After the somewhat recent departure of Caralee McElroy, they’ve enlisted the full-time help of previously part-time collaborator Angela Seo on piano, synth, and programming. Production was co-headed by Stewart and Deerhoof’s Greg Saunier, who plays on most of the album as well. On “This To Shall Pass Away (for Freddy)”, a possible ode to the late Queen front man, the group will joined by the Immaculata Catholic School Orchestra. Word is that this new release will be heavy on the goth pop side of things (comin’ for you, Cold Cave), with four songs composed heavily on a Nintendo DS. But however they reincarnate themselves, you can be sure to expect the usual ingredients of superb art-damaged pop, scattershot rhythms, atonal explosions, and embarrassing details. Xiu to the muthafuckin Xiu, 2k10.

Dear God, I Hate Myself will be available February 23rd on Kill Rock Stars.

Track list:
1. Gray Death
2. Chocolate Makes You Happy
3. Apple for a Brain
4. House Sparrow
5. Hyunhye’s Theme
6. Dear God, I Hate Myself
7. Secret Motel
8. Falkland Rd.
9. The Fabrizio Palumbo Retaliation
10. Cumberland Gap
11. This Too Shall Pass Away (for Freddy)
12. Impossible Feeling

MP3:::
Xiu Xiu – I am Hated for Loving (Moz cover)

You can cop Chinoiseries here.

For fans of:  J Dilla, Madlib, Oh No

MP3:::
Onra – One Day
Onra – What Up Duyet?

Marc Richter may be best known as head honcho of Hamburg-based Dekorder Records, but since 2007 he’s run a parallel campaign as the dark ambient project Black to Comm. Closer in spirit to experimental figures of yesterday like Moondog and Bernard Herrmann than current artists, Richter seems dead set on completely disorienting our frame of reference. His new full-length for Type Records, Alphabet 1968, is a collection of oddities featuring: ‘kitchen gamelan’, smudged and disguised samples of vinyl, radio, and live recordings. Fairly static in composition, these ten tracks of densely forested clips provide a panoramic view of his meticulous sound dioramas.

The fragmented nature of this trip was designed to evoke the sensation of Richter’s favorite records, creating moods ranging from dark, gloomy ambient to sentimental musique concrete. Sparse traces of minimal techno are infused into the pulse of “Forst”, the album’s longest episode, a hat tip to fellow German pioneer Wolfgang Voigt. Dusty interludes like “Rauschen” and “Traum GmbH” tap curiously poignant receptors using only skeletal motifs of dry acoustic notes, phantom organ swells, and an omnipresent, but nearly subliminal backdrop of flickering voices, submerged tape loops, and field recordings. While frustrating at times, Richter does manage to arrive at moments of extremely cinematic avant-garde music that’s unlike much we’ve ever heard before.

Alphabet 1968 is available now through Type Records.

For Fans of:  Burning Star Core, Eric Copeland, Gas

MP3 :::
Black to Comm – Rauschen
Black to Comm – Traum GmbH

Impressionist splatters of found sounds, bright porcelain reverb, and ecstatic song shifts color the work of Philly’s Golden Ages. Working under this project for a little under a year now, he’s just self-released his debut EP Sitting Softly in the Sea. “I had this silly DJ/dance project that I grew apart from,” he told us, explaining his transition from “unabashedly electronic music into something more organic.” Throughout the EP’s four tracks, you can see both sides of the fence. On “Black Swan” ambient post-rock full of Fripp-inspired fuzz and lo-fi textures take a sharp turn into male/female harmonies mingling above minimal electronica beats.

“I’ve been invited to play a few shows but I’m holding off on performing until I finish the first album,” he told us when asked about the project’s future, “once that’s finished I’m going to take things live, which I’m really excited about.” Golden Age’s debut full-length, called Tradition, is set to drop in the near future. “The upcoming album will in some ways have a different mood than the EP. The EP was a reflection on all of the difficult things going on at that time,” he explained, “the new album is equally as introspective, but it’s more positive.” You can keep up with Golden Ages updates via his myspace, where you can also download Sitting Softly in the Sea for free.

