Ed Schrader has been a mainstay of the much-lauded Baltimore music scene for a long time. While he was much renowned for his live shows, he did not put out a full-length LP until his 2012 collaboration with Devlin Rice, Jazz Mind. Finally, Shrader has been getting the attention he so richly deserves, contributing a track for Sub Pop’s Sup Pop 1000 RSD compilation. The track, “Radio Eyes”, now has an accompanying video, directed by Philip Leaman. Watch the musicians get accosted by a bunch of disembodied limbs and sentient apples below.
Sub Pop 1000 is still available at Sub Pop or your local record store. (via Ad Hoc)
Oakland’s The Mantles have been a part of the Bay Area’s garage pop scene since 2007. On their new single, “Hello,” off the upcoming record Long Enough to Leave, leans in a more indie-pop direction reminiscent of New Zealand’s famed Flying Nun label. Long Enough to Leave is out June 18 on Slumberland Records.
In 1963, Lee Hazlewood released Trouble Is a Lonesome Town, a collection of acoustic tracks about a fictional town, hoping that other artists would cover them. About four decades later, Charles Normal discovered the album in a thrift store, and is releasing a covers record on July 9 via SideOneDummy entitled Thriftstore Masterpiece: Trouble Is a Lonesome Town. Along with this Isaac Brock cover of “The Railroad,” the album features contributions by Frank Black of the Pixies and Eddie Argos of Art Brut.
Shambhala, named after the mythical Buddhist kingdom, is the debut release from Erros Mágicos, the Magic Castles side project. The band started recording in 2011 but the project was shelved until principal songwriter Jason Edmonds revisited the recordings and decided to finish the project. The final product has a sweetly psychedelic, jangle-pop feel. “C’est Tout Noir” reads like the yé-yé version of a shamanic ritual, with a synthpop beat, psychedelic guitars, and some well-placed chanting.
Shambhala is available from Moon Glyph Records.
(via Ad Hoc)
Of course they’re named Twin Peaks, although they sound nothing like the music that scored the TV show. Instead, these 19-year-olds from Chicago make scrappy garage rock about girls a la Smith Westerns. They are re-releasing their debut record via Aquarium Drunkard’s Autumn Tone Records this June.
Ty Segall’s new proto-metal / psych project Fuzz has collaborated with Edgar Nelson Olbrand to release a short film / music video for their track “Fuzz’s Fourth Dream”. The video, which is set in LA at Burger Records’ Burgurama Festival, is shot in black & white and includes a nod to Woody Allen’s Manhattan. “Fuzz’s Fourth Dream” is available on a 7” from Trouble In Mind.
Montreal band Braids (formerly BRAIDS and the Neighborhood Council) have joined the Arbutus family to release their new 12”, In Kind//Amends, which they recorded after an 18 month tour in support of their last album, Native Speaker. On “Amends”, they were influenced by singer Raphaelle Standall-Preston’s other project, Blue Hawaii, and explored a more introspective and electronic approach. “Amends” shows the group’s newfound interest in dance music with a club-ready beat layered under their trademark atmospheric, ethereal vocals.
In Kind//Amends is out June 11 on Arbutus.
Dan Deacon’s music video for his RSD single “Konono Ripoff Nº1” is a series of animated gif portraits of members of the Baltimore arts community. They are portrayed with objects they felt represent them or are just special to them. The video, directed by Meredith Moore, has an interactive component through the use of the free Dan Deacon smartphone app, which syncs the phone to the music video, resulting in two simultaneously playing videos. The one on the phone displays the rotating objects chosen by the cast members. The user can control the speed of the object’s rotation by rotating their phone (although it didn’t quite work for me)
Brian DeGraw of Gang Gang Dance is just one of the artists who have remixed Animal Collective’s “Monkey Riches” for the band’s new EP, Monkey Been to Burn Town. It also features Teengirl Fantasy, Traxman, and a remix of “New Town Burnout” by Shabazz Palaces. The EP is available May 28 from Domino.
