Track :: Lower Dens :: Brains

Not digging too deep for this one. Girl-next-door bombshell Jana Hunter has pulled her long line of charming men together for a new album, Nootropics, out in May via Ribbon Music. Lead single (and forthcoming 10") "Brains" just shuffled its way out of the Internet and interrupted my dinner conversation. This is a train song for blade runners, and highly recommended if you feel more secure defecating with the door shut even when no one else is home. They're not even due home for another 40 minutes. Hell, they went out of town for the weekend. Live a little, eh?

If the image shown on Lower Dens' website is any indication, this new record will have a shitload of keyboard textures. Must be in the B-more water supply.

Lower Dens :: Brains

Review :: Psychotronic Wiretap :: Sri Aurobindo

Sri Aurobindo
"Soul Vibrations of Man"
Cave Painting
Friends Records



This one skips hyperspeed altogether and goes straight to plaid. It's a kinetic-wah-bruiser that transformed my laptop into an interstellar command bay, and further proof that Baltimore is on a completely different planet. With a fidgety bassline scratching through leagues of spacedust and an organ that pierces through like an ancient supernova, Sri Aurobindo crosses that gap between Earth-bound prehistory and curious futurism. Psychedelia the way your red-assed shit-eating ancestors pondered about, and what your red-assed shit-eating descendants will read about in outdated textbooks.

This cut is from 2010's Cave Painting, being the second release from the expanding Baltimore-based Friends Records. I think I could be friends with these guys. We could ingest obnoxious amounts of DMT and build tree forts, maybe crack a few jokes. Catch them tonight at Baltimore's Golden West with other favorites Birds of Maya and Secret Mountains. I'm not sure if ride-share includes space-travel, but if anyone has wheels, let me know.

Buy Cave Painting here.


Sri Aurobindo :: Soul Vibrations of Man

News :: Our Machine Watches Your Machine :: Gorilla vs Bear

This past week GvsB posted a new winter track from one of our favorite 2010 bands. Somehow this is all I want to hear right now. It's the same light-streaked, yet bleak fare we've come to expect from the Baltimore duo (if it ain't broke, right?), and it's perfect for listening to while coaxing the last drop out from the bottom of the bottle. But then again, I'm also living out of a box right now, and I push a cart for a living, so maybe my opinion's not to be trusted.

Beach House :: I Do Not Care for the Winter Sun

News :: We Can See the Future :: Secret Mountains

A new cassette release is out from Baltimore's Secret Mountains with an LP to follow sometime in 2011. These guys specialize in drawn out jams. This track kicks off with a little space rock noise that finally comes down to earth with Kelly Laughlin's bleached out vocals. There are also a couple graceful transitions here where the band gears up or grinds down, giving the song the feel of a miniature mixtape.

Pick up the cassette from Friends Records. And if you have no idea what do with a tape anymore, you sweet, darling idiot, consider asking for one of these machines from one of your Black Friday-loving family members.

Secret Mountains :: Rejoice

News :: Upcoming Shows :: November

11/2: Deertick/Mark Sultan @ Black Cat

11/4: Future Islands @ Black Cat Backstage
         Fluorescent Scents @ Velvet Lounge

11/5: Clinic/Fresh & Onlys @ Rock and Roll Hotel

11/7: Black Mountain/Black Angels @ 9:30

11/8: Mountain Man @ 9:30

11/15: Glasser/Twin Shadow @ Black Cat Backstage

11/16: Grinderman @ 9:30

11/22: Delorean @ Rock and Roll Hotel

11/24: Kurt Vile/Purling Hiss @ Black Cat Backstage

Kurt Vile :: In My Time

Features :: Weaponize Your Stereo Today :: Fan Death Records

Catch the fall mixtape streaming  from FDR's website while it lasts. The songs range from pop-drones to chainsaw revving on the listenability scale. Highlights include a new song from Broken Water (Olympia, WA), which picks up with a Ron Asheton-style grumbling Detroit lead-in and settles neatly into a downward-gazing female grunge chorus.

My personal favorite has to be the new Puerto Rico Flowers song. For those who don't already know, this is the new band fronted by John Sharkey of Clockcleaner (Philadelphia). It rides the line of being too derivative of Joy Division to deal with, but if you imagine Sharkey's sadistic thrill hunt set in a melancholy British fog, the reverie becomes too thick to dismiss. He's abandoned his deranged (think: neighbor masturbating out the bay window of his model home) guitar in favor of synths, a move I'm more hip to thanks to B'more  growlers, Future Islands. Clockcleaner also has a  track included in this mix, which will be riding on their new FDR release. Can't wait to pick that one up (catch Auf Wiedersehen out on Load Records now). Those guys made me fear for the safety of my neighbor's daughter, for what I might do to her. How could I be so sick without knowing it?

Listen to it. Love it. Cry yourself to sleep. Wake up. Eat shit at your job. Drive home too fast. Expose yourself to your neighbors.