M.O.M.s have just put out a new single and a new mix of an oldie. Enjoy it!
And believe me everyone, there’s an exciting explanation on the way for the lack of updates. It rhymes with Eckard Fable.
Audio: Eating Me Alive
Audio: MR2
Blurbs
26
Jun 08
Jack and Jills
The Jack and Jills could be described as a band in flux. Born from the ashes of previous ensembles, the band spends its time jockeying between New York and St. Louis, installing new members to replace those who will spend the summer elsewhere. Add to this the band’s animated on-stage bobbing and the reciprocal head nods and toe taps they elicit from their audience, and movement and variation are the name of the Jack and Jills’ game.
It’s easy to attribute the band’s animation to youthful innocence—the band is only four months old and several of its members are too young to gain admittance to any 21+ show that’s not their own—but their exuberance is tempered, or perhaps informed, by a surprising knowledge of what else is out there, name-checking Sunset Rubdown and Kurt Rosenwinkel with equal ease.
The band’s frontman, Erick Lee, credits his savvy in part to the breadth and depth of music now available online, saying, “My favorite thing going in the music industry right now is the expansion of consumer choice. The major labels are losing their influence to the internet and people are starting to hear a lot more stuff…The result is more people that really enjoy music and more exposure for lesser known bands.”
So perhaps it’s best to stave off temptation and skip the comparisons, and say simply that the Jack and Jills track Old Ears is available for download here, free of charge.
Audio: Old Ears
17
Jun 08
Dinowalrus
Dinowalrus is a band that somehow lives up to its name. A three piece, their music finds freshness in its combination of 80s rock, punk, and drone, which is fairly astounding considering their locale, Brooklyn. To keep it even fresher, the band drastically mixes up instrumentation live.
DW uses all the fun new stuff (sampler, Theremin, etc.) in their tunes pretty convincingly, and reports their ownership of a “1983 Roland analogue synth named ‘Marc Bolan’”. The band has played with some underground hotshots; Titus Andronicus, Michael Jordan, and Ringo Deathstarr to name just a few.
They’ve also landed a show with Ponytail this Saturday at the Music Hall in Williamsburg, as a part of the After The Jump Festival.
Audio: Duke Nuke ‘Em
Audio: Bead
13
Jun 08
Lady Lovelace and the Calculator Death Machine (Exclusive!)
Lady Lovelace and the Calculator Death Machine, the duo now turned three piece, are about to release their new album Music for Two Musicians. David Kant, singer and multi-instrumentalist, tells me that the new project is “one large piece. So, in that sense, it’s not really an album at all. The album is divided into sections where new ideas emerge and where we thought track breaks would be convenient.”
Performing live, Lady Lovelace is a surprisingly dense experience, showcasing Charysse Redwood’s hard hitting drum beats and percussion behind Kant’s frantic sampling, saxophone playing, and guitar noise. Echoes of free jazz and folk rock are the biggest underlying themes, at least to most ears.
These new recordings are surprisingly similar to the live sound, and they no doubt show a rare attention to detail, which is especially impressive considering the improvisatory nature of the compositions’ formation. The whole album can be streamed on their MySpace, but Parts V and VI can be downloaded here, and only here my friends.
1
Jun 08
Tyler Griffith
Tyler Griffith moved to Queen Creek, Arizona, six years ago, and has been making mostly laid back instrumentals ever since. A bassist by trade, he grabs whatever he get his audio hungry paws on quickest.
Most of Griffith’s tracks are wonderfully postmodern in their self-referential DIY ethic… “Timers” takes the ubiquitous chair creek found in homemade demos and turns it into a fleeting beat. This is even better considering Griffith’s bedroom production tool — Garageband. “Property Ownership” (or P___O) is a super relaxed lounge piece that uses some nice bells, panning, and a false coda to achieve its unpretentiously beautiful effect.
Griffith also has a few interesting videos up on his MySpace, which make sense considering the soundtrack quality of his work.
Audio: Property Ownership
Audio: Timers
26
May 08
Rooftops
Rooftops are a math rock trio heavily influenced by recent Chicago visionaries like Pele and Don Caballero. The band is about to hit the road with The Americas, a Santa Rosa duo that are also looking to make their mark on the west coast. Bellingham, Washington, is the band’s home, and it isn’t a scene to scoff at either; beneath the home town heroes of Death Cab for Cutie lie hearty labels like Estrus Records that have churned out more than a few regional legends.
While Rooftops only have a few demos of recent work available, the band’s chops and groove tactics make them stand out from the crowd. “Robuts” is a rough recording from last year, but it still shows them playing solid instrumentals reminiscent of some of David Longstreth’s earlier music.
