Buzz Of The Month » 3

Twin Shadow – “Slow” Video

Admin — Fri, 30 Jul 2010 04:30:11 +0000

Twin Shadow’s “Slow” video is a clever parody of porn casting couch sessions, with main man George Lewis Jr. getting complimented on his “big talent” at the end. Directed by Alex Markman.

Bear In Heaven, Twin Sister, Beach Fossils @ The Echo, Los Angeles 7/27/10

Admin — Thu, 29 Jul 2010 19:30:12 +0000

Bear In Heaven headlined L.A.’s the Echo, with Twin Sister and Beach Fossils opening. Photographer Andrew Youssef was there to document, and he was impressed. Beach Fossils (with Cloud Nothings’s TJ Duke on guitar) could easily fit in with L.A.’s Abe Vigoda, Best Coast, etc. (they’ve got the right name, too), and Twin Sister played a set that reminded him of a more crystallized Beach House. A female audience member asked Bear In Heaven frontman John Philpot for a mustache ride, which is impressive in a very different way. “This may be one of those shows you brag to all your friends that you saw all three of these bands for $10 back in the day,” Youssef notes. The show was sold out, so it’s probably okay to start bragging now.

Cars Reunion? Sure, Why Not.

Admin — Thu, 29 Jul 2010 08:30:12 +0000

Adding to the list of groups you didn’t know needed to reunite, the surviving members of the Cars are hinting at a 23-year reunion via a Facebook photo of Ric Ocasek, Greg Hawkes, David Robinson and Elliot Easton in a Boston studio. (Original bassist Benjamin Orr died in 2000 after a battle with pancreatic cancer.) NME also mentions a caption to the photo reading “Anyone in the mood for a reunion by The Cars?,” though I can’t find that caption. Still, judging from the excitement over at that Facebook page, it feels like an announcement’s imminent. (Not to be outdone, Ocasek’s wife, ’80s supermodel Paulina Porizkov, is a 2010 blogger.)

Interpol – “Memory Serves”

Admin — Wed, 28 Jul 2010 19:30:13 +0000

So far we’ve heard Lights and Barricade from Interpol’s upcoming self-titled fourth collection. The guys stay mopey and mid-tempo on “Memory Serves,” which you can hear over at The Hook (Thanks for the tip, Kunal).

Interpol is out in 9/14 via Matador.

Cap’n Jazz, No Age, Lightning Bolt, TheDeathSet @ JellyNYC Brooklyn Bowl Party 7/25/10

Admin — Wed, 28 Jul 2010 08:30:13 +0000

Sunday’s scheduled free show, bringing the temporarily reunited emo heroes of Cap’n Jazz to the East River Waterfront in Williamsburg for an inspired bill along with No Age, Lightning Bolt, and the Death Set, went from being a pleasant plan to an amazing race: rain forced the relocation of the event to the lanes of Brooklyn Bowl an hour into the show. The Bowl’s just up the street, but it carries only a 700 person cap; the Williamsburg Waterfront, on the other hand, looks at about 7,000. So, lots of sad faces lining Berry St. in Williamsburg, many planning to see the Cap’n were shut out. (Which is a shame — their set at Brooklyn Bowl was fantastic. They repeated it later in the night at a secret-ish show at Maxwell’s in NJ, but that’s not an easy commute for the Williamsburg freeloaders.)Some consolation: The entire Maxwell’s set can be downloaded atNYCTaper. (Do it.)Lightning Bolt, for their part, were the same rush of blistering drumkit gunfire as they were at Pitchfork, where there adrenaline boost was severely needed. As for No Age, they have a new album out on Sub Pop soon, and I’ll assume they performed from it at their BKLYN Bowl set (I missed it) and again at a secret show at Death By Audio at 1AM that night. Yes, No Age also played a secret show, in a small room, after playing a free show earlier in the day. Brooklyn is a really nice place to spend Sundays. If you like fun things, anyway.

