The Orderly Beauty Of Kunek's "Section Two" [MP3]

Oklahoma-based sextet Kunek's Flight Of The Flynns is a record of moments, like the chord changes in the second minute of "Section Two," for example. While this is likely not true, we want to believe that title refers and pays tribute to the ushering in of that particular musical passage. "Section Two" is carefully composed and if plotted on paper would probably resemble a steadily climbing trend line reflecting the orderly addition of piano, then strings, then e-bow guitar and tremoloed synth and so on. The resultant layering is similar to that found in Everclear's "Santa Monica." Really. We had a discussion with our man V about the Everclear jam's musical strategy some 10 years ago or so, and it popped back into our head while considering Kunek's creation. Of course, Kunek sounds nothing like Everclear -- please pardon our digression.

We love how "Section Two" stumbles into being; it's like someone losing their grip on a few coins. And we even love the smooth, AOR vocals -- they remind us of a specific sorta second-tier FM act we can't put our finger on right now; it's someone like Alan Parsons Project or Supertramp... Flight Of The Flynns was issued by PlayTyme Sept. 12. The band has 11 live dates coming up, including a short east coast stint -- the dates are listed below.

Kunek -- "Section Two" -- Flight Of The Flynns
[removed]

Kunek | InterWeb
Kunek | MySpace

[Buy Flight Of The Flynns here]

10/21 -- Sticky Fingerz -- Little Rock, AR
10/26 -- The Vaudeville Mews -- Des Moines, IA
11/01 -- CMJ/ASCAP Showcase at Sin-e -- New York, NY
11/02 -- The Mill Hill Saloon -- Trenton, NJ
11/03 -- CMJ at Union Hall -- Brooklyn, NY
11/06 -- Great Scott -- Allston, MA
11/07 -- The Fire -- Philadelphia, PA
11/08 -- Local 506 -- Chapel Hill, NC
11/17 -- VZDs -- Oklahoma City, OK
11/18 -- The Cavern -- Dallas , TX
12/08 -- Eskimo Joes -- Stillwater, OK

(+ del.icio.us)

Rack And Opinion: Release Date 10.10.06

A bit of a lull as far as the new release bin is concerned this week. But after a couple gangbuster weeks in a row, and given that this is a short holiday week in North America, we suppose that is to be expected. Even so, there is a substantial amount of quality to be had. Much-hyped Danish collective Under Byen's set Samme Stof Som Stof, which we are still trying to figure out if we like or not (it sounds interesting, and in fact is interesting, but we're not making an emotional connection at all), is out this week. Matador has collected up a whole mess of Chavez stuff under the moniker Better Days Will Haunt You. And indie stalwarts Robert Pollard (he formerly of Guided By Voices, a band once proclaimed to possess the "ancient Chinese secret to rock music" or something like that by one of the guys from Hurl in an MTV piece about the third or fourth Lollapalooza) and Mac MacCaughan's Portastatic each have new sets in racks.

We are perhaps most excited about something we won't be buying, a new 12" from electronic music phenom Bruno Pronsato. The one-sheet for the 12" says it actually streeted at the end of August, but since it has eluded our attention heretofore; and since Brainwashed pointed it out; and since Pronsato is one of our favorite electronic types we wanted to give it some love, even though we have given up any pretense of being a vinyl-ophile. Apparently they are bonkers for Pronsato in Russia. Anyway, all of our picks for the week's best releases are below. Links go to relevant commercial opportunities with our former Congressional pages over at Insound.

Bruno Pronsato -- Lady Collage 12" -- Orac
Chavez -- Better Days Will Haunt You -- Matador
Four Tet -- Remixes -- Domino
Robert Pollard -- Normal Happiness -- Merge
Portastatic -- Be Still Please -- Merge
Under Byen -- Samme Stof Som Stof -- Paper Bag Records

(+ del.icio.us)

Free Range Music: Gertie Fox's "Modern Love" And More [MP3]

Los Angeles-based quartet Gertie Fox's hype sheet mentions so many big names that said hype can't possibly be accurate, but we were intrigued nonetheless. What we discovered when we streamed the band's recently self-released An Imaginary Meeting In The Woods was vigorous and vaguely lo-fi rock with a very strong sense of melody. We wouldn't characterize Gertie Fox's music as forward-thinking or visionary, just sort of classic '90s indie with some apparent '60s influences that's a little rough around the edges in all the right places. We don't hear anything that makes us think of The Band, The Byrds, Built To Spill or Archers Of Loaf as some would have you believe, but we certainly like what we do hear, which reminds us of indie rockers Okay Paddy (whose The Cactus Has A Point, incidentally, is in our opinion the sleeper hit of 2006).

An Imaginary Meeting In The Woods opens with "Modern Love," a hook-filled winner. We recommend streaming the entire set, which you can access via its promo e-card here, because it is actually loaded with memorable cuts ("Bad Friend," "Keepin' On Track"). For those of you who dig that loving feeling you get from downloading files, we're linking to ab MP3 of "Modern Love" below. Actually, we'll also link to another fine tune, "You're So Married." The song has a mild beginning, but it builds up to a slow burn that is difficult to ignore. Really, the whole record is a very pleasant surprise. An Imaginary Meeting In The Woods, Gertie Fox's third full-length, was released Sept. 26.

