forkcast tracks
- Fucked Up: "No Epiphany (No Age Remix)"
- Fever Ray: "When I Grow Up (D. Lissvik Remix)"
- Super Furry Animals: "Inaugural Trams"
- Röyksopp: Junior
- The Dead Weather: "Hang You From the Heavens" / "Are Friends Electric?" (Gary Numan Cover)
- Superchunk: Leaves in the Gutter EP
- The Heatwave: Rowdy Bashment Mix
- Nadja: "Only Shallow" (My Bloody Valentine cover)
- Circlesquare, The Juan Maclean: "Hey You Guys (The Juan MacLean Remix)"
- Pete Doherty: "New Love Grows on Trees"
Wednesday, February 25, 2009
Email LinkEverything's coming up Jersey. Real Estate have roots in the Garden State and they're led by singer/guitarist Martin Courtney and feature guitarist Matthew Mondanile (the latter known to some for his work in Ducktails). They've played shows with both Vivian Girls and Titus Andronicus, but "Black Lake", from their debut 7", doesn't sound much like either of those bands (who also don't much sound like each other). Instead, it's a fuzzy, sweetly simple sea chantey (or in this case, I guess a "lake chantey") that reminds you of how awesome that last bonfire of the summer was, until the cops showed up and you had to run for your life. The song wafts in on a slinky bassline playing all by its lonesome, and then a sleepwalking slide guitar (ready for a couples-only dance on prom night), tapping cymbals, and Courtney's reverbed voice complete the picture, leaving plenty of open space to stick your head inside of. "Black Lake" is a jangly, hazy slice of nostalgia for those of us who still have love for America's forgotten playground.
— Zach Kelly
Few took notice when Kath Bloom retreated from the New York folk scene in the 1980s. Her disappearance is neither as romantic as Vashti Bunyan's bucolic sojourn nor as storied as Cat Stevens' conversion: After falling upon hard times, Bloom moved to rural New England to raise her sons. Two decades later, Australian label Chapter Music has reissued the bulk of her catalogue, including two albums with Loren Connors, Finally in 2005, and the gorgeous Terror in 2008. A tribute album seems like an obvious epilogue to that back-in-print campaign: Loving Takes This Course features testimonial covers by Devendra Banhart, the Concretes, Mark Kozelek, Marianne Dissard, and the Dodos.
The standout track may be Bill Callahan's cover of "The Breeze/My Baby Cries", a devastating medley from her 1982 album with Connors, Sing the Children Over. Bloom sounds so weary on the original-- exhausted by the simple act of living-- and Callahan knows he can't re-create that fragility. Instead, over a simple guitar theme, barely-there percussion, and mood-setting keyboard accompaniment, his self-reflection is more stoic, yet just as emotionally precarious, and his line readings make Bloom's lyrics starkly ominous. There's an entire break-up (mental or romantic, you choose) in the opening lines "I'd like to touch you, but I don't know how," and his insistence that "the breeze will kill me" sounds genuinely haunted and resigned. "The Breeze/My Baby Cries" is that rare find: a cover that adds depth to the original and a tribute album track that sounds absolutely essential.
— Stephen M. Deusner
Just a year after it first hit, Fleet Foxes are reissuing a "deluxe" edition of their self-titled debut. It'll be packaged with the excellent Sun Giant EP and appended with a new track, "False Knight on the Road", a traditional ballad that Pecknold originally recorded and posted under the name White Antelope. The trend of the "deluxe" repackage of recently released albums is a dubious one, but I'll give the band the benefit of the doubt here. First of all, the re-release is obviously aimed at newcomers to the band, who probably saw them on SNL or opening for Wilco. Second, it's nice that a band like Fleet Foxes can achieve the sort of popularity that would portend a deluxe reissue, however dodgy such a release might be. Third, his White Antelope backing band is all gnomes. Fourth and most crucial, this is a really good version of "False Knight". It's a strong showcase for Pecknold's voice, which wears the reverb well, and the stark, acoustic accompaniment evokes the inner conflict suggested in the lyrics. It's possible that this cover-- as well as his excellent take on Judee Sill's "Crayon Angels"-- could serve be a rebuttal to all those persistent and derogatory CSN comparisons, but his affection for the material comes through.