These are coming a day late, but still — check these photos by Chris Person, and these videos by Gary Canino (thanks for the Twitter tip, dude).

Black Mountain – “The Hair Song”

Admin — Tue, 27 Jul 2010 19:30:16 +0000

You’ve seen and heard “Old Fangs,” the chunky-guitar-and-laser-guided first single from Black Mountain’s forthcoming third album Wilderness Heart. “The Hair Song” nails a more laid-back, bluesy Southern (B.C.) rock groove that wouldn’t upset the “vibe” at a Black Crowes show.

Ariel Pink – “Menopause Man” Video (Live At Irving Plaza 7/24/10)

Admin — Tue, 27 Jul 2010 04:30:09 +0000

Killer glam at Irving Saturday night: Ariel Pink’s Haunted Graffiti (with R. Stevie Moore cameo), the new Mexican Summer signees Puro Instinct (FKA Pearl Harbor), and Magic Kids, who’ll be playing on a boat (!) momentarily. I took a decent video of Ariel’s “Menopause Man,” the standout from his beautifully trippy Before Today.

Com Truise – “Sundriped”

Admin — Mon, 26 Jul 2010 19:30:13 +0000

Princeton, NJ producer and ’80s nostalgia maker Com Truise produces a fully formed, fully formidable take on what people have resorted to calling chillwave, at a time when people are resolving to avoid any new artists that make anything resembling chillwave. True, we have enough. Though you have to make room for something if it transcends the tics, which is what Seth Haley (Com’s name proper) does, with his love of ’80s brass, hypnagogic haze and the soothing balm of hissing synths and luxuriously funky bass lines. Think Washed Out crossed with Neon Indian, if you haven’t thought about those dudes enough. And if Ernest and Alan are already on your playlists, which they probably are, then just think of this track as the entrance point to a worthwhile, free, five-track EP called Cyanide Sisters from an unsigned guy who will soon be signed, and soon be remixing his colleagues. It’s possible that Bundick, Greene, and Palomo may need to make room a little more room in their mindmeld wave pool.

Premature Evaluation: Arcade Fire – The Suburbs

Admin — Sat, 24 Jul 2010 08:30:24 +0000

Funeral was about family, and Neon Bible was about institutions. The Suburbs on first listen, feels like adolescence, the time when you’re trapped between leaving one and joining the other. Will and Win Butler told NPR that the record would be about their childhood in the suburbs of Houston, Texas. So that makes sense. But what this very long –maybe too long–album seems to be about is losing and regaining innocence, reconciling your private world (developed in your room, in study hall, in the back car seat on family road trips) with the outside one.

In a sense that lost innocence has always played a part in their work, from Neighborhood #1 to No Cars Go. Thats why they were such great inspiration for Spike Jonze as he adapted Where The Wild Things Are (it looks like hes repaying the favor now). But adolescence and young adulthood feels like the center for the first time.

The Twilight Sad – “The Wrong Car”

Admin — Fri, 23 Jul 2010 19:30:14 +0000

Scotland’s soaring, smoldering emogazers the Twilight Sad, BTW Class of ‘06, are preparing a new 12″ for release on FatCat this September, the follow up to last year’s Forget The Night Ahead. Track one is “The Wrong Car,” as thick on the brogue as it is on chorus catharsis. A point of distinction between this and the Twilight Sad’s excellent back catalogue: substituting those stadium-sized guitars for swooning string arrangements for the better part (though not all) of the track. It’s a minor tweak on an winning formula, but enough of one for another dose of win. (And don’t worry, Andy’s guitars are smeared all over the track halfway out.) “You’re on the right side of the wrong car” is the vocalist James Graham’s mantra, a line he probably wrote after getting his pulled over by some fake cops and mugged at gunpoint. Or after an American friend of his came to visit and couldn’t sort out the car seating situation.

Hear it at MySpace.