Hanoi Janes - Year of Panic [2010]

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Ariel Pink's Haunted Graffiti - Before Today [2010]

Surely even normal kids growing up in Hollywood must, at times, feel like they're missing out on something – transplant the most mundane memories from your youth to a town 20 car minutes south of those famous cinema hills, with all their fun and iconography, and imagine the envy and frustration that'd rot at your gut whenever you had to spend the night at home alone babysitting. Ariel Pink, aka Ariel Marcus Rosenberg, grew up in Pico-Robertson, a town of aforementioned ilk, and his first memories of pop music came from the radio he'd hear every day driving to Beverley Hills High School. Without wanting to play dumb Freud, it's rewarding to view Pink's arrival at this point in his recording career through the filter of his Hollywood childhood, and all the associations with Alicia Silverstone's emerald green eyes the phrase conjures up.
Before Today is supposed to be Ariel Pink's breakthrough album. Primarily that's because it was made in a real studio, paid for by a real label with real money – 'til now, all of his music has emerged from his bedroom, where'd he kneel to record albums like The Doldrums and House Arrest, much of the time playing ‘the drums’ with his mouth. These albums sounded like retreat into an own world – they were covered in a thick film of lo-fi noise hum and melodies were evasive, often flitting and strafing through that fuzz as if an infant was mad with control of a car's AM radio dial. Fortunately, they were also insanely good records – the extent of Pink's pop nous has been clear for a while now, and much of Before Today does sound like an unleashing of that, particularly lead single Round and Round with its 10cc-recalling synths and bassline stolen from Sade's Hang On To Your Love. The album's highpoint arrives in its first bridge, as Ariel ‘answers the phone’ amid guitar waft that sounds like billowing net curtains on a hot summer's day.
Other highlights arrive in the 70s Bowie funk snark of opener Hot Body Rub, Bright Lit Blue Skies' quietly euphoric pop radio charge, L'estat's synth whirl and Reminiscences' pleasant, aquatic drift. In fact, every track on this superb album is a winner – and, draped in the quiet glamour, fun and stateliness of bygone radio pop-rock, evidence that Ariel has emerged from his bedroom to exact his revenge on Hollywood's Hills.

bbc.co.uk/music
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TORO Y MOI - SIDERS OF CHAZ [2010]

1	Pitchers
2	Goodbye Raven
3	Right Ting
4	Tall Grass
5	I Can Make You Fall
6	Jobs Make Jerks
7	Entries

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MALE BONDING - NOTHING HURTS [2010]

Male Bonding's songs are fast, noisy, and full of hooks, a combination that might remind you of any number of things: Nirvana-era fuzz-pedal stompers, 1990s American indie rockers, Hüsker Dü and Dinosaur Jr. followers, not-quite-shoegazer English bands. Like a lot of those acts-- and like their contemporaries in No Age and Abe Vigoda-- Male Bonding started out making more abrasive music. Two of the three members used to be in the noise-pop band PRE, and the rich London scene they're coming out of-- a loose collective of bands with more of a common spirit than a common sound-- is full of scratchy post-punk, lo-fi fuzz, and hints of classic labels like Teenbeat, K, and Flying Nun. These are the kinds of foundational sounds that indie rock often turns back to when it needs to clear its head. But with Male Bonding, part of the treat is hearing them jump out of that and find room in the wide-open field where amped-up, rangy punk stuff collides with tuneful slacker pop. (Early on, they covered both Black Flag and Blur.) No surprise that they've wound up signed to Sub Pop, a label that built part of its reputation on that sound.
"That sound" isn't new, of course. It helps that Male Bonding are shockingly good at it, and remarkably efficient. The songs on Nothing Hurts are short, direct, pared down to essentials, and tightly packed-- with hooks, with changes, with instrumental fireworks. They move rapidly from zoomy rock to more atmospheric breaks ("Franklin"), and from a terrific run of loose, spiky gems in the middle ("Crooked Scene", "Weird Feelings") to some surprises toward the end. (The closer, a scratchy acoustic number, features guest vocals by Vivian Girls.) Frontman John Arthur Webb's vocals and lyrics can be a little hazy and non-committal-- often that's part of the charm-- but they're not really in the spotlight. Listening to tracks like "T.U.F.F." and "Pumpkin", you get the sense that this band's songwriting starts from the way their instruments lock together when they're playing in a room-- cymbal-bashing drum parts, chunky bass lines, and Webb's shattered-sounding guitar leads-- leaving this record as a fuzzy, no-nonsense, half-hour document of what they do.
And then there are the hooks. The hustle, the energy, and the sheer number of them make this an easy album to love-- especially if you're in the mood for some feedback, Nirvana moves, and punk-rock energy along with your melodies. One of the best comes during the killer chorus of a slack pop song called "Nothing Remains", which runs back and forth between a punk-rock build and a burst of high, cooing backing vocals; it's loose, noisy, and wonderfully graceful. Nothing Hurts is full of that kind of excitement: the sound of a fast, fuzzy rock band racing from hook to hook, plowing happily through breakdowns and guitar blasts, springing through scrappy melodies with style. It's one of the happiest surprises of the year so far.
pitchfork.com

