Frankie Rose: Interstellar
Frankie Rose, who the heavens do you think you are? Admirably, though stupidly, averse to the gravy train, you quit the Crystal Stilts and you abandoned the Girls Dum Dum and Vivian to record one of the best thin-air albums of 2010, Frankie Rose and the Outs. You then offered the only decent cover track, [...]
Prinzhorn Dance School: Clay Class
Prinzhorn Dance School‘s self-titled debut was one of those rare records that genuinely, and successfully, escaped critical dissection. Definable or vaguely describable, sure: it was minimalist, nostalgic post punk. But it defied nuanced explanations of potential importance or relevancy in the zeitgeist of 2007. Similar to MGMT’s Congratulations, Prinzhorn Dance School seemed to elude any [...]
Cloud Nothings: Attack on Memory
When Dylan Baldi first became a presence on the radar of most listeners just over a year ago, he appeared to be yet another of the endless number of nostalgia-obsessed, Tumblrized indie musicians. Like most, he had something worthwhile, or at least relatively enjoyable, to toss in the zeitgeist: a record glossed with his own [...]
Heat Dust: Heat Dust EP
Though this latest wave of genre-excavating indie music has yielded a rather admirable group of technically competent, revisionist garage rock bands, these musicians – much like any number of psychedelic, freak folk, electrofunk and lo-fi throwback artists – are creatively bound as much by the necessity of honing authentic onstage personas as they are by [...]
Glish: Blast Off
Only seconds after the aerated opening notes of “Legs In Space” jounce from their speakers, it’s evident that Glish is attempting to breathe new life into an otherwise stale musical vista with a detailed attention to textural convention. Echoed, wiry lead guitars overlay a bouncy barely-there rhythm section, ghostly stargazer lyricism and cymbal-heavy drums that [...]
Cloud Control: Bliss Release
Australians have always seemed to run a strange horse in the race of the hipster-driven aughts. Though arguably having a heavy hand in shaping and defining modern indie pop with acts like Architecture in Helsinki, most Aussie bands since then – whether by systematic design or their own disinterest and ineptitude – have failed to [...]
Giant Cloud: Bloom And Decay
Perhaps the most beautiful thing about Bloom And Decay, New Orleans stewards of shimmering astro-pop Giant Cloud’s semi-posthumous final album, is how instantly comfortable it feels even upon first listen. With only 2010′s delightful – but tiny – Old Books EP available for public consumption as the band relentlessly toured until their mid-2011 breakup, the [...]
Surfer Blood: Tarot Classics
With the unexpected smash success that was last year’s Astro Coast, Floridian indie band Surfer Blood – probably to the sinking apprehension of every single indie rock cainophobe – seemingly has no where to go but larger. After national notoriety and critical acclaim brought the young act to a slew of spacious festival stages and [...]
Sun Hotel: Gifts
In the two or so years that Sun Hotel has been in existence, they’ve quickly grown from a fledgling two-man instrumental project into a rock n’ roll nerve center – housing as many as six constantly revolving mini-bands and managing to found local DIY label Chinquapin Records with brother group Caddywhompus. With such a manically [...]
