skatterbrain!

an internet pop thing since 2005. phila pa.

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A Monthly Mix: October 2015!

Long time, no see, Fall pals! We’re back—for a minute!

While it’s no secret that Skatterbrain has fallen into a pretty neglected state of disrepair, it’s also really no secret that I’m pretty unable to resist the cozy charms of a good Fall mix—so here we are. There’s loads of new and amazing tracks here, most notably All Dogs’  seriously truly completely wonderful “Flowers” and a demo by Russia’s Ensslin that I’ve barely been able to turn off for weeks. And if that’s not enough, it all starts with Veruca Salt’s “Number One Blind,” which is basically the musical equivalent of a pile of crunchy leaves.

DOWNLOAD IT!

01. Veruca Salt “Number One Blind” 02. Ensslin “Melancholy” 03. Knife Pleats “Terrible” 04. Petal “Sooner” 05. Saturday Looks Good To Me “Car Crash” 06. Night Flowers “Sleep” 07. All Dogs “Flowers” 08. Honeyuck “Wasted Eyes” 09. The Castaway Stones “Daydream Of You At Night” 10. Gaze “From The Inside” 11. Grammar “New World” 12. Shunkan “Paleontologist” 13. A Grave With No Name “Steps” 14. Lush “I Have The Moon” 15. Froth “Afternoon” 16. Bruising “Emo Friends”

Have a blast! Maybe I’ll see you again soon.

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A Monthly Mix: May 2015

So, first of all—as some comments seem to have been surmising, Skatterbrain is not in fact dead. But after four months you’d have good reason to believe so, wouldn’t you? Nope. You’re stuck with me—at least for mixes. And what better time to return to them then the true beginning of Spring?!

On account of the extended hiatus, I decided to pack this month’s mix with 18 of the sunniest damn pop songs I could cram into a zip file. As per usual, old and new rub shoulders throughout—though this one is decidedly heavy on the Spring classics. For new, though, just keep an ear on the first half. I’d pay particularly close attention to that opening run: The MLS, Eternal Summers, and Mercury Girls?! It’s enough to grow legs out of your garden! Get on it!

DOWNLOAD IT!!! (18 tracks, 120mb .zip)

01. The Manhattan Love Suicides “(Never Stop) Hating You” 02. Eternal Summers “Together Or Alone” 03. Mercury Girls “Golden (Demo)” 04. The Pearly Gatecrashers “I Really Suffered” 05. Pipas “Mental” 06. The Goodly Thousands “Kiss Me Upside-Down” 07. English Singles “Disaster” 08. Gol Gappas “West 14″ 09. Even As We Speak “Blue Suburban Skies” 10. Spraydog “Kissy Lips” 11. The Brilliant Corners “Trust Me” 12. Boyracer “Vitamin B” 13. Glider “Stinger” 14. The Ethnobabes “Make Some Sound” 15. The Numbers “Sunset Strip” 16. #Poundsign# “Vitamin Dee” 17. The Fairways “Get It Right” 18. Tiger Tape “Stanna för alltid, gå härifrån”

<3

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Yay! A new record from The Tamborines is on the way!

'Sea of Murmur' will be self-released at the end of March via the band's own Beat-Mo Records. Here's a new video for old song "Indian Hill"—released a little over three years ago as a 7" a-side on Soft Power. This is apparently a "new mix," but I'd say that's being pretty generous. I definitely forgot how gorgeous this song was, though, so I'm pleased to be listening to it on repeat again this morning regardless.

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A Monthly Mix: December 2014!

First of all: Mounds of long-distance apologies for the outrageous radio silence that's been taking place over here since—yikes—October! Secondly: You didn't think I'd miss out on December, did you?!

All dressed up in the cozy Winter scene above, this month's mix is sixteen Bumble-approved songs as well-suited for an evening in front of the fire as they are for stomping though ten blocks of crunchy snow. Aaaaaand surprisingly enough for such a typically slow time of year, there are quite a few new ones this month—Pretty Sad, Fazerdaze, Let's Wrestle, and Philly's own (and amazing) Sheer Mag, to name a few—and they're all very worth more than a little further listening.

It's nice to be back and I hope you like the mix! Xoxo.

