Episode060: MP3/Feed\Archive
Previous: Episode059 - Free At Dawn
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♬Liner Notes♬: Over half of our bands this week are making return visits to PUTV like Mudhoney, Alpine, Veronica Falls, Indians and more + new music from first timers Smith Westerns, Dungeonesse, Shake Some Action! and much more... Now let's Pump Up Tha Volume!
John Grant
"GMF"
'Pale Green Ghosts'
Partisan, 2013
Note: Last heard back on Episode048, we begin Episode060 with more new music from former Czars frontman's collabo with Biggi Veira of Gus Gus. The Guardian says, "it's undoubtedly a darker and harsher-sounding album than its predecessor. Some of the soft-rock lushness...has been stripped away and replaced by sparse electronics and occasionally rather ominous-sounding string arrangements..."
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Indians
"Lips Lips Lips"
'Somewhere Else'
4AD, 2013
Note: Last heard on Episode043 and Episode047, Indians, the Norwegian nom de band of Søren Løkke is back with another track. The BBC says, "Somewhere Else certainly reveals itself slowly, but persist and there’s real beauty to be found here. Understated and unhurried, it showcases an artist whose star isn’t rapidly ascending towards the stratosphere of indie’s most celebrated. But track Søren’s continuing course starting now, as there’s potential in these quietly confident compositions, enough at least to soundtrack a handful of escapist dreams while snow drifts block one’s return to icy reality."
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Veronica Falls
"My Heart Beats"
'Waiting for Something to Happen'
Bella Union/Slumberland, 2013
Note: We heard from this English quartet on Episode046, now they're back with more. Back in January, the Guardian gushed over the album. "Talk about stepping up. Rack one's brains and it's still a struggle to come up with hard to think of an album of indiepop – in the most purist sense of the term – anywhere near as good as the second from Veronica Falls... confident songwriting, and a sure grasp of how to make the limited dynamics of this music work their hardest."
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Gold and Youth
"Jewel"
'Beyond Wilderness'
Arts & Crafts, 2013
Note: We heard Gold and Youth waay back on Episode006 with their track "Time To Kill" and now they're back with a new full-length record about which Vice's Noisey blog says, "their industrial, ethereal single "Jewel" as an appetizer...of the arresting electro quartet's debut full-length, Beyond Wilderness, loaded with hearty choruses, tantalizing pop hooks, and mouth-watering weaving melodies."
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Little Boots
"Broken Record"
'Nocturnes'
On Repeat, 2013
Note: The Guardian says, "Pop can be a tough old game sometimes. Little Boots, aka Victoria Hesketh, may have topped the BBC Sound of 2009 poll and enjoyed both a top five album (Hands) and single (the RedOne-produced Remedy), but even these successes couldn't stop her being dropped by Atlantic. According to Hesketh, the label was constantly putting her with various songwriters to chase a hit and then changing its mind about what it wanted."
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Mudhoney
"Slipping Away"
'Vanishing Point'
Sub Pop, 2013
Note: We last heard from the Seattle legends' ninth album back on Episode055. The Quietus says, "Time was that you'd hardly expect Mudhoney to last until the end of the year, yet here they are, these fine purveyors of snot-nosed garage rock, about to celebrate their quarter of a century. Of all the bands to have emerged from the Pacific Northwest at the arse end of the 80s who, in all seriousness, would have bet on Mudhoney being the ones to have made it so far?"
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Dungeonesse
"Shucks"
'Dungeonesse'
Secretly Canadian, 2013
Note: The Charm City duo (that's Baltimore to you) hope you like the words "baby" and "love". Pitchfork says, ""Something that Jon and I talk about a lot is the idea of reclaiming pop music," Wye Oak singer/guitarist Jenn Wasner said as an introduction to their new electro-pop duo Dungeonesse. “Placing it squarely in the hands of, I dunno, say, a couple of regular nerds from Baltimore.” (Jon Ehrens is of the Baltimore band White Life.)"
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AM and Shawn Lee
"Replay"
'La Musique Numérique'
Park The Van, 2013
Note: Last heard on Episode056, the AM and Shawn Lee collab returns to PUTV. Soundcheck says, "It’s hard to believe that the electro soul duo, AM and Shawn Lee, never once stepped foot in the same studio while recording their upcoming album, La Musique Numerique. That’s because the second full length record from the team of LA-based soul singer and songwriter AM and the London-based electronic musician Shawn Lee is a seamless collaboration: hooky, infectious and seductive."
