by: Kyle Olson, KUCI Music Director
Word up, readers of internet music things.
We’re in the middle of the KUCI fund drive. Hopefully, all who read this are either getting a lot of donations on this show, or are donating a lot of money to KUCI.
(Self-promotion: New issue of the hipsterbookclub.com goes up tomorrow. Read it, love it, send me saucy e-cards.)
I am tired. Let’s do this thing.
Dan Deacon – Spiderman of the Rings (Carpark)
This may be about to become the hot, hot shit. Why? Because I say so. This dude has a table full of effects pedals, is a classically trained composer, has taped-together glasses, and from what I’ve gathered, he also has more than a few eccentricities. Now he’s cobbled together this album of home-made electro-noise dancypants jamz. Imagine if LCD Soundsystem had no mainstream appeal. Like, if Devo were even bigger dorks. Electro-acoustic-experipop nonsense. While I can’t compare the two directly, if you’re a fan of the new Panda Bear, you’ll probably dig on this. Heck, if you like panda bears, as an animal, you may also like this. Unrelated: Here is a picture of a panda licking a hiney.
Elliott Smith – New Moon (Kill Rock Stars)
John of Minus Numbers declared Elliott Smith the new Tupac. With his second posthumous album (a two-cd set, no less), you get a collection of rare cuts, b-sides, demos, etc from the time period he was recording his self-titled album and Either/Or. I’d put a joke here, but there a couple of KUCI DJs who’d kill me for it. And I’m a coward.
Fridge – The Sun (Temporary Residence)
The more rock-oriented project of Four Tet’s Kieren Hebden and his homey Adem (pronounced Ardem). Jason Pulaski and I have passed this album back and forth for a couple of weeks trying to decide if it’s rock or RPM. Eventually, I agreed with his deduction that it’s rock. But it’s a fine line. It sounds like Four Tet’s electronic albums, but with real instruments replacing the samples. Really mellow, organic, drift-off musics. I don’t want to give any of you impressionable youth any ideas, but I have a hunch that some people to drugs to music like this. That’s a darned shame (also a darned sock). Let’s keep this stream-of-consciousness bandwagon going!
The Clientele – God Save the Clientele (Merge)
If you look at last.fm, and the list of “similar artists” includes Jens Lekman, Destroyer, Yo La Tengo, Wolf Parade, Camera Obscura, Animal Collective, Deerhoof, and the New Pornographers, you know that I would spit on your grandma before I passed on adding this album (and you all know I am very respectful to the elderly. It’s babies I don’t give a shit about). Melancholic, yet sunny pop music that basically sounds like a picnic in one of those tree-heavy English gardens. If someone put this on while they were seducing me, it’d probably work. It’s all sinewy and lithe. God will have to wait until he’s done saving the queen before he can get to the Clientele, though. Poll: can you believe that people in the UK care about the queen? Does that seem completely weird to anyone else?
The Sea and Cake – Everybody (Thrill Jockey)
After adding the Clientele, and moving on to this, I have to declare this the “week of narcotic summer-evening, sunset-at-the-beach pop”. And you know what sunset at the beach means, don’t you? FUCKING S’MORE-A-PALOOZA!!!!! Prepare to fill your mouth with marshmallow-y napalm and getting cold night cuddles (statistically proven to be the best type of cuddles in a recent Gallup poll).
65daysofstatic – The Destruction of Small Ideas (Monotreme)
I guess it’s supposed to be written all one word like that. When your band has weird name hyphen/space/spelling, that means you’re either a shitty alt-metal band, or a post-rock band. You get two guesses which one this band is, and the first doesn’t count (my dad would always say that, and always thought it was weird). This is post-rock (with a healthy dollop of jittery electronic touches), but it’s a good deal more agitated than the DoMakeSayThinks and Godspeeds and Mogwais. Song times range from 4-7 minutes, roughly, and the playing can get more frantic in points than anything in all of those previously mentioned bands categories. But, they seem to have gotten that in exchange for the mountain-toppling crescendos of those bands. It’s a trade off. It has dynamics, but nothing that’s going to make you lose bowel control.
Page France – Page France and the Family Telephone (Suicide Squeeze)
The last time I added an album by these sunny, retro-pop-loving, Kinks-fan, indie-rockers, you guys seemed to dig it. So, I’m doing it again. If it worked the first time, just do it next time. Some sort of crude sexual joke goes here, but I don’t have the inclination to actually think it up.
Various Artists – Play (DeSoto)
This little comp is “children’s music” but, as they put it, it’s for “cool kids”. Bands like Mudhoney, Anna Oxygen, Mirah/Tara Jane O’Neill, Supersuckers, etc. play songs with names like “I Like to Make Noise and Break Things”, “Nellie the Elephant”, “Bouncin’ Party”, etc. It’s endearing. If I planned to ever have children, I’d totally play them this. As it stands now, I’ll just have to be a cool uncle, and let them watch R-Rated movies when they visit. (Bonus: proceeds from the sale of this album goes to charity. I’m a sucker for charity albums.)
Fields – Everything Last Winter (Black Lab)
I’ve been hearing a lot about this band lately. My Bloody Valentine comparisons pop up a lot (but what doesn't get compared to them anymore?). I guess some of the members are from Iceland, as well. So they’re going to have that glacial feel to their album. I’m pretty much done here. Wait. Not yet. OK. Now I’m done.
<3,
Kyle
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