RECOPILATORI JULIOL 2013

EXHIBICIONISME

OS DRONGOS.Greetings From Cuckoo Bay

This is the first Single/EP of this French group, and they should release soon their first album. The three tracks have a different approach but the band has a strong enough style to keep it coherent. To simplify the first track is Garage Pop, the second is Garage Rock Psychedelic and the third is Garage Pop Grunge Psychedelic. There's also a light South America color that mildly justify the name of the band and of the EP. :-)

The use of Garage in the tags is a bit exaggerated, it's Garage not much focused on noise and dirt but instead focus on some games with sound and a sort of Garage energetic and direct approach with a well balanced production, clear but not too clean. So it's not really Garage but some of its spirit is close to Garage, including the light Psychedelic touches that remind modern Garage frequent approach. Anyway even if it's not really Garage, I think it's an excellent EP that could enjoy fans of Garage.

http://sandmusicblog.blogspot.com.es

CATNAPS. Forget About It

Love is probably both the best and worst thing a person can ever feel in life. Few things, have such an inherent contradictory nature, such a mind-boggling capacity for instilling manic, transcendental joy as well bitter, burning hurt, all at the same time.

A prime example of that idea is Philadelphia-based band Catnaps. Not just because so few bands manage to musically and lyrically evoke the mercurial nature of love as perfectly as Catnaps. Also because Catnaps is a band so talented, so unique, so incredibly goddamn fantastic that it is, in my opinion, impossible not to fall utterly, hopelessly in love with it.

Like all great romances, of course, the love Catnaps inspires is not without an element of tragedy. Why? Because Catnaps has officially broken up. The group played its last show last night. And I never once got to see them live. Life is not fair.



It seems like only yesterday that I discovered this band and, in short order, they rocketed up to a prominent place in the pantheon of music groups I hold near and dear to my cholesterol-clogged li’l heart. It’s like that girl who transferred to my high school halfway through senior year and who I quickly developed a crush on: Around just long enough for me to fall head over heels, only to vanish into the ether all too soon, leaving me lamenting what could’ve been, mourning lost time that I never even had.

Oh well. At least the members of Catnaps is giving me one last parting gift to remember ‘em by, which is more than I can ever say about Danielle Buckwalter.

I guess that brings us to “Forget About Me,” the new and final Catnaps EP. Throughout the album’s five tracks, Catnaps captures the double-edged nature of love not by alternating between sweet and sour, but rather by being both sweet and sour simultaneously.

Since Catnaps’ 2011 debut, “Why Don’t You Whisper,” the band has experimented and evolved with each subsequent release while still maintaining a certain stylistic cohesiveness. Instead of departing from certain signature elements in favor of introducing new ones, what Catnaps has always done is take what already exists and elaborate on those elements, exploring its own trademark sound more deeply.

“Forget About It” sees the group continuing to emphasize the shoegaze-esque wall-of-sound sonic fuzz and ambient atmospherics that shifted to the fore on the band’s previous release, “Shuteye.” “Forget About It” is much closer in style to “Shuteye” than that album was to its predecessor, “Boys Drool,” or that was to “Why Don’t You Whisper.” At the same time, one can see how each development lead to the next and “Forget About It” is the result of constant growth and consistent improvement.

In a way, I guess, maybe it’s fitting that Catnaps has decided to call it quits, as the music on “Forget About It” essentially represents the ultimate crystallization of all the band’s various influences and obsessions into a shining singularity where all the different elements that have long defined the group are at last perfectly balanced with one another. And, just like the material on “Shuteye,” every song here only gets better with each additional listen.

The sound here is spacey, slightly grungy indie twee with angelic pop hooks and lovelorn lyricism that blurs the line between chewing bubblegum and chewing glass. It’s what Catnaps has been working toward since the beginning, and it’s that at its very best. It’s so bright and aching and beautiful, it’s impossible to not smile upon listening to it. It fills the heart to bursting.

