All These Years-Kosha Dillz. Love me the Dillz. Get a cool KD mixtape featuring LCD Soundsystem here.
SIART’s got some old school rap, remixed.
The Magic-Joan as Police Woman
Tim writes about Benjamin Francis Leftwhich.
Don’t Stop-The Do Dos with Neko Case
Oh, and Chris has a new site.
Minnesota’s Tapes N Tapes exploded on the scene in 2005 with an innovative indie rock album (“The Loon”) that was heavy on hooks and rhythms, and really helped define blogpop for at least 8 months. Truly, they were huge. They got a recording contract, went off and made a highly produced, largely uninspired sophomore album that took too long to make (it came out in 2008) and lost all their heat. It’s been another 3 years, and the band is back. So, what’s the third one like?
First of all, it’s independent and self-produced like their first album, and second of all it’s not as polished as their second. These are good things. But the band can’t erase it’s six year history, and some of the bad lessons learned from their “recording contract” are still here–especiallly in the albums earlier cuts. But the album’s second half, which begins, fittingly, with a song called “Outro,” is a fine return to the rougher, more organic–and much more fun–music of their debut. “The Saddest of All Keys” and “Hidee Ho” recalls Cold War Kids’ desperate, painful brand of indie rock; “It’s Always the People You Know” fuses honkytonk and cabaret to make a fantastic pop song that ends abruptly and too soon; and “Mighty Long” stands up there with anything Modest Mouse has done in the last five years.
And I don’t want to give the impression that the first half of the album is terrible–it’s not. It’s just forgettable. But everything that follows “Outro” sounds exactly like where this band should be–and should have been in 2006, after their brilliant debut. They’re older, a little more polished, and their looking for something new to define themselves by. “Outside” probably isn’t it. But it’s a good start. If this is their transition album, then I have hope for the future.
Tags: Indie rock
We’re up to the end of Tom Defalco’s 50-issue run on Amazing Spider-Man in our chronological review of the greatest long-running superbook of all time. It’s interesting how for the most part Amazing Spider-Man writers tended to stay several years on the title, which is pretty uncommon in the grand scheme of comic book titles. Following some fillers and finishers, none of which are really worth looking for (or writing about), we get to the next major Amazing Spider-Man run . . .
Tags: Comic books, Spider-Man
Five-year veterans of the road, The Builders and the Butchers specialize in that increasingly popular genre of folk/rock/Americana. They’re one of the most authentic bands I’ve had the good fortune to hear this year.
Partly due to their musical styles and partly due to their hard edges, it’s difficult to know whether lead song “I Broke The Vein” is about miners or drug addicts. The band formed in Portland, but they’re all from Alaska originally.
If you dig Heartless Bastards, Okkerville River, or even The Grateful Dead, then I can’t imagine how you could possibly be disappointed by this release.
It’s already on my best of 2011 shortlist.
Get it from the artist here.
Tags: Indie rock
