ELEPHANT STONE. Elephant Stone

Rishi Dhir, Gab Lambert, Le Venk i Miles Dupire formen Elephant Stone, un grup que ha agafat el nom d'una de les cançons més conegudes dels Stone Roses i que, en certa manera practiquen un tipus de so que es veu influenciat per tot el moviment "madchester". Aquest és el seu segon llarga durada i podríem dir, de la seva confirmació. Referències que podem trobar en la seva música estarien els Stone Roses mateixos, els Kinks i els Big Star la qual cosa ja ens fa escoltar el disc amb molta atenció. El sitar de Rishi Dhir hi afegeix un toc d'exotisme que dóna a les composicions un toc molt personal i que recorda al George Harrison fent el mateix amb els Beatles. Si m'hagués de quedar amb una peça, triaria el "Heavy Moon" però no és un disc d'una sola cançó, hi descobrireu molts de racons interessants.



Turning points often come when you least expect them. Rishi Dhir encountered one in November.

The frontman, bassist, sitar player and songwriter behind Elephant Stone was sitting with the sound man for the Black Angels in Melbourne, Australia, the first stop of the touring Harvest Festival. The two were watching Beck perform his anthemic classic Loser.

Dhir was on the road with the Black Angels, with whom he sometimes collaborates, and was not playing with his regular band. As Beck delighted the crowd with his biggest hit, Dhir turned to his companion and said, “This needs sitar.” But instead of letting the thought subside as a passing one, he made a declaration. “By Sydney, I’m going to be playing sitar with Beck,” Dhir said.

Sydney was only a week away.

A friend in another band, which had once supported Beck, hooked Dhir up with Beck’s tour manager and an introduction was arranged the next day. After a five-minute conversation, Dhir remembered, Beck said: “OK, see you on stage.”

Even without a rehearsal, the Sydney performance of Loser, with sitar, went like a charm. When his set was over, Beck asked Dhir whether he could play again the next night — the festival closer — in Brisbane. This time, however, it would be a different selection: Soldier Jane. Dhir, who was unfamiliar with the song, learned it that night.

“That experience showed me anything is possible,” Dhir said during a recent interview at the Gazette offices. “I’m just this guy from Montreal, and all of a sudden I’m on stage with Beck in Australia.”

More than once during our conversation, Dhir, a friendly man with an easy laugh, referred to this new-found positivity as a self-fulfilling prophecy. “If I say it’s not going to happen, it’s not going to happen. If I believe something will happen, there’s a better chance of it happening. It’s part of how I’m approaching Elephant Stone: Maybe we can,” he said.

These thoughts are what have pushed Dhir, 35, to kick it up a notch with a band that he started slowly, almost reluctantly, as a vehicle for his songwriting, after he left the High Dials in 2006.

“I wanted to see if I had anything to say,” he recalled of the group’s inception. “Being a musician can be a very shallow, hollow existence to some people. That’s what it became for me. I didn’t feel like I was giving anything to the world. I wasn’t being true to myself.”

At that point, Dhir was keener on settling down and having a family than getting back on the road with a new band. But positive reaction to Elephant Stone’s 2009 debut, The Seven Seas, and the album’s subsequent Polaris Music Prize nomination changed things.

The addition of guitarist Gabriel Lambert in 2010 made the project even more of a bona fide unit, Dhir said. “I felt I had someone to bounce ideas off. It wasn’t just me anymore,” he said. “Others believed in this music and we were willing to pay our dues. And pay our dues we have. We’ve done a lot in the past two years.”

With keyboard player Stephen (the Venk) Venkatarangam and drummer Miles Dupire, the band has finally become a true unit, Dhir said.

A stellar self-titled sophomore disc will be available Feb. 5, and Dhir and band have engaged a team to turn up the heat on the new release: the label and management combo of Hidden Pony and Upper Management will, in conjunction with booking agent High Road Touring, help get the word out and put the band in the right venues.

