Episode039: MP3/Feed\Archive
Previous: Episode038 - Hymnal
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♬Liner Notes♬: Welcome to the last episode for the wild and wonderful year of 2012! Watch out for my 'Best Of 2012' mixtape from Media Monarchy, but for now let's just enjoy the last blast of new music for 2012! There will be a few more holiday holdovers from Everything But The Girl's Tracey Thorn and even some "California Christmas" - plus, new sounds from the legendary Tom Tom Club, remixes of the mighty Mogwai and more cutting-edge new music - not a bad way to end the year! So let's do it - let's Pump Up Tha Volume!
Tracey Thorn
"Joy"
'Tinsel And Lights'
Merge, 2012
Note: The New York Daily News says "A Christmas album from Tracey Thorn? Isn’t that kind of like a Valentine’s Day album from Morrissey? ... Though, ultimately, Thorn treats Christmas as a myth, she considers it a great one. “We must be all right/if we can make up Christmas night,” she sings."
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La Luz
"Sure as Spring"
'Damp Face' EP
self-released, 2012
Note: Song source KEXP says "The confidence of La Luz’s hazy mixture of surf, garage, and psych rock belies the group’s relatively short life span. Formed this summer and consisting of former Curious Mystery members... the Seattle group’s gang vocal melodies and resonant guitar carry vibrant hallmarks from the earliest surf rock groups all the way through the five songs on the band’s debut release."
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Gram Rabbit
"California Christmas" single
Royal Order, 2008
Note: Don't tell anyone, but this song apparently came out four years ago. Song source KCRW says "Singer Jesika Rabbit grew up with cold Wisconsin winters and a snowy Christmas. Since settling in Southern California, she reflects on celebrating the holiday in warmer weather."
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METZ
"The Mule"
'METZ'
Sub Pop, 2012
Note: Song source KEXP says "METZ’ potent mix of ’90s post-hardcore and noise rock should incite. Growing up going to shows featuring The Jesus Lizard, Jawbreaker, Fugazi, and Drive Like Jehu, the trio honed their skills across the past five years, releasing a handful of singles before issuing their debut earlier this year. Like the other 27 minutes on their debut album, “The Mule” consists of two-and-a-half minutes of vicious, no-holds-barred assault on the listener’s ears."
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Mogwai
"George Square Thatcher Death Party" (Justin K Broadrick Reshape)
'A Wrenched Virile Lore'
Sub Pop, 2012
Note: The now lamentably digital-only Spin says that "If hardcore did die, it would probably come back as a remix album; at least, that's what Scottish post-rock deities Mogwai seem to be saying with A Wrenched Virile Lore, a collection of remixes of last year's Hardcore Will Never Die But You Will. The album will be released on CD and digitally on December 4 and has already been released as a limited-edition colored vinyl on Black Friday via Sub Pop... features revised takes by ambient piano maestro Tim Hecker, San Francisco synth-punk outfit the Soft Moon, BEAK member Xander Harris, and Loop founder Robert Hampson."
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Tom Tom Club
"You Make Me Rock and Roll"
'Downtown Rockers' EP
Nacional, 2012
Note: Consequence Of Sound points out that "What prevents this record from becoming merely a trip down memory lane is its energetic freshness and its urgency, which sounds like that of the music Frantz and Weymouth made 30 years ago. And while Tom Tom Club was their disco dance outlet and a chance to escape David Byrne’s larger-than-life persona... One incredibly refreshing relic of ’70s rock is the lack of extraneous electronic effects." And I shouldn't have to tell you that the Tom Tom Club is Chris and Tina, the rhythm section from Talking Heads.
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Thao & The Get Down Stay Down
"Holy Roller"
'We the Common'
Ribbon, 2013
Note: Song source KEXP says "Thao & The Get Down Stay Down are a San Francisco based folk pop band based around the singing and songwriting of Thao Nguyen. Nguyen’s ear for spare but powerful arrangements, based usually around her emphatic guitar work, her honest, often sexual lyrics and the experimental psychedelic tinge that pervades her songs make any album these guys put out worth adding to your collection. “Holy Roller” is no exception -- the plinking banjo and fuzzy guitars conceal a sophisticated composition with a veneer of danceable surf folk."
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Golden Void
"Virtue"
'Golden Void'
Thrill Jockey, 2012
Note: Dusted Magazine says "Golden Void is named after a Hawkwind song, a guitar and synthesizer freak out from 1975’s Warrior on the Edge of Time, the same album, coincidentally, that provided the name for Lemmy Kilmister’s post-Hawkwind gig (ahem, “Mötorhead”). It’s not a bad point of reference for this excess-loving band of psychedelicists... “Virtue,” which is built on an abrupt, massive and very Sabbath-like riff (think “War Pigs”), gains a levity from Pinkerton’s mercurial counterpoints, which splatter around, rather than reinforcing, the main instrumental assault."
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Greg Grease
"I Still Love H.E.R." (w/ Lizzo)
'Cornbread, Pearl & G'
River Life Media/Black Corners, 2012
Note: The Takin' Mines blog says this track "Greg Grease is not a backpack rapper, however Greg Grease makes backpacks. Backpacks, that is, and other dry goods, as part of his River Life Dry Goods brand (http://riverlife.tumblr.com). This would be the first of many lovely things I discovered about Grease while diving into Cornbread, Pearl & G, a worthwhile swim to close out the last month of 2012... ["I Still Love H.E.R."] morphs the flow into a numbing beat, before Lizzo’s shrill trills take us into a trance like bridge."
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Hundred Waters
"Visitor"
'Hundred Waters'
OWSLA, 2012
Note: "The group’s self-titled album debut builds upon their EP by crafting a tapestry of 60′s British-inspired folk updated with contemporary electronic flourishes... On “Visitor”, vocalist Nicole Miglis’ breathy vocals wash over rippling synths before everything morphs into a percussion-heavy head banger, a word not typically associated with this style of loungy electronica, yet the Gainesville, FL sextet pull it off." They're also on Skrillex's new label, OWSLA.
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The Valley
"Rad Dungeons"
'Halloween' EP
self-released, 2012
Note: Song source KEXP says this Seattle band's song is "a three minute smackdown of a guitar jam. When Dan sings out the last chorus around the 2 minute 20 second mark, it sounds like there are like four or five guitars on the track all shredding their strings off. The song is mainly riff driven, and the riff that resonates through the whole track is a bludgeoning garage rock instant classic." And they're playing at Doug Fir right here in Portland on New Year's Eve with the one and only Supersuckers! (And we wrap up PUTV's first year with an appropriately self-released Pacific Northwest band... Thanks!)
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@PumpUpThaVolume Music News:
My new sounds: "Frosty the Snowman" on #SoundCloud
My new sounds: "Get What You Deserve" on #SoundCloud
My new sounds: "Rescue Me" on #SoundCloud
Swedish band The Shout Out Louds create DIY ice single to send to journalists and fans
Shout Out Louds produced ten limited edition kits that make functional albums out of frozen water
Hear Pulp's "absolute lost classic" disco-pop demo "After You"
Lana Del Rey's newly surfaced "Dynamite" and "Noir" fail to ignite
Adam Yauch's movie company still devoted to late Beastie Boy's legacy
Low preview Jeff Tweedy-produced LP with rumbler "Plastic Cup"
My Bloody Valentine Finish Mastering New Album
(Thanks again to @KEXP, @KCRW, @TheCurrent and you!)
