Austin-based quartet, She, Sir recently built a lovely wall-of-sound EP, stacked with layers upon layers of guitars, modal harmonies, and hushed melodies. With the subtle hooks and deep atmospherics of Who Can’t Say Yes, She, Sir drop pop music to an even vaguer level than Loveless. She, Sir beautifully fractures music for the next generation of dream-pop connoisseurs.
The Silent Years
Listening to The Silent Years takes me back to my oh-so-glorious college radio days. We were on the AM frequency and didn’t have an FCC license so we couldn’t broadcast off-campus, which wouldn’t have been so limiting if it hadn’t been a commuter campus. The quietude afforded us time and space to make mistakes, build playlists with no real agenda, and explore the piles and piles of promo CDs stacked around the studio (despite signs asking that everything go back to from whence it came). The Silent Years is like a band I may have found in a pile, an earnest young outfit with vaguely nihilistic lyrics sung, possibly ironically, with great emotion, and riffs that made me nod my head but weren’t obnoxious enough to cause consternation. Coulda been Texas is the Reason, or Ash, or any of a dozen others. I would throw it in the rotation, maybe play another song at the top of each hour, and be fully obsessed before my timeslot was over. Anyhow, The Silent Years give me fond memories and have the potential to become an aural obsession that I’d like to tell the world about, or at least those of you who get the signal.
Rainer Maria
I remember my friend Tim Ortopan was so excited after he bought Rainer Maria’s latest (well, April ’06) album Catastrophe Keeps Us Together that he had me listening to it within 24 hours of purchase. It’s a shame there don’t seem to be any free, legal and full-length MP3s from Catastrophe… available to post here, because they’d be a good fit at the top of our list, showing the all-important change over time (“delta” from science class, right?). If you can’t hear the development and maturity of a band while working bottom-up through the selection of songs below, go get your earwax cleaned out! Obviously, I think Catastrophe… continues this trend with wonderful results. From pounding drums and entwined screaming voices back in the ’90s to today’s complex and melodic sounds, Rainer Maria just makes good music.
Every Move a Picture
Nigh on two years ago, I wrote about my wife asking me, “Are you listening to 80’s music?” whilst posting about Kawaii. When I was getting Every Move A Picture’s album Heart=Weapon from eMusic recently, she asked me that yet again. I really should have posted about this San Francisco band this time last year, but I passed. However, I recently discovered them again, filling that space between Bloc Party and Interpol. So flying back from SFO on Friday night going through Bay Area bands—reminding me how much I still miss the late great Henry’s Dress—on my MP3 player I decided to finally get around to Every Move A Picture. Their website points to their myspace page, where you can grab at a lower bitrate two of the better songs, “Outlaw” and “Simple Lessons in Love,” from their album.
The Little Ones
In recording their debut Sing Song EP, The Little Ones had two goals: 1) convince themselves that everything was going to be alright, and 2) make their own feet shuffle. I’m posting about them because they managed to help me achieve those two goals as well. Which, alas, brings me to my third goal: clean my house. At least I know what I’ll be listening to…
Princeton
Princeton is not from Princeton. I have my doubts that the floppy-headed Santa Monica twins and their best friend, who recorded their first E.P. in London while on study-abroad programs, have ever set foot in New Jersey. They claim such classic Brit-pop songwriters Ray Davies and Rod Argent as influences, and their four-track stylings, carefree lyrical associations and bookish sensibilities also bring to mind Ben Lee, Lou Barlow, Stephen Malkmus, and Jonathan Richman. It takes more than cleverness to write a song about a pirate that doesn’t sound like a Broadway musical, or to sing a travelogue of an Asian city that doesn’t descend into kitsch. But Princeton does it well — with organs, acoustic guitar, and sweet, youthfully knowing vocals. Just don’t ask me which twin is singing.
The Low Frequency in Stereo
I’m still catching up with The Low Frequency in Stereo, but they may very well be my second favorite “In Stereo” band, after you-know-who. Their debut self-titled album featured careful, moving post-rock instrumentals. Then came 2005’s Travelling Ants Who Got Eaten by Moskus with decidedly more swagger — somehow splitting the diff between Siouxsie and the Banshees/Joy Division and Dick Dale (trust me). Their new album, last temptation of…, opens this formula up, at times, into new territory thanks to organ, horns, and even stronger pop leanings (e.g., the psychedelic euphoria of “Axes,” which could be mistaken for a Stereolab track). At this trajectory, I’m already looking forward to the next joint and this one hasn’t even been released yet.
The May Bees
This one’s hot outta the suggestion box. And by the way, let me just say we completely appreciate anyone who takes the time to send in a tip. I know we can take a long time to get to things, but it’s the nature of the proverbial beast that is an inbox jam-packed with music. Alright, on to The May Bees—primarily a dutch duo, guitars and drums (with what looks like a rent-a-bassist), who keep their rock stripped down and ferociously lo-fi without losing an ounce of listenability. They also keep their top myspace friends to a minimum (just four), revealing obvious influences/mentors/kindred spirits—a quadraphonic godhead of American indie rock really—Guided By Voices, Grandaddy, Sonic Youth and The Pixies. And what separates The May Bees from many of the micro-indie bands we cover on this site, is that they’re making a respectable run at touring, especially considering they’re coming across the Atlantic to do so. This is a call for our Canadian, East Coast and Mid West readers to pencil in The May Bees when they come through your town and give ’em a warm North American welcome courtesy of 3hive.
Jeremy Enigk
Jeremy Enigk’s solo debut, Return of the Frog Queen, is more than a decade old now, but it still sounds as groundbreaking as the day it came out. Enigk gave a visceral new dimension to orchestral pop by bucking accepted wisdom: Where most took the opportunity to turn rock into chamber music, Enigk converted chamber music into breathtaking anthems full of sound, soul, and fury. Shortly after, Sunny Day Real Estate released How It Feels to be Something On, one of the best rock albums of the ‘90s, if not ever. Enigk’s cryptically searching vocals seemed to sing duets with sprawling guitar wails, making it sound much larger than anyone had come to expect from an indie rock outfit. The “rumor†(in college, anything with religious undertones automatically became uncorroborated and vaguely suspect) was that Enigk was in crisis but had been born again, and this was his grand purge. Whatever the motivation, How It Feels… sounded like the album I’d always wanted to hear and I still listen to it at least once a month. Which brings us to the aptly titled World Waits, Enigk’s second solo album and two bands removed from his debut. The cheesy thing to say would be that it’s been worth the wait, but the truth is that it has. “Been Here Before†is a perfect sample of where Enigk has found himself. His two lives – the orch-pop wunderkind with the most distinct cracked tenor in music meets the indie-rock frontman of intense introspection – intersect beautifully. Enigk’s secret is that he is capable of grasping for something beyond himself. Yet, like the more emotionally dramatic moments of Pink Floyd (Wish You Were Here) and the universally reflective side of U2, Enigk doesn’t need to know what it is he’s grasping for. He’s happy just knowing that there’s something out there to grasp.
The Blood Thirsty Lovers
With that fancy new banner we got here at 3hive, prominently listing Memphis first, it’s about time we got around to something Memphis, ain’t it? Who can be more Memphis (besides Elvis, smarty-pants) than Dave Shouse, in this carnation with friends as the Blood Thirsty Lovers? Shouse is well known round these parts for Think As Incas, the Grifters, and Those Bastard Souls, among others, and his lifelong devotion to guitars and noise. And speaking of Elvis, did I ever mention that my mom taught his cousin 7th grade math?