With Dhir on the road promoting the new album for much of this year, another person facing the new challenge will be his wife, Kirsty. The two have been a couple for 16 years and they have two children: Meera, 3, and 1-year-old Ishaan. “It’s not easy, the life I’ve chosen,” Dhir said. “Kirsty’s really supportive, but it’s hard.”

The group’s delicate musical balancing act, which happily celebrates vintage and contemporary psychedelic rock while keeping an eye on opportunities to incorporate Indian instrumentation and Eastern drones, can be traced not only to the moment Dhir heard pioneering fusion tracks like the Beatles’ Norwegian Wood and the Rolling Stones’ Paint It, Black, but farther back — to his childhood.

“With Indian people, music is a given,” Dhir said. Both his parents are from Punjab, and immigrated to Canada in 1969. His mother, Asha, is a great singer, he said, and he remembers her and his father, Ashok, recreating musical scenes from Bollywood movies at family functions and parties.

“What always ends up happening is, the dholki (hand drum) comes out, and all the women get together and start playing it, and they’re always singing old Bollywood songs,” Dhir said. “I was always exposed to that, and Indian classical music is so deeply entwined with it. I guess my parents gave me, inadvertently, the Eastern, Bollywood Hindustani training and my brother gave me the rock ’n’ roll training.”

Dhir’s brother, Anurag, four years older, exposed his willing 8-year-old sibling to the Beatles, the Doors and, most significantly, the Who. Tommy, Dhir said, was the album that struck the most mind-expanding chord with him.

“For the longest time, the Who was my group,” he said.

His affection for punk-era Who disciples like the Jam, post-pop rockers like Teenage Fanclub and Britpop revivalists like Blur, when he was in his early 20s, led Dhir back to the Small Faces, pre-Tommy Who and Motown.

For a time, he even went through a purist phase, acknowledging only the Who’s early, mod-era output. In 2000, he had fully bought into the mod esthetic and even purchased a 1976 Lambretta scooter, he said. “I’ve been rebuilding it since I bought it,” he said, laughing. “I rode it once. Maybe when I’m retired, I’ll be like an old mod.”

Dhir said he still thinks about both the psychedelic pioneers and their progeny when he approaches songwriting. His group, after all, is named after a 1988 song by the Stone Roses (although there is also a nod in there to Ganesha, the Hindu god of new beginnings, with his elephant head).

Drawing from a four-decade thread of pop, rock and psychedelia that also includes the Pixies and Soundgarden, Dhir said he finds himself equally comfortable with a jangly hook and a one-chord assault. “It all gets shaken in the bag,” he said. “I try to make records like my record collection.”


Contemporary psychedelic bands like Tame Impala, Animal Collective and Dirty Projectors have adopted the same approach and put the genre back on the radar. Maybe this is, as Dhir suggested, the perfect time for Elephant Stone to realize that self-fulfilling prophecy.
By Bernard Perusse, Gazette music columnist

GREAT WHITE BUFFALO. Great White Buffalo

Provau d'escoltar l'entrada de "Thanks for nothing" i si ho deixau anar aquí és que no vos agrada el rock de tota la vida. Si seguiu segur que passareu una bona estona amb uns agradables companys. Els Great White Buffalo no venen a inventar res de nou. Tenen ben apresa la lliçó dels grans del rock i els revisiten per fer-ne la seva lectura. Tenen la frescura de les bandes novelles i les seves primeres passes van pel bon camí. Al seu bandcamp el podeu descarregar al preu que considereu oportú.

Dubbed one of the 10 Los Angeles bands to know by Pigeons and Planes, the four-piece of rockers known as Great White Buffalo are favorably positioned to stir up the music scene in 2013 and beyond. Listen to their self-titled EP and you’ll understand why they’re ranked alongside the likes of indie favorites Father John Misty and Lord Huron, among others. Engineered and co-produced by Grammy award-winning Phil Allen (Adele, Aerosmith), the layered 6-track record calls to mind influences of the Strokes, Foo Fighters and Kings of Leon while staying true to the band’s own unique sound. Considering GWB’s upcoming itinerary, which includes stops at both San Francisco’s Noise Pop Festival and SXSW, it is likely their fan base will only continue to multiply in the months to come.(Facebook)

