The candy’s on the shelves.  The commercials are on TV.  Pink is everywhere. The first of February has launched the pre-Valentine’s Day hype and hawking. Whether you’re stuck in a love haze or just trippin’ out, California’s hallucinogenic foursome with a killer name, Mwahaha, have all the psyched-out love you can handle this holiday.

The band recently released a collaged time capsule of a music video for a single off of their recent self-titled debut album, “Love.”  ”Love” looks like it would’ve felt right at home in the middle of Roger Corman’s classic acid movie, The Trip, in 1967 (which, by the way, you can now watch in full on youtube — mind the warning).

Get caught up in the feeling and check out Mwahaha’s “Love” video below. Read the rest of this entry »

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Chicago’s Wild Belle probably don’t listen to Sublime, but that just might be the secret to their sublime sound. Jammin’ without the slightest taste of irreverence, Wild Belle’s first single, “Keep You,” transcends ironic reggae, body-rockin’ sincerely to a shantytown shuffle.

The reggae feel of “Keep You” isn’t buried; it’s the jubilant edge to a song of slip-away sorrow, hazy, over-generalized, and real.  Add a horn section and some scattered space-age sounds (and an intro that at first reminded me of My Morning Jacket’s “Touch Me I’m Going to Scream Pt. 2″), and you have an undeniably catchy number that puts the sway in your hips and sweet lyrics on your lips.  Check out the new tune below: Read the rest of this entry »

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Sleepy-eyed redhead and bassist for the Brooklyn-based, Jersey-bred Vivian Girls, Katy Goodman re-dubbed herself La Sera last year and graduated from her girl group roots into a solo project that was often more slow, dreamy, and subtle than the garage-band sound of the Vivian Girls.  Emerging with a self-titled album full to the brim of breathy numbers like my favorite, “Devil Hearts Grow Gold,” Goodman proved she could keep her own beat, though the tune of her drummer proved to be not too unique.

Lost amid popular lo-fi retro-pop, Goodman seems ready to add a bit of grunge back into her girly tunes, especially if the first single off of her upcoming sophomore solo album, Sees the Light, is anything to go by.  Listen to “Please Be My Third Eye,” the fun, fully-fueled, freaky little love song, below: Read the rest of this entry »

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Perhaps the most comprehensive "demo" tape ever submitted by an up-and-coming artist, Sarah Spencer, enlisting the assistance of heavy hitter Steve Morse. Between that and her raw talent, you can't go wrong.

Please accept my apologies, dear reader.  I have been meaning to do this review for so long.  Here’s the issue:  Every time a new piece of music comes across my desk lately, it has been so new, so fresh, so unheard of to me, that I simply allow myself to indulge, devour and experience.

I also need to extend a personal “thank you for your patience” to Chris Brown of Random Touch.  I am dying to do the back-to-back Random Touch albums as the BOSCH disc was killer!  (I throw that on every now and again, just because I reviewed them previously, doesn’t mean they collect duct on my shelves.  The good ones migrate into my collection.)

But where Mr. Morse and Ms. Spencer went with Angelfire, you would not expect a disc of this caliber from these fairly divergent artists.

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Australia’s Cloud Control may claim to rule the skies, but the band’s debut LP, released in the states this November, channels a much earthier sound.  Tribal without being stale or dark, pop without losing impact, and mainstream yet memorable, half-way through Bliss Release, when I hit the track “Gold Canary,” I finally put my finger on the nagging memory the album was calling to mind: Bliss Release is The Lion King of today’s music.

“Gold Canary,” in particular, with its nah-nah-oh-whey-oh vocal beat-keeping, brought L King to mind, though I wasn’t sure if it was merely for the song’s similarity to The Tokens’ “The Lion Sleeps Tonight,” which the cartoon, of course, introduced to me at an impressionable age.  But as I kept listening to Bliss Release, I couldn’t help feeling that same soaring feeling that only the tale of an animated lion overcoming his own guilt and self-doubt had been able to instill in me before. Read the rest of this entry »

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Zooey Deschanel and M. Ward teamed up for A Very She & Him Christmas earlier this year, adding their record to my Christmas rotation of Elvis Presley’s Blue Christmas and A Christmas Gift for You From Phil Spector.  But their cover of “Baby It’s Cold Outside” fell short, speeding up the tempo and losing the lovely, snuggle-down feeling of the song.

Stepping up to the plate to replace this lackluster cover is Little Hurricane, another boy-girl duo, but more along the lines of The Kills or The White Stripes than cutesy-pootsy She & Him.  Though most of their tracks lean on heavy, fuzzed-out blues, San Diego’s Little Hurricane kept it plain and simple for their cover of “Baby It’s Cold Outside,” available as a free download below. Read the rest of this entry »

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Yesterday, Austin’s T Bird and The Breaks tore it up during a live Daytrotter session.  Playing tracks from their most recent independent release, the awesome Never Get Out of this Funk Alive, T Bird and The Breaks infused a heaping mess of steamin’ retro funk swagger into Daytrotter’s daily routine stream.  These Texans play what they like to call Chunk Music: “A form of twenty-first century American music consisting of equal parts funk, hip-hop, and rock and roll…more characterized by its rough sonic quality and energetic, visceral performance. Commonly served hot with a side of girls and brass.”

