Got a semi-new one the raucous noise/punk/garage DC rockers Priests (whose cassette from last year ranked as my unofficial favorite). “Personal Planes” has that twangy, biting guitar melody — a la Explode Into Colors and Finally Punk — that I just absolutely love. Just when your attention is at a maximum, guitars flare up and singer Katie Greer starts crying out with “personal planes” phrases before disintegrating into chaos. I loved the song so much I copped the 7” from M’Lady’s Records. Check it out below:
Hashing out the Norwegian Bokmål from my rudimentary understanding of Danish, I’ve been able to glean that Snøskred is a five-piece band coming from Trondheim, Norway that has a sound between indie-rock and improvisation. “We Are” is a raucous anthem of a track — full of head-spinning guitar chords and driving drums — that somehow keeps the wheels from spinning out of control. The B-side “Huhti” (which you can stream via Spotify) is definitely more improvisational and tickles my fancy a bit more. All-in-all, a great 7” from a Norwegian band that five minutes ago I have never heard of! Can’t beat that for a Monday morning of cleaning out the old inbox…
Considering my father works for the company, I found it amusing that a band (one from Texas, no less!) decided to release a record with Monsanto as the title. It’s a small world…
I guess Sleep Good’s 7” is a sort of antithesis of its namesake: instead of a raving, blood-thirsty, corporate machine, we are handed a ravishing, smooth-sailing, lo-fi stick-it-to-the-man pair of tracks — and of course, perfect for summer listening (what do you expect with an opener entitled “Summer Explosion)! Anything revolutionary on the 7”? Probably not, but it’s a great record that certainly made me check out (and download for freeeee) all the band’s other stuff!
Carnivores is a four-piece garage rock band from Atlanta. On first listen, the spidery guitar intro and the sparse, drum-heavy arrangement of “Prom Night” reminded me of the former glory of Portland’s Explode Into Colors — a comparison that, in itself, is enough to excite. However, the resemblance fades at the bridge where the song breaks completely open courtesy of singer/keyboardist Caitlin Lang’s sprawling vocals of “Sheeeeee // she really loved the way you swore (?)…” before reverting back to the the Halloween-ish melody. Also, the jam-session at the concluding sixty seconds left a nice after taste in my mouth, urging me on to press reply at the end of each listen.
Geez, everything that Double Denim Records releases is shear gold. Nine 7”s in (the majority ofwhich I’ve alreadycovered on this site), and they keep finding a way to knock my socks off. Their latest (and possibly greatest) comes courtesy of Tokyo’s soundscape creator Jesse Ruins. This dude is so good, he even caught the attention of The Guardian (with M83 and Grimes comparisons, nonetheless).
I’ll just let the music speak for itself with this one. Listen to the DD A-side “A Bookshelf Sinks Into The Sand” (which you can cop the 7” here) as well as an extra track “Sofija” that he produced a while back.
Oh where to begin… I’m usually not one to judge a book by it’s cover, but opening up the sleeve and seeing the cool (both in aesthetics and temperature) baby blue record was quite the treat. What can I say, I’m a sucker for colored vinyl.
As for the record itself, it’s a beautiful recording. The A-side “We’ll Turn the Coffins Into the Gardens” features front-and-center the sweet croonings of singer Mike Aho — who has a tinge of Band of Horses’ frontman Ben Bridwell in him. The lyrics are shear poetry, with a mid-stream intro line of “Not that I really mind the silence, that’s grown around me // like the weeds around the fence post” that is pure Joycean (à la Finnegan’s Wake). The B-side, “Don’t Bring It to Life,” is a perfect compliment to the more solemn A. With brass instruments, hand claps, and some verbal interjects in the background, ((sounder)) sounds like they are having a blast recording — something you don’t really see on too many tracks!
You can watch a live version of “We’ll Turn the Coffins Into the Gardens,” shot in their hometown of Austin, as well as some B&W footage of a previous track of theirs, “A War of the Coffee Table,” that’s just as good:
Two days ago, I was thinking to myself, “hmm, I wonder what one of my favorite labels, Father/Daughter Records, have been up to lately.” Literally, ten minutes later I get an e-mail from them announcing a new 7” from the un-Oregon origin band Oregon Bike Trails. I’ve been waiting for this one for a while since OBT first burst on the scene a couple of months back and was quick to hit the pre-order button on this awesome 7”. Check out the smooth-pop A-side “High School Lover” below (in both audio and video form) and if you dig what you hear, odds are you’ll probably like everything else from the Father/Daughter backlist.
Really going to become poor with all of these new vinyl releases… The latest one to catch my eye is this Railcars 7”, release by Gold Robot Records, featuring two tracks from the early incarnation of the group. The creative creator of Railcars, Aria Jalali, provides the imaginative instrumentals for Side-A “B’s Skeleton” and Side-B “Saints Are Waiting” while singers Biljana Mirkovski and Dasha Bulatova, respectively, bring each track back down to planet earth with their vocals. Although this 7” is hot off the presses, the recording of it actually precedes the stellar Cathedral With No Eyes and Cities vs Submarines records — giving you insight into the “early sketches of Railcars brilliance.”
At this point in time, I think I probably should change the site’s name from “Part-Time Music” to “In Case You Missed It” because I no longer make any “hot off the presses” discoveries. Regardless, I’m going to stick with making belated picks because, for the most part, they are just too damn good not to talk about!
Take this track from San Francisco’s The Mantles that I snagged from Weekly Tape Deck a couple weeks back. Although the weather is super shitty in Utah right now, one listen to “Raspberry Thighs” melts away my late-winter/early-spring annoyance and gets me pumped with what the summer has to offer. Shimmering guitars: check. Airy keyboard chords: check. Easy-going vocals: check. I could unfold my tablecloth on the ground and have a picnic RIGHT NOW if it wasn’t so damn cold outside… *Sigh*
Cop the track below and if you live in France or love to pay international shipping, grab the 7” here.
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