EXCLUSIVE NEW DOWNLOAD: Lemonade - Sunchips (Ghosts on Tape Remix)
When RCRD LBL editor Cameron Cook wrote about Lemonade in July he tried to pin down the band, "Lemonade are making...laptop tropicalia electro punk? Is that it? We can't even tell frankly, and that's a large part of their appeal." And if you were scratching your head while bobbing it along to the Casio pulse and tribal drums of "Sunchips," wait til you wrap your ears around the Ghosts on Tape remix. Debuting today on RCRD LBL it's as infectious as it is undeniable. If you needed to convert your cubicle/office/general boring area in front of your computer into a tropical dance party, this is the track to make it happen. I have no idea what's happening here, but I think I need sunglasses.
Sounds Like: CAN, Alex Pasternak, Tussle, Crystal Castles, Holy Fuck
Download: Lemonade - Sunchips (Ghosts on Tape Remix)
Previously posted:
EXCLUSIVE NEW DOWNLOAD: Speck Mountain - Backsliding (Demo) + Girl Out West
Last night in Chicago in one direction the sky looked like the roof of some long-ago cathedral with gloriously lit clouds from the setting sun, while in the other direction you could see a storm rolling in across the city. We were right in the middle on a roof top wondering if the ominously whipping wind would push the clouds over to our side or if the brilliant sunset would explode instead. That moment in the middle is where Speck Mountain seems designed to operate. In the almost 9 minutes of "Girl Out West," the sonic build glides along, with no pesky insistence on grandeur, the song hits the sublime seemingly without trying. RCRD LBL exclusive demo "Backsliding" is a song that will be featured on the upcoming Some Sweet Relief. According to Karl Briedrick, one half of the Speck Mountain song writing team (along with Marie-Claire Balabanian), "this version was an accident. We think it has a certain intimacy because we didn't know anyone was listening or would ever hear it." Grab both tunes and get ready for the storm.
Sounds Like: The Morning After Girls, Moon High, Orouni, My Best Fiend
Exclusive Download: Speck Mountain - Backsliding (Demo)
Download: Speck Mountain - Girl Out West
Previous Downloads:
Download: Speck Mountain - Blood Is Clean
Download: Speck Mountain - Backslide
Speck Mountain's RCRD LBL page
DOWNLOAD: TK Webb & The Visions - Teen Is Still Shaking
Last year during CMJ I managed to wander over to a room of fellow longhairs at the Glasslands Gallery in Brooklyn to catch TK Webb and his band, The Visions, shred so hard that their amps broke. Well actually, it was just TK’s amp that broke, but dude was rocking and strumming and bending so hard that the thing just damn fell off the stage and it sounded like the whole place had exploded. Undeterred, TK just picked the thing back up, kicked it a few times, and started his next song. I don’t think that song was “Teen Is Still Shaking” but I wish it had been—a righteous slow-tempo wailer with huge, rotund drums, liquid sheets of Mellotron and down-home picking that slides between Keef and Kurt and and the Pixies’ Joey Santiago. Webb does his best J. Mascis impression to conjure images of paranoia and boredom, but he seems too utterly lost in the jam to really care: “How did we get here?/ Am I gonna die here?/ I can hear the Lord laughing.” The song's from the band’s new album Ancestor, due September 2nd through Kemado, so make sure you grab this mind-melter to hold you over for the pending ear drum assault.
Sounds like: The Black Angels, Dinosaur Jr., Dark Meat
Download: TK Webb & The Visions - Teen Is Still Shaking
TK Webb & The Visions' RCRD LBL Page
STREAM: MGMT - Electric Feel (Justice Remix)
Remember that bar mitzvah/prom favorite "Electric Boogie"? "It's Electric booogie woogie?" and all that black-tie cheese?
Well fuck that disco shiz. MGMT put all other songs describing physical mating chemistry- that 'electric feel' - into the grave- by cooing about a naked woman shocking a dude like an electric eel. The song already has the indie crowds forming peace circles around fires. Spin the bottle is back.
But leave it to the French demons of electronica Juuu-stice to take it to the next step. A swirl of synth here, a touch of heavy bass there - and let the sexed-up rave parade ensue. Feel your brain synapses start to pulse, hump, bump, slide, and seethe into some sort of whack job late-night mating dance.
After all, "this is what the world is for making electricity."
SOUNDS LIKE: Justice, Marcia Griffiths (not)
DOWNLOAD: Lemonade - Sunchips
Can we say how much we love that San Francisco is bringing back the psychedelic rock with as much aplomb as humanly possible? At the same time that a band like Girls are cranking out heady shoegaze pop, Lemonade are making… laptop tropicalia electro punk? Is that it? We can’t even tell frankly, and that’s a large part of their appeal. Casio beats, synthesizers, Happy Mondays-esque chanting and bursts of noise are all part of the plan for Lemonade, which counts Alex Pasternak as a member, whose music we’ve featured before on RCRD LBL. Give it a spin and let us know what you think—we’re smitten.
