Lot’s of great music to listen to this week in our monthly round-up of stellar tracks you should not miss! LIVE EYE TV Mixtape #12 zeros in on some of the great post-punk and darkwave we’ve heard lately, kicking things off with Light Asylum’s killer Next Wave rally-call, “IPC”. The new mixtape clocks in at 50 minutes with tracks from Holograms, Grass Widow, Xander Harris, White Fence, Royal Baths and more! Stream the tracks below and grab the podcast here…iTunes. CONTINUE READING
This month let’s kick things off with the impressive track “IPC” from Light Asylum‘s forthcoming and self-titled LP, due out May 1st on Mexican Summer. This Brooklyn duo of vocalist Shannon Funchess and synth player Bruno Coviello expertly tap the brutal and raw energies of post-punk, as well as the brooding, seance atmosphere’s of darkwave. “IPC” snaps to action with a cadre of Coviello’s crisp and metallic beats, before a stalking bass-line backs the formidable Shannon Funchess into the corner of a dark alley where she unleashes her menacing vocal prowess in something between stream of consciousness tirade and Next Wave rally call.
MP3: Light Asylum “IPC” (Mexican Summer)
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Last month we checked out Holograms‘ very cool video for their track “ABC City” with it’s desolate Swedish winterscape the perfect backdrop for their bleak vision of post-Capitalist, non-culture. On April 1st the band will release “ABC City” as a 7″ on Captured Tracks with this gem, “Hidden Structures”, as the B-side. Reported to play on a decrepit pile of instruments, “a collective estimated worth of a handful of Kronas”, Holograms channel their dead-ends with yearning and skill, while breathing life back into punks’ well-used tropes.
MP3: Holograms “Hidden Structures” (Captured Tracks)
On May 22nd Grass Widow will follow up their awesome 2010 debut Past Time with a new LP Internal Logic due out on their label, HLR Records. If “Goldilocks Zone” is any indication, the SF trio of Lillian Maring (drums), Hannah Lew (bass) and Raven Mahon (guitar) have expanded the spectrum on their mesmerizing harmonies to include some spacier, kraut rock elements making their post-punk compositions even more detailed! The result is quite surprising when, for instance, the song’s opening, eery keyboard tone suggests kosmische-melt down, only to give way to the angular reelings of guitar and downward trajectory of bass. All of this further subverted by the trios lovely, celestial harmonies imploring us to, “just drive”!
MP3: Grass Widow “Goldilocks Zone” (HLR Records)
Fans of the fantastic and dark synth worlds that Dylan Ettinger creates will be happy to see that he has teamed up with another wizard of the genre, Austin artist Xander Harris for a split 7″, out now on Moon Glyph. If you visit the Xander Harris Bandcamp page you will see that he has explored “grave wave” and “horror dance” on releases like Urban Gothic, I Want More Than Just Blood, and When the Dark Has Fed, making Nu Disco for horny cyber-droids. While “The Driver” draws from a similar sonic palette, the audio references are a touch less zombie-gothic movie score and a nano-bit more sci-fi-porn soundtrack.
MP3: Xander Harris “The Driver” (Moon Glyph)
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So happy White Fence‘s “King of the Decade” found it’s way to our ears this month, and we are so sure you will be too, or you can have you’re money back! White Fence is the side project of Darker My Love’s Tim Presley, and as this track reveals, Tim is some kind of sun-stroked troubadour exploring the bedroom side of paisley jangle pop and 70’s era AM Gold! This Spring White Fence will release the Family Perfume Series Vol. 1 on April 3rd, and Vol. 2 on May 15th. Both are due out on Woodsist, with “King of the Decade” to appear on the second release.
MP3: White Fence “King of the Decade” (Woodsist)
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Beach Fossils member Cole Smith also has a side project called Dive (maybe short for Slowdive?) This past summer he holed up in a painters studio in NYC without running water or AC, with the goal of writing new material for said side-project. Surrounding himself with art of all sorts, including the music of Lucinda Williams, Nirvana and Jandek, as well as the writing of Hart Crane, James Baldwin, and Marianne Moore, he began to craft his own musical response. The track “Geist” expertly channels a host of under ground indie influences using phasing guitar and delayed vocals to create a head spinning brew of glassy-eyed pop.
