Indie Artist/Group Profiles – INDIE ROCK CAFE

Cursive’s New Album ‘Mama, I’m Swollen’ Already One of 09’s Best Releases

Posted on 04/02/200912/18/2019 by Max Hammer

The new release from Cursive proves to become one of the best album releases of the spring, and likely to also be among IRC’s favorites albums of 2009 come the end of the year.

Last week, Cursive performed the song “From The Hips” on The David Letterman Show and it reminded me how fricking good they are. So, I got the new album right away. Verdict: Mom, I’m swollen with affection for the band’s new release Mama, I’m Swollen. Except in this case, it’s a good kind of swollen. Swollen with loving music juice.

It must have been tough for the band to pick one song to play on Letterman but “From The Hips” was definitely a good choice. Just a few of the other killer tracks include the title track “Mama I’m Swollen”, “What Have I Done?”, “Donkeys”. It might just be me, but sometimes these guys really sound like The Cure.

“From The Hips” – Cursive from Mama, I’m Swollen
“Mama, I’m Swollen” – Cursive from Mama, I’m Swollen

Get the new album from the band’s label Saddle Creek Records and check out the Cursive MySpace page.

In Dee Mail – New Songs from Alexis Babini, Fuzzy & Blue and King Black Acid

Posted on 03/21/200912/18/2019 by Max Hammer

Alexis Babini at Summerfest 2008. Photo by Laura Burton

With all that has been going on with South by Southwest there hasn’t been much time to catch up on music submissions. The quantity of music that comes into IRC is reaching unmanageable proportions. The backlog is getting out of control but I know there are some nugs in those emails and CD cases.

The following are just a few of the best artists and songs that have come in the mail in the past month or so – essentially, part of the back-logged. This installment has a different spin on it with a focus on artists from cities around the United States.

Bean Town Artist Gets Noticed

Alexis Babini is a singer/songwriter from Boston who has made waves in the past year by selling out venues in the northeast and winning the Berklee Performer Songwriter Contest. His debut album was released on March 3.

“Sometimes” – Alexis Babini from Breaking It In
Alexis on MySpace

NYC Radio Producer Releases New Free Tracks

Fuzzy & Blue is a music project by Jonathan Mitchell, a composer and radio producer living in New York City. These songs explore a period of misfortune set to the sounds of powerpop and 1980’s new wave music.

“Rubber Porcupine” – Fuzzy & Blue (aka Jonathan Mitchell) from s/t EP

Listen to and download free tracks from Fuzzy & Blue

Portland Has an Edgier Side, Too

King Black Acid are a Portland, Oregon alt rock-techno band whose song “Let’s Burn” was is featured on the film soundtrack for Underworld: Rise Of The Lycans.

They wrote: “We just made a music video for “Let’s Burn” in our garage using bed sheets and gaffers tape. Our friend Jeremiah Scott did the camera work and editing.”

“Let’s Burn” – King Black Acid from Underworld: Rise of the Lycans soundtrack

SXSW Song Sampler: Playlist of Artists and Bands from A to M

Posted on 03/17/200912/18/2019 by Max Hammer

This is another stellar year for South by Southwest. Even though the world’s most famous music conference doesn’t officially kick off until tomorrow, there is so much going on that even a team of 15 reporters (like some media outlets have) cannot possible cover it all.

The following playlist is just a sample of the many artists and bands performing at SXSW 09; out of necessity, I parred down the full list of artists to those which I like the most. Enjoy.

