The Smittens – The Garden
Architechture in Helsinki – Souvenirs
Arcade Fire – Headlights Look Like Diamonds
Los Campesinos! – How I Taught Myself to Scream
Benny Sings – I Can’t Help Myself
Realpeople – Venice
Alps – Goosebeak Whale
Frase + Bri – 8 hr Crush
Valdera – Coriolis
The Silent League – Here’s a Star (Neon Indian remix)
Music Go Music – Light of Love
-David x
Blues-rock overlord, Jack White, is determined to stay unpopular until he’s popular. He’s neglected the blogability or safety of trendy genres in favour of his own brand of gunmetal-heavy, whisky-fuelled rock. His latest musical reincarnation is with the semi-super group The Dead Weather. Joined by the stunning Alison Mosshart of The Kills on vocals, QOTSA mainstay Dean Feritita and former Raconteurs band-mate Jack Lawrence, White has released their début LP, Horehound, through his own label, Third Man Records. Furthermore, White has traded his jangly piano and guitars for a drum kit, opting for a black light role as director of this project, while laying simple and sturdy grooves.
Despite drawing heavily on blues influences and White’s former work, the album floats effortlessly into relevance, sitting gracefully on that blurry line between the new and old. Part hi-fi, part lo-fi, Horehound is instantly likable without being poppy; minimalistic without being boring; rough, sexy, crude and sophisticated. It is dumpster diving with a war veteran, or golf with a hobo. Stand-out tracks include the singles Hang You From The Heavens, Treat Me Like Your Mother and slow groover I Cut Like A Buffalo, in which White and Mosshart’s vocals are barely discernible from each other. Their treatment of the Bob Dylan cover New Pony is also exemplary, sugar coating the tune with grit and sass while keeping the tone of the original. You can hear the album in its entirety free on facebook, or through the usual outlets and online stores. Go on, flirt with the unpopular.
:: Tom Darlow
Howdy! The APRA Silver Scrolls are being awarded here in Chch next month, so I played some of the better nominees – check them all out here. Plus! RounDUp and Decknology are just around the corner, yusss!
The Mint Chicks – I Can’t Stop Being Foolish
Sola Rosa – Turn Around (feat. Iva Lamkum)
Motocade – Oldest Trick In The Book
Dimmer – Degrees of Existence
Lawrence Arabia – Apple Pie Bed
Minuit – Wayho
And then some other hot tracks I’ve been enjoying lately
Rain Machine (Kyp Malone from TV on the Radio) – Give Blood
Yeasayer – Tightrope
Metronomy – Heartbreaker (omg – coming to NZ in October!)
Dirty Projectors – Two Doves
Los Campesinos! – This Is How You Spell “Hahaha, We Destroyed The Hopes and Dreams of a Generation of Faux-Romantics”
Bill Callahan – Eid Ma Clack Shaw
Julian Lynch – Garden 2
Ducktails – Parasailing
Brian Wilson – Vega-Tables
Dave Sitek – With A Girl Like You
The Ruby Suns – Criterion
Buck 65 Remix (feat. Sufjan Stevens) – Blood Pt. 2
The Dodos – Fables
Dictaphone Blues – You Put It In Me
Atlas Sound – Dovers Jam (live)
Panda Bear – Bros
The Gladeyes – Bad Town Blues
Haunted Love – Alonso Phillipe
Neutral Milk Hotel – In the Aeroplane Over the Sea
Miniature Tigers – The Wolf
Liam Finn & Eliza Jane – Long Way To Go
Panda Bear – Untitled track 8 from Young Prayer
Dirty Projectors & David Byrne – Knotty Pine
Arcade Fire – Lenin
Feist & Ben Gibbard – Train Song
Beirut – The Akara
Yeasayer – Tightrope
Surf City – Kudos
Street beat – I Feel Joy (demo)
Tommy Ill – Clouds Is Shaky
Neutral Milk Hotel – Two Headed Boy, The Fool
It’s like a ridiculous weight on your shoulders: the expectation that your next album has to be just as amazing as the last. Too many bands succumb to the temptation of more money and a full orchestra on offer when going to record their second album. But that’s a load of waffle really isn’t it? Sonic Youth never were, and probably never will be, the band that conforms to expectations from the industry and fans – they have legacy stretching nigh on thirty years now, one littered with some of the most influential albums of the past fifty years (see Goo and Daydream Nation), and the few that failed to live up to the aforementioned level (Rather Ripped). Now they make their return with The Eternal released on Matador after their contract with Universal expired, the change of label seemingly reinvigorating the 80’s punk spirit that made them so prominent in the first place. The album kicks off with lead single ’Sacred Trickster’, a four-to-the-floor storm of discord and screaming guitars that harks back to the ‘Teenage Riot’ years, all finished in just over two minutes. There’s the art-stomp of ‘Anti-Orgasm’, all synchronised grunts from Kim Gordon and Thurston Moore and shouts of “anti-war is anti-orgasm!”. The licence for poetic freedom seems to have returned but by the time the album reaches ‘Antenna’, the clashes in sound are starting to become overbearing – minor chords clash with fuzzed out bass riffs, harmonic scrapes over meaningless delay noise, Gordon seemingly screeching over the top. ‘What We Know’ brings in a new direction, post-punk drums beats layered with dual guitars and the meaningless no-wave banter that ultimately becomes the most engaging track on the album. From then on though, it’s just business as usual before ‘Malibu Gas Station’, a charming and quiet sea of exquisite delay-heavy harmonies prior to surf-style licks, Gordon actually singing for once and the effect is somewhat hypnotising. Perhaps this is the real Sonic Youth? Droning squalls and freeform noise that eventually becomes more akin to a degraded lullaby than the teenage garage-band kicks that we come to expect. By the time final track ‘Massage the History’ ends the album with a near 10-minute psychedelic freakout, the feeling of reluctance and alienation is just that little bit too strong. The lack of melody (not to mention the little diversity in drum beats) seems to give over to a sense of “I’m arty – go fuck yourselves” indignation and the feeling that maybe – just maybe – Sonic Youth have passed their prime.
:: James Donaldson
RDU Drive 