Best Coast and Wavves Announce Split 7-Inch

Best Coast and Wavves Announce Split 7"

 

Two of the most far out bands are getting together to do a split 7” for the Mexican Summer label before they embark on a tour across the land.

Best Coast and Wavves have announced the 7” Summer is Forever with the upcoming tour sharing the same title.

Both bands will bring a new track to the tour-only release. The tour starts near the end of January, and with stops in Minneapolis and Chicago in mid-February they might be reconsidering the name of their tour very shortly after.

Check ’em out here:

1-21 San Diego, CA – Soma #
1-22 Tempe, AZ – The Clubhouse #
1-24 Dallas, TX – Granada Theater #
1-25 Austin TX – Emo’s #
1-26 New Orleans, LA – House of Blues #
1-27 Tallahassee, FL – Club Down Under #
1-28 Athens GA – 40 Watt Club #
1-29 Carrboro, NC – Cat’s Cradle #
1-31 Washington, DC – 930 Club #
2-01 Philadelphia, PA – Starlight Ballroom #
2-02 New York, NY – Webster Hall #
2-03 Brooklyn, NY – Music Hall of Williamsburg #
2-04 Boston, MA – Paradise #
2-05 Montreal, Quebec – Cabaret Mile End #
2-06 Toronto, Ontario – Phoenix Concert Theatre #
2-08 Chicago, IL – Lincoln Hall #
2-09 Chicago, IL – Lincoln Hall #
2-10 Milwaukee, WI – Turner Hall Ballroom #
2-11 Minneapolis, MN – Varsity Theater #
2-12 Omaha, NE – Waiting Room #
2-14 Boulder, CO – Fox Theater #
2-15 Salt Lake City, UT – Urban Lounge #
2-17 Vancouver, British Columbia – The Rickshaw Theater #
2-18 Victoria, British Columbia- Sugar #
2-19 Portland, OR – Hawthorne Theater #
2-24 Los Angeles, CA – The Music Box
2-26 San Francisco, CA – The Grand Ballroom @ Regency

# with No Joy

 

Album Review: No Joy – “Ghost Blonde”


The 90’s are back, girls and boys and I, for one, am pretty stoked about it. Laura Lloyd and Jasamine White-Gluz are the feminine forefront of the noise-fuzz-dream-rock band, No Joy. Their second album, Ghost Blonde was just released on esteemed Brooklyn label, Mexican Summer – host to buzz-worthy band Best Coast, among others – who picked up No Joy in less than a year after their conception.

If you could pick out a song to be released as a single on the album, it would be the second track, “Heedless.” It’s driving and droning with plenty of feedback, distinct guitar melody and soft, silky, and sweet vocals a la The Breeders or Amber Valentine from Jucifer when she’s not shrieking. That pretty much goes for the rest of the album, as well. Their signature sound is largely due to a contrast between masculine, forward music and feminine, restrained vocals. It’s hard to make sense of the lyrics amid the sonic layers but one line from “Heedless” is discernable: “if you don’t care, then I don’t care,” adding to the grungy, submissive tone of this great song that could easily have been released in 1992.

A lot of songs like “Maggie Says I Love You” start out with the slow buildup of static and dissonant guitar reminiscent of Sonic Youth that lead into echoey, drawn out vocals and persistent and repetitive percussion. Others like “You Girls Smoke Cigarettes?” are quick, loud and more varied musically, making for a song that’s easy to rock out to. Each song is about four minutes long on average, so you get the best of both worlds: progressive rock sensibility and pop rock length. This gives the listener just enough time to come up for air before plunging back in to the pool of noise laden with reverb and distortion.

It might be assumed, for no other reason than their name, that No Joy is a sad, complaint-rock band, and even if traces of such mentalities are detected, they are in a purposeful and passive way. More than somber, Ghost Blonde is a female driven record with balls that has sexy guitar riffs and vocals that knock you down and then float you away.