— Stephen M. Deusner
Gospel Gossip's debut, 2007's Sing into My Mouth, was one erratic album-- not without its charms, but certainly flawed enough to obscure the band's potential. Sometimes their gothic dream-pop sounded seductively ominous; at other times, it seemed sickeningly precious. It was the kind of tonally inconsistent record you might expect from a young band either too unsure or too afraid to commit. No such hang-ups on "Nashville", a searing new single that finds the Northfield, Minn., band firmly in command. The feedback is denser, angrier, but it's the drumming-- a blunt weapon as opposed to mere ballast-- that really makes the difference. Whether the band can sustain this vigorous tunefulness over the course of an album, or even the forthcoming Dreamland EP, remains to be seen, but if progress is measured in increments, "Nashville" is one giant step forward.
— Jonathan Garrett
Dum Dum Girls is one girl-- woman, in the parlance of our times (female-American, if you're not into the whole brevity thing). According to the internet, her name's Dee Dee and she's a librarian from Los Angeles. According to the band name, she likes Talk Talk. But she sounds more like one of the girls. Or the Sharades' Joe Meek-produced 1960s girl-group track "Dumb Head". Clearly, she was a Sarah Palin voter.
On Dum Dum Girls' self-titled debut EP, Dee Dee shows she has the range to pull off an "Unchained Melody"-tinged lo-fi ballad, but more typical are full-throttle garage rockers like "Catholicked". With tin-can-on-a-string recording quality a la recent bands from Times New Viking to Nodzzz and Wavves, she won't be likely to win over many "American Idol" judges. But beneath all the reverb and fuzz is a catchy tune and evocative (if difficult to discern) lyrical theme involving teenage love and a chest stuffed with emotions. "My sins are my own," Dee Dee proclaims. Thanks but no thanks, sweet baby Jesus. Play it loud. (via RCRD LBL)
MP3/Stream:> Dum Dum Girls: "Catholicked"
— Marc Hogan
Tuesday, February 24, 2009
For those who think 16 hours is too long to wait for the digital release of the Knife's Karen Dreijer Andersson's solo effort as Fever Ray, noise-mongerers Fuck Buttons have something to tide you over. Fever Ray's lead single "If I Had a Heart" gets an overhaul from FB (the same young men responsible for Pitchfork's 20th favorite album of 2008) here in resplendent Street Horrrsing fashion: Andersson's ethereal vocal is deconstructed into a methodic chant, adrift in a sea (or perhaps afloat down the river Styx) of whirling synths, rigid thumps, and processed fuzz. The remix is undoubtedly more of a Fuck Buttons affair, almost as if Andersson were asked to take a very liberal stab at "Bright Tomorrow". If it weren't for the unmistakable aesthetic already attached to "Heart", it wouldn't be too far of a stretch to suggest that we may very well be getting into "cover" territory here. But for as much as the track leans on Fuck Buttons' own signatures, the pair have good enough sense to allow the atmosphere and dread of the original to remain intact, which is pretty much all you really need here for a solid remix
— Zach Kelly
From Deerhunter guitarist Lockett Pundt's debut full-length under his Lotus Plaza solo alias, "Whiteout" is an oldie. Well, it's an oldie where I come from. An early demo of the song, with its springy guitar repetitions and lighter-than-air vocals already intact, appeared on Deerhunter's blog way back in August 2007. At the time, Pundt described the song as being about riding in the backseat of his parents' car during a childhood summer vacation, which in a way makes it the flip side of bandmate Bradford Cox's "Winter Vacation", from last year's Atlas Sound LP.
