Directions to See a Ghost is the second album from Texas rock band The Black Angels. It was released digitally on April 15, 2008 by Light in the Attic Records. However, it was not until May 13th that the CD and 3xLP were released. Those who purchased the album digitally were given a code to download the album. On or after the date of release, it was to be brought back to the place of purchase in exchange for a hard copy of the album as well as a bonus four-song EP Black Angel Exit. Moreover, “Directions to See a Ghost features the song “Doves” also available on the “Doves” single 7″ released the same day. Unlike the CD, the 3xLP contains bonus tracks “Surf City (Revisited)” and “Paladin’s Last Stand.”
The group have signed to the label Suretone, owned by Interscope, for releases after this album.
Prefix Magazine called it “an easy candidate for one of the best records of the year”.
According to Rolling Stone Magazine columnist David Fricke “…tripsters the Black Angels bring the aura of mid-1966 - the drilling guitars of early Velvet Underground shows, the raga inflections of late-show Fillmore jams, the acid-prayer stomp of Austin avatars the 13th Floor Elevators - everywhere they go, including the levitations on their second album, Directions to See a Ghost (Light in the Attic). Mid-Eighties echoes of Spacemen 3 and the Jesus and Mary Chain also roll through the scoured-guitar sustain and Alex Maas’ rocker-monk incantations.”
Web: http: theblackangels.com
MySpace: myspace.com/theblackangels
Optimistic high school band teachers and the dapper French quartet Phoenix might be the only people alive who can envision a wave of “Lisztomania” sweeping today’s youth. But the title of the leadoff track from Phoenix’s new album is an apt synopsis of their mannered yet effervescent romanticism.
“Wolfgang Amadeus Phoenix,” a truly marvelous album title if ever there was one, is danceable but only a little disco, synth-driven but clubland averse, an easy record to like but a more difficult one to love.
It’s fitting that many American fans learned of the band through the “Lost in Translation” soundtrack, as “Wolfgang” evokes that film’s dazed sensuality and sense of fleeting pleasure. The first single, “1901,” is driven by a thick, shimmering Moog and Thomas Mars’ collar-loosening yelps, and “Lasso” and “Countdown” are especially scintillating rockers.
Yet after a good number of frothy tracks like “Girlfriend” and a long instrumental doodle, Phoenix’s pleasures become akin to eating a tin of cake frosting: A worthy and delicious Friday-night endeavor, but expect a touch of a toothache in the morning.
Austin was a fertile ground for the emerging counterculture of the 1960s. Seen as nonconformists, Beatnik-inspired hipsters were drawn together by folk, country and Blues music while dabbling with peyote and LSD. Traditional values became challenged as they sought a lifestyle outside of the system. Civil Rights and the war in Vietnam were galvanizing factors in 1960s American society but the advent of psychedelics made it electrified. This documentary tells how it happened in Austin Texas. Featuring interviews with the people who were there and a wealth of Super 8 film footage and raw live recordings. Janis Joplin, The 13th Floor Elevators, Gilbert Shelton, Kenneth Threadgill - they’re all here - and their story will make you proud to be an Austinite.
Web: dirtroadtopsych.com
The last Dirty Projectors full-length, 2007’s Rise Above, reimagined a Black Flag hardcore classic as an art-jazz cave painting, so these forever-fluctuating Brooklyn space cadets aren’t exactly short on ambition. Since Rise Above, the band has locked down a reasonably stable core lineup and signed with Domino. But judging by the flurry of activity they’ve got coming up, the Dirty Projectors aren’t quite ready to settle into any sort of regular record-tour-record-tour rhythm.
Now, the band has revealed the details of the Rise Above follow-up. Domino will release Bitte Orca, the band’s fifth full-length, on June 9. The band recorded the album last year in Brooklyn and Portland, Oregon. Song titles on this thing are commendably weird: “Cannibal Resource”, “Remade Horizon”, “Fluorescent Half Dome”. That’s the album cover up there.
On April 21, Domino will release the album’s first single, “Stillness Is the Move”, on both 12″ vinyl and digital download, and it’ll include a couple of b-sides and a remix from Lucky Dragons, their peers in elusiveness. (The first single is not “Byond Uquafina”, as previously reported.)
But those records are only part of the story, as we recently reported. This spring, the band will play a few American shows (including the Pitchfork/Windish Austin Bash) and then head over to the UK for a quick headlining tour. They’ve added two touring members to their lineup: bassist Nat Baldwin and singer Haley Dekle.
