Vinyl album art, reviews of new record releases/labels/stores, rarities from my personal collection, and contests and giveaways for fellow record lovers.
Is… Anyone out there? Is this thing on? Do I still listen to records and take pictures of them? Sometimes! Grad school is destroying me, though. Sorry about that.
The Casket Lottery is a band I grew up seeing nonstop in and around KC and Lawrence and I love everything they’ve released to date. This newest album is yet another album full of rippers that sound exactly true to form but not repetitive or derivative in any way. I don’t know that I can think of another post 2000 band from the area that has had as consistently good output for their entire career except for maybe Appleseed Cast. Outstanding work, ya’ll. Someday I’ll come back to KC and catch you live again. https://www.instagram.com/p/CKaGN1FMHMa/?igshid=1ds63yuc8qe9d
In The Pines - Slow Blink
@inthepinesmusic @soulsteprecords #inthepines #inthepinesmusic #soulsteprecords #soulstep #psych #psychrock #garage
I’m a day late and unfortunately the ltd white colorway is long gone, but I KEEP TELLIN YA’LL to get on that totally free mailing list so you have access early so, etc. Soul Step Records just dropped this new In The Pines album called “Slow Blink” yesterday and if you are even remotely interested in the mellowness of Unknown Mortal Orchestra and/or a less ornery garage rock a la Ty Segall, then you’re going to want to check this out stat. Not mentioned in the press kit is the super early Dandy Warhols vibes I got on the back half of this album, and for me that is a VERY good thing. Dandys Rule, OK and Come Down are two of my fav albums of all time, and “Naked Eye” sounds like it could have been an outtake from the first album, if we’re being real. It’s jangly, it’s got a nod to the pseudo-Brit-rock that came out of the lower PNW in the 90s, and it’s got some sax here and there to keep things fun and sleazy. If …Come Down is the soundtrack for taking a bong rip way too big for your lungs to process, Slow Blink is the the soundtrack for your engineering friend who can make a bong out of literally anything in house to focus to. It’s a little clearer, a little cleaner, a little more precise. The mix is crystal clear which is a nice surprise because I typically assume that any band that uses the label “psych” anywhere on their hype sticker or press kit is using at least 45 reverb pedals. This is spacious and dense but it’s still quite easy to sit right inside of the mix and hear beautifully panned instruments hanging out together in perfect blends. I loved this entire album, but I REALLY loved the back half of it. It spoke to me the same way those early, spun-out Dandys albums did and well, I hope you dig it too. Incredible work, In the Pines. Looking forward to whatever comes next (and if you hit Seattle, I’ll be there). https://www.instagram.com/p/CJrsmUuneHF/?igshid=wffia12nidpv
It’s a house cleaning day which means it’s time for 90s guilty pleasures which means it’s finally time to drop the needle on Collective Soul. Let it gel, etc. (at Seattle, Washington) https://www.instagram.com/p/CJWmvrjsduC/?igshid=13brcbh2mkuoh
Red Snapper - Prince Blimey
I was tragically late to the Red Snapper party, despite being a self-professed lover of all things early 90s UK trip-hop adjacent genres. The first track on this album showed up randomly in one of those auto-generated thematic play lists that are usually garbage (and somehow always fucking sneak on at LEAST two totally unrelated tracks by The National 🤣) and I was hooked. I got the trip-hop connection sure, but its lacking vocals, turntables of any kind, and the general glitchy effect of most mainstream trip hop that followed it. It’s probably at least half in the real-life drum n bass camp, it’s a touch jazz (sort of forefathers of Bad Bad Not Good, if you will), and it’s moody as hell, an absolute requirement for being in the same zip code as trip-hop. This is the first of many great albums in their catalog, but the one that hits me the hardest.
Do you know this album? Do you love it as much as I do?
There’s something sort of magical about growing listening to “oldies” and the music of your parents’ generation and then getting to experience those same musicians in real time with a new release. Tom Petty was no stranger to me growing up, my mother loved some of his music and I remember getting so attached to the song “Runnin’ Down a Dream” the summer after I turned 10, around the same time I bought my first guitar. Later that year, Wildflowers was released and “You Don’t Know How it Feels” absolutely dominated the airwaves (for good measure, it’s a classic jam). I saved up some mowing money and bought a copy on CD (I got a CD player that year, too!) and started to have my own experience with Tom’s music. I usually skipped the single and I listened to “Wildflowers”, “Honey Bee”, and “A Higher Place” on repeat instead. I didn’t quite know what to call the music and it wasn’t too folksy to be misclassified as country (something I would not have been able to admit to friends), and some of it was real crunchy and bluesy in a way I hadn’t really heard before. Honey Bee, in particular, was a song I really FELT because of the way the guitar parts sounded so brash and bold and in stark contrast the crisp acoustic sounds of most of the rest of the album. The title track was one I loved from the first day I heard it, but it would eventually become one of THOSE SONGS, you know…the kind that evoke so much emotion that sometimes it’s a blessing and sometimes its a curse to hear them again later in life. I could barely understand what it meant and when I tried to learn more about it, I read that Tom was ad-libbing the lyrics. Looking back, I see that song as being less of a happy accident and more of a product of the subconscious of a remarkably talented songwriter and storyteller needing to tell a story that frankly, some of us needed to hear. I raise my too-strong coffee to all of you who belonged among the wildflowers, too.