DOWNLOAD IT!!! (16 tracks, 124mb .zip)

01. Lilys "Claire Hates Me" 02. The Prids "When I Look" 03. Saturday Looks Good To Me "Can't Ever Sleep" 04. Sheer Mag "Point Breeze" 05. Little Whirls "Write For Us A Statue" 06. Pretty Sad "Wish You Knew" 07. Ace Bushy Striptease "Eve's Adolescent Concerns" 08. Ginnels "Woodlands" 09. Let's Wrestle "Wrexham Aluminium" 10. The Lodger "Let Her Go" 11. The Secret Stars "Snowday" 12. Sambassadeur "Whatever Season" 13. Fazerdaze "Reel" 14. Bulldozer Crash "Fay" (PO! cover) 15. St. Christopher "She Can Wait Forever" 16. Shrag "Coda"

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what happened with the nov mix ???

I was never able to get around to wrapping up the November Mix this year with all of the other business of the season going on. The December Mix, however, is right around the corner and is already almost done!

xoxo,Matthew

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A Monthly Mix: October 2014!

October's here! It's a time for warm, wooly fuzz. A time for whispered melodies. A time for dreamy reverb the size of a C-130 hangar. A time for opening a mix with Bauhaus' wobbly guitar feedback. And a time for closing it all down with a beautifully blown-out distortion ballad care of Las Robertas.

As always, there's a handful of new stuff to be had here, too. New gems from Happy Diving, T-Dead, Little Big League, The Soundcarriers, and Pity Sex make doing a little post-listen investigation well worth your time.

DOWNLOAD IT! (16 tracks, 130mb .zip)

01. Bauhaus "Dark Entries" 02. The Spinanes "Handful of Hearts" 03. Cocteau Twins "The Spangle Maker" 04. Happy Diving "Sad Planet" 05. Veronica Falls "Come On Over" 06. Crystal Stilts "The SinKing" 07. Tyrannosaurus Dead "Local Bullies" 08. Burning Hearts "Deep Waters" 09. Star "Switchblade Heart" 10. The Charlottes "We're Going Wrong" 11. Little Big League "Property Line" 12. Spent "Unwrapped, Ungiven" 13. The Soundcarriers "So Beguiled" 14. Jessica Lea Mayfield "Trouble" 15. Pity Sex "Acid Reflex" 16. Las Robertas "V for You"

<3

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Premiere: My Favorite "Second Empire"

I'm pleased as punch today to premiere the brand new languid fever dream of a video for My Favorite's "Second Empire"—the (reinvented) collective's first single in nearly a decade!

The a-side of a 7" single co-released by WIAIWYA and the group's own La Kalsa imprint, "Second Empire" is an apt return—bringing back the glittering melodic melancholy that made us all want to cry in the shadows of the dancefloor in the first place, but as a reinvented band of dreamers, in a changed landscape, with, of course, a saxophone.

If there's any justice in the popworld (hint: there isn't, but), My Favorite's brilliant return won't go unnoticed and the bedroom legacy that began 1994 will finally see the attention it deserves.

The record's two tracks can be streamed over on the My Favorite bandcamp, where you can ALSO buy the 7" (which you should absolutely do post-haste, especially with the long cold nights we have ahead of us).

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A Monthly Mix: September 2014!

Hi hi hi! It's finally Fall! And this mix is finally here! Slightest of apologies for the more than slight delay, but it's better now—I promise!—because the beginning of September didn't even feel like Fall anyway! As you might expect, it's pretty warm and fuzzy (both feelings-wise and copious effects pedals-wise) and wonderfully suited for a brisk night walk or super-sunny morning mosey. Play it to YOUR comfort level!

Download It!!!

01. Boyracer "Naked" 02. Echo Lake "Further Down" 03. Throwing Muses "Two Step" 04. Snow What "Metal Warrior" 05. Failed Flowers "Fuck You" 06. Mazzy Star "Be My Angel" 07. Butter The Children "Boozer" 08. Star Horses "Spend The Night" 09. Kindling "Seen & Heard" 10. Lunchbox "It Feels Good To Lose" 11. The Secret Stars "Shoe In" 12. Buddha On The Moon "Yardsale" 13. Working "Slow Movements" 14. That Dog. "She Looks At Me" 15. Yo La Tengo "I Heard You Looking" 16. Joyride! "Open Curtain"

XOXO, Gossip Girl

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Eeeeeeee! This new Tigercats track is making my day. "Well she's the greatest kisser / and god knows I'm no Bobby Fischer"—GUH, get out of town! Too perfect, it's just too perfect. All of this set to dreamy melodies and fizzy fruits and, oh yeah, a horn breakdown. And the news gets better: they've just recently signed to Fortuna Pop! and have a new record on the way set to drop early next year! Now go play this a few times, won't you?

