Today's Hotness: The Fuzz, Gold Muse, Lubec

>> While media reports decry the slow-down of the Chinese economy, the vast nation's production of top-tier indie rock seems to continue unabated. Or at least that's the impression we get based on the output of de facto flagship label Maybe Mars, which has a dynamite 2016 planned. Among the label's first releases of the year is the long-player The Root Of Innocence from indie rock quartet The Fuzz (a/k/a Chinese Fuzz or Fazi). The 11-track set was released Tuesday, and the lead preview track was the dreamy, synth-led treat "0909 II." The song's icy keys and sparkling guitars communicate a love of '80s UK darkwave, perhaps even an affinity for A Flock Of Seagulls. We admittedly know little else about The Fuzz, but comparing two versions of the band's "Control" -- one from a 2014 compilation and the other from the new record -- gives some indication of the band's artistic development. The compilation version (from Maybe Mars' collection The XP Sound Vol. 1) is a big, guitar-driven rocker. But this version that opens The Root Of Innocence is more atmospheric, reverberant and mysterious. The English language Internet tells us The Fuzz hails from Xi'an, capital of the northwestern Chinese province of Shaanxi (thanks Wikipedia!). The Fuzz will tour China in March and April to support the release of The Root Of Innocence, according to Maybe Mars, and the tour aims to visit about 40 cities. The band also intends to record its next record during the tour. If you happen to have the good fortune to be in China this spring, keep an eye out for the band. For the rest of us, streaming The Root Of Innocence will have to tide us over for the time being.

>> Relatively new 'gaze-pop four Gold Muse this week released a second digital single, which is not only notable for its great songs, but also because it shows a promising level of productivity for the Boston supergroup. Considering the easy pace at which certain of Gold Muse's members' other bands have released music, fans have reason to be pleased. As we've reported elsewhere, Gold Muse formed only last year, and is comprised of current or former members of Swirlies, Soccer Mom and Earthquake Party!; it took Soccer Mom about five years to release its only LP, and in about the same amount of time the still-quite-active Earthquake Party! has released but six songs. Gold Muse's rate of output appears Pollardian by comparison! The act's terrific "Kiss The Sun" b/w "Your Floral Crown" digital 1-2 presents a decidedly moodier side of the band, in contrast to its terrific first single. Deb Warfield's vocals and the exercised bass in the verses of "Kiss The Sun" deliciously echo classic Unrest, although the frantic jangle and explosive distortion of Dan Parlin's guitar propel the song somewhere altogether more dynamic. Darker still is the Parlin-sung "Your Floral Crown," which is led by an ominous, ascending synth melody buoyed by parallel bass work from Will Scales. Reverbed guitar sparkles faintly in the mix of the chorus, while a characteristically desperate vocal from Parlin is foregrounded, and the song soars to a dramatic conclusion across the back of some droning guitars and Justin Lally's bashing of the drum kit. It's a very strong single, and Gold Muse thankfully already has plans for a third, which it will begin work on this very weekend at Norwood, Mass.'s storied Hanging Horse studio. Which is not the only thing in Gold Muse's date book for the next 48 hours: indeed, Sunday the band plays night #4 of Magic Magic's current residency at Boston's Great Scott rock club (also on the bill are Boston treasures Hallelujah The Hills and Twin Foxes). Coincidentally, at Hanging Horse Gold Muse will work with hitmaker/engineer Bradford Krieger, who is presently playing in Magic Magic (in addition to his own project). It's all very serendipitous. Get that feeling by streaming "Kiss The Sun" b/w "Your Floral Crown" via the embed below, and click through to purchase the tunes.



