Chromatics: "Cherry"

Mexican Summer may have chillwave on lock, but if anyone can crack the safe it's Italians Do It Better. Label co-founder Johnny Jewel's band Chromatics are one of the best dream pop acts out there, an argument for which the relative throwaway nature of "Cherry" - it's set to be dumped off on the label sampler After Dark II in a hot minute - attests to the depth of the young band's catalog.

Melody's Echo Chamber: "You Won't Be Missing That Part of Me"

If you're looking to parlay in the psych-pop conversation you could do worse than nab Tame Impala's Kevin Parker as your personal translator. Parker produced the self-titled debut by Melody's Echo Chamber, kind of a surprisingly cohesive/accessible cross between La Sera and Tame Impala itself. Melody Prochet's prior band, My Bee's Garden, opened for TI on a previous tour. It's kind of unclear whether MBG is still on an ongoing concern with MEC being a side project for both "members" or what, but you almost need a degree in fluid dynamics to keep track of what's what in the indiesphere these days.

Egyptian Hip Hop: "Yoro Diallo"

A friend of mine was complaining the other day that for all he'd know from reading music blogs the only styles currently being recorded were folk, hip hop and electronic. "Not far off", was my somewhat oversimplified reply (texting is not the place for nuanced arguments).

Dirty Ghosts: "Katana Rock"

Score another one for the SF modern psych scene. Dirty Ghosts put a bit of an electro spin on their acid tinged garage rock, but all that regional competition seems to have helped hone their songcraft. "Katana Rock" is pretty immediate - are hack journalists still (over)using the term "bracing" these days? - which is kind of ironic, since the album (Metal Moon) has been out since February and we're just now getting visuals.

Animal Collective: "Today's Supernatural"

When I say that Animal Collective has gotten surprisingly accessible over the years, yet they still come off every bit as edgy and outre as Flaming Lips or Mike Patton, you know they came from a truly obtuse pocket of the universe to begin with. Their new album Centipede Hz is out September 4 and, on the basis of "Today's Supernatural", Avey Tare has developed some legitimate pop sense in the last few years.

Grizzly Bear: "Sleeping Ute"

A bit of a 60's prog guitar riff backboning this one. There is some well-produced instrumental wanking going on in the middle that would make Mars Volta proud, but there's no shame in wanking in spite of what people will tell you. The title for this here new Grizzly Bear opus is non-existent at present, but we can tell you it will be out September 8 on Warp.
(via Stereogum):

The Flaming Lips: "Supermoon Made Me Want to Pee" [feat. Prefuse 73]

No one goes all out for Record Store Day like the Flaming Lips. This year they have a full album of collaborations out somewhat childishly called The Flaming Lips and Heady Fwends. In addition to brand new guest turns by Nick Cave, Edward Sharpe and the Magnetic Zeroes, Bon Iver and Chris Martin of Coldplay (whut?) - most if not all of whom have contributed their own blood to be pressed into the vinyl - it also rounds up a few previously released co-op's such as "Is David Bowie Dying?" (Neon Indian) and "I'm Working at NASA on Acid" (Lightning Bolt). "Supermoon Made Me Want to Pee" is the second of what will presumably be a long string of NSFW animated videos.

KILLER COVERS || Chromatics: "Into the Black"

Splitting the difference sonically between Cowboy Junkies and Mazzy Star, Chromatics cover Neil Young's "Into the Black"... you know, the song featuring the famous line "it's better to burn out than to fade away". The original's actual title was "Hey Hey, My My (Into the Black)" but frankly that does sound a little silly, so I won't quibble with Chromatics' editorialism.

Mike Wexler: "Pariah"

Mexican Summer has become one of the more stalwart, go to labels for me the past couple of years.  Arguably best known as a chillwave enclave, the label actually offers a lot more breadth than that - Nite Jewel, Real Estate, Best Coast... hell, even Kurt Vile - but they do tend to have a certain soft spot for hazy, blissed out tuneage.  One of their better recent signings is Mike Wexler, whose Dispossession comes out March 6th, just in time for SXSW.

Mike Wexler - Pariah by Mexican Summer

COOLRUNNINGS: "Spirit of the High"

COOLRUNNINGS is one of the new breed of bands who self-promote via cheap-yet-brief releases through Bandcamp (in this case cheap meaning "name your price") and hope that their all caps moniker will be more likely to draw your attention than the e.e. cummings school of lower case prescritivism that some bands practice.  They're obviously not SHOUTING AT YOU because one listen to "Spirit of the High" reveals a band immersed in their own rollicking chill, neo-psych pop rather than -wave derivative, masculine and brash but not too in your face about it... THAT'S WHAT THE BAND NAME IS FOR!

Crystal Stilts: "Dark Eyes"

One of many bands taking Phil Spector's Wall of Sound concept into esoteric, psychedelic new directions, Crystal Stilts have been around for what seems like forever now, even though they've only been releasing music since 2005 (part of this may have to do with the fact that they were part of the trend of new bands having "crystal" in their names circa 2007-2008; see also Crystal Castles, Crystal Skulls, Crystal Antlers, etc).

Their In Love With Oblivion LP came out back in April but already they have a new EP, Radiant Doors, ready to ring in the holidays with suitably foul cheer.