Sounds like: Happy Mondays, CAN, Alex Pasternak
EXCLUSIVE DOWNLOAD: Heavy Creatures - Family Tree + Love Come Down
Band names are important. If you're named the Fluffy Princesses and sound like Brutal Knights there is certain to be a tragic disconnect. Then there is Heavy Creatures. They could be Dirty Animals or Sexy Beasts - essentially you'd just need an adjective to convey purringly thick swagger and a noun that remained as primitive as possible and you would get the idea. Heavy Creatures is fronted by two women who use classic 60s female harmonies in "Family Tree" as effectively as they combine their vocal power to create a primal drum circle feel in "Love Come Down." And the music - well, shit is heavy. It chuggs along beneath grandly gesturing keyboard and guitar lines while toying with the blues and psychedelic music so cleverly you're hard pressed to assign them a genre. These creatures understand the meaning of "momentum" and "build" and "crescendo" so well, you'd swear they were mounting a charge on all the mediocre bands in NYC. Heavy Creatures is the closest thing to Jefferson Airplane when they were interesting, sexy and just a bit creepy we've seen, so put on something beaded and dig.
Sounds Like: Jefferson Airplane, Big Sleep, Beach House, Black Keys, Black Horse
Download: Heavy Creatures - Family Tree
EXCLUSIVE DOWNLOAD: Moon High - We Believe + Where You Go
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My dear friend Daniel Arnold, who has written some lovely words for this here site, has an odd love affair with California. He's never lived there, but every time he visits he manages to come back with tales so sun dappled and full of reverie you would swear he was born on Big Sur and offered up as Lion King to the wildflower gods. I like to think that Daniel's soundtrack sounds something like Moon High when he's out there in the great wide open. Moon High is from Dayton, Ohio, but the music is infused with sunlight, the crunch of sand beneath your feet and the faint scent of lilac in the breeze blowing through your hair so you'd just about swear they were from the Golden State.
Moon High is the perfect soundtrack to your summer. If you're lying on a blanket in a field, on the beach as the sun sets, driving along country roads looking at corn fields or flying high over the clouds these fellas know how to make you feel the sunshine on your face. Moon High is 8 tracks of pure beauty and if you get your hands on it, it's very likely it won't leave your car stereo/ipod/turntable as long as you feel like taking off your shoes and running through sprinklers.
Sounds like: Vetiver, Papercuts, Panda Bear, Phosphorescent, My Best Fiend
Download: Moon High - We Believe
EXCLUSIVE DOWNLOAD: Blackstrap - Rough Parade + Cover Up
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There's something about Sweden. And it's not just the impossibly good looking people, the delicious meatballs or the stoic neutrality. It seems to be a country just close enough to the pop culture of the Western world that it doesn't blindly hop on trends with reckless abandon (i.e. Japan), but far enough away that trends have time to seep in the deliciously iced vodka of the country and emerge injected with the pop sensibility that apparently sneaks in through the soil (i.e. ABBA). And what you get from this delicious pop cocktail is music that takes a genre and brings it up a notch. Incorporating the fuzz of the Ravonettes and the distortion of the Legends, Blackstrap emerges with songs that are tailor made for driving down a straight open road in the middle of the night, with the cool air swirling through the open windows, cigarettes optional.
"Rough Parade" couldn't be less...rough. It glides along creating mini-explosions of tension like fire bursts in the night, combining the effortless cooing of Maria Linden and the sexy baritone of Jonatan Westh. Blackstrap are a less drugged up, more airy, modern Velvet Underground - a martini shaken, not stirred. "Cover Up" is an equally glittering track, left off of the Tee Pee release of Steal My Horses and Run. With a little more muscle and fewer surprises than "Rough Parade," witness the full power of what Blackstrap can unleash. This is a band with a mission to bring My Bloody Valentine, the Jesus & Mary Chain, Black Rebel Motorcycle Club and Primal Scream together in the alluring way that seemingly only the Swedes know how.
Sounds Like: The Morning After Girls, The Black Angels, Speck Mountain, Vetiver
Download: Blackstrap - Rough Parade
DOWNLOAD: Rumspringa - Goldmine
It's rare that we refer to the Amish world here on RCRD LBL. But this new band Rumspringa is running feverish, fast-paced rock-n-roll trails in our head and so I'm gonna have to give you a run-down about these cats - and their loose Amish affiliations. It all goes back to their name. The term "Rumspringa" refers to a time in a young amish kid's life between the age of 16 to their baptism when they either join to the church or actually leave. Evidently, this time of "running around" inspired this LA-based American/Jungle/Crunk band. Whatever it is, it's good. "Goldmine's" got old school rock appeal- ala Led Zep and The Doors. Think a lighter version of Black Angels psychedelic jams mixed with Gringo Star's energetic perk.
Sounds like: Gringo Star, Black Angels, Blitzen Trapper,
Download: Rumspringa - Goldmine
DOWNLOAD: Kevin Ayers - Cold Shoulder
Maybe it is because we are dreaming of St. Tropez, the sea, ice cream, state fairs, and escaping the city. Regardless, we’ve been playing Kevin Ayers on repeat these days. Yes- Ayers- the legend who propelled forth the Brit psychedelic movement in the 1960s and drank champagne on stage and escaped to Mallorca in the 70s. The badass. Since the '80s, he has been living off of baguettes, wine and sunshine in the south of France. He came briefly out of hiding last year to release "The Unfairground," which includes collaborations with members of Ladybug Transistor, Neutral Milk Hotel and Architecture in Helsinki.
So grab a ice-cold lemonade and chill out to the laid-back ode about aging, “Cold Shoulder,” in which Robert Wyatt performs, and “Friends and Strangers”- a swaying Serge Gainsbourg-esque poetic ballad buffered by a calming violin.
Sounds Like: Tom Waits, Cat Stevens, Serge Gainsbourg
Download: Kevin Ayers - Cold Shoulder
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