Audio: Robuts
22
May 08
The Old Believers
One of my favorite new blogs is BiBaBiDi. While the site has been around a bit longer than FensePost, I am a newbie in checking it on a daily basis. Simply put, I trust the guy’s opinion. The daily posts cover music I appreciate and the look and feel is very modern and hip. So why all this regarding a separate blog? Well, because a recent post covered an upcoming album I just received. That artist is The Old Believers and their album, out July 10 by their own release, is called Eight Golden Greats.
The Old Believers’ style of old-time folk-pop appears to take hints from the 60s and 70s style folk in the same manner as She And Him did on their recent debut Volume One. There’s an abnormally heavy emphasis on percussion, which sets The Old Believers aside from your traditional folk-pop artist, but where someone like The Lovely Sparrows focuses this effort on cymbals, The Old Believers do so on the bass drum.
Then they switch back and forth between crafty, romantic male- and female-fronted vocals. While I have yet to delve too far into the album, I wanted to begin spreading the word as this release is quite phenomenal. Expect a glowing review of Eight Golden Greats come July.
Audio: Granny’s Song
Audio: The Trouble I’ve Met
(This post was contributed by Andrew Fenstermaker of FensePost)
12
May 08
Passion Pit
Passion Pit are from Cambridge, MA, and for an unsigned band, they’ve hit some good circuits. They’ve played with Girl Talk in New Haven, hit up the Great Scott in Allston, and it’s not hard to see why. The band has just released Chunk of Change, which is the creation of Michael Angelakos, the main man with the plan. Passion Pit was nominated last March in the 2008 Best Music Poll in Boston, and lo and behold, they won!
A few months ago, Basstown interviewed these guys about their local buzz. Angelakos, in true local-hero-gone-pro bashful form, said that the buzz made him “horrified,” at least initially. “I didnt expect it,
he said, “I get horrible stage fright too, I think the local scene expects so much but we will warmly embrace it as it has embraced us.”
Sleepyhead, off Pretty Penny, is a sparkling dance track that enlists the most creative aspects of bands like MGMT in creating its synth and sample based structure. To the untrained this will just be well done “electronica,” but under a few layers, the careful textural deconstruction and reconstruction makes these guys a band to watch.
Audio: Sleepyhead
1
May 08
Red Sails (Exclusive Part Two!)
A few months ago, the Hippodrome ran our first exclusive feature on Red Sails, posting two songs heretofore unavailable anywhere else. Ben speculated that “maybe if he played his cards right each release will be up on The Hippodrome.” Well, we’re two for two so far, as the Brooklyn four-piece has offered us their latest singles, Tides/Ten Days of Sunlight.
Red Sails’ first release with their current lineup, River Gods/Weathervane, channelled a spacier and less schizophrenic Man Man, or, as Ben put it, “a three headed version of Tom Waits” (whatever that means). While it’s pretty pointless to look for a career trajectory over the course of a pair of two-song releases, it’s hard to ignore the sense of growth and development in these nine minutes and three seconds of music.
“Tides” exhibits the band’s extroverted side, plodding along with tight, angular drumwork washed over with shimmering guitars. With all the crescendos and time-signature changes, they would almost sound like a different band if not for the anchor of Tom Tierney’s howling vocals, which somehow sound both breathless and restrained.
However, they really hit their stride on “Ten Days of Sunlight,” which shows the band turning inward with a beautifully sparse acoustic number that delves fully into the New Weird America they flirted with on River Gods/Weathervane. A sun-kissed melody and unassumingly psychedelic lyrics (“I can smell the colors / bursting with melodies we learned from the leaves”) rest over a gentle acoustic strum and a bed of ambient electronic textures. This song could be the perfect soundtrack to an afternoon in the park with a loved one and a bag of mushrooms.
Red Sails’ next single, Smithereens/Hair and Teeth, is currently in the oven, and if current trends continue, it will probably be released within the next few months. If they keep sending ‘em, we’ll keep posting ‘em.
Audio: Tides
Audio: Ten Days of Sunlight
17
Apr 08
Open Choir Fire
Open Choir Fire appears, in the outset, to hold steady with well-known staple 90s indie artists including the Pixies, Fugazi and Juno. Following suit is the hefty power trio of guitar, bass and drums. Vocalist Amo DelBello mixes it up with early Modest Mouse-esque shrieks and the post-punky, pre-emo moodiness of Juno.
In “Big Regret”, there’s a light indie-pop sound familiar to artists like Baby Calendar, but with a heavier 90s appeal. However, songs like “Things You Have To Do” find an edge; here DelBello comes off as a heavier, less awkward Isaac Brock. “Candle” fits the moody Juno mold nicely.
Surprisingly, Open Fire Choir has quite a few recordings under their belt. One includes Volume 3 of Ball Of Wax. If you dig 90s indie rock, you’ll dig Open Fire Choir.
Audio: Big Regret (Live)
(This Post was contributed by Andrew Fenstermaker of FensePost)