>> It's been a while since we've heard from dream-pop heroes Lubec, but the brilliant Portland, Ore.-based trio return at long last next week with an EP it has been teasing since last summer. Dubbed Concentration and featuring pop hits "Late Bloomer" and "Many Worlds" ahead of the title track, the initial plan was for a vinyl and cassette release (as we wrote here in July), but plans on the former fell through. The music, of course, was very much worth the wait: the three songs on Concentration continue Lubec's winning ways, all sparkling guitars and massive melodies and the dueling vocals of guitarist Eddie Charlton and keyboardist Caroline Jackson. "Late Bloomer" in particular feels like a milestone for the band, with Ms. Jackson's vocals in particular literally and figuratively echoing the classic Slumberland sound, and Mr. Charlton's splashes of guitar and expansive, reverbed picking leading the songs through effervescent verses and arresting choruses to a deliciously jammy final minute marked by deftly arranged dynamics where big strums and explosive drums from kit-minder Matt Dressen trade off. Touchy Feely releases Concentration in a limited edition of 100 cassettes on Feb. 5. Lubec plays a release show for the cassette that very evening at Portland hot-spot The Know with support from Post Moves and Seattle's Versing, and full deets for that show are right here. Lubec plans a return to the studio in March to begin recording an LP with producer Dylan Wall that will be the follow-up to the band's titanic album The Thrall [review], which was among our favorite albums of 2014. We're hopeful Lubec will get out for another east coast jaunt this summer; keep hope alive by streaming the terrific "Late Bloomer" and "Many Worlds" via the embed below, and click here to grab your copy of the tape before copies are gone.

That Was The Show That Was: Infinity Girl, Lubec, Guillermo Sexo, Havania Whaal | Great Scott | 9 July

We're going to remember this one for a long time. Not only was this big, big, big rock show Thursday night our first-ever IRL meeting with a very old and good friend, it was also our first time seeing Clicky Clicky fave Lubec and now-Clicky Clicky fave Havania Whaal. Our good friends in Guillermo Sexo were reliably spectacular, and shoegaze heroes Infinity Girl were just heroic. Great show, five stars, would recommend seeing again.

But of course there's more to it than that. Openers and Oregonites Havania Whaal was probably the least-known quantity for most folks in Boston -- locale of the first night of HW's tour with BandFF's Lubec -- and a number of folks sidled up to us to remark at how the trio impressed. The band opted for more uptempo and immediate material for its live set, which somewhat played down the band's characteristic darkwave flavor, but revealed in aural glimpses some of the band's more classic influences in Versus and Unrest. Official Show Saviors Guillermo Sexo backlined the entire night with their gear, but perhaps bigger contribution was its amazing set, which was richly textured and firmly dreamy. The band's stock in trade is atmospheric and moody psych-rock, which we've written about here in these electronic pages for years, but even after a decade Guillero Sexo is finding new tricks up their collective and proverbial sleeve. Its set was heavily tilted toward brand-new material, and the second song out of the gate was a stunner, uplifting and transcendant in a way we have not yet heard the band do it. We are eager to hear what comes next; a video for the new-ish tune "Graffiti Skies" is about to be unleashed, so keep your eyes open for that.

Lubec was simply tremendous, a constantly crescendoing miracle of dream-pop, its three players and their playing both perfectly aligned and balanced. The Portland three has played with a second guitarist previously, and we were wondering if we'd miss that element in the mix, but fronter Eddie Charlton's guitar work, keyboardist Caroline Jackson's work holding down the low and and spangling the upper register, and Matt Dressen's sturdy drumming complement each other in a remarkably graceful way. Lubec played the three songs from its hotly anticipated "Concentration" single (which will be out on vinyl and cassette via Like Young and Touchy Feely, respectively) as well as hits from its 2014 masterpiece The Thrall [review]. Finally, Infinity Girl delivered a powerful reminder of just what got these guys signed to Topshelf Records earlier this year. Its dynamic set included classics including "Please Forget" as well as its latest single, but we were particularly thrilled to hear them play what will surely be a monster hit, the uptempo and blurry instant classic "Dirty Sun." Trust us: the song is massive, like Top 10 all-time-favorite-songs massive. Infinity Girl will be back in Boston in early September playing a release show with totes sick support for its tremendous sophomore set Harm, which will be issued by Topshelf Aug. 17 [details].

