Pearl Harbour

Pearl Harbour are inspired young-blond Californian-sisters that create timeless fuzzy-beach-pop.  If the current lo-fi-beach trend is your thing, you’re going to love Pearl Harbour.

Definitely not to be confused with the forgettable Pearl Harbor and the Explosions, these new Pearl’s have a good portion of the sun-bleached indie-blogosphere eating out of their hands.

The girls are offering a CD-R from their MySpace, and will have a 12″ on Mexican Summer (see Kurt Vile, Dungen, Ariel Pink, BMSR, Marissa Nadler, Valet, etc.) out in the fall.

All the Pearl Harbour songs I’ve heard so far are pretty much gorgeous, which bodes well for future material.

“Sunburn” was the first Pearl Harbour song I heard, and it’s the catchiest yet.

MP3: Pearl Harbour “Sunburn” (160kbps)

“Lost @ Sea” is a little bit more of a grower, but it’s just as strong “Sunburn”, and is (probably) more re-listenable.

MP3: Pearl Harbour “Lost @ Sea” (128kbps)

I’ve had the least amount of time with “The High Road”, but its barely audible lyrics and muffled melody (sound like the description for this entire genre?) work well together.

MP3: Pearl Harbour “High Road” (128kbps)

“Vapor Girls” is a demo, or at least it’s tagged as such, but it sounds almost complete enough to be a ‘finished’ song.

MP3: Pearl Harbour “Vapor Girls” (demo) (160kbps)

On a related note, Pearl Harbour sister Piper K makes one-off Surfside Slasher tees, and hosts a spacey online radio show.  Her last radio show — entitled Sunburnt — included a number of my personal favorite songs by the Vivian Girls, Beach Fossils, Best Coast, Ariel Pink’s Haunted Graffiti, Holy Fuck, and Dara Pupista; clearly Pearl Harbour preach what they practise.

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Wallpaper.

Arguably one of 2009’s greatest indie-relevant memesters, Wallpaper. are only a daily-meme away from becoming the musical equivalent of Carles.

While it seems that Wallpaper’s attention has (thus far) been limited to a relativity niche-market (judging mainly by their limited YouTube views), there’s little denying that their meme-choice has potential for mainstream crossover appeal.

Here’s the 3 vital Wallpaper. memes of the last few months.

First was the excellent (and troublesomely listenable) remix of a relatively unknown stoner-dancesmash, which brought the song from painful to playful; resulting in its being Pitchforked.

MP3: Das Racist & Wallpaper “Combination Pizza Hut And Taco Bell” (Wallpaper. remix) (192kbps)

Second was the impressively timely remix of Jay-Z’s “Death Of Autotune” — turning it into an excessively autotune’d mash-up with winning lines like “I got 99 problems but my pitch ain’t one.”  Not exactly a re-listenable track, but neither is “D.O.A.”.

MP3: Jay-Z “D.O.A./99 Problems” (Wallpaper. remix) (192kbps)

And most recently, is the viral-hopeful “Booty Tweet”.  Purposely cheesy — and a little mediocre perhaps — but I think they are the first to the punch.

Now, I wonder if this series of memes is going to translate into something better?

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Real Estate

(not foreclosed)

First introduced to me early last winter, Real Estate is amongst my favorite sun-drenched music of 2009.  The band’s “official” releases are limited to a scattering of 7inches on trusty indie-labels (see Underwater Peoples, Half Machine Records, & Woodsist), and one of the best tour-CDR’s of the year, Atlantic City Expressway.

Real Estate’s “Beach Combers” is one of the unquestionable highlights of the Underwater People’s “temporarily free” and immensely enjoyable Summertime Record Showcase.  Another one of the compilations’ strong-points is “Backyard” — an uncharacteristically brief instrumental by psych-basement-kid Ducktails aka Matt Mondanile of Real Estate; add to Real Estate-member-list member(s)(?) of Predator Vision (that band who make reeaally long lo-fi-psych songs), and it’s not too hard to see why Real Estate sells.

I’m currently aware of 12 available-in-some-manner-or-another Real Estate tracks; play them in a row and you have a masterful pool-side LP, seriously.

“Black Lake” almost makes me want to get stranded on a desert island with only my short-shorts, “Black Lake” on both sides of a 7inch (with the means to play it), and a faded Polaroid of a circa 1950’s Cali-girl (to dream about).  The song was much deservingly Pitchforked a while back, and is available on 7inch alongside “Suburban Beverage” and “Old Folks”.

