January 22, 2007

Free Range Music: Deerhoof, The Shins, TGTBTQ

The Shins -- Wincing The Night AwayWe're here to tell you a few things. One: tomorrow is the first meaningful new release day of 2007. Two: It is a huge one, with major releases from a number of indie music luminaries. Three: Spinner is totally owning our night, because it is streaming tomorrow's big releases right now.

We're so jazzed by the new Shins record we may have to pull the rare move of stepping out at lunch tomorrow to score it -- and we're not even through the first track, "Sleeping Lessons." At first blush Wincing The Night Away sounds like a big step forward, production-wise, particularly because we found the distant rustlings of 2001's Oh, Inverted World frustrating at times. But with Wincing the guitars are big, the drums are big, the melodies are lush. There's something about the proceedings that has the same overall shiny, we're happy/we're miserable vibe as The Cure's extremely awesome (yes, there are degrees of awesomeness) The Head On The Door. There are even some close analogs: "Sea Legs" echoes elements of Fat Bob and Co.'s "Six Different Ways," for example.

But anyway, we're posting the links to the best Spinner album streams below, so put a pot of tea on and get ready to settle down to hear some great stuff. As a sidenote: we're a bit rusty with our weekly new release features, as the release dates between November and now have pretty much been bereft of interesting rock and/or roll music. But now that the music industry has geared back up, expect to see these album streams and our Rack And Opinion feature regularly. We began drafting this week's Rack And Opinion last night and hope to post it before logging off this evening. Anyway, the streams:

Animal Collective -- People -- Fat Cat
The Broken West -- I Can't Go On, I'll Go On -- Merge
Clinic -- Visitations -- Domino
Deerhoof -- Friend Opportunity -- Kill Rock Stars
The Good, The Bad And The Queen -- The Good, The Bad And The Queen -- Virgin
The Shins -- Wincing The Night Away -- Sub Pop

No comments: