Sideasideb-Old Adventures in Lo-Fi EP

Any of you kiddies like doing downers? Lemme tell ya, there's nuthin' like it this side of a major depressive episode. Things just sorta slow down and then (if you're lucky) stop moving altogether. Kinda like a normal day except with all the bad shit (read: most of it) carefully edited out so that it becomes a choose-your-own-adventure.

Of course, if you're operating on a head fulla Xanax, there ain't many adventures happening, but I digress. Sideasideb's second EP is sorta like that: things are indeed moving, out there, somewhere, but it all sort of mushes together in a blur of glacial synthesizer and mumble-whispered vocals in the distance. "Ten Speed" is probably the best track here: cutesy artsyfartsiness gradually gets serious by imploding into drum-guitar spazzfukery worthy of Hella. In fact, the mix of beats and spazziness sort of makes the comparison more apt now that those Hella guys are doing DeathGrips. I think they sped up the drum track at one point but who cares, right? Just let the Xanies guide you through this bit of rambling rattlenhum.

You can demo this bit of downed out weirdness here; hang out with the band here.

Crazy Pills-Restless LP (2013)

Behind all the gloop 'n'glop,  many of us-even at this late date of the beshitted year of our Lord 2013-still prefer bare bones, moronically straightforward rock 'n roll over contrived, overly-complicated gimmicks and/or too-kool-for-skool-retreads. Of course, doing your best to sound like Jerry Lee Lewis' band fronted by a woman is fundamentally reactionary. But the last couple of years' worth of subcultural (anti-)cultural slop have largely focused on rehashing the 1990s. So takin' it back to the '50s seems downright revolutionary-by-way-of-reactionary at this point.

Whatever, in Crazy Pills, Brookyln belches out yet another sweet rock 'n'roll group that strips away all pretense and just dishes out snazzy tunes to dance to. This sort of rock is exactly opposed to longwinded disquisitions on why it's good; it just is.

So crack a beer, comb some pomade through your hair, and go down to the local sleazy rocker bar. Pop a quarter in the jukebox, then get irate with the bartender when Crazy Pills doesn't show up. Then insis, at top volume, that he look this band up HERE, and FUCKING ROCK OUT DOOD. Yeah. I totally impressed a girl enough with this sort of gimmick for her to make out with me last weekend, Scout's honor.

Peopling-Bulbout EP (2013)

Following a familiar course for noisemakers over the years, Peopling's second EP finds Ronnie progressing a bit from his debut: after all, most of us have trouble listening to pure noise for sustained periods, let alone making a career out of it. Whereas that was 9 parts all-out, aural assault to 1 part beat, Bulbout has adjusted the ratio more towards 6:4. There's still plenty of noise fuckery, especially on "Bulbouts in Bloom." But even that has a discernible, if patchy, beat fighting valiantly with the aural fuzz for room on the mix. The opener, "My Glitchy Kelly Roland," sorta reminds me of Pere Ubu's "Laughing." There's the same tension present, between the puerile desire to offend and a more measured attempt at making a collage out of different found sounds. Not bad for a 3-song sophomore effort, indeed.

Check out "Bulbout," and BUY IT, here.

Sharkmuffin-She-Gods of Champagne Valley EP (2013)

Without getting enmired in cheap nostalgia for the '90s or some sort of "authentic" urban experience that has never existed, I'm still suspicious of recent cultural products coming from Brooklyn. Up until recently I associated Btown with the fiercer end of NYC hip-hop: Black Moon, for example. NOT garage, noise, and such. 1990s-era Brooklyn was a violent, squalid place by all accounts, but urban renewal could have benefited the original inhabitants instead of displacing them. Instead, Giuliani's stormtroopers paved the way for Bloomberg-era gentrification and the result is a tinseltown, suburbanized borough that doesn't even seem worth visiting. If you don't know what I'm talking about, check out Crown Heights or Red Hook or any other neighborhood mentioned by Biggie, Gang Starr, etc. etc.

That said, Sharkmuffin's second EP is good clean fun if you dissociate it from the gentrification it's inevitably a part of, if only in a tangential way. This is high-quality trash pop falling somewhere between Vivian Girls-style rave up and Piresian Beachesque scuzz. The retarded piss take of a guitar solo at the end of "Femebot" is glorious in and of itself. A minimal 4'4 beat, yowled vocals, and trashy guitars are the end all of Sharkmuffin's sound, and as I always say, simpler is better when it comes to rock 'n roll. This isn't music you think about, it's music you simply respond to. My favored reactions to it are: dancing, drinking, and fucking. All seem appropriate responses to SM's raunch garage, so get yr ass in gear and go have some fun.

You can listen to the EP, and should then buy it, here.

Preludes-New York EP

Preludes, like one of my current favorites, Dirty Beaches, makes fundamentally cinematic music. The band's crisp, eternally wistful dreampop wouldn't have been out of place on the Royal Tenenbaums soundtrack: like most of the songs featured there, it conjures up a distinct, discrete feeling without overstaying its welcome. The songs on the "New York" EP barely exceed 3:35 at most, but each one is a separate movement of what feels like one, fragmented whole. The pairing of deep-as-the-Mariana Trench percussion and synthesizers confused the hell out of me upon first listening, but it grows on you with time.

