wknd: Pure Ecstasy/Twin Sister Shows

"Your In It Now"
Big shows this weekend. Tomorrow night is going to be a lot of fun, especially with Pure Ecstasy making their Brooklyn debut. Their flying all the way up from Austin and playing a free show for yall, the people the of best borough around, so be sure to drink a LOT, not that I think that will be a problem. I could go on and on about how great of a show this is, but that'd just be me repeating myself, which doesn't go any of us any good. So, with that in mind, here are some jams to get you stoked for the weekend. If you want to come to the semi-private, not-really-secret-but-not-exactly-public show on Saturday, hit me up at mcgregor at me dot com for more info. Party on Wayne.

Pure Ecstasy- Pressure Drop (Toots & the Maytals cover)

Twin Sister- I Want A House

Family Portrait- It Turns (from Friendship Bracelet Comp 3)

Run DMT- Get Ripped of Die Trying

new: Friendship Bracelet 3

"And Make Out With You"Woke up at 5am today with a hankering for a lollipop. Stumbled out to the living room and grabbed a grape jawbreaker instead, then found Ian's note in my inbox. New Friendship Bracelet comp. Numero tres. I think, ill. Instantly waves of Pink Priest roll over me, drowning me in my comforter. An hour later and I'm on my 5th listen to Coasting's "Hots for Teacher", a long (for Coasting), minimalist romp through a teenage fantasy that proves beyond a doubt that Madison and Fiona are onto something both instantly familiar and totally fresh. Other standouts in the third, and in my opinion, most excellent edition of the Friendship Bracelet comp, include a new Speculator jam, a "Soaked" voyage with Fluker Love, another piece of ambient mist by Boneless and "Lover's Start (Desert Voyages)" by How to Dress Well & cokc dokc, which finds some dude crooning all Sade-like over a muffled lovers rock beat EQ'd to hell on a handheld boombox.

Download the comp here.

Video for new How to Dress Well & cokc dock track "11 Years On (demo)"

video: Matrix Metals "Flamingo Breeze, Pt. 4"

"Sam Meringue"


Virtual reality was never cool. In theory, buzzing off into a 3D-realm by virtue of placing a plastic mask over your eyes should've been killer. Throw in some lazer tag, a few insanely dark tunnels and your off into some Phillip K. Dick fantasy. That never seemed to be the case, but one could always imagine. Sort of how I feel about Matrix Metal's Flamingo Breeze LP, a whirlwind of salivating mind loops and flashback glitches, the sort of hiccups that roll down your spine, and result in your hands feeling really weird. Neverending waves of synthesized scores that could have been in the Robert Downey Jr.-Andrew McCarthy-Jamie Gertz classic Less Than Zero, if the movie was about SoCal rich brats with penchants for growing mescaline and wormwood rather than Porsche's and blow. Ivan Gaytan, who runs Irma Vep Tapes with our girl Madalyn Merkey, knows a little about said peyote drama, and dispels his knowledge through a visual zone so inebriated Robert Downey Jr. may mistake it for a home movie, travelogue he shot between 1996 to 2001.

Get the vinyl reissue of the sold out tape here.

new: Orphan Fairytale

Reefs
(photos by Michael Keany)

Conk shell in ear, tide rolling gently through the night... all I want right now. That said, having heard Dolphins Into the Future recently played shows in Hawaii was sort of like hearing James Ferraro and Robert Fripp were doing a collaboration on the International Space Station. It's moments like when I really wish scientists would stop working on drugs to eliminate allergies and get to the important shit- jet packs, hover boards, consumer-grade space ships.

Future yearnings aside, I was pretty jealous that Bobka-friend Matthew McVickar, a mainland ex-pat living in Hawaii, was able to catch Lieven Marten in his spiritual home. Lieven headed to our most polynesian state with fellow Belgian's Orphan Fairytale and Eekhorn X, and apparently they are still there, which bodes well for anyone looking to immerse themselves in next level waves. Vickar knows I've got a thing for oceanic frequencies and was nice enough to pass along Orphan Fairytale's new tour CD-R Neverending Waves, which plays as a sort of cosmically linked, spiritual counterpart (or companion) to On Sea-Faring Isolation. A cassette version of Neverending Waves is set to be reissued on Taped Sounds sometime in February or March, so keep an eye out for that. Peep the opening excerpt below.

