Man, auxiliary percussion is the best. All "More Cowbell" T-shirts aside, doesn't a righteous tambourine or enthusiastic handclaps just make your pop music day? Friendly Foes know all about that shit, and they know how to make your pop music day. With Ryan Allen from Thunderbirds Are Now! working main vocals and "yeah yeah yeah" backing vocal fist pumps form Liz Whittman, this is a band that loves choruses and tambos and propulsion and Elvis Costello and Superchunk. Speaking of which - there was a Superchunk T-shirt in the day that had an Scooby-Doo style van with the arm of a dude throwing horns out the window. Simple, to the point and full of power - kind of like Friendly Foes' first full length Born Radical on Gangplank. These guys get "it," so if you want "it," grab "Get Yr Shit Together."
Sounds Like: Guided By Voices, Spoon, Superchunk, Thunderbirds Are Now!
Leave it to the weirdo mecca of San Francisco to produce a smart psych rock band in Maus Haus that practices the biggest rock perversion of them all - complete lack of guitars. Hailing from the Bay Area, Maus Haus combine a paranoid insomniac vibe with playful pop lines and cleverly cinematic lyrics that make them out to be the bastard child of Kraftwerk hanging with Captain Beefheart that would obviously have a video starring Simon Le Bon and the boys. That is an admittedly nutso sentence, but it's hard to pinpoint exactly what Maus Haus is - other than totally rad. RCRD LBL offers up "Reactions" and "Rigid Breakfast" - 2 cuts from their new album Lark Marvels.
Sounds Like: Silver Apples, White Noise, Black Moth Super Rainbow, Dexy's Midnight Runners
Icy Canadian spacerockers Faunt throw their hat in the remixed and re-interpreted album ring with Faunts Remixed, out today. The sparse, clever, cinematic dream-scapes of Faunt's original tunes go through a wide array of treatments, from the indie-tinged to dancefloor bangers and abstract electro acoustic dreamy numbers to expansive and clever re-inventions. Grab T.H. White's remix of "Memories of Places We've Never Been" and, exclusively at RCRD LBL, The Paronomasiac (Nik from Shout Out Out Out Out)'s remix of "M4 (Part II)." Faunt Remixed is a record that can live just as comfortably in your headphones as it does as the "hey! what is this?!" soundtrack to a party.
Welcome to the final installment from Sneakmove Minicomp. For the lowdown on what's come before and all the info on the project, listen to the 60 second wonders from Volume 1 and Volume 2. In Volume 3, we've got a whole new batch of brilliant brevity curated with care by none other than Bomarr of Restiform Bodies. Listen to delicate static from Shayne Keator, indie Rhodes piano crooning from Back Ted N-Ted, thick electronic manipulation from Principles of Geometry, seductive rainbow cooing from Coppe, Brit-tinged kooky acoustic folk from Tunng, chugging big-band deception from Otis Fodder, video-game blippery from Copy, dirty spunky electro from Lord Grunge and Superargo rounding out the comp with bleeps, wheerps, heys! and breakneck pinball turn-arounds. Grab all 3 comps for a solid 30 minutes of 29 schizo tunes, proudly presented by Sneakmove and RCRD LBL.
I suppose it's real easy to write off 5 Swedish girls just out of high school making sugary sweet pop music, but if you did you'd be missing out on some of the kitchiest fun this side of the Pixies Three. The combination of Northern Soul, girl group innocence with the powerful vocals of those soulful white girls out of the UK come together in a three and a half minute burst of tears tinged hopeful pop perfection on "Hitten," - translation "the hit" in Swedish. Sugar never sounded so good.
Anavan might just as well have titled Cover Story, out today on Slanty Shanty, There's a Party in my Pants - Not Everyone's Invited but Everyone's Definitely Coming. Featuring slippery synths, blush inducing bass lines, sinister build ups and explosive climaxes, Anavan have crafted an essentially LA party record. "Queen" sounds like Jay Reatard fronting Justice, "The Perfect Sound" makes your brain feel like snorting pixie sticks in the 8th grade, "Take It Back" is the soundtrack to a dirty aerobic video from 2011 and "Off To A Fighting Start," is gives Sweet a run for it's synth grandeur, but is cool and less homoerotic and more everyonerotic. Coming from the fertile ground of LA's The Smell, these three kids have a mad robotic noise all their own and should come with a warning: Anavan is highly addictive.
Think Danzig fronting the Allman Brothers Band. Or ZZ Top joining forces with John Lee Hooker. It may sound as improbable as Run DMC walking this way with Aerosmith, but Night Horse combine the blues sludge, the perfectly snarling howl, the dueling guitars and the thundering drums of those unrepentant rockers and add a sinister swagger all their own. If psychedelic blues rock metal was a genre, the band that would pop up on AllMusic would be Night Horse. These five dudes are creating such epic stompers on The Night Won't Hide You that it takes just 7 songs in 37 minutes to make you want to steal a hot rod, grab a pin-up by the waist and make some serious trouble.
In the hoopla of happiness surrounding this historic week, a sad passing should be noted. On November 1, Detroit soul legend Nathaniel Mayer died after suffering multiple strokes after completing his first European tour after a career revival with help from the Black Keys. Nathaniel Mayer had his first Top 40 record in 1962 and on his final record for Alive, Why Don't You Give It To Me?, Mayer hollers, howls and seduces with help from Dan Auerbach as well as the Detroiters who followed in his footsteps including members of The Dirtbombs, SSM, The Sights and Outrageous Cherry. "Lonely Man" is from that album and features the fuzzy guitars, garage rhythms and stoned groove that was his later-day trademark. Until the end, Nathaniel Mayer was the real deal - just check the video of the live performance of "I Found Out," as he dedicates each and every song to all the beautiful ladies in the house and promises, "I'll take all ya'll home with me tonight!" So here's to Nathaniel Mayer and best wishes to him with all the beautiful ladies in the sky.
Sounds Like: James Brown, Ray Charles, the Black Keys, the Dirtbombs, the Detroit Cobras
RCRD LBL and Sneakmove are pleased to present Minicomp Volume 2. You can read about the project and listen to Sneakmove Minicomp 1 here to catch up and get ready for the newness. Featuring the indie pop swirlings of Electric President, gauzy soundscapes from Andrew Broder and FM3, a backpack anthem that needs no longer than 71 seconds from Meanest Man Contest, an aggressive thumping noise party from Books on Tape, chimes and chugs from Clovis Heald, a baile funk rump shaker delivered by Bonde Do Role, head-bobbing rumbles from Controller 7, mumbled musings from Subtitle/Giovanni Marks, orgasmic lazer blips from Crunc Tesla and a quick croon rap from Newageynofriends, Minicomp 2 leaves no genre unturned. Tune in next week for the final installment of RCRD LBL's exclusive digital presentation of Sneakmove's Minicomp brilliance.
The "real" Tuesday Weld is a Golden Globe winner whose child actress life resulted in a nervous breakdown at 9 and alcoholism and suicide attempts at 12. Tuesday Weld lived on and starred in films with Jack Nicholson, Orson Welles, Anthony Perkins and Gregory Peck but The Real Tuesday Weld on RCRD LBL today is Stephen Coates and his album, The London Book Of The Dead, is an epic, old timey nightclub journey through death, love, pain and romance. It's funny and weird, lovely and surprising and Stephen is our narrator through it all. You can hear the cabaret tinges of the album through the applause, yodeling and straightforward storytelling on the two songs on RCRD LBL today. Give a listen and welcome to Stephen's world of beauty and confusion.
Sounds Like: Rufus Wainwright, the Moulin Rouge soundtrack
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