Meanwhile, Bang on a Can will premier a work from Dave Longstreth, the band’s sole constant member, at New York’s Kaufman Center on April 2, alongside a piece from Sonic Youth’s Lee Ranaldo.
Longstreth isn’t the only member of the band making music on the side. On May 5, Lovepump United will release Mind Raft, the first solo EP from band member Angel Deradoorian, who records as just Deeradorian.
And supposedly the band also has another full-length in the works. They still intend to release one more album on Dead Oceans, the label that released Rise Above, though God only knows how they’ll find the time to finish the thing.
Also worth noting: “Knotty Pine”, the band’s collaboration with David Byrne, opens the massive double-CD charity comp Dark Was the Night, which we BNM’ed yesterday. It might be the best thing they’ve ever done, and it’s getting us amped for Bitte Orca.
Taken from: pitchfork.com MySpace
Bradford Cox and his pals in Deerhunter can’t stop making new music. And what may be tiring for them is good for the rest of us. Case in point: A new five-song EP called Rainwater Cassette Exchange is due May 18 digitally and June 8 on CD and vinyl via Kranky in the U.S. and 4AD elsewhere. Like last year’s Microcastle, the EP was recorded with producer Nicolas Verhes at Brooklyn’s Rare Book Room studios.
And while it’s exciting enough to read about fresh Deerhunter tracks, it’s slightly more exciting to actually listen to them. Thankfully, we’ve got you covered. The title track and first single is available to stream and download right below this paragraph. In a recent interview with this website, Cox professed his love for Animal Collective and “Rainwater Cassette Exchange” definitely has a bit of that dubby, underwater lilt perfected by those Merriweather guys.
Taken from: pitchfork.com
Modest Mouse has announced they will release their ‘Autumn Beds’ 7” single on June 23rd. This collector 7” will this time be on on black vinyl with an embossed sleeve and individually numbered to 4000.The never-before-released track ‘Autumn Beds’ is backed with another new track, ‘Whale Song.’ This special vinyl will be available nationally at retail, with the songs also offered on iTunes.
Blank Dogs is the brainchild of one prolific, mysterious Brooklynite named Mike Sniper. That’s probably more info than he’d appreciate us giving out, seeing as he’s most often spotted with a tea-towel around his face, but ‘Under And Under’ is an album deserving of recognition.
A spooky mash-up of Sonic Youth, Public Image and Joy Division (among others), this is post-punk at its most eerie and disconcerting, but still – as ‘Setting Fire To Your House’ proves – defiantly danceable. From the robotic churn of ‘Blue Lights’ to the wiry rock’n’roll of ‘Tin Birds’, there’s little cohesion – perhaps understandably, given Sniper’s penchant for releasing new material every couple of days – but that simply makes it feel of a lovingly-crafted mixtape.
During the 1990s, Pajo played with King Kong, The Palace Brothers, Stereolab, Royal Trux, The For Carnation, Matmos, Tortoise and Bonnie ‘Prince’ Billy.
If you the thought 3-chord punk couldn’t be simplified any further, then you’ve been misled. Pajo takes punk’s musical manifesto and turns it into very simple lo-fi acoustic jams. Pajo follows the chordal tonality of each song, then turning the power chords into natural chords more suitable for the tenderness of plucking and finger picking. Pajo’s feeble vocals could bother some, but I found them to be pleasantly human.
You’re not going to find a whole lot of progressive jazz riffs, piercing harmonics, spastic time signatures or anything else that made Pajo a Louisville legend, but there is a great way to enjoy this album: build a camp fire deep within your local wilderness destination, crack open a few cold ones and indulge in one of the most epic sing-a-longs courtesy of Pajo, and of course, Dr. Glenn Danzig.
Taken from: decrepittapes.com
In July, 2008, Cocker met Steve Albini in Chicago at the Pitchfork Music Festival.Together they tested some songs, liked the sound and agreed to record an album together. The album has a heavier sound than debut Jarvis, something that Cocker attributes to realising his band “could rock”, which led to him choosing to write with them. He told BBC 6 Music: “What I’ve tried to do with the new stuff, rather than me just sit there and wait for inspiration to come at some point – which takes ages – instead we’ve written stuff together. And it’s a bit louder.”
