ALBUM: Low - C'mon

LOW are essentially the Miss Congeniality of shoegaze bands. C'mon is their ninth full length album and third on Sub Pop:

Comprised of new material written on and off the road, the ten-song set was recorded in a former Catholic church, aka Sacred Heart Studio (where the band previously crafted 2002’s Trust). Sparhawk says Low deliberately seeks out circumstances that will generate challenges and happy accidents, breaking them out of established patterns. “We like to work in situations where there’s a character, whether that’s the time period or who we’re working with. A lot of times, the space can set that tone.”
[via]

The album follows their recognizable style of slow brooding rhythms with subtle uses of effects and beautiful male/female vocal harmonizing. There is an empathetic sadness that is conveyed while listening to something so slow and melodic, a sadness that could be potentially be achieved by playing a Vampy Weekend song at half speed. One gets hypnotized into a Zen-like trance by the slow pulsing rhythms in songs like "Especially Me" and "Nightingale." While the music isn't particularly dark in timbre, it is in theme. Low has spent the last eight years tapping into this advanced level of slow emotive pop, and it just keeps getting better.

Here's a preview of one of our picks:


Tracklisting:
"Try to Sleep"
"You See Everything"
"Witches"
"Done"
"Especially Me"
"$20"
"Majesty/Magic"
"Nightingale"
"Nothing But Heart"
"Something's Turning Over"

C'mon will be released on 12 April 2011 (11 April in Europe). Visit the band's site to watch a trailer for the album and pre-order it here.

MP3: Tera Melos - "Manar the Magic"

Zoo Weather
The "math rock" genre is evolving. Popular contemporary acts like Tera Melos, Marnie Stern and even Battles are finding more advanced algorithms and complex grand theories to make white people even more awkward dancers.

Tera Melos have just released a brand new album, Zoo Weather. Originally the EP was intended to be a precursor for their 2010 full-length Patagonian Rats. There’s a lot of good stuff on here. Sonically the tracks are very complex and the harmonizing is on point. "Manar The Magic" is featured both in its original form along with two remixes (one from Melt-Banana) and as a beautiful acapella version to close out the album. The song centers around a melodic build-up that leads to a refreshing cathartic climax akin to AnCo’s “In the Flowers” or Nilsson’s “Without You.”

Tera Melos - "Manar the Magic"

Brush up on your calculus!

ALBUM: Tape Deck Mountain - Secret Serf EP

It Goes Down
Not to sound too much like Special Agent Dale Cooper, but lately at P-HORSE we've been using our clairvoyance during REM-dream states in order to figure out what music we should pay closer attention to. This involves a delicate balance of the following elements consumed just before bedtime:
- a moderate-to-heavy dose of sleep aid
- Δ⁹-THC mixed with loose leaf tobacco
- approximately 1/3 of an Olde English 40oz
- odd-numbered episodes of 1990's cult TV show Twin Peaks on mute
Then, with iPhone speakers placed 2-3 inches from the ear and a band's music set at full volume, sleep ensues. If somehow - bucking all chemical odds and defying laws of nature - brain activity during sleep still occurs, we revisit their music in a more conscious, sober state of mind.

The last few nights have led us repeatedly to Tape Deck Mountain, whose profile page at their record label's site offers this as an intro:

San Diego’s Tape Deck Mountain first made waves by releasing their debut EP Sparks on the unconventional (but quite fitting for their name) medium, our old friend the cassette tape. Frontman Travis Trevisan wants it to be made clear however, that he doesn’t want this to become a “thing” and that he will be working in all formats.
(via Lefse Records)

Tape Deck Mountain have been referred to as San Diego beach bums, but don't be fooled - there's really no trace of that lo-fi surf-rock trend in their music. And they don't sound like such laid back chillers as "bums" would imply, but rather like guys who would melt your face off with a wall of live sound. They are more likely to be classified along the lines of the West coast noise rock we've been loving so much recently. Matt from Lefse* sent over the new EP they released last week, Secret Serf, and we've playing it nonstop - in dreams AND waking life. You can pick it up from the Lefse here.

