Category: review

Charlie ASH – wake up (you’re not asleep now)

Posted on by Dr Hitchcock


Charlie Ash are back on the scene, and things are good. Despite some killer remixes of their gym-cardio-room classic O’Baby last year, I have heard little from the frizzy haired figureheads of four to the floor, dance pop for a while. Well, they’re back and in striking form. Of late, they’ve dropped a thrilling single, Wake Up (You’re Not Asleep Now), packed up their synthesisers and headed to the motherland for a string of shows and a good helping of life on the road. Wake Up, is a vocal driven floor filler, with Rosie’s tones oozing with docile husk and ever-shifting imperative. The chorus is more infectious than swine flu, has a synth line reminiscent of Radiohead’s Exit Music to a Film and drips with dance-floor chic. This track is another stepping stone to super stardom, and another peacock feather in the collective hats for one of New Zealand’s finest. Download it now!

MP3: Charlie ASH – wake up (you’re not asleep now)

:: Tom Darlow

YOU NEED THIS! The Pink Mountaintops – Outside Love. Release: 05th of May 2009

Posted on by Dr Hitchcock

 

 

 

Vancouver native Stephen McBean (Jerk With A Bomb, Ex Dead Teenager, Black Mountain) has been recording music for 25 years now but is generally unheard of in New Zealand.

This is the 3rd Pink Mountaintops album from a catalogue that also includes 2 EPs and is described by their record label Jagjaguwar, like this, “The ten songs on “Outside Love” are about or influenced by weddings in Montreal, winter, Pink Floyd’s The Final Cut, Christmas albums, that one Exile song and that one Echo and the Bunnymen song, the Bermuda Triangle, being depressed in the sunshine, people who haven’t made out yet but will in the future, The Everly Brothers, clowns in the ceilings, and bedrooms where skinheads used to live.” And that I find pretty darn accurate.

Another way would be to say this is most definitely their most fluid, listenable album yet. While the S/T album and Axis of Evol would ever so slightly jolt you from time to time (pleasurably of course), the formula has now been perfected and patented. 

A family affair, this album also features guests from the likes of Godspeed You! Black Emperor, Whiskeytown, Blood Meridian, Bonnie Prince Billy and of course, Black Mountain.

Standout track so far is “Holiday”. Most basic in arrangement, you can almost imagine 6 or 7 people sitting in the backyard circled around a fire, each playing their part passing a cheap bottle of wine around. This is song is carefree, beginning with one of my new most-favorite ever lyrics, “Everyone I love deserves a holiday in the sun almost every day”.

Fans of the Brian Jonestown Massacre, Wil Oldham, Nick Cave and the like will find their new favorite band in the Pink Mountaintops. One record or another.

BUT why write pages upon pages about something when the captive audience can listen to it now for free? Visit www.myspace.com/pinkmountaintops and you can hear the album in its entirety right now!

Once you’ve hear it and want to purchase the album go to www.is.gd/wqJX pre-order it and get the full album as a download RIGHT NOW!!!

After that, if you’re still hungry go to http://www.hivestudios.net where you can download Ex Dead Teenager’s second album for free! They come across more like Jon Spencer’s dirty little brother playing Birthday Party songs. In New Zealand terms, I totally have a rock-fantasy line-up with these guys, Batrider & Die! Die! Die!

DIG NOW AND FOREVER HOLD YOUR PEACEPIPE!

MP3: Pink Mountaintops – vampire
MP3: Pink Mountaintops – while you were dreaming

:: Evan James

 

Artist: Vampire Weekend. Album: Vampire Weekend.

Posted on by Dr Hitchcock

similar to the “how many band members are there really” belle & sebastian set-up, with just a hint of lime and a snort of amyl or two. clean but dirty, cheeky but not rude. they’re the arctic monkeys your mum is ok with.

but don’t consign them into the too twee-for-me bin just yet. even if they DO name-check paul simon, they’re frisky and foxy and a little bit twisted (just WHY does blake got a new face?)
so you may be thinking you’ve heard it all before, but then again, if you’re not listening to electronic music what did you expect?

vampire weekend are that second and third beer on the porch. sure, you’ve tasted before, but your cheeks are flushed, you’re caught in a sunbeam & before you know it dancing like your dad makes sense.

i dunno the history or the facts – probly english, prob’ly rawkus as feck live, but right now exactly the solid production and song-writing that leaves the likes of MGMT lip-synching onstage in their fluro crushed velvet booties.

so if you like your organs warm & wooshy, your jungle drums-a-pounding and string arrangements subversively-swirly give ’em a spin.

“downy in sweat-shirts, absolute horror” indeed…

http://www.vampireweekend.com
http://www.myspace.com/vampireweekend
Buy: Vampire Weekend – Vampire Weekend

:: Nurse NOS

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Wanna learn how to play the guitar from some of the best? Check out what my friends have to offer at Jamorama.

Artist: Invader Tron. Song: journey to the secret sky.

Posted on by Dr Hitchcock

Invader Tron @ a Psy Pirate Party

Invader Tron aka Andrew Snook is one of the many talented cats to come out the Canterbury Psy/Outdoor scene and a humble dude to boot. You’ll often find him twisting knobs at sunrise , navigating a path through psyberspace and sharing  knowledge of a way. His song ‘journey to the secret sky’ is a great example of this. Not one to push or shove, Invader Tron delicately arranges the electrons and neutrons at his comand into beautiful melodic patterns helping you remember that the world isn’t completely fucked!

MP3: Invader Tron – journey to the secret sky

More free and legal MP3s from Invader Tron


http://www.myspace.com/tronaudio1

:: Dr H