As summer begins to wind down to a close (already?!), the number of new releases each week starts to increase gradually the closer we get to the Christmas holiday. We are only about four months away from Christmas – that’s just nuts. Anyways, this is a great week for new releases, and we urge you to listen to this entire mix. In fact, this mix is meant to be listened to from the first to the last song uninterrupted; we think you’ll see what we mean after you’ve spun it two or three times.
To stream this Best New Releases mix all the way through, just click on the first track and the embedded Y! player will do the rest. Of course, you can also download for free the songs you like the most (all we ask is that you somehow show some love to the bands you like the most from this mix) by doing a right click on the song title and then select Save As to save the MP3s to your computer.
This week’s Best New Releases contains new tracks and albums from bands we already dig, such as Cut Off Your Hands and Fool’s Gold, to bands that are new to us, like Bad Sports and Gold Leaves. Other Recommended Releases This Week:
Mister Heavenly Chairlift Gold Leaves The War on Drugs Botany The Weather Station Her Space Holiday Hercules & Love Affair Yob The Yellow Ostrich Trophy Wives
Thumbs Up to New Releases from COYH, Fool’s Gold & Botany
The New Zealand indie pop band, Cut Off Your Hands (how do you cut off the other hand if one hand is already cut off?), dropped its third LP this week. The perky, uptempo lead track from the album, “You Should Do Better,” is a great way to kick off this week’s Best New Releases. The song is simply infectious, embellished with jangling guitar notes, a non-stop tambourine beat and a heavy, melodic bass line, as well as the easily recognizable vocals of lead vocalist Nick Johnston.
“You Should Do Better” – Cut Off Your Hands (courtesy of My Old Kentucky Blog) from Hollow
On Tuesday,Fool’s Gold dropped their sophomore album, Leave No Trace, via Frenchkiss Records. While it is a bit of a departure from the sunny tropical feel of their debut album, there is still plenty to dance to, and to love about Leave No Trace, which is a strange name for an album that is so full of fantastic music.
“Street Clothes” – Fool’s Gold from Leave No Trace
It’s a bit baffling that some blogs we frequent have not made much mention of the new album from the electro-pop/synth music project Botany, the moniker of 23-year-old experimental synth-pop musician Spencer Stephenson of Texas. We expect to be hearing more about him in the near future, and would not be surprised if he is booked for 2012’s SXSW. (Read More about Botany via the new Music Quickies Blog)
“Water Parker” – Botany from Feeling Today
“Feeling Today” – Botany from Feeling Today
Mister Heavenly, The Jim Jones Revue & More
Sometimes when there are so many bands that you are trying to keep tabs on, you’re going to inadvertently miss some. It’s been a while since we’ve listened to Mister Heavenly, a Subpop recording artist, with a new album out this week, Out of Love.
The lead track, “Bronx Sniper,” has the rage of grunge, and the sensibilities of indie rock, including frequent stops and starts that conjure up images of a big monster stomping through a city’s deserted streets, leaving a path of destruction in its wake. We still haven’t heard all of Out of Love yet, but so far, we like it a lot.
“Bronx Sniper”– Mister Heavenly from Out of Love
Thankfully, the rocking doesn’t stop there. No, not at all. Another band on our radar is The Jim Jones Revue, who seem to channel Jerry Lee Lewis, with the 50’s-sounding “Great Balls of Fire”-like track, “High Horse” from the band’s new LP, Burning Your House Down (Talking Heads‘ fans too?). This band really knows how to rock out, and we’ve already listened to the new LP a couple of times – it’s terrific!
“High Horse” – The Jim Jones Revue from Burning Your House Down
Her Space Holiday Calls It Quits With Farewell Album
The gifted purveyor of glitch pop music, Her Space Holiday (aka, Marc Bianchi) released his farewell, self-titled album this week. The lead track from the LP, “Ghost in the Garden” is a fantastically addictive track that is just one of many such tracks on the album. This past May, Her Space Holiday, much to the dismay of thousands of fans worldwide, announced that this would be the final album as the highly regarded indie pop outfit.
“Ghost in the Garden” – Her Space Holiday from Her Space Holiday
The War On Drugs Release New LP; Chairlift Single
Just about as fast as you can like a band from the get-go was basically how we became acquainted a couple of years ago with the Philadelphia indie/alt rock band, The War on Drugs. Interestingly, Adam Granduciel moved from Oakland to Philadelphia in 2003 where he met singer/songwriter Kurt Vile.
The two began playing music together from the get-go, and in 2005, recorded as The War on Drugs, self-releasing a demo EP that year. By 2008, Vile had departed from the band – earning his cred as a gifted solo artist.
Later that year, the band gave away their debut EP, Barrel of Batteries, and established themselves as a band to watch. In fact, they signed to the popular indie label Secretly Canadian to released their 2008 debut LP, Wagonwheel Blues.
It was this album that first turned us onto the band, and we’ve been fans ever since. The WOD’s are commonly associated with genres from indie rock to Americana, and are believed to be heavily influenced by artists that range from Bob Dylan to My Bloody Valentine.