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Just in time for Fall, the new Joyride! LP is here! It's bracing and brilliantly rough around the edges—suited as perfectly for wrestling with a dog in a pile of leaves as it is for some good old-fashioned reflective gazing out of car windows. You'd do well to add this to your Fall soundtrack as soon as humanly possible.

It's out on Salinas later this month, but you can go listen to the whole thing on bandcamp right now!

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Not a whole lot to say, because I'm sleepy and it's late, but for my money this is probably THE best shoegazing track to see the light of day this year. And it's here via the debut LP from Rostov-on-Don, Russia's brilliant Aerofall. Quite a few of the tracks from the self-titled record have been floating around for the past few years, but this new one (along with several more) join the others for an LP that reminds me of The Ecstasy of Saint Theresa at their most amazing moments—blistering low end guitars with loads of drive and (you know the drill) gorgeous, melodic, discernable at best atop-the-clouds female vox. The record was released by Hands And Moment back in April (haha) and quite frankly I'm a dummy for waiting this long to hear it—which meaaaaaans that you should RUN NOT WALK to the entirety of this record asap. You can't sleep on a record this loud anyway.

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A Monthly Mix: August 2014

As if this year hasn't already been a flat-out banner year for things we like, these past few months (and the next few on the horizon) have been tremendous in the melody department. Illustrating that fact quite well, this month's mix is sixteen all new songs spanning the a good bit of the globe—kicking off in a probably undisclosed garage in California and finishing up as screaming feedback in Rostov-on-Don, Russia. SO FUN.

If this is the kind of brilliance that late-Summer is capable of, I think I might be willing to postpone my autumnal longing for just a little bit longer.

Here's the tracklist and link. Listen loud! All of these songs hail from records either fresh out of the oven or just on their way out, so if you love them please dig a little deeper and support the bands!!!

DOWNLOADDDDDDDD!

01. Terry Malts "Let You In" 02. Bent Shapes "86'd in '03" 03. Earth Girls "Who We've Never Met" 04. Crabapple "Loose Ends" 05. Joanna Gruesome "Jerome (Liar)" 06. Lightfoils "Addict" 07. Rat Columns "Pink Mist" 08. Literature "New Jacket" 09. Alvvays "Atop A Cake" 10. The Luxembourg Signal "We Go On" 11. Flowers "Joanna" 12. Siamese Twins "Alone" 13. Amanda X "Dream House" 14. Fleabite "Boom Boom Boom" (Vengaboys cover, kinda) 15. Cancers "Glaciers" 16. Aerofall "Nice"

<3

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This song! This band! This whole fucking record! My god, this is just 100% Summer, isn't it? Just go ahead and throw a few dashes of Velocity Girl, Superchunk, and Veruca Salt (salt, HAH) into a blender, add a few of your favorite summer camp movies, mix on medium (so you still have some chunks), and you've got Cancers.

Ella Kaspar and Lenny Miller round out the Athens, GA-based duo seemingly hellbent on creating melodies as formidable as the mammoth amounts of fuzz and distortion they stir upon. Fatten the Leeches is their debut LP, and if you hadn't picked up on it by now, it's tremendous! It's out September 16, so you'll have to wait a bit, but listening to "Be Cool" all Summer long doesn't sound so bad anyway.

If you need more, a 7" and a demo can be all yours over on Kandy Kane Records' bandcamp page. The record will be released via Kandy Kane (digital/cd) and Dead Broke (vinyl/cassette).

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A Monthly Mix: July 2014!

Hey July Friends! It's a new month and time for a new mix! This month is all about that summer feeling—you know, the one that makes you wanna flop down on it. That said, there's no Jonathan Richman (One can only put that song on so many Summer mixes in a row), but there's a whole lot of other A+ stuff going on.

