s Frown,” so there may still be a lot of music fanboy still in Lee, but a wearier one.

I’m holding out hope that this experiment reinvigorates Lee’s songwriting, and it certainly will stir an examination of what I missed. Grab it –- it’s available now for free download here. -- Michael Piantigini

That Was The Show That Was: Bottomless Pit, Kadane Brothers

The Kadane Brothers, perhaps better known as principal members of sublime flagship slow-core act Bedhead and its successor The New Year, have written so many great songs but released records so infrequently that last night's performance was something of a constant surprise. Several songs into a quiet set during which Matt and Bubba Kadane played guitars and sang sans rhythm section the brothers reached deep back into its catalog to unearth the frankly sublime track "Crushing," released on Bedhead's 1994 stunning full-length debut WhatFunLifeWas. We had hoped against hope that the duo would perform the title track to 1996's The Dark Ages EP, but this treat definitely sufficed. Mssrs. Kadane and Kadane did open their set accompanied by journeyman guitarist Chris Brokaw on the track "The End's Not Near" [for which a video was recently released; watch it here]. The penultimate song of the set was "18," our favorite New Year track -- except for perhaps "Gasoline," which was also performed. The New Year will issue its third full-length, and first since 2004's The End Is Near, September 9. The set features drumming by Mr. Brokaw and bass courtesy of Saturnine's Mike Donofrio; a fellow named Peter Schmidt, whose name is not familiar to us, also plays guitar on the album. It appears the new set is self-titled; you can review the track listing at Touch And Go's web site right here.

Bottomless Pit's set, which sprung directly out of a well-choreographed musical segue that closed The Kadanes' set, was powerful. We hadn't seen the band fronters Tim Midgett and Andy Cohen perform since a Silkworm show in Philadelphia in 1995 or so. Mr. Cohen's guitar work floored us, and fortunately we were standing directly in front of him for the entire set as he let loose with tense, taut, slashing leads and flourishes with his Telecaster. More than anything else, the artfulness of the veteran musicians' performance impressed us -- the lion's share of the live bands we see each year are up-and-coming, and may never develop the poise and chops possessed by the chaps in Bottomless Pit. If they do, they are usually playing rooms that are so large that we can't enjoy the spectacle of their excellent playing. And while we certainly believe Bottomless Pit deserves to be playing arenas and theaters -- we were actually surprised when we realized last night's performance was in the 200-capacity Middle East Upstairs and not in the larger downstairs room -- we felt very grateful to be awash in the blare at a range of a half-dozen feet. The band played much, if not all of the excellent full-length Hammer Of The Gods, then delivered some of the goods from the recently issued Congress EP, and then thrilled the crowd with a new song during what was apparently a very rare encore.

Mr. Brokaw, whose guitar work has been a huge influence on our own playing (despite our relative ineptitude), opened the show last night with a set of his own tunes, including a mile-wide instrumental and a number of tracks from his recently released set Incredible Love. I And Ear Records, which you may recall issued Mazarin's excellent final record We're Already There, issued June 30 fat vinyl version of Incredible Love which you can purchase at his web site here. He also played guitar on the forthcoming Lemonheads record that is due this fall. Located at his web site, Brokaw's touring schedule reads like a Who's Who in indie rock: he'll tour with The New Year in the US in early October and in Europe in November; in August he'll be playing guitar alongside Matador [thanks Jon!] artist Jennifer O'Connor; and like everyone else in North America besides us he will be at All Tomorrow's Parties NY, playing with Thurston Moore.

Bottomless Pit and The Kadane Brothers continue their tour through the 19th of July, and we've posted the remaining dates below; the band's play Montreal tonight. We shot our usual battery of lackluster photos last night and you can check them out here. We stood next to Mr. 'Nac as he recorded the show, and we expect once he gets through his substantial backlog he will post recordings of the excellent show. In the meantime, here's an MP3 from Bottomless Pit's Congress EP, which has been released digitally by Comedy Minus One.

Bottomless Pit -- "Fish Eyes" -- Congress EP
[right click and save as]
[buy Bottomless Pit music from Comedy Minus One right here]

Bottomless Pit: Internerds | MySpace | YouTube | Flickr

The New Year: Internets | MySpace | YouTube | Flickr

07.13 -- Divan Orange -- Montreal, Quebec
07.14 -- Sneaky Dee’s -- Toronto, Ontario
07.17 -- Schuba’s -- Chicago, Illinois
07.18 -- High Noon Saloon -- Madison, Wisconsin
07.19 -- 7th Street Entry -- Minneapolis, Minnesota