Angel Olsen // Strange Cacti

Easily my favorite cassette of the year. Released by my favorite tape label Bathetic Records (and quickly re-released to no avail – both “pressings” are sold-out), Olsen sweetly croons about love, loss, and lost love. At the surface level, you get a series of pleasant sounding singer/songwriter tracks which you eat up like candy, but when you start attentively listening to the lyrics and storytelling (not sure how much is story and how much is real life for Olsen) you discover the haunting undertones and the darker side of the songs. A truly breathtaking recording.
Angel Olsen // Creator, Destroyer

Ducktails // Lost

Another sold-out cassette (sorry guys! not meaning to rub it in your faces…), this instrumental by Real Estate guitarist Matt Mondanile “combines outtakes from the new record (Ducktails III: Arcade Dynamics), plus some lost gems from the past year.” Although most of it is just Mondanile dicking around playing seemingly improvised guitar licks with innumerable combinations of pedals, it’s nice to get a intimate peak at how some of these songs are constructed from the ground up.
Ducktails // Hamilton Road

The Numerators // Human Blanket

Coming at you with six tracks in a whopping 10 minutes and 52 seconds, it’s no stretch to say that this cassette released by Brooklyn (via Lubbock) acid/garage rockers The Numerators packs a punch. Although not a replacement for their live show, you do get an idea of what the band’s about (most notably the spastic 28 second “Take It Easy” that leaves you asking “what the fuck just happened”) which, when talking about The Numerators, is no easy feat!
The Numerators // That’s So Raiden

Coasting // S/T

My favorite 7’’ of the year comes from a badass duo of Brooklyn garage-rockers Madison Farmer and Fiona Campbell. These ladies have no qualms about leaving your face smeared on the dashboard, taking you into warp speed 9 with their blazing guitar licks and fast-tempo drumming. What’s great about this Group Tightener release is that it includes my two favorite tracks: the instrumental shred-fest “Coasting” and the more subdued (with vocals!) noise ballad “Hots for Teacher”.
Coasting // Coasting

Memoryhouse // Caregiver

One of two Suicide Sqeeze 7’’s I bought this past year (the other being a Coathangers/Numerators split), this bedroom-pop record by Canadian dreamers Evan Abeele and Denise Nouvion keeps pace with the myriad of mp3s released by the duo in 2010. Smooth and airy, it’s easy to get lost in the melodies and vocals of any Memoryhouse song with “Caregiver” and “Heirloom” (the two tracks featured on this 7’’) is not an exception.
Memoryhouse // Caregiver

Gobble Gobble // Lawn Knives

I don’t know if there is a musician who is held at such high esteem in the blog world as Cecil Frena. I’m by no means a noteworthy blogger, yet every e-mail I get from him is friendly, personalized, and – as expected with Gobble Gobble – highly interesting. After coming onto the scene like a nuclear explosion, blasting out mp3-after-mp3, a pair of “proper” releases (courtesy of Royal Rhino Records) finally graced our presence at the end of the year. For those who want an introduction to the spastic concoctions Cecil & Co. produce, the 7’’ is a perfect start.
Gobble Gobble // Lawn Knives

Magic Kids / Smith Westers // Split 7’’

My favorite split record from the past year, this Fat Possum released 7’’ features the raucous anthem-ready jam “Imagine Pt. 3” from Chicago underage indie-rockers Smith Westerns and the bouncy, light-hearted “Superball” from Memphis’s Magic Kids. The 7’’ also gets my album cover trophy of the year, with each band parodying a previous album’s cover from the other.
Magic Kids // Superball

Cosmetics // Sleepwalker

Although not as good as their previous Captured Tracks 7’’, “Sleepwalker” is a woozy, synth-heavy dance track that you’ve come to expect from the Canadian couple. Printed on clear vinyl (a nice touch!), this recording is almost too beautiful to play! When you finally decide to take the plunge and place a needle on it, you get transported to a nameless trendy club where upstairs they’re playing the A-side and downstairs, in the dark basement, their spinning the B.
Cosmetics // Sleepwalking

Seamonster // Two Birds

This five-track (!) 7’’ gives The Numerators a run for its money when it comes to bang-for-your-buck. Seamonster is the brainchild of Virgina’s self-professed “ambient/psychedelic/folk” musician Adrian Todd Webb, and with Two Birds you get just that: ambient/psych/folk tracks pieced together perfectly. Head over to Gold Robot Records to cop the release.
Seamonster // Oh Appalachia

Cloudland Canyon // Mothlight Pt. 2 | In the Cold

The first vinyl release from Bathetic Records and it’s a doozy! Smooth fuzzed out jams that you can seriously vibe out to — what more could you really want?
Cloudland Canyon // Mothlight (Part 2)

One of the artists that is sure to outlast the inevitable demise of the chillwave genre, Matt Mondanile is slated to release his third LP Ducktails III: Arcade Dynamics at the beginning of next year. As a precursor to the new album, Woodsist Records — one of the many labels Mondanile has used over the past two years — has released a 30 minute cassette tape, entitled Lost, which “combines outtakes from the new record, plus some lost gems from the past.”