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SLEIGH BELLS - TREATS [2010]

This Brooklyn act is another male-female duo receiving a lot of buzz, but don’t expect the dream-pop vibe of Beach House or the folk-tinged sound of She & Him. Rather, Sleigh Bells make grungy dance pop that’s been praised by Pitchfork, which lauded their “fun synth rave-ups” for being “blurrier and more intense than you’d expect.” The group is comprised of guitarist Derek Miller and singer Alexis Krauss, who ended up working as a duo when former members of the band went on to form another buzz-band, Surfer Blood. This debut was produced by Derek Miller. Stereogum has named them a “Band to Watch” and the New Yorker has given them attention. This release comes out on Mom + Pop Music in special partnership with NEET Recordings, a label run by M.I.A., with whom Krauss has been compared.
prefixmag.com

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WOODS - AT ECHO LAKE [2010]

Woods improve exponentially on their stellar Songs of Shame, and come out the kings of Brooklyn lo-fi

It’s probably easy to hate on Woods. The band plays what has been invariably described as “spooky campfire folk” with a serious hippie-1960s-classic rock influence, which would be all well and good if they came from where their music sounded like it came from (say, Vermont). Fact is, however, they’re from Brooklyn. Yes, another Brooklyn hipster band, and this one with the audacity to sing songs about woods and lakes when anyone who’s been to Brooklyn knows these things exist there in very short supply.

But what separates Woods from the rest of the bands in their circle (Jeremy Earl, songwriter, guitarist and lead falsetto warbler, runs the band’s label, Woodsist, also home to Real Estate, among others) is the sheer quality of the songwriting. Earl has the talent of making simple proclamations (“Oh, how the days will rain on you”) seem impossibly deep, existentialist, philosophical. While peers like Real Estate traffic in reverby, hazy nostalgia, Woods pursue a straightforward emotional honesty and sincerity, another thing seriously lacking in Brooklyn these days. It’s rare to find a band in modern indie-rock so far removed from the hipster irony and apathy that surrounds them. It’s also commendable; one thing that stands as indie rock’s greatest detriment is its fear of confronting adult, human emotions, retreating instead into nostalgia and feigned childhood innocence. Woods don’t play that game here. Everything is laid naked, as bare-bones as their recording approach, a lo-fi aesthetic that’s justified (unlike some bands) in that the tape-hiss intimacy is a perfect reflection of the frailty of the music therein. There’s a timeless quality to these songs that most bands would surely kill to replicate.

At Echo Lake is Woods’ most enduring document yet. While the stellar Songs of Shame had some killer tracks (“Rain On”, “The Number”), it also had “September With Pete” and other desperate padding/filler. There’s no filler to be found on At Echo Lake. The album’s brief, Weezer-like runtime of twenty-nine minutes is justified in that the music never overstays its welcome. That unfettered approach results in gorgeous two-minute pop-folk songs that simply make their point and leave. If only other bands knew such restraint and self-control (hello there, Yeasayer). It’s what takes Woods beyond mere potential and into the realm of a truly great band with this release. Full of perfect songs, not one of them filler, each one diverse and experimental yet never straying too far from the typical Woods sound, this album may well stand as a future classic release.

At Echo Lake opens with “Blood Dries Darker”, a classic-rock raveup and by far the album’s longest song at four-and-a-half bluesy minutes (the guitar acrobatics on this album impress almost as much as the songwriting itself does). “Pick Up” follows, more of that spooky campfire folk that was only occasionally present on Shame, but which thankfully makes more than a mere cameo appearance here. Album standout “Suffering Season” is third, one of the few tracks sounding truly “produced” here, full of chiming Byrds guitars and Pet Sounds/Phil Spector bells-and-whistles. It’s a new sound for the band, and a welcome one, before “Time Fading Lines” slips in, a gentle country ballad in the vein of “The Number”, but even better. At the album’s halfway mark, even “From The Horn”, a psychedelic instrumental jam, has its place as the perfect interlude and placeholder before moving onward. Lucas Crane’s tape effects hover in the background, all feedback and blurry rumbles, but they serve to effectively underline the sonic point of the acoustic leads, and manage to sound less anachronistic than bands with similar aims.