“Stay Son” – A Classic Education from Bologna, Italy

“Dimmer” – Bishop Allen from Brooklyn NY

“Around Your Neck” – Annuals from Raleigh NC

“Gila” – Beach House from Baltimore MD

“Oh Katrina” – Black Lips from Atlanta GA

“Old Home Movies” – The Botticellis from San Francisco CA

“24 Hour Heartbreak” – The Cloud Room Brooklyn NY

“Crystal Stilts” – Crystal Stilts from New York NY

“Turn Cold” – Cut Off Your Hands Auckland NZ

“Fa-Fa-Fa” – Datarock from Bergen, Norway

“All The Money I Had is Gone” – The Deep Dark Woods from Saskatoon SK

“Longtime” – Deer Tick from Providence RI

“Capture and Develop” – The Details from Winnipeg MB

“The Hangmen” – Dirtblonde from Liverpool UK

“Seasickness Pills” – Drink Up Buttercup from Horsham PA

“Face Down in the Right Town” – Earlimart from Los Angeles CA

“Welcome Ghosts” – Explosions in the Sky from Austin TX

“Red Gun” – The Forms from New York NY

“Two Sinners in the Garden” – David Garza from Austin TX

“Spirited” – Laura Gibson from Portland OR

“Pharmacy” – Golden Boys from Austin TX

“Deep Sea Diver” – Grizzly Bear Brooklyn NY

“OK Goodbye” – Adam Heldring from Stockholm, Sweden

“Robin” – Little Black Dress from Houston TX

“Let It Rain” – Living Things from Salt Lake City UT

“Ordinary Song” – The Little Ones from Los Angeles CA

“Year of the Dog” – The Lovely Sparrows from Austin TX

“Ignorant Boy” – Loney Dear from Jonkoping Sweden

“Hey Boy” – The Magic Kids from Memphis TX

“At the Mountains of Madness” – Magic Lantern from Long Beach CA

“Sleepy Lion” – Magic Magic from Boston MA

“Wake the Sun” – The Matches from Oakland CA

“Meet Me in the Garden” – Dent May & His Magnificent Ukulele from Oxford MS

“The Cannibal Queen” – Miniature Tigers from Phoenix AZ

“Bus Stop Lovers” – My Federation from Hove UK

Artists and bands N-Z will be published tomorrow for the official first day of SXSW 2009.

Cool SXSW Links

SXSW Official Website – Check official show times and venues

Free South by Southwest Sampler from NPR

SXSW 2009 Twitter Visualizer

More Great Indie Albums of 2008: Vampire Weekend’s Smash Debut

Posted on 02/27/200912/18/2019 by Max Hammer

We covered Vampire Weekend quite a bit since they burst onto the indie scene last year at this time. So, in the on-going series, More Best Indie Albums of 2008, here’s to Vampire Weekend’s wildly, and sometimes over-hyped, debut album.

It is rare for a new band to get so much coverage – from Rolling Stone to New York Times – from a debut album. Vampire Weekend came up with a fresh sound, some call it gimmicky (not I), that caught on. Within a few months they were the buzz band of early 2008. They’ve even been on Saturday Night Live which just propelled VW into another sphere of musical success.

The band’s album debut is full of fun, upbeat songs with an underlying swasi-indie pop sound they are so known for. Songs like “A Punk”, “Cape Cod Kwassa Kwassa” and “Oxford Comma” made the album a big hit in 2008.

There is no doubt that we loved this album and the band’s sound – even went to one of their shows in San Francisco – but over the year it became mundane. Now the pressure is really on these fellows from Brooklyn to come out with a solid follow-up to their popular break through debut.

“Ottoman” – Vampire Weekend available as a single only while awaiting word on when a new album is set for release. Interesting single and definitely a new sound.

So far as we can tell, there is only one relatively new song called “Ottoman” and is available for streaming on Vampire Weekend’s MySpace page.

Listen to Vampire Weekend’s DayTrotter Session from as early as October 2007, just a few months before their name and music exploded on the college radio and indie blogs.

IRC Artist of the Month: Joseph Denney, aka Spirit Spine

Posted on 02/07/200912/18/2019 by Max Hammer

Spirit Spine self portrait
New musicians popping up in recent weeks are beginning to make 2009 look like a promising year for indie rock, electronica and pop.

Yet another relatively unknown talent has caught our attention, and we think his sound will appeal to many people who have reacted so positively to Blind Man’s Colours’ post a couple of weeks ago.

Joseph Denney, aka, Spirit Spine, is a freshmen at Indiana University in Bloomington, who began a “music project” last fall that friends encouraged. His friends were right to encourage him. The result is a collection of sprawling, dreamy, psychedelic and pop-oriented songs that we keep playing again and again.

“My new album,” Denney wrote in an email to IRC, “is self-titled and has been compared to “Panda Bear + MGMT + New Order” and ‘The Beach Boys fronted by Lou Reed high on Nyquil and Redbull’ I was greatly influenced by Phil Spector’s “Wall of Sound” Technique as well as Surf Rock and 80’s Pop.”

That’s an excellent comparison. You can hear more of his other influences – like Joy Division and Beck, in Denney’s music as well, not to mention the obvious Animal Collective influences.

Denney says he created all of the music using the the computer software program Garageband on the Mac and some 8-tracking. This is an amazing example of how one talented young musician in the technological age can write, record, manufacture, distribute and market his own music for the rest of us to enjoy.

Highlights from Spirit Spine’s debut include “Trickledown”, “Crashers (Highs and Lows)”, “Heart Races”, “Raptures” and “Faustian Vice”.

Spirit Spine is a force to be reckoned with in 2009, and hopefully many of you will agree. The album Spirit Spine is available on iTunes through Lovegiffrae Records.

“Trickledown” – Spirit Spine from s/t
“Crashers (Highs and Lows)” – Spirit Spine from s/t

Spirit Spine MySpace page

Check back for a follow-up review on this amazing indiest of indie releases for 2009.

