Sleeveless Sundays - The Best New Tracks, Filtered.

The Arcade Fire - Intervention

2006-12-14T19:01:00.000-08:00

Oh the sophomore CD. How it can break a band! The pressure to not only repeat but better the first effort is just plain scary stuff. Especially when you're from Canada and you win a few album and track of the year awards and start opening for U2 and basically steal everyone's attention from Portland and Austin or wherever we make good music and put it way up in Canada. So scary that it's taken indie favorite The Arcade Fire over 2 years to reproduce. And all indications are that it's been worth the wait.

"Intervention" features one hell-of-a church organ, rumored to emit such magnificent textured sound as to bring tears to the eyes of crybaby frontman Win Butler himself during recording. This church organ, the real base of the song, doesn't slowly meander around hymnal-paced chords; instead it moves through progressions like an axe wielded by the Boss himself! How Springsteen is this song? The Arcade Fire do list Brucey in their myspace page as one of 3 important-enough-to-list-on-my-myspace-page influences, and he's evidently the one pulling the most weight on this track.

"Intervention" gives us war, religion, community charm and community escape and everything else that we want to hear all over again on this album. After this one it's hard to imagine that the Arcade Fire's sophomore effort will disappoint. Here via Gorilla vs. Bear via Said the Gramophone via BBC Radio

[mp3 - Intervention]

TEPR - Coke and Cream

2006-12-05T20:23:00.000-08:00

TEPR. Google search returns these acronyms: Towards the Electronic Patient Record and Technology Entrepreneurs of Puerto Rico. I have no fricken idea what TEPR really stands for, if it is even an acronym at all, because i don't speak french; perhaps it is a missing-vowel web 2.0 spelling a la flickr. At any rate, I don't even give two diddlies about what it really means, because I just can't stop listening to it.

Evidently French guys really know how to shake some ass. TEPR, which may or may not consist of one wacky frenchman (information is limited), is just plain silly fun. Recipe for TEPR song: One part M83 (the fun part), two parts dance, a dash of arcade and toppped off with a healthy dose of squealing keys. Result: over 5 minutes (a generous helping!) of Instant Party. This song is everything there is to like about M83 without all that downer seriousness. It's got beyond cheezy riffs. It's got a throbbing beat. It's just plain begging to be played at your house party as soon as that one group of cute girls are thinking of leaving cause they aren't sure if it's really the kinda party they go for plus they went out to dance anyways. Because it WILL make them dance. And stay for hours.

TEPR is potentially be releasing an EP entitled En Direct de la Cote (Caveman Google translation = On Line of the Dimension?) on November 27th. Or, perhaps it was already released last November. No matter. Just listen to it.

[mp3 - Coke and Cream]

Rock Plaza Central - When We Go, How We Go (Part II)

2006-11-28T19:11:00.000-08:00

Americana / Folk / Other

I'm so aghast/amazed at the premise for this album I can only submit to you "About Rock Plaza Central" blurb from their myspace page:

"The new record is all about robotic horses. Robotic horses who think they are real horses.

For real.

And in the end, the robot horses are going to give up on trying to figure out what they are and what they should be doing, and instead they decide to just ride off toward some lights they see in the distance, hoping that the lights will have the answers for them. But the lights turn out to be nothing other than the stars, billions and billions of miles away. Fortunately the horses have no conception of time and thus experience no real sense of loss. In fact, because they were designed to run, they are elated to run forever."

This has the potential to be ridiculously amazing or ridiculously retarded, and since it's being featured we'll let you do the guesswork on which way it came out. The track is fantastic.

[mp3 - When We Go, How We Go (Part II)]

Bloc Party - Prayer (Stream)

2006-11-21T20:56:00.000-08:00

Alternative / Indie / Rock

2006 is a year flying high on grandiosity: warm-ish reception to My Chemical Romance's mega-opera-arena-rock release, The Killers releasing at #2 on the pop charts, The Hold Steady channeling The Boss and writing about Boys and Girls in America.