Melbourne Cans (from, well, you guessed it) open the mix up with "Drowned Rats", a song I've unofficially (read: not here) been raving about for a few weeks now. Anyway, it's perfect and it might be one of my favorites of the year. It's followed by another two fantastic new ones in a row from Eureka California (not from California) and Burnt Palms (from California), both of which have just released new, spot-on Summer records. Get on it! The Cocteaus and Lush do some dreamy, sunny things and then we're back to a pair of new pop from Diners and Strange Babes (careful with the outro, it's an earworm). Okay that's really enough play by play. The rest of the songs are really good too, I promise. Should you fall in love, do follow the links and buy the records!

DOWNLOAD IT!!!

01. Melbourne Cans "Drowned Rats" 02. Eureka California "Edith (One Day You'll Live In A Bunker)" 03. Burnt Palms "Again" 04. Cocteau Twins "Summerhead" 05. Lush "Lit Up" 06. Diners "Hangout With You" 07. Strange Babes "Holiday" 08. Moped "Hotel" 09. Betty Please "Airport Love" 10. Tyrannosaurus Dead "Post Holiday Dead Song" 11. Catchers "Cotton Dress" 12. The Magick Heads "Before We Go Under" 13. Gleemer "Weekend Sisters" 14. #Poundsign# "Starry Night"

HAPPY SUMMER!

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A few things:

1. This is unquestionably my new personal anthem. 2. Do not sleep on this new Ace Bushy Striptease record because it's brilliant, charming, hilarious, jangly, and wildly infectious. 3. Only listening to records with Gilmore Girls references henceforth.

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A Monthly Mix: June 2014!

Almost two weeks later, I'm still coming down from this year's NYC Popfest. It was easily the best one yet, and as with every year, I'm left with not only new friends, new memories, and new foot blisters, but a refreshed excitement for the current state of POP!

That said, it's probably then no big surprise that this month's mix is packed with loads of new stuff! There's quite a few familiar names from this year's Popfest in addition to another handful from all corners of the International Pop Underground—from Day Ravies in Sydney, Australia to Heavy Friends in Baltimore, Maryland! Still a lot of 2014 left, let's get excited!!!

This month's mix is dedicated to June 12th birthday twins and all-around POP! princes, Michael Avishay and Kevin Adickes!

DOWNLOAD THE JUNE 2014 MIX!

01. Day Ravies "Sun Up" 02. Wild Balbina "Stay Alive" 03. Martha "1967, I Miss You, I'm Lonely" 04. Gold-Bears "For You" 05. Weed Hounds "Heather W." 06. The Leaf Library "The Greater Good" 07. Pony Up! "What's Free Is Yours" 08. Colour Me Wednesday "(I'm Not Coming To Your) BBQ" 09. Ace Bushy Striptease "Ibiza Rocks" 10. Cold Beat "Mirror" 11. Golden Grrrls "We've Got..." 12. Pale Lights "Manhattan" 13. Cocktails "Don't Bother" 14. Comet Gain "Saturday Night Facts Of Life" 15. The Spook School "You Don't Know" 16. Heavy Friends "Storm The Matchbook"

<3

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Monday Catch-Up!

In case you were unfortunate enough to miss them last week, here a few things to catch up with and further improve this sunny Monday morning! POP YOUR PROBLEMS AWAY!!!

Little Big League "Year of the Sunhouse" The Philly foursome responsible for the one of the best LPs of last year are back already with a new song set to appear on one side of a forthcoming split 7" with Ovlov out in August on Tiny Engines Recs! The track's as good or better than anything on the previously mentioned LP and Michelle Zauner's vocals and lyrics are instantly impressive as always. And hey! Their tour starts Monday at the Barbary in Philly! Be there or elsewhere! Dates here!

Gold-Bears "Yeah, Tonight" It's been tough to keep a lid on this one for the past few months! Gold-Bears sophomore LP Dalliance is about as good as indiepop gets these days. Featuring guest vocals from Emma Kupa (of the hugely missed Standard Fare), "Yeah, Tonight" is a blistering pop song and perfectly suited for opening the record. Right out of the gate, it's displays the both the matured subject matter and wildly assured songwriting (and guitar feedback) skills of lead Gold-Bear Jeremy Underwood. A fucking plus.

School "Easier" Four singles in now and Göteborg's School show little to no interest in releasing anything that isn't a flat-out shimmering pop gem. Just one question remains—WHERE'S THE RECORD???