Dungen: "Så Blev Det Bestämt"

Who said 70s jam bands killed it for the rest of us? While perhaps the shit-eating grins and crotch-stuffing antics of countless over-the-top rockers soiled the legitimacy of rock ‘n’ roll, it was their hackish and arguably less-important-than-image music that failed to live up to the shredding of their contemporaries. Thirty years later, who would have thought a handful of Swedes would be digging though the rubble, piecing together an album that could more-easily-than-not find itself grouped amongst some of the greatest psych-rock albums of all time. The album is Tio Bitar, the group ‘o’ Swedes is Dungen, and if some of you are sitting there rolling your eyes at my jumping-of-the-gun hyperbole…you clearly haven’t heard this song yet:

[MP3] Dungen – Så Blev Det Bestämt (highest recommendation)

Feel that? That’s your face…melting. Your eyes…hanging from their sockets. Your friends…no longer important. Your identity…shapeshifting. Your purpose in life…no longer certain. If this track doesn’t make you question the mortality of Dungen’s principle/founding member Gustav Ejstes (who composed and performed most of what you’re hearing), grab some q-tips and give it another go. I haven’t heard sitar-thrashing like that since George Harrison and Ravi Shankar jammed out “Within You Without You” in 1967. Mind-blowing is an understatement.

Tio Bitar drops in North America on May 15th. Check the links below for more info, mp3s, and to preorder the album:

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Official Site | MySpace Site | More MP3s | Preorder Tio Bitar

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Here We Go Again

And so the descent into the behemoth of a beast known as finals week has started. I commiserate with my fellow students suffering the same fate and those who think I’ll be updating like crazy this week.

Helping me study, indeed.

[MP3] Mozart – Violin Concerto No.3 (Adagio)
[MP3] Vivaldi – L’Inverno – Largo

Small Sails: "Somnambulist"

According to Indieblogheaven, Porland’s Small Sails perform over 100 shows per year, projecting their brand of downbeat, atmospheric electro-pop into the ears of countless thousands over the years. Their new album Similar Anniversaries arrived March 27th, and goes a little something like this:

[MP3] Small Sails – Somnambulist

This song won’t help Small Sails pick up any awards for songwriting but it might be played as the winners lounge at afterparties and feel good about themselves. To be completely open, this is a band that would have made me feel cheated and uncomfortable had I just stumbled on their opening act and been forced to stand through all the ‘wah-wah-waaah’s and ‘nah-nah-naaah’s and near-tribal drumming of many of their songs. But as fate would have it, I’ve got the power of the ‘play’ and ‘pause’ buttons, an amount of control needed to carefully time just how much of Small Sails’ affecting oceanic music I can take. It’s a beautiful thing, you just gotta remember to say “when.”

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Official Site | MySpace Site | More MP3s | Buy Similar Anniversaries

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Weekend Wrap-Up

The White Stripes love all of their fans, even the ones from Delaware. In support of the upcoming Icky Thump, the Stripes are planning shows in all 16 states they have never played (along with the states they always play). More dates to be announced soon.

Interpol lines up Our Love To Admire, announces tracklist. This third album and major-label debut comes three years after Antics and showcases eleven songs all the kids will be sure to love.

Forkcast premieres the video for Beirut’s “Elephant Gun.” This only confirms my suspicions that when Condon sings he isn’t actually saying anything at all.

Wolf Notes is gone, but Good Hodgkins is back…with some excellent Final Fantasy + Cadence Weapon radio sessions. Ryan, I think you have commitment issues…

GvB has Diplo’s remix of Peter Bjorn And John’s “Young Folks.”

Black Moth Super Rainbow: "Sun Lips"

Electro-psych-pop collective Black Moth Super Rainbow is back with their first official long-player since 2004’s Start A People. The new album, titled Dandelion Gum, arrives May 15th so mark your calendars, this isn’t one you’d want to pass up.

