When famed rock critic Lester Bangs heard the Shaggs, he made a prediction that the cro-magnon men of the world would eventually grope and mangle rock music into an unrecognizable heap that only the girls could put back together. I don’t think that we’re there quite yet, but lately we have seen a de-masculinization of male vocal styles, and an increasing amount of girl groups with new solutions to old problems. It is the latter of these two universes that Dum Dum Girls belong to. In late 2008, ringleader Dee Dee began the project as both a cathartic vessel and shrine to her heroes The Stooges and the Vaselines. Producing treble-heavy hybrids of old school punk and bubblegum pop she describes as “blissed-out buzz saw,” the tunes found footing amongst the new wave of buzz bands playing lo-fi rock with smeared melodies shifting on top. However, to lump the girls in with this movement entirely would hardly do them justice. While the dirty production value is certainly at least part of their aesthetic make up, the upcoming debut full-length I Will Be proves that its far from the only thing going for them.
There’s a million words we turn over when trying to describe it; ‘the gift’, ’soul’, ’steez’, whatever abstract quality a certain artist has that can make a familiar song exciting again, the Dum Dum Girls have got it. The hacked guitar play, simple drum beats, and candid tone stir up something refreshingly un-cryptic in a scene that feeds on vagueness. Their direct delivery on tracks like ‘Jail La La’, harking sentiments like, “This woman’s clearly out of her mind/she’s covered in shit/and high as a kite,” contributes to the thrill of watching Dee Dee and Co. try on different hats. Throughout the 11 tracks producer Richard Gottehrer (The Voidoids, Blondie, The Go-Go’s) helps them summon everyone from The Ronettes to Black Tambourine. What came out was an efficient album of three minute songs running on primitive garage riffs, starry-eyed harmonies, leather skin, and teenage empathy. It’s not the next big thing, it’s not revivalism, it’s just an excellent depiction of someone singing songs in front of the mirror. Highly Recommended.
Us New Englanders always get passed on by the festival planning committee. So while everyone you know is off at SXSW mingling and blogging for AOL, stay tuned for the upcoming wave of relief that is BLASTFEST 3. Boston freak-haven The Whitehaus will present its third annual showcase that promises “hugs, Americana, mind altering substrates, confetti, kisses, PB&J’s, culture shock, good times,” as well as twenty or so of the area’s promising acts like Manners, Girlfriends, The Woodrow Wilsons, and many more. There’ll be stuff for the folkies, the yes-wavers, the garage/psych aficionados, and poetry buffs alike. Also, look out for The Papercut Zine Library’s table curating some of the best New England zines for your viewing pleasure. It’s gonna be sunny and 60’s this weekend, where else would you rather be?
BLASTFEST 3 goes down this Saturday March 20th from 11am-11pm at the Cambridge YMCA Theater, accessible via the Central Square T Stop. Visit the press page for more info and media links.
Lurching samurai vibes, phased vocal apparitions, and menacing bass lines are just a few of the disparate tricks that newcomer Forest Swords has up his sleeves. This savvy UK producer lays the groundwork with dark planetary dub-step akin to Not Not Fun affiliates and then decorates with ascending guitar lines that teeter between cloud-bursting ambiance and claustrophobic tension. His debut LP Dagger Paths is a dogged expansion of the potential we saw last summer on his Miarches cassette, and is already bound to be a fixture on our playlist for some time. It’s definitely not a go-to for any occasion, but if you feel like a spaced out trek up Desolation Peak and back, your ride is here.
Just grabbed the latest packaging of songs from Dum Dum Girls a.k.a. the only group with enough swagger and snarl to make the “girls” suffix truly ironic. This limited Blissed Out cassette contains all of their songs so far, and acts as a good preview for their upcoming debut full-length I Will Be, something that we are more than psyched for. Along with all the girls’ originals, this tape includes a cover of our/everyone’s favorite Black Tambourine jam, which you’ll find below. Chances are, by the time you read this the initial batch will be sold out, so sign up for Art Fag’s mailing list to get the jump on the next round. And if you are skeptical to adopt another “girls” band into your life, just watch this video:
Upon relocating from Dallas to San Francisco, Rangers masthead Joe Knight conjured his glazed weariness into the 11 tracks of murky psychedelia that would become his debut LP Suburban Tours. On the odd album opener “Deerfield Village”, he positions himself as some sort of repetitive, humorless version of Ariel Pink, with abrasive blasts of lazy vocal snarls. Aside from “Brook Meadows”, Joe keeps tight lipped, opting to concentrate on the rough-edged collage approach to neo-ambient music that Rangers explore. Saturated melancholy, super compressed down tempo drums, and wheezing vhs synth lines make up the bulk album, which is a roundabout way of admitting that this really just sounds like a new Ducktails cassette. Only on a couple tracks like “Glen Carin” does he nail the looking out the window on a rainy day phenomena well enough for us to ignore his overlapping sonic neighbors. Suburban Tours is a well executed mission statement, but where is the benchmark for this perpetual 80’s fetish? Are we now obligated to write up anything that sounds like it could be the soundtrack to a job training tape/pizza party/insert nostalgia? Even if this was just intended to play as a hazy personal pet project, I can’t help but feel like it was popped right out of the hypnagogic cookie cutter.
