I'll Only Get Fresh On This Long Slow Dance

I've mentioned in the past that it took me seeing San Franciscans The Fresh & Onlys live (supporting Deerhunter no less) for me to truly appreciate what they did, as on record I couldn't get past the poppiness of their tracks - it all felt staid to me. I've since become a convert. This year could see me become a zealot though. What with great solo records from Tim Cohen and Wymond Miles, and now their impending LP Long Slow Dance (out September 4 through Mexican Summer), the quartet are doing all they can to "rectify" their past undoings (this last comment is aimed squarely at me, folks, before I get the backlash and death threats - although is any F&O fan straight enough to get that wound up? I know that I'm not...) The album physically looks beautiful, and if the two singles that have been released (which you can get as 7"s) the album will be the aural equivalent.


See what I mean about the beauty of the package? Get in fast and grab any/all of these releases here, here and here.

VIDEO VACUUM - Lower Dens, JEFF The Brotherhood, OFF!, Slug Guts

It's been a while since we had some visual spirituals, but now I have a plethora of tracks that blow the casbah sky high, so let's give work the forks and watch them together like old times, yeah?

First up is another recording from those amazing cats over at They Shoot Music, Don't They? This time the aural offender is Lower Dens, chilling out in Barcelona after some down time from the Primavera Sound Festival back in May, playing some semi-acoustic toons in a square...with a friend in support(I TOLD you there was a Deerhunter connection today!) The two tracks here are 'Candy' and 'Nova Anthem', and it is, as is to be expected, pretty darn amazing.





It's great to hear that garage-trippers Jeff the Brotherhood are winging their way down to Australia in January (even if it is for the Big Day Out - sigh...), and they will be raring to rip into their new material off Hypnotic Nights. I heard someone at Splendour In The Grass on the weekend say that the album sounded like Weezer "or something like that where I'd enjoy it as a teenager but not give a shit when I grew up." Hmmm... Not sure what kind of a comment that is. Anyway, 'Sixpack' is slick and a lot of raucous fun. And yes, this track sounds a LOT like Weezer - even more than usual.



OFF! kicked off a triptych of video clips with the board spinning meltdown of 'Cracked', and now here are the final two-thirds of this "opus". Both starring Dave Foley (Kids In The Hall), the songs are 'Borrow & Bomb' and 'I Got News For You', and the clips encapsulate dodgy community television so well that I cannot believe that Teen Talk isn't the real deal (the look on Foley's face at 2:00 is priceless).



Finally we have the claustrophobic band clip for 'Scum', Brissie degenerates Slug Guts' single from their new Sacred Bones-endorsed LP, Playin' In Time With The Deadbeat. It's a typically Slug Guts song really, which means it is pretty damn fine. They may not reach the heights of the Aussie reprobates that they idolise, namely Venom P Stinger and Feedtime, but they give it a red hot shake, their feverish dirge never sounding more genuine.



NOW GET BACK TO WORK!

Hollowing Out The Stars To The Other Side

This EP has been around for donkeys' years (well, March), but seeing as I have a Deerhunter-related post coming up later in the day, I thought I'd air this one out too.

Ex-Deerhunter Colin Mee (possibly still a deer hunter though, I never asked him) formed what would become Hollow Stars four years go as a side-project from his main band. It's since spiralled out into a mutant mass of psychedelia drenched in goth New Wave, surf rock and interstellar travel, most notably in their latest EP Neshama. Seriously, this is some strange stuff, yet strangely alluring. The way it shifts around, Mee's vocals wavering through the mix like an otherworldly Lou Reed or Matt Berninger, you can't help you are listening to music that has slipped through a crack in the fabric of space, that only those from a parallel world were intended to hear. And an aside, Mee is still keeping in with his old buddies, as Hollow Stars just completed a tour with Lotus Plaza, Lockett Pundt's ace side project.


Neshama is out through Coco Art, you can snap it up here.

Hollow Stars - Eastern Sky
Hollow Stars - The Other Side

Pastoral Pastiche Pop Amongst The Nomadic Firs

The solo warped outpourings of Tennessee's Ryan Boos, Nomadic Firs' self-titled record is something of a anomaly in that it had been gestating for six years, is a pastiche of colours and ideas that have coalesced into finite songs, and yet is cohesive much farther beyond what is thought possible from such an amalgam of sounds and grooves. Reminiscent of the breakout hazy debut album by Unknown Mortal Orchestra (especially on 'Vines'). There is a rustic underbelly to these jams that echoes from Boos' rustic life (he owns a petite farm with his wife), and it is these pastoral colourings that infuse Nomadic Firs with a sense of elegiac beauty. That sense of being at one with nature is akin to some of the randomness that comes of the Inner Islands label, except Boos is much more of a pop song traditionalist. The experimentalism even evokes Deerhunter ('In The Morning') or the Beta Band ('Cover Bombs') at times, but above all this is an album that rewards in myriad ways, often all at once.


