Fcked Up leads off this installment of Fresh Tracks with two new tracks from their upcoming release, David Comes to Life, the second part of a series about an imaginary town called David. On Record Store Day, Fcked Up released David’s Town, a compilation of fictional bands.
“The Other Shoe” – F*cked Up from David Comes To Life – out June 7th
“A Little Death” – Fuc*ed Up from David Comes to Life
Here’s a complete list of all 27 bands and artists with new MP3 singles in this installment of Fresh Tracks:
| Fuc*ed Up Here We Go Magic Tape Deck Mountain Motorboater 1,2,3 Thee Oh Sees Crystal Antlers Thurston Moore Craig Wedren (with Conor Oberst and Janet Weiss) | YACHT Okkervil River Ledbellies Country Mice Eternal Summers Ming Ming John Lamanica Fan Modine Blithe Field | Ghostly Dust Machine Virgin of the Birds White Belt Yellow Tag Pat Jordache Other Lives The Morning Birds Buxter Hoot’n Chilly Gonzalez Seapony |
Following F*cked Up, we just got in some new tracks from upcoming releases by Here We Go Magic and Art Brut. Even though they just released a very good LP a few months ago, next week HWGM will release The January EP, which features a collection of songs produced at the band’s upstate New York recording studio. These songs clearly demonstrate the band’s expanding talent, by now well known within the indie music realm, for creating a musical world with Luke Temples vocals soaring and spinning from track to track. Here We Go Magic are currently touring the U.S.
“Hands in the Sky” – Here We Go Magic from The January EP
We just got this tour-only single from Tape Deck Mountain. The song, “Kellies,” will be limited to only 100 cassettes to be sold during TDM shows. On June 2, the band kicks off a multi-city tour with indie band, Woodsman. Plus, here’s a new track, “Left Limb” from Motorboater, from his upcoming debut due in June via The Record Machine.
“Kellies” – Tape Deck Mountain
“Left Limb” – Motorboater
Next up, are a couple of bands that we’re watching closely as they really start to rise in popularity. They are Pittsburgh duo 1,2,3 have sent out the lead single from their upcoming June 21st debut, New Heaven, and San Francisco indie psych-rock band Thee Oh Sees, a band that has been climbing up on the ladder of ‘indie’ recognition, if you will over the past year or so, will release their sophomore album, Castlemania, on May 17th. (Pre-order here)
“I Need Seed” – Thee Oh Sees from Castlemania – out June 14th
Note: You can click on the album titles to order or pre-order most of the tracks in today’s post mixtape. Plus, you’ll get 20 gigs of free (no hidden charges) of cloud space from Amazon.
We’re digging a brand new song, “Summer Solstice,” from Crystal Antlers upcoming new album, Two Way Mirror, set to drop on July 12th. The track, which is the first single from the LP, starts out with a few mellow synth keys and then breaks out into an earnest, melodic semi-rocker with an uplifting rhythm and horsed vocals only to quickly fade away and fizzle out much like it started.
Our criticism of the song is that it is much too short (right as we were getting into it, the track winds down). We really wanted them to exploit the opportunity of a song that had it going on, and set off on a blazing jam with high octane synth and guitar licks, but instead, as we said, a great song ended way to soon. The track comes to us by way of Consequence of Sound, which has a nice piece about the new album by Crystal Antlers.
“Summer Solstice” – Crystal Antlers from Two Way Mirror
“Benediction” is a fresh track from Sonic Youth founder Thurston Moore‘s up-coming solo album, Demolished Thoughts. Also, don’t miss Fresh Tracks from YACHT‘s upcoming album, Craig Wedren with Conor Oberst and Janet Weiss, plus, the lead single from Okkervil River‘s new LP, I Am Very Far, and new songs from Country Mice, Ledbellies, and Eternal Summers.
“Benediction” – Thurston Moore from Demolished Thoughts – out May 24th
“Are We” (featuring Conor Oberst and Janet Weiss)” – Craig Wedren from Are We single
“Dreaming” – Seapony from Go With Me – out May 31st
“Dystopia” – YACHT from Shangri-La – out June 21st
“Wake and Be Fine” – Okkervil River from I Am Very Far
“Cowboy and Indian” – Ledbellies
“Morning Son” – Country Mice from Twister – out June 7th
“Cog” – Eternal Summers from Prisoner
Lefse Records just sent us this somewhat dark, and at times, chaotic, instrumental track from Ming Ming‘s upcoming album, set to be released on June 28th. Also, check out Art Brut‘s “Lost Weekend,” the first track from their May 23rd album release Brilliant Tragic! The lead track is as menacing as its title, “Eater Of The Dead.” Plus, check out a fresh track from singer/songwriter John Lamanica and a lead single from an upcoming releases by Fan Modine.