"Relationships" is built around an insistent violin line. As it slowly develops into a string-and-vocals arrangement, the vocals intone indecipherable mumblings in a hushed, Bon Iver-style tone. Around 1:28, it slows down until the vocals are almost alone, resulting in a minimal, yet somehow lush, bridge.  "Relationships" ends with a bang, as stringwork whirls around a thunderous drumbeat.

"Obligations" takes the percussion of "Relationships" and runs with it: too subdued to dance to, the song's handclaps, tender bass note and a thunderous beat are perversely rhythmic in a very sedate way: I could dance to this after smoking hash, but not while drunk. "Black Spring/Unhappy People" starts off like it's gonna be a club banger, with a menacing bass beat that I keep expecting to explode into techno (or whatever people listen to on Ibiza). That bass never really goes anywhere, and the result is a song that manages the difficult trick of being both monotonous and mesmerizing, if that makes any sense.

"Ariel" felt like a dream, of running down an empty city street on a gray, autumnal day, chasing your lover just after s/he walked out, finally, for the last(?) time. Opening with angelic wailing and chimes, that fucking bassdrum kicks in again to lead you out the door. It's a long walk through the barren New York streets, but maybe s/he will listen; it has an iminent, breathless feeling that it shares with some Eluvium tracks. Eluvium's albums unfold on a vast panorama, but Preludes' songs are as compressed as the streets of Florence. It works.

Preludes' second EP, The Swan, was great, but "New York" has a much fuller sound; I can't wait to hear what they do next, and this is great music for late fall and early winter. LISTEN HERE!!!!

Preludes-The Swan EP

Drifting by light as a feather and drowsy as a Klonopin bar, Brookyln's Preludes sounds like a dream ya don't wanna wake up from on this, their second release.

I've always been of the opinion that dreampop always hovers between masturbatory, self-indulgent pap and holding the listener in a sustained, blissful moment in a way that 4'4 time rock can't. Upon my third listen, I'll say, tentatively, that Preludes manages to fall on the latter side. The songs on "The Swan" are all of a piece, and that piece is something like walking around Seattle, stoned out of yr mind, on a sunny day; people glide by, there's gently moving water everywhere, and the world is melting into a pleasantly nebulous mass of good feelings.

"The Swan" sets the mood with barely-murmured vocals and muted, hushed percussion that's barely audible on first listen. "Sleepy Eye'd" wakes up from the dream a bit, with a sustained synth figure framing the singer, who sounds a lot like Beach House's Victoria LeGrand or Mazzy Star's Hope Sandoval on this one. The heart of the EP, however, is "In Central Park," the most dynamic of the tracks. Lilting along in slumberland, buoyed by what sounds like violin samples and handclaps, the vocalist narrates, uh, walking in Central Park. This one's going on the mixtape for the next girl I fall in like with.

Listen to the EP here. Also check out the "Dresden" single, which came out in March. Dream on, dreamerz!

Peopling-s/t EP (2011)

I've been meaning to review this thing for weeks, ever since it showed up in the mail, and I apologize to the guy behind Peopling for my sluggardly ways.

Anyways....Peopling is a one-man operation outta Brooklyn. This 6-song ep is somewhere between Dominick Fernow/Prurient-style savagery and fucked up, bedroom synth punk. Usually Peopling verges closer to the former, but on the opener, "come home eccentric," there's a trashed synth beat lilting along with the warbled voiceovers. "Regprog" is simple, hulking, lunking, clunking power electronics; sorta like what Fernow might make on a softer day.
I think that "summer such and such" is the best song on here: strummed acoustic guitars leaven the usual squalling hiss, and there's some cool found-sound type burbling in the background....

I really don't listen to much power electronics these days, but this EP was versatile enough to hold my interest. Unlike most power electronics albums, it's appropriate for smokin' weed on the beach as well as nodding out in a heroin haze.

CHeck dude out, and BUY THE EP, here.

Crazy Spirit-I'm Dead 7" EP (2011)

I didn't want to post this, since it came out two months ago and Crazy Spirit is currently king shit of the DIY scene, making this readily available on the 'net. But goddamn! Since picking this up yesterday it's all I've been spinning (well, besides ABBA, but that's between me and those Swedes...).

The bizarrely superb drumwork; Walker's tortured gremlin snarl; the perfectly-timed, minimal guitar solos. All these set CS apart, But there's an undefinable something to Crazy Spirit such that they excel. Maybe the stars are simply aligned properly, but I don't get sick of them despite heavy listening over several months.

"I'm Dead" continues the strain of their first 7", but "This World is Not my Home" takes them a step beyond. Opening with a wash of white noise, the song really starts with CS's famous "galloping horses in the pit" drumming: here, a stutter-step beat crashing forward into a tale of existential alienation. I dunno if it's actually an old blues standard, but Walker nails the vocal phrasing and the guitar sounds like Blind Lemon Jefferson on amphetamine.
The other two songs are good, too, but "This World" is the centerpiece, and shows just how audacious Crazy Spirit is. What's next, a crust opera double 10"? I can't wait!

...in England's dreaming! BUY HERE!!! from Mata La Musica Discos. Big ups to ICDT blog, from whom I learned that this thing existed.

*EDIT, 9.20.12: REUP is HERE.*