Trace your land line calls / Hide in bathroom stalls / You know / I know echoes the very powerful opening track "P.I.":

Tape Deck Mountain - "P.I"

Creepy, exhilarating, and haunting, the album starts out with a blast. The second track "Trevor" is an immediate comedown, retaining the creepy shadow cast by the private inspector and heavy reverb. As we get to the third song "It Goes Down," the pace picks back up a little. Though at first slow and slightly suspicious, looking back over our shoulder into the dark, we soon find ourselves at a run. And the squealing, tinnitus-inducing, MBV-esque guitar sound of "It Goes Down" makes it our favorite pick of the whole record:

Tape Deck Mountain - "It Goes Down"

Play loud.


* Look who is quoted on the front page of the Lefse site. It's ME! And they called us a "smart" blog, which makes YOU smart by association. Yeah that's right, we're all fucking geniuses up in here!

RUN DMT - Bong Voyage

Maybe you've heard of this lil acid-trip known as RUN DMT, cos shit has been gettin' arooouuund as of late. Listed influences include:

"weed, infomercials, lexx, happy FAM, ashley purse-is-yellow, monica miracles, the midwest... dirt, best coast, snacks, adrian orange, orange soda, little kiddos, tamnma musical boxes, tornado warnings, wearing pretty dresses, prince RAMAAAAAAAAA..."

Bong Voyage, an extremely listenable psychedelia hotflash, is at times creepy but all-around fun for the whole fucked-up fam. Download the whole album here.

Also DEM HUNGER remixed one track "Money":

RUN DMT - "Money" (DEM HUNGER remix)

TWEAK!

ALBUM: Thao with the Get Down Stay Down - Know Better Learn Faster

First thoughts on Know Better Learn Faster? I have to bite my tongue here, cos what I want to say is that "The Clap" is the best track out of the lot. It's just the album's 30-second intro that has Thao & co drawling and shouting "If this is how you want it - okay okay!" But my love for this charming woman makes me give it another shot.

In terms of structure, the band has definitely progressed from the last album. Thao's song style has definitely gotten more experimental since We Brave... The syncopated rhythmic patterns that made her songs on WBBSL so darn enjoyable are still present in some tracks on KBLF like "When We Swam," but a certain characteristic cuteness is absent on this one. This is a break-up record. And as sweetly euphonious as Nguyen's voice is, it can't hide the fact that these songs are super bitter. Leaving behind themes of childhood mirth and nostalgia, KBLF is about sex, being used, sex, and being scorned.

“The record is primarily a response to the end of a relationship, so a lot of it is pretty reactionary. It’s trying to be introspective, but there’s always got to be a little “fuck you” in there – or, sometimes there’s a lot.
The album is named ‘Know Better Learn Faster’ because you can’t. By the time you realize you should, it’s too late. And I enjoy the predicament and the totally devastating, unfunny humor of that.” - Thao (interview via I Am Fuel You Are Friends)

Yowza! I love it. She's scorned and sexy and not just this demure little Vietnamese-American chick with an acoustic guitar anymore. She's gonna make it in this "man's world," ya know? Are you getting that vibe from her, too??

But despite Thao's newly indurated heart and the group's ostensible progression and maturation as musicians on Know Better Learn Faster, it's just missing something that flowed in abundance out of We Brave...

Download the title track "Know Better Learn Faster" via MBV. Or... the whole album here.

ALBUM: Jackson Emmer - PEN-PAL

There is a familiar youthful longing throughout Pen-Pal, the new album from Jackson Emmer that we were lucky enough to receive straight from the handsome devil himself. Childhood memories like "If you weren't seven years old, you would have shown me yours and I would have shown you mine," make frequent appearances. Emmer describes his latest musical endeavor as a group of songs that "are all based on human correspondence. They are inspired by distance, separation, communication and reunion." As a whole, the album can be characterized by a lone banjo and sprawling vocals, peppered with some super raunchy lyrical bits that verge on eroticism. ("The space between our sentences becomes erect, and starts to poke us at both ends, beginning and behind, stiff as the silence.) It's those delightful, almost inappropriate surprises that make Emmer's music more than just nostalgic pining for childhood.

Download/stream it here and also be sure to check out the Open Face Record Collective and all their awesome artists, such as the delectable divas of Mountain Man.

Here's "Was It Winnie" for your streaming pleasure.

"Come watch me bleed, I need you more than ever."

By the by... if you dig Jackson Emmer, then we've got a hunch you'll also really dig Horse's Mouth.