For Fans of:  M83, High Places, Wild Nothing

MP3 :::
Golden Ages – Black Swan

Hot Brown Mess, a new music promotions collective I am a part of, and I Guess I’m Floating are pleased to present Midwestern psychedelic pop purveyors Evangelicals with freewheeling sun-washed garage psych collective Holiday Shores and regional Brian Wilson incarnation Idiot Glee this Friday at Glassworks in Louisville. The show is short notice, sure, but it’s gonna rule. I has tickets to give you…

Alright, so the contest. I’ve been obsessed with Scott Hansen’s design work on ISO50. That’s what inspired the design of this show flier. I’m thinking about incorporating that whole Ektachrome look into a new design for The Decibel Tolls v4.0 (possibly a very similar image to the one I made for the poster above). That’s where you come in. E-mail kb@thedecibeltolls.com with your answer to the following question: would me redesigning the site for the third time in less than a year totally piss you off? Yay or nay? There’s no right or wrong answer. I’ll choose a winner at random by Thursday at noon. Good luck!

Evangelicals, Holiday Shores, and Idiot Glee
Friday, November 13
Glassworks
815 W. Market St., Louisville (map that shizz)
Doors @ 7:30
NOTHING BUT GOOD VIBES

MP3 :::
Holiday Shores – Tremor Rolls the Peak

I know what you’re thinking, another “castles” band, but these guys cut out the middleman of silicon chips and 404’s and tap directly into the jam spell-book. Magic Castles were assembled in Minneapolis, MN, at the end of 2006 by songwriter Jason Edmonds. Incorporating aspects of blues, classic psych, experimental, and folk, they have since become a fixture their local scene, playing intimate shows at bonfires, farms, and music shoppes.

Fast forward one year and these boys have crafted six new songs for their new album on Moon Glyph Tapes. Recorded “between the witching hour and three a.m” over the past couple months, Songs of the Forest is a collection of simple mantras powering heavy results. They exercise a good range of aesthetics on thier third LP, like the angular guitar and distant UFO organs On “Wayne-O” that lays down the matting for Edmonds’ vexed balladry. While spacious tracks like “Songs of the Forest” build carousel momentum with White Light/White Heat inspired rollicking distortion, slowly levitating the group’s energy, awaiting divine interjections of trombone and unexplained sounds.

Magic Castles could easily be lumped in with New Weird America, but their complexity of influences keeps them arms length from the tedious novelties that tend go with along with that label. These recordings are remarkably well mixed for so many elements going directly to tape, keeping the tones saturated and hypnotizing without sacrificing any clarity. A lot of home made psych jams put out through small labels sound like they were a lot of fun to make, but their indulgence can make them fall flat to third party ears like an inside joke. Songs of the Forest, however, manages to balance that same DIY spirit with an execution of purpose that makes the strength of these tunes self-evident.

Songs of the Forest is available now through Moon Glyph Tapes.

For fans of: Willie Lane, Spiritualized, Velvet Underground

MP3 :::
Magic Castles – Wayne-O
Magic Castles – Songs of the Forest

The noise pop duo known as Fuck Buttons have released their second full length Tarot Sport, which hit the shelves a little over a week ago. The follow up to Street Horrrsing has gotten a considerable amount of attention from music journalists and the blogosphere for being one of the better records of this year. So what exactly did Fuck Buttons do on their second release? Power and Hung have cut back a bit on their noisy barrages and screaming backdrops and exchanged them for some pulsating beats and some heavy techno inspired melodies.

For the most part, however, a lot of elements that made Street Horrrsing enjoyable exist on Tarot Sport. Street Horrrsing was vast as well as deep, and the textures and depth that governed the record are still very much apparent especially on tracks such as “Surf Solar” and “Flight of the Feathered Serpent.” Fuck Buttons definitely introduces a new level of danceability on Tarot, however it hardly seems to compromise the variety of sound. They still have a knack for getting you hooked on their poppy nuance, while maintaining a level of obscurity. That being said, Tarot is a much easier listen, and I think that has a lot to do with the evolution of their songwriting. There seems to be more thought and purpose in Tarot Sport, despite its lack of noise experimentation. A lot of their melodies are less saturated and more precise while certain rhythmic progressions remind me a lot of some of the songs off of Tortoise’s latest release Beacons of Ancestorship. Maybe these dudes are just growing up. Regardless their growth is certainly worth listening to.

Tarot Sport is available on ATP Recordings. Also for all you Bostonians, check out their upcoming show on November 25th at Great Scott in Allston!