There's a certain nostalgic innocence in the high, sliding melodies, and the reverb conjures up a sense of memory far better than the soft focus of a TV flashback, but the image that stands out for me is the "Whiteout" of the song's title-- gazing into Pundt's childhood here is like trying to see your way around a dark room after staring directly into the sun. As with Atlas Sound's "Cold as Ice", which also features Pundt's playing, the guitar loops and shakers bring to mind the hypnotic sounds of Swedish techno producer the Field, only where the Field's songs often dissolve into a "reveal" of their source material in the end-- the Flamingos, Lionel Richie-- with "Whiteout" the source material is the song. The track ends without that instant of recognition, an additional layer of guitar haze cresting atop layered harmonies, the past always just out of reach.
MP3:> Lotus Plaza: "Whiteout"
— Marc Hogan
Colin Meloy has always seemed more like the kind of guy who would use the word "rake" in a song title than an actual rake. And if you're unfamiliar, then the band Meloy leads-- Pacific Northwest folk-pop troupe the Decemberists-- would probably seem more likely to sing songs about stuff made out of metal (bagatelle balls, aluminum walls, samovars) than to do anything resembling the musical genre of metal, ever. What, you didn't at least read Nick Sylvester's review of The Tain EP?
"The Rake's Song", from forthcoming rock opera The Hazards of Love, has the epic storytelling style of that EP and the Led Zep dinosaur-beat of a couple of tracks on 2006's The Crane Wife. Heavy sludge surrounds clanging acoustic-guitar chords, theatrical cries, and Meloy's confident voice, telling the story of a dissolute youth who gets married, has babies, and then becomes "your humble narrator." It's more Brave Little Tailor than Spinal Tap, but then, so am I.
MP3:> The Decemberists: "The Rake's Song" (they'll ask you for your e-mail address)
— Marc Hogan
Monday, February 23, 2009
Over a jazzy drum loop and intermittent bass, tUnE-YaRds' Merrill Garbus sings a lilting chorus worthy of the song's title. Her birdlike voice-- "Look at me-me-me in the picture," she murmurs-- and the fragmentary nature of the song bring to mind a Slabco-signed Deerhoof, with disembodied stabs of brittle guitar or ukulele joined by the occasional exotic vocal sample.
MP3:> tUnE-yArDs: "Sunlight"
— Marc Hogan
El Perro del Mar's latest shift in mood sounds like a real delight so far. "Change of Heart", from Swedish songstress Sarah Assbring's forthcoming Love Is Not Pop (swoon) on Licking Fingers, swings from the sparse, prayerful minor-key optimism of last year's From the Valley to the Stars and the sepia-tinged 1950s and 60s pop melancholia of her gorgeous 2006 debut album to something sad, richly produced, and wickedly catchy. With Rasmus Hägg from fellow Gothenburgers Studio behind the boards, it sounds almost like Assbring has followed friend/former tourmate Lykke Li in Nick-ing from Fleetwood Mac's Stevie, though here more in terms of crisp snare drums and 80s-style echo than cool headwear (Li and Assbring both have emotive vocals in common, though). A trippy bass groove underpins ghostly piano and Balearic guitar leads, as Assbring sighs resignedly, "We will never start." Those of you in Scandinavia can start listening to the whole album April 1. No fooling.
Stream:> El Perro del Mar: "Change of Heart"
— Marc Hogan
- "Skeletons"
- "Can't Hear My Eyes"
- "I Like It"
- "Everyone Is Guilty"
- "Wild One"
- "Wraithlike"
- "The Girl and the Robot" [ft. Robyn]
- "Crush on You"
- "Trance Doll (Post World Dub)"
- "The Strangers"
- "Drop"
- "Best Best (Two Fingers Remix)"
- "1901"
- "Desert Fun"
- "Morning Light"
- "Glass"
- "Young Hearts Spark Fire"
- "Tunnelvision"
- "Echononecho"
- "Now We Can See"
