Don’t mess with Texas’s Strange Boys: some Austinite Nietzsche reading lo-fi punk-rockers, who just released their first major record, The Strange Boys and Girls Club. The Sambol brothers (Ryan, guitar/lead vocals, writes all the songs and his elder, Phillip, bass) started the band, are now accompanied by another guitartist (that’s right), Greg Enlow, a guy [...]
Vampire Hands’ ‘Me & You Cherry Red / Cuz It’s a Beach Funeral’ combine numerous recent trends: the ever popular noise of Wavves, the psychedelia of White Magic and Sun Araw, and the garage rock of Black Lips and the Crystal Stilts. Vocals range from high-pitched wailing to low, monotonous drone, all coupled with dominating [...]
Julie Doiron has made an excellent career for herself playing folky, distorted, almost-expansive dreampunk. She started her career as the bassist/vocalist of Eric’s Trip, one of the first Canadian lo-fi bands to make it big stateside; she’s collaborated with Phil Elverum and Okkervil River; and she’s just made one of the best albums of early [...]
Tarentel, a San Francisco electro-percussive threesome, is out with Live Edits from a 2005 tour of Italy and Switzerland. The belated compilation of sensate drone sounds vibrates, gyrates, and oh my-rates as one my favorite psychedelelectric albums this year. The startlingly original electro-primitive percussion is powerful but does not domineer- rather it cools into a [...]
It took me two listens to shimmy my way into Dearland- a rich, heartbreaking New Orleanian funeral procession-inspired record- the 2nd “second-line” album of Elvis Perkins. He plays seamlessly and tautly with his three versatile band-mates who pick up instruments ranging from horns and marching band percussion to the harmonium. Songs like “I’ll Be Arriving,” [...]