If you’re familiar with BMSR you can expect more of the same on the new album: synth’d vocals, mellotron-out-the-ass, ri-fucking-diculous beats, and all the simplistic, charming lyrics one could ask for. They haven’t changed their style much over the years but when you’re making music as good as this, you learn to leave well enough alone. Here’s “Sun Lips,” a new track made freely available by the band themselves (take a page from these guys, Web Sheriff)

[MP3] Black Moth Super Rainbow – Sun Lips

Lounging in what appears to be a giant velvet vagina-shaped chair, you catch yourself off guard and wonder if your own vivid sense of introspection might be the only soul-searching pressures you allow past your tripping ego. You order a drink but can only speak in tongues so you motion “I’ll have what He’s having” and point to the Big Man Upstairs. No drink comes to your much-needed aid but you do begin to sense an increase of pressure in your lymphnodes. You’re thinking in tongues now and swear you thought “nymphoides.” You see a rush of beautiful decorative flowers patterning toward you and discover the only universal truth: there is no universal truth. Ego death sets in and you no longer recognize your self. You reject that invasive foreign occupier and collapse into nothingness. The acid that’s been in your pocket for three days absorbed into your thigh an hour ago and upon realization of your dead-certain hallucinatory visions and apocryphal sense of perception you strike a faint glimpse of the past: running through those sprinklers was a bad decision.

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Official Site | MySpace Site | More MP3s | Buy Dandelion Gum

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Thumping Something Icky!

Let it be known that Jack White is a modern day King Midas. No offense to Meg, but The White Stripes should be equally known as “The Jack White Stripes”. The artistic spectrum Mr. White operates within is so vast that the far depths of the universe couldn’t contain him. He’s versatile, fun, and nothing short of brilliant. The Racontuers, a side project mind you, gobbled up spotlights, acclaim, and awards but that was with Jack operating with someone just as talented. A great group, but no Jack White solo show. White’s latest album, Icky Thump, is slated for release this June and has already picked up more buzz than a David Hasselhoff tour across Germany. The title-track single from The Stripes’ next LP just hit radiowaves and iTunes stores alike.

[MP3] The White Stripes – Icky Thump (links to Hype Machine now, thanks Web Sheriff)

NME said fans of the “comeback single” have been spreading it across the web like wild fire and I just got scorched an hour ago. This song is an experimentally edgy 70s-in-2007 jaunt that is all over the place, yet it has already vaulted into my top echelon of favorite Stripes songs. I love the music and the lyrics are just as superb: “Well Americans, what, nothing better to do? Why don’t you kick yourself out? You’re an immigrant too! / Who’s using who? What should we do? Well you can’t be a pimp and a prostitute too!” The radio rip gives you a decent sound, but the single simultaneously appeared on iTunes in a format far superior. I’ve already spent my 99 cents on this track and, trust me, it’s more filling than a 5-piece nugget from Wendy’s.

Buy “Icky Thump” off iTunes!

Amos Lee: "Sweet Pea"

So my school is doing me a favor in the last week of the academic school year by bringing in Amos Lee for a concert that’ll be free for students. I’m hoping they’ll put great shows like tonight on more often and have them free because, hey, everyone likes free things. I’ve yet to catch Lee in concert, both times he came around these parts I was detained by other things that were less audibly pleasing, so I am extremely stoked about catching this terrific solo artist. In leu of tonight’s concert, here’s a track from his latest release titled Supply and Demand.

[MP3] Amos Lee – Sweet Pea

Man, he better play this song tonight. It’s two minutes and ten seconds of light, melodic music that reminds me of warm weather and running around outside barefoot. His annunciation is so sly and his voice so smooth that it’s hard not to enjoy his tracks, even if his sophomore release became an upscale “bigger” sound. I can’t complain about the step up in production, it undoubtedly led to the pivotal use of ukulele in this song. Lee’s talents as an artist are great, but even greater is his fantastic storytelling coupled with a sweet voice full of husky undertones tones which perfectly reflect the emotive nature buried within all of his tunes.

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Official Site | MySpace Site | More MP3s | Buy Supply and Demand

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The Cairo Gang: "Warning"

It’s the middle of the week and I’ve been freshly liberated from a hell consisting of twelve page papers and multiple projects written in foreign languages. I’m about to load up on all the carbs that I can before embarking on a marathon of finals.. oh joy. But the weather is pleasant outside and with this proverbial monkey off of my back I’m enjoying the mellow acoustic sounds of The Cairo Gang.

This may sound strange, but this band reminds me of bamboo. I’m sure their woodwind laden instrumentals are subliminally attacking my ears, yet at the same time I feel like I should be hanging out amongst the bamboo with a panda or swordfighting some flying martial artists in the canopy.

