My Puggle Ate It

This is where I music-direct KEXP's Adds and Variety charts. Like a boss.

[kaxxla]

Band: Light Heat Album: S/T

This involves a significant amount of tambourine so it's an automatic write up. Those are the rules. They sound a bit like Headlights or The Love Language.

[kaxxla]

Band: Surfer Blood Album: Pythons

I'm writing this up purely for nostalgia reasons. It reminds me A LOT of Rooney. Remember Rooney? They were a thing in the same time period as Jimmy Eat World and they were delightfully terrible. Rooney, Room on Fire by The Strokes, and the Royal Tennenbaums soundtrack (yeah, I don't know either) were on constant rotation in my discman sophomore year of HS. This is not so much delightfully terrible as delightfully unremarkable and sometimes you just need to listen to the trashy romance novel of music when it's too fucking hot outside and you only want to do anything that does not involve moving at all.

[kaxxla]

Band: Art Vandelay Album: Eye 8 the Crow

Based on the band and album name I bet you are expecting this to be the grossest type of Brooklyn hipster band with like, echoey vocals and an unnecessary banjo. NOPE. It's hip hop. Pretty decent hip hop too. Once again I would like to remind you that I know next to nothing about hip hop, so take that with a grain of salt. It's definitely better than that imaginary hipster band I just made up though.

[kaxxla]

Band: Houndmouth Album: From the Hills Below the City

There were a couple really terrible weeks of adds in late May/early June and as a result I'm writing this up even though it's a genre (Americana/Roots rock) that I never listen to. It's got your token weird male vocals (think Cave Singers) as well as some female vocals on a few tracks. Overall this is pretty good for its genre in that it doesn't fall into tired "Americana" songwriting tropes too much.

[kaxxla]

Band: Brazos Album: Saltwater

I'm having some serious issues coming up with an RIYL for this. There's a bit of The Shins in there (mostly the vocals), a little +/-, maybe some Dodos? You should probably just listen to the song above.

[kaxxla]

Band: Charms Album: Hillary

This is just the right amount of mathy, enough to be interesting, not so much that it is un-listenable. The vocals are a lot like Dodos, which fits their sound a lot better than it fits Dodos. From Seattle, this was their first release in Jan '13. They've recently released a 7" that is on their band camp. Listen in full/buy here.

[kaxxla]

Band: Tender Hips Album: City EP

This is a bit more garage/noise-rock-y than what I normally post, but it's really well done. They have a good drummer, which is the main thing that makes this better than similar bands. Think The Thermals, but with more yell-y vocals. They are from Seattle and this appears to be their first release. I'm looking forward to a full-length from these guys. Listen in full/buy here.

[kaxxla]

Band: Friends and Family Album: Happy, Good-Looking, and in Love

There are like, 20 people in this band. They remind me a bit of Of Montreal, but I think it's just the main singer. Overall I'd say a mixture of Of Montreal, Beirut, and Arcade Fire. There are lots of horns/strings in there (Beirut) and lots of epic multi-part vocals (Arcade Fire).  The recording quality is a little rough at times, but it's their first full-length and it's self-released so I'll give them a pass on that. Oh, and they're from Seattle. Listen to more/Buy here.

[kaxxla]

Band: Tunng Album: Turbines

This is billed a "Folktronica" which is my new favorite made-up genre. There's no way to describe this that doesn't sound totally gimmicky and awful, but just trust me and listen to the above song. It's basically indie-folk with synthesizers, which is way better than that sounds like it would be. Male and female vocals and relatively simple orchestration.

[kaxxla]

I'm Baaaaaack

Just to recap: I got a (6-month temp) job, and then various aspects of my life completely fell apart, and then I got really sick with some mystery 2-week stomach virus that involved puking 11 times in 4 hours and a 1am ER visit. July was not great. But now it's August and August will be better. Because I said so.

[kaxxla]

Band: High Highs Album: Open Season

I like this a lot. It's a little dream-pop-y but not to the extreme of Beach House. It also reminds me a bit of Oh-Inverted-World-era Shins and Bon Iver's more recent stuff. Male vocals with simple guitar and piano.

[kaxxla]

Band: Big Black Delta Album: s/t

In general I tend to not like bands whose sound is entirely dependent on whatever the it band of the moment is doing. For example, all those bands that sounded like Animal Collective back in 2009 after Merriweather came out and everyone who tried to be Bon Iver around the same time after his first album came out. These bands are like that awkward friend who just assumes your personality and likes/dislikes instead of creating a personality of his/her own out of insecurity or low self-esteem or whatever. That person is annoying. Those bands are annoying.

The sound(s) of the moment that everyone tries to emulate seem to change every year or so and right now we're on the most annoying one of recent memory: the faux-80s dance band. There are at least 2 or 3 of this exact same band in KEXP's adds every week. All of them will be immediately forgotten once this phase has passed. I don't even know what band started this one, but I really wish they hadn't. If I wanted to listen to the soundtrack of Forever 21 I would go to Forever 21, but that will never happen because Forever 21 is a living nightmare of cheap polyester and skinny teenagers.

So that was a big long rant to say: if I had to pick a faux-80s dance band to write up I would pick this one because they are at least kind of making an effort at being original and have some legit talent to back it up.

[kaxxla]

Band: Bibio Album: Silver Wilkinson

This is a lot like Bonobo, but with more pop influences and more vocals. Very lush and mellow, some songs are a little slow to develop, but overall this album is pretty good.

[kaxxla]

Band: The Baptist Generals Album: Jackleg Devotional to the Heart

I should have known about this band because they've been around for a while and are on Sub Pop, where I interned once upon a time, but I was 15 when they put their last album out so I'm giving myself a pass on this one. This is laid-back, but interesting indie-rock that sounds like all the best parts of the early 2000s.

[kaxxla]

Band: Young Fathers Album: Tape Two

This band describes themselves as a "psychedelic hip-hop boy band". Sure. They are from Edinburgh so they have Scottish accents, which is obviously the best. Think of a more interesting The Streets.

[kaxxla]

Band: Don't Talk to the Cops! Album: Champions of Breakfast

Disclaimer: I know absolutely nothing about hip hop. Seriously, nothing.

I guess this is considered hip hop, a genre of which I like very little, but I like this. They are from Seattle and I know we're all recovering from the world's collective freak out about Macklemore* but these guys are really good too. It's a little weird but isn't super over-produced like a lot of hip hop (even a lot of indie hip-hop).

*In the immortal words of Gabe Delahaye from Videogum: "Maybe a little MackelLESS though now."

[kaxxla]

Band: Sam Amidon Album: Bright Sunny South

This reminds me a lot of The Creek Drank the Cradle-era Iron and Wine. Peaceful and acoustic with finger-picked guitar.