Yes, it’s Monday.  Yes, it’s been a week since I’ve posted anything.  No, I won’t buy you a new bike.

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The Blow – Parenthesis
from the album Paper Television

If I were any good at writing I would go back and write a better review for the Blows’ latest full length Paper Television.  They definitely deserve it.  The record is one huge step up from their last full length and hopefully a sign of more to come. 

This video here is for track number 2, ‘Parentheses’, and it’s about supermarkets, love, and everything in between.  The chorus is really neat, especially how it drops in and seems to take the upbeat track in another direction.  That doesn’t describe a thing you say?  Watch the video and you’ll see what I mean.

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Johann Johannsson – The Sun’s Gone Dim
from the album IBM 1401: A Users Manual

Are you a fan of Swedish-born composers?  Do you like to think of your life as one big movie?  Do you like long walks on red planets?  If you answered yes to any of these than you will probably dig Johann Johannsson’s newest opus, the cleverly titled IBM 1401: A Users Manual.  It is made up of 5 compositions that range from 7 to 10 minutes long, all containing slow glacier-like builds that when they finally hit, feel just like a giant glacier smashing you in the heart. 

Watch this video and overdose on artsyness.

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The National – Daughters of the Soho Riots
from the album Alligator

An oldie but goodie, The National’s ‘Daughters of the Soho Riots’ is a video I came across last year that really stuck with me.  I had already fallen in love with Alligator a few weeks earlier so this blurry, black and white video combined with the chorus’ lyrics nearly broke me up inside.  So emotional.  So real.  So awkward.  If you are a woman and you like this video and you have good genes/look good in jeans, please e-mail me some pics.

P.S:  When is a new National record going to come out?  We need some new sexy tunes!

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John Vanderslice – Exodus Damage
from the album Pixel Revolt

It wouldn’t be a true Invisible Limb post without a link to some John Vanderslice-related media.  In this case, here is a video from his latest full length Pixel Revolt.  It is for the track Exodus Damage, which contains some seriously sweet accoustic guitar.  At least I think it is accoustic.  But I could be wrong because I don’t know much about music at all.  Should I be saying that out loud?

The good news for Vanderslice fans is that he is currently writing and recording the follow up to Pixel Revolt, which should be out in early 2007.  According to the man himself, “the new record is a bit more like Time Travel” referring to his break out sophomore record Time Travel is Lonely.  If you’ve heard it than you know just how potentially amazing this news is.

Although vocals appear here and there, Every Gentle Air specialize mostly in dreamy, instrumental pop music.  Their most recent album, Pt. 2, was recently re-released by Kansas City label The Record Machine complete with new packaging and artwork (anyone who had bought the cd when it first came out knows each copy was originally hand painted- fun!).  My good friend Corndog was one of these people and the first person to introduce me to the band. 

Back in March, Corndog played Pt. 2 for me on our road trip to Lake Tahoe.  After my initial shock that Corndog had bought a cd that didn’t sound like Unearth or some spastic hardcore band, I settled into the record, and we ended up listening to it multiple times over the course of the trip.  The songs that stuck out to me then, and the tracks I immediately looked for when I received this re-release in the mail, were ‘the Sower’ and ‘Ann Arbor Michigan’.

‘The Sower’ begins like any good instrumental album must.  With a slow fade in and a promise of layered, beautiful, other wordly goodness.  The guitars and piano mesh with the drum beat to form a blanket.  Wrap yourself in it, won’t you? 

The other track I’ve included, ‘Ann Arbor Michigan’, is a slow starter but stick with it and around the 1:26 mark your face will melt off in surprise.  A discordant guitar line jumps out from nowhere and dominates the rest of the song.  It is a brilliant build up and payoff.  If you like either of these two tracks I’d recommend dropping some dough on the whole package.  Hand painted cd or not, it’s worth it.

[mp3] Every Gentle Air – The Sower
[mp3] Every Gentle Air – Ann Arbor Michigan

Edit:  The link for the second mp3 has been fixed.  Sorry!

When the majority of music sent to us prides itself on complexity and clever lyrical word play, it is a gust of fresh wind to receive a record as simple and fun as Quit Your Dayjob’s Open Up. Coconut!  This is music for the rebellious ADD youth in all of us.  It is fast, short- most of the songs are over before you knew they started- and most importantly entertaining!

Where a Sufjan might stuff 30 words and two semi-colons into their song titles, Swedish punks Quit Your Dayjob choose just one they like, repeat it over and over again, then name the song after it.  Take ‘Look! A Dollar!’ for example.  This bouncy surf-punk song is basically an instrumental piece, except for the occasional proclamation of- you guessed it- “Look! A dollar!”  The same applies to ‘Vlado Video’, although on this track, there are a few more lines of lyrics to go along with its electro-dance beat (they name drop screen heroes Steve McQueen and Chuck Norris! Rad!). 

This is seriously a whole bag of fun.

[mp3] Quit Your Dayjob – Look! A Dollar!
[mp3] Quit Your Dayjob – Vlado Video

Bonus!