[MP3] The Cairo Gang – Warning

This weird “bamboo feeling” may be due to a lack of sleep, but the serene feelings envoked by this mellow track can’t be dismissed. Although this song isn’t brand new it’s still fresh in my head, plus the middle of the week needed some relaxing music. The consistent shaker and instigated competition between flute and xylophone are both pleasant and creative. They take a delicate folk song and inject a creative post-rock formula that Pitchfork humorously called a “beard-stoking vibe”. They’re a talented group of musicians, indeed. Also, I apologize in advance if you now associate bamboo with The Cairo Gang.

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MySpace Site | Source of Band Name | More MP3s | Buy The Cairo Gang

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Brandi Carlile: "Cannonball"

My infatuation with Brandi Carlile dates back just before the release of her self-titled debut in 2005. Her voice is a force by itself but coupled with her brilliant songwriting ability she takes the cake as one of the premiere artists to be on the lookout for. Her debut was fantastic and her follow-up, The Story, could easily be a contender for Album of the Year. Carlile’s voice has the power of a wild stallion that I was apprehensive to see broken by an over-the-top producer on her sophomore release. Boy, was I wrong.

T Bone Burnett harnessed a voice reminiscent of a tenured performer and tour warrior that is worthy of the lengthy career that The Story suggests for her. If there was ever a golden age where an artist only needed their voice and a captivating narrative to succeed, Carlile is a brilliant “second wind” from the past that is both reassuring and beautiful. Her songwriting can be acoustically intimate and billowingly epic with a voice that can hiccup and croon like Patsy Cline, soar like Jeff Buckley, and surprise you with a wail that’ll snap your head back. Suffice it to say, Carlile could sing me the classifieds and make them mesmerizing.

[MP3] Brandi Carlile – Cannonball

The vocal harmonies in this song are superb, of course having Amy Ray and Emily Saliers (i.e. Indigo Girls) backing an already powerful voice doesn’t hurt. Call it her rite of passage or just two alumni helping out a sophomore, the combination of a past generation’s female folk rockers coupled with folk rock’s rising star (not only sounds good) but is just flat out neat. Both “Cannonball” and “Have You Ever” are two of my favorite tracks off of her 13-song release that truly lacks a poor song. I’ve yet to catch her live but, from what I hear, she brings down the house and steals the show from the bigger acts she opens for.

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Official Site | MySpace Site | More MP3s | Buy The Story from iTunes

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Brandi Carlile: "Cannonball"

My infatuation with Brandi Carlile dates back just before the release of her self-titled debut in 2005. Her voice is a force by itself but coupled with her brilliant songwriting ability she takes the cake as one of the premiere artists to be on the lookout for. Her debut was fantastic and her follow-up, The Story, could easily be a contender for Album of the Year. Carlile’s voice has the power of a wild stallion that I was apprehensive to see broken by an over-the-top producer on her sophomore release. Boy, was I wrong.

T Bone Burnett harnessed a voice reminiscent of a tenured performer and tour warrior that is worthy of the lengthy career that The Story suggests for her. If there was ever a golden age where an artist only needed their voice and a captivating narrative to succeed, Carlile is a brilliant “second wind” from the past that is both reassuring and beautiful. Her songwriting can be acoustically intimate and billowingly epic with a voice that can hiccup and croon like Patsy Cline, soar like Jeff Buckley, and surprise you with a wail that’ll snap your head back. Suffice it to say, Carlile could sing me the classifieds and make them mesmerizing.

[MP3] Brandi Carlile – Cannonball

The vocal harmonies in this song are superb, of course having Amy Ray and Emily Saliers (i.e. Indigo Girls) backing an already powerful voice doesn’t hurt. Call it her rite of passage or just two alumni helping out a sophomore, the combination of a past generation’s female folk rockers coupled with folk rock’s rising star (not only sounds good) but is just flat out neat. Both “Cannonball” and “Have You Ever” are two of my favorite tracks off of her 13-song release that truly lacks a poor song. I’ve yet to catch her live but, from what I hear, she brings down the house and steals the show from the bigger acts she opens for.

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Official Site | MySpace Site | More MP3s | Buy The Story from iTunes

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