During their Daytrotter session, they played three pitch-perfect and super-fun Never Get Out tracks: the give-it-to-me-now “Your Nasty Love,” the James Brown-vibing “Put it On the Spot,” and a version of Shirley Ellis’ classic “The Clapping Song,” called “The Clap Hands Song.”  The Breaks cooed, ooed, and hit it outta the park like a pack of hall-of-fame back-up singers, while the band’s lead singer, Tim Crane, ran on pure soul power. Read the rest of this entry »

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Yesterday, Maryland’s New God released their debut full-length, Motorcar, through indie label The Royal Army Recording Company.  Packed with psychedelic pop and tinged with experimental electro, including a few sound collages, Motorcar is the product of five-plus years of recording and re-recording, making it a very tight, almost conceptual debut album.

Spanning the gauntlet of Strokes or Shins-style pop numbers like “On and Off” and “Drag the Lake” to the more jazzy vibe of “Governors Lap” and “To the Gallows With You,” New God incorporate incredibly diverse influences into a seamless and delectable debut. Read the rest of this entry »

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About to head out into the cold darkness that is BLACK FRIDAY 2011?  Hopefully you’re not headed into the gloom and doom of your local mall, but to PREX for some sweet Black Friday releases to stuff into a special someone’s stocking (or, ahem, your own stereo).  Either way, you’ll need a soundtrack to guide you through the chaos and maintain inner peace and happiness while your fellow shoppers tear out each others’ jugular for a chance at half-priced plastic.  Enter Penguin Prison.

Even their name already has everything you need: a reflection of the arctic chill found in fuming shoppers’ cold stares and the image of the world’s more lovable aspects hidden out of sight as the shopocalypse reigns its fiery fury.  But the nightmare ends there.  Push play on Penguin Prison’s new video for their hit single “Don’t F*ck With My Money” and the shimmering glory of old-school disco mixed with sunshine and hilarious swagger will rain down upon you.  And suddenly the urge to elbow that lady screaming over the last Twilight poster will leave you and another urge will replace it…The urge to dance! Read the rest of this entry »

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It would seem this blog has gotten big for its britches.  We started with our loyalty to a certain artist-who-will-never-be-named-in-this-blog-again, we had brushes with greatness (Jeff Berlin, Bill Bruford, Jon Anderson, Rick Wakeman, so on) we forget what time of year it is, and what we have to be thankful for.

I remember some of the things I have to be thankful for now that I am back in an area where even I made an impression on the local musical scene.  Imagine my surprise when I returned after 18 years away to find that the little band I was a part of was historic in that it was one of the first area local bands to make a splash.  The band made news doing MTV basement video contest, local radio airplay, local television appearances, etc.  Yeah, we were original before original was cool.

I have the scars and road rash to prove it.  Long before Breaking Benjamin broke up.

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RACES, formerly known as Black Jesus, officially released their three-song digital EP, Big Broom, yesterday, complete with creepy-cute cover art oddly reminiscent of Mickey Mouse in “The Sorcerer’s Apprentice” (or maybe that’s just me).  Produced to promote RACES’ first full-length, Year of the Witch, due out next year, two of the three songs are from that anticipated album, while another, “Hope & Gloom,” is exclusive to the EP.

Big Broom is the perfect tease.  The title track (click here to download, via Brooklyn Vegan) is thick with fuzzed-out, burning guitar licks matched to a clean sweep metaphor that finds beginnings dusty and endings clean.  Not weighted down by these thoughts, “Big Broom” focuses on the revitalizing feeling of a good sweeping.

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Chicago’s Brain Idea has been experiencing a rush of success since they formed through a combination of happy accident and convenience in the summer of 2009.  Brain Idea’s drummer, Grant Sunderland, 24, described the band’s relaxed beginnings: “I was playing guitar in this other band, and I would show up to the practice space early, and Ben and Joe were there and they’re jamming on a riff.  They don’t have a drummer, so I started playing drums for them.”

“Ben and I were also in a band together before that, which we were kind of subverting by playing our own jams on the side,” guitarist and vocalist Joe Wepperogh, 29, told PREX.  “Grant showed up and yeah, it just made sense.”

The trio began writing songs together, developing a full set by September of that year, and were met with startling opportunities almost the moment they stepped on stage. Read the rest of this entry »

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The Black Belles are leaving Charlene and Colbert behind, ditching the laugh track for the release of their debut self-titled album, released yesterday on Third Man Records.  These gothic girls’ first release is an awesome mix of dark intentions, bad romance, sizzling guitars and grungy garage rock.

