unpiano: music

I’ve been digging the new record by Little Claw lately, Human Taste is definitely a continuation of their first effort, but there are some solid jams on here. Dark, warbling pop soaked in lots of fuzz and reverb, sometimes spinning off into endless-jam/one-note-drone land but the handful of tracks that hold some sort of structure are pretty amazing.

Little Claw – Human Taste
Little Claw – Frozen In The Future

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//photo by rick ele

Wow, Autumn finally kicked in full gear and nothing goes better with Fall weather than a drunk guy screaming in your face over a heap of distorted noise-punk. I was lucky enough to catch Portland’s The Hunches amazing live show a few times before they blew apart this last year. Luckily they offered up one hell of a parting gift with their final LP Exit Dreams on In The Red.

The Hunches – Fall Drive
The Hunches – Carnival Debris

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//photo by elizabeth weinberg

Brooklyn’s Small Black just released their self-titled EP this month and it’s filled with swirly keyboards and fuzzy guitars. While it’s true that there have been a bunch of bands in this same vein as of late (check out the last twenty posts and I’m sure you can pick out five or six), Small Black has the advantage of Josh Kolenik’s fogged-out vocal delivery and great songwriting abilities. Washed Out (whose slow, fuzzy songs we wrote about a while back) also remixed their song ‘Despicable Dogs’ and did a damn fine job of making it even further up in the clouds. Gotta love these songs on those gray, overcast days.. you can almost pretend it’s still summertime.

Small Black – Despicable Dogs
Small Black – Weird Machines
Small Black – Bad Lover

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Bonus:
Small Black – Despicable Dogs (Washed Out remix)

//photo by reed fischer

Saw these guys last week when they came through San Francisco and to be honest the show was sort of weak. Don’t get me wrong they write some good songs, but I had forgotten that they don’t have a drummer and it’s really hard to blow a crowd away when it’s just two dudes jumping around on stage to a backing track (only Girl Talk can do that because he is not pretending to be a band). It’s also weird to be at the front of the stage hearing drums from the speakers but not from the stage. It makes it seem a bit like TRL or something. I sort of wanted to ask them if they needed a drummer but I figured that it might be rude. I mean, they have obviously written drum parts for these songs so why wouldn’t they want someone to play them (same goes for bass I suppose)? Anyways, all of that aside the song ‘I Wanna Kill’ rules and this music is super fun times.. I played the record last Thursday and people loved it. I saw the guys from the band at Amoeba that same day and they said they had sold out of their record on tour which I guess means that they are doing pretty good.

Crocodiles – I Wanna Kill
Crocodiles – Soft Skull (In My Room)
Crocodiles – Summer Of Hate

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New 7″ fever continues with The Mantles limited run on Mt St Mtn – which you should go buy right now before they are all gone. Despite having sort of a weak show when I saw them live a while back, they always end up writing solid 60’s sounding garage. Nice and fuzzy, just the way we like it. I guess maybe I’m being harsh about having a weak show. I can’t expect everyone to smash their amps and freak out like the world is ending. I think that would even seem out of place with The Mantles. I should probably just mellow out and drink a beer.

The Mantles – Don’t Lie

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//photo by jason fisher

Eat Skull dropped a new one and wow is it the hottest 80s New Zealand underground pop record to not come out of of New Zealand and not be from the 80s. What a fucking lovely trainwreck this band is. The whole LP is marvelous but worth it for this track alone.

Eat Skull – Heaven’s Stranger

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//photo by chaz bundick <-- click above and check out his other great photos.

Sometimes I get bummed out on my submissions inbox because it gets flooded with record label garbage and street team mailers. It’s almost like music blogs are the new telephone polls, and people send you emails the same way they used to put up a poster on every pole in the city. So anyways, sometimes it takes me a while to go through it and recently as I was deleting things left and right, I came across some mp3s from Toro Y Moi (aka South Carolina’s Chaz Bundick). Every song is like wading into a warm, dirty, washed-out, lo-fi paradise and the best part is the songs are sort of indescribable as they run through a procession of genres. You may get caught up in Ariel Pink comparisons, but then try to explain yourself after you hear the house beat and bass line on the next track. I mostly posted the least electronic stuff here for consistency, but all of them are worth a listen (check the compression-crazy track ‘Talamak’). Also if you want to go overboard on the electronic side, go for a visit with his house music side project Les Sins.

Toro Y Moi – 109
Toro Y Moi – Take the L to Eave
Toro Y Moi – Drive South

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I have been trying to not post about Micachu since HHSA put up their songs a while ago and even put this song in his podcast, but I can’t hold back any longer. This song reminds me a bit of Coco Rosie and some older electronic stuff (which makes sense seeing as how Matthew Herbert produced it) and has been repeating a hundred times a day while the sun melts everything around me. All their other songs are good too (and sort of dancey) but I don’t want to talk about those right now.

Micachu – Turn Me Well

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//photo by sarah mcKay

Philly based bedroom psych maestro Kurt Vile dropped a pair of hot records recently that have got him a lot of attention. The title track to The Hunchback 12″ has been spinning endlessly at my house. This opiated sex-jam seems to float between some of the more stoney/droney Stone Roses and later-80s Jesus & Mary Chain swagger.

Kurt Vile And The Violators – The Hunchback
Kurt Vile – Freeway

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//photo by jason fisher

Monterrey, Mexico has been kicking out some interesting noise-rock these last few years. From the Sonic Youth inspired Los Llamarada to the weird-punk of Ratas del Vaticano, this city and its surrounding area are breeding a hot new crop of bands you should watch for. Bass guitar and drum duo XYX are no exception, in fact after their stunner sets at SXSW (some of my favorite of the whole festival) you might even find them the cream of that crop.

XYX – Anel And Her Problem

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