2 Blog Items Relating to 2 of the Best Indie Acts of the Year
Item Number 1) My Brother interviewed one of my early favorites for Entertainer of the Year(Seth Rogen and Judd Apatow are looking pretty good in this race as well) DAN DEACON! While in England last week. They talked about his new album and upcoming DVD, delved into some Wham City history and Dan even gives a couple of quick top 5's. Check out the interview! Item Number 2) Deerhunter's Bradford Cox dropped his 3rd Mix on their blog today. If it's half as good as the last one, it's worth a listen.
Several months ago I scanned over Deerhunter's MySpace page in search of bands with similar aesthetics and sound. I found no one to satisfy that craving. Instead I found the Black Lips a band that I had written off as garage rock revival-revival band. I was sure that I didn't not need or want a second coming of the Mooney Suzuki. Of course now with the Deerhunter endorsement I felt compelled to dig into these guys. As a result I discovered that I was waiting for this band to come along and they've since won my heart. I've since taken to periodic fits of trolling MySpace to fulfil my desire for musical nepotism.
The latest discovery is Times New Viking's buddies Pink Reason, another hissy lo-fi-Ohi (maybe Ohi-lo-fi works better?) band. But these guys aren't Guided By Voices part II and they don't share much in songwriting style or presentation with TNV. Instead these guys are a dark Jesus and Mary Chain style band using Lo-Fi production to display songs that could otherwise rival Interpol in statuesque grandiosity. As is the songs are given an innocent veneer and an excellent twist through their thin production. The songs have a stripped down slow moving bluesy proper rock & roll vibe and they're uniformly excellent.
I've fallen pretty in love with their Silt Breeze released album Cleaning the Mirror. In fact I'm so in love with it that I may say right here that it's weakest point is it's brevity.
Another super bit of info, is they are coming to New York! Local Dates: 8/28/07: Charlston w/ Little Claw and Golden Era 10/6/07: Cake Shop w/ Thomas Function
It was announced earlier this week that it would be 2008 before Radiohead dropped a new album. (Their first since 2003.) Sadness has ensued in the wake of this announcement.
To hold us all over though, the boys have plopped a new song called "arpeggi" onto the (I suppose) somewhat official fan MySpace page.
How is it? It seems awash in Kompakt Records' influence. Not the rhythmic dance oriented wing of the house though. It seems immersed in the ambient works of the German electronic label. The song floats along on a pleasant but mostly innocuous keyboard pattern and never steps the pace up above a crawl. Thom sounds resigned and hushed. Basically it's too subtle for it's own good. Not that it's a bad song. Just a bad song to be the first thing we've heard in the last four years.
It's very different than the version that hit YouTube last year.
