Here is our semi-regular round-up of what's new (and good) from our in-box, our favourite blogs, and the realms of the internet. We have some dusty, backwoods Americana from The Great American Canyon Band and Father John Misty and some rollicking country rock'n'roll from Deer Tick's new Tim EP . We have high octane garage from the Fresh & Onlys with a non-album cut that appears on the new Mexican Summer / Software sampler and some more classic rock courtesy of White Denim . To finish [...]
Hello reader. Once more into the abyss I write, only this Friday it's been long hand – not quite quill and parchment but getting there. Big Mac has choked, nearly croaked and lies in a critical condition waiting for restorative palliative care from Uncle Mike. Not that he's my uncle you understand, but we are related and he's particularly avuncular when it comes to 'puters. Fingers crossed. Sadly I fear there's no such cure for my lyrical affliction, which particularly comes to the fore when doing the day job as a charity copywriter. Some people spot it and [...]
Brooklyn quartet and fuzzpop advocates Beast Make Bomb have just released a cover of Harvey Danger's late-90s classic Flagpole Sitta . Watch it and download it. a Download Beast Make Bomb - Flagpole Sitta mp3 (Harvey Danger cover) Download Beast Make Bomb – It Snowed Last Night mp3 (from Skinny Legs) Follow @madmackerel
The Plastic Pals left a mark on the European garage and Americana scene with their debut album Good Karma Café a few years back. This time around the band are offering up single, Leave It 'Til Tomorrow as a taster of their forthcoming new album. This is heroin disco chic in the style of the Velvet Underground and Berlin-era Bowie . Download it below. a Follow @madmackerel
We included Town Hall in our massive video round-up yesterday and today they are releasing their first 'official' music video for Good Boy , a new single from their forthcoming album Roots And Bells , which is out on April 15th. a Good Boy is a free download from their Bandcamp page too. a Follow @madmackerel
Sad Baby Wolf have covered Neutral Milk Hotel's early classic Everything Is . Instead of trying to bring the track to a more modern place, the band embraced the distinct '90s sound that Neutral Milk Hotel helped shape. SBW makes the song their own though, with Maury Crandall's more prominent drumming and Marty Crandall's vocals giving the song a more cohesive feel than the original. The band maintained the conscious fuzziness of Jeff Magnum's original vocal recording, and added just a little bit of spit shine to polish up the [...]
Young Hines and Readymade Records are gearing up for the April 10th release of his new album Give Me My Change with a free download of the confrontational and trigger-happy punkish blues of Can't Explode. Download Young Hines - Can't Explode mp3 (from Give Me My Change) a Follow @madmackerel
Videos seem to accumulate in our in-box faster than we have a hope of watching them. However, having sat and watched and watched and watched and then watched some more, this then is our selection of the best we've seen. Wet Nuns are a band we like a lot singing songs as they do about women, death and beer. This is the video for Heavens Below, which will make up one side of an exclusive Record Store Day 73 release. [...]
Thrill Jockey are rapidly gaining a firm place in our affections with their uniquely off-kilter and diverse offerings making them a label to treasure. The latest release to cross our in-box comes from idiosyncratic singer-songwriter Alexander Tucker . Notwithstanding the sleeve art for Third Mouth , which Mrs M for one will find most acceptable, this record breaks new ground for Tucker by combining minimalist string arrangements with electronic manipulations and drones to produce doom chamber-pop songs and psychedelic music-concrete collages. Try the psych-pop and ambient overtones of Window Sill [...]
D.B. Rouse who we have featured a couple of times on MM dropped us a line to tell us about Make Good Choices , a free digital compilation that features 15 different bands and musicians from across the US, the majority of whom were found in the Austin, TX area. Of course it includes Mr Rouse himself, which should tell you something about the quality contained therein. Other artists include the excellently named Happy Horse Campfire Band, The Better Halves, Ditto Kiddo, Soulfoot Mombits and Decker. You can download [...]
A new month, a new free digital mix from Insound available for a tweet, e-mail or Facebook Like. This month features seventeen quality tracks from, amongst others, Beach House, Crocodiles, DZ Deathrays, Eternal Summers, John Maus, Margot & the Nuclear So and So's, Races, and Zambri. Click here to get the whole thing, but be quick as it is only available for a week or so, or check out a couple of our favourites below. Download M. Ward - Primitive Girl mp3 (from [...]
