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EXCLUSIVE NEW DOWNLOAD: D. Charles Speer & the Helix - Shorty, A Bastard Cat
(Photo: Victor Harshbarger)
You can’t not like a song when the first line goes, “I’ll be your bastard tonight,” especially when it comes in a full-throated voice like D. Charles Speer’s. “Shorty, A Bastard Cat” is some boogie rock of the highest water, gathering a half century of American music traditions — Bakersfield country and deep-Texas psychedelia, chiefly — into a rollicking concoction that’s kinda like whipping out a fission bomb in the middle of a saloon fight: Everyone just goes, “Whoa!” Speer (a.k.a. Dave Shuford of No Neck Blues Band) has a posse of real heavies in the Helix (Hans Chew is a badass on the piano); their album Distillation arrives next month on high-quality vinyl and download from Three Lobed (pre-order and hear another tune here). “Shorty” closes the album in full gallop, toward the horizon where the desert meets permanent sunset. Play me out, Johnny!
EXCLUSIVE NEW DOWNLOAD: Yura Yura Teikoku - Hollow Me
No half-assed gestures from Yura Yura Teikoku. After 20 years of amplifying and weaponizing badass rock (just look and listen), these vets have downshifted and, in typical Japanese fashion, made ’70s radio-pop sound like it was just invented tomorrow. “Hollow Me” is from the just-out Hollow Me/Beautiful, available through the folks at DFA(broad), and it is a pitch-perfect amalgam of ’70s moves: smoov-outro sax, flicking-wrist guitars, backing do-do-dos, all of it making bedroom eyes at a Can/dub rhythm. The difference is that if a Western band attempted this they’d get tangled up in irony. Not Yura Yura Teikoku—their level of commitment can’t even be measured with conventional human technology. They’ve got one show in Brooklyn at the Music Hall of Williamsburg this Friday—one! Just cancel your other plans and thank us later.
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EXCLUSIVE NEW DOWNLOAD: Soft Black - Ashtray Christ
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Soft Black reminds us of the 70’s in a good way. Like when you’re digging around in the attic after Thanksgiving dinner and you find a picture of Dad, fully mustached, showing too much leg in tennis whites. “Ashtray Christ” felt warm and familiar the first time we heard it, but also like it predated our existence. Must be the glockenspiel/triangle/Tinkerbell choir echoing on the hook of this flickering, sleepaway jam.
Sounds like: Blizen Trapper, Dead Meadow, The Band
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EXCLUSIVE NEW DOWNLOAD: Golden Isles - Can't Take It + 2 More
We’ve been behind Montreal-based Golden Isles ever since they were known as Crystal Moustache, at the apex of the Crystal-is-the-new-Black-is-the-new-Bear tomfoolery. It’s not just because their baritone, echoey vocals and lo-fi-grit turned old-wave recently rocked NXNE. It’s because they’re Joy Division incarnate. Though if “Jane” is any indication, their soon to be released self-titled EP will be billowing with bar smoke, Jim Morrison circa '67 crooning, and velvet twang. “Can’t Take It” is our personal fave, but it’s well-worth appropriating all the excellent, exclusive mpfrees below.
Sounds like: Joy Division, The Doors
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DOWNLOAD: Black Moth Super Rainbow - Born On A Day The Sun Didn't Rise
(Photo: Jae Ruberto)
Sprung from the woods of Western Pennsylvania, Black Moth Super Rainbow carves "black bubble gum" psychedelic rhythms that hatch from the forest late at night, given the right combination of 'shrooms. Vocoded lyrics slither over vintage synths, steady probing bass, and lethal analog effects. Much of the mystical electro vibe may be due to producer extraordinaire Dave Fridmann, honorary memory of The Flaming Lips and the sound wizard who cranked up the levels of MGMT's freak-psychedelia, which blasted their album up the Billboard charts. That said, it wouldn't be suprising if these guys triapse down the same yellow brick road.