Orphan Fairytale- Excerpt from Neverending Waves




Orphan Fairytale Live Set in Container for Bivak Gloria

new: Greatest Hits

"Take Your Time"
Apparently Zak Mering doesn't sleep. Between dropping tons of new Raw Thrills shit (he put another CD-R up on his site the other day), dude somehow finds time to craft more explosive schizo-synth jams as part of Greatest Hits with Tyler Thacker. Ariel Pink comparison's are definitely warranted, but Greatest Hits dwell in darker club zones, salivating over ketamine beats while fetishizing over black light posters. The club they hang in is probably one of their bedrooms, but that shouldn't take away from the fog machine, strobe light ethos, as its those first times at your friends b-day sleepover with a boombox and an older brother's strobe that really set the tone for Greatest Hits Vol.1. Be sure to peep track 3, "Make You Mine", one of the finer pieces of straight up dance pop I've heard in a minute. "Danse Pop" too.

Download Greatest Hits Volume 1.

video: James Ferraro at Death By Audio

"iAsia"

This show was a trip. From the polish tweaker (memorialized brilliantly by Impose) to Zac Davis's twisted contributions towards the end of the night, I'm not really sure how this show sits in my memory bank. I do know that before that dude started screaming I was thoroughly zoned, so much so that I spent part of the set watching Ferraro through the viewfinder of the very camera which filmed this video. Two steps removed from DBA, truly entranced, I was sort of boggled by how patient Ferraro was in person. Just him, a keyboard and some knobs. Pretty chill to be honest. Not sure why that dude tweaked. Shit, he wasn't even in the room when Davis came up and really got into the nastiness. Wanna take a trip? Hit play.

While your at it, head over to OESB blog and peep the super warped tunnels of the new Sky Juice video. Zac Davis, the dude shredding above, is one part of Sky Juice, and the video, featuring excerpts from Sky Juice's Hard to Kill, which was released a while back on OESB.

new: The Report

"Playboy Tunnels"
(Collage Art by Madalyn Merkey. Her work appears in the Report.)
It's been a few months since the silly thought of starting a bi-annual cultural compendium crept into the forefront of my brain. I was going out to dinner and was sorta pissed the tavern ran out of Fish & Chips. (Bummer.) Since then, my half baked idea evolved into the Report, a home for warped ideas germinating in the caves of our contributors craniums for god knows how long. In many respects, the Report is a home for stuff that doesn't have a home, a quasi orphanage for random thoughts, mind collages, one-off jams and nights that need remembering.

The Report started a Kickstarter project to help bring our ideas to life. In a shockingly short period of time the Report raised its goal of $1000. Shit, y'all were so supportive we exceeded our goal. In all honesty, its remarkable. Scott the Intern and I are working our asses off in the Bobka/Report HQ in Greenpoint, Brooklyn and we hope to have the Report packaged and ready to go in early February. Don't want to give too much away, because surprises are always nice, but I will disclose that the Report is a music, culture and art journal bundled with a DVD of live concert footage shot by Ray Concepcion and C. Axel Poekel (Chocolate Bobka's chief videographer) and a cassette compilation featuring new songs (and LOTS of exclusives) from Real Estate, Pure Ecstasy, Twin Sister, Mountain Man, Sharon Van Etten, Alex Bleeker, Holiday Shores and many, many more. The Report will be lovingly packaged for each individual order. This means no inventory, as we will only print as many as ordered. No more, no less, no excess. Pre-orders will be available in the next week or so, however, you can pre-order the Report by contributing to the Kickstarter project, which has lots of cool incentives, like, uh, the shirt off my back. Seriously. Really psyched for everyone to see what we've got cooking.

