Compared to the bands I’m about to use to describe them, Total Babe could be named Just Babes. Still in their teens, this Minnesota quartet just performed their EP release party in their hometown and one of their mother’s baked brownies for the event. But their songwriting skills belie their ages. Oh the hooks! I was just listening to The Wishing Chair by 10,000 Maniacs and there’s a similarity in the two bands’ vocal deliveries, the languid enunciation, the stringing together of syllables from adjacent words, the way the vocals sound as if they’re sung in some other Germanic language. Or imagine Lush unplugging and dropping their tempo a notch. That’s it sort of— Total Babe strips away the feedback, the distortion, and the droning from the shoegaze aesthetic, leaving room for their heavenly vocals to breathe. Surprisingly, mature musical decisions for a young, fresh band.
Atlas Sound
What does it take to to wake me from a 3hive coma? One simple tweet: “@diplo: i wish atlas sound would ask me to make them a mixtape.” Which got me thinking, How friggin sweet would that be? Which got me thinking, Wait, none of us have posted Atlas Sound on 3hive?? Which got me thinking, Where’s my login??? So here goes…
Atlas Sound is what the crazy prolific Deerhunter frontman Bradford Cox calls himself when doing the home recording thing. It’s hard to put a finger on his steez cause it morphs based on his mood and whatever’s moving him at the time. To get a sense of his wide range of influences, just check the playlist to his latest “micromix“. The common thread is a drowsy, droney, and often messy sheen to surprisingly tuneful and hypnotic song structures.
“Doctor” covers an obscure single from ’50s/’60s doo-wop act The Five Discs. “Walkabout” is a pop chant that’ll shimmy its way into your head and stay a while. And, given the season, I threw in Bradford’s oddly sentimental “holiday” tune from 2007. Now, I’m heading back to Twitter for more inspiration…
Netherfriends
After a few days of obsessing over categorizing Netherfriends’ sound, I realized such efforts were unnecessary and that the six tracks on this EP were strong enough to stand alone. As vain as my attempts at classification may have been, I still have to try. Here goes: the majority of the Netherfriends EP is an exploration of pop possibilities. It’s an addictive mix of Animal Collective’s meandering instrumentation and the Elephant Six Collective’s tendencies to pay homage to ‘60s era pop. “Mom Cop” leans towards the latter. However you decide to categorize them, listener beware: I ended up memorizing the lyrics to all six songs in a day. Netherfriends exposed the addictive side of my personality.
– By Brie Roche-Lilliott
Patrick & Eugene
Don’t hit the download link unless you adore:
1. Ukeleles
2. Banjos
3. Bongos
4. Slide whistles
5. Bells
6. Super cheery pop music
7. Trombones, clarinets and a variety of horns
Because those are the tools that Patrick & Eugene use to transform Kylie Minogue’s “Can’t Get You Out of My Head” into a bouncy klezmer romp. When left to their own songwriting devices P&E create equally breezy tracks, varied in tempo, but not tone. These are happy songs. Sunshine songs. Glass half full songs. Dixieland jazz songs. If you’re old and jaded, grumpy, too cool to smile, or maybe just mean you’ll want to hit someone after hearing the twin songs “Altogether Now” and “The Birds and the Bees,” but maybe, just maybe if you listen long enough you’ll offer a hand to the poor soul you just floored with your fist. Post Patrick & Eugene as the marching band to next month’s Afghanistan surge and Obama very well may start bringing troops home in 18 months. They’ve got that kind of feel-good power.
Neon Indian
Does time seem to move too slow for you? Do your days and weeks drag on? If you’re interested in making time move faster I’ve got a piece of advice for you: make some babies. Probably not the best solution for everyone, but let me tell you the last thirteen years of my life have skated by. Yesterday I worried whether or not my kid would keep breathing throughout the night; today I worry whether or not he’ll be able to find and hold down a job. It’s not the economy that makes me anxious, but the teenagers I’m surrounded with everyday and their work ethic or lack thereof. So lately I’ve been on the lookout for tips on teaching kids how to work and why they should care about the quality of their work. Let me share what I learned today: don’t introduce your child to Neon Indian!
One quick glance at these track names and I think you know where I’m going and what Neon Indian, né Alan Palomo, is selling. These playful, lilting pop songs and their psychedelic synth flourishes will do nothing but encourage your youngsters to raid your medicine cabinet, string up a hammock out back and sway their days away. He uses subversively cheerful melodies and samples of bird songs to lead your children away on a breezy headphone trip, far away from their duties and responsibilities. I’d like to see you get your children to make their beds to this music, let alone pull a shift at Mickey D’s! If I didn’t know any better, I’d say he’s perfected the aural aura Cornelius has taunted us with for years. Whatever you do, don’t listen to this! And be sure to keep your iPod and prescriptions locked up tight.
