No Sleep In This Weird Wild World

I spoke not all that long ago about Sleepies - check that out here. Well, I was speaking to Nick Sylvester of Mr Dream, who runs the God Mode label, and he let drop that New York mentalists Sleepies were releasing their new LP Weird Wild World through his label in August. Literally the next day, two of the band's members, Tom and Josh, separately emailed me raving about Ty Segall and Dope Body posts respectively, then passing on their track 'Seriously'. Serendipity indeed.

And of course, it's bloody good (I'm so into this delving back into 90s raucous dirgey rock and tweaking it for the 21st century - Cloud Nothings, anyone?). But it isn't even the best song - not by far. This album is so filled with killer that it slays me. Opening with the pent-up swagger of 'Cool Boy' and intensity of 'Combat' (amazing track), it walks through molasses for 'Strange Feelings', and the slowed down mode doesn't affect their attitude one iota, making it all the more powerful because of it. And it keeps rolling on. Which shouldn't come as much of a surprise, seeing as their taste in Mr Dream, Ty Segall and Dope Body is complemented by roping in The Men's Ben Greenberg to produce the damned thing!


You can pre-order Weird Wild World here. This is a great album, one of the better things I've heard this year.

Sleepies - Seriously

Sicalpglyphics

Who else is excited for the new Sic Alps album? Their last Napa Asylum didn't get the love last year that I thought it deserved, yet after their sneaky little 7" Pangea Globe and now if new track 'Glyphs' is any indicator, they are about to rend apart the space-time continuum. Yes there is fidelity in production, yes there are string arrangements, and YES, it's undoubtedly Sic Alps, Mike Donovan et al (with Ty Segall definitely in tow) doing what they do because they can and because they're good. It'll be self-titled, and is coming out on Drag City on September 11 (no connotations necessary). Pre-order it here.

Sic Alps - Glyphs

Falling In Love In The Slaughterhouse

I'm a little concerned about the extreme levels of "appreciation" I have for Ty Segall. Seriously, I came to the San Franciscan's world through 2010's Melted, went back to the beginning, then rolled right through - and there isn't anything I haven't disliked, and a lot of which I love to death. T-Rex covers? White Fence collabs? Contributions to small labels? Playing with Sic Alps? I've even had the pleasure of interviewing AND meeting him, twice. Jesus wept.

Now we have Slaughterhouse, his first foray as Ty Segall Band (featuring another awesome SF garage demon, Mikal Cronin). It is the most frenetic, balls-out release he has put to tape, which he has readily admitted as this was his "heavy metal record". And it is amazing. It is unabashed, shamelessly pedal down raucous rock n roll, written by incredibly gifted musicians who love the craft. It is, above all else, fun - there are amazing harmonies on tracks like 'I Bought My Eyes' and 'Tell Me What's Inside Your Heart' - and proves that it isn't necessary to record in a dumpster to be "authentic". I goddamn love this record - and you too, Ty.


Slaughterhouse is out through In The Red - definitely buy this! I'm positive that another record is just around the corner too (and he's about to start touring the States with Thee Oh Sees, who also have a new album on the way), so let the man-love continue!

Ty Segall Band - Mary Ann
Ty Segall Band - Wave Goodbye
Ty Segall Band - I Bought My Eyes

Doubling Down On The Family's White Fence

White Fence kicked off 2012 by combining with Ty Segall (I can't stop mentioning him, can I?) with the great record Hair, and now there is his double volume opus, Family Perfume Vol I & II. This is ambitious stuff. I know Tim Presley - and a lot of his contemporaries - are voracious musicians, continually pumping out the gems, but to put them all on one release risks shining up the occasional dud. And so it does with Family Perfume. Don't get me wrong - White Fence's penchant for skewed paisley rock with a dash of psychedelic charm is on full display here, and there are some absolutely warbled garage pop corkers to be found in this treasure trove - but some of these tracks feel a little half-baked. Maybe it's because after Hair, where Presley was all brushed up production-wise, I'd like him to step out from behind the 4 track and static hiss. I'm not talking about getting The Arcade Fire to back him or some such nonsense, I just think that now's the time to open things up a little more. Anyway, personally I like Vol II as an album proper more, but Vol I has some real highlights, which I've included below. There's 29 songs to sift through (chosen from a purported cache of 80), so take your time and enjoy. It's great to have something this ambitious floating around in the burgeoning garage rock movement (if you can call it such a thing) that embraces touchstones such as The Beatles (think of The White Album), and whilst the end result doesn't reach such heady highs, it certainly gives it a red hot shake. But seriously Tim - get on the blower to Segall and get another album running...


Family Perfume is out now on Woodsist.

White Fence - Balance Yr Heart
White Fence - Down PNX
White Fence - Take Away Life's Endless Take

No Misunderstanding The Glow Kit

It's been a good week on Planet Masala for punk tainted, garage-tinged rock and/or roll, let me tell you! Ty Segall, The Hussy, The Harlequins, Each Other, Night Of Joy - and you can now add Denmark's own Glow Kit to the mix.You might remember me raving about Cola Freaks last year - well, Glow Kit has members from that collective, so you know we're in good hands. This self-titled LP (out through Danish label Kanel Records - you can grab it here) is packed full of short spikes of garage pop punk blasts, beer bongs for the ears. Hooks and melodies aplenty, yet deep fried in noise, these tracks sizzle. It's a fantastic album with huge injections of addictive substances - you won't be able to leave this album alone, even if you wanted to. Which you won't so it's all cool.


You can grab Glow Kit from German label P. Trash Records and from FDH Records in North America.