RVNG enlists one half of infamous Glasgow duo Optimo for perhaps their most ambitious release to date. This is actually a double-deck release comprised of one 10″ and one 60-minute mix. The “10 Inches of Fear” feature four Twitch re-edits from the catalog of seminal anarcho-punk label Crass Records by bands like Flux of Pink Indians(1), Honey Bane(2), The Mob(3) and Zounds(4) - all licensed and approved by the artists, no less! The accompanying 22-track CD - “60 Minutes of Fear” - is an extension of the idea, featuring jams from Twitch’s formative musical years: “The mid to late 1980s was the period when I really started to buy a lot of records. I was particularly obsessed with (mainly) American bands like Sonic Youth, Big Black, Swans, Butthole Surfers, Flipper, etc. etc.” In addition to those artists, the mix also features tracks by Crass, Sun City Girls, The Ex, Minutement, Husker Du, Black Flag, Screamers, Fatal Microbes, Poison Girls and more. The whole thing is presented in a hand-screened sleeve and includes a big 20″x20″ fold-out poster with a “personal punk rock history compiled by Twitch.” Only 1,500 pressed.
You can’t typecast Type Records. Just when you think you’ve got them pegged as black-clad mongers of doom after the recent releases by Svarte Greiner and Xela, what do they do? Release a pop record, of course. Well, not exactly; this new self-titled album by City Center takes the same sideways look at the pop song as Panda Bear took on Person Pitch. Like Panda Bear, Fred Thomas is hitherto better known for his work as part of a larger collective; in Thomas’s case Saturday Looks Good To Me. With City Center the album he takes their melodic template and scribbles all over it in dayglo colours until it is barely perceptible beneath the layers of layers. That’s just the type he is.
City Center recently released a split 7″ with Grouper, and they do share with Liz Harris a tendency towards dense organic-sounding compositions with wells of reverb and well-buried vocals. But there the similarity ends; I doubt you’d find Harris adding perky percussion, and jauntily-strummed guitars to create fizzy, scuzzy pop bangers. That is just what Thomas is capable of: “Summer School” bounces along youthfully bashing woodblocks like it burns itself into a blurry tizzy. This contrasts starkly this with the preceding track, a smear of distorted organ drones entitled “You Are A Force”. The album is at its best when it finds imaginative ways to force these two quarrelling lovers to marry. If you think that the nagging guitars and multiple layers of tumbly vocals within “Young Diamond” sound a bit too, well, Animal Collective, then just wait till a gun is put to their head and they have to repeat vows to a middle section of violin and blistering guitar eruptions.
The hazy melodies and blurry vocals of City Center’s album should be soundtracking many a joyous summer day. By playing against type, Type have played a blinder here.
“Tight” isn’t a word that fits comfortably when describing Thee Oh Sees, but on Help, the second full-length effort from John Dwyer’s garage psych marauders, the band has certainly learned to find order amidst chaos in a manner that eluded them on their 2008 debut The Master’s Bedroom Is Worth Spending a Night In. The basic approach on Help isn’t particularly different than on Thee Oh Sees’ first effort — the guitars are thick, ringing, and dripping with reverb and distortion, the rhythm section pounds away in a simple but relentless fashion, the massed vocals approximate vintage California-style harmonies in the midst of a trip on dirty acid, and the songs take traditional garage rock changes and bend them a wee bit as the production runs them through just enough low-budget studio trickery until they resemble a paisley nightmare oozing out of your speakers. Still, while most of the tunes on Help sound as purposefully messed up as ever, they’re just a bit tidier and more straightforward here, and the stronger framework makes a positive difference. Similarly, the performances sound more unified and less chaotic here, as if everyone is following the same vision that lurks over the horizon for a change, and the ferocity of Dwyer’s guitar is potent, locking into the crash-boom-bang of the bass and drums with impressive force. And while full-on assaults on reality like “Enemy Destruct” and “Soda St. #1″ are the order of the day on Help, there’s enough of a pop lilt in “Go Meet the Seed” and “Can You See?” to confirm these folks saw some real nice colors while making this album and have a variety of tricks in their repertoire to express them. You might not trust Thee Oh Sees to give you a ride home after a gig, but if you’re looking for a seriously buzzy rave-up, Help certainly delivers the goods.
Stephanie Chan, Veronica Ortuño, Erin Budd, and Elizabeth Skadden are the girls with the bad reputations. They’re the girls who are gonna make you pay. Formed in 2006, the local thrash-punk quartet is dizzying to watch live, trading instruments and screams after each minutelong anti-pop dirge. A cover of Nirvana’s “Negative Creep” only solidifies their early-Nineties trash-rock worship, all ripped jeans and bratty beats. They’ve released a self-titled 7-inch on Wonk Records, and an upcoming 7-inch on ABL Records, “Primary Colors,” drops soon. Do you want to be their boyfriend? Fill out an application.
– Audra Schroeder
Take from: AustinChronicle.com MySpace