Bloc Party, too, are simply not content to muddle around in the mediocrity of everyday indie rock, and have decided to up the ante on "Prayer". They've replaced their debut album's signature 'oh-oawhs' with meditation-style 'ohm's and 'oh-ah-oh's and piled on a multitude of effects, to the point that it would all just seem overblown and ridiculous if it weren't so damn wonderful of a song. Listen to this track and you'll see what I mean. The keyboard movements in the chorus may as well be a full-blown strings section, the drums are relentless, and Kele Okereke fills his voice with desire and pleas "Tonight make me unstopp-a-ble / and I will charm / I will slice / I will dazzle them with my wit."

Who in the hell do these guys think they are? Can you even begin to imagine the music video for this track?! According to their mySpace page, Bloc Party Sounds Like "melodic and dark, danceable yet powerful: something that will keep you yelling for more." Sounds spot on; honestly this is closer to a t.A.T.u. song than a rock song. And I for one couldn't be happier. Tour-mates 2007? Only time will tell.

[stream - Prayer]

Tokyo Police Club - Citizens of Tomorrow

2006-11-20T21:30:00.000-08:00

Indie / Garage / Pop

"This is not how we planned it / But we've gotten ahead of ourselves / Computers rule the planet / And the moon and mars as well."

Apocalyptic visions of spaceship-dwelling human slaves subjected to robot rule. Post-punk Canadian quartet with impressive, tight drumming, catchy Strokes-ish guitar riffs and a whole bundle of adolescent freak-out energy. Tokyo Police Club.

These kids may be barely legal but are already getting some well-deserved attention in the media for their top-notch debut EP. Les Savy Fav-ish guitar and bass interplay with amusing (read: forgettable?) lyrical content, and although adolescence shines through, the melodic foundations of the songs is undeniable. Things to like about "Citizens of Tomorrow": The clever, catchy and stuttering mini-solo. The relentless drums. Fun yelling. Lyrics about robots blowing you apart in front of your loved ones if you try to escape. Be forewarned!

TPC's members are teetering upon a bulging mass of critical acclaim, and for a couple of young indie kids that’s probably pretty frightening. With just an EP out and all the buzz circulating, TPC can probably head in almost any direction with the music on their next release, and that's a scary, scary place to be. The intense weight of all those '7.9's and '6.8's and '3 1/2 bunnies out of 4' can really add up, and living up to those expectations is often a band-crusher (remember fellow Canadians Hot Hot Heat?). Here's hoping they keep their heads down, focus all their energy dancing and rocking, and leave all of our expectations out in space.

[mp3 - Citizens of Tomorrow]

The Blow - Fists Up

2006-11-08T21:57:00.000-08:00

Tropical / R&B / Jam Band

Oregon is awash in musical talent. It is literally on fire. How many fantastic bands are gonna come out of the Pacific Northwest? Is it the incessant rain? The dark grey isolation? The fact that it's more or less Canada? Menomena, The Decemberists, The Thermals, Sleater-Kinney, The Shins moved there for gods sakes! The list goes on! It's as if some great billowing energy emanates from the wild mountains and gigantic trees and storm-whipped ocean and somehow channels itself right into minds of anyone in the region with half a brain that thinks about picking up an instrument.

The Blow consists of beat-master Jona Bechtolt and beautiful voice Khaela Maricich. Their latest album, Paper Television, is all heartfelt, home-brewed pop, packed with intruiging beats and clever lyrical content about love, heartbreak, and sex. They have been, according to their myspace page, working tirelessly to create "an essential pop music formula" and damn if they haven't gotten pretty close. Album opener "Pile of Gold" starts the show with a frantic beat Missy would kill Beyonce for. On the doo-wop-ish "Parenthesis," Khaela puts forward lovely, brash llyrical statements, a la: "When you're holding me / We make a pair of parenthesis."

"Fists Up" is the highlight of the album. It seriously must be one of the most appealing pop tunes released all year. The last minute and a half is a climax of heartache and synthy waves and layers of Kheala's wonderful voice that, even in the album's longest song, is just simply not long enough.

"My love is a fortress / My love is the Louvre / But it can't ever thrive / If I'm forced to keep proving (it)." Who would go and break a heart like that???