Not as black-hearted as their name implies, The Black Belles may have been inspired by their 60s-era fore-bearers, the more pleasantly named The Belles, who graced the legendary compilation album, Girls in the Garage, with their gritty tunes.  The Black Belles build on this true grit, drawing from the girl group ooo-ooos of the Phil Spector era and the rebel garage rock of their female ancestors in the 60s and 90s to make truly stand-out ladyrock.  These modern undead Runaways make tough music for baaaaad girls and boys, telling tales of tainted love and voodoo magic. Read the rest of this entry »

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LA’s Electric Guest recently released two singles, “Troubleman” and “American Daydream,” to give us a taste of their upcoming Danger Mouse-produced album, destined to debut this spring on Downtown Records.  Though the titles of the new tracks may call Cat Stevens and Tom Petty to mind, Electric Guest’s “electro-soul-pop,” as Nylon accurately describes it, is anything but your typical radio fodder.

“Troubleman,” a top tune over at KCRW, drifts towards the nine-minute mark, turning an expansive psychedelic narrative into the dreamy pop hook, “She’s got it bad for me,” which itself morphs throughout the song’s odyssey.  Slow guitar licks, aided by Danger Mouse’s signature production quality (which sounds similar to Broken Bells here), send the ponderous tune into a lazy, hazy other-world as the song introduces its title character, a stranger set in a strange sonic landscape.

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Amanda Badze is here to save your soul as she swoops onto the scene with a soaring voice and a retro R&B vibe.  This stylish lady, born in Zimbabwe though currently living stateside, sings to kill with her full 60s/70s soul power, mixed with a funky bass line and some rocking guitars, in her upcoming debut EP, Eyes of Seven.  Hitting the shelves in early 2012, Eyes of Seven has as many tracks as its namesake, and each explores the hidden corners of Badze’s vocal capacity.

Her first single, “How Does Love Feel,” has a surprisingly rockin’ guitar part and a jumping bass that invites a shimmy and shake-along.  Purely enjoyable, “How Does Love Feel” lacks a particular genre and harkens back to a time when pop was less electronic and more emotive.  Get a first listen to the track below:

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For someone like me who keeps Fleetwood Mac’s Rumours practically glued to her record player, discovering Delta Rae was a revelation on par with the Second Coming.  This sextet from Durham, North Carolina call Fleetwood Mac to mind not just through their cover of “The Chain” but thanks to a shared musicianship and group sound almost lost in the do-it-yourself, one-man acts of these modern times.

Just in time for Halloween, Delta Rae have released a fantastically haunting music video for their phenomenal, quasi-spiritual single, “Bottom of the River.”  The track calls to mind music as old as chain gang call-and-response work songs, built on layers of percussion created by claps, chains, and the occasional thick drum thrust. Read the rest of this entry »

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CMJ came to a close this weekend, and as those who attended recover (I, for one, am still wearing sweatpants as much as possible), visions of alcohol-fueled shows are dancing through our heads.  This year’s CMJ was overwhelmingly packed with bands from all over the world, but Australia may have been the most oddly and extremely represented country at this year’s festivities.  Traveling through the streets of NYC last week was like being a croc on The Crocodile Hunter; you just couldn’t escape that Aussie accent.

Leading the pack from down under was Art Vs. Science, a trio that makes minimalist techno-rock destined for dancing.  While many of their songs sound tame in recordings, their shows are ridiculous.  Tracks like “Parlez-vous Francais” from the trio’s 2009 debut hit high-volume thanks to the group’s unstoppable energy. Read the rest of this entry »

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Are you cool enough to chase down We Stole The Kids?  If so, you can find them there, at the place where all things hip thrive.  Fronted by drop-dead gorgeous and delightfully named Megan Vice, We Stole The Kids hail from New York City, and their music is a melting pot of today’s trendiest tunes.

“Find Me There” mixes Skrillex-style dubstep with a touch of hip-hop and a heavy dose of 80s electronic dance music.  Add a pair of badass shades and a giant pile of sweaty glitter, and you’ve got the smokey, wandering, hard-partying video for “Find Me There.”  Check it out below! Read the rest of this entry »

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Chicago’s Pool Holograph, a one-man experimental pop band comprised solely of the multi-talented Wyatt Grant, recently released a new single, “Incognito.”

“Incognito” slowly hums into existence, building into a breathy verse balanced by a creeping, tension-building beat that soon explodes into a sweet, almost wordless chorus.  Quiet and obscured, “Incognito” slips away from you with a sweet whisper.  Listen to the single (and download it for free) after the jump.

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What makes Bruce Springsteen and Tom Petty great?  Aside from memorable haircuts, it’s their ability to redefine simplicity and embrace the everyday, heading straight for the greater glory hidden in simple truths and shared experiences.  Local band The Grand Nationals‘ love for their all-American forefathers echoes through their debut record, Tennessee Rain.  The Grand Nationals’ folk-tinged tunes and like-able lyrics are absolutely enjoyable and reminiscent of the heartland rock of yore.

The Grand Nationals‘ “Movin’ On” is so heavily influenced by these kings of yesterday’s rock radio that I would almost swear I’ve heard it before.  With a bopping melody, narrative lyrics, and an unstoppable sunshine smile, “Movin’ On” sounds like a mix between Simon & Garfunkel’s “Cecilia” or solo Simon’s “Me and Julio Down By the Schoolyard” and John Mellencamp’s “Jack and Diane.” Read the rest of this entry »

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