This week, The War on Drugs released their second album, Slave Ambient. The lead single, “Come to the City,” and “Baby Missiles” are two of our favorite tracks from the LP. If you like these two tracks, it’s a good bet that you’ll like/love the album. You can download Slave Ambient via iTunes.
“Come to the City” – The War on Drugs from Slave Ambient
Double-shot: “Baby Missiles” – The War on Drugs from Slave Ambient
“Amanaemonesia” – Chairlift from Amanaemonesia 7″
New Bands We Like: Bad Sports and Gold Leaves
A totally new band that we’ve never heard of before, Bad Sports, bang out the 1970’s-pop rock-sounding track, “Teenage Girls,” a perfect track for a mixtape of summer anthems, even as summer quickly fades away.
“Teenage Girls” – Bad Sports from Kings Of The Weekend
“Days of Denton” – Bad Sports from Kings Of The Weekend
A few months ago, we learned about a new musical project, Gold Leaves, from Seattle-based songwriter Grant Olsen, who is more widely known as ‘Arthur’ in the duo Arthur & Yu.
Jason Quever of Papercuts was by Olsen’s side through most of the recording process, serving as co-producer, engineer, and multi-instrumentalist. Ben McConnell, Thao Ngyuen, Amy Blaschke, and members of the Moondoggies all contributed to the album as well.
“Vocally, the album’s title track oddly gives me a My Morning Jacket vibe, but musically it replaces the alt-country/jam sounds with a 60’s psych/brit-folk/pop influences.” – My Old Kentucky Blog
The mellow, daydream-inducing track, “Cruel/Kind,” is one of the highlights of The Ornament, as well as one of the most beautiful, heartfelt ballady songs that we’ve heard so far this year.
In fact, the song conjures up a scenario in which Don McLean lifts a few riffs and melodies from the 1969 Grammy-winning Top 10 track, “Everybody’s Watching” (and which later became a staple on 1970’s A.M. radio) by Harry Nilsson, and makes his own track out of it.
Every time we listen to “Cruel/Kind,” there’s just no doubt that it is one of the most touching songs from a relatively unknown artist so far this year.
Thankfully, the treats don’t end there. But you’ll have to buy a copy of the album to find out for yourself what we are talking about. Oddly, there are no matching results when googling “Gold Leaves band.” Not a band website, MySpace page, Lastfm or Bandcamp profile – nada.
Firstly, “gold” and “leaves” are fairly common terms (but not together); it simply looks like there are no websites for the solo career of Grant Olsen. If anyone finds any additional information about Gold Leaves, please let us know.
Following Gold Leaves, the Boulder-via-Brooklyn electro/synth pop duo, Chairlift, released a new seven-inch single, “Amanaemonesia,” this week.
“Cruel/Kind” – Gold Leaves from The Ornament
Other Fresh Tracks from New Albums Out This Week
“You’re Like a Bad Song” – Trophy Wives from Old Scratch
“Fiery Ring(“ – Appetite from Scattered Smothered Covered (stream)
“Robin Hood” – The Great Book of John from The Great Book Of John
“My House” – Hercules and Love Affair from Blue Songs
“Falling Down” – Hotel Lights from Girl Graffiti
“Bee Nose” – Pink Skull from Psychic Welfare
“Derelict” – Sundress from Sundress EP (self-released)
Box Elder” (Pavement) – Astrid Swan from Hits (Pavement For Girls)
“Everything I Saw” – The Weather Station from All of It Was Mine
“Whale” – Yellow Ostrich from The Mistress
“Prepare The Ground”– Yob from Atma
“Smokin’ 100s Alone”- Bottle Rockets from Not So Loud: An Acoustic Evening With…
“Comforts of the Coffin” – Matthew Friedberger from Cut It Out
“The Eagle, or the Serpent” – Case Studies – (courtesy of Pitchfork) from The World Is Just a Shape to Fill the Night
August 16
Ana Popovic – Unconditional
Astrid Williamson – Pulse DC
Botany – Feeling Today
Canon Blue (Daniel James/Efterklang) – Rumspringa
Case Studies – The World Is Just a Shape to Fill the Night
Charlie Simpson – Young Pilgrim DC
Cut Off Your Hands – Hollow
Eli Young Band – Life At Best
Fionn Regan – 100 Acres of Sycamore (U.K.)
Gold Leaves – The Ornament
Guy Clark – Songs and Stories
Hotel Lights – Girl Graffiti
Jeff Bridges – Jeff Bridges
Jill Scott – From the Vault Vol. 1
Kris Delmhorst – Cars (Cars Covers Album)
Lex Land – Were My Sweetheart to Go DC
Luke Temple – Don’t Act Like You Don’t Care
Maria Taylor – Overlook DC
Mister Heavenly – Out of Love
O Brother Where Art Thou – Soundtrack (Deluxe)
Ollabelle – Neon Blue Bird
Psychic Babble – My Brother’s Ears…
Sena Ehrhardt – Leave the Lights On
The Bottle Rockets – Not So Loud/Acoustic
The War on Drugs – Slave Ambient
Various – John Martyn Tribute Album DC