Best New Albums

Tuesday, June 30, 2009

"Keep It Goin' Louder [ft. Nina Sky and Ricky Blaze]"

Major Lazer
"Keep It Goin' Louder [ft. Nina Sky and Ricky Blaze]"

[Downtown]

9
 

A great pop song needs no excuses. But if Major Lazer's clubtacular "Keep It Goin' Louder" had come from a pop tart du jour, would I have given it a chance? Perhaps there lies the benefit of hipper, clubbier-leaning artists like Diplo and Switch, who allow us to indulge our urges, no matter the label. I was surprised what an ass-shaker this thing was, seeing as that most of the material we've heard from Lazer's debut, Guns Don't Kill People-- Lazers Do, has been in a completely different vein (see the hectic "Hold the Line"). "Keep It Goin' Louder" does possess immediately recognizable Diplo/Switch trademarks, from the crispy, laser-fried frizz of the creeping synths to the scant handclaps and trashcan-lid bangs, but it's that same dirty day-glo South Beach vivacity that really carries through. You might remember Nina Sky from their 2004 island-riddim indebted, Spring Fling Formal bump-and-grinder "Move Ya Body", which should have yielded some sort of a career for the twin sisters and sadly didn't. While "Girls in the truck, 'bout six chicks deep" might not quite be on par with "The way you ride it, girl, makes the fellas go," you can't help but envision a cramped apartment full of half-dressed young people getting ready to this before a night out on the town. Like much of Diplo and Switch's music, "Louder" seems so in tune with the moment and the season, it doesn't matter that it may very well fall off of our collective radar before year-end. For now, just be grateful to have this while putting the final touches on your makeup.

— Zach Kelly

Monday, June 29, 2009

"Be My Girl"

The Smith Westerns
"Be My Girl"

[Hozac]

8
 

The Smith Westerns are an anomaly: a bunch of garage-rockin' teens singing about how badly they want to get laid. Sure, it's a cliché, but the way these guys do it you'd think it was 1965, when romantic yearning over power chords was still fresh and exciting. "Oh girl, I wanna take you home," lead S-Dub Cullen Omori croons earnestly over a wistfully swaying guitar line. He's vulnerable, yet confident: young, and with nothing to lose. The idea sums up their existence as a band, too, cranking out songs and having some fun, letting the chips fall where they may. And with the help of fellow Chicago Northside College Prep alum Miss Alex White, local imprint HoZac records (who just dropped their debut LP), and trashy rabbit-masked cult hero Nobunny, who invited them to play backup on a recent tour, those chips have been falling in all the right places. Which isn't to say the SWs have merely gotten lucky-- with melodies as strong as these, you'd think they'd been writing songs for years (though by then they'd probably lose that youthful gusto, so readily evinced here). "You keep runnin' through my dreams," Omori whispers as the music fades to an urgent drumbeat, before raucously exploding into a simple, powerfully focused request: "Just be my girl." It's a great show of maturity from the guys who once used "you're my wank fantasy" as a come-on. This time, it'll probably be a lot harder for her to say no-- and should they succeed, luck won't have had anything to do with it.

— Sean Redmond

Friday, June 26, 2009

"Tunguska"

Cymbals Eat Guitars
"Tunguska"

[Transparent]

8
 

"Tunguska", the first new track to emerge from Staten Island's Cymbals Eat Guitars since this year's Why There Are Mountains, does not stray too far from the band's taste for sprawling, dramatic indie rock, but its tone is relatively mellow and muted. As the song opens, Joseph D'Agostino strums a slow, gorgeous chord progression evoking lazy afternoons in wet summer hair, and sings earnestly enough to push his delicate, mildly raspy voice to the point of cracking. The sound is endearingly fragile, but the overall feeling of the composition is loose and breezy, particularly as it gains momentum and shifts into a more up-tempo passage. Though the influence of 1990s indie icons such as Built to Spill, Modest Mouse, and Pavement is still very evident in the band's style, traces of 70s radio rock are also noticeable as D'Agostino's guitar work faintly echoes that of Lindsey Buckingham and Todd Rundgren. This bodes well for the group's future, suggesting that they can maintain their rawness and bombast while continuing to integrate touches of sophistication and elegance.