I honestly can’t tell whether the pleasurable pain I’m feeling right now is from the music on “Forget About It” or from the thoughts warring for dominance in my head right now, gratitude for all the joy Catnaps has brought me over time versus despair over the knowledge that Catnaps is now no more.

How intoxicatingly, agonizingly apropos.

Grade: A+

Choice cuts: “Pictures of You,” “Diner That Night,” and “She Cut Her Bangs”.

http://570minefire.wordpress.com

COOL GHOLUS. Cool Gholus

RADICAL DADS. Rapid Reality

Radical Dads are the kind of rock band that might, for a second, remind you of some other rock bands you love. Scrappy, angular rock bands. Bands on the edge of chaos but locked into big riffs and sweet melodies. They may remind you of others, but just for that second. Then singer Lindsay Baker howls the word “disintegration” in opener “Mountain Town” and that’s what happens to those comparisons, they fall apart. Rapid Reality, the band’s new record, is exciting and unpredictable. This is a band with sharp edges, as on “Mountain Town”, that can shift to jangling energy (“Pink Flag”) before blindsiding you not by getting faster, but by getting bigger and more spacious on the excellent title track, the wandering “Marine Layer”, and—perhaps their finest moment here—the expansive opus of “Shackleton”. In just their second full length, the band has reached a remarkable height, and sounds much bigger and more varied than its three-member, guitar-and-drums set up. Radical Dads prove you can be scrappy and still be ambitious, and that while some bands are happy to be just another band in Brooklyn, some prefer to sound like a band from anywhere, that can go anywhere, and do virtually anything. Radical Dads is that band, which is why they’ll remind you of other important bands, until they prove to you they are their own kind of important. http://www.popmatters.com

STEPHEN HUDSON. Sleep for Railway Dreamers

The upshot of the increasingly dull nu-folk scene is that it's opened the doors slightly for artists who make less routine and derivative music using acoustic instruments. Although we've had it up to here with boring people strumming guitars, the whole baroque and chamber-pop side of things is enjoying a rare moment in the spotlight, even if it is the side of the genre that merges with pop music. So for every Ben Howard there's a Stephen Hudson who's making more interesting, intricate and simply better music, with better arrangements, better lyrics and without the likelihood that they'd sell their own Grandparents for the chance of a Brit award or Mercury nomination.

'Sleep for Railway Dreamers' is an album that Hudson has tagged as "indie-pop", which is also a suitable description, but the style and arrangements most certainly mean he can add a "baroque" to that too, it has a little more going on that your general indie-pop album. The songs are almost entirely acoustic and laced with plenty of strings. 'Cobwebs' begins with simple guitar but gently begins to swell as other instruments tentatively join in and neatly match the well thought-out lyrics. The words here are anything but cobbled together nonsense. More intricate and more heavily orchestrated is the gorgeous 'Shingles' (it's about a beach, not the disease) and it's top quality orchestral pop.

A high point comes with 'Everything Electric', another brilliantly arranged track that's a match for anyone else treading a similar path and, as the title suggests, is the most electric song on the album. 'Sleep for Railway Dreamers' is a very consistent album, with some tracks that are short in length yet still worthy of inclusion as they add something to the whole experience, which is one of fun and, for want of a better word, quirkiness. Other songs that are worth heading for as a first port of call are the lovely piano-led (but, again, more heavily orchestrated) 'Cathy's Kid is the Newsreader', the upbeat 'Tallulah?' which is almost like early Belle & Sebastian with a different vocalist, and the closing track 'Here's A Clue'. 'Sleep for Railway Dreamers' has had plenty of thought put into it, and it's clearly paid dividends. Stephen Hudson is a songwriter of some calibre. http://thesoundofconfusionblog.blogspot.com.es

DYLAN EWEN. Alt 2013

Boston noisemaker Dylan Ewen is back with a four-song EP of carbonated fuzz pop. Last fall Dylan put out his album Fort Worthless, a cheeky little album full of snotty youthful angst that I liked a whole lot.