Gertie Fox -- "Modern Love" -- An Imaginary Meeting In The Woods
Gertie Fox -- "You're So Married" -- An Imaginary Meeting In The Woods
[right click and save as]

Gertie Fox | InterWeb
Gertie Fox | MySpace

[Buy An Imaginary Meeting In The Woods from the band here]

(+ del.icio.us)

Reader Rewards: Win The Latest Hold Steady, R.E.M. Sets

Happy Columbus Day. Our northeastern liberal education has inculcated a belief in us that the holiday clumsily celebrates the wanton destruction of numerous indigenous cultures, but we're funny like that. And that's not why you called... Thanks to the duplicative efforts of us and various labels' promotional operations to ensure that we got the new The Hold Steady and R.E.M. records, we have extra copies of each one. In the case of R.E.M.'s ...And I Feel Fine, we placed a winning EBay bid on a single disc version of the set mere hours before finding a promo version of the double-disc version and the accompanying DVD in our daily mail. As far as The Hold Steady record goes, Vagrant sends their promos later than most, and we weren't sure one was forthcoming or not. Since our favorite record chain has an storefront near our day job, we headed across the street on the release day for Boys And Girls In America and secured a copy; two days later Vagrant's package arrived.

Anyway, this is a long way of saying we are giving away copies of these records. The first person to send an email with "I was half-dead, then I got born again" in the subject line to our email address linked at right gets a copy of The Hold Steady's record. The first person to send an email with "She's got pretty persuasion" in the subject line to the same address gets the single-disc version of the R.E.M. record. We'll announce lucky winners here so you know not to email if the records are already gone. You can only win one of the discs, so choose the one you want and send the appropriate email.

UPDATE TWO: Both discs are gone! Congrats to Mike of Tourb.us fame and Cathy of reading :: clicky clicky :: fame.

(+ del.icio.us)

Industry Watchdog: Insound, Alien8 Recordings

>> Wow, Insound is going to start selling full album downloads this month. Is that going to be sales of an entire album as a single file? We doubt it -- music fans aren't used to consuming music that way any more, for the most part. So it is likely Insound's Save The Album promotion is just that, a promotion that romantically looks back at the time when we all listened to complete records over and over again. Even so, we think the promotion does a good job of distinguishing their offering. Does AmpCamp sell downloads? We just took our first trip over there and it doesn't look like they do. So we guess EMusic is going to be the primary competition here. A race we'll enjoy watching, although we're devoted to EMusic and are unlikely to budge.

>> Alien8 Recordings has launched its own digital music storefront through which it is selling DRM-free, high bit-rate MP3s of albums and single tracks. You can transact business via Paypal and files are delivered as .Zips. Alien8's roster includes electronic music luminaries Tim Hecker and Shalabi Effect, guitarist Harris Newman and dance-punkers Kiss Me Deadly.

(+ del.icio.us)

Weekend Hotness: Dinosaur Jr., Clap Your Hands Say Yeah!!

>> Billboard reports here today that resuscitated indie giants Dinosaur Jr. are close to finishing the original line-up's first new set in almost two decades. The band expects the as-yet-untitled collection will be released next spring. The Dinosaucerouses have also set a release date for a much anticipated DVD capturing the band during its 2005 live dates. The video, which was directed by Mascis' brother-in-law, will hit retail May 8, 2007. Perhaps the best news of all? Bassist Lou Barlow reports that bandleader J. Mascis had insurance on much or all of the motherlode of gear that was stolen from the band earlier this year. That doesn't replace the gear, which includes some Jazzmasters from the late 1950s. But it certainly makes paying for replacement gear a lot easier. [Photo credit]

>> Is it not cool to like The Clap any more? After PantsFork's exclusive on Clap Your Hands Say Yeah!!'s forthcoming album details, we didn't notice nearly as much piling on and rehashing as Pfork stories typically spawn. So here's a little: The band plans to issue its anticipated sophomore set on its own label Jan. 30. The band made waves with its self-titled debut, and many of those waves were generated by the band's decision to self-release the set domestically and via a singular deal with distributors ADA (if memory serves). The new set was produced by Dave Fridmann, famous for work on records by Mercury Rev, Sleater Kinney and Flaming Lips.

>> While there is a lot of bad news to speak of regarding the devastating health problems plaguing pop-punk legend J. Church's Lance Hahn, there are a couple recent bright spots. Mr. Hahn recently took an IQ test and it turns out he is a genius. Wild, huh? More good news: his heart is apparently back to normal. Finally, there are some fund-raising efforts in the works to help Mr. Hahn defray his stratospheric medical bills. Perhaps most exciting is a tribute CD featuring covers of J. Church numbers by a number of notable bands whose names we can't track down right now.

>> Hey, there is a new Secret Mommy release, titled The Wisdom EP. Warp has the details here. Fans will be familiar with Secret Mommy proprietor Andy Dixon's penchant for making music with sound samples, and won't be surprised that The Wisdom EP relies on field recordings of Mr. Dixon's wisdom teeth being pulled. Dixon plans a new Secret Mommy full-length for early 2007 entitled Plays. We talked about Secret Mommy's prior full length Very Rec at Junkmedia's World of Sound here last year [if that link doesn't work, click here and scroll down to Oct. 25, 2005].

>> You may recall that we gave New York Times scribe Kelefa Sanneh a bit of static for his piece on "American Hardcore" (which we are excited to see next weekend when it arrives in Cambridge), so on balance we'd like to point out that we greatly enjoyed this sentence from his review of The Hold Steady's triumphant Boys And Girls In America: "They toured, getting sucked into their own songs." Read Mr. Sanneh's complete review here.

>> You might not think of "Miami Vice" when you hear New Order's "Confusion," but maybe now you will. [White Noise Revisited]

From The Admin Cubicle: When Company Comes

Salutations. We have hit upon a double whammy this evening of the season premiere of LOST and intensifying preparations for an impending long-weekend visit from parental units. As such, we're going to only be posting sporadically, if sporadically, between now and Monday. That said, we've got a few different things in various stages of drafting, so maybe you'll hear a peep or two between now and then. We apologize for this interruption in your normal :: clicky clicky :: service. -- The Managment.