The Cinematics
Imagine the Smiths on Ritalin. The Cinematics play peppy angst-filled post-punk pop—especially on “New Mexico.” They slow it down and gloom it out on “Love & Terror,” building the track around the guitar riff of “Personal Jesus.” The Glasgow band seem happy to reside sonically in that peculiar time period between the ’80s and ’90s. This fits my theory that many sounds of popular music tend to rotate on a twenty year cycle. It matters less when the music emerges; the quality of sound and song reign supreme and regardless of their influences, The Cinematics seem to be settling into their own space on this sophomore release.
UltraChorus
The title of this first UltraChorus track reminds me of my five-year-old. He started talking later than most children do and he often uses his own syntax and vocabulary (he named his stuffed puppy LLPP, pronounced “lil-lip”). When he gets tired of listening to me, or anyone for that matter, he’ll shake his hands and say, “Too many words, Dad.” We’ve quickly adapted, for better or for worse, his version of English and whenever we’re bored of anyone’s verbal tirades, anytime their words keep talking and we’ve stopped listening, we shake our hands and repeat our kid’s mantra. Their single artwork offers a keen graphic representation of this “too many words” phenomenon.
Musically, I can’t get enough of UltraChorus. These boys from Minneapolis have got pep! Chris from the band used to be in Sukpatch, and his latest project is an extension of the bedroom beats he cranked out for Grand Royal way back in the ’90s. Add the words “bubblegum disco” to the mix and you’ve got an idea of the party this duo dishes out.
The Depreciation Guild
Favorite new song alert! As soon as I heard their new single, “Dream About Me,” I rushed to alert my friend Chet who’s a big fan of Ocean Blue and Prefab Sprout and while he hasn’t reported back yet, I expect to hear that The Depreciation Guild is right up his alley. The band’s sound transports me back to the early nineties, the years Chet and I were in radio together. The band takes the lush, dreamy pop sounds of early 4ad bands and distresses them a bit with fuzzy electronics and gentle reverb. Lots of other folks are taking note as well—they’ve sold out of their new single and Kanine records just reissued their 2007 album. Speaking of friends who’d like this band, I’m surprised our own Clay Calloway didn’t beat me to the punch on this one, especially considering two-thirds of the band also play in The Pains of Being Pure at Heart, one of Clay’s recent crushes he’s gushed about on this site. The moonlighters will be extra busy as both bands head over to play the UK later this month. The band has some Midwest and East Coast dates before then, so if you like what you hear do some homework and catch them live, geography permitting.
Lord Newborn & The Magic Skulls
Well if this ain’t the musical equivalent of the Three Amigos. Three musical desperados gathered on the West Coast to create aural havoc and obviously had the time of their lives. The parties involved include: Money Mark, Tommy Guerrero, and Shawn Lee, three “sound scientists” who’ve all made their own marks flying below the mainstream radar, carving out a groove amidst all that is going to be cool tomorrow. Both Mark and Guerrero released music early on through Mo’ Wax and Shawn Lee recorded for Talking Loud and Wall of Sound early in his career. “Dirty Loco” is one of the two songs that serve as the dark heart of the record. The comparison is a bit ludicrous, but it sounds like a track off The Cure’s “Pornography” record if Robert Smith had grown up in Southern California, raised on funk and soul. The rest of the album is full of laid back, easy-listening funk tracks, improvised, trippy, and generally cheerful. Dare I say it, Lord Newborn is a rare-groove jam band that I’d be happy spending a summer or three trucking around the country following their wake.
The Radio Dept.
The Radio Dept started a journey a number of years ago, a pop voyage (pronounced French-style) if you will, that has started a new leg. The fuzzed out bliss pop seems so very long ago, as they enter an orchestral funk pop phase, still framed with their signature techniques. Regardless of the destination, the fun is in getting there.
Second Post 5/9/2008:
The Radio Dept’s last LP Pet Grief further cemented their delicate pop sounds, built with the tools of 80’s pop (haunting keyboads, drum machines, echo pedals), as their sound. “Freddie and the Trojan Horse,” from their upcoming June EP, doesn’t mess with their formula, but it does turn up the tempo and the urgency.
Original Post 11/17/2004:
Like religious conversion or political persuasion, music can be very personal. Isn’t that why we like it? So rather than a cold, third-person blip about The Radio Dept., allow me to share something personal, which is that I just love The Radio Dept. Love. My longstanding record for the most times I’ve listened to a song in a row is Joe Jackson’s “Got the Time,” clocking in at 48 consecutive listens. But, at the rate I’m going, The Radio Dept.’s “Pulling Our Weight” is going to overtake that before the night is over.