MP3: Dive “Geist” (Captured Tracks)
On March 6th Vex Ruffin released his second EP Eulogy, which was made available as a free download by Stones Throw Records. Like his raw, self-recorded EP Crash Course, Eulogy finds Vex playing all the instruments while delivering a minimalist, tour-de-force through post-punk, darkwave, and Ruff Ryders rap! “Secret Weapon” uses crushed, machine gun beats, a heavily filtered 3 note bass line, some random samples, and Ruffin’s mantra-like pronouncements to effect maximum damage! In addition to being a free download, Eulogy is available on vinyl from Stones Throw. Vex Ruffin will also release an additional EP and full-length this year, so keep your eyes out!
MP3: Vex Ruffin “Secret Weapon” (Stones Throw Records)
Since the release of their 2010 LP Litany on Woodsist, Jeremy Cox and Jigmae Baer of Royal Baths have relocated from SF to NYC. If Better Luck Next Life (Kanine) is any indication, the change in environment is just the down turn they were looking for! “Black Sheep” starts with some glue sniffing reverb before the guitar begins a slow, tremolo slide into the gutter, where Cox and Baer trade hilarious and droll barbs about the ennui of the hipster.
MP3: Royal Baths “Black Sheep” (Kanine)
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Hailing from Kingston, Ontario the hard rockin’ duo PS I Love You garnered a great deal of attention with their debut LP, Meet Me At Muster Station, a tribute to their hometown. Benjamin Nelson and Paul Saulnier delivered an unrelenting, aural assault with the uncontainable music a perfect environment for Saulnier’s spastic, often high register vocal delivery. Their newest LP, Death Dreams, due out May 8th on Paper Bag Records, was inspired by exactly that, a series of “death dreams” Saulnier experienced while touring in support of their first album. Check out the track “Princess Towers” which seems to essentialize the duo’s over-the-top sound into a blunt and pummeling weapon. The song opens by hammering you in the earhole with a repeated chord until you grimace, eliciting a sadistic and blood curdling cackle from Saulnier, before he drags you off into his haunted dream realm!
MP3: PS I Love You “Princess Towers” (Paper Bag Records)
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John Maus has a new track! “No Title (Molly)” will be available as a limited edition, orange Flexi Disc which is part of the Smugglers Way, Ribbon Music, and Domino Record‘s first ever FlexiDisc Zine, set to come out on Record Store Day, April 21st. Blowing in on a cold wind of phasing, compressed beats and bass until the clouds clear on a winter sun, the new track has that awesome and monkish Maus-vibe, with his voice drenched in reverb and sounding so otherly. O Molly in the city!
MP3: John Maus “No Title (Molly)” (Smuggler’s Way/Ribbon Music)
While the waiting was hard, Chromatics sure knew how to tease us along! Kill For Love (Italians Do It Better) has been a slow time comin’, and even missed it’s purported Valentines Day release date. That’s alright though, in the process the band put out five, optically enhanced videos shot on film by Alberto Rossini, at “the house on the hill”. The title track “Kill For Love” has a great, new wave vibe with Ruth Radelet’s vocals sounding lip-glossed and butterscotchy as she tells us, “I drank the water and it felt alright/I took a pill almost every night/In my mind I was waiting for change/While the world just stayed the same…”. Ah, those hard won truths.
MP3: Chromatics “Kill For Love” (Italians Do It Better)
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The outstanding Brooklyn label Sacred Bones is re-releasing UV Pop‘s politically charged and sonically forward-leaning, 1981 LP No Song’s Tomorrow. Born out of the dire circumstances of Thatcher-era England, JP Shea explains in the album liner notes, “In the 1980s there was nothing to smile about; nothing to smile for. The person whom some called wrongly the iron lady brought vengeful spiteful selfishness and a narrow-minded outlook into all our lives. Instead of love and respect there was: a three-day week, Miners strike, and The Falklands War.” You can feel that immediately on the track “Four Minute Warning” which, indeed, strikes a dire tone with it’s repeated alarm chord echoing throughout the composition, until it gives way to the staccato beat of missile fire.
MP3: UV Pop “Four Minute Warning” (Sacred Bones)
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