If you've been paying attention , it should come as no surprise that New York's The Kickdrums is currently the one-man production project of Alex Fitts. With his partner Matt Penttila taking a leave of absence, Fitts focused on following up their 2011 debut, Meet Your Ghost , which he'll do with Thinking Out Loud later this year. In anticipation of the album's release, Fitts put together the largely instrumental Inspiration for Conversation EP, which is now available to stream in its entirety. The [...]
When you're a young, up-and-coming band playing South by Southwest, there's a fair amount of risk involved . You essentially have to take any gig you can get, whether that's playing in front of a hamburger joint or in the corner of a half-empty bar without a proper sound system. Take Boston power-pop act Pretty & Nice ; on Wednesday of this year's SXSW, the quartet had like, a bagillion gigs across town, with audiences ranging from a group of geriatrics to a lone sleeveless cowboy. How do you make the best of so many short sets playing [...]
London-based brothers Tom and Ben Page (a.k.a. RocketNumberNine ) have spent the last six years honing their sound, a blend of drone-noise, dance-rock, and drum and bass that's born predominantly out of improvisation. Recently, the duo's hard work and sacrifice has paid off. After meeting Kieran Hebden (a.k.a. Four Tet) in 2010, Hebden released their 14-minute opus "Matthew & Toby" via his TEXT label. Through Four Tet, the band met Thom Yorke, who invited them to open for Radiohead at Roseland Ballroom in late 2011, which eventually led to their split 123 with Four Tet, "Roseland" [...]
Kriget means "The War" in Swedish, and that's exactly what the experimental rock trio operating under the moniker are bringing on their just-announced new album. Due out in July on BLVVD, Dystopico sees "civilization as an inferno, a beautiful and frightening world where the well known gets unexpected dimensions, where the catastrophe threatens and where the war is present, a never ending fatal war." Well, if this is what that apocalyptic onslaught sounds like, maybe the end of civilization as we know it won't be so rough after all. "Sleeping with Buddha", our [...]
Jordan Jeffares never intended to leave a six-year gap between his debut and followup records. He released Anti-Anti in 2006 with his band, Snowden . However, after a year of touring behind the album, he had a fallout with his label that kept him out of the studio while his contract slowly expired. In the meantime, Jeffares kept writing as he moved from one cultural hub to another - from his Atlanta home, to Chicago, to Brooklyn, and ultimately settling (for now) in Austin, TX. Now, finally , he's prepped his sophomore album, [...]
Sci-fi rockers Man or Astro-Man? will return later this month with their first album in 12 years, Defcon…5…4…3…2…1 . The band of misfits has already unveiled the propulsive lead single, "Disintegrate" , and today they've let loose another slice of their patented "Science Friction" sound with "Communication Breakdown Pt. II". With its warble-y guitars, scratchy bassline, and concussive drums, the track creates a sense of inter-dimensional movement, as if we're aboard some psychedelic spaceship cruising through a reverb-heavy tear in the space-time continuum. By the time the journey abruptly ends [...]
Aside from its ginormous annual music festival , Reading, England is a sleepy little commuter town. It's so small, in fact, it's been denied city status a whopping three times . The four gents of Tripwires (frontman Rhys Edwards, guitarist Joe Stone, bassist Ben White, and drummer Sam Pilsbury) have called the tiny 'burb home for the last six years. "A lot of people live here a couple years for work and then move on," Edwards explains. "For us, it's been a great place to write music. Not as a direct result of the [...]
So maybe you weren't at South by Southwest to catch Brooklyn psychedelic pop act TEEN perform at our CoSigns II event. And maybe you're not quite clear what the band means when they say their forthcoming Carolina EP is “intended to be a more natural affair" that can translate easily to the stage. Lucky for you, their new video for "Circus" is an elegant solution to both dilemmas. Lit by a few crowd members with flashlights, the sisters Lieberson, Jane Herships, and a gent with a USPS [...]
Kerretta , the instrumental prog-rock trio hailing from Auckland, New Zealand, are just a few weeks away from heading out on tour through Europe and Russia. Though they're in the midst of writing their new album, the band offered up an exclusive new track in anticipation of the upcoming gigs. "The Guardsman" is a no-bullshit sentry that glares with murky guitar strains and stomps around with ominous bass drops in the sludge. Throughout, it stalks in echo-y guitar flurries and, around the 3:20 mark, its shadow slowly looms with a rising riff that eventually smashes left and right. Terrifying, [...]
One-man producing machine Alex Fitts (aka The Kickdrums ) called upon every one of his musical influences with the sample-heavy "Hum" , the second single off the instrumental Inspiration for Conversation EP. With so much going on musically, it only made sense that the accompanying video would be as equally madcap, randomly oscillating between shots of psychedelic infernos, neon-colored celestial bodies, and angular performance footage. Though the emotional arc and aesthetic can be overwhelmingly flippant, it makes for a mighty cohesive one-two punch between the audio and visual. The Inspiration for [...]