Lubec and Havania Whaal's tour jogged to the left for a show in Worcester, Mass. Friday and blazed through Brooklyn just this afternoon, and from here on out they are heading due south toward Jacksonville, playing dates en route with Clicky Clicky faves Golden Gurls and Swings. The remaining tour dates are posted at the bottom of this item. We suppose this is as good a place as any to note that Golden Gurls seem to be brushing off the cobwebs and becoming more active again. The Baltimore trio loosed to the wilds of the Internerds late last month a short stack of demos called, unsurprisingly, New Old Demos [link], and we have it on good authority the band has new material in the works, so keep an ear on Baltimore. Well, not all of Baltimore, pretty much just them and a few others, yeh?

Big thanks go to Carl, Jesse and Dan at Great Scott, as without their support there'd have been no show and that would have been super-sad. Now is probably an opportune time to mention that this Clicky Clicky Presents thing is sort of happening, and will continue to happen, and we're planning a bunch of first-rate rock events straight through into the new year, which year will include a certain blog's 10th anniversary, based on the most reliable metric of measuring such things. Anyway, keep your gaze trained on this page, our Facebook dojo and Twitter outpost. You'll be glad you did. Now why don't you go grab another beer and stream the songs below?

Infinity Girl: Bandcamp | Facebook
Lubec: Bandcamp | Facebook
Guillermo Sexo: Bandcamp | Facebook
Havania Whaal: Facebook | Internerds









Lubec / Havania Whaal Tour Dates:
07.12 -- Philadelphia PA -- Bourbon & Branch
07.13 -- Baltimore MD -- Reverb
07.14 -- Washington, DC -- The Pinch
07.15 -- Norfolk, VA -- The Taphouse
07.16 -- Raleigh, NC -- Prisma Video
07.17 -- Asheville, NC -- Mothlight
07.18 -- Athens GA -- Flicker Bar
07.19 -- Jacksonville FL -- Burro Bar w/ Round Eye

Review: Fire Island Pines | True Grit

We all have some idea of what it means to be subversive. And in an era when indie rock's prevailing influences are loud, gritty, angular and so-called "'90s acts" like Pavement and Dinosaur Jr. and Nirvana (all of which, we should point out, first released music in the '80s), is it not just a touch subversive to embrace the New Romantic-descended pop propounded in the quieter, more refined corners of the '90s? We're talking about the first few The Sea And Cake records (not to mention the subsequent transcendent solo sets from principals Sam Prekop and Archer Prewitt) or the work of Unrest, Eggs or even mid-period Haywood. We can't say whether Cornwall, England sextet Fire Island Pines has ever heard any of these latter American acts, and it is probably overstating things to say the band is bent on subverting the dominant paradigm, but the British six-piece's keen and anachronistic devotion to genteel indie pop on its sparkling debut True Grit makes the record as refreshing as its hooks are potent and breezy. The set is a very confident and competent collection from a five-year-old act ready for a substantially higher profile.

True Grit opens strongly with new, shinier versions of "You Didn't Mean To Hurt Me" and "Nineteen Fifteen," the lead tracks on 2011's Bratislava EP and last year's "1915" digital single, respectively. "You Didn't Mean To Hurt Me" unfurls over a self-assured beat and slightly funky bass playing, and bursts into bloom during the chorus as layered synth chords and horns stretch toward a distant horizon. "Nineteen Fifteen" positively soars, which belies somewhat fronter Anton Rothschild's wonderfully unsure equivocation "it's up to you, if you wanna stick around." Indeed, there is a delicious unease creeping within Fire Island Pines' ostensibly easy-going pop, a dimension that comes to the fore in the brilliantly realized album highlight "Bo Dep," which materializes from and decomposes into cinematic ambience, and alternates verses of palm-muted guitar and quavering vocals with bold, tastefully reverbed choruses appointed by majestic piano and horn. True Grit is back-weighted with ballads, but spreads its wings one final time with the thrilling closer "Sister Ruth." The tune teases with an intermittent, piano-anchored introduction, but accelerates quickly with layered guitars and vocals echoing one another over a bounding beat.