[video] Quit Your Dayjob – Coconut
[video] Quit Your Dayjob – Vlado Video

When Indiana post-punk band Brazil released their debut A Hostage and the Meaning of Life back in 2004 I was all about it.  The album, which recieved a 4 star rating from Alternative Press, was a huge step forward from the creepy sci-fi-keyboard punk EP and it was also probably one of the most played records amongst my friends that year.  We would sing along to all the tracks while driving and think to ourselves, “Damn, this sure sound like At the Drive In!  Sweet!” 

I can’t say my sentiments have gone unchanged since then, but I still have a lot of respect for the band.  Their new record, The Philosophy Of Velocity, picks up where A Hostage left off, except that the band has undergone a bit of a production change this go round.  The vocals are no longer at the fore front and the songs now have an even more anthemic sound.  It isn’t my favorite release this year but fans of Mars Volta/At The Drive In post-punk should enjoy this. 

Besides, sometimes it is important to take a break from all of the ‘enlightened’ indie rock stuff and re-visit some of your past fixations.  Brazil being one of mine.

[mp3] Brazil – A Crime (And the Antique Solution) 

The Specimen
Do U Damage
Peace Bisquit 

Judging a book by its cover, you might expect Brooklyn’s The Specimen to be some form of rap/rock hybrid.  Something in the vein of a third generation Limp Bizkit cover band.  However, although the brass knuckle imagery and ebonic song titles reek of a band trying to be so tough and edgy their unintentional camp levels are approaching the outer atmospheres, these are merely affectations.  The Specimen are actually a rock/electro mash-up consisting of one member, Matt Gorny. 

After spending his childhood in Poland, Gorny moved to New York and started toying with music.  Eventually he caught the eye of a local production company and Do U Damage is the result.  Notably eclectic and bold in its vision, Do U Damage attempts to blur genre and eschew labels with it’s Oasis-meets-the Faint-meets-the Beatles concoction.  Unfortunately, the six songs on this EP sounds more like a huge mess of sound than genre-hopping mind benders. 

No, take that back.  Your mind will be bent.  There are so many layers thrown on top of eachother that your head will be spinning.  If things were only toned down a bit and moderated, as they are with the Beck-flavored ‘Hot Stuff’ and the playful ‘Move Like That’, Do U Damage’s blender of pop, rock, and dance would be both refreshing and addictive.  However, instead we are subjected to too much excess and not enough calmer moments to recover and rest our ears.

I won’t pretend there isn’t an audience for this much tinkered and tampered hodge podge of dance beats.  It’s just that Gorny seems to be a musician much more talented and capable than what Do U Damage implies.  Here’s to the hope that future releases strip away the superflouous layers and focus on the real goods- they’re definitely there.

MP3
Listen to tracks at The Specimen’s Myspace page

So we interviewed a few of our random Myspace friends a while back and no one really cared.  Doesn’t matter to us.  We don’t post things to entertain or please our visitors.  Everyone knows the only reason we run this site is to get free cds.

Anyway, there was one more Myspace interview that I hadn’t gotten around to posting.  It was with a guy named Phil who plays in a one man band called Phil and the Osophers.  All of the hilarious interview is available after the jump. Continue Reading »

My obsession with Communique’s last full length Poison Arrows was very short lived.  At first I was entranced by it’s overly catchy melodies and vocals, but after a few months had passed I became a bit annoyed by the very same two qualities that had turned me on to them.  Keep in mind this was also around the time that every band on MTV and the radio started experimenting with “that whole dance thing”, so the blame for my waning interest can’t be placed soley on the band. 

Listening to Communique’s latest EP, however, it seems the band may have been reading my mind.  Walk Into the Light is just as catchy and energetic as Poison Arrows but it is noticeably less over bearing.  The vocals aren’t mixed as high and there is a lot more restraint shown in the music.  The keyboards do a better job of adding to the tracks rather than just making the listener cringe.  This isn’t to say they have completely elevated or distanced themselves from the multitudes of “dance-punk” bands out there, but they have taken a small step.

Here is the first song from their new EP entitled ‘The Sad Valentine’.  If you only listen to 132 dance-rock songs this year, make this be one of them.

[mp3] Communique – The Sad Valentine

Oxford Collapse
Remember the Night Parties
SubPop Records

There was a time, at least 15 years ago, when children who were weaned on ridiculous ’70s hard rock and ’80s hair metal went to college. There they had their eyes opened by groups like Sonic Youth and Dinosaur Jr. and decided that they really didn’t need to shred, but could instead detune their guitars and try to be a little more melodic and artsy. Best of all, they could still rock out. It’s that kind of thinking that spawned some of the best bands of the indie music explosion of the mid to late ’90s from Superchunk and Archers of Loaf to Hum and Lotion. Continue Reading »

Grizzly Bear
Yellow House
Warp Records

The term “avant-folk” seems to be getting attached to any band or artist that features a heavy use of acoustic guitar and steers clear of conventional singer/songwriter fare. It’s a shame too because it tends to put those folks at a disadvantage, conjuring up images of poster boy for the avant-folk movement Devendra Banhart and his faux-naif antics. Hopefully with a tour opening up for fellow sonic daytrippers TV On The Radio, will help Grizzly Bear avoid such associations and show them to be the bold new step forward for the world of psychedelic and avant garde pop music that they truely are. Continue Reading »