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Canon Blue main man Daniel James is hopefully in for a big year. It already hasn't been a bad front half; he's currently wrapping a tour with the suddenly-much-loved Foster the People, and his new album, Rumspringa, has a home with the reliable, venerable indiemasters at Temporary Residence (Pinback, Explosions in the Sky, Mono, etc.). They hardly need to send press releases to me anymore; I'll take a good listen to whatever they send - which isn't to say that it's all beloved, but "Indian Summer (Des Moines)" certainly is a charmer. Like his labelmate Rob Crow, James is capable of infectious indie-pop without any pandering - and he's capable of bold turns and complex arrangements (cue the orchestra!) without having his songs become untethered.
From Anna Kramer's full review: "Then there’s the music itself—in which sense Black Up is pretty much flawless. Unexpected starts and stops, soulful and eerie samples, and a rich mix of electronic beats and hand-played drums bring to mind everything from Moby to Wu-Tang Clan to West African rhythms. The result is unconventional and refreshing, especially on songs like “An echo from the hosts that profess infinitum,” a show-stopper at South by Southwest earlier this year."
Matt Pond is a veteran singer-songwriter with serious indie-pop chops. The best moment on his latest, the engaging five-track Spring Fools EP, is its lead track, "Love to Get Used." Aside from just having a great hook and vocal, there's an earnestness to the song (and to most of Pond's best songs) that's hard to articulate. The openness isn't confined to the songs; in the frank liner notes, Pond admits having hit a wall and considered turning away from music - prior to being rescued by Anthony Kenny of The Wooden Birds, who Pond credits as "one of the greatest songwriters of all time" (I would politely disagree, though he's a good one, for sure). Pond now is a Wooden Bird himself, unsure of what the musical future holds. One thing Pond has yet to do is really put it all together, top to bottom, for a real magnum opus. Here's hoping.
One of the most overlooked bands of the front part of 2011; their Brown Shark, Red Lion would be in Top 10 (even Top 5) consideration if the year ended right now. Snag one of the album's best tracks above - or check our full review.
Even if the phrase "chamber pop" makes you wince, and the thought of some new band called Amor de Dios playing chamber pop makes you double-wince... you may still find yourself charmed by the duo of Alasdair MacLean (The Clientele) and Lupe Nunez-Fernandez (Pipas). Supergroup is a stretch (though that won't stop it from being deployed), but they certainly have their credentials. "Bunhill Fields" has much of the same graceful cinematic sweep as Clientele songs, even though it's largely given voice by Nunez-Fernandez. For fans of Isobel Campbell-era Belle & Sebastian, Camera Obscura, etc. etc.
To support a debut album produced by Arcade Fire's Richard Reed Parry, Little Scream's Laurel Sprengelmeyer will be heading out on the road in support of Sharon Van Etten and Jose Gonzalez. "Cannons" is a very interesting companion piece to the previously released "The Heron and the Fox" - and they also appear side-by-side on the album. While "The Heron and the Fox" presents the softer storyteller side (and, to these ears, a pretty, literary, but slightly more forgettable side), "Cannons" is bigger and bolder... and quite arresting. Van Etten and Gonzalez showgoers: get there early.
"Hurricane" comes on just as strong as its title would lead you to believe. It's the sort of abrasive yet completely contagious punk/garage anthem that makes you want to surrender the keys to your brain to your id for 150 seconds or so. It re-states the case that the Coathangers are among the best of the "new" bands in this particular genre. What's interesting about Larceny - aside from its amazing/awful and sort of NSFW cover art - is that they don't sound satisfied to just rule over a single genre.
The title speaks a truth: sometimes fury is a great gift. Sometimes you may be sitting around starting to worry about how much you're playing the new Adele album, or wondering whether Destroyer's Kaputt qualifies as Dad-rock. Then sometimes you get a random gift of fury from a duo: erstwhile Guns N' Bombs kingpin Johnny Love and shrieking maniac Adri Law. In two minutes, I'd taken the full journey from "what is this racket? you people call this music?!" to wanting to turn it up loud enough to hurt my neighbor's eardrums. Dubstep isn't always or often the vessel for this sort of vitriol, but plenty of straightforward practitioners of the black metal arts would sell their souls into satanic slavery in order to produce this sort of "I wanna punch somebody - and I might settle for punching myself" effect. Every bit as over-the-top as the "Deathface" name suggests.