True Grit will be released Friday as a vinyl 12", CD, cassette and as a digital download. The vinyl 12" is being issued in a limited edition of 300 pieces by German label Firestation Records, who have pressed the collection to black vinyl. Firestation is also doing the honors for the CD version, which comes packaged with a four-page fold-out booklet. The band is handling the cassette release itself, and has a hyper-limited amount of same in an attractive package containing mint green media. All formats can be ordered via the Fire Island Pines Bandcamp page right here, and all of True Grit is streaming via the Soundcloud embed below. That the lads from Cornwall are putting out a record via a German label seems somewhat unusual, we suppose, but not when considered in context: the aforementioned "1915" single was issued by Minnesota's Manic Pop! label, and the digital download of the Bratislava EP was issued via the San Francisco-based collective Vulpiano (which also issued Mr. Rothschild's 2010 solo EP The Year Of The Kitten). That its label partners are relatively widely scattered underscores Fire Island Pines' broad appeal, and hopefully portends big things for the understated sextet.

Fire Island Pines: Bandcamp | Facebook | Internerds | Soundcloud



Related Coverage:
YouTube Rodeo: Fire Island Pines' Transformative "1915"
Today's Hotness: Fire Island Pines
Today's Hotness: Fire Island Pines

Review: Bent Shapes | Feels Weird

With this long-awaited debut full-length -- and the years of work it represents -- Boston trio Bent Shapes can lay claim to a place among the nation's preeminent indie pop bands. Although we're hard-pressed to think of a contemporary act whose work is as smart, economical and fizzing with energy, and the effort instead leads us back to the early Feelies catalog or Unrest's Imperial f.f.r.r. for meaningful analogues. Since its early days when it used the name Girlfriends, Bent Shapes has shown it can consistently construct bracing pop nuggets, and this facility has carried over from its singles and cassette releases to Feels Weird (a title, fans may recall, that almost became the band's name). Indeed, the long-player -- out Tuesday on Father/Daughter Records -- touts for its full, ephemeral 27-minute duration the potency and immediacy of a brilliant single. This is little surprise, as the majority of Feels Weird has been issued as a single or b-side or in some prior form. But no matter the reason, the collection is one of the most listenable of the year, a sort of pre-emptive Compact Snap! for one of the city's most promising combos.

​​​For as refreshingly minimalist and pointed as the album is, Bent Shapes exhibit a noteworthy range in terms of timbre and songcraft (particularly for a trio leveraging the traditional guitar/bass/drums configuration). The result is panoply of sounds emphasized by rotating lead vocal duties and variations in tension and intensity. There's the breezy pop of "Check My Vitals," the venomous scene crit of the album highlight "Brat Poison" (previously issued as the b-side to the flexi-single released right after the threesome changed its change), ​the uptempo, hip-shaking jangle of "Big Machines" and "Boys To Men," and the staccato power-pop karate chops of opener "Behead Yourself, Pt. 2." ​Evidence of the band's evolution over time can be found in the thoughtful production choices throughout the record. The nostalgic air of "Hex Maneuvers" is limned by the spectral reverb on the guitars​ in the verse, the fury of "Brat Poison" is made more potent with the application of distortion to the vocals and a storming, scalene rhythm conjured by drummer Andy Sadoway and bassist Supriya Gunda.​

Mr. Potrykus stands out as a particularly clever lyricist even in a wicked smaaaahhht town like Boston; he has an uncanny way with meter and melody that colors observations such as his assurance in the brilliantly arranged "Bites And Scratches" -- which, along with "I Was Here But I Disappear," is a new version of song first released in 2009 on a self-titled Girlfriends cassette -- that "the past, you can trust, will mess you up, but hang on to love, it'll be enough to save you somehow." Of, course, his view is not always as optimistic and congenial; indeed, our favorite moments of the record are Potrykus's biting remonstrations in the aforementioned "Brat Poison."

Father/Daughter releases Feels Weird Tuesday; the set is available as an LP (pressed to traditional sad black or bone and electric blue-colored media), CD or download, and pre-orders are being taken right here. Vinyl orders are packaged with a download code and an 11 x 17 poster. The band fetes the album tomorrow night at Great Scott in Boston with a release show that includes sets from Western Mass.-based indie rockers Potty Mouth and the telepathic fear and loathing of next-level bugcore trio Krill. We speculate this show will sell out, so you'd be wise to take the appropriate measures to ensure your intentions at entertainment are met. There are a number of tracks from Feels Weird available to stream, and we've collected embeds of most of them and posted them below. Finally, in case you missed it, we spoke to all three of the members of Bent Shapes in May to learn a little bit more about where they make the indie pop magic; read that feature right here.

