EXCLUSIVE NEW DOWNLOAD: Ducktails - The Mall + Daily Vacation
Remember when things were simple enough that when strangers at parties asked what music you listened to, you could reply with something as generic as "rock" or "dance" or "hip-hop"? Seems to me like those days of easy answers are gone - which in some ways is a bummer, because now all you have for those strangers is a shoulder shrug and some mumbling as you try to convey that you're really big on post-ironic, tropical psych-drone at the moment without sounding like an utterly obtuse f*ck. 23-year-old Matthew Mondanile is the man behind Ducktails, as any true fan of post-ironic, tropical psych-drone will already know given the smattering of his tracks that have surfaced online over the last month or so. What you might not be aware of, though, is that Mondanile can sing - musically "The Mall" follows a familiar meandering, sun-lit path but having the New Jersey kid's voice over the top gives it an extra dimension for you to plug into. "Daily Vacation", also from Ducktails' new self-titled LP (forthcoming on Not Not Fun), sees vocals shy away again, allowing gilded guitar and moseying drums to drift blissfully like a whole warm front through your drafty mid-winter window frames.
Sounds like: Ecstatic Sunshine, Durutti Column, White Williams
DOWNLOAD: Teengirl Fantasy - Now That's What I Call Volume 2
When I was younger my sisters used to lock themselves away with this game called Dream Phone. From what I can gather, the basic premise saw a queue of potential sweethearts forming when plucked from a deck of cards, leaving my sisters to figure out which cheesy suitor actually had the balls to pick up the phone and make his pitch down through the lurid pink handset. Teengirl Fantasy duo Logan and Nick seem to share the giddy infatuation of the adolescent female, though theirs is with an array of studs pulled from what you could vaguely call the dance music stable – “Now That’s What I Call Volume 2” shares the shapeshifting, saccharine delight of Lindstrøm's work, though doesn’t touch heavily on any of Hans Peter’s methods; leaving them free to meld the cool drone and glistening synth lines of kraut Godheads Harmonia with dubstep’s busy hi-hat hiss. As snares crack and ecstatic female vocals flutter ecstatically toward the back of the mix, you can hear Teengirl realising that it’d be impossible for any one individual to live up to the clubland pinup their minds had conceived – but they find conviction in that, retreating blissfully into the impossible dimensions of their own daydream.
Sounds Like: The Samps, Andy Stott, Jonas Reinhardt
EXCLUSIVE NEW DOWNLOAD: The Present - Love Melody
With a major hand in the production of Animal Collective’s Sung Tongs, Panda Bear’s Person Pitch and Born Ruffians’ debut album, Rusty Santos is a man who could, you feel, afford to rest smugly upon his laurels for a month or two. Clearly that’s a sentiment the New Yorker – relocated from his native Fresno, California – does not share, as he prepares to release World I See with his own band The Present. As you’d expect in light of past adventures, World I See makes full use of studio wizardry; voices distant and pitch-shifted, effects otherworldly, the whole thing kind of sounds like Joe Meek may have done by now if he hadn't confiscated Heinz Burt's shotgun. "Love Melody" is representative of a listen that’s challenging, no doubt – but it’s a listen that ultimately rewards as stream-of-consciousness sections sleepwalk beautifully into each other, shedding light on an amusing, startling, expertly-melded record that truly needs to be heard in full for maximum effect.
Sounds like: Angelo Badalamenti, Ecstatic Sunshine, cLOUDDEAD
DOWNLOAD: Yura Yura Teikoku - Dekinai (Remix Extended)
This Sunday Yura Yura Teikoku, one of Japan’s finest psychedelic dance bands (there are a lot), will hit Brooklyn’s Music Hall Of Williamsburg for the first gig of a two-night NYC-area tour. Available at the show will be a limited run of the band’s "Dekinai/Sweet Surrender" twelve-inch, a phenomenal slice of droney post-disco specially pressed up by our good buds at DFA. Grab a taste of the extended remix of “Dekinai” below and hit the jump for some incredible YouTube footy of the band playing live in Japan to like a million people as well as a full flyer for Sunday’s throwdown, which will also see performances from Obits and Invisible Conga People.
Sounds like: Nisennenmondai, Invisible Conga People, Liquid Liquid
Download: Yura Yura Teikoku - Dekinai (Remix Extended)
GHOSTLY WEEK EXCLUSIVE: The Sight Below - No Place For Us EP + Stream
Posted 9/26/2008 12:28 PM by Samuel Duke
Tags: ghostly week, electronic, drone, psych, ambient, experimental, Samuel Duke
All this week we’ll be releasing exclusive goodness from our partners at Ghostly International, who have a bevy of hot records coming out this fall. Check back every day for more tunes, and if you like what you hear, make sure to go cop some records over at their store.
Our week of Ghostly exclusives concludes in epic fashion today, as we look at some tracks from Seattle recluse and ambient drone fiend The Sight Below. The guy whose MySpace headline is “lonely is the new dance party” (really dude?) makes tunes that basically amount to humid marshes of tone, occasionally bolstered by a deadened low-end pulse but more often than not allowed to swell and grow as they please. These are artificial sounds interacting organically, playing off each other’s delay times and frequency, making really thick, goose-down noise in the process. Ghostly will be releasing The Sight Below’s debut album Glider this fall, and in anticipation we’ve got a stream of album track “Life’s Fading Light” as well as a download of the three-track preview EP, No Place For Us. If you’re clamoring for some ease-the-mind stuff tomorrow morning, this is your jam.