There is a lot of stuff going on with this C-30 cassette, and Mondanile tinkers around with a variety of sounds in a short period of time. Sure, he has his patented shimmering guitar rifts on it, but also present on some tracks are electronic repetitions (reminiscent of the upbeat stuff by tour-mate Oneohtrix Point Never), an increase in percussion rhythms, and even a handful of dabbles into orchestral and R&B beat-making.

There is no track listing to the recording, so it’s difficult to break down the composition into well-defined, piecemeal parts. But that’s sort of the purpose of cassettes in general: it’s something you slap into a machine, press play, and drift away…

You can purchase the tape from the all-to-appropriately-named Fuck It Tapes (the cassette spin-off of Woodsist Records) and keep checking the site for a pre-order to Arcade Dynamics that is sure to pop up any day now. Below, you can download a track off the new record:

Ducktails // Hamilton Road

I don’t care what Punxsutawney Phil says, it’s freaking springtime in Portland RIGHT NOW! To celebrate the handful of sunny days we’ve had this past month (my standard for declaring a season change is pretty damn low), I put this mix together while boxing up my SAD lamp and dusting off my sunglasses. Ah spring: summer’s warm-up act.

You can download the hour-long mix here (92.5Mb). As for the tracklist, it’s mostly new(er) stuff with some sprinklings of old favorites here and there:

• RxRy // Baulkn Slihts
• Ducktails // Oh, Magnolia Tree
• Sonny and The Sunsets // Too Young to Burn
• King Tuff // Sun Medallion
• Memoryhouse // Foreground (Grizzly Bear Cover)
• Cibelle // Lightworks
• Javelin // Mossy Woodland
• El Rego et ses Commandose // E Nan Mian Nuku
• Dominant Legs // Clawing Out at the Walls
• Efterklang // Modern Drift
• The Sandwitches // Grey Wizard
• Julian Lynch // Banana Jam Pt. 1
• Primary 1 // Foaming (Memory Tapes Remix)
• El Guicho // Prez Lagarto
• Tamaryn // Light Shadows

Also, if you like this mix, you might also enjoy some of the other ones I put together in the past.

We’ve all had those moments waking up late on a Saturday morning after a long night of partying where the only plans for the day is laying on the couch, mindlessly surfing the net, and drifting in and out of sleep. Well my new mix Laid & Paid: Weak ‘n Mixxx is the soundtrack for these times — keeping it nice and chill so not to exacerbate the hungover headaches.

You can download the mix directly from here (EDIT: rapidshare seems to be having problems this morning, so here’s a more direct link) and after which sit back, relax, and enjoy the 75+ of smooth tunes while drinking your Bloody Marys and downing your Ibuprofen. There’s a good blend of foreign/domestic, popular/obscure, full-band/instrumentals, so you’re sure to be able to pick up a couple of new favorites while revisiting some classic songs you might not have heard in a while. Here’s the tracklist:

Jóvenes y Sexys // El Reloj
Mountain Man // Animal Tracks
jj // Let Go
Jens Lekman // Jag Tyckte Hon Sa Lönnlöv
Broken Bells // The High Road
Acid House Kings // The Heart Is a Stone
Cryin’ Sam Collins // Lonesome Road
Sara Lov // My Body Is a Cage (Arcade Fire Cover)
El Perro del Mar // From the Valley to the Stars
The Wave Pictures // Just Like a Drummer
Woods // The Dark
Beach House // Gila
Chromatic Flights // I Am a Rock (Simon & Garfunkel Cover)
Man Man // Doo Right
Bassekou Kouyaté & Ngoni Ba // Bambugu Blues
The Knife // Vegetarian Restaurant
A Studio // Self Service (Short Version)
Run DMT // St. James
Cass McCombs // Don’t Vote
Moonface // Marimba and Shit-Drums (Excerpt)
Ducktails // On the Boardwalk
jj // My Way

If you like the mix, check out the Pre-Party one I did a month ago.