Following in the same vein as that album, this new EP Alt 2013 touches on a lot of the same subjects: girls, failed relationships, self-deprecation and occultic imagery as reappropriated by a third-grader. He even follows up “You’re a Bitch" from Fort Worthless with “You’re a Bitch Pt 2 (Still a Bitch)." So that shows you a bit where Dylan is coming from. As with Fort Worthless, everything here has to be taken with a grain of salt. There’s a thread of humor and self-awareness that runs through all of Dylan’s music that makes any of the perceived immaturity go down easy. Basically it’s just a fun, catchy collection of songs that don’t take themselves too seriously. So you shouldn’t either. http://cactus-mouth.tumblr.com

THE MITES. Spur of the Summer

And we thought we were overdoing it with the references to summer recently. It has, following a long and distinctly dull spring, finally arrived, and The Mites are offering up a soundtrack to it, and it's a soundtrack that we'll treasure. The group is based around yet another happy couple, something which almost seems a prerequisite for indie music at the moment, and are situated in Texas, getting some of their finest musician friends to record these songs wherever and whenever they could. In their own words "in bedrooms, living rooms, front yards and backyards", these DIY sounds were made by any means available. The result is classic sounding indie that will remind you of the late '80s and early '90s, to records you grew up listening to and bands you'd forgotten you owned stuff by.

Most classic sounding of all is 'Slightly Removed', a song that has all the hallmarks you'd expect. It barely requires description if you've read the first paragraph. 'Strike Of The Mind' has a British feel and will bring to mind C86 yet again, but they've got the sound bang on. These are no Anglophiles though, and on 'Marjorie's Injury' it's the US alt-rock scene, and 4AD in particular that's recalled in the Breeders-like fuzz rock. Imitation? Yeah a bit, but again it's done perfectly. It's interesting to note that another review quoted in their press release compares The Mites to The Muffs, surely one of the biggest unsung heroes of fuzzy indie/alternative music, and you can hear then in this song too. 'On And On (With You)' is dreamier, with the vocals back in the mix and a wall of gentle distortion making up the entire song. They're picking their influences well and doing them justice, something they prove on the sweetly lo-fi closing track 'Soma Holiday'. Warm weather often brings out mites, but these Mites are ones we're glad to have. http://thesoundofconfusionblog.blogspot.com.es

SERFS. Common feelings Ep

Serfs have a bratty, 90′s esque attitude. Like, that snobby garage rock you feel really cool listening to. Common Feelings gritty shoegaze sound shows a more darker side of upcoming summer releases. Its for those not so sunny days where you need a bit of angst. I’m sure you’ll have a few of those.  @LeahLovecat

KAT KONG. Kat Kong

Kat Kong is a band in Los Angeles. Kat Kong likes fuzz pedals and floor toms. Kat Kong is comprised of boys and girls. Thanks for listening to Kat Kong.

THE EVERYWHERES. Slow Friends

“The self-titled debut from songwriter Samuel Hill’s The Everywheres summons scrappy yet masterful psych-pop. Glowing garlands take shape from a cocktail of Davies odes, Brian Jonestown candidness and nomadic adventures. Swirling guitar wanes smooth to build a delicate, jewel-toned backbone from which peyote induced tambourines and blissed-out harmonies stem. Hill started making music as The Everywheres in the summer of 2012. The notorious drifter found himself back in his native Halifax, Nova Scotia, more specifically in the basement of his childhood home. It was there (along with time spent along the ocean shores in LaHave) that Hill was inspired to recount his journeys thru the power of song. He shacked up with his Tascam 4-track and every instrument he could get his hands on, laying down what would become The Everywheres’ debut” (Soundcloud)

EX WIFE. New Colors

We're not the first ones to notice that the opening few bars of this track from New Jersey group Exwife have a bit of Nirvana to them, but that's about it as far as comparisons to that group go. You could say that the throat-shredding vocal screams of the chorus bear a resemblance too, but really 'Rituals' is closer in style to shoegaze. These guys first formed as a duo in 2009 before going on a short break, then returning to release a couple of singles and now, after recruiting a permenant bassist, Exwife have just released their debut album, 'New Colors'.

