Good submissions are pushing our inbox to its structural limits. Here’s new music for your weekend from The Sarandons, Ten Kills The Pack, Harlow Lake, Gerdie, Upstairs and Mother Sun.
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February 27, 2021
We Never Asked For This
February 26, 2021
Friday 5×5
Today we have new music from Ivan Moon, Mia Joy, The Daily Spreadsheets, Neu Sierra and Broken Radio.
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February 26, 2021
The B-Side: Izy Bandha
From Germany we get “Only Lovers” from Izy Bandha, a post-goth indie rock number that balances dark lyrics such as “I feel the poison runnin’ through my chest” and the chorus refrain of “Only Lovers, I’m trying to hold my demons together” with an upbeat melody that bristles with life. Inspired by the Jim Jarmusch’s Only Lovers Left Alive the song trades in the languid lushness of the film for the infectious urgency of youth, and in the hands of Bandha it’s a fair trade indeed.
February 25, 2021
Talk Thursday to Me – Coolidge
Today we catch up with Coolidge’s Chris Smail and chat about making old influences new again and a few stand out songs from their new album Condition Transmission.
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February 25, 2021
Fasman’s Finds – Mars
This week brings us an audio file that is the first of its kind – a recording taken from the surface of another planet. NASA has previously created a kind of imagined sonic landscape for each planet based on recordings from “interactions of charged electromagnetic particles from the solar wind, ionisphere, and planetary magnetosphere.” I don’t know what that means but y’all are smart, I trust that it’s not someone just farting into a fan.
Now this audio recording, which, upon further research, was taken with “A COMMERCIAL, OFF-THE-SHELF DEVICE”…wait. I’m sorry. The fuck? Off-WHOSE-shelf? Radioshack? Best Buy? I MUST KNOW. I am confused/miffed/heated about why they didn’t get a fancy microphone built since everything else on this rover is engineered AF but cool cool, sound doesn’t matter that much to NASA, apparently. Whew…OK fine. Y’all are smart, like I said, you must have your reasons, and now we have the first audio recording of Mars, which is so cool…and I can’t wait to hear what it sounds like with some state-of-the-art recording equipment. Anyways, listen to 18 seconds of the surface of Mars. Despite my hemming and hawing about the methods used to procure it, it is very cool and eerie and mind-blowing to hear what another planet sounds like.
https://mars.nasa.gov/mars2020/multimedia/audio/
February 25, 2021
The B-Side: goodcomposer/DEADCOMPOSER
“Little Bird” by goodcomposer/DEADCOMPOSER (aka Simon Brown) is part of a four album octophonic mother and son art installation, but then what isn’t these days right? All joking aside, it’s definitely ambitious enough to grab our attention, and the song is enough of a delightful Talking Heads-esque indie rock/pop number to stand on it’s own. The zero budget clever video is the icing on the cake.
February 24, 2021
The Midweekly – Chicano Batman
The Midweekly is our column from Mike Jeffers; lead singer of Chicago punk stalwarts SCRAM, music junkie and all around righteous dude.
This is cruising, windows down, breeze through your hair music. Headed to a sunny spot with a beautiful person music. Chicano Batman, out of LA, give us a set of tunes on their latest release, Invisible People, that bounce and strut across a dance floor. Funk rock with a touch of that psychedelic. The songwriting stays in the happy zone, for the most part, keeping the lyrics simply about joy and love. But they do take a few serious turns, like the title track and its lamentations on being part of a marginalized people. Or a harrowing story about an uncle who became a refugee after getting on the wrong side of the cartel. The whole record has a slick but scratched vintage texture from producer Leon Michels (Big Crown Records, Sharon Jones, Black Keys). The closing track is about the death of a loved one, which I think puts the whole album into perspective. Find that breeze, that sunny spot, squeeze your beautiful companion tight, and hold on to that lovely moment.
February 24, 2021
The B-Side: Meditating Cowboy
Like a Raymond Carver short story come to musical life, “Shadows” by Meditating Cowboy is both gorgeous and melancholy, which just happen to be two of our favorite types of music. The sparse, mostly guitar-only arrangement and big open production serves MC’s expressive vocals well; giving them plenty of room to dive, dip, soar and expand to fill the space. And just like the best short stories, this one is just a short vignette, a snapshot of a moment in the character’s life that fades before you know it, leaving only the echo of the emotion behind.
February 23, 2021
Tuesday Tip-Off: Lord Huron
Lord Huron have a new single, “Not Dead Yet” (see above), and a new four part livestream series called Alive From Whispering Pines – which seems to be a Twin Peaks meets WandaVision as a late night variety show sort of thing. We could try and explain further, but episodes are $18 a pop which is more than the blog’s annual budget. Still, if you’re a big Port Huron fan and want to support this admittedly creative endeavor you can check it out at https://www.lordhuron.com/. If you’re a cheapskate like us, you can enjoy them performing tonight on Jimmy Kimmel Live.
February 23, 2021
The B-Side: Adi Sun
Adi Sun has left behind the shoegaze leaning alt rock of their band Phenomenal Sun to strike out solo. The result is a more meditative and vulnerable sound that spools out lush and languid. The gauzy sonics of Sun’s former work are still there, only now they are subtler and more refined, and an exciting jumping off point for where they’ll go next.