You can grab Nomadic Firs in cassette form (with it's own knitted holder!) from Crash Symbols here. Well worth it my friends.

Nomadic Firs - Vines
Nomadic Firs - In The Morning
Nomadic Firs - Cover Bombs

Lotus Plaza Grows Outward At A Distance

There isn't much that comes out of the Deerhunter collective's stable that I am not a fan of, and whilst it's Bradford Cox's antics that gain most of the attention, the rest aren't laying idle either. Guitarist Lockett Pundt's output as Lotus Plaza is nothing to be sneezed at, and on latest LP Spooky Action At A Distance he truly comes into his own.

Sure, tracks such as 'Strangers' don't stray too far from the DH format of shimmering sunny psych shoegaze (hope you can pronounce your s's - that phrase is a spit-sprayer...). It showcases a number of things, not least how integral Pundt is to Deerhunter's writing process, and how on this album he has stepped up into the sunlight, discarding the ambient netherworld for a front-line assault on glorious guitar pop swathed in warmth. What's more, Spooky Action At A Distance is an album with a spectral magic built into its mainframe, for every time I have listened to this record (and I have listened a lot), a new track takes precedence over all others. Whether it be the glossy ambling of 'Strangers', the ascendant glory of 'Out Of Touch', the sparse folk gravitas of 'Dusty Rhodes', the bliss out shoegaze of 'Monoliths', the harmonious, uplifting 'White Galactic One' - seriously, each track holds its own emotions and memories, real or imagined. It is this sense of a musical equivalent of fireflies in a jar that this album evokes - there is a glow in between the spaces of these compositions, and when Pundt opens them up, the light envelops you whole.


True, this is a glowing review (pun semi-intended) - but it is well worth it. Spooky Action At A Distance (out on Kranky) can be bought here - don't be surprised if this becomes an underground hit for years to come.

Lotus Plaza - Strangers
Lotus Plaza - Out Of Touch

Predicting Another Bloody Success In The Surf

West Beach, Florida's Surfer Blood had a stellar 2010, what with their massive debut LP Astro Coast making them the new Weezer (IE when Weezer was good) and side projects such as the Jesus Lizard-heavy Weird Wives kicked some serious arse. Well they are hitting back out into new territory this month on their new EP Tarot Classics (on Kanine Records) In some ways its more of the same, esp[especially on the catchy opener 'I'm Not Ready'. However 'Miranda' is a catchy Elvis Costello meets - you guessed it - Weezer blast, whilst end-track 'Drinking Problem' is a fantastic sidestep, a bit of Deerhunter/Atlas Sound/Lotus Plaza styled airiness pervading throughout. They are great songwriters, and vocalist John Paul Pitts' voice is as clear and enervating as ever. Ive been bagged out by my interest in this band in the past, but seriously, there is something about Surfer Blood which is like drinking an ice cold beer after spending an hour mowing the lawn in summer's mid-afternoon haze. A truly enjoyable yet refreshing experience.

Surfer Blood have picked up the support slot for the run of Stateside Pixies shows - very nice! If you can, make sure you get tickets for that. For the rest of you, bide your time - rumours afoot that the touring bug continues to bite...

Surfer Blood - Voyager Reprise
Surfer Blood - Miranda

EXCLUSIVE ALBUM STREAM - Icarus Himself Gets His Cultural Career On

Well, it is a week of firsts here for Sonic Masala, starting with this, our first ever WORLD EXCLUSIVE (I think, at least our day starts before most other bloggerinos so we should get first dibs!) I was getting ready to post about Wisconsin psych-folksters Icarus Himself and their sophomore longplayer Career Culture. Its an ace album full of delectable twists and turns, and I feel a real find for the tail end of the year (influences include Kurt Vile, Deerhunter, The Who and David Bowie - nice!). As I said, I was going to post about it - but then I got permission to stream the sucker in its entirety! The album isnt out until October 11 (through Science Of Sound Records), but on this glorious day you can have at it for the next 24hrs! So enjoy peeps, then head here and pre-order it!

You're welcome.

Career Culture by Icarus Himself

And if that aint enough - here is their very cool video for 'On Your Side'! Im the gift that keeps on giving!!!