— Matthew Perpetua

Wednesday, June 24, 2009

"Beggar's Bowl"

Polvo
"Beggar's Bowl"

[Merge]

8
 

Between the fawning over the new Dinosaur Jr. and attention paid to Trent Reznor's personal dealings, it's conceivable that Polvo might have just thawed out and haven't yet realized what year this is. They hit the snooze and went to the studio in business-as-usual, time-to-release-our-next-record-cuz-it's-1995 mode. That's when their Chapel Hill brethren were clamoring to be on labels like Merge, and labels like Merge weren't making commemorative DVDs. And aghast, rock was still getting held back in math class year after year. But these early warriors of let-x-equal-x reappear in a time where something called doom metal not only exists but is maxing out its credit options over choir-vs.-orchestra dilemmas formerly reserved for like, Live. Polvo used to sound like Drive Like Jehu or Les Savy Fav or least one of those groups whose riffs zing-zang into a wall and then crawl up the ceiling rather than banging into it over and over. These days, they'll apparently settle for banging. With higher production values now easier to attain, Ash Bowie and Dave Brylawski up the dynamics and reach for a new metallic crunch. The punishing "Beggar's Bowl" has clean, echoing tones laid on top of the heaviness, and here, vocals are less essential than the drums or guitar overdubs. They may not give a reunion like Mission of Burma a run for its money, but if Polvo occupy a weird space nowadays, it's because they still sound so much like themselves.

MP3:> Polvo: "Beggar's Bowl"

— Dan Weiss

Thursday, June 18, 2009

"Valiant Brave"

Ganglians
"Valiant Brave"

[Woodsist]

8
 

"Varied" is not a word you would use to describe the Woodsist label's roster, which is mostly comprised of shambling lo-to-no-fi acts that fit somewhere on a gradient that slides from psych to punk. Most of these bands, however steeped in pretense or perhaps even inflexibility, are at least interesting, well worthy of your listening attention considering their less inventive peers. But in all honesty, how long can you really expect to pass the tape-hiss bong around for? This same skepticism might be applied to Sacramento's Ganglians, another addition to the Woodsist family that could reasonably fill out a bill with Woods and Kurt Vile. So before you write them off as nothing more than beard-enthusiasts, give "Valiant Brave" a quick listen. The first minute or so kind of rambles on with patches of directionless humming and mildly frightening/spiritual allusions, but what follows is a groovy medley of sinister sunshine, like the Mamas & the Papas getting knee deep into some serious backwoods voodoo. Weird flute flourishes and heavy psych drench what would otherwise be a pleasant little Kinks B-side, giving all of that feral hootin'-an-hollerin' some much needed texture. Whether Ganglians hang around for long is to be seen, but for now we have this solid little mushroom-fueled campfire boogie, reserved only for the most lascivious of teenage camp counselors, long after call for lights out.

— Zach Kelly

Wednesday, June 17, 2009

"So Insane"

Discovery
"So Insane"

[XL]

8
 

"The battles over authenticity, over appropriation, are ancient history to these guys. They are playing the hand they've been dealt, and... they're playing it expertly." So said critic Andy Greenwald cutting through all the "How dare they?!" bullshit over Vampire Weekend's initial bum rush in his excellent Spin cover story from last year. The sentence also applies-- probably even moreso-- to Discovery, aka VW keyboardist-singer-producer Rostam Batmanglij and Ra Ra Riot frontman Wes Miles. Maxed-out with Auto-Tune, 1980s synths, and drum cracks that instantly recall everything 00s r&b, Discovery's debut album-- slyly dubbed LP-- probably swerves like a tipsy Mustang going 115 in a school zone to the world's appropriation police. "So Insane" may seem pretty insane to those still stuck in a world where pop and indie are separated by propped-up dividers. Pity them.