VV.AA. Torrential zen

Torrential Zen és un artefacte sonor on hi trobareu una peça de cada un dels quatre grups que hi col·laboren: els Dinosaur Feathers, els The Fatty Acid, els Sat. Nite Duets i les Radical Dats. Tots practiquen una espècie de garatge psicodèlic amb alguns esquitxos de rock i de grunge. Són peces de principiants amb els encants propis d'aquests tipus de treballs, són immediats, amb imperfeccions pels quatre costats i amb una gran dosi de vitalitat.


This slab of 7-inch vinyl epitomizes the longstanding Milwaukee-Brooklyn rivalry, and pits The Fatty Acids and Sat. Nite Duets (Brew City) against Dinosaur Feathers and Radical Dads (Land of Bands and Locally Harvested Honey). (band camp)

BOXED WINE. Cheap, fun Ep

Boxed Wine són un grup de New Jersey que practiquen una espècie de pop ballable molt contagiós. Per ara l'únic que els interessa és fer-nos moure i que coneguem la seva música. Per aquest motiu la trobareu al seu bandcamp a un preu de rialla. A divertir-se toca!


It's somehow fitting that a band named Boxed Wine should call a record 'Cheap, Fun', as that's pretty much the purpose for buying boxed wine in the first place (it can't be for the taste, surely?). We're pleased to note that there has been no great stylistic departure since we last featured them in the summer, so look forward to more full of beans powerpop tunes with a slightly punky edge and a slightly goofy one too. In fact 'Cheap,'Fun' is actually a nice analogy for these songs. They're not elaborate, intricate and tweaked in post-production until everything is precision engineered, no, they're fun and, well I guess kind of cheap. It's some blokes hammering out some catchy pop tunes on guitars, not the London Philharmonic Orchestra.

This is how we want them to be and it's almost certainly how they want to be, because they know just as well as us that there's always room for some lively guitar tunes that are to be listened to and not studied. The equivalent of writing your dissertation on this EP would be this review. Short and to the point, but it does its job. 'Bones' has a riff that almost toys with math-rock but from there it's headlong into pop-punk enthusiasm. There's a little bit of We Are Scientists creeping into the bouncy indie of 'Boomerang', but they save the best until last. They dare to venture a little further towards universal pop on 'Dayglow (Why Can't We Stay)' and you get the impression that this is Boxed Wine letting us know they could turn their hands to other styles if they wanted. It actually sounds a bit like Friendly Fires and Little Comets remixing each other. Cheap, fun and we wouldn't want them any other way. (thesoundofconfusionblog)

FOXYGEN. We are the 21st century ambassadors of peace and magic

Sam France and Jonathan Rado són Foxygen un duo que han publicat una petita meravella que quedarà com un dels treballs grans d'aquest 2013. Segons la revista Deli Magazine són considerats un dels millors grups revelació de l'any passat i amb aquest treball encara es consoliden més. "In the darkness" ens endinsa des del mateix moment en què comencen a sonar els primers compassos  en un univers sonor propi dels anys 60 i més concretament dins el St. Peppers del Beatles i ja només per aquest motiu es mereixen una reflexió i  una revisió més que merescuda. "San Francisco"  és una joia del pop amb una tonada que ressona i ressona dins el teu cap, d'aquelles tonades que vas cantant en el teu subconscient quan menys te n'adones. "On the blue mountain", "No destruction", la bluessy "Bowling Trophies", la cançó que dóna el títol a l'àlbum "We are the 21st century ambassadors of peace and magic", la delicada "Shuggie" conformen un oasi confortable que et submergeix en un passat que surt a la llum de nou amb treballs que revisiten paratges del pop i el fan reviscolar per engrandir encara més la seva llegenda. Un disc que és obligat escoltar una i altra vegada per anar descobrint tos els seus racons obscurs i els seus moments màgics. Si aquest és encara el seu segon treball esperam amb devoció poder gaudir de futures obres. Grans, Foxygen!