Sounds Like: The Octopus Project, MGMT, Panda Bear
Black Moth Super Rainbow - Born On A Day The Sun Didn't Rise
EXCLUSIVE NEW DOWNLOAD: The Dandy Warhols - Now You Love My (Zia McCabe and Jeremy Sherrer Remix)
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Space-aged ingenuity propelled by danceable drum beats and guitar reverb - that's what seems to be coursing through The Dandy Warhols' creative capillaries these days. Take this exclusive track, "Now You Love My," which is the Dandies' keyboardist Zia McCabe and engineer Jeremy Sherrer's remix of "Now You Love Me." It's turned the original's DIY grunge rock on its ass and metamorphosed it into a gritty, distortion and drum-heavy dance anthem. FYI: you can download the whole digital EP of remixed tracks from Earth To The Dandy Warhols--made in-house by the band themselves--here. At $3.49, it's worth every cent of your hard-earned, recession-sensitive dough.
Sounds Like: Bauhaus, LCD Soundsystem, No Age
The Dandy Warhols - Now You Love My Remix (Zia McCabe and Jeremy Sherrer Remix)
EXCLUSIVE NEW DOWNLOAD: Radio Moscow - No Jane + Broke Down
Posted 3/26/2009 1:30 PM by Christen Thomas
Tags: indie, blues, rock, soul, psychedelic, experimental
It's been just a year since Radio Moscow released their Dan Auerbach-produced debut, and in that time RM brain trust Parker Griggs toured for a full year, expanding the wah-wahs, the howls and willingness to go deeper into the psychedelic terrain. Like Peter Green fronting the Flower Travellin' Band, Radio Moscow's second album Brain Cycles (out on Alive Records on April 14th) is as full of blues, soul and psych experimentation as Richie Havens' set at Woodstock. Today RCRD LBL previews "No Jane," a five minute mind-bending epic of shouts, growls, extreme shredding and the kind of drumming that would've made mud-covered hippies freak the fuck out. Grab these two and let your brain ride the wave, man.
Sounds Like: Annihilation Time, Dan Auerbach, Buffalo Killers, Flower Travellin' Band
DOWNLOAD: The Uglysuit - ...And We Became Sunshine
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Very few songs can manage to feel simultaneously baroque and buoyant, but this number from Touch and Go's The Uglysuit manages to strike that difficult balance. Guitars, piano and xylophone encourage one another long without overwhelming the delicate vocal line, capturing the effervescent vibes of all the "Sounds Like" bands before Hollywood and car commercials choked all the fun out of them.
Sounds Like: Wilco, The Shins, The Flaming Lips
The Uglysuit - ...And We Became Sunshine
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DOWNLOAD: The Brothers Movement - Blind
Since forming in 07, The Brothers Movement has opened for the Jesus & Mary Chain, BRMC, Primal Scream, Ian Brown, MC5, Sonic Youth and Brian Jonestown Massacre. Not too shabby for 5 dudes from Dublin. Combining the epic sonic build of classic shoegaze with the chugging chorus of straight up arena rock and the reedy confidence of vintage Brit Pop, the Brothers Movement are boldly stepping into Richard Ashcroft and Co.'s battered trainers. 09 feels like a year ripe for some Brit Pop re-invention - count the Brothers Movement among the leaders of the march.
Sounds Like: The Verve, Glasvegas, The Morning After Girls, Black Angels
EXCLUSIVE NEW DOWNLOAD: Littl'ans - Indian Summer + Older Younger Lover
Littl'ans already have a duet with Pete Doherty in the bag (see vid above for "Their Way,") and enjoy a tight relationship with head designer for Dior Homme, Hedi Slimane (he's taken a number of classically haunting photographs of the band). But don't hate them because they're beautiful. Littl'ans have produced much to love with their first album out last year, chock full of bewitching, brooding, doo-wop influenced pop songs tinged with the sexy outlaw charm of having the Syd Barrett blues. Today's two songs are from upcoming release Stay Alive and we don't blame you if you have a hard time resisting the allure of what could soon be your favourite new band.
Sounds like: Syd Barrett, the Libertines, Babyshambles
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