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.
Sean and I were just trading jabs this week on Facebook regarding MBV comparisons on these pages. So it’s ironic that I’m gonna keep it going.
Who says you can’t judge a book by its cover? Basic Black is not only the title of Jimmy Ohio’s first EP, but a fitting description of the raw, bluesy, and timeless rock ‘n’ roll found therein. Last year, the Brooklynite flew back to his one-time home of Detroit and holed up in a former Baptist church for four days with some old pals, Dan Kroha (The Gories, Demolition Doll Rods), Trevor Naud (
I don’t think I’ve been this excited about demos before. The Raveonettes last album Lust Lust Lust engendered exactly that in my aural cavity. Their fuzzy washes of surf guitars and garage rock immediately balmed the ever-present ringing in my ears and Sharin and Sune still lull me to sleep at night with their addictively sweet melodies. They’re so good that I don’t mind when I awake in the morning wrapped in headphone chord. Dangerous? Yep. Worth it? You bet. The tentatively titled “Last Dance” perfectly captures my fascination with these Danes: from the opening line (which I wish I’d written), “Your lipstick smeared sad,” to the Beach Boys-ish woo-woos in the background, to the theme of the song itself (Sune succinctly explains it: “how drug addiction interferes with love”). My addiction to The Raveonettes hasn’t interfered with my love life, rather with Alisa’s sleep patterns, specifically when the wall of guitars rush in between verses of their track “Hallucinations” and bleed from my ears. It hurts oh so good.
Since I missed the ’70s and blindly followed the “Proud to be Drug Free” crowd in the ’80s, Brian Olive is filling in the blanks for me. If I fell asleep to this record I’m sure I’d dream myself into New Orleans sometime in the ’70s, chemical high and all. The music is as colorful as the album cover, and sounds like a stack of beatnik, jazz, and psychedelic records melted into one soundtrack to a ’70s brown-hued television show. I think I’m gonna need a brownie.
Oops. Looks like I missed posting anything in the month of May. Ah, how one gets lost. Which I guess is an apt comparison to my relationship with Son Volt. For an album or two in a previous century, Jay Farrar had what I was looking for. Grit, wistfulness, steel guitar. And then there was Wide Swing Tremolo, and I don’t know. When I saw that Son Volt had a new album out an a free and legal MP3 to post, my first though was something along the lines of hoping this track, “Down to the Wire,” was a Neil Young cover. It’s not, but after listening to it a few times, that’s o.k. Maybe American Central Dust, out in about a month, will offer a way back to Son Volt.
Sonically, my Memorial Day weekend has been marked by the sizzle of meat, screams and splashes from kids in the pool, and the hearty blaring of these two tracks from the nearest sound system and my own vocal chords. New York’s The Boy Koan has me geeked to start summer, or maybe I’m just geeked for summer to start. One thing’s for sure, I’m geeked on The Boy Koan—they’re the first band that I’ve ever asked to send me their lyrics. On second thought, that may simply say more about my thorough lack of thoroughness. I get the same tingly sensations from “Beasts from More Rustic Days” as I did when I first heard Grandaddy’s Under The Western Freeway. And “My Russian Doll” fires up pogo reflexes with its ’90s new wave gang vocals giving way to Mark E. Smith-like lackadaisical lilting on the bridge. It’s hard to believe this is the band’s first recorded efforts and that the usual purveyors of all things indie between here and there haven’t been giving this sleeper of a debut more blog space. I’d be surprised if the lack of coverage lasted long.
My last few posts have featured up-jump-and-boogie tracks and it’s high time I settle down a bit before I hurt myself. The Chicago trio, The Layaways, a perennial favorite ’round these parts, return after dropping their festive Christmas EP more than two years ago. Their laid-back, ’60s era sounds are absolutely delightening. Yes, they’re so good that they induce spontaneous neology. On “Keep it to Yourself” they flavor their guitars with just a pinch of fuzz, a dash of reverb, and a sprinkle of backwardness. They turn up the jangle on “All Around the World” and their tag-team vocalists provide a subtle depth to this new full-length, available, by the way, in its entirety on their site in full share mode. Good peeps them Layaways boys. I hope they don’t mind me adding my favorite track, “Come Back Home.” It evokes a hot, languid California Summer circa 1967. Dig it.
Photons will be releasing three EP’s this year, the first of which is Glory!, out tomorrow via Insound.com. “Where Were You Last Night” continues the raucous party, still with bassoon.