Duchess Leo's recently released debut is well worth seeking out in its entirety; Dan Ryan and Todd Buchler are making melancholy, evocative electro-pop of a high order. "Bloom" offers a mellow, moody glimpse into the album. Yes, if album moods had colors, Golden Gray's mood ring would probably show golden gray. Well named, sirs!
For a while, it seemed like Akron/Family had a chance to be one of the breakout, bona fide "it" bands of the blogosphere - and maybe they still have that chance (Ariel Pink crossed the threshold, for god's sake). They seem a little too wonderfully weird and wild for 60-second attention spans. "Silly Bears" serves as the propulsive opener to S/T II: The Cosmic Birth and Journey of Shinju TNT (Wayne Coyne must be kicking himself for not thinking of that title). It's both immediately catchy and overwhelmingly chaotic.
The Cave Singers' Welcome Joy came in at #20 on our Best Albums of 2009 list. They've wasted no time in returning to our radar screens with No Witch, pitched as "The Cave Singers' rock record." They set up shop with producer Randall Dunn (Sunn O))), Boris), so your bones may need to be ready to be crushed. "Swim Club," however, offers a gentle transition, a shuffling slice of Americana that wouldn't have been at all out of place on Welcome Joy.
Fans of the gruff and grisly, whisky and wanderlust, the indie-country, the manly and melodic: please do not overlook The White Buffalo's EP, Prepare for Black & Blue. "Oh Darling" is a classic-sounding outlaw song.
"Chinatown" is the lead track from Destroyer's ninth (!) album, Kaputt, offering an accessible and tranquil window into an exquisite album. When we talked with Dan Bejar, he talked about his evocative, much-analyzed songwriting - and how he didn't see Destroyer "in an intellectual light at all." "Chinatown" is conjuring up words like "soft-rock" and "smooth" - spurred on at least in part by the presence of a smooth, soft-rocky saxophone. Some may find it polarizing; I find it beguiling - which, nine (!) albums in, is par for the Destroyer course.
Yessir! Always a pleasure to see a great band land on a great label, and that's the case with Raleigh's Birds of Avalon, who have earned plenty of converts over the past few years with Bazaar Bazaar and Uncanny Valley - not to mention a healthy touring schedule - but still have room to grow into a more mainstream sensation. They've landed on Portland's Bladen County, which continues to show a keen eye for talent (their roster has included the Red Alert-endorsed likes of The Love Language and Moneybrother). One of the more seemingly hyperbolic items in BoA's press kit is a quote pitying Jack White's Raconteurs for having to follow the Raleigh rockers on a bill - but, while White is a singular talent with a higher ceiling, I'd take the Birds of Avalon catalog over the Raconteurs catalog any day. Fortunately, you don't have to choose in the real world; you can turn up "Invasion" to 11 and not have to sacrifice a thing.
Few names have been actively flying around LA's indie blogosphere as much as Lord Huron lately; our virtual pals at Rollo & Grady have been especially captivated. If you have yet to hear the gospel, November is bringing a few fresh chances - first with the four-song Mighty EP and then with the Into the Sun 7". "Mighty" is a fairly comprehensive mission statement for the Lord Huron sound, which is sort of what a hipster spring break would sound like: a collision of euphoric tropicalia and Animal Collective-orbitting abstraction. There's not peace on earth - not hardly - but these are the sort of good vibes that can trick you into thinking otherwise for a few minutes.
Portland's Y La Bamba were stuck in music industry purgatory for a while - with their debut recorded, but without a channel to get into the ears of the world. So it's only fair to put some extra miles on "Juniper," a beguiling track that seeps into the subconscious and presents Luzelena Mendoza as a strong candidate for an indie breakout. It's definitely better late than never for their debut, Lupon, and they wound up finding what, at least on paper, is a wonderful fit: Tender Loving Empire, Red Alert-endorsed keeper of fine curios. An arsty new video is just making the rounds, and does a nice job of capturing the band's aesthetic (or, at the very least, the somewhat Grizzly Bear-ish mood of "Juniper"). Also of note: Lupon was produced by Chris Funk of The Decemberists.