Suburban Tours is out now on Olde English Spelling Bee.
For Fans Of: Ducktails, Arch M, Universal Studios Florida
Austin trio Pure Ecstasy dwell in a swampy hybrid of past and present. Their recent string of patient, affected singles gave nods to peers in the tropical lo-fi scene with their cavernous, prismatic reverb guitar settings, combined with hefty dub baselines and crawling 4/4 beats. Where they tend to stand out the most is their vocal maneuvers, which forgo the expected Beach Boys idolization in favor of a syrupy southern droll that confidently steers the wall of sound into moments of anguish, and yes, pure ecstasy. No news yet on a proper full-length from the boys, but they’ve brought another rock solid teaser in the interim, dropping the Voices/Alexandria single on March 23rd on Acephale. You can also catch them playing the Underwater People’s Party at SXSW on March 17th.
I made a half assed promise a while back to spotlight more left-field hip-hop on this site and never followed through (or all rap music ceased to exist during my absence of interest, you decide). So good looks to UK psych/soul producer Huess for helping me back in touch by releasing his new EP I’d Rather Be The Hunter.
His genealogy includes all the right departments: intuitive vocal stutters and stretches learnt from Dilla, pulsating new-school passages a la Bullion or Flying Lotus, and a good amount of his own Tron-tinted idiosyncrasies. The tempos fly pretty low, with druggy rhythms that constantly feel like they’re gonna nosedive but nevertheless find their way into ecstatic, fluid passages of late-night atmospheres, jazzy interludes, and hard hitting samples. Recommended. Stream and download the EP here.
Instead of doing work today I decided to hunt down Brian and Dennis Wilson’s notorious Cocaine Sessions, sometimes known also as the Hamburger Sessions or Things We Used to Get Brian to Show Up for Practice. The two brothers recorded this demo at Village Recorders during a real low point in 1981 while Brian was in temporary hiatus, not too long before Dennis’ tragic death. This short collection of fragments documents a sweet and haunting glimpse from the last years of their song writing partnership. I can’t brag about the quality, I know, the tape hiss is about as loud as the music, but with a little Treble Reducer the white noise dissipates and some pretty great sketches emerge. Stoned off their gourds, the duo navigate some pretty commanding melodies on organ and piano with vocals both exhausted and hysteric. The tape’s two ‘coherent’ tracks “Oh Lord” and “I Feel So Fine” were slated to be properly developed although they just never materialized, but maybe these dejected, underwater gospels were never meant to get cleaned up.
Baby Sloth Spirit would be a pretty weak ghost story but I think it fits just fine for this California down tempo project. His new self-released Eyes EP kind of sounds like Boards of Canada re-imagined by Paper Rad or bit-crushed flashbacks of arcade game victory screens. You know, the kind of psychedelic 80’s melange you’d expect from someone who still rocks unicorn t-shirts and has a Myspace that’ll make your eyes bleed. Mummified dance beats sweat warm tape saturation to vaguely tropical keyboard workouts that owe more to the New Age Tapes collective than chillwave artists. This is a great way to relive your childhood without having to scrounge for quarters. Selective memory never sounded so good.
I hate to tease you guys with a song when I have no info to give, but the amount of times I’ve listened to this particular one in the past couple days seems exception-worthy. World ofWitchcraft’s jams are just too perfectly executed by their hazy, opium riddled, post-Joy Division prowess for me to care about much else. All I can tell you is that he/she has a 7″ coming out some time on Captured Tracks (shocker) and that they’ll be playing with the equally rad Cloud Nothings in Brooklyn this March supporting Abe Vigoda. You can stream a few cuts on their myspace. Thanks to our buds @No Conclusion for the tip.