It’s become an increasingly familiar ritual – an annual two-week stretch in December when every music fan scrolls through endless lists, write-ups, and Spotify playlists of the year’s best albums, playing catch-up with the records they missed or never got around to. At first it’s fun, but at some point it becomes a daunting task to replay the alt-J album as many times possible until it finally grows on you.

Fortunately, We Are The 21st Century Ambassadors of Peace and Magic can give us all reason to stop catching up with last year’s music and focus on the here and now of 2013. Ironically, the duo takes us into the present by crafting a sound from decades in the past.

While bands with a “retro” sound have been a dime a dozen in the past few years, Foxygen can certainly be added to the list of those who have done it right (Cults, Tame Impala, Dr. Dog), providing their own unique spin on the bluesy, raw sounds of The Velvet Underground, The Band, and countless other inspirations without trying too hard.

At least they don’t seem like they’re trying too hard. The album’s nine tracks breeze by with an understated swagger and carefree vibe. Lead vocalist Sam France exemplifies this rebellious confidence, commanding each track with his warbling, quietly soulful vocals. France does have a strong natural singing voice, but often times he chooses to talk-sing, channeling his inner Lou Reed Old-school guitars and easygoing, driving drum rhythms maintain the retro tone established by France’s vocals, all adding up to make Foxygen’s record a nice little blast from the past. But the album is far more than that – 21st Century Ambassadors is elevated with the help of Jonathan Rado’s keyboard and Richard Swift’s production.

While each track would certainly work as a straight-up guitar-rocker, it’s Rado’s gentle piano chords that truly make them complete. Light, bluesy keys drive the music along throughout the record, from the phenomenal opening track “In The Darkness,” to the unexpected switch-flipping tempo changes of “On Blue Mountain” and “Shuggie.”

The added dimension of the piano is matched with truly inspired production throughout, as bells, horns, strings and handclaps pop up all over the record, whenever they’re welcome. These added quirks and flourishes never feel overbearing or cutesy – rather, they keep the sound positive and the music consistently interesting by balancing the old-timey feel with a modern array of sounds.

Foxygen’s charm wears off just a bit by the last two songs, which don’t quite meet the others in the accessibility department. On the title track, France wears his influences too heavily on his sleeve, stuttering and screaming in a manner that will appeal only to those who miss old-school punk-rock the most. Album closer “Oh No 2” shows the band trying its hand at experimental, psychedelic stuff and only slightly succeeding.

The song is saved, however, by a piano-and-vocals finale that calls to mind Abbey Road’s famous conclusion. Even the last lyrics mimic McCartney, as France sings in an airy falsetto: ““If you believe in love, everything you see is love.”

Nostalgia rock can be tiring, as certain sounds become trendy for short periods of time, only to go away as quickly as they came (lo-fi surf-rock comes to mind). But with We Are The 21st Century Ambassadors of Peace and Magic, Foxygen is a breath of fresh air, reviving a vintage style of songwriting in a new and creative fashion. [B+] (prettymuchamazing.com)

NORWEGIAN ARMS. Wolf like a stray dog

Domés començar a escoltar la primera peça d'aquest treball intueixes que et trobes davant una obra especial. Et venen al cap obres dels Fleet Foxes, del Bonnie Prince Billy o dels Bon Iver. A mesura que passa l'estona comences a notar un cert canvi cap a més ètnic o de ritmes folk. La màgia que enrevolta cada una de les composicions fan que el temps es vagi cremant sense que cap gúspira et destrempi i, a l'acabament, et queda una sensació agradable d'haver escoltat quelcom indefinit, minúscul, inofensiu, elegant i encisador. Bon viatge a la taiga russa!


Recorded over the course of an intense week of at Dr. Dog’s Meth Beach studios, Norwegian Arms is set to release their debut LP, Wolf Like A Stray Dog. The record is comprised of eleven introspective songs written during songwriter/mandolinist Brendan Mulvihill’s year long fellowship in Tomsk, Russia, nestled in the heart of Siberia. Self- described as an “ember glowing in the distance of an otherwise frozen taiga”, Wolf Like A Stray Dog deals with themes of homesickness, discovery, frustration, and wanderlust.