Better Late Than Never: Cut Off Your Hand’s 08 Release You and I

Posted on 01/25/200912/18/2019 by Max Hammer

Alright, so I always hated the name of this band.

That said, Cut Off Your Hands makes some great music and they’ve really gained a following of loyal fans. Like many others, I completely missed their 2008 release, You and I, which is strangely similar to one of the most acclaimed albums, You and Me by The Walkmen.

So if you missed it to, it’s definitely worth checking out. A late recommendation yes, but if you like their previous releases, you’re almost sure to like You and I.

“Happy As Can Be” has a driving new wave type of beat rounded out with soaring choruses and shimmering keyboards. The band’s sound is definitely pop rock that is somewhat reminiscent of Kaiser Chiefs, especially on the song “Expectations”, which also has a mean electronica riff and definitely a song to get the girls dancing. Yet it also has a predominant rock feel to it. Check out the music video.

One of the album’s best tracks “Oh Girl” has a catchy, jangle pop sound around a story about a guy obviously in love with a girl. I must be getting in the Valentine’s spirit.

“Oh Girl” – Cut Off Your Hands from You and I

“Happy As Can Be” – Cut Off Your Hands from You and I

Did you know you can get IRC delivered to your iTunes or your favorite feed reader?

Animal Collective Releases Stunning New Video for "My Girls"

Posted on 01/22/200912/18/2019 by Max Hammer

The wild popularity of Animal Collective’s newest release, Merriweather Post Pavilion, has fans and music critics already calling it one of the best albums of the year. Hello? It’s only January.

Under usual circumstances, this would be enough to hold off for a while before making such a proclamation. But after listening to Merriweather over and again, it’s hard to believe that it will fizzle out or lose its appeal coming later this year. It’s just amazing!

Right now the band has an awesome Flash-created music video unlike anything we’ve ever seen. Yet best of all it’s for the amazing, sweeping and sparkly song, “My Girls”. Click the photo above to start the video, sit back and soak it up. Chances are you’ll watch it more than once, especially if you are an Animal Collective fan. :)

Even if you’re not an Animal Collective fan, there’s something magical about Merriweather, and if you’re new to their work, check out Merriweather first. Animal Collective kicked off an extensive 2009 world tour last evening at New York’s Grand Ballroom.

“My Girls” – Animal Collective

Stream Merriweather Post Pavilion uninterrupted in its entirety.

Animal Collective’s MySpace page
Animal Collective official website
Animal Collective label website

The Best Indie Albums of 2008, Vol. IV: Why’s Alopecia

Posted on 01/16/200912/18/2019 by Max Hammer

Brooklyn’s indie rock eclectic elective Why? is definitely one of the most original and versatile artists to to receive well deserved attention in 2008.

With the release of their refreshing collage of songs on Alopecia, Why has etched themselves a place in modern indie rock. Many of Why?’s songs are completely different from one another that in a blind test it would be hard to say definitively that they are a set of songs from the same group. Electric eclectic is an appropriate tag.

Why? are very creative and accomplished musicians with a knack for eccentricity. This is part of what makes Alopecia so enjoyable, and definitely one of the best indie releases of 2008.

Whether they lay down – quite successfully we say – the rap in hip hop lo-fi tracks like “By Torpedo or Crohn’s” and “A Sky For Shoeing Horses Under” or engage in quirky musical experimentalism with songs like “Simeon’s Dilemma” – evoking comparisons to the glimmer psychedelic folk sound of The Flaming Lips.

The song “Fatalist Palmistry” is a memorable chorus-soaked pop song very much in the tradition of 1960s folk rock. Somehow Why? once again manages to pull off what most artists simply could not.

Other songs like “Song of the Sad Assassin”, featuring overtures to Billy The Kid and Lee Harvey Oswald, make it even harder to pigeon hole Why?’s sound more than any other band we’ve heard in quite a while. Next thing you know you’re listening to the song “The Hollows” with its Cure-like underpinnings.

Next, bubble gummy pop and drum machines predominate “These Few Presidents”, yet another original song that somehow manages to be kind of cool. Nevertheless, the album is not without its weaknesses. The short songs on Alopecia, like opener “Exegesis” and “Twenty Eight” (44 seconds in length) are forgettable.

The over-riding theme of Alopecia is one of constant surprises. Just when you think the band had out done itself, another track spins and proves you wrong. I’ve haven’t heard a record in a while from a relatively unknown band that instead sounds like an awesome compilation of the great songs from a line-up of talented artists.

What strikes me is that a creative writer could probably write an amazing story based on songs on Alopecia. It has all the elements of a great movie, in addition to being a spectacular album. In fact, Alopecia may turn out to be in the years to come must-have in any reputable indie rock music collection.

Why?’s MySpace page

“The Vowels, Part 2” – Why? from Alopecia