There aren’t a ton of you that know me in real life but those that do and who have spent any amount of time talking to me about music know that I am fanatical about Bradford Cox and just about everything he’s ever written. For those not on a first name basis, Bradford is one the primary creative forces behind the ultra successful indie darling of the 2010s, Deerhunter. Before and during Deerhunter’s rise to fame, he also wrote and produced albums as a one-person-band called Atlas Sound. Logos, with its artwork seen here as an overexposed photo of Bradford showing his Marfan Syndrome related sunken chest, is a gorgeous, sad, and sort of haunting album. The artwork, in my opinion, is as exposing as the music and serves as a sort of visual metaphor for what it feels like to be fully on display for the judgment of your peers…in this case, the music scene.
I relate a lot to this album not just because I personally enjoy listening to it, but because I wrote an album not entirely unlike this one years ago, though to much less critical acclaim (lol, not much at all, if we’re being real). I felt like I knew how to write music and I wanted to get my music out there, but I was shy, I didn’t have a band behind me, and I liked the idea of hearing what a band of only myself would sound like. Bradford took songs that very well could have been (and in a few cases were) Deerhunter tracks from his Atlas Sound portfolio and recorded this eclectic and moving collection of tracks on Logo. He also had some pretty talented and famous friends like Noah Lennox (aka Panda Bear aka the voice you probably recognize most from Animal Collective) and their collab track, Walkabout, was a DEFINITIVE JAM for the entire summer of 2010. If you know it, it probably soundtracked your trip to SXSW, your late night backyard kickbacks, your basement parties, and your windows-down roadtrips. Whether you use the literal Aborignal definition of “walkabout” being a rite of passage or the casual definition being more along the lines of finding yourself on your own, that song alone captured what I think Bradford meant to do with this album and well, I think he did it beautifully. https://www.instagram.com/p/CIosMnojAwM/?igshid=1i2mds3vrszqa
The Fall of Troy - Mukiltearth
@thefalloftroy @tommy_dip #falloftroy #thefalloftroy #seattle #seattlemusic #seattlerock
Whew, I just got done with my first full front-to-back listen of this album now that I have it on wax and in hand and I’m going to be real, every time I get a Fall of Troy album I get taken back to a really special time in my past. The Fall of Troy is a band my earliest band really looked up to though admittedly none of us even came close to having the chops of anyone in this band, least of all guitar prodigy Thomas Erak and his ability to precisely, clearly, and brutally shred on any guitar he touches. I spent collective months, maybe years, listening to Doppleganger and Manipulator when I was still gigging and playing shows and dreaming about living in a van with my friends and playing music for a living. I was told a long time ago that if you’re the smartest person in the room, you’re in the wrong room, and this applies to musical abilities, too, I think. You’ll never learn to melt faces like Thomas if you spend all your time perfecting the stuff that comes easy.
I digress, one of my favorite parts of living in Seattle is that I get to be quietly surrounded by unfathomably talented musicians all over this city. It isn’t the 90s grunge wet dream that it was decades ago, but I’d argue that the later decades spawned music and albums of just as great (if not greater) importance than anything the Nirvana/Soundgarden/Pearl Jam/etc lot did, and I know that’s a bold statement. But you’d be hard pressed to meet anyone between the ages of 25-40 with visible tattoos and a guitar that hasn’t at least privately admitted to loving the Blood Brothers or The Fall of Troy (two bands I’d love to make play my birthday party someday when I have crazy money,etc). I’ll die on this hill.