Wolf Like a Stray Dog is an album about the quest for identity, a resistance to permanence, adapting to new environments, questioning one's knowledge and perspective, and never being satisfied with what you know. It's wanderlust and curiosity, distilled and neatly packaged into sonic bursts of intense energy. Simply put, it’s apparent that Norwegian Arms suffers from a chronic case of the human condition. (Bandcamp)

THE GREAT AMERICAN NOVEL. Kissing

The Great American Novel és un grup de Brooklyn que varen editar aquest bon treball el juny de l'any passat i que tenia a la llista de possibles publicacions però que no acabava de decidir-me. L'altre dia, escoltant "American Weekend", em vaig acabar de decidir. És una peça que podria estar signada perfectament pels The Beat d'en Paul Colins. La resta del treball és un exercici perfecte de pop punk i power pop a parts iguals. Música per alegrar-te el dia com ho fa "All the sad young literary men". El començament, amb "Sleeping along" i "Holly" ens serveixen d'aperitiu, senzilles i addictives, després la resta va entrant en bones i quan has digerit la primera escolta ja tens ganes de tornar-hi anar. Un treball que no hauria desentonat gaire al costat dels grans del beat i del power pop dels 60s i 70s i que ara encara ens semblen intemporals. A gaudir-ne!

Self-aware and pleasingly reverent, The Great American Novel’s Kissing is an inviting collection of radio-friendly pop jams that won’t insult your intelligence. This album seems to have been recorded with the credo “let’s make fun music and let’s have fun doing it.” The result is a thing of effortless delight: rollicking, cooing pop-punk revival with comfortable doses of boozy literacy. An agnostic confidant in a world of increasingly exclusive musical cliques.

The Great American Novel don’t aim to impress with guitar sophistry or slick sarcasm, opting instead to craft joyful little collages of early 2000s radio rock. We’re talking about breathy little songs with plenty of room for movement and enough displays of musical acuity to be taken seriously. Most tracks have a subtle water quality to them, a Real Estate-y lilt which serves as sole reminder that these guys are from Brooklyn and it is 2013.

Kissing attempts a cocktail of influences ranging from doo-wop to post-punk revival, and at times the disparate genres don’t necessarily collude. But the album does have a flow, and the songs do come together into the same angsty space. The wintry tilt-along of ‘All the Sad Young Literary Men‘ and ‘Raymond Carver’s‘ southwestern swagger don’t seem like they would be particularly interested in cohabitation, but the ache exhibited in each is consistent and the songwriting consistently enjoyable.

‘You’re Probably Good at Kissing‘ is this album’s phenomenal epicenter; a perfect blend of every divergent interest the album indulges. To put it simply: this is a great pop song, and it’s been looping in my head for about a week. The album never quite reaches the heights of ‘Good at Kissing’ a second time, but there is more than enough going on in terms of genre exploration to make the whole thing worthwhile. @HemlockShaw

HIDEOUT. LP I

La sorpresa del dia ha estat aquesta, un grup de San Diego que no practica surf pop sino un space pop amb algunes pinzellades de shoegaze i altres d'indie pop. Peces que t'enganxen de seguida i que es van engrandint de cada cop més. El grup està format per Gabriel Rodriguez, Cory Stier i Nathan Aguilar i el vos recoman fermament. Escoltau sobretot "Change All", la cançó que obre el disc i si sou capaços de deixar-lo anar m'ho escriviu als comentaris, jo hi he quedat ben enganxat i, a l'acabament de la tarda he decidit que no podia estar ni un dia més sense compartir-lo. El podeu baixar de forma gratuïta del seu soundcloud. Quina meravella!!