For fans of:  Kevin Shields, Holy Fuck, Black Dice, Growing

MP3 :::
Fuck Buttons – Flight of the Feathered Serpent
Fuck Buttons – The Lisbon Maru

I’ve been on a bit of an ambient kick lately so it was a convenient time to discover Black Eagle Child. Plus he’s named at least one album after a Twin Peaks reference so I was already pretty much sold from start. The project’s sole member Michael Jantz crafts bright, fog-lifting meditations, sometimes with nothing but an acoustic guitar, digital delay, and an amp. Seeds That Sprout in the Summer, released earlier this year on Stunned Records, focuses on simple pastoral lines, creating waltzes of echos that patiently shift their core in natural directions. Distant synths ping at almost subliminal levels, thickening the organic drone of the music. More upbeat tracks like “Made-Up Name” pose wide-eyed among their backwoods fingerpicking for melting quality similar to Fi-era Bibio.

The most recent cassette Two Days features dual sides of one-take experiments with guitar loops. The songs were salvaged from a few jams conducted in the days following the birth of his daughter. Most of his tunes seem to be framed in a similar way, substituting a four-track or tape recorder in place of a journal. A one-man outpost of delicate accounts of events,  Jantz even offers his releases in exchange for a copy of your own music. What other artists can you think of that operate on the barter system? Until I heard Black Eagle Child, I was positive that Emerald’s Mark McGuire would hold my favorite ambient jams from 2009, but this stuff, especially Seeds, is some healthy competition. Next in line is the Poland LP coming out soon on Sturmundrugs Records, as well as a collaboration with Russian sound-scapist Kabyzdoh Obtruhamchi.

Here is a list of places you can find/purchase/trade Black Eagle Child releases.

For fans of:  Mark McGuire (not the baseball great), early Bibio, The Alps

MP3 :::
Black Eagle Child – Grass Swaddle
Black Eagle Child – Made Up Name

Strangers Family Band offers a fine pastiche of the various splinter genres of flower power much like The Brian Jonestown Massacre’s finer catalog (czech “Wooden Hands” and hear how the vocal interplay is almost dead-on Anton Newcombe and Mara Kegal via Their Satanic Majesties’ Second Request). However, also like the BJM, Strangers Family Band do not amalgamate old sounds with new. They are unquestionably channeling the various strata of late ’60s mindbending west coast pop art experimental jangle – light garage rock timbre, pinch of British blues a la John Mayall, and homage to Ravi Shankar that became nothing but en vogue in the post-druggy Beatles summer of love. With that said, they take full advantage of recording technology today to really sharpen the feel and sound of classic true-blue psychedelia to cultivate a truly polyphonic headtrip. Nowhere is that more apparent than the seven minute “Transmission,” bolstered by crisp Twin Reverb distortion, lots of sitar (real sitar, not effect-created), and dark, thick Rhodes organ, punchy tablas – all of which almost play second fiddle to the distant, dark, saturated vocals.

I understand that, as either Kickergaard or Dick Van Patten said, to label me is to negate me. So I’ll stop the labeling and comparisons and let you all just peep the group. However, and this is the last thing I’ll say about Strangers vs. Jonestown – they also adopted the excellent “give your shit away from free and worry about sustainability later” model that Anton discovered when he started digging on the Interwebs. And it’s a great idea. Get your stuff out there, and if it’s good (which it is), people will come to the show and buy your merch. So to that end, czech the MySpazz, have a look at their dates, and see them live. Admire their sitar. Get lifted.

For fans of:  The Brian Jonestown Massacre, Outrageous Cherry, The Yardbirds, 13th Floor Elevators, The Black Angels

MP3 :::
Strangers Family Band – Strange Transmission

I am completely in love, perhaps an agape love, with the new song Broadcast has been ending all their shows with on the current tour. You know the one I’m talking about… the one with Trish Keenan shredding on a customized electric dulcimer. Like, total “My Dear Companion” meets “Astronomy Domine” meets “Autobahn” meets “Fight For Your Right (To Party)” action. Ya know, the krautrock hoedown. With the help of Pretty Creatures‘ warm analog tape bootleg of the show (you can download it here), I grabbed the finale, cleaned it up a bit (with just a couple of compressors, filters, and a peak limiter – no manipulation of the actual sound), and am providing it below for maximum damage (you can grab the cleaned-up-a-bit version here). No one knows the actual name of this song yet, so I’mma call it “Dulcimer Jam.” Because it features an amplified dulcimer. And it’s a jam.

MP3 :::
Broadcast – Dulcimer Jam [Wexner Center, Columbus, 10.25.09]