Donate to the Report Kickstarter.

mp3: The Twerps "Another One That Didn't Come"

"If It Wasn't For All The Gin"
Introduced via the Northern Autumn/Southern Spring #3 by the Rose Quartz folks, The Twerps have been in pretty consistent rotation over here. Highly melodic, addictive slow pop tunes with attitude, like smart young kids who really like Comet Gain but have more sex, and are from Australia (or maybe have more sex 'cause their from Australia?). Their recent release on Night People is full of undeniable headphone friends, like "Dance Alone" and its predecessor "Another One That Didn't Come." Meloncholic pop nuggets flooded with apathy and suburban melodrama. "Good Advice" kicks off the C30 and sets the tone, head in one hand, beer in the other. The most earnest sad kid jingle-jangles I've heard in a good while.

The Twerps- Another One that Didn't Come
The Twerps- Dance Alone (via Rose Quartz)

mp3: Skyramp Days of Thunder

"Pale Blue Dot"

Somehow, despite the totally in-my-zone album title, a reference to one of my favorite Windows 95 joystick games and the appearance of one of my favorite cosmic voyagers, I completely overlooked Skyramps Days of Thunder. Ian flipped me to it when it was posted on DayvanZombear last week, and like most of the material Dan Lopatin chimes on, it's a mystic, outerspace affair, one that would go well with repeating Carl Sagan's ellegy for Earth, Pale Blue Dot: A Vision of the Human Future in Space

Look again at that dot. That's here. That's home. That's us. On it everyone you love, everyone you know, everyone you ever heard of, every human being who ever was, lived out their lives. The aggregate of our joy and suffering, thousands of confident religions, ideologies, and economic doctrines, every hunter and forager, every hero and coward, every creator and destroyer of civilization, every king and peasant, every young couple in love, every mother and father, hopeful child, inventor and explorer, every teacher of morals, every corrupt politician, every "superstar," every "supreme leader," every saint and sinner in the history of our species lived there-on a mote of dust suspended in a sunbeam.

The collaboration between Lopatin and Mark McGuire, of Emeralds, is a post-Space Race ode to cosmonauts, astronauts, and monkeys, all those who braved the final frontier in the name of exploration. Like "Flight Simulator", "Dripping Water Hollows Out A Stone" channels nether-dimensions left unexplored by most humans, yet dreamt about my many.

Skyramps- Dripping Water Hollows Out A Stone

video: Raw Thrills "Rat Race"

"Rodents Crawling All Around"

Introduced Raw Thrills the other day and it seems like the freakazoid bedroom karaoke vibe really captured the spirit of spryly young minds all over. If you've headed over to I'm So Sorry Dad, you already know that Zak Mering ain't just offering aural vision quests, but visual treats to, including this video for "Rat Race" by collaborator Kevin DiTrapano, who tailors unknown synthetic psychedelic backayard snippets with pixelated, cross-colour subway footage for what is essentially an ode to 2oth century consumer culture, and rats shitting in the kitchen of a combination KFC-Taco Bell.

mix: Cruisin The World for LIST.

Cruisin'
A couple weeks ago I mentioned KGB Man's mix for the LIST., a chopped and screwed journey through the cosmos that kicked off with a sexual explosion in the form of Ron C's "Flex (Time to Have Sex)." Seriously banging. Coincidentally, I was working on a mix for LIST. at the same time, and mine just so happens to also include Big Moe's "Sipping on Codeine." Crafted as an ode to the radio in the arcade classic Cruisin' The World, this mix was sequenced and mixed by a ficticious DXM trippin' night warrior on the run from INTERPOL. Peep the new mix below, and LIST.'s ever growing archive for more choice journeys to the center of your mind.

McGregor Mix for LIST.