And so the album breathes from there. “I Was Gone” has a vaguely Latin feel, minor key and swirling, while “Deep” showcases a Paul Simon/Brian Wilson arrangement that brings Earl’s soaring falsetto to a new, spine-chilling level. The album closes perfectly with “Til The Sun Rips”, showing off some of the most gorgeous harmonies this side of Fleet Foxes before this journey to Echo Lake draws to a close.

The progression between Songs of Shame and At Echo Lake is simply stunning. The prior was a collection of songs, mishmash, some very good, others dull or verging on pointless and derivative. At Echo Lake is a body of work, a single statement of artistic purpose, and one that shows a band standing head and shoulders above many of its brethren in the Brooklyn indie-rock crowd. The greatest compliment one could give to Earl and Company is that they are doing something truly unique in an often uncreative genre that in 2010 is verging dangerously on self-parody. That they’ve done it on their own terms is something very special, indeed.
popmatters.com
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TITUS ANDRONICUS - THE MONITOR [2010]

"Titus Andronicus is an indie rock band which formed in Glen Rock, New Jersey, United States in 2005. They consist of Patrick Stickles (vocals, guitar), Ian O’Neil (guitar), Ian Graetzer (bass), Andrew Cedermark (keyboards, vocals) and Eric Harm (drums). The band takes its name from the Shakespeare play Titus Andronicus.
Their debut album, The Airing Of Grievances, was released on the Troubleman Unlimited record label on April 14, 2008 to many positive reviews. The album’s loud, heavily distorted guitars are influenced by shoegaze, while the lyrics and song titles are references to various books and other forms of entertainment (such as the album title, from the Seinfeld episode, “The Strike”, about Festivus). The Airing Of Grievances was reissued on January 20, 2009 on XL Recordings.
The band’s second album, The Monitor, will be released on March 9, 2010 through XL Recordings. It will be preceded by the first single “Four Score and Seven” which will be split into two parts due to its length and released on vinyl as a double A-side on February 9, 2010." LAST.FM
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THE WICKED AWESOMES! - PUNK HOLOGRAMS [2009]

"Hailing from the unlikely locale of Edmonton, Alberta, The Wicked Awesomes! have been cultivating their brand of “subarctic frozen glü-wave”, releasing a split 7” with Montreal’s The O Voids, debut single “Information Entropy,” on Almost Ready Records and “Punk Holograms” LP on Psychic Handshake Records. What you have here is the product of five young dudes who are like a virtual cool sounds encyclopedia of stellar punk, garage, psych, art rock and new wave influences." LAST.FM
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THE INTELLIGENCE - FAKE SURFERS [2009]

"It'd be stupid to call your band the Intelligence without showing signs of progress and evolution. And over the course of four albums, the now full-time project of ex-A Frames drummer Lars Finberg has loosened up its formative post-punk pessimism to the point that the band's chosen MySpace URL-- www.myspace.com/theworldisadrag-- feels more ironic with each record. Rather than simply protest the indignities of modern life, on Fake Surfers, Finberg goes about creating a sanctuary from it, inviting in friends from fellow unsung West Coast indie rock acts (and, in one instance, covering their songs) to form a secret, protective society that will ensure the survival of rational-thinking species in a world where brain cells are being eroded 140 characters at a time
The Intelligence's previous release, 2007's Deuteronomy, was notable for its more focused songcraft and cleaner presentation, but Fake Surfers doesn't continue these new adventures in hi-fi. Rather, it plays to the Intelligence's extremes, casting a more pronounced British Invasion pop influence in warped, peak-level lo-fi sonics, emphasizing a connection between post-punk and psychedelia that stretches from Clinic and Guided by Voices through the deconstructionist pop of Swell Maps and Wire and back to the whimsical wordsmithery of Syd Barrett and Skip Spence. (That said, Fake Surfers practically sounds like Dark Side of the Moon compared to Crepuscule With Pacman, a concurrently released collection of more discordant, half-formed material issued via French indie Born Bad.)
Fake Surfers' noise/pop affinities seemingly align it with the current lo-fi vogue fostered by Slumberland and Slitbreeze Records sets, with the tambourine-rattled "Taxman" strut of "Tower" and bobble-headed harmonies of "Universal Babysitter" suggesting mid-1960s Beatles had they been signed to Rough Trade Records in 1978. But the Intelligence are distinguished by the way they push the limits of their claustrophobic space; their most intriguing moments often result when they lay off the distortion pedal, exposing the creepy voices and radio frequencies that overwhelm the swinging-60s go-go groove of "Saint Bartolomeu" and the circular circus melodies driving the electro-stroll of "I Hear Depression". And while it seems like faint praise to say the best song on Fake Surfers is its lone cover, the breezily strummed rendition of L.A. new-wave hot dogs Wounded Lion's "Pony People" feels like the song Finberg's been waiting to sing his whole life. Lord knows what it says about the man that he's never sounded happier than when singing from the perspective of a centaur "firing arrows into rabbits." But in the case of Fake Surfers, such emotional breakthroughs are worth sacrificing a bunny or two."
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MOUNT EERIE - BLACK WOODEN [EP] [LATITUDES] [2009]