[mp3 - Fists Up]

Diplo - Shake It Over And Over (Hot Chip Remix)

2006-11-05T19:47:00.000-08:00

Reggaeton / Bluegrass / Turntablism

So if you haven't heard this year's The Warning, get on the boat! Hot Chip's title track lays it all on the line: "Hot Chip will break your legs / Snap off your head." Are you kidding me? Snappy electrobeats and these kind of lyrics (delivered with absolute dead-pan sincerity) make this album one of the best this year.

Everyone's favorite d.j. Diplo posted this remix of one of the catchiest songs from The Warning on his mySpace profile a while back, and it is just infectious. No seriously. Try playing it at the office or around the roommates and watch how confused everyone gets as they try not to dance.

Most of the song's deliciousness really comes from Hot Chip's brilliance; they get the credit for the fantastic stuff like "K-I-S-S-I-N-G-S-E-X-I-N-G". But adding in a little 'Baby work it out' every now and again really spices up the flavor. What's that other song called? "Bojangles"? Whatever, you know you love it.

[mp3 - Shake It Over And Over (Hot Chip Remix)]

Math and Physics Club - Darling Please Come Home

2006-11-01T22:19:00.000-08:00

Indie / Pop

I've decided this song refers to camping, and here's why. The chorus starts out with "the fireflies are out", an obvious reference to summertime, since those buggers all die in the winter (and somehow are reborn every summer...anyone know how!?). Then lyrics go on to refer to "when the coals burn way down low"! Everyone knows that coals = fire = 1 of 2 things: winter and/or campfire. But winter is already out of the equation cause of them fireflies...so we're obviously talking about camping! But this is followed by "Darling won't you please come home" at the end of the chorus...evidently, this band lives in the woods!! No biggie though, since the boredom of the forest life has obviously given them plenty of time to sharpen their guitar talents.

Getting more serious: Math and Physics Club have crafted their songs based on twangy jangly delayed guitar leads that dance and weave around crystal vocals throughout both verse and chorus. These songs amazingly have the ability to evoke feelings of both nostalgia and happiness at the same time. It almost doesn't make sense - it's like being sad cause you're thinking of a time in your life that you always want to remember because it made you happy, but in thinking of that time you become nostalgic and sentimental when all you really wanted to do was think happy....actually, that makes a lot of sense when you think about it. What doesn't make sense is how they do it so well! Math and Physics Club have woven a wonderfully curious campfire quality into their tracks that is immediately accessible yet compellingly original.

On "Darling Please Come Home", lead guitar bounces playfully around simple effective lyrics, while fantastic drums push the song forward in an stumbling, joyful fashion. Dude's having girl problems, but he's all 'no worries'; like he says, it'll work out. Cheer up, kids...what's not to love about some warm coals, a sunset and snuggling up with a honey-bunny? Just listen, relax, enjoy.

[mp3 - Darling Please Come Home]

Asobi Seksu - Thursday (Video)

2006-10-26T16:36:00.000-07:00

Indie / Alternative / Experimental

"Bilingual dream pop" a.k.a. "a modern day Loveless" a.k.a. "my newfound asia fantasy" a.k.a. Asobi Seksu, which, according to their website, is "colloquial japanese for 'playful sex.'" Anyone that ever liked My Bloody Valentine or one of it's offsprings like Smashing Pumpkins will no doubt go nutty nuts for this record. It's like taking everything you like about Loveless and adding a cute japanese girl singing shit you can barely understand (often in Japanese)...but also it's a bit more. It's like a wall of fantastic pop noise, a cacophony of guitars and catchy melodies and sexual innuendos that begs to be listened to again and again.

In the vid we follow Yuki around while she talks on her phone, tries to find some guy and drifts through the city in a semi-depressing lost manner that I am quite taken with. Or maybe she's dreaming. It's all kinda hard to understand. Great song though.

LCD Soundsystem - 45:33

2006-10-24T23:02:00.000-07:00

Punk / Funk / Disco House

I am NOT a runner. By that, I mean that I do not ever run for pleasure, and only do run out of fear or the desire to be home very fast or occasionally when I have been hammered-ass-drunk and I need to get to another bar before it closes. And I'm not gonna be all cute and say that when I listen to the Nike+ RUN track that LCD Soundsytem has created, I want to run. Because I just don't. However, I can see how if I was a runner, I would be psyched to jog out to this jam.