To everyone else-- i.e., people who don't think twice about waking up to Bitte Orca and then driving to work with T-Pain, i.e., people who only know broadband, i.e., the post-authenticity generation-- "So Insane" shouldn't sound too surprising. There's some "Electric Slide" ("teach you! teach you!"), snares possibly ripped from OG Nintendo cartridge "Wild Gunman", some "Bleeding Love" breaks. Pleasure is pushed. Fittingly, the song is all about first-look infatuation-- a truly universal mania. "Oh baby, you got me going so insane and I just don't know what's going down," sings Miles, gilding his crush with harmonies, chirping backups, and sheer pop vulnerability. No navel-gazing crypticisms here. "I don't even know what to do," he concludes. Let's hope he never figures it out.

— Ryan Dombal

Monday, June 15, 2009

"Dreamer"

Tiny Vipers
"Dreamer"

[Sub Pop]

8
 

There's something about the West Coast. I've never been, so I can't explain it, but for all its happy sunshine pop and gloriously liberal policies (Prop 8 notwithstanding), it's produced some of the darkest music I've ever laid ears upon. Hell, the Red House Painters single-handedly keep my utopian fantasies of San Francisco in check. And now Jesy Fortino-- better known as Tiny Vipers-- is doing the same to Seattle. Okay, the latter city isn't quite so cheery (cloaked as it is in constant drizzle), and its grungy reputation doesn't do it any favors, either. But where Kurt raged and bitterly struggled to exist, Jesy takes the Mark Kozelek approach, using an acoustic guitar to strum a single sad, slow melody, over and over, to impressive (albeit depressive) results. But let's dispense with comparisons, so we can focus on Fortino's most unique and, not coincidentally, valuable asset: her voice. A guttural warble in the best sense of the term, it's deep yet fragile and feminine-- and when it cracks with the high notes, it only accentuates her anguish, giving us a glimpse of a pain so private, we can't even begin to comprehend. The lyrics sure aren't offering any clues: with lines like "What can we learn when we can't understand?" and "What do these feelings mean?" Fortino offers more questions than answers. But when she grows quiet toward the end, focusing her energy to erupt in one last plea-- "I'm dying for a way out"-- it's impossible to misunderstand, and difficult to remain unmoved.


— Sean Redmond

Monday, June 8, 2009

"Combination Pizza Hut and Taco Bell (Wallpaper. Remix)"

Das Racist
"Combination Pizza Hut and Taco Bell (Wallpaper. Remix)"

8
 

It's just a couple of dudes on cell phones trying to meet at a 2-for-1 Yum! Brands franchise-- "I'm at the Pizza Hut," "No, I'm at the Pizza Hut," it pretty much goes on like that-- but somehow it's going to be one of the songs of the summer. Reactions within our staff have ranged from "I'd like to punch these guys in the face" and "this was sent here to destroy my interest in music" to "Harold and Kumar existentialism" (this wasn't me) and "a critique of commercialism/lack of a leisure culture" (um, this was). At its heart though, "Combination"-- especially this superior Wallpaper. remix-- is just a funny, stupid, silly, brainy, knowing song all at once.

Where smug hipster hip-hop like "Thou Shalt Always Kill" is all posture and preening, "Combination" retains its inner Cheech and Chong and still seems leagues smarter for it. Sure, it's a one-idea track, but that idea somehow becomes more endearing as it rolls on, and in the end this is the song you'll hear this that you're most likely to immediately turn around and want to share with someone, good or bad. After a dozen listens last week, I'm still siding with good.

