Today's Hotness: Screaming Maldini, Mutes, Ancient Babes

>> It snowed here in Boston Sunday, a sure sign that the inevitable seasonal change is coming. But from the standpoint of the blog, there has been even more striking change of late among the constellations of indie rock acts the blog champions. In recent months we've seen Clicky Clicky faves Young Adults and Soccer Mom call it a day, and two additional hometown favorites, The Hush Now and Varsity Drag, are going on hiatus and departing for the opposite coast, respectively. The number of bands shutting down or changing venue feels like an almost generational sea change, and we're left wondering who will be our new obsessions? That feeling was compounded last week with the announcement that Sheffield, England-based indie pop savants Screaming Maldini were hanging up their proverbial boots for good. The act -- then just a trio -- first breeched our radar about six years ago with an email from Maldini mastermind Nick Cox, who invited us to have a listen to hyerpop gems including an early version of the tune "The Extraordinary." The song would later help anchor the band's mind-bending 2010 EP And The Kookaburra, which was released by Oxford indie powerhouse Alcopop!, and additional EPs and an impressive self-titled full-length followed. The band announced early this year a monthly series of free songs, one which we hoped would culminate with some sort of album announcement. But, alas, Screaming Maldini had other ideas. In a statement on its Tumblr last week, the now-sextet stated it would play its final show at Queen's Social Club in Sheffield Dec. 5, with Laurel Canyons supporting. There are a few more installments of the monthly song series to roll out yet, including this month's: a cover of fellow Sheffielders Pulp's "Last Day Of The Miners' Strike." The tune was the only new track included on Pulp's 2002 hits collection titled Hits, oddly enough, and it tells the tale of a labor struggle in the UK three decades ago. One that, Wikipedia helpfully points out, didn't end well for our brothers and sisters in the labor movement. Screaming Maldini's is an appropriately solemn and somber rendition, shuffling drums, slowly rolling piano chords and a strong vocal from Gina Walters, whose exhortations to "lay your burden down" are chilling given the context. Stream the tune below via the embed. We're also including a stream of the band's transcendent pop ballad "I Know That You Know That I Would Wipe Away The Snowflake From Your Eye," because, well, it encapsulates the magic, romance and beauty that came to the band with such startling ease. We don't expect we've heard the last from Mr. Cox, Ms. Walters and the rest of the Maldini gang -- they are just too supremely talented to dissolve into shadow once the stage lights are cut. But, for now, tip a 40 for Screaming Maldini, maximalist pop collosus: they fought the good fight, they transported us to a better place with their music.





>> While the recent news surrounding Birmingham, England-based ambient guitar-pop project Mutes was that it has transmogrified into a full-band enterprise (featuring Johnny Foreigner drummer/Fridge Poetry mastermind Junior Elvis Washington Laidley on the cans, no less), the project's latest release -- a beautifully stirring and delicate EP titled No One Is Nowhere -- remains a solo affair. The seven-song collection wraps ethereal electric guitar loops around gritty acoustic guitar playing, and lays over top James Brown's affecting and spectral tenor. The overall effect is impressionist and wistful, and we stand by our initial comparisons to The Feelies and Flying Saucer Attack, although there is certainly more of the latter here on this new collection than the former. Indeed, the longest tune of the set, the enchanting, six-minute-plus song "Horror," completely eschews recognizable acoustic guitar -- as well as trad song structure -- and instead presents a prismatic mirage of processed and looped melodies and feedback. The gauzy (and even shoegazey) new compositions place a lot of the emphasis on the first-rate melodies and deep zones Mr. Brown is able to conjure. We expect this release may be the last relatively understated collection from Mutes, as all signs point to Mutes 2.0 being a more dynamic and muscular affair. No One Is Nowhere is available as a bundle that includes a Lewes Herriot-designed t-shirt and digital download, and also as a simple standalone download, both of which can be order from Mutes' Bandcamp wigwam right here. Mutes' next live date will be a show Nov. 14 with Clicky Clicky faves Burning Alms at The Oobleck in Birmingham, and we expect that will be quite a good time. Stream all of the tremendous No One Is Nowhere via the embed below, and click through to purchase.



>> Vancouver-based chillwave producer Ancient Babes' latest track "Atlantic Avenue/Street" may have a somewhat inscrutable title, but it is otherwise a slam dunk. Nostalgic and icy and beautiful, the song has the emotional immediacy of a vintage John Hughes soundtrack selection, with pulsing synths underpinning cool, measured vocals. While the rhythm and "bass" tracks in the verses are somewhat plodding and monolithic, something about the airy atmosphere and chilled vocals makes the song blow by fast -- its end always comes too soon and as a surprise. Indeed, the greatest surprise is the song's quiet final 15 seconds, during which the synths and electronic beats recede to reveal what sounds like hidden piano and guitar tracks, which twinkle briefly and then wink out like dead stars almost as quickly as they are uncovered. We suppose that aforementioned surprise is ultimately a sign of a great pop song, and we will be interested to hear what Ancient Babes is able to conjure next. Stream "Atlantic Avenue/Street" via the embed below, and click through to download the track. We last wrote about Ancient Babes at the beginning of the year here, when the band had just issued its dark and dreamy Futuristic Demons EP. While we weren't looking, the highlight of that short set -- a tune called "Occult Commando" -- was given the NSFW video treatment early this past summer. Check the video for the cut out right here.