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Smith Westerns
"Varsity"
'Soft Will'
Mom + Pop, 2013
Note: Has It Leaked? has got the deets, "Chicago’s Smith Westerns are back with the follow-up to their 2011 LP Dye It Blonde. On June 11, they’ll release Soft Will, which is out via their new label Mom + Pop. “Varsity” is their first released single. The album was recorded with producer Chris Coady, who also worked on Dye It Blonde (as well as albums by Beach House, Yeah Yeah Yeahs, and TV on the Radio), at Sonic Ranch in El Paso, Texas."
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Alpine
"Gasoline"
'A Is for Alpine'
Ivy League, 2013
Note: Listen Before You Buy says this song "utilizes a sharp, effervescent riff, above a low, brash synth line that lays thick chunks of musical meat on the bones of one of the album’s first singles. These numbers are excellent and being so, make good on the promise the EP spoke of, while emphasizing the rest of the record’s inability to reach the same heights." We last heard Melbourne's Alpine on Episode004 and Episode050.
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Guards
"Silver Lining"
'In Guards We Trust'
Black Bell, 2013
Note: The newish New York band has been teasing these tracks for months, but now the new album is out and Drowned In Sound says that "within two tracks [it] sounded like the perfect soundtrack to an idealised summer that we’re probably never going to get."
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Alice Russell
"Twin Peaks"
'To Dust'
Differ-ant/Tru Thoughts, 2013
Note: Making her third appearance on PUTV after Episode008 and Episode046, the UK songstress returns with another track off her latest full-length. Pop Matters says, "There is currently a plethora of female vocalists tearing up the UK, and indeed international, music scenes... What is surprising is that the magnificent Alice Russell has failed to break into the top tier of songwriters and performers. To Dust is her fifth solo album in a little over a decade but in this time she has had some notable collaborations with A leaguers such as David Byrne and the Roots..."
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Crankshaft and The Gear Grinders
"Boomtown"
'What You Gonna Do?'
self-released, 2013
Note: "Crankshaft has been pounding the pavement since 2008, developing his own "pork neck" style along the way. A sound heavily rooted in rock 'n' roll, blues, country, swing, and surf that "could not have been imagined prior to the early punk scene," as described by Dig In Magazine."
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Hiatus Kaiyote
"Nakamarra"
'Tawk Tomahawk' EP
self-released, 2013
Note: Stereogum says, "Australia’s Hiatus Kaiyote seem like they could serve as the soundtrack to pretty much anything — they blend what sounds like the score of a futuristic western with the daily grind of urban life. The band went on their first-ever U.S. tour last month, playing SXSW showcases, Manhattan’s Le Poisson Rouge, and a guest performance during Questlove’s weekly DJ set at the Brooklyn Bowl."
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Shake Some Action!
"The Girl With The Sun In Her Eyes"
'Full Fathom Five'
self-released, 2013
Note: This week's Pacific Northwest closer is the infectious Seattle quartet with an exclamation point in their name! Song source KEXP says this song "roars, feeling impossible to halt. It is a power-pop composition with ringing Rickenbacker guitar, driving bass and enough energy to get a Seattleite out of his chair and movin’."
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@PumpUpThaVolume Music News:
To celebrate Bob Dylan's 72nd birthday, we look back to his oft-forgotten 1964 performance at @NewportFolkFest
Photo: Vampire Weekend at Keller Auditorium in Portland (via @jlocken)
New Lana del Rey music leaked online
See Arctic Monkeys perform hefty new song "Do I Wanna Know?"
Watch Boards of Canada's gorgeously eerie "Reach for the Dead" video, the first from 'Tomorrow's Harvest'
Just-surfaced footage: the Smiths backing Morrissey at his first solo gig in 1988 (a.k.a. the Smiths' farewell show)
An arrest warrant has been issued for Tim Dog, accused of faking his death to avoid scamming debts
Watch The Jesus and Mary Chain perform on the @Primavera_Sound webcast
Instagrammers document this weekend's @Sasquatch! Music Festival at Washington's scenic Gorge Amphitheater
The XX, @sigurros and @EmpireOfTheSun created the most "epic" night of @Sasquatch so far. Still trying to wrap my head around it. #sas947
Just added: @SurferBlood will be LIVE on KEXP 5/31! Playing @Sasquatch this weekend!
@WonderBallroom Did the @BRMCofficial show sell out? Bad me for not getting tix sooner... I saw them open for @officialSpzd in DC 11yrs ago
Sweet! I got the hookup to see @BRMCofficial @WonderBallroom tonight! I bet it's gonna be squishy in there...
(Thanks again to @KEXP, @KCRW, @TheCurrent, Twilight Circus Dub Sound System and you!)