"Mount Eerie represents the latest evolution of Phil Elverum’s musical vision. Formerly known as The Microphones, Phil changed his project’s name to Mount Eerie while maintaining his subtle, lo-fi, and lyrically dense fuzz-folk aesthetic.
Elverum explained this change in an 2003 interview with Discoder, asserting that “Mount Eerie is a new project. The Microphones was completed, or at least at a good stopping point. I did it because I am ready for new things. I am new.”
As Mount Eerie, Phil is generally sans synthesizers, drums, and the accenting voices of Mirah, The Blow, and fellow K-Records/Anacortes friends. Mount Eerie’s album “Seven New Songs of Mount Eerie” was also the first recording released on Phil’s new label, P.W.Elverum & Sun. All songs from that recording are available for free download in the Internet Archive."
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HAVE A NICE LIFE - VOIDS [ 2009]

"Compiled here are two separate EPs, the first being Have A Nice Life's extremely rare second demo, Powers Of Ten, and the second being What Happened Next Was Worse, a collection of tracks written around the same time as Deathconsciousness that didn't make it onto the main album. Together these two EPs make up Voids, a sort of footnote detailing a little more of what was going on during the five year period leading up to 2008's Deathconsciousness."

SIMILAR/RELATED: THE ANGELIC PROCESS, NADJA, PYRAMIDS, JESU, AMESOEURS, TO KILL A PETTY BOURGEOISIE, THE PAX CECILIA

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MOUNT EERIE - WIND'S POEM [2009]

"After the release of the Microphones' 2003 album Mount Eerie, Washington State-based songwriter/multi-instrumentalist/producer Phil Elverum took that title as the name of his subsequent project, which expanded on the searching feel of the Microphones' music. He founded the label P.W. Elverum and Son Ltd., releasing a pair of CD-Rs, Seven New Songs of Mt. Eerie and Mt. Eerie Dances with Wolves/Wolf Mountain Howls in the World in 2004 before Mount Eerie's debut album No Flashlight became the label's first official Mount Eerie release in 2005. A CD/LP set with a poster that holds the record for the world's largest album cover, No Flashlight set the tone for Mount Eerie's further, intricately packaged releases, which were prolific; they included The Drums from No Flashlight, Singers (which featured different vocalists singing Elverum's songs), and the electronic-tinged 11 Old Songs of Mount Eerie, all of which also arrived in 2005. 2007 saw the release of a Microphones single, Don't Smoke/Get Off the Internet and Mount Eerie, Pts. 6 & 7, a picture disc and book of photographs, which was the sequel to the Microphones album that started it all. 2008's Black Wooden Ceiling Opening EP introduced Elverum's concept of playing "black metal with natural materials" and featured a different version of "Don't Smoke." Later that year, the concert DVD Fog Movies Live and a split single with No Kids preceded Lost Wisdom, a collaboration with Eric's Trip and Broken Girl singer Julie Doiron and guitarist Fred Squire. Dawn, a journal/CD set written during Elverum's stay in Norway in late 2002/early 2003, arrived in spring 2009, while a full-length of new material,Wind's Poem, was scheduled for later that year. " AMG

SIMILAR/RELATED: THE MICROPHONES, THANKSGIVING, WOELV, KARL BLAU, LITTLE WINGS, ADRIAN ORANGE

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