Frozen Holograms Are Chasing My Mind

Scandinavia continues to produce some of the best angular, abrasive rock at the moment. What is going on over there? Whatever it is, for better or worse, keep it coming. The latest thing I'm spinning is from a Swedish band called Holograms. They put out a sweet 7" through Captured Tracks (which you can still get here), and preceding their debut LP in July (also through CT) is this track. It's the seething that underpins the chirping electronics and punky chanting vocals that really provokes a desire to smash the nearest glass implement over your own head for shits and giggles. Anything that imparts that into today's youth is A-OK with me.

Holograms - Chasing My Mind
Holograms - ABC City

Friday Cover Up - Diving For Fossils With My Baby

A couple weeks ago my girlfriend asked (somewhat flippantly) why I don't talk about her on Sonic Masala. Well, apart from ruining my clear chances with Katy Goodman and Mia Clarke, the real reason is because it's all about the music. No one wants to hear about how we were listening to the latest Cannon record whilst driving to buy groceries, or how she is a minor fan of local grungers Sleepwalks, or how bizarre she found Amateur Childbirth, do they? Maybe I am being unfair. Maybe people would much prefer that to the crap I dole out willy nilly. But as strange as this may sound, much of our relationship hovers outside the realms of music. That is MY domain...MINE!

Ahem...

But then I heard this cover great retro guitar pop icon Beach Fossils did of the great shoegaze band Slowdive's 'Alison'. Beach Fossils bypass the shimmering guitar pop to embrace some shimmering noise whilst gazing at their shoelaces. Not only is Souvlaki one of the great shoegaze albums EVER, but the track is amazing and is emblazoned with my girlfriend's name. The song is part of AdHoc, a new "quarterly zine" that offers you a download of 50 previously unreleased tracks from supportive artists, if you're willing to donate $15 or more. Anyway, it's a great song. More importantly, though - you have been mentioned, Alison.




But I don't want to leave a Beach Fossils-affiliated post with out talking about the 7" they released through Captured Tracks a couple weeks ago. "Shallow" is the A-side, backed by another new one, "Lessons.

Beach Fossils - Shallow
Beach Fossils - Lessons

Jesse Analyses Ruined Dreams

Captured Tracks finished the year strongly with releases from Blouse, Widowspeak and Dive making indelible impressions, yet 2012 doesn't appear to show any slowing down of quality. Last week we had the first offering from Wild Nothing, and next week another one will be let out into the wild. Dream Analysis is the new EP from Jesse Ruins, a Tokyo-based collective that are marrying the droning doom-pop that stablemate Silk Flowers specialises in, yet veers into a more meditative realm that seeps into the emotional side of aural pleasure. The hazy electronica on display is exciting. Apparently this EP is being used as an introduction to Jesse Ruins. If so, the connection is instantaneous and electric on first touch. I hope we go all the way...

Dream Analysis is to be released 21st February.

Nothing Wild Leads You Nowhere

Jack Tatum rode a tsunami wave of adulation on the back of his Gemini album of 2010 under the moniker Wild Nothing, and his underground king status is bound to escalate into something otherworldly with the release of his sophomore album later this year. In the meantime, Captured Tracks are releasing Wild Nothing's new 7", Nowhere, on Feb 21st. Check out the single below, which features vocals also from Andrea Estella of Twin Sister. There is something distinctly 80s sounding in the alt-rock college radio sense, yet with a more polished sound due to this being the first time that Wild Nothing has ventured into a real live studio. I personally think it sounds amazing, possibly the best track he has laid down to date - the production really suits him. Nothing feels fabricated here - this could be the sound of Real Estate if they weren't so fucking boring.


Pre-order the album here, where you might be lucky to get 1 of 500 limited white vinyl editions of the 7".

Wild Nothing - Nowhere

Beeting On The True Widow

Both of these tracks came up a while ago on the blog merry-go-round - in fact I have so many posts backlogged from past releases they are starting to grow mould - but I couldn't let them slide by, nor could I decide which one to write about to close out this balmy Thursday, so I'm hitting you with both barrels!


