News :: Machine Dream Spins Records :: Marx Cafe

It's going to be about self-gratification this time. Mishaps and poor taste are assured.

Review :: Featureless Ghost :: MindBody

Got this tape in a few weeks ago, part of a batch from Night People, and I think it's the best thing to happen to me in 2012 so far. Seriously, before this, it was that skinned knee I got (just good to feel something, know what I'm saying?). But since this tape arrived I've been content just lolling around on the carpet with it. Propping it up on pillows on the living room floor, building fires in the fireplace, and laying around with a glass of Cab until the night drifts away from us. Been taking it out for bike rides, too, exploring new neighborhoods on the lookout for a cute cafe or maybe a yoga studio. One of our favorite things: buying cheeses neither of us has tried before.

Turns out Featureless Ghost goes through these motions with everyone. Trampin their way through cassette decks across the globe. But fuck it, I'm ready to be used. "Know-U" is the jam. Mas synthwave por favor. "Different Way" is the dance floor hit that may actually get me out on the dance floor. "Cool Dream" slips into a solidly psyched-out void from which it's hard to rebound your spacecraft.

It's cold, dark, and creepy material. Green ooze chockfull of designer mutagens.  Next time a tornado comes I want to take this album out to the storm shelter with me and plant the seeds for a superior, possibly winged race of people. Together we'll emerge and spread the word of OUR LORD AKAI. Even our elbow patches will have Ray Bans. Our turtlenecks will be wearing hair gel.

Pick it up from Night People. Everything they put out's fucking essential.




Bonus vid (pretend it's an Easter egg):

This video produced by Swan 7 for Newtown Radio is also a falling bomb worth planting yourself under:

Review :: Ghost Wave :: S/T EP

Gotta say I luv to play catch up. It's like going into the light with Carol Anne at the beast's beckoning; it feels right even though it's the opposite of what mommy keeps screaming at me not to do. Can't believe this sound's over a year old cuz I'm still turning it right round like it cropped up yesterday. And all because a couple uh guys from New Zealand jamming fast, fuzzed up pop.

Spent all night doing my taxes, so this is what you're getting for a Tuesday post. Do I feel bad about that? No. What I feel bad about is that there aren't enough hours between now and work tomorrow to get trashed.

Maybe this post's all about me fighting back the forces of the blug-o-sphere, stickin it to flood of information, getting old news back on the street cuz it's still relevant. No, wait, this is all about the Clean coming to town in June, and well maybe this shit's just awesome on repeat.

Don't deny the BEAST, Carol Anne.

Ghost Wave :: Hippy

Review :: Teledrome :: Double Vision

For your Saturday listening pleasure slash weekly Millenium Falcon flight crew headtrip: some new space age garage from Calgary released courtesy of Hozac. Teledrome find a nice sweet spot in the noir/naive/trash punk field of homegrown rock and roll. Five tracks of synth-warped hooks wrap both sides of this 45-rpm antidote to all of the the sullen drone acts unloading their single note opuses these days. The title track to Double Vision peels out of the gate on roller blades, and by the time that Side B buzzer "Replacements" rolls through the lead singer's making some pretty Kraftwerkian pronouncements like "resistors resist" and "transformers transform." Even though those are pretty insipid sentiments in writing, I'm suckered in by the techno-veracity and worn out by all of the windmilling my arms have been doing. That's TRUTH TALK Motorman style.

Hozac's got an armada of other releases to look forward to this year, including the Teledrome LP, a long-awaited Nice Face follow-up, and one from those garage sweethearts, Liminanas (no accent squiggle on this American's keyboard and no way I'm going internet style to ctrl+c/ctrl+v it from some .es  neither). And if you were lucky enough to get in on round three of the hook-up club, you'll be soaked with some hot sounds from upside-down Canada a-k-a Australia, motherfucker. Jesus, learn some geography will yuh?

Now I'm gunna crush a C-minus and peace out to some gott-damned! blu ray sci fi. Blip.

Video :: Sand Circles :: Motor City

Braindead. Beaten and abused. Nothing but a meat puppet from the scalp on down. Spent the day sucking down dirt like a grave robber on the hunt for a wristwatch.

Better keep this brief.

Ladies and gentleman, the past won't be haunting us anymore, the present passed us by, and the future failed to come at sundown yesterday. Welcome to the post-future world. What comes after the afterlife: Sand Circles. Robocop music straight out of Stockholm. Sounds like sitting alongside the highway with a radar gun waiting for somebody to beat sixty-five. Better believe I've ordered my copy from Not Not Fun.

Review :: Gap Dream :: S/T

Don't chuh look at me. I'm not crying, I'm just choppin' unyuns or maybe it's the seriously sweet sounds I've got humming through the Bandcamp.

Is it possible to be so into something that you can't be yourself without it? Your vision of yourself, your experience of the present isn't the same unless you're surrounded by something you only came across moments before?

Gap Dreams (not unlike the Gap itself) satisfies some weird psychically elusive part of myself that I didn't realize I needed for self-actualization. There's a satisfying rhythm, that would be perfect accompaniment for a laser-light show, and bangin' surf guitar, neither of which I realized I needed to proceed.

Listen to this...shit yourself...then come back crawling...

Released on Burger Records, but then what isn't?

Review :: Satan's Satyrs :: Wild Beyond Belief

Saturday night's alright for fighting, and Friday night's prime time for some geeked out doom punk.