1 Calculin & Technicas De Concentracion Y Relajacion Yoga - Don Din Don [Sublime Frequencies]
2 Bali Cremation Processsion (Rotating Coffin) [Sublime Frequencies]
3 Run DMT - Ramona
4 Pantha Du Prince - Stick to My Side (feat. Panda Bear) [Rough Trade]
5 Grippers Nother Onesers - Alien Breeze Transitor [Olde English Spelling Bee]
6 More Bikini Babes - My Dudes and I
7 Javelin - Goal/Wide
8 More Bikini Babes - My Dudes and I (Reprise)
9 Wulomei - Kpabi [Agoro Records]
10 Orange Juice - Rip It Up [Polydor]
11 Matrix Metals - Flamingo Breeze [Olde English Spelling Bee]
12 Jacob Miller - All I want for Ismas [Top Ranking]
13 Matrix Metals - Flamingo Breeze (Reprise) [Olde English Spelling Bee]
14 Artie Garr - Dream Alone [Burning Airlines]
15 Bellemou & Benfissa - Lah Lah Ya S'habi [Sublime Frequencies]
16 The Manson Family - I'll Never Say Never to Always [Grey Matter]
17 Close Lobsters - Firestation Towers [Fire Records]
18 Dem Hunger - Holly Shit
19 Big Moe -Sippin Codine (DJ Screw) [Bigtyme Recordz]
20 Group Inerane - Kamu Talyat [Sublime Frequencies]
21 High Wolf - Un Abrazo [Not Not Fun Records]
22 Julian Lynch- Time After Time
23 Radio Thailand- Amplitude Massage and Beyond [Sublime Frequencies]
LIST.007 by LIST.

show: Beach Fossils, Freaks, Cloud Nothings, Nude Beach

"Journey Through The Past"

As another Saturday night descends upon us, lets head down to the Monster Island Basement, and pretend its our very own fallout shelter. Sort of like that Christopher Walken/Brendan Frasier movie Blast From the Past, sans Alicia Silverstone, and plus a ton of cheap beer and kick ass bands. Y'all are probably already familiar with Beach Fossils and Alex Bleeker and the Freaks, if your not, get acquainted now so you can sing-a-long or at least have the option of doing so. Speaking of sing-a-longs, Cloud Nothings, Cleveland's teenage wonderkids, whose basement pop sensibilities are steeped in anti-cool kid aesthetics. Like most of us, Cloud Nothings have probably spent more than a few nights driving aimlessly around their hometown, looking for something, anything, or nothing, to do. Their return to Brooklyn is especially notable as the last time they played, with Real Estate and Woods, they had the Market moving. Throw in Nude Beach from New Hope, aka Pennsylvania's classic freak outpost, and it's sure to be a blast. Did I mention this is a Chocolate Bobka & Group Tightener Party? Oh, well, it is, so yeah, it's definitely gonna rage. 8pm, $7. Game on.

new: Raw Thrills

"It Never Ends"


With all the recycled Ariel Pink vibes flying high in the sky, and every dude with five pseudonyms ripping off Skaters/James Ferraro-ish like its their job, its refreshing to hear some damaged AM gold worth its weight in reprocessed dreams and conjugal visits. Raw Thrills is that shit, and, if you've got a heart, and its beating, two things that may or may not exist in the current realm of indie-blog fuckery, it should be pretty god damn apparent. Apologies for all the expletives and potty talk, but the in-yr-face synth squabbles created by Zak Mering are the sort of undeniably twisted pop gems that make ears perk up with WTF intrigue. Easily digestible, like cherry jubilee english muffins at 5am, Raw Thrills jams is the sort of Casio beat synthesis John Maus/Haunted Graffiti & non-depressed, never goth Depeche Mode fetishists have been searching for. Dude has been creating jams for years, as part of Philippians, Insted, and a host of other acts, but seems like the air is opaque enough these days for Raw Thrills to break through the bedrooms of lost MySpace voyagers and into the hearts of cassette tape wizards and blog douches everywhere. If I had the time, I'd listen to everything this guy has ever created on repeat, all while mainlining Chloraseptic.