Today's Hotness: Nothing, Seeds Of Doubt, Ancient Babes

>> The Whirr/Nothing/Soccer Mom show we saw last summer was the most extraordinarily loud thing we've ever witnessed, and we've been lots of loud places. We suppose there are different qualities to loudness, but what we'll always remember about this show was that at one point the extreme volume actually made our brain vibrate inside our skull, which was a completely insane feeling. Philly-based shoegaze titans Nothing return to Boston this week at long last, ahead of the release of a hotly anticipated debut full-length titled Guilty Of Everything. The mind-blowing second preview track from the collection, the sinisterly titled "Bent Nail," is a blistering number with remarkable sonic depth. It's interesting to observe here how the band aims to translate the visceral loudness of its music to the controlled parameters of a sound recording. Bands like Dinosaur Jr. and My Bloody Valentine, two acts renowned for their aural assault, at least these days make very clean and contained recordings, ones that respect the limits of the media that hold them. This in contrast to the grinding, paint-peeling sounds of something like, oh, you know, Dinosaur's "Don't" or the so-called "holocaust section" MBV famously inserts into its live performances of the song "You Made Me Realize." On its new track "Bent Nail," Nothing submerges its massive wall of guitars, bet-everything drumming and subdued vocals neck-deep in a consistent and even reverb, the effect of which approximates well how Nothing's sound cocoons fans in a small rock club. It also emphasizes the softer, dreamy quality that lurks just below the danger and noise inherent in Nothing's music, a yin/yang relationship that echoes the tension between the beauty and the turmoil in the band's songwriting. The Jeff Zeigler-produced Guilty Of Everything will be released by Relapse March 4 on LP, CD and as a digital download. Pre-order the set right here, and then hit the embed of "Bent Nail" below to dream away your evening. Nothing, whose previous release was the 2012 EP Downward Years To Come, reunite with Boston's mighty Soccer Mom tomorrow when they anchor an epic bill at Great Scott toplined by dreampop luminaries Weekend.



>> Despite the clean lead guitar lines and upbeat tempos, it is apparently the skateboard and not the surfboard that occupies the hive mind of rising London quartet Seeds Of Doubt. Or at least the band's music has been used to score skate videos published by an international athletic shoe brand; for all we know Seeds Of Doubt hates skating. But we can be sure that what it does like is strong, hooky indie pop, which is what the band delivers on "There You Go," a compact and uptempo strummer with a sing-alongable chorus and neat little guitar leads dug into a watery, lo-fi mix. The tune features on the just-issued DCP EP, a five-song cassette available now from the always-quality Italian Beach Babes label. DCP is the first recording to feature the new four-headed iteration of Seeds Of Doubt; a previously released 12-song cassette was issued by founding member Matt as a solo endeavor. We don't know what the weather is like in London right now, but the light, summery sound of "There You Go" is a potent (if temporary, as all pop must be) antidote to the deep freeze currently gripping Boston and the surrounding environs. Somewhat surprisingly, we didn't write about Italian Beach Babes in all of 2013. That is just as likely an oversight on our part as it is any indication of what the label accomplished last year; they certainly seemed to come on strong in 2012 with splendid releases from Mooncreatures and Cold Pumas. Anyhoo, stream the breezey rocker "There You Go" via the Soundcloud embed below, and hit this link to purchase the tape from IBB. £5 plus shipping gets you the cassette and a download code.



>> When we last checked in on Vancouver-based electronic producer Ancient Babes last summer, it had just posted the '80s-echoing chillwave delight "Malcolm X In The Middle" to Soundcloud. The tune sounded like the lost track to a John Hughes teen dramedy, and in the ensuing months the man behind Ancient Babes, Sam King, continued quietly dropping tracks over at Soundcloud. Last week the best of these were bundled up into Futuristic Demon, a debut EP featuring three previously posted tracks and the compelling new cut "Occult Commando." The new tune closes the four-song taster in grand fashion, big wet snare cracks punching holes in a dreamy cycle of synth tones and small smears of guitar as Mr. King murmurs what could be the sweetest nothings or the dreamiest death threats into the middle of the mix. Sonically and compositionally "Occult Commando" is a strong step forward for Ancient Babes; the only miscalculation might be the tune didn't get the first slot on the EP, which you can stream via the embed below. Click through to download Futuristic Demon in exchange for as much or as little money as you can spare.