Bent Shapes: Facebook | Tumblr | Soundcloud

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Review: Cinemasophia | Fits & Cycles [MP3]

2009, here is your headphones-required record. After what seems like years of preparation, Richmond, VA-based dreampop quintet Cinemasophia returns next month with its third long-player. Fits & Cycles, as its name somewhat suggests, is a feverish collection of mid-tempo rockers appointed with dizzying compositional and production flourishes. To steal a line from Radiohead, Fits & Cycles talks in math, buzzes like a fridge, and is -- on occasion -- like a detuned radio. It is the most sonically sculpted set we've heard this year, and repeated listens reveal greater and greater dimension in the production and recording.

Forthright opener "Detailed Night" cycles through -- we think -- 3/8, 3/4 and 5/4 time while lazery synths dart across the mix, a mix that occasionally makes room for xylophone and big reverbs. A surprising amount of this record is not in traditional rock 4/4, although the proceedings are more fluid than angular despite syncopation that is mortared in like bricks at seemingly every turn. The biggest number on the set is "Failed Drum Circle," a track with traded -- and Unrest-esque -- girl/guy vocals that meanders and percolates for just over two minutes before blossoming into a dense, lush, melodic crescendo that will give you chills. The section only lasts about 30 seconds, but it is perhaps the biggest 30 seconds of the records. A close second is the syncopated rocker "Neutral Burst," which is decidedly non-linear but houses in its midst a throbbing, distorted bridge that underpins an ethereal female vocal section. The tune reminds us very much of the stuff on the bootleg Lilys demos collection Early Demos. The delightful, heavily tremeloed "Pet Enemies" mashes spectral funk and pop meanderings.

Fits & Cycles -- leaks of which we started encountering all around the Internet last week without even looking -- was recorded by Richmond engineering mainstay John Morand at Sound Of Music and mastered by Alan Douches at West West Side. Cinemasophia has been soliciting remixes from various corners to be packaged with the digital release of Fits & Cycles, most notably from Lilys mastermind Kurt Heasley, who is apparently currently calling Central Virginia home. Little Black Cloud releases Fits & Cycles April 7 digitally and on CD; according to the label the vinyl release is still a few months off. As we noted in our first post about Cinemasophia here, the band also plans to record tracks for a new single and EP later this year, making 2009 perhaps the band's most productive year of its five-year history.

Cinemasophia -- "Failed Drum Circle" -- Fits & Cycles
[right click and save as]
[pre-order from Little Black Cloud here]

03/26 -- Johnny Brenda’s -- Philadephia, PA
03/27 -- The Czar -- Richmond, VA
03/28 -- The Laundromat -- Charlottesville, VA
04/03 -- Album Release Party @ Sound of Music -- Richmond, VA
04/04 -- MACRoCK -- Harrisonburg, VA
04/28 -- Cameo -- Brooklyn, New York

Cinemosophia: Internerds | MySpace | YouTube | Flickr

Today's Hotness: The Diggs, Zillionaire, Julie Ocean

>> It is to be expected that former Mineral-fronter Chris Simpson would continue to evolve musically, and his recent, folksier indie rock act Zookeeper has its share of great moments. But for those of us who can't loosen our grips on the desperate second-wave emo sounds that Mineral proffered can take solace in the fact that similar new music is being ably churned out by Brooklyn-based indie trio The Diggs. Diggs guitarist and vocalist Timothy Lannen sings in a Simpson-esque (Enigk-esque, as well, now that we think about it) tenor over albeit denser tunes that crest and slope in majestic waves of delay pedal and snare drum. The Diggs' MySpace tent perhaps sums it up best at the "Sounds Like" bullet, where the band has inserted "Frustration and Hope." The five-year-old trio's sophomore full length ctrl-alt-del will be issued by the partly Diggs-run Sugarspun March 11.