Mukiltearth is true to Fall of Troy form, it’s beautiful, it’s loud, it’s crunchy as hell, and it’s got Thomas’ trademark chaos shredding throughout. It’s maybe even more of a nod to this far northwest corner of the country I call home than you might realize (we see you, Mukilteo). It’s a wonderful album, and I think you should put it in your brainmeat. (at Seattle, Washington) https://www.instagram.com/p/CImGLaSpBT1/?igshid=niaqmu3oxj3m
Alright, I’ll be honest and say that I am both ecstatic and embarrassed about this one only because the movie aged so poorly (but honestly is still an all time favorite). Back in the day this soundtrack hit HARD and it introduced my young teen self to super important bands like Kruder & Dorfmeister, Orbital, Leftfield, Massive Attack, and Underworld. Looking back on it, I’m not sure I can think of a better collection of incredible mainstream-friendly mid-90s UK electronic bangers, especially that ended up soundtracking what is now a cult favorite, and not just because of the terrible, dated, mostly inaccurate quotables that will live on longer than your recollection of the plot itself. I feel like the true art of a collective soundtrack was mostly lost in the early 2000s for one reason or another but throughout the 80s, 90s, and the first few years of the new millennium, we were truly blessed with some seriously and surprisingly gnarly soundtrack that hold some of the finest rarities from monster discographies today. Don’t believe me? Go back and look at the Romeo + Juliet, Godzilla, Singles, Bulworth, Romeo Must Die, Reality Bites, and/or The Crow soundtracks. Like Hackers, they’re wall to wall with killer tracks from bands on top of their respective games.
Now excuse me while my script kiddie ass gets back to hacking the gibson.
Moonbeau - Up All Night
@_moonbeau @soulsteprecords #moonbeau #80s #synths #synthpop #dance #soulsteprecords
As I have learned over the past few years thanks to my friends at Soul Step Records, Cincinnati has a LOT going on in the way of great music and as someone unfamiliar with the area, I really had no idea. Some of my favorite albums of the last few years have come out of that city and Moonbeau’s brand new “Up All Night” just might find itself in that category before long too (I need a while to live with an album before I make big declarations, ok?!). The general public sale of this album started today and I will warn you that 1) there are only 100 of these rainbow swirly pressings total and 2) they technically went on sale on Saturday to mailing list subscribers so you really don’t have much time to waste if you give this one a shot and want one of your own.
Up All Night is their sophomore effort and it does not disappoint. I spoke a lot about Multimagic over the past year and how much I found their positive, fun, and uplifting vibes to be exactly what I (and I think, you!) need during this neverending dumpster fire of a year. Moonbeau has captured my attention for the same reason…the music is evocative of happier times, late summer parties out in the back yard, beach afternoons with a little too much sun, the excitement of making eye contact for the first time with someone you fall in love with. It’s beautifully crafted pop music, that is for sure, but they’ve also created an aesthetic that nods to both the contemporary nostalgists (think The Naked and the Famous, etc.) and also the 80s heavyweights without being derivative. No, this sounds like it should be soundtracking a John Hughes movie, but not because they’ve copied Modern English.
They’re easy to find on the internet and I suggest you head over to Soul Step’s landing page for the album and give the tracks (and video!) a listen. But don’t sleep, this one will sell out pretty quickly and you’ll end up feeling like all of us who keep trading stories about how we ALMOST got a PS5 that one time…
http://www.soulsteprecords.com/ssr073
Beautiful album, friends!
https://www.instagram.com/p/CH8tLZqnh_c/?igshid=1qt94eirizhlk
Every Record I Own - Day 457: German Oak Down in the Bunker
I first learned about the obscure krautrock outfit German Oak through David Stubbs’ book Future Days: Krautrock and the Birth of a Revolutionary New Music. It was little more than a footnote—three guys in Düsseldorf recorded some harrowing instrumental pieces in an underground bunker and made a small batch of private pressing LPs. It’s one of those records that collectors sought out both for its rarity and for its loose affiliation with the broader krautrock scene. It also developed a bit of a taboo mystique when a bunch of unauthorized bootlegs surfaced in the ‘80s with one of the song titles changed to “Swastika Rising” and a bunch of excerpts of Hitler’s speeches spliced in between the tracks. Though the band always intended for the album to serve as a soundtrack to the history of modern Germany, an unscrupulous manager apparently took the liberty of inserting the National Socialist fixation into the digital formats of Down in the Bunker.
This band-sanctioned repress of the original version of German Oak’s lone album has none of the Nazi bullshit. After all, German Oak shared their krautrock peer’s disgust and disdain for their parent’s generation and their complicity in the atrocities of WWII, and Down in the Bunker sounds like an aural manifestation of the new generation’s anger and disillusionment. Like fellow North Rhine-Westphalia cosmonauts Can and Neu!, German Oak excel at creating protracted, hypnotic, authoritative, and atmospheric freakouts, but where their peers were able to add dimension to their recordings through the engineering skills of Holger Czukay and Connie Plank, the extent of German Oak’s sonic depth comes from the giant echo chamber of the bunker they recorded in. Consequently, Down in the Bunker feels a bit more like Guru Guru’s psychedelic jam session UFO, but with less pentatonic noodling and more murk and gloom.
While it’s not quite as hallucinatory as the heralded classics in the krautrock canon, Down in the Bunker provides its own magical contribution to the unique lysergic energy and desperation of Germany’s early underground rock scene.
bubblesandgutz