A new, under-publicized release from San Diego space pop project Hideout, consisting ofBoomsnake mastermind Gabriel Rodriguez and Cults/Boomsnake live members Cory Stier and Nathan Aguilar, has recently made it’s way onto a small Facebook and Twitter community of followers. The trio toured together in both aforementioned bands and have since recorded and released the first album from Hideout titled LP I for free download on Soundcloud. The album opens with ‘All I Want’ a deeply textured track with repetitively melodic acoustic and electric guitars and the feel of a young Talking Heads. The reasonably ‘verbed out production, tasteful use of delay, and roomy drums brought me back to early 70s Lennon stuff like “Oh Yoko” and succeeds in creating a sound many new bands strive for but fall short of accomplishing. Release after release from this scene of musicians has brought out some of the best minimal, indie-pop songwriting in recent years yet it continues to go underappreciated. [Free Download] @thinknotsleep

RECOPILATORI. FEBRER 2013

BOIRINA A

BOIRINA B

NICK CAVE AND THE BAD SEEDS. Push the sky away

Crec que ningú que em conegui dubtarà de la meva absoluta parcialitat a l'hora d'analitzar una obra de Nick Cave, un artista que vaig seguint des dels seus inicis amb The Birthday Party i que sempre he admirat. Com no podria ser d'una altra manera, el nou treball de l'australià, és una perfecta obra mestra. Des dels seus primers compassos a "We no who U R" fins als darrers de "Push the sky away" i passant pels laments dels violins de "Jubilee Street".  Encara l'he escoltat poc però em recorda els millors moments de "No more shall we part", un disc no massa ben rebut per la crítica però que a mi m'apassiona. "Push the sky away" ha estat produït per Nick Launay als estudis de La Fabrique que estan situats en una mansió del sud de França. És un disc on la tristor es fa present a cada una de les seves notes i, com passa quasi sempre amb Mr. Cave, aquest és el seu camí cap a la redempció i l'expiació dels pecats més inconfesables. L'absoluta senzillesa turmentada de "We real cool", la dicció profunda de "Finishing Jubilee Street", la calma misteriosa de "We no who U R", el blues misteriós de "Higgs Boson Blues" i la darrera cançó del disc que dona títol a tot el treball, "Push the Sky Away" amb la seva atmosfera particular elaborada amb els sons etèris de l'orgue i els cors femenins teixint una tela d'aranya que et va sacsejant a poc a poc fins que t'atrapa i no t'amolla. Un dels discs de s'any en ple gener, no hi ha cap dubte.

Nick Cave & the Bad Seeds release their fifteenth studio album PUSH THE SKY AWAY on 18 February 2013

“Well, if I were to use that threadbare metaphor of albums being like children, then Push The Sky Away is the ghost-baby in the incubator and Warren’s loops are its tiny, trembling heart-beat.” Nick Cave

At the heart of Push the Sky Away is a naturalism and warmth that makes it the most subtly beautiful of all the Bad Seeds albums. The contemporary settings of myths, and the cultural references that have time-stamped Nick’s songs of the twenty-first century mist lightly through details drawn from the life he observed around his seaside home, through the tall windows on the album’s mysterious and ambiguous cover.

The songs on this album took form in a modest notebook with shellac covers over the course of almost a year. The notebook is a treasured analogue artefact but the internet is equally important to Nick: Googling curiosities, being entranced by exotic Wikipedia entries “whether they’re true or not”. These songs convey how on the internet profoundly significant events, momentary fads and mystically-tinged absurdities sit side-by-side and question how we might recognise and assign weight to what’s genuinely important.

Push the Sky Away was produced by Nick Launay and recorded at La Fabrique, a recording studio based in a 19th Century mansion in the South of France, where the walls of the main studio are lined with an immense collection of classical vinyl.

“I enter the studio with a handful of ideas, unformed and pupal; it’s the Bad Seeds that transform them into things of wonder. Ask anyone who has seen them at work. They are unlike any other band on earth for pure, instinctive inventiveness.” Nick Cave

On this album it’s not always apparent what instruments the band is playing: they may be traditional musical instruments but other sounds are clearly generated by objects unrelated to musical instruments. What’s being created is a collective musical language that’s rich and complex.