On April 17th Art Fag Recordings are releasing the debut record by Yohuna . Revery was originally self released in a tiny edition of 50 cassettes. Now, remastered, it's being released on 73, cassette and digitally worldwide. With a Casio keyboard, layered vocal arrangements and vehement, minimal beats, she writes sedated, downbeat anthems. Sounds and lyrics drip with moody reference to past love, loss, reflection and rejection while maintaining a hopeful, airy quality eagerly anticipating an uncertain future. Listen to the track It's All Yours . [...]
Hot on the heels of yesterday's post about the new album from A Place To Bury Strangers comes a similar announcement from another of our favourite experimental noiseniks, Liars . Titled WIXIW (pronounced "wish you"), the 11-track album will be preceded by a single, No.1 Against The Rush . Listen to it by heading to their Facebook page here . Follow @madmackerel
You Are The One is the first, bone shaking taste of the new album, Worship from dark, visceral and explosive indie rockers A Place To Bury Strangers . You can download it for free below. Worship is out on June 26th via Dead Oceans . See them live in May 08 - London, Cargo 09 - Birmingham, Hare & Hounds 10 - Manchester, Sound Control 11 - Glasgow, King Tuts 12 - Newcastle, Cluny [...]
In his new full-length CD release, Tired Ghostly Town (out May 21 on Plan-It-X South), Chicago-based songwriter and instrumentalist Al Scorch and his backing band, the Country Soul Ensemble craft literate, character-driven songs with Mid-American roots and a post-punk DIY attitude. The protagonist wishing for a pair of gold cuff links to accompany his beau to her daddy's funeral; the deserting Civil War soldier headed across destroyed cotton fields beckoning to "Miss Rosie"; or a hearse driver bound for the cemetery accompanied by a sonorous clarinet. Scorch doesn't just introduce these denizens, he inhabits them delivering jubilant anthems and poignant [...]
One of our very favourite UK labels, Loose Music is releasing Deer Tick's outstanding fourth album Divine Providence in the UK. If you read our Albums of the Year post at the end of 2011, you'll know just how much we loved this rollicking, swaggering, raw, boozy record. It is out in the UK today. Buy it together with the bonus five track Tim EP from Loose Music here . Also catch them live in London on Wednesday (4th April) at The Garage in London. Buy [...]
Here is our cherry picked selection of our favourite downloads from March for you, together with a few new tracks to create a perfect end-of-month mix. Enjoy. Download Thee Exciters – Dinosaur Traffic mp3 (from Perpetual Happening) Psychedelia meets proto-punk Download The Lonesome Savages – All Outta Love mp3 (from All Outta Love 7″) 50s inflected rock'n'roll revamped and updated with elements of the current garage punk sound - oozes from the speakers in a way that is raw, primal and downright dangerous Download Lera Lynn [...]
Insound have made another of their free Vinyl News mixtape's available - the March edition features eleven tracks from Denison Witmer, Food Pyramid, Glow Kit, Japandroids, Jennifer Castle, Julia Holter, The Larchmont Trash and more. You can grab a couple of our own favourites from the selection below or just head here and swap a tweet, Facebook like or e-mail address to get the whole thing for free. Download The Ketamines - Kill Me Now mp3 (from Insound Vinyl News Mixtape 3-29-12) Download Communist Daughter - Speed Of Sound [...]
Through eight albums on Bloodshot, the Waco Brothers have blurred the line between country and punk with music brimming with grim romanticism, and joyous, near ecstatic, drunken stomps. Paul Burch is a Nashville songwriting treasure. It turns out that the rawness and rowdiness of the former, so at home in the blue collar and punk rock dives of Chicago, shares an emotional camaraderie with the traditionally minded and archetypal stories and songs that Burch has skillfully produced in his career, with both styles benefiting in surprising ways. The result is [...]
a Bang on the money this week, arriving on fishy Friday, right on time. I even sit here sweetly sipping sparkling water, but then again the sun is not even in sight of the yard arm. Nursing a spot of lower back pain having taken the dog (and myself) for a run this morning in the wrong trainers (a bit like Wallace really, except not trousers, and Monty's not quite in the intellectual league of Gromit). Trainers without cushioning equals jarred back for old bones. Hence indulging in a new style of free form [...]
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