First up, it's well known now that I have begun a love affair with Captured Tracks favoured Queens trio The Beets. I love their silly cartoon cover art, their blase attitude, their slacker malaise wrapped up in Black Lips Halloween garb. They released an album at the beginning of the year - Staying Home - which I thought was a lot of fun. Now they are releasing another album called Let The Poison Out (this time finding its home on Hardly Art, still with the cover art though!). I have already gushed over first track from it 'Doing As I Do', but here is another. I'm yet to get my mitts on the LP, although when searching for it down at my local record store (which, after a huge closing down sale and the requisite mass protest, fevered vinyl purchases and gnashing of teeth, is still inexplicably open) I found their first album, Spit In The Face Of People Who Don't Want To Be Cool, so it still kinda worked out for me.

The Beets - Friends Of Friends
The Beets - Doing As I Do


I am a massive fan of True Widow, and their debut album slays me. So when I heard that they already had some new releases coming our way, I was more than stoked. I.N.O is in fact a mixed bag of both leftovers from their impossibly long monikered LP As High As The Highest Heavens And From The Center To The Circumference Of The Earth and brand newies, such as the track 'Bathyscaphe' below. Apart from the title that is at the other end of the length spectrum, it is droning beauty as usual from these Texans. Which means it's crazy good.

True Widow - Bathyscaphe
True Widow - Skull Eyes

NOW do you see why I've included both? Good! Now I'm off to the airport. I will be predisposed for the next few days - not seeing your girlfriend for ten months means there is some catching up to do - but I'm not leaving you hanging! Expect posts about Luke Roberts, Blasted Canyons, a Friday Cover Up, our next Hits From The Box and more!

Spectral Pennies Aren't So Bad - More So-So

Spectrals (known as Louis Oliver Jones to his mum) has really tickled the fancy of the blogging world over the past couple years, and with good reason. His rise coincides with a plethora of bedroom dreamers (which number Wild Nothing, Beach Fossils, Cloud Nothings and Hanoi Janes in their midst) whose windswept, reverb-laden wistful pop reinvigorated the idea of what it takes to be a pop artist. The UK act has put out acclaimed releases on the likes of Moshi Moshi and Sex Is Disgusting, but we now have the LP Bad Penny (with Wichita Records fighting off Captured Tracks for the rights to put it out) to play with.

Now, before discussing the album, let me state my opinions here. Like most bedroom projects, the quality of output varies wildly, regardless of what the pop culture intelligentsia like to tell us. The above mentioned bands I enjoy (especially Cloud Nothings and Hanoi Janes), but as with most of the genre trends of the past few years, with the fires fanned by the "cool" generators (no names need to be mentioned), we get a glut of "next big things" that are either too green, unfairly pigeonholed or are just plain shit. It takes the gloss off the achievements of the people who are succeeding at their chosen craft (one case in point - Toro Y Moi and Washed Out's concerted efforts to step away from the tsunami of similar-sounding artists of a sound they invariably created). So, whilst I've liked some of Spectrals' retro 50s/60s pop meanderings, I approached his highly anticipated album with wariness.

Bad Penny is a great name for the album for two reasons. Firstly, it knowingly tips the hat at the style of music he utilises for inspiration - that which is almost half a century old, somewhat innocent and therefore almost rudimentary in its composition. The fact that Jones has that Yorkshire tint (his vocals are incredibly similar to Arctic monkey Alex Turner) also shadows the second reason Bad Penny fits - the idea of the contradiction. And there are many.

Firstly, like Turner, Spectrals specialises in creating addictive, upbeat music to background what are ultimately mawkish, sometimes bitter ruminations on young adulthood, love and life. But truth be told, whilst Spectrals as a live unit (and admittedly on most of the earlier releases) has been entrancing and personable, here the songs verge on the featherlight, almost begging to be liked and in the process becoming a wallflower in the genre as opposed to king of the prom. The English tones over the American sound notwithstanding, the juxtapositions are in the main disappointing. There are good tracks here - 'Big Baby' and 'Luck Is There To Be Pushed' in particular - but in the end Bad Penny, for me, was more of a misspent chance.

But hey, he's 21, and he already has some writing nous - he'll bounce back.

Bad Penny is out now - grab it here.

Spectrals - Baby Love

There's No Beatin The Beets

The Beets are doing what they do, as is brilliantly essayed in cleverly-titled track 'Doing As I Do.' They are in that Black Lips realm, but a little poppier, thus at times a little nicer - and better than Smith Westerns in almost every way. Still funny kids though, and can totally acoustic the fuck out of their vibe. Let The Poison Out (out on new label Hardly Art) promises to be as good as Stay Home, their album from earlier this year on Captured Tracks. Yep, two Beets albums in 2011. Its good to be alive.

The Beets - Doing As I Do