The new Crystal Stilts LP, In Love With Oblivion, came out this week but over at the Hype Machine you can get a free stream of the entire album to try before you buy! Throw these guys in with the likes of Ariel Pink’s Haunted Graffiti, The Fresh and Onlys, and fuck it, The Doors too — spooky, atmospheric pop songs wrapped in fuzz and reverb. On first listen, this is their most effective work yet.
Woodsist Records, the fan-savvy label run by Woods’ Jeremy Earl, aim to please and they’re always on the mark. Home to some of the best contemporary guitar bands around, including Real Estate, The Fresh and Only’s, Sun Araw, Thee Oh Sees, and Nodzzz, Woodsist found the best possible venue to showcase their lineup for the Woodsist Festival. The Henry Miller Library has received heightened attention lately from a couple of Animal Collective shows, highlighting the venue’s intimate location in the heart of gorgeous Big Sur. Tickets for both Saturday and Sunday, July 30 & 31, went on sale last Friday, so check here to see if you can scoop anymore up before they’re gone. Weekend passes already sold out. Check the lineup below!
SAT JULY 30 @ FERNWOOD
doors at 9pm- live music from 9:15pm – 12:30am
NODZZZ
ART MUSEUMS
DUCKTAILS
WOODS / FRESH & ONLYS BIG BAND
SUN JULY 31 @ HENRY MILLER LIBRARY
gates at 1pm- live music from 2pm – 10:30pm outdoors
REAL ESTATE
THEE OH SEES
FRESH & ONLYS
WOODS
SIC ALPS
SUN ARAW
WHITE FENCE
David Thomas of Pere Ubu once said, “Rock music is mostly about moving big black boxes from one side of town to the other in the back of your car.” In Vandaveer’s new video for “The Nature of Our Kind,” they manage to make the most out of those treks across town, continuing to play even in between venues. It’s a hummable, yet safe tune with little substance — hopefully not the case with the other tracks on their upcoming album, Dig Down Deep, out April 26 on Supply & Demand Music. Check tour dates with Ferraby Lionheart below the video:
04/08: Toulouse, France @ Le Saint Des Seins *
04/09: Pau, France @ Le Showcase *
04/10: Marmande, France @ Off Garorock Festival *
04/11: Bordeaux, France @ Secret Soiree: Drenched In Bordeaux *
04/12: Saint Nazaire, France @ Le VIP *
04/13: Clermont Ferrand, France @ La Coopérative de Mai *
04/14: Besancon, France @ Les Passagers du Zinc *
04/15: Lyon, France @ Festival Echo Orange *
04/16: Paris, France @ Café de la Danse *
04/17: Paris, France @ La Blogotheque’s Secret Soiree *
04/19: Palma de Mallorca, Spain @ Café Lisboa *
04/23: Rouen, France @ Le 106 *
04/24: Lion sur Mer, France @ Le Fabrique *
05/01: Philadelphia, PA @ Kung Fu Necktie #
05/03: Boston, MA @ TT The Bears #
05/04: New York, NY @ Venue TBA #
05/05: New Hope, PA @ Triumph Brewery #
05/06: Brooklyn, NY @ The Rock Shop #
05/07: Pittsburgh, PA @ Brillobox #
05/10: Cleveland, OH @ Beachland Tavern #
05/11: Chicago, IL @ Empty Bottle #
05/12: Bloomington, IN @ The Bishop #
05/13: Newport, KY @ Parlour @ The Southgate House #
05/14: Lexington, KY @ Natasha’s #
05/15: Louisville, KY @ Uncle Slaytons #
05/16: Nashville, TN @ The Basement #
05/18: Roanoke, VA @ Kirk Ave Music Hall #
05/20: Charlottesville, VA @ Twisted Branch Tea Bazaar #
05/21: Washington, DC @ IOTA #
05/22: Baltimore, MD @ The Metro Gallery #
* w/ Cheyenne Marie Mize
# w/ Ferraby Lionheart
The prolific Woods are ready to release their sixth album, Sun and Shade, on none other than Woodsist, singer Jeremy Earl’s label, and they have a track to share. “Pushing Onlys” is typical Woods fare — haunting production cloaks Earl’s warbly, quivering falsetto, with the band expanding their vast repertoire of warm jams. It’s as if the onset of Spring made it just warm enough to inspire the band’s essential mood. If you’re near LA, be sure to check for Woods at the Eagle Rock Center for the Arts on April 22nd.
This should have just been a post about an honest humanitarian effort pulled together by some fantastic independent artists to raise money in response to the devastation in Japan. Instead, artist Sadek Bazaraa missed the fact that the cover of the Benefit for the Recovery in Japan (above) looks unmistakably akin to a Pokéball.
Fortunately, the seriousness of the tragic event and this compilation’s good intentions merit a pardon of the artwork’s inadvertent mockery, so focus more on the music. That should be easy, considering contributions from Grouper, Akron/Family, School of Seven Bells, Bradford Cox, Bear In Heaven, Nat Baldwin, and Fennesz — and especially when considering comparison to this abortion of a compilation. “Shelter from the Storm”? Really?
100% of the proceeds from album sales will go to Civic Force, a Japanese non-profit, on-the-ground relief organization founded after the Niigata Earthquake in 2004. The album clocks in at nearly 5 HOURS of music, so take a read over the tracklist below and download the album for a helpful $15 toward the relief effort.
tUnE-yArDs are hot on the heels of recording w h o k i l l , coming out April 19th on 4AD, and the band has released a video for single “Bizness.” In the video, school children playfully run amok, a collage of face-painted adults rotate, reconfigure, and recombine as organic, geometric shapes, and Merrill Garbus fleshes out an envisioning of her primal wail.
In related news, the band have started a contest encouraging fans to “submit photos of themselves – or any other objects they see fit – adorned in coloured face paint. To enter, fans should upload photos via a dedicated Flickr account here. For every photo submitted, Merrill will dedicate $1 to the Japan relief effort. The photo judged to be the most creative will win a boombox decorated by tUnE-yArDs in the colours of the w h o k i l l album artwork.” Get an idea of what they’re looking for here.
Modern Mystery 