The Diggs -- "Recovery Forever" -- ctrl-alt-del
The Diggs -- "Careen" -- ctrl-alt-del
[right click and save as]
[full-album stream -- recommended]
[pre-order ctrl-alt-del from Amazon here]

Mineral -- "Gloria" -- The Power Of Failing
[right click and save as]
[buy Mineral records from MusicStack here]

>> The New Granada label obviously has our number, as it pitched an act to us by characterizing it as an amalgamation of '90s indie rock standouts Versus, Codeine and Seam (also Low, but we're not big Low fans -- we might have substituted Unrest if we were making the pitch ourselves). Such characterization is the sort of thing that makes us sit up and take notice, although as always we steel ourselves against possible disappointment if the billing doesn't live up to the hype. Fortunately indie rock quartet Zillionaire have the songs and the chops, and we've been thoroughly enjoying its set The Street Lights Have Been Turned Down. Zillionaire hails from Tampa, Florida, and we must admit being a little surprised, as our conception of Florida indie rock is pretty much Gainesville screamo and, well, that's it. Although we think indie pop luminaries Human Television called Florida home for a time, so perhaps we knew there was more going on. The Street Lights Have Been Turned Down was released Jan. 1. Or it was released Nov. 17. The Internet is fraught with contradictions, no? No matter. The point is you can get the record now, and if you live in Florida you should have some chances to catch the band touring this spring. Zillionaire's mid-tempo swayer "The Gardener" in particular carries the scent of Versus, and we are posting it and two additional tracks below.

Zillionaire -- "The Gardener" -- The Street Lights Have Been Turned Down
Zillionaire -- "The Occasion Of The Water Heater" -- The Street Lights Have Been Turned Down
Zillionaire -- "No Contest" -- The Street Lights Have Been Turned Down
[right click and save as]
[buy The Street Lights Have Been Turned Down here]

>> Let's just go for the '90s trifecta today, shall we? What do you get when you combine former members of retro hardcore giants Swiz, dream poppers Velocity Girl and twee standard-bearers Glo-Worm? This is a pretty easy question: you get a new band called Julie Ocean, who first blipped on the radar last May here and here. The D.C.-based quartet will release its debut Long Gone And Nearly There on Transit Of Venus (Trolleyvox, The Shimmers) this spring. We couldn't find a hard release date anywhere online, so just go to the record store every Tuesday between now and mid-June and look for it, mmmmk? Julie Ocean (which would make for a clever billing with The Jane Anchor, no?) has posted two tracks at its MySpace yert that sound not too dissimilar from Simpatico!-era Velocity Girl's overcharged take on '60s-inflected bubblegum rock. Harness streams of "Ten Lonely Words" and "My Revenge" here.

Today's Hotness: Assembly Now, Maybe It's Reno, Vice Kills Jamaica

>> A friendly chap repping London indie quartet Assembly Now got in touch to say the lads had recently recorded four songs for an XFM radio session. The band is offering two of the tracks for download, including a smoking, goes-to-11 version of the single "It's Magnetic" and a more mid-tempo track "Cool To Be Kind." We were kind of hoping that latter track was mislabeled and was actually a cover of the classic Nick Lowe cut "Cruel To Be Kind" [YouTube; YouTube]. Alas, no, although the rep said he thought that might have been Assembly Now's original title for the track. Anyway, definitely check it out. And make certain to download the XFM version of "It's Magnetic." The breakneck pace of the single is there, but the live production is a bit red-lined, so that the verse practically explodes right out of the gate, driven by bass and kick drum. The lead guitar line threatens to go off the rails at one point, and singer Gavin transposes words in our favorite lyric, but that just makes this live version that much more crucial. Check the MP3s out below. Assembly Now releases its third single, "Graphs Maps & Trees," Aug. 6 on Kids. In March the band participated in our Show Us Yours feature, which you can read right here. Ass Now is gigging all through the summer in the UK; you can peruse all their live dates here.