Glow Kit - Stood A Chance
Glow Kit - Head Factory
Glow Kit - Misunderstood

Secret Segall Puts Me On A Cloud

You can never get enough Ty Segall - FACT. How about combining other such SF luminaries as Fresh & Onlys' Wymond Miles and Tim Cohen? Holy shit, right? Then introduce Hannah Lew (of Grass Widow), Sonny & The Sunsets, Vetiver, Kelley Stoltz and a host of others, and you have In A Cloud II: New Sounds From San Francisco, a vinyl compilation coming out through cool label Secret Seven Records (who have put out releases by The Sandwitches as well as Sonny & The Sunsets in the past). All tracks are previously unreleased, so this is a must have. As for the Ty Segall track? 'Swag' is one of his best throwaway tracks in a long time - seriously.



Here is the link to stream the album on Soundcloud. Also below are four tracks to take away with you - 'Swag' of course (I wouldn't leave you hanging!), alongside the two Fresh & Onlys boys' efforts and Chuck Prophet's 'Gotta Get Back'. In A Cloud II comes out in July - pre-order it here if you know what's good for ya!

Ty Segall - Swag
Chuck Prophet - Gotta Get Back
Wymond Miles - Don't Ask This Of Me
Tim Cohen - People Like Us

Ty Segall's Slaughterhouse Eye Sale

As if his excellent collaboration with White Fence, Hair, wasn't enough, San Franciscan wunderkind Ty Segall has another album bearing down on us called Slaughterhouse, under the moniker Ty Segall Band (said band features the also amazing Mikal Cronin plus some other stellar members of the SF garage scene). It is a much more raucous effort that uses more bottom end and aggression, keeping in line with Segall's admission of wanting to do a more "metal" record. We posted the first cut "Wave Goodbye" here (the track is also linked below) - here is another track. When I saw that song title I immediately thought of a Simpsons episode - this is the one (naht nidit nyong):



Segall doesn't know how to suck, so this is an exciting release. Slaughterhouse is out June 26 on In The Red.

Ty Segall Band - I Bought My Eyes
Ty Segall Band - Wave Goodbye

Triple Ty Treat

I haven't been lathering you with Ty Segall-isms, so you may have thought that the whirling wunderkind had gone quiet. Au contraire, mon frere! The San Francisco garage ratbag has released a shit tonne of stuff.


Firstly we have the split tour release Segall did with French psych ruffians The Feeling Of Love (another awesome, and in my eyes/ears/head a criminally underrated band). One track each side, heretofore unreleased. It's rough and ready, which is more Segall's M.O. than The Feeling Of Love (their Dissolve Me release may have been a little cut-rate, but still comes off as slick and sexy), but altogether ace.

Ty Segall - It's A Problem


Now there is the oft-spoken of collaboration with Tim Presley AKA White Fence, the result being the twenty-nine minute LP Hair (out through Drag City). Both dudes have their idiosyncratic stamp all over these tracks, and it is a truly excellent album. Although too short, as the album races towards its conclusion like a bat out of hell. These guys complement each other, showcase how the lo-fi psych garage movement has many more corners left to shine a light on, and are ever closer to smashing through the glass ceiling. They are their only limitations, which is inimitably exciting news.

Ty Segall & White Fence - I Am Not A GameTy Segall & White Fence - Scissor People

Finally we have The Ty Segall Band, which also features the excellent Mikal Cronin. So far I have only heard this one track, but it is enough to have me rabid with excitement. Slaughterhouse isn't out til June 26 (through In The Red), but it is clear that Segall's promise to deliver something heavier (with a focal point being Black Sabbath) and more melody. Well, the below track has prog psych rock written all over its sweaty, red-eyed face.

Ty Segall Band - Wave Goodbye

These next three releases are in the bag, and there is promise of more in the near future kids, so keep saving your pennies, never get complacent, because another Ty Segall release will always be around the corner (they don't call him "Five To Eight" IE "how many albums out per year" for nothing...)

School Knights

Those snotty slackos School Knights have a couple new tunes floating around the ether. After the disappointing news that the fucking rad SK/Night Manager split isn't likely to materialise, it's good to hear these guys are still throwing their shit at their teenage bedroom walls. Take that, MOM! Yeah, these two tracks in particular play the Wavves card, but when the flat-brim cap fits... It's goddamn catchy, a veritable KFC bucketload of fun, plus it's a bit meatier - the duo of Michael Stein and Zack Roif are now a foursome, thanks to Morris Kolontyrsky and Ben Donehower! Radness! And it is honed (as much as this shit can be honed) with some ace tours last year opposite Ty Segall, Black Lips, Cloud Nothings, Vivian Girls and Gauntlet Hair. Yeah, I just came a little too...

School Knights - Present Tense
School Knights - Bender

Blasted Canyons Live Up To The Name

I posted about Wax Idols the other week, as their guitarist/frontwoman Heather Fedewa/Fortune is one punk rock goddess who slays all and sundry with her barbed hooks. Fedewa created something nasty and delectably palatable there; but I feel that her work on No Future may be underdone, if the self-titled LP from Blasted Canyons is anything to go by.


Hole E SHIT.

This album is pretty fucking incredible. Having taken pride of place on the eclectic and ramshackle Castle Face stable, Blasted Canyons serves as a manifesto that is full of vitriol, is scribed in blood and is wired to tonnes of Semtex. They have been heftily aided in their quest to destroy the world by producer Matt Hartman - yep, he of Sic Alps, whose Napa Asylum was yet another ace record of 2011. Throw Ty Segall into this crowd and you have San Francisco, the cornerstone to the best music made this year. Uh huh - Blasted Canyons is that good. For your sake, get this now.

Blasted Canyons - Blood On The Wall
Blasted Canyons - Death & A Half