Sounds like: Atlas Sound, Valet, White Rainbow
The Sight Below At The Ghostly RCRD LBL Blog
Exclusive Download: The Sight Below - No Place For Us
Exclusive Download: The Sight Below - With Her Kiss (I'd Pass The Sky)
Exclusive Download: The Sight Below - Twice Failed
DOWNLOAD: I Heart Lung - Interoceans II (Strategy Remix)
Furthering our recent excursions into ear-melting nuggets of euphoric drone sounds, we give you mannered left coast free-jazz dudes I Heart Lung, who will release their Asthmatic Kitty debut, Interoceans, September 23. Preceding the album Asthmatic Kitty has prepped Interoceans Remixed, a (surprise!) comp of re-workings from artists like Greg Davis, Badun, and Portland-based Strategy. Strategy’s take on the slide-guitar opus “Interoceans II” sounds like interstellar trip-hop for band geeks, so check that our below and hear more of the band’s original material at their website.
Sounds like: Valet, Portishead, Praveen & Benoit
EXCLUSIVE NEW DOWNLOAD: Praveen & Benoit - Embers + Machinedrum Remix
Like the records they’ve made on their own for labels like Kranky, Neo Ouija, and Expanding, the album Praveen Sharma and Thomas Meluch (aka Benoit Poulard) collaborated on, Songs Spun Simla, is a dough of wide-open textures and percolating thump, like rainforest séance music for both shamans and streetwalkers. On “Embers,” Meluch’s operatic harmonies surround a bog of hand drum taps and clicks, accordion crescendos, and smoky echo from Sharma. And while these two have never even lived in the same city together (Sharma lives in New York, Meluch lays his head in Portland), their music creates a collective sense of place, a tropical pastoral in which they can both mess about with any sounds they dream up.
In addition to offering the fantastic “Embers” for download, we’ve got an exclusive remix from Machinedrum, who versions “Embers” as one big sample, bringing it in and out like a kid playing with scissors and tape, assembling a stiched-up, heady, collage. If you’re into Flying Lotus or any other crackly beat guru, definitely check this out.
Sounds like: Atlas Sound, Flying Lotus, Valet
Download: Praveen & Benoit - Embers
Exclusive Download: Praveen & Benoit - Embers (Machinedrum Remix)
DOWNLOAD: PONTIAK - Shell Skull & ARBOURETUM - Buffalo Ballet
.jpg)
Pontiak are slow and heavy and from Baltimore, kind of like some of my favorite characters on The Wire. The trio recently signed to Thrill Jockey, who is re-releasing their album Sun on Sun next month, which they recorded live, in single takes, in a Virginia cabin. "Shell Skull" is equal parts Sabbath, Slint, and Sunn (I'm taking the "S" thing too far). They also recently released a split LP with label-mates and fellow Charm City residents Arbouretum – take a listen to their cover of John Cale's "Buffalo Ballet," which has a palpable Will Oldham feel to it, a logical byproduct of the time that member Dave Heumann spent touring with the Bonnie Prince. Download both for the price of none.
Sounds like: Dead Meadow, Sunn, Bonnie "Prince" Billy
Download: Pontiak - Shell Skull
EXCLUSIVE NEW DOWNLOAD: The Secret Machines - Dreaming Of Dreaming
Patience usually warrants some great things, and one of those things happens to be new songs from dormant New York band The Secret Machines. Until this non-album b-side, culled from the sessions for the band’s eponymous new album (which will be self-released this fall with the help of World’s Fair), the last music that the band released to the public was 2006’s alchemic and juicy Ten Silver Drops. “Dreaming Of Dreaming” is one hell of a return to form, alleviating any worry that fans wouldn’t be hearing songs that sound like rocket journeys from the deserts of Texas to the (newly found!) waters of Mars. With an octave-jumping Rhodes riff at its core and the steady trap-slaying of drummer Josh Garza, this song sounds like everything we ever loved about the Secret Machines (read: losing braincells sonically), building and building over eight minutes until even the drums have slap-back delay on them and the whole thing sounds like the Hale-Bop comet crashing into the Garden of Eden. The track will be available on limited edition vinyl later this year, but download it now as a taste of what’s to come. Put on some sunglasses for this one, then sit back and bliss out.
Sounds like: Autolux, Boris, Led Zeppelin
Exclusive Download: The Secret Machines - Dreaming Of Dreaming
EXCLUSIVE OYA FESTIVAL DOWNLOAD: Nisennenmondai - Ikkkyokume
Nisennenmondai—Japanese for the “Year 2000 Problem”, as in Y2K—are three women from Tokyo, Japan who play harder, better, faster, and stronger than any all-male band I’ve heard in a really long time. The trio blast marathon no-wave-inspired songs that rattle, hum, wander, screech, bash, groove, contain almost entirely no vocals, and are just as rhythmically compelling as dance music. Today we’ve got an exclusive download of their monster track “Ikkkyokume” from their double EP release Neji/Tori on Norway’s Smalltown Supersound. The song, clocking in at over seven minutes, shows just how much sonic artillery they have, morphing from endless psych drone to dance funk to MC5 miming and then all climbing onto each other for a finale of white noise and tube amp screech. Oya Festival goers will be able to catch a performance from the group today, where they can probably spot the good dudes in No Age (admitted fans) being blown away.
Sounds like: Liquid Liquid, Sonic Youth, Fugazi
Site developed by Gelo Factory