1990: "Ghost Highway", Mazzy Star

When Opal splintered in the midst of a tour for their 1987 opus Happy Nightmare Baby, guitarist David Roback replaced vocalist Kendra Smith with Hope Sandoval and briefly continued the Opal brand, penning a handful of new songs for a second Opal full length to be titled Ghost Highway. By 1989 he had renamed the band Mazzy Star and the following year that band debuted with She Hangs Brightly. Building on his Paisley Underground roots by incorporating various Americana elements - blues, folk, country - into the Paisley bouillabaisse of psychedelia, dream pop and 60s rock, Mazzy Star took a few years before finding their feet with the hit 1994 single, "Fade Into You" (itself charting only a year or so after its parent album dropped), but in retrospect She Hangs Brightly is hardly a furtive creative effort. The song "Ghost Highway" sounds driven and self assured while setting the template for the band's metamorphosis from the Paisley overtones of Opal into the rootsier strains of Mazzy Star.



BONUS: Opal playing "Ghost Highway" live in 1988.

1990: "Everso", The Telescopes

The Telescopes first appeared on a split single with Loop in 1988, but within the next two years they'd dabbled in every corner of the neo-psych / dream pop / shoegaze triangle. This flitting from sound to sound, influence to influence may have harmed their chances of ever becoming mainstream, but it made for some pretty thrilling music at the time. Much of the early 'scopes material was mired down in muddy production and tossed off performances, but that all changed when the band were signed to Creation in early 1990. Emerging in December of that year, "Everso" marked their second single for the label, but it would be another two years before they released another full length album. That record, commonly known as Untitled or just The Telescopes, would be the group's last until a 2002 reunion.

1990: "Arc Lite (Sonar)", Loop

More dissonant and metallic than Spacemen 3 (the band they would most frequently suffer comparisons to), Loop was nearing the end of its short run in 1990. The heavier drone and minimalist riff patterns on the band's final album, A Gilded Eternity, were a harbinger of things to come: Loop mainman Robert Hampson would serve a one year tour of duty in industrial titans Godflesh (playing on / touring for the Pure album) before starting Main with Loop bandmate Scott Dawson. Main merged the dense riffs of Hampson's previous bands with a menacing bouillabaisse of electronic styles and remains Hampson's longest running project to date, though the moniker has been officially retired since 2006. Hampson has since been releasing new music under his own name, while Dawson seemingly dropped out of the music scene.

1990: "Lord Plentiful Reflects", The Bevis Frond

After banging out a succession of fan-club quality releases in his own bedroom, Nick Salomon finally got serious about his starter kit band, The Bevis Frond, rounded up a proper drummer, and got both their asses into a legitimate studio for the first "professional" Bevis Frond record, 1990's Any Gas Faster. Whereas most of the earlier 4 track Frond releases consist of long winded jamming, Any Gas Faster was notable for its more disciplined, accessible material.

1990: "Soon", My Bloody Valentine

Sorry for the lengthy delay between posts. Computer crapped out and it took me a minute to get my files transferred from the old desktop to the new laptop. Not that anyone is reading this anyway so disclaimers are kind of irrelevant at this point.

Figured a logical place to follow up my Madchester mini-fest was to take a closer look at the emerging Shoegaze scene, one that - while not as regionally based - was still largely a UK phenomenon. The descriptor "shoegaze" itself would later go on to be loosely ascribed to a lot of the grunge and American alternative bands who chose ostensible onstage shyness as a sort of visual aesthetic, but initially with the British groups it had a more functional purpose: these bands drenched their music in such thick, relentless washes of guitar effects that it required constant diligence on their stompboxes.

One could name all sorts of precursors to the shoegaze sound, from the Velvet Underground to their ancestors the Jesus and Mary Chain, from the wistful, opaque dream pop of the Cocteau Twins to the suffocating sheets of guitar feedback utilized by Dinosaur Jr.; but there's really only one band that deserves credit for kickstarting the shoegaze scene, and that is My Bloody Valentine. Emerging from Dublin in the mid-80s, MBV began releasing a steady stream of EPs and singles beginning in 1985. The fact that an album wasn't to be seen until late 1988 was indicative of the band's struggle to find an identity, flitting fitfully between goth, neo-psychedelia and the then-popular C86 sound before ditching original singer Dave Conroy and moving into more of a dense pop direction with 1987's Strawberry Wine EP.

Signing to major label Creation in 1988, that year's Isn't Anything full length established MBV immediately as a force to be reckoned with. Most of the bands coming out of the UK - and especially Dublin, home of U2 - were still employing either cavernous, ringing chords or jangly, punk folk acoustic strumming atop earnest lyrics of personal or political strife... Isn't Anything was the antithesis of that, a thick soup of guitar feedback and distant, ethereal vocals espousing narcotic daydreams that could barely be made out beneath the din.

The year 1990 found the band not only scene veterans by that point, but it was also the tipping point where they had far more work behind them than they had left in the tanks for the future. All in all, 1990 was a relatively quite year for My Bloody Valentine, sort of a calm before the storm in advance of their masterpiece and final album, Loveless, as well as a slew of farewell singles the following year. The Glider EP would be the only thing released by the band in 1990. "Soon" would later be ported over intact to the Loveless album, so it may seem like I'm cheating a bit including it here, but there will be plenty else to cover when we get to 1991... and, besides, it DID appear here first.