Assembly Now -- "It's Magnetic (Live)" -- XFM Radio Session
Assembly Now -- "Cool To Be Kind (Live)" -- XFM Radio Session
[right click and save as]

>> Teenbeat Records reports an Unrest reunion of sorts in the form of the forthcoming debut from Maybe It's Reno. The prime mover in the band is former Unrest / Air Miami bassist Bridget Cross, who was also in a very early incarnation of Velocity Girl. Ms. Cross is abetted by her former Unrest bandmates on the recordings, with Phil Krauth contributing drums and Teenbeat honcho and transplanted Cantabrigian Mark Robinson playing guitar and doing other things on most of the tracks. No hard release date yet, but the set is expected to be issued this fall.

>> Those of you who took our advice from over the weekend and checked out VBS.tv's very watchable series on dancehall in Jamaica: we heard from a fellow at Vice who wanted to make sure we knew about a 48-minute megamix of tunes that includes tracks from many of the artists featured in the series. We've listened to about half of it so far, and if you have any interest in dancehall (we love some of the wilder production, but know very little about dancehall in general) you should download this mix and throw it in your IPod or onto a CD-R. All manner of big beats and blunted toasting, dub plate touting and just general party vibes. Some of the stuff is pretty explicit, so it may not be the sort of thing you'll want to rock while driving your kids to gymnastics, or whatever kids do these days. Here's the (gigantic) MP3, with the track list below the link -- we're not sure what the file title is about, but this is what it says when it drops into your ITunes.

Restation Is A Must! -- "Vice Kills Ja!" -- Michael Raphael's Album
[deleted]

Mavado -- "Even If Dem Kill Me"
Einstein -- "Rise Di Machines"
Mavado -- "Amazing Grace"
Asassin and Mr. Easy -- "Big Man Ting"
Timberlee and Ward 21 -- "Bubble Like Soup"
Chico -- "Let's Get It On"
Vybz Kartel -- "Beat'n Beat'n"
Mr. Vegas -- "Nuh Fight Over Man"
Elephant Man -- "Bring It Come"
Leftside and Esco -- "The Tribute"
Sizzla -- "Pum Pum Hard"
Sizzla -- "Nuh Apology"
Sizzla -- "Fix Dem Business"
Sizzla -- "Ain't Gonna See Us Fall"
Pressure -- "Love and Affection"
Spice -- "Tight Pussy Gyal"
Mega Banton -- "Grindin"
Leftside and Esco -- "Tuck In Yuh Belly"
Voicemail -- "Informer"
Mr. Vegas -- "Nuh Frien From Dem"
Mavado -- "Shotta Nuh Miss"
Mavado -- "Dying"
Mavado -- "Me And My Dogs"
Jr. Gong -- "Something For You"
Akon -- "Don't Matter"
Busy Signal -- "Shoot Nuh Miss"
Vybz Kartel -- "Cyan Cook"
Bounty Killer -- "Try Fi Stop Killa"

>> Philly-based indie rock sensations The A-Sides just announced a slate of tour dates leading up to the release of their sophomore record and Vagrant Records debut. We're posting the dates below. Vagrant will release The A-Sides' Silver Storms Aug. 28, which we hope means that promos should be sent out sometime soon. We've been waiting a long time to hear this one. We might have posted some of these dates already, but what are you gonna do? We've never seen these guys live before, so we're obviously pretty excited about that Boston date.

06.20 -- Darkhorse Tavern -- State College, PA
06.21 -- The Nite Owl -- Dayton, OH
06.22 -- Schubas -- Chicago, IL
06.23 -- Continental Switchyard Festival -- Chicago, IL
07.20 -- XPN/YROCK Festival -- Camden, NJ
08.07 -- Black Cat -- Washington, DC
08.08 -- Middle East -- Cambridge, MA
08.30 -- Record Release at Johnny Brenda's -- Philadelphia, PA
09.02 -- Test Pattern -- Scranton, PA

>> We were pleased to learn that one of our favorite up-and-coming acts has a new label deal in place. It is still unannounced and the information was off the record. But we wanted to write this so that when Pitchfork gets the exclusive in a couple months, we can link back to this item and say, "yeah, we knew that." The interesting thing about the deal, and we don't think this is giving anything away, is that the band had initially been scouted by this label five years ago. So there you go, several worthless sentences about how we know stuff.