There's no way I'm going to try to log all the subtle and not-so-subtle movements that make this track interesting for a full 45 minutes. In fact, if you aren't doing something mindless like jogging or fishing or writing for a blog, it probably isn't that interesting anyways. Luckily, that's what it was made for...mindless propulsion. Quick summary: Smooth easy battling synth startup leading into super-tidy piano riff and "Shame on you!" lyrics (check out mp3 sample). This moves to more disco-style beats, goes to an out in space (literally)mid-section, blares into a horn breakdown followed by some shimmering electrodiscofunk, and then segways into a wavy 8 minutes of synthy cool-down. Perfect track to keep you focused and entertained, but not so distracting that you feel off-beat running at any pace. While this is no substitute for a new LCD Album, it's a pretty damn catchy 3/4 hour, and worth a purchase if you plan on doing anything for up to forty-three minutes in a row anytime in the future.

[mp3 - 45:33]

The Thermals - A Pillar of Salt (Video)

2006-10-20T00:55:00.000-07:00

Alternative / Indie / Punk

I know, a little late on this one, but it's worth it. The Thermal's latest release, The Body, the Blood, the Machine, is a concept album, but luckily it isn't your average run-of-the-mill concept album, in that it doesn't suck. It depicts a stark, frightening future: an ever-expanding industrial nation run by an overtly fascist Christian government (on the brink of the Apocalypse?). While most of the population has succumbed to the radical regime, the few that remain and oppose the administration are trying desperately to escape it. In "A Pillar of Salt," singer Hutch Harris describes the exodus, his voice resonating with brevity of the situation: "We run in the dark! / We run in the dark!"

Harris's songs are brimming with irony and sarcasm, apparently even in the face of the enemy: "We were born to sin! / We don't think we're special, sir / We know everybody is." Sarcasm is one of the driving forces in the album, whether Harris is singing from our point of view or that of the regime ("Cause God is with us and our God's the richest!"). Musically, TBtBtM sounds kinda like a CD you might have listened to in high school...but in a good way. Power chords thunder through progressions, and a few catchy riffs or solos are thrown in for good measure. Instead of sounding repetetive or immature, however, these over-simplified song structures and churning guitars only serve to intensify the inherit anger, the thrill of the attempted escape, and the bluntness of the religious satire (sarcasm layered with sarcasm, the album begins with a single note on a church organ).

Cleverly critical of religion's inconsistencies, energetic yet emotively dark and oppressive: This is a fantastic album. It's even more impressive considering that the entire album was created solely by Harris and bassist Kathy Foster(fox!), who traded off instruments during the recording. While there's no direct references to the state of the current administration, it's no secret that The Thermals aren't happy with politics here in the U.S., which is why they live in Oregon, as far from the United States as they can get (it's basically California's Canada). Is it our future that Harris is referring to? He begins the album with a clear warning: "So bend your knees and bow your heads / Save your babies / Here's your future!" The Body, the Blood, the Machine paints a bleak picture of what's to come; judging by the way things have been going lately, pretty soon the Thermals might not be that far off the mark.

Annuals - Brother

2006-10-16T20:21:00.000-07:00

Experimental / Indie / Alternative

When I was a child growing up in the mountains of northeast Georgia, the soothing chirp of crickets around bedtime was just as natural as kissin' yer sister - so natural that even to this day I'm so used to them that I just plain don't hear the damn things half the time. This is probably why for the first 22 seconds of listening to "Brother," I kinda just felt tired - and also thought my computer was on mute. Enter some sweet lullaby bedtime guitars and a little violin...some soft vocals and watery noises too...'Oh boy, bedtime music!' I thought, and promptly hopped into my jammies.

It turned out that my comfy-clothes were a bit premature. The crickets, they only survive until about one minute and fifty-two seconds, where they are absolutely annihilated by a North Korea atom bomb of musical ambition! Stomping beats detonate, throbbing guitars explode, a stuttering bassline moves things forward and Adam Baker's whoops and far-away-from-the-mic screams are sprinkled throughout for added intensity. Basically, "Brother" = pop heaven music explosion.

