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Montagna & The Mouth To Mouth: Ultrapolyamorous [7″ Single]

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There’s something entirely intoxicating about the music Montagna & The Mouth To Mouth creates. It’s absolutely fantastic! It’s as dreamy and hypnotic as Broken Social Scene, yet it is wild and ferocious like a clash between The Flaming Lips and The Pains Of Being Pure At Heart. There’s a lot to love here, on this far-too-brief single. “Ultrapolyamorous” is a slightly emotive track, full of heavy percussion and fuzzy, epic guitars. But “At Full Speed” is what makes my heart flutter. It’s upbeat and filled with immense vocal hooks. This is the song that makes my head spin, the song I’ll have on repeat for weeks. Read More »Montagna & The Mouth To Mouth: Ultrapolyamorous [7″ Single]

Club 8: Closer Now [mp3]

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I am at a loss for words. The People’s Record, the latest by Swedish pop group Club 8, defies explanation. The band has always fit the pop mold, often flirting between dreamy electro-pop and indie pop sensibilities, but this new stuff has islands-ish percussion, playful guitars, and obscure keys. It’s as if their traditional Swedish pop took a tropical vacation. We heard it on the album’s first single “Western Hospitality” and it’s written all over their latest single, “Closer Now”. These new sounds are upbeat, fun and completely refreshing. There truly is nothing like it out there in the world of indie pop. Read More »Club 8: Closer Now [mp3]

Letters [Feature]

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A full two years ago, I raved about a little band from Olympia called Letters. Their music featured simple melodies played by complex and unique instruments. Vocals, too, focused on patters that caught the ear and pulled a listener in. It was this combination of elements that made them so intriguing. And intriguing they were, are and will likely continue to be as we speed forward into the future. Their latest effort is simply titled “A Free Sampler” and, true to their nature, it includes plenty of grit and catch, an abundance of lo-fi and pomp, and just enough spacer interludes to make the listener question. Read More »Letters [Feature]

The Just Joans: Stuart Had A Dirty Book [mp3]

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The Just Joans came to my attention via WeePOP! Records, who have released a few mini EPs by the group: Virgin Lips, Hey Boy…You’re Oh So Sensitive and Love And Other Hideous Accidents. Their latest is titled Your Pain Is A Joke Next To Mines, and it is now available, again, via WeePOP! “Stuart Had A Dirty Book” is from the 7-song EP, and it blends thick Scottish accents with playful but mopey pop. It’s a typical song by The Just Joans, catchy and fun but with a sad tone that’s impossible to overlook. Read More »The Just Joans: Stuart Had A Dirty Book [mp3]

The Ascetic Junkies: This Cage Has No Bottom [Album Review]

ascetic-junkies

The Ascetic Junkies may have recorded their new and stunningly brilliant LP, This Cage Has No Bottom, in a short period of time and in the comfort of their Portland home, but some might feel as though this is an album two years in the making. Although the band’s debut album, One Shoe Over The Cuckoo’s Nest, was a brilliant display of folk/bluegrass in the new age, it was subject to being undeservingly pigeonholed as just an indie folk act. And no matter how wrong and downright stupid these thoughts would have been, they were exactly what was said on occasion. Read More »The Ascetic Junkies: This Cage Has No Bottom [Album Review]

Andy Gassaway: Hellfire [Album Review]

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Andy Gassaway is one cool cat. He’s like that guy in high school who had all the racilization on why old rockabilly is the one great genre of music. You know the guy. The one who philosophized on the utter importance of “Free Bird”. This free from hipster-pretentiousness musician has poured gasoline on the wicked and weak with his album Hellfire. Andy might be better known as 1/5 of the fully eccentric group Transient Songs, but our man really breaks out on his own with this beautiful display of electric country that will leave you breathless and desperate for a caffienated honky tonk. Read More »Andy Gassaway: Hellfire [Album Review]

King Charles [Feature]

  • Cyndi 

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It’s so refreshing to hear songs that sound like nothing we’ve ever heard before. Songs that melt together so many different elements in rhythm and progression we don’t even know how to classify them, the closest description being something akin to classic English psychedelic folk pop. Read More »King Charles [Feature]

The Rest: John Huston [mp3]

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It might feel like ages since we last heard from The Rest (way back in March). But, they actually haven’t slowed down a bit. These Toronto-based soundscape masochists have been hard at work on their forthcoming album, SEESAW, due out in early 2011. And with their sophomore release only now hitting a year old, and their brilliant Cried Wolf Book/EP being one of the biggest highlights of 2010, it’s hard to imagine what kind of beautiful madness this tremendous group has to offer us in the coming months. Read More »The Rest: John Huston [mp3]

Laguna [Feature]

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There are some really great underground pop labels that span the world, many specializing in an obscure spin-off of some form of indie pop, be it lo-fi to electronic. Laguna’s music reminds me these labels exist. And, oddly enough, their music reminds me of Siete Records. I’ve got a few LPs from the label and their music ranges from lo-fi to jangle to electronic. But, however you look at, the label releases off-beat, blatantly European sounding indie pop. Laguna creates that style of music, with ridiculous, playful pop hooks and electro-indie-pop accompaniment to dance-y female vocals courtesy Lydia Nor that mix electronic with ambient, art-pop, and hints of jazz. Read More »Laguna [Feature]

Jared Mees & The Grown Children: Live at Baby Bar [10.06.10]

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Located in the heart of downtown Spokane sits what might possibly be the most ill coordinated bars on earth. Yes, for an act to play “Baby Bar” (the actual bar area only being a 12 ft by 12 ft room), actually means you will be squeezing you and your gear into a devastatingly small spot next to a couple of pinball machines in the burrito restaurant that makes up the majority of the building (Neato Burrito, without a doubt the best burrito in Spokane.) But, for the likes of Jared Mees & The Grown Children, it’s just another setting for these folk-oriented indie rockers to showcase their irrefutable talent as not only brilliant musicians, but as a live act that is not to be missed when they pass through your city. Read More »Jared Mees & The Grown Children: Live at Baby Bar [10.06.10]

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