“Eater Of The Dead” – Ming Ming from TBA – June 28th
“Heartling” – John Lamanica from Volunteers
“Julu Road” – Fan Modine from Gratitude for The Shipper – May 24th
Blithe Field, Ghostly Dust Machine, Virgin of the Birds
Blithe Field is Spencer Radcliffe – a 19 year old producer from Ohio, specializing in messy sample based electronic music. A label promoter said his sound is “like if Gold Panda ditched Ableton to record outdoors on an old sampler that didn’t work at speeds above 120 bpm.”
We’re definitely digging this first track, “Crushing” from Blithe Field’s debut album, Two Hearted, due out June 28th.
“Crushing” – Blithe Field from Two Hearted
Bad Panda Records just sent in two new tracks – one from the classy down-tempo of the Ghostly Dust Machine project, inspired by Canadians J. Dilla, Nujabes and D.J. Krush, plus, a new track from Virgin of the Birds that has a 1960’s vibe that straddles between lo-fi folk and the occasional grandeur of early art rock.
“Ode To A Baby Snowstorm” – Ghostly Dust Machine
“Let Me Be Your Bride” – Virgin Of The Birds
White Belt Yellow Tag, who are gearing up for their May 21st U.S. EP release, You’re Not Invincible, won critical acclaim in the U.K. last year for their debut album featuring unashamedly big, anthemic, booming pop tunes mixed with their own brand of distorted, fuzzy rock. The band are often compared to The Doves. The NME proclaimed White Belt Yellow Tag possess “the artistic solemnity of Elbow or Doves” and The Fly said “they are confident, moody, atmospheric and armed with glacial, killer tunes.”
“146 Ways To” – White Belt Yellow Tag from You’re Not Invincible – May 21st
The group is now performing in China, an inspiring tale of western music traveling across the barriers of music and culture, similar to the story of western rock breaking through the Iron Curtain of Soviet Russia in the early 1970’s.
From the rising band, Tuneyards, founding member Pat Jordache has recorded a new album, Future Songs, that was just released two weeks ago. Here’s the lead single, “Phantom Limb,” which we already think might end up on one of our Halloween Mixtapes in just less than six months from now.
“Phantom Limb” – Pat Jordache (Tuneyards) from Future Songs – April 26th
Plus, Oklahoma indie band Other Lives have presented a marvelously introspective, somewhat melancholy single that has been part of our in-cafe mixtape for the past few days. The song is the title track from Other Lives’ upcoming LP, Tamer Animals, set to officially drop on May 17th. The LP will be the band’s sophomore album on TBD Records, which released Other Lives’ official, self-titled debut in 2009. Check out an instrumental track from The Morning Birds that includes thunderclaps as percussion and the chant-sounding vocals of Thorington and Samuel Markus.
“For 12″ – Other Lives from Tamer Animals
“Quickening” – The Morning Birds
Buxter Hoot’n is an unsigned indie “roots rock” band from San Francisco, California. Buxter Hoot’n will release their third, self-titled album at the end of the month, and we have the lead single from it. The album displays the band’s “Americana roots, Rolling Stones’ swagger, pop sensibilities and honest lyricism,” according to their publicist.
Over the past five years, the band have opened for Jackie Green, Los Lobos, Builders and the Butchers, The Stone Foxes, The Devil Makes Three, and many others, and include among their top musical influences Bob Dylan and Allman Brothers. Their sophomore album, In Another Life, debuted as the #5 most added album for the Americana Music Association in September and has remained on their charts every week since.
“Blue Night” – Buxter Hoot’n
Claiming to be the world’s first orchestrated rap record (hmmm, oil and water?), Chilly Gonzalez is prepping to release The Unspeakable Chilly Gonzalez on June 7th. Without going into more details, the following track features a medley of ‘songs’ from the album. The main reason we are featuring this is to see what people’s reaction is to this experimentation. We are fence-sitting, but if we were to pick one of the most daring and bizarre albums of the year, this would be up in the top of the list. Maybe we’ll do that – a playlist mix of the weirdest albums of 2011.
“The Unspeakable Medley” – Chilly Gonzalez from The Unspeakable Chilly Gonzalez