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May 17, 2009
These, I Like
I touched on this briefly in my L review of the intriguing Balf Quarry. It's one of a few standouts of that pretty baffling LP. It starts a deconstructed clockwork noise stitch job, and then just improbably gets sweeter and sweeter as it goes, ending just shy of sappy, at least until the flailing, dying animal guitars start squealing.
Twin Sister is a fairly new, unheralded NYC band devoting their skills to some well-travelled styles, but with a swell, able hand. Blissed out, heavy shoegaze-pop, we know thee well. But chest crushing guitar tone and sweetly ominous yet nonchalantly delivered lyrics about the misbegotten freckle-faces among us are easy to like. And lest you think its all mood and suggestion, there's some great, precisely uncoiling guitar work just short of the three-minute mark. You can download their first EP, Vampires With Dreaming Kids here, for free.
I still definitely love Micachu to a whole 'nother degree, but the compositions of tUnE-YaRdS' CAPS Lock epileptic one-girl band, Merrill Garbus, checks off some of the same odd boxes. "Jumpingjack" wobbles forth on the sound of waves crashing, beatbozes sputtering, and pianos desperately crying out for a stern tuning. Weird that these sad little elements can build to such a roar. The tense little keyboard loop that develops in the song's back-half is surprisingly lucid, also, given the static storm it's thriving inside.
One of my favorite sub-three-minute sucker punches of the first half of 09, not surprisingly from Sweden rather than their hilariously tiny namesake. I'm seeing them play at Bruar Falls on Tuesday, and I am steeling myself for the fact that their live, small club show can't possibly be this immaculately echoed. Hope remains for a genius sound tech who can handle the beautiful, floating lady vocal mix. Much cooler than the still-pretty-cool rest of the record, which trends toward less spine-tingling girl-helmed indie-pop.
From the sound of things, there are brighter and more immediate little Kiwi-loving ditties on Eat Skull's new Wild and Inside LP. I however, am returning to the lush forests of my adolescent home for some extended run in a few weeks, and we all know how we like to project all over our pop songs. I like this track for both its Portland specific detail ("they won't be happy 'til we're all living in a tent city" has some resonance for residents) and its true-in-any-locale sentiments ("...the worst people having the best time..." and isn't that always the way).
Posted by Jeff Klingman at May 17, 2009 09:09 PM
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