Mp3: Real Estate “Black Lake” (320kbps)

A “Suburban Beverage” while trapped in suburbia on a hotter summer day? “Budweiser, Sprite, do you feel alright?”  Available on 7inches coupled with either “Black Lake” and “Old Folks” or with “Green River”.

MP3: Real Estate “Suburban Beverage” (320kbps)

“Green River” ain’t very long, but I’m still going to float my inner tube down it’s (presumably slimy) path.  This song was recently released as a B-Side to Half Machine’s Records’ new Suburban Beverage 7inch.

MP3: Real Estate “Green River” (320kbps)

the Flaming Lips ‘Songs From The Future Album Embryonic’

If you haven’t heard the first three “released” songs from the not-so-distant-future Lips’ 2xLP Embryonic, then you best track them down.  I was instantly thrilled to hear the Lips venturing into different sonic territory… I’d say we’re looking at a middle-ground between old Lips and new Lips (definitely more psychedelic and experimental than anything we’ve heard from the band in years) — and after the mediocrity of At War With the Mystics a change is certainly welcome.

After spending more than a week with these 3 songs, I’m excited as could be for the future album Embryonic.  And even Schreiber is excited.

SFTFAE Tracklist:

1. “Silver Trembling Hands”

2. “Convinced of the Hex”

3. “The Impulse”

Beck “Femme Fatale” (Velvet Underground cover)

I wasn’t particularly excited about last week’s cover of “Waiting For My Man“, but this week’s “Femme Fatal” is closer to the immediate success of the “Sunday Morning” cover.

But what I’m really waiting for is the off-chance that Beck + friends will Midnight Vulture-ize MJ’s Thriller.

gone to the beach…

..back in a few days.

If you haven’t done so yet, check out the totally free beach-relevant Underwater Peoples Summertime Showcase; it’s a well-crafted fuzzy compilation that features personal favorites like Ducktails, Julian Lynch, and Real Estate… it’ll definitely be keeping me company in the heat.

Liechtenstein

Liechtenstein’s Survival Strategies In A Modern World was initially unassuming — that album title doesn’t help — until it dawned on me that I was playing the album almost everyday; it’s even been receiving more playtime then Slumberland label-mates The Pains of Being Pure At Heart.  There’s nothing particularly original about the band’s sound — imagine a polished, accessible, Swedish-version of Vivian Girls — but this grimy, straight-forward indie-girl-pop is consistent, pleasing, and catchy; thus, quite enjoyable.

“Roses In The Park” is the band’s free-MP3 from their debut-LP, and while it’s not my favorite song on the album, it does a decent enough job of introducing Liechtenstein.  If you don’t care for “Roses In The Park” you probably won’t care for the album, but if the song sounds alright to you I’d definitely recommend checking out the rest Survival Strategies In A Modern World (the album is much stronger than the single).

MP3: Liechtenstein “Roses In The Park” (192kbps)

“Stalking Skills” is another free-MP3 from the band’s 2007 Stalking Skills 7inch, and was also featured on a few compilations in 2006 & 2008. The song seems to be a little less developed, and slightly lower-fidelity than the new material, but it’s still very much Liechtenstein (or at least as Liechtenstein as Liechtenstein can be).

MP3: Liechtenstein “Stalking Skills” (192kbps)

If there’s anything I’ve learned from listening to Liechtenstein, it’s that I can hardly wait for the new Vivian Girls album, and I probably shouldn’t “leave the cat on the stove” (or at least that’s what I hear — see “Postcards“).

thanks for the pop MJ

“I’m not like other guys… I’m different” — Michael Jackson

Animal Collective “Daily Routine” (Phaseone remix)

“Daily Routine” received the Phaseone remix a couple weeks back, and I’ve been enjoying it so much that sharing has become inevitable.  The song is now dancier and groovier… apparently dancier and groovier enough to strip to.

MP3: Animal Collective “Daily Routine” (Phaseone remix) (320kbps)

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MSTRKRFT (the band)

As strange as it might be, MSTRKRFT’s new Letterman-friendly conventional-band-formation (not the actual song “Heartbreaker ft. John Legend”, fyi) excites me more than Fist of God ever will (mind you, that ain’t difficult), and it sure as hell trumps previous TV appearances.  But honestly, if Jesse Keeler wants to get back into the band-thing he should just reunite DFA 1979 for the love of god.

Once upon a time I saw a MSTRKRFT DJ-set, and as much fun as I had dancing, it probably would have been just as good had two-random DJs put on masks, pretended to be MSTRKRFT, and played a mix of indie-dance tracks.

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