MP3:> Das Racist: "Combination Pizza Hut and Taco Bell (Wallpaper. Remix)"

— Scott Plagenhoef

Thursday, June 4, 2009

"Love the Nite Away (Tiedye Mix)"

DJ Kaos
"Love the Nite Away (Tiedye Mix)"

[Rong/DFA]

9
 

Is there a greater joy in life than total immersion of feeling, losing yourself completely and pushing aside all cynicism and self-consciousness? It's why you drink, dance, and throw yourself into a vast, unknowable nightlife despite the uncertainty, the possibility of failure and of heartbreak; it's why we love the night away. Tiedye, a duo known for a nearly flawless string of gorgeous tropical-inflected tracks on the Italians Do It Better label, have taken on the task of remixing DJ Kaos' already-excellent "Love the Nite Away," and effortlessly re-framed the striking vocals into a shimmering pop masterpiece. The bongos are pure Balearic disco, and the gruff, assertive, and sincere vocals firmly in the tradition of Italo classics. But the end result is a passionate dancefloor slow burn of intense beauty, an incomparable summer soundtrack.

"Love the Nite Away (Tiedye Remix)" represents a timeless, universally recognized, frequently-chased, and seldom-realized intangible feeling. Uninterested in merely being the sum of its influences, it aims for transcendence with such confidence, and for the pop jugular so unabashedly, that you start drawing up dream collaborations for comparison-- perhaps the Avalanches remixing the New Radicals. Tiedye's keys and marimbas, guitars, and beach-party FX are a slow-motion head rush, all tonal colors, swirling musical flower petals dancing behind your eyelids, each chord teasing resolution as if to imitate the uncertainty and instability of that weightless moment of love at first sight. The lyrics invoke the optimism and confusion of possibility ("Will it last? Or is it gonna be a one-time love affair?"), and the song is about these questions, not the answers. The vocals reject the reflective in favor of the immediate, tactile sensations ("I'm touching you, you're touching me!") and anticipation. After the torrential guitar solo showers down upon the dancefloor, and when all the harmonic elements swirl in concert, and the driving one-note "Your Love"-style bassline hits for the final chorus, the song entirely overwhelms. "Love the Nite Away (Tiedye Remix)" is a perfect embodiment of that instant blend of lust and hope and potential, the timeless, youthful search for sensation, visceral feeling and social unity and love, even if it's only real for that one night, or even that one moment; it's about losing yourself to another person, when joyful emotion overpowers everything else, neuroses ignored in the wake of unconcerned bliss. How pure and simple life can be.

MP3:> DJ Kaos: "Love the Nite Away (Tiedye Mix)"

— David Drake

Tuesday, June 2, 2009

"Psychic City (Voodoo City)"

YACHT
"Psychic City (Voodoo City)"

[DFA]

9
 

With Memorial Day behind us, time is ticking away on the search for the jam of the summer-- the song that will soundtrack a thousand sunburns while blaring from open car windows and backyard BBQs. It's a track that requires a delicate balance, needing to be easy to sing along to, but with a beat heavy enough that, even though sweat is dripping down the backs of your knees, you can't help but dance. It needs to be fun and immediately catchy, but able to withstand repeated plays without wearing out its welcome too soon (after all, we've got a long, hot few months ahead of us).

Here's another contender: YACHT's "Psychic City (Voodoo City)". Never before has the Portland electro duo sounded so joyous. Anything that bordered on pop this playful got muddled before with a slightly off-kilter melodic choice or some noisy electronic flourishes. But there is nothing to get in the way of this track's giddy bubble-popping effects, insistent yet rubbery groove, or big, summery chorus. Like Tom Tom Club's "Genius of Love", another great summer jam, it melds dispassionate, girlish talk-singing with squishy, bass-y synths and an infectious rhythmic drive. With lyrics snagged from a track on an old Rich Jensen K Records tape and a keyboard melody inspired by Althea and Donna's 70s reggae hit "Uptown Top Ranking", perhaps the specificity of its influences freed up Jona Bechtolt and Claire L. Evans to embrace a buoyant cohesion. And when YACHT sounds this good, it makes it easy to sail through the season.

MP3:> YACHT: "Psychic City (Voodoo City)"

— Rebecca Raber

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