Let’s Break Up the Band

This is looking like Hardly Art week around here. I’m not on their payroll, but they do send me a CD now and again like the new La Sera record. If you hadn’t heard, La Sera is one of the side projects of the Vivian Girl‘s Katy Goodman (the other being All Saints Day) and holds to the current trend of that band’s side projects being better than their recent records.  Goodman wrote the songs in flurry and sent them off to her buddy Brady Hall here in Seattle where he laid down all the music.

This is a much more polished affair compared to the Vivian Girls.  All the edges have been softened and the frays tucked under with Goodman’s light angelic voice floating on the billowy clouds created by Hall.  It all has a very studied, 60’s girl group thing going on that seems to be prevalent in nearly ever indie record these days. The blog Still Single scoffed that it contained nothing more than “public domain” melodies. I don’t know about the current legal status of the songs, but taken at face value this is a pleasant record. It floats by a quite amiably and subdued way makes for a very comfortable listen.  It seems Vivian Girls take a lot of heat for being vapid party girls and maybe that’s the case when they get together, but on their own they seem much more measured and in control and La Sera ( and the Babies) make a case that sometimes your best friends can be a bad influence on you and you need to make a break.  This record is a good break.

mp3: La Sera – Never Come Around

In other Hardly Art news, besides announcing that they’ll be releasing a Seapony record, and the second album from Orlando, Florida’s Jacuzzi Boys. The label also has a couple new 7-inch singles as well. One from Descendents fan Colleen Green which snags four songs from her cassette from last year called Milo Goes to Compton and puts them to vinyl. Her Twitter feed verges on the pot-obsessed, but her songs on this record have been nicely cleaned up. Where she use to sound like she could have been in the Dum Dum Girls, now she’s verging more toward the Bangles.

mp3: Colleen Green – Y Do U Call Me?

The second single is from Vancouver, BC’s Dizzy Eyes. This is their first release, and maybe their last as singer/guitarist Alejandro Constanzo was turned down by the Canadian government for citizenship.  Obviously the Canadian government doesn’t take into account one’s status in a cool band when deciding who to deport.  No worries though, apparently Constanzo is allowed back in come fall and the band will be at SXSW next week.  Although Constanzo is from Mexico he sounds Swedish when he sings and Dizzy Eyes come off a bit like a Shout Out Louds with a Fall fetish.

mp3: Dizzy Eyes – Let’s Break Up the Band

Head on over to Hardly Art to order up some records.