Cold War Kids Sign to Downtown + MP3s
Margot and the Nuclear So and So’s
MusicalFamilyTree.com, a website dedicated to spreading the word about and sharing the music of Indiana bands, recently released the Delicious Berries compilation, and it is awesome. Fresh voices, ambitious sounds — I wish someone here in Michigan would tap into our local talent the way the MFT folks have. For my weekly posts in August, I’ll be featuring bands from the compilation, because it really is that good. The first, Margot and the Nuclear So and So’s, starts the disc, and with its deal on Artemis is likely one of the most commercially successful of the bands on Delicious Berries. The tracks below, full of quiet harmonies and pop hooks, are taken from their 2005 album The Dust of Retreat.
Yo La Tengo Serves Up Another Album
Sambassadeur EP and MP3
New Daedelus MP3
Spencer Dickinson
Ain’t nobody ever needs to doubt Jon Spencer and the Dickinson brothers’ blues. What they’re doing may be a tad less “blue†than the genre’s down-and-out Mississippi Delta roots, but Spencer, the brothers in the band and father Jim producing have been keeping the blues fresh (and let’s not forget Fat Possum Records) all of those years that your dad has fallen for those suburban guitar prophets with top-flight training and no sorrow. Granted, “That’s a Drag†is about as sorrowful as Spencer Dickinson’s blues get, but give me the sound of a night of hard livin’ over an AOR darling any day.
Peppertree
Summertime rules. And it’s got the best of the 3hive crew as we can’t seem to remember who’s posting when, who’s filling in for who when the latter who’s vacationing. But not even summer can stop us even while it’s trying to melt us all. New music everyday, or damn near close. Today’s selection is Peppertree: soaring, dramatic rock from Québec. A nice interplay between opposites (acoustic/electric, English/French, soft/loud) gives off an air of dramatic tension, without giving into overt thespianism. If you’ve been searching for Radiohead’s French Canadian cousin, you’ve found them.
Birdmonster Leaves Nest + MP3
Relay
Let’s get this straight from the start: the band named Relay contained herein is the one from Philly, not Delaware, Jersey, England, or (for cryin’ out loud) Utah. This Relay is a purveyor of shoegaze updated for the new millenium. Well, perhaps not that updated, but Relay are putting out some fine shoegaze in our current millenium, reminiscent of those shoegazer stalwarts from the early 90’s, Drop Nineteens (who were from Delaware, even though this is NOT the Relay from Delaware). Relay’s Type/Void EP is out on Bubblecore on August 8th.