by: Sam Farzin, KUCI Music Director
Okay KCU-AI-AI-AI,
So I saw Battles last night and watching John Stanier play drums is like watching Godzilla tear apart Tokyo or another Japanese city. Watching people play guitar and keyboard at the same time flawlessly is like watching something equally high on the richter scale of rad. Battles is so cool.
Here’s what’s new in the KUCI Music Library that, as a whole, sounds very unlike Battles.
Battles - Mirrored [Warp]
Hahaha not really.
Black Dice - Load Blown [Paw Tracks]
I am shocked that I am not really shocked at the name of this album. Am I so jaded that crude and public euphamisms for ejaculation do not phase me in the slightest!? Yep. This is Black Dice's most accessible album. The rest of their stuff is in experimental because it is long-winded and oftentimes chaotically unmelodic. Here, however, tha 'dice have streamlined their jams of late into shorter, more concise numbers that hit across the board in terms of genre. Samplers pulling beats and found sound left and right, and stuff. It is bouncy and it is like an underwater pajama party with sea creatures playing alien instruments, and these big burly guys in leather come in their submarine and you think they are going to harsh your bubbly fun but they turn out to be really nice guys and then everyone has margaritas together and headbangs which is admittedly sort of a difficult thing to do underwater but they do it anyway.
Club 8 - The Boy Who Couldn't Stop Smiling [Labrador]
Sweeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeetly sung, subdued (but not too much), cute as bunnies music from YOU GUESSED IT SWEDEN. Acid House Kings fans take note! These guys includes some of those guys (and girls). There is nothing that falls flat on this; it's like a train ride through a fluffy land through the windows you can see guitars playing themselves softly and the winds coos like a qt girl pawing at you and then you go underwater...
V/A - "I'm Not There" Original Soundtrack [Columbia]
This is the soundtrack to a movie about Bob Dylan where six different actors (one of them being Cate Blanchette) portray Bob in different times of his life. Intriguing?! Well they decided to do the same thing with the soundtrack: it consists entirely of Bob Dylan covers by some very choice indie stalwarts. How do you feel about Sonic Youth effect-pedaling on the title track? How about Iron & Wine growing a beard all over Dark Eyes? Or Stephen Malkamus paving over Ballad of a Thin Man? Cat Power, making Stuck Inside of Mobile with the Memphis Blues Again really, really boring? There's a ton more. A couple tracks are not KUCI friendly (Jack Johnson, Eddie Vedder, Los Lobos,...Bob Dylan). Everything else is be aces though.
The Most Serene Republic - Population [Arts & Crafts]
Oh, a Canadian band. Oh, they are on Arts & Crafts. Oh, they are friends with Broken Social Scene. You should basically know what this album sounds like. Big orchestral indie musics with a lot lot lot lot of sound buried together, almost too much. Goooooooo indie rock!
Frightened Rabbit - Sing The Greys [FatCat]
A Scottish guitar and drums duo that play songs in the vein of Belle & Sebastian. Since they are a duo though, what they lack in size and variety, they make up in spades with loud and rollicking pop sounds and solid songwriting. The Scottish accents do not at all detract from this release, either.
Monster Bobby - Gaps [Hypnote Recording Company]
This guy created the Pipettes. Like, wrote the songs, organized the polka-dotted chanteuses three, etc etc etc. These are (usually) (very) short brit-pop-gone-indie-pop-gone-quirky-electronic songs that have fun hooks and good beats, tongue-in-cheek. If you dug that Shocking Pinks record, check this one.
Mike Uva and Hook Boy - Static Songs [Collectible Escalators]
Similar in idea to the Monster Bobby album: a variety of instrumentation and stylistic choices make this record full of unique songs. Mike Uva goes the route of the story-song in that a good deal of these tracks are little stories about people (both real and invented) and their (both real and invented lives). It's a fun album and I like the first track ("Hook Boy").
That's all for this week. Thanks again for spinning the new stuff, and eat enough candy tonight to send you to the hospital!*
YOUR PAL
SAM
*Don't really!!
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