Showing posts tagged indie rock

The wine has made it easier

In August of 2002, a Philadelphia band called The Bigger Lovers issued their second full-length album, Honey in the Hive. When it came out, I wrote about it for my college newspaper because it’s magnificent. I wrote more about them in the years that followed, played guitar in bands that performed alongside them, drank innumerable glasses of beer with the band, and befriended member Scott Jefferson.

This September 8th, The Bigger Lovers are performing Honey in the Hive in its entirety in Philadelphia (tickets). Download the whole album for FREE (this week only).

Tender New Signs

Shoegaze slow-jam enthusiast Tamaryn will issue a new LP via Mexican Summer in October. Listen to “I’m Gone” via YouTube. For Blurt magazine, I wrote about the languid swirls of pedal-looped guitars on  2010’s Waves. Official band site here.

Fell in love with the tarnished gold

The new Beachwood Sparks LP glistens. It’s the first album from the Los Angeles-based psych-country outfit in more than a decade — I don’t often reach for 2001’s Once We Were Trees, but their 2000 self-titled debut should sit on your shelf if you count yourself a piddling daydreamer, or just a fan of Buffalo Springfield’s Again. Tarnished Gold is cut from the same beaded cloth. Tranquil harmonies and pearly lap steel tones pair with double-tracked acoustics to find a bed under desert skies on this 13-tracker. Download/listen to “Forget the Song” here.

Echo Lake are doing a sort of noisy, dream pop thing that’s mostly frazzled, but heavenly vocals and spots of winding, pitched-down textures prevent this stuff from sounding too much like the work of the band’s less experimental peers. I like how “Even the Blind” comes together — it sounds like a blend of lo-fi drum machine beats at the onset before a live kit enters, with reverb-dressed vocals, keys, and glassy guitar leads. Their debut full-length is out on Slumberland/No Pain In Pop in June. I wrote about them last year for PopMatters.

Bought tickets to see NC’s Bowerbirds in the fall of 2009 in Williamsburg, Brooklyn. The show was so oversold that I stood outside and missed opener Sharon Van Etten, huddled against a crowd of other ticket holders who “weren’t allowed in.” We were able to jam into the building and fetch beers just as Bowerbirds were setting up. This new record is really lovely. They’re fleshing things out a bit more, but it doesn’t detract from the overall intimate, ‘round-the-living-room sound they’ve built-out since 2007’s Hymns for a Dark Horse.

Stoned and sometimes pleasantly shapeless, Tamaryn’s debut record is primed for late summer. The Waves is grayed-out and spacious, with woozy, lush textures similar to those dealt by recent one-offs like Deerhunter affiliate Lotus Plaza, or beloved acts like Ride, whose early ‘90s outings rank as some of the most creative of the much-ballyhooed shoegaze golden era. YOU’LL READ WHAT ELSE I SAY AT BLURT, NOW.

Stoned and sometimes pleasantly shapeless, Tamaryn’s debut record is primed for late summer. The Waves is grayed-out and spacious, with woozy, lush textures similar to those dealt by recent one-offs like Deerhunter affiliate Lotus Plaza, or beloved acts like Ride, whose early ‘90s outings rank as some of the most creative of the much-ballyhooed shoegaze golden era. YOU’LL READ WHAT ELSE I SAY AT BLURT, NOW.

Played 2 times

Bought the Beach Fossils self-titled LP (Captured Tracks) today — the crisp and colorful guitars cut right through to the front of the recordings, even with the loads of reverb they’ve got tacked onto these vocals. Lovely, but my “Twelve Roses” is rife with skips. Listen to “Youth” here.