Guitarist Nick Bolton produced and engineered the album which was recorded this February, so it's very much an in-house affair, with just a little outside help with the mastering. 'Rituals', following that rumbling start and adds swathes of guitar that are closer to the British alternative scene of the early '90s than the US one. However, as the song progresses through this melodic opening section, it gradually becomes more raw as the vocals are pushed forward, but it always remains fluid and shows a band that never give less than 100%. As a brief introduction, 'Rituals' suggests that the album will suit anyone who likes their rock music to be fuzzy, alternative and passionate.http://thesoundofconfusionblog.blogspot.com.es

THE SORRY SHOP. Mnemonic Syncretism

Of all the varieties of music we cover at WYMA, I would say garage rock and noise pop/shoegaze - you know, heavy heavy guitar sounds/effects with treated rhythmic harmony vocals, or variations on that - are the two widest-spread. We have gotten garage rock from all over the world, and shoegaze from as far away as Australia, Turkey and now Brazil. Today's entry is The Sorry Shop, a rock band from Rio Grande, a small town in Brazil. And it's really, really good stuff. Their latest album, Mnemonic Syncretism, is a blast from the not-too-distant past, and carries echoes of The Jesus & Mary Chain, Swervedriver, and Catherine Wheel, to name a few. http://whenyoumotoraway.blogspot.com.es

IVY DYE. Continuations

There’s no doubt that Chicago’s music scene is expanding like crazy. New artists from the city are releasing albums and mixtapes all the time; it’s hard to keep track. With so much new music, it’s also hard for the artists themselves to come up with something original. Ivy Dye is a band that seems to have surpassed that challenge flawlessly. Chris Adams, Spencer Walters, Connor Boyle and Bryan Dalle Molle started up the band in October of 2011. Not much attention has been brought to them, with just 3,000 followers on Twitter and most of their shows being in basement bars with a small crowd. Nonetheless, they’re a band in their early stages that deserves to be followed.

Their sound is engaging, catchy and poetic. It’s kind of like if you mixed Alice Glass’ vocals, Death Cab’s instrumentals and Conor Oberst’s lyrics. The first song I listened to by Ivy Dye was “Yankee,” off their album Lyme Times. They reminded me so much of other artists I love, but they seemed too early in their development to truly enjoy. I followed their Tumblr, their Twitter, liked their Facebook page, all in hopes of hearing something new. Their newest EP, Continuations was finally released about two weeks ago, and I’ve been entranced since. The lyrics are short and often repetitive, “Battle Trance” only has four lines, and “Repetition” says “so I’ll go” a total of sixteen times. Still, there’s something enchanting, almost mystical and faerie-like about the tracks. The vocals aren’t ideal, but the soft electric guitar wraps the sounds together into something truly beautiful.Continuations is an impressive improvement for Ivy Dye and, hopefully, a sneak peak at what they’ve got coming up as they grow artistically. http://www.therhythmreviewonline.com

THE BALCONY STARS. The sound of the balcony stars + singl

COASTGAARD. Coastgaard

Abans de partir de vacances voldria posar-me al dia amb coses que he rebut o que he trobat i que per manca de temps encara no he penjat. A meitat d'estiu tornaré fer el mateix i els recopilatoris no faltaran a mitjan mes.

Impossible to tag with just one genre, Coastgaard's neo-surf rock sound is complete with early-60’s rhythms, 90’s guitar layering and dreamy arrangements. Imagine inheriting your parent’s old vinyls, speeding up the RPM and setting it as the soundtrack to a summer drive. That is Coastgaard.