Summer has come - time for us to sign out for now. I figured I’d leave you with this great music video from Dent May. Have a great summer, and, because many of us at WSPN are all graduated, have a great life.
WSPN GOOD MUSIC NOW ALWAYS. Do us proud kids.
Click HERE to watch Deer Tick performing “Let’s All Go To The Bar” over at Daytrotter! If that’s not a song made for Friday, I don’t know what is.
Meet Alabama Shakes. As a former resident of Louisiana, I couldn’t be more proud of the sounds coming out of our neighbors. Have you ever driven through Alabama? It’s like driving through a lush green Sahara Desert - aka is it take forever and is mostly deserted except for a few cities like Birmingham and Montgomery, which, surprisingly, are strongholds of underground punk and solid thrashing blues indie mash-ups. So to hear this kind of music coming out of Athens, well while it doesn’t surprise me, it certainly took me off guard. Hold On accurately describes their one-year rise to fame, “BUT I DON’T WANNA WAIT!!”
I’m biased - I’ll be honest. The first boy I ever loved was from Alabama. And the south is my home - despite a seemingly never-ending hiatus in New England. But my bias is backed up by pretty much every blog in existence, plus the likes of Jack White, who booked them for his opener. They were among headliners at NPR’s SXSW showcase, they are on tour, and they’ve released this album, Boys & Girls - all in a single year. Hearing something as sincere as Brittney’s wavering, yowling, yelling and crooning lyrics like “I feel so homesick, but where’s my home? Where I’m from or where I’m born?” on Rise to the Sun, gave me goosebumps. Even if you’re not from the south, it is easy to identify with, being eighteen and moving to college, being twenty one and leaving college, being twenty three and just not knowing. Brittney nails it - the fear of living a repetitive life is coiled up in the search with home - “I wake up, I go to work, I come back home.”
So many tracks on this album shine - check out in the hotbox for en energetic take on Alabama blues from the Alabama Shakes.
Come catch Frankie Rose, whose album is out from Slumberland this spring, with opener DIVE, a side project of Beach Fossils guitarist, at Valentine’s in Albany tonight. Tickets are only 10$ and you can purchase them here —->
Out today from Ribbon music is Lower Dens album Nootropics. The album is a step away from the shoegaze of Twin Hand Movements - the bands last album - and a step towards a super soaked atmosphere of deep space or the darkest depths of the weirdest mind.
Apparently Jana Hunter was knee-deep in Kraftwerk, Brian Eno, and “that Iggy Pop record that David Bowie produced, she told Pitchfork. And as they rightly suggest - you can hear it in the album’s synths and spirals, less guitar picking and more far-out drifting. None of the influences are over saturated though - everything flows together, often times held together by a background of rumbles and vocals that range from raspy to smooth. Check out the track Propagation - the video plays with glow-in-the-dark and white painted scientist people running around in the woods.
As the video above suggests, I’m not totally sure if this album is actually about the abstractions that Jana Hunter apparently told Pitchfork it was about - Dada or transhumanism - or if for the whole album we are just inside Jana’s head. The lyrics range from personal to confusing, but that doesn’t make the album less listenable. Just let the sounds take control, and give it a solid listen.
Coming soon to the hot box near you - Best Coast’s new album The Only Place (California, clearly). The album is a bit more serious (or is it mocking serious albums..?) than her last. Still sun infused, but maybe through sunglasses or something. Described by Death and Taxes as definitely giving a fuck. If you want to hear Bethany try her hand at something other than stoner fuzzy rock - check out The Only Place.
To go along with the sick Wavves+Vice video game - here is a cool Take Away Show from La Blogotheque. Watch the Wavves boys get kicked off a roof and gurgle up candy all in a couple of minutes.
Spring semester programming officially ends tomorrow at midnight, but live DJs are always better than autobroadcast. Feel free to continue your show til summer programming begins. (Then you can take advantage of these amazing new Hotbox adds!)
#22 Is/Is - III
#29 Evans the Death - Evans the Death
#35 Blasted Canyons - 2nd Place
#41 St. Vincent - Radio EP
#49 Light Asylum - Light Asylum
#51 Blockhead - Interludes After Midnight
#57 Ramona Falls - Prophet
#62 Best Coast - The Only Place
#72 Lower Dens - Nootropics
#79 The Cribs - In the Belly of the Brazen Bull
WSPN feels for you on finals week – staying in the library til close, switching to Burgess, then waking up early to finish the last couple pages of that paper. Surely all you need is a little distraction from your worries!
Click the link above to enjoy the Anamanaguchi cover of Wavves’ “So Bored” and play Vice and Mishka’s “Weed Demon” video game. (Be sure to plug in your headphones and tell your friends you’re putting on some instrumental music so you can really concentrate.)
Love, Kid Nickels
