Snails, a band from Bristol, can neatly be filed in the category where you keep your Kevin Ayers, Cate Le Bon, Belle & Sebastian, Gorky’s Zygotic Mynci, the Kinks and Ladybug Transistor albums. You keep those records close to each other I hope. This band’s first album Safe in Silence hit the digital landscape a couple weeks ago and its bucolic psychedelia I have discovered to be a perfect autumnal soundtrack.
The songs have an easy wistful sound that bounce along with flourishes of strings and horns economically interspersed. It’s a classic sounding record packed with classic sounding pop songs that deserves some recognition and some space on your shelves.
Right now this is a digital only release, but I saw yesterday that it will be getting a limited vinyl issue soon on Feral Child (who just put out a Peter Astor single). In the meantime, you can listen to and buy Safe In Silence from Snails’ bandcamp page.
If this were an outdoor blog you might be asking, where the heck is Lake Ruth? Since this is a music blog I don’t need to give you directions, hopefully you know where to find records on the internet. Hewson Chen of The New Lines, Matt Schulz of Savak, Holy Fuck, Enon along with vocalist Allison Brice from The Eighteenth Day of May opened up their resort earlier this year with a single that was like a cool drink perspiring on the arm of your Adirondack chair while you gazed at the ripples spreading out on the glassy lake.
If you are a fan of Chen’s New Lines, you will be likely be staying a while at Lake Ruth.They have expanded and updated the place with the luxurious long player Actual Entity. You get the sense that the place was built in the 60’s by a French architect who went to school in Berlin and studied Italian Renaissance. Also I think the place may have been used as the set for some long forgotten sci-fi television series, but I can’t be certain. Grab a copy and see if you can figure it out.
Part five of five of the mid 2013 album round-up is finally here. A little late as the this year’s National IPA day took precedence yesterday to actually putting this final installment online. Rest assured though, I was of very sober mind when considering all of these records.
“Blue, laid-back, playful and breezy. They will make your heart ache. In fact, they could have put a sticker on the cover stating: Warning. May cause slight bouts of melancholia.” Feeling this bad never felt so good.
The Shivas can stretch from Thee Oh Sees style romps to shimmering surf rides to Freakwater style country numbers. Whiteout is a wonderfully varied and accomplished album from a group of young Pacific Northwest punks.
Every now and then I like to put on a record that makes me feel like I am floating in space. Ladies and gentlemen, this record creates zero gravity with its motorik grooves that you will put it on repeat to avoid re-entry.
Seth Sutton finally decides to stop recording into a boombox and the results are more than satisfying. It’s not just sound quality, he’s also upped his songwriting. Hypertension a huge leap in quality and already a classic punk record in my book.
Portland’s Woolen Men are only a three piece, but they pack the power of four or five. All three members sing which leads me to believe they all write songs, but they’re all well versed in the same school of rock. Their songs can sound like earlyREM, Wire, the Clean and dB’s.
Paul Messis is an obvious fan of the Dovers, West Coast Experimental Pop Art Band, the Who and the Squires, but instead of doing covers, he’s creating his own future classics.
“Wimps songs adhere to the three chords and a cloud of dust rule. They’re raw, immediate, self-deprecating and fun. And who doesn’t need humorous odes to naps, intoxication, bad jobs, and the general banality of life to crank up when you need to forget about your sucky life?”
the finest kiss 