White Denim's new stuff

White Denim have released a kind of 2,5 album: Last Day Of Summer. Mainly older material that isn't deemed fit for their ongoing third album but is obviously too good to just sit around gathering dust. It's got a much more intimate, jamming feel to it than last years Fits and with a tad added soul.
Talking of Fits, there's a different version of I'd Have It Just The Way We Were on here. it's all delayed and ooh la la.

The best thing about it, is that it's free!
Oh yes, just go ahead and get it from their website
http://whitedenimmusic.com/download-new-record-last-day-of-summer

Optimist Park

I wrote about Kiss Kiss Fantastic back in March and told you how great their Red/Blue Shift EP was.

It still is.

But now one half of the band has gone all solo on us. Working under the moniker Optimist Park he's just released his second EP titled 'The Werewolf'.



A slice of ethereal dream-gaze that occasionally might go a bit loco.
I guess werewolves are a bit like that though. Not that I know much about them seeing as I've not seen the whole "Twilight trilogy"

You can download it here:
http://optimistpark.bandcamp.com/

Guards

It has probably been statistically proven that people who read blogs are prone to read more than one blog. Thus if you feel part of that demographic (you are because you're reading this, fool) you may sometimes get overloaded by hearing about the same stuff all the time from different places. Right?

Get this! I'm not going to be any different. I'm going straight in there where many a dude has been before. No I'm not talking about the town skank. I'm talking music. In more detail I'm talking about a band that a band "tweeted" about.

Cults are a duo who released this awesome track called Go Outside and gathered a monumental blogosphere following. People have been touting them to be all sorts. Probably somewhere, somehow, someone has announced Cults to be a simultaneous double returning of the Messiah.

Well. Go Outside is quite good. (but you probably already know this)



Howevs.

They also featured on a song on Guards' eponymous EP called Sail It Slow.



The whole EP is a delightful ol' gem of jangly, reverb-laden pop. Perfect for listening to whilst doing whatever I've been doing while I've been listening to it.

There's also another guest star on the EP. Namely Caroline Polachek from Chairlift.



but Guards hardly need any "big" names feating on their tracks other than to gather a bit of a following because the tunes here are top notch.



So go ahead and treat yourself. (If you haven't already)
Download Guards' EP from the bandcamp site

Dent May

Just listened to the new single from Dent May.(note that this is Dent May without his magnificent ukulele)

It was released a week or two ago so obviously I feel like so behind the times, but here y'have it. Eastover Wives sounds like it could've aired on an episode of 'Loveboat'. I used to love Loveboat.

I think.





you can download and/or buy That Feeling b/w Eastover Wives from the Forest Family Records website

A.P Witomski

I dunno where A.P. Witomski gets the A.P. from.

Maybe it's short for a name ? Maybe it's short for 'Ace pop songs'?

Maybe it's short for "Shut up, Tom. Your stupid abbreviation guesses are pointless and sh*t? I agree. They are. Sorry.

Anyway monsieur Witomski hails from faraway France, Grenoble if we wants to be getting all specific, and has made an album's worth of A.P's (hahahah brilliant) called Nine Melodies and Other Visions.
It makes me feel all serene and peace-outey BUT get this. It's not ambient like some of the whale-song artists sometimes featured on here. Oh no! It's got real instruments and some wicked vocal hooks. It's kind of... Well it's cool! (Check out my amazing vocabulary)

You could do a lot worse than to download it for free from his Bandcamp page

http://apwitomski.bandcamp.com/



now peace out to y'all

Pregnant

Trying to find video to link on here for a band called Pregnant was a tad hard. Once I got close and found pregnant Alicia Keys falls over on stage. Unlucky Alicia... That's what happens when you co-create the worst James Bond theme tune ever.

Luckily Daniel Trudeau aka. Pregnant himself got in touch and saved me the hard work of having to search for all his stuff myself.

So the short story goes like this. Pregnant is one guy's music project that's just releasing a new record on Lifesblood records. His new record's called Regional Music and it's tight.



Lush beats and nifty guitar patterns are what did it for this boy here. The whole album is pretty much unconventional. Not many tracks needing a chorus as they rely on gradual builds, glitchy chops and, like I said, lush beats. And anyway, choruses are well old fashioned.

LIP Beings from Cinema Caldera on Vimeo.

Så tråkigt

Hej.

Jag är lite sjuk men jag måste dock göra min svenska läxa.
Det är så tråkigt!

Jag skulle vilja skriver om musik.