I first heard the garage pop of Team Spirit at this year's South by Southwest, where the Brooklyn band was fun, sleazy, but never sinful. However, in their music video for "MRDR It's OK", the band find themselves deep in the bowels of an animated Hell. Omnes relinquite spes, o vos intrantes , dudes. In the foursome's defense, their trip is purely accidental, and their stay is only prolonged because they're kidnapped by Satan to act as his wedding band. In the midst of the inferno, surrounded by butt-faced bachelors, [...]
Brooklyn outfit Small Black is dusting the frost of its chillwave label with Limits of Desire , out May 14th on Jagjaguwar. The thaw began on the band's Moon Killer mixtape, gained warmth on the first taste of the new album, "Free at Dawn" , and now melts right onto the dance floor with their latest heat seeker, "No Stranger". Out of a swirl of synths and cries from guitars comes a bassline sauntering its way to the hardwood. Percussion kicks steadily in the background, and there's an [...]
The term "barbarian" still stirs up images of a young, buff Arnold Schwarzenegger brandishing a broadsword (no? Just me?). But a San Diego quintet going by Barbarian is changing that image, conjuring up feelings more akin to hazy, sun-drenched drives down West Coast highways. Their November 2012 debut single, "Daze of Youth" , came right out of a coastal garage, smothered in a psychedelic sheen, and the band hones their sound even further on their upcoming EP, City of Women. If the first listen of the EP, "California Nightmare", is [...]
While Sun Angle is a relatively new band, its three members have long been solo fixtures on the Portland music scene. Vocalist/guitarist Charlie Salas Humara is the one-man disco-funk machine Panther; bassist Marius Libman makes electro-pop as Copy; and drummer Papi Fimbres is best known for the electro-tropical of Paper/Upper/Cuts. Together, the trio blend and meld their unique sensibilities into an amalgamation they call "Tropical Psych Phase Punk". No matter the name, though, it's an exhilarating blend they deliver with gusto and spontaneity on their debut record, Diamond Junk . Produced by Menomena's [...]
Orlando dream-pop outfit Saskatchewan are streaming their debut album, Occasion , just a few days before its official release date (April 30th via Father/Daughter Records). Take a listen below. The 10-track album is an exploration of what lies beyond dream-pop's categorical limitations, eschewing simple tags like "shimmery" or "evocative" to explore true nuance and variation. The wobbly guitar and punctuating drums of "Youth Ministry" add crunch to the ethereal soundscape. Frontman Chandler Strang's sultry vocals help to make "Spellbound" a gem of sheer primal energy amid a sea of ambient vibes. [...]
Upon completing his sophomore album Haçienda , Expensive Looks' Alec Feld shut himself off from the outside world. Locked in his room for three straight weeks, the New York native found solace in atmospheric film scores and orchestral pieces. That time alone with his record collection would inspire his upcoming EP, Northern Winds , due May 7th via Altitude. "The idea of a short-film soundtrack grew on me," Feld says of his experience flipping through symphonic soundtracks. "In no way is Northern Winds a soundtrack, but is rather a [...]
20-year-old Austin Paul grew up in a strict Christian household, spending a majority of his childhood teaching himself the piano. Then, 15 months ago, Paul moved out on his own, experiencing life outside his religious upbringing while tending to his burgeoning music career in a new and unfamiliar industry. That experience of sudden maturity and complete culture shock helped inform the six tracks that make up Velvet , which takes its musical cues from James Blake, Clams Casino, and John Legend. While the effort is clearly in line with the sleak, stripped-down stylings of the aforementioned influences, [...]
When Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark reunited in 2010 to record their first album in 14 years , Diamond Rings ' John O’Regan was just releasing his debut album . Since then, both acts have released follow-ups with English Electric and Free Dimensional , respectively. Of course, Diamond Rings' synth-pop sound wouldn't be what it is without forebears like OMD, so it's fitting that the former would show reverence to the latter with a new remix. "Metroland" [...]
After garnering praise from the incomparable Brian Eno , Port St. Willow' s 2012 debut Holiday received a much deserved re-release from Downtown Recordings. Not wanting to bore old fans with a simple rehashing of the album, Nicholas Principe, the man behind the band, recorded a sweeping 25-minute suite to tag off the record. “'Soft Light Rush’ felt somewhat as though it were a process of building different rooms in the same house which I could go spend time in and keep myself sane,” Principe says in a press release. [...]
As previously reported , Alex Fitts will soldier on alone as The Kickdrums with the release of a new instrumental EP, Inspiration for Conversation , which leads up to the outfit's sophomore LP, Thinking Out Loud . We've already heard the evocative "Good As Gold" off Inspiration , and now Fitts has dropped another one of its five tracks with "Hum". "This is the first track I made after wrapping up my album, Thinking Out Loud ," Fitts said of the song. "I didn't use any samples making the new [...]
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