Annuals (note the lack of the) have just released their first full length, and have garnered quite a bit of attention for a band from the "quiet capitol" of good 'ol North Cackalacka. It seems that Adam Baker, at the young age of 22, has decided to write a whole slew of pop gems just to make all the older pop guys feel a little washed up and, well, old. Annuals have been receiving quite a few comparisons lately to some band called the Arcade Fire (remember them?), and judging from the evidence, this assessment seems well deserved. If they keep up this kind of energy and translate it well to a live performance, someone might one day confuse them for a WMD and try to sell poor Adam and his friends to Iran! Let's hope not, ok?!

mp3 - [Brother]

Menomena - Wet and Rusting

2006-10-22T23:56:00.000-07:00

Funk / Punk

Menomena is the kind of band that makes other bands really really sad because their music is not simple and perfect. Simple and perfect is simply what Menomena does perfectly. 2003's I Am The Fun Blame Monster (absolutely-mind-fuck-amazing website) took a layered, unconventional approach to songwriting that resulted in one heck of an album. They then went on to create a 3-song piece for a modern dance performance called Under an Hour (it's 72 minutes long), and performed it with dancers prancing around in half a foot of water and later flour. Suffice to say, Menomena is a band that is willing to experiment.

With "Wet and Rusting," the first preview from their upcoming release, Friend and Foe, our modern-dance-loving compadres are back in fine form. Menomena creates music out of tiny samples; a simple piano riff here, a vocal layer there. They then take these samples and re-work them, adding variations, laying down a piano harmony, a synth progression, a bass/drum groove, and then combining all these pieces into a crescendo of sound that most bands can only dream of. Piano, vocals, guitar, bass, drums, noise, silence: these are the building blocks, the lincoln logs, if you will, of Menomena's music, and are taken apart and put together with so many endless variations that they'll start a song building a square log cabin with a green triangle roof and end up finishing with a 3 story hunting lodge. "Wet and Rusting" works just like that: it begins with airy vocals and wavy synth noises, and slowly weaves into a sparkling piano riff and some stuttering drum rolls. These are replaced by acoustic strumming(?), which stops just as suddenly to reveal only sparse 'ah-ahs' and a spacey guitar line. Enter stammering drums, a groovy bassline, and more piano (like before...yet, different!). Finally, Menomena says to hell with all this fading in and out, brings back all those little hooks and riffs they launched into earlier, and mixes 'em around a bit ..... and Blam! 3 Story Lincoln Log Lodge a.k.a. New Menomena Song!

[mp3 - Wet and Rusting]

The Hold Steady - Stuck Between Stations

2006-10-10T00:01:00.000-07:00

Rock / Rock / Rock

When John Berryman, prominent American poet and noted alcoholic, released 77 Songs in 1964, poet Robert Lowell wrote in a review: "At first the brain aches and freezes at so much darkness, disorder and oddness. After a while, the repeated situations and their racy jabber become more and more enjoyable, although even now I wouldn't trust myself to paraphrase accurately at least half of the sections." Lovely enough, the Hold Steady's frontman/poet Craig Finn writes lyrics to the same effect. Finn's racy banter wanders and stumbles, weaving an elaborate net of shady characters and after-parties and Midwestern cities that draws us into the shadowy edges of some great drug-splattered suburban teenage drama.

"Stuck Between Stations" is a nod to Berryman himself, with more of Finn's clever lyrics and literary allusions, starting the song off with a reference to Kerouac's On The Road (the inspiration for this album) and continuing with fantastic lines like "She was a really cool kisser and she wasn't all that strict of a Christian". Also present, of course, is the Hold Steady's fantastic, swaggering bar/arena (barena?) rock that will probably make any PBR within 30 feet magically leap into your hands. BandGinA is definitely the Hold Steady's most accessible album, to a fault at times, but it's hard for a Separation Sunday fan to not get goosebumps the first time you hear Finn's first reference to the Mississippi river, a recurring locale in the last album --- which, by no coincidence whatsoever, is the same river that flows under the Washington Ave bridge, where John Berryman jumped to his death in '72. Unfortunately, he missed the water altogether and died in the mud of suffocation.

Finn sums it up best: "There was that night that we thought John Berryman could fly. But he didn't. So he died."

The perfect hero for the perfect bar band - who would most definitely be disappointed if you aren't drinking yet.

mp3 - [Stuck Between Stations]