Those 24 words took me 10 hours to put together. And even after such a ridiculously long time there is still a huge chance that it's all bo**ocks and completely wrong.

I started my compulsory swedish course at uni a week or two ago. Basically you need to pass the course to ever be able to graduate. Brilliant.

I really need to do all my homework to catch up with the apparently native speakers who are just on the course 'for a laugh'. So "quick, short post" is the motto of the day.

It's coming. Ready?

Today I realised that School of Seven Bells' Disconnect From Desire
album is bloomin' great!



Off you go now and spotify the sh*t out of that baby.

Wintercoats

Wintercoats aka. Australian "bro" James Wallace added me on Myspace a while ago. As this doesn't happen all too often (still struggling to make AndygoesdowntoChinatown a multi-national brand) I think it's only fair to check the music out.

(If you've named your band along the lines of Satan's Heavenly Arse-bleaching Party or Jacko-Wocko and the Ring-ding-a-ling-ling's the odds are that I won't check your "tunes" out)

Anyway

Strewth! Wintercoats is a right diamond in the Myspace-rough! And as it's one guy playing all of the instruments, with a lot of violin going on in the songs, the Owen Pallett comparisons are always going to be there, but you just listen to his Cathedral EP which is available as a free download.

This guy plays pretty much everything: Vox, violin, Piano, Glockenspiel, Guitar, Keyboards, Ukulele, Trumpet and Percussion and the results sound tasty. And dreamy. Like a tasty dream. Yeah that's what the Cathedral EP sounds like.

Download it here:

Wintercoats - Cathedral EP

Sunday

Sunday's a day of rest. Right?

I'm tired. You're probably hungover. Let's just listen to some Brian Eno and chill together in a kind of cyber-connected kind of way.



"10 minutes of f**king ambience! WTF! Are you insane? Give me some new Abe Vigoda!"

-ok-



chill

Ducktails

Yesterday was a day of relaxation. No school, no work and to end the day was the DIY-aesthetics double-bill of Dolphins into the Future and Ducktails.

Dolphins into the Future was très ambient. I only saw the last 10 minutes of his set, but it felt like I was swooning, lost in some cetacian world á la 20,000 leagues under the sea surrounded by dolphin and whale's'songs'(?)
It was casette Walkmans ahoy as he altered their playback and created rich textures that really did make you feel "somewhere else"
Hypnotism aside, the best thing about DitF was that he was blatantly a Belgian Ron Jeremy look-a-like. Brilliant.

but it has to be said that Ducktails was the reason I was there. Just the name Ducktails has some subconcious effect on me as Ducktales on the Game Boy (note the spelling difference) was the first video game I ever played. Now I can't hear/see/think about Ducktails without seeing old Scrooge pogoing on his cane in a near impossible to clear african mine.



Also a one man show, Ducktails aka. Matt Mondanile took the stage with a array of effects pedals. Apparently he lost a bunch of samples when the battery on his synth died out so we were treated to a mainly guitar-oriented set. There was some tight delayed bluesy pentatonic shit going down yesterday. Rather tasty.
As the gig ended he treated us to an encore of "the cheesiest song" he knew. I guess cheesy is good, because it was my favourite track of the night. Never heard it before so I haven't got a clue what it was.

These songs are less cheesy. But don't let the lack of cheese put you off. Coz they're a bit good too.

Star Slinger

I first heard about Star Slinger and his brand of sample-heavy choppy hip-hop instrumentals from the insanely good Emay. But now the name's popping up all over the place.

Generally Manchester wouldn't be in my top-whatevs list of anything to do with hip-hop. But the beats this guy has been churning out might force me to up-to-date that list. Using all sorts of eclectic samples in his music, Star Slinger seems like the guy who's spent way too much time (or some might say just the right amount of time) indulging in long-lost records.

He's also been remixing all sorts. With remixes for the likes of Deerhunter, Small Black, Blackbird Blackbird and Fiveng. I've also heard that there's some kind of collaboration in the works with Emay. That should easily be incredible.

You could/should/would download his first full lenth 'Volume 1' from his Bandcamp site along with his remixes.

Star Slinger Bandcamp

Triumphant return

Right that's it. I well can't be arsed with ascetic conditions anymore.
I'm back online. Armed with the slowest connection you'd ever meet and a bunch of new bands and tunes that I just couldn't keep all hush-hush to myself.

Good to be back? Most definitely. I've missed writing my drossy recommendations to anyone who'll read them.

Like Gary Glitter once, before he started saying stuff to underaged kids, said: "Hello, Hello. I'm back again"