Push the Sky Away has a clarity and sweet strangeness that’s built upon the refusal to accept limitations, whether they be the traditional uses and sounds of musical instruments, lyric styles, or diminished spiritual horizons.

“I don’t know, this record just seems new, you know, but new in an old school kind of way” Nick Cave. (nickcave.com)

THICK AS A THEIVES. Thick as a Thieves EP

L'entrada d'avui va totalment lligada al meu estat d'ànim. Avui toca rock amb majúscules. Venen de NYC. L'Ep està gravat a Hoboken i mescla blues, garatge rock i rock alternatiu a parts iguals. Per donar alguna referència vàlida podríem anomenar als White Stripes o fins i tot els Black Keys una mica més aspres i durs. Per escoltar a "nivell elevat", com deien els discs de Hot Tuna.

THICK AS THEIVES IS:

Howzr: Guitar/Vocals
Chris Moran: Drums/Vocals



Thick as Theives is a bombastic, irreverent rock 'n roll band founded on the back of thunderous drums and gritty, fuzz-fueled guitar riffs.

We have been in the studio (the Vault studios in Hoboken) for the past few months, recording songs for an upcoming album. We are currently mixing the first batch of songs and should have something to release by the end of September!

Thick as Theives has all of the grit and grime of a true American rock band. The duo, comprised of Chris Moran and Howzr boasts a sound that's bluesy and punchy, reminiscent of established duos like The Black Keys and The White Stripes. Their 6-track self-titled EP was released online in November, and features uniquely infectious melodies and an equally hard-edged sound. “I Gotta Girl (With a List of Needs)” starts out with a fuzzy surf-riff reminiscent of Little Barrie’s “Surf Hell” and plunges into pounding drum-heavy solos. “Abilene” is a slower-paced track, complete with drawn out guitar solos and bluesy riffs. Look for their upcoming show at Brooklyn Bowl on March 19th. - Jen Margott

SCHWERVON!. Courage

Schwervon! són una parella, home i dona naturals de NYC que viuen a Kansas. Na Nan a sa bateria i en Matt a la guitarra fabriquen uns artefactes sonors directes i amb una càrrega emocional prou consistent. "Courage" és ja el seu vuitè treball (5 largues durades i dos 7'). Un treball absolutament recomanable i a un preu molt correcte al seu bandcamp.


Last summer, Schwervon! took a break from the hustle and bustle of their home headquarters in New York City and headed south to the land of Elvis and Stax Records (Memphis, TN). Their mission was to record with legendary indie rock engineer Doug Easley (Pavement, Sonic Youth, Cat Power). Matt says his original inspiration for the duo taking the trip down south was listening to old Grifters albums, and specifically reading a very conspicuous advertisement for Easley-McCain Studios on the inside fold of the Grifters' first Subpop Release "Ain't My Lookout". Everything came full circle when Dave Shouse (Grifters, Those Bastard Souls, The New Mary Jane) agreed to appear as a guest vocalist for the song "Daydream Ration". Also appearing as a guest vocalist on the track "Truth Teller" is Frances McKee, of legendary Glaswegian band The Vaselines. Schwervon! befriended McKee after opening for The Vaselines on their European tour in 2011. Between the recording sessions and the official release of the record, Nan and Matt moved from NYC to Kansas City. They could no longer afford to NOT be doing music full-time and decided to leave Manhattan to make this possible. They moved to Matt's tree-lined hometown of Shawnee, Kansas where they now reside between tours with their cat Gummo and his Dad, Harry. They will be touring the U.S. and Europe through the fall of 2012 & spring 2013 in support of Courage. (bandcamp)

CAPSUL. Coherence

--Coherence-- is an EP by Capsul//James Stuteley. There are five songs on it, together for coherence. They were all written 2010-12 and recorded 2011-12.
Advisors Tim Berry and Nicole Gaffney had a definite positive effect on this EP.

Alex Grant plays drums on Mighty.


Artwork by the resplendent Robert Nedeljkovic.(Papaiti Records)