You want my advice? Drag into work late tomorrow, skip out early, head home in time to go toe to toe with Natty Daddy, and see if you're not forged from steel in the morning. Hope you forget the 8% abv hellride in between, soundtrack courtesy of Herndon, VA's own. Shit, I never imagined I'd be typing that.



Coming out any day now from the label started by the folks over at Joint Custody in Adams Morgan called Trash King Productions:

First edition of 500: 300 on black vinyl, 200 on clear red vinyl. Proudly made in the USA.

You just know you wanna get in on that red vinyl, don't chuh, kid? So why not try? Pre-order yours and pick it up at the store's location downstairs from Pharmacy Bar.

Review :: Total Control :: Henge Beat

Another one I'm coming to late here, but thanks be to Josh at Red Onion for turning me on to it before it completely passed me by. Been a longtime fan of Eddy Current Suppression Ring and the UV Race and it's no surprise that this collaborative side-project of the Aussie garage punk makes some great noise. My imagined garage rock workshop Down Under has all of these guys working an assembly line together, spooling together meters and meters of CrO2 with their tiny little hands.

From the Iron Lung Records site:

The combination of all their previous work and a steady live band has come together to form the great Henge Beat LP. Beautifully housed in a bright European-art-designed gatefold sleeve. These guys have outdone themselves with this one. Musically it rests somewhere between late 70's UK new wave a-la Ha Ha Ha era ULTRAVOX and the "now sound" EDDY CURRENT SUPPRESSION RING Aussie garage that we all know and love. Add a dash of hopeful Krautrock flavor and the recipe is a smashing success. We could not be happier to offer this perfect execution to you. 

Swing by Red Onion and pick up your copy like I did or, if your xenophobia's acting up, stay in your . Alas, 2011 must have been a good year. Too bad I drank it all

  Total Control :: Retiree

Review :: Coma Cinema :: Blue Suicide

Can't stop listening to this. I think I love it. L-U-V. A year old, so it's the anniversary of sorts, so I'm not afraid to ask publicly at this point if Mat Cothran's up for doing a reissue, because I think I could sell this. Short run, high quality, cassette format. Everything above and beyond the cost of doing business goes back to the artist.

These are sluggish, pop missives composed by Jonah from the core of the whale's heart. Hyperliterate and tainted by an apathy for modern life. I would trust Mr. Cothran to explain to my health insurance company why they should cover the cost of my as-of-yet undiagnosed bone disorder.

Stream for free. Spend the dollar bills for the product. And make sure you check out Cothran's other projects.

[Note: Wonder Beard Tapes sells this release, but the site/functionality are non-site/non-functional as of this moment. This one right here. It's over.]

http://comacinema.bandcamp.com/

Video :: Gremlins :: JonBénet

Been meanin' to pack this one into your brain and watch it squirt back out of that play-doh factory you call a head. I don't hate you--in fact, I like you--I just like play-doh more. I guess that means I'm a bit touched, don't it?

Gremlins is comprised of members from Ricky Eats Acid, Toro y Moi, Braids, and Coma Cinema, which in case you can't do the supergroup math means that by minute three, you'll be wishing you could get all that play-do back in your head and keep it there. Hold it...hold it. Now if your parents would only come and pick you up before anyone sees you sneeze.

Review :: Each Other :: Taking Trips

On Prison Art's reissue of Each Other's demo, former members of Halifax's Long Long Long pump out some golden sounds: rich guitar pop with no small amount of whack-job psych freeloading its way onto our shores like a van-load of prescription meds. Some beautiful stuff here, pink-cheeked and earnest. The recording's crisp, the drums stick, and the guitar shines.

Purchase Taking Trips direct from Prison Art to get the download and this sweet looking product, too.

Each Other :: Freak Heat

In other news, making up for some lost time here, so we're gonna take it back to some recordings we've missed in past months, maybe even rewind a year. So if you find the urge, follow us into the light.

News :: Upcoming Shows :: April

Stick it to the man before he has the chance to offer you his hand.

04/01  :: Andrew WK :: 9:30 Club [SOLD OUT]
04/02 :: Wild Flag :: 9:30 Club [SOLD OUT]
04/03 :: Natural Child :: Black Cat Back Stage
                  Small Bones/Fell Types/others :: Asefu's
04/05 :: School of Seven Bells :: Black Cat
                  Fordists/The Deads :: Velvet Lounge
04/06 :: Windian Showcase :: Foul Swoops/The Bizarros/and more :: Montserrat House
04/07 :: Windian Showcase :: Spider Fever/The Shirks/and more :: Montserrat House
04/12  :: Converge/Pygmy Lush/others :: DC9 [SOLD OUT]
04/14  :: Crystal Stilts :: Rock and Roll Hotel
04/15 :: Lambchop :: Iota
                 BSR/Rat Babies/Akris/Fortress :: Velvet Lounge
04/17 :: Paint Fumes/Los Vigilantes :: Comet Ping Pong
04/18 :: Washed Out/Memoryhouse :: Black Cat [SOLD OUT]
04/21 :: Chairlift/Nite Jewel :: U Street Music Hall
                 Dirty Ghost/The Fire Tapes :: Comet Ping Pong
04/24 :: Keep Shelly in Athens :: DC9
04/28 :: Ceremony/Tone/The Orchid :: Velvet Lounge