Silver Rocket

Jen Wood had a guest appearance on the Postal Service track “Nothing Better” but the Seattle resident has been a musician in her own right since the very early 90′s. Her latest record titled Finds you in Love features the sort of songs you would expect to hear over montages of weeping teenagers in Dawson Creek or One Tree Hill, but regardless, I like the record a lot, the acoustics are powerful and her voice has a soothing presence for an intimate touch. She really pours her heart out here to produce a pretty stark and honest record about leaving herself exposed in the face of love, the daunting task of loving someone else and the issue of trust that comes with all of the above.  You can listen to more of her music here.

Plastic Plastic sent in this  video for the first song off their ambiance drenched EP titled Everyone I love, or wish to love is here. The recording is overflowing with crackling and buzzing creating a level of intensity even on the mellower shoegaze songs, where the vocals blend effortlessly and fuse with the instruments into one big pool completely enveloping the listener. You can stream the EP here and listen especially to “Golden Hearts” which sounds something like a nostalgic trip back to teenage years.

So this band called Frank (Just Frank) aren’t actually from the 80′s but they branch from a particular genre called Coldwave. They are doing a period peace, shall we say, by taking the era and being the sound of that era.

Wierd Records, 2010

All the trade marks of 80′s rock and shoegaze, like the Smiths, the Cure, Joy Division etc, are there such as the unwavering feeling that life is perennially miserable (or maybe that’s just me) and even the most meaningless hook ups need Shakespeare level soliloquies of dissection. This is a different trend then bands who are taking sounds of a certain era and freshening them up, for example a lot of the garage rock outfits or summer “chillwave” bands. Some may come to appreciate such nostalgic trips as Frank (Just Frank), others may come to resent throwbacks to old. Most of you should probably just dance. You can listen to more of The Brutal Wave here.

A stomach bug has besieged me recently but more music will be coming and maybe some other things.

There is nothing like a bit of Antony and the Johnsons to raise a smile on a rainy day. This is a new one.

Little Two’s vocalist, Emily Kokal, said that “little two is forever, duality and paradox in all things, everything has its opposite and its reflection.” World War IV is an album of  contrasting styles, opposites and reflections. Some of it is fragile and gentle, like the eerily quiet and undisturbed peace that follows massive destruction. Other parts take a radical turn, for example the numerous guitar jams (appropriately named as “untitled guitar compositions”) or the unsettling, psychotropic  episodes that sound like a cross between Blonde Redhead and a battle of the bands in a psych ward. The band describe themselves as “a mess of nature-core folk, backyard bonfire singalongs, free jazz, and the feeling that the end is near.” This won’t be everyone’s cuppa then. Little Two’s hail from Portland, Oregon, and you can listen to more of their noise here.

Label: Sub Pop, 2010.

Even in the digital age the cover art of a record is important. Sometimes all it takes is a cute girl in a quirky dolphin hat to register ones attention. It is also with the help of Sub Pop that Jaill will probably find a growing fan base with their second album, “That’s How We Burn.” They  probably attract plenty of cute girls with their catchy and quirky, punk/pop on riddlin led by “Stroller” and “Everyone’s Hip” and the  acoustic twee pop  of  “Summer Mess”. Altogether it sounds like 60′s garage rock meets Pavement with a relentless energy and the capacity to crack smiles and move hips.

I woke up today with some very exciting news in my inbox. Even though Sufjan Stevens is so 2005 he has a new EP out called ‘All Delighted People’ which is, according to the blurb, “built around two different versions of Sufjan’s long-form epic ballad “All Delighted People,” a dramatic homage to the Apocalypse, existential ennui, and Paul Simon’s “Sounds of Silence.” Sufjan covers the Simon and Garfunkel song in the title track and the religious references are all check and present. The EP contains a beautiful piano ballad reminiscent of his song “John Wayne Gacy Jr” in its sound and in the disturbing nature of its lyrics,  features some of his signature twangy acoustic music and to round it off, it concludes with a 17 minute long jam session. You can stream it or pay $5 to download it digitally. The release of this new EP might just spell the end to  rumours that his next project was going to be the release of the Guantanamo Bay EP, as part of his 50 States project.

Broken Bells is the incredible collaboration of Danger Mouse (who has worked with Beck and Gnarls Barkley) and the leader singer of the Shins, James Mercer. The pink sky lantern on the record’s cover is a clue of the kind of music inside. Just imagine if the Shins existed without gravity and on a shit load of painkillers with a lot of cynicism in the lyrics and you are thinking along the lines of Broken Bells. It is a mixture of airy, psychedelic sounds and Moby and Radiohead and pop music channeled through a kaleidoscope. There’s some experimenting that adds this floating feeling to the lush melodies but this is essentially a very good pop record with a lot of creativity (including, below, the bizarre waltz “Sailing to Nowhere”). I saw this in a record store in Amsterdam a few weeks ago and damn, I wish I had picked it up then.

In love not just once, or twice, but thrice.