Today's Hotness: Black Hearted Brother, The Young Leaves, Ancient Babes

>> It's the sound of getting hit full on in the face by a massive, iridescent ocean wave. It's the kind of unbridled sound that Neil Halstead fans have been waiting to hear again since the 1990s, as his musical path in recent years has taken him to more spare, serene and folk-oriented places. It's the new song from Black Hearted Brother, "(I Don't Mean To) Wonder," a dizzying debut track from an ensemble that features not only former Slowdive and Mojave 3 fronter Halstead, but also former Seefeel member, Locust proprietor and Mojave 3 producer Mark Van Hoen and Nick Holton, who has helmed a project called Holton's Opulent Oog and produced Halstead's 2012 solo collection. The three-piece will release Oct. 22 a long-player via the legendary American indie Slumberland titled Stars Are Our Home, and if the murmured attack of "(I Don't Mean To) Wonder" is any indication, it will be an amazing collection. The song's foundation is a simple cycling guitar riff, drenched in reverb and shuddering under wavering tremelo, a riff that comes and goes and forms something of a chorus around a mumbled lyric that radiates with delay and winds itself up into the titular oath, promised again and again and again. Epic is not an overstatement, and, in fact, may be an understatement. Stream the song via the embed below. Slumberland as yet is not taking pre-orders for the full-length, which contains 12 songs, but there is an email sign-up at this page where fans can get on the list to get the information first. So get with that, once you've gotten your head back together. Black Hearted Brother is planning a U.S. tour.



>> Seeing The Young Leaves' relentlessly engaging and Husker Du-channeling live set in May left us incredibly eager to hear what the band would do next, and finally we've been gifted the hook-heavy title track to the Holliston, Mass.-based indie punk trio's forthcoming third LP Alive And Well. Attentive readers will recall the song "Alive And Well" is a fist-banging anthem that was released as a single in 2012, backed with the banger "The Love Song;" the b-side isn't in the track listing for the forthcoming LP, so you're going to want to track that single down, if you haven't already. Also, while we're on the subject, it's not clear to us whether or not the single version of "Alive And Well" from Bandcamp is a different recording than the LP version you can hear via the Soundcloud embed below, but they both rock serious face so you should spend the next several hours A/B-ing them and slam-dancing in your kitchen while your roommates are trying to sleep, because fuck those roommates, right, they need to loosen up and have some fun. Another fuzzed-up rocker from the full-length is available to stream via the YouTube; check out "Drowning Pool" right here. Alive And Well will be released by Baldy Longhair Records Oct. 1 on 12" vinyl and cassette and as a digital download. The vinyl LPs will be offered on media colored "sea blue with beer haze, swamp green with sea blue and bone splatter, swamp green with purple and bone splatter and black," according to an email. The cassette release will also include a six-song demo EP titled Pond, Puppy, Bench Boy Demos. The Young Leaves formed in 2006; in addition to a few singles the trio has also released the full-lengths Big Old Me (2007) and Life Underneath (2010). The Young Leaves open a sick bill Friday night at O'Brien's in Boston that also features I Hate Our Freedom, an act featuring former members of Texas Is The Reason and Thursday, so if you somehow recover from tomorrow night's Whirr / Nothing / Soccer Mom show, that's where you need to be. In the meantime, stream "Alive And Well" until someone in your house throws a punch.



>> Depending on where you are, or where you've been, for a while there it felt like summer had stalled out. But after some less than desirable weather phenomena -- at least proximal to Clicky Clicky's West Coast compound -- summer has reestablished itself, and, yes, we've got a song for that. Try on for size the awesomely titled and echo-laden slow jam "Malcolm X In The Middle" from Vancouver, Canada's Ancient Babes. The brief but cinematic tune establishes a cool, thoughtful electro foothold within a soft dream pop atmosphere. Amid the enveloping reverb on the snare hits and vocals, and tastefully simple guitar lines, reside elements of shoegaze, as well. Chillwave? Maybe. But the arpeggiated synth work and downcast groove evoke a worldly strain of au courant digital popsters -- think French artistes such as M83 (circa Dead Cities, Red Seas & Lost Ghosts) and College. Stepping back from the analysis, we also like that that band doesn't take things too seriously. Aside from the title of this song, there's also the following question at the band's Facebook outpost: "What were the babes like in ancient times?" Damn good question, damn good... The gentle, transporting march of "Malcolm X In The Middle" is well-suited for the delightfully lazy days we're all chasing, if not experiencing; stream or download the song via the embed below. Lastly, while it doesn't reveal much about the band personnel beyond the name Samuel, Ancient Babes' Facebook page does offer a very amusing list of band interests there that we think is worth a glance. -- Edward Charlton