Don't have any mp3s, but it doesn't really matter because Raw Thrills seems to be made for multi-media, hence why his YouTube channel is now my playlist for the week of January 11th.

tape: Holiday Shores "Air Glow"

"We Go"
Accompanying a cover of Arthur Russell's "Your Motion Says" on the Through The Thin Clouds tape, Holiday Shores "Air Glow" comes off as a treatise on Wild Combination, the haunting and riveting documentary about the experimental composer's life and times. For all its rousing movements, "Air Glow" often seems like it should be "Your Motion Says", a simple reworking of a tune so inherently complex it could never be fully understood in its own time. However, unlike Russell's native Iowa, "Air Glow" was produced on unsavory farm land, the type of place where only weeds and dreams grow. And yet, despite its trappings, it rises higher than any weeds or expectations could grow, sort of like an infinite bean stalk, on its way to a place where ideas are nurtured, blessed. Collected on the Through The Thin Clouds tape, if this is any indication of where Holiday Shores are headed, it'd be a good idea to make sure the stalk is watered daily and gets a lot of sunlight. The band was selling the Through the Thin Clouds tape on its Fall tour, however, a few copies still remain. Hit [pemberton.n at gmail.com] for a copy up if your looking for a taste of the future.

Holiday Shores- Air Glow

video: Pure Ecstasy "Easy"

"I Don't Feel Nothing At All"

Pure Ecstasy just finished a jaunt up the west coast and from what I heard, the bands show at Aquarius Records in San Francisco was fucking phenomenal, which makes me even more excited for Nate Grace & Co's inaugural trip to Brooklyn at the end of the month. Consider this fine capture by our Tunnelvision brothers Yours Truly a primer for the excellent weekend that will be January 29th & 30th.

mp3: Twin Sister

"When You Come Back Home"

I'm not sure if they know it but Twin Sister are funky as hell. Sort of like if Mad Lib got a hold of some Fagan-Becker reels while chilling at LSU (Louisiana Syrup University). Add soaring harmonies and a vision of vocalist and its no wonder STG named "I Want A House" one of the best songs of 2009, noting in their year end review that "The first half of this song is about how good it would be to move in with your lover. It's coo and thump, swing and lick; it's blue and rose." The bands Vampires With Dreaming Kids EP is available for free (yeah, do that now), as is a treasure trove of old songs, live shows, "bubble ideas", ring tones and a ton of other material worth delving into. I could go on and on about all the gems I've found within this vast collection (4 pages worth!), but that'd take all the fun out of the exploration, which I think is sort of the best part about Twin Sister. It's music for the people, in all the different ways we consume it, for all our scattered moods. A few choice songs for a zoned moods below.

Twin Sister have a bunch of upcoming shows in NYC/BK, including a Chocolate Bobka show with Pure Ecstasy, Family Portrait and Run DMT on January 29th at Bruar Falls. More on that later. Peep Twin Sister dates here.

Twin Sister- I Want a House (Dreaming of the future, a good one)

Twin Sister- All My Trials (hymnal ballad from the great beyond)

Twin Sister- Chewey In The Stars (score to an 8-bit graphic rendition of Logan's Run)

Twin Sister- Ginger (ready to take over New York City with only a quarter in hand)

video: Julian Lynch "Rancher"

"Orange You Glad"

Unlike many of his compadres, Julian Lynch shows in the tri-state area are anything but a dime a dozen. They don't come that often, but when they do, the masses congregate, filling backyards, bars, living rooms to the brim with excited and mystified energies. That was the case last night at the PopJew curated show at Bruar Falls, which served as both a warming shelter and venue for Julian to hold court. Backed by Martin Courtney (bass), Alex Bleeker (guitar), Evan Brody (keys) and Matt Mondanile (drums), the set, which ran through the Lynch canon, could be described as a family affair. Most likely the quintet have been working the kinks out of Julian's songs in a basement in Ridgewood over the past week, that is, of course, assuming that they didn't already know each of his songs by heart. Someday (soon) I suspect many more will know all these songs by heart. They belong in the heart.

new: The Treehouse, Wigflip Records

"A Place of Peace and Immersion"
Been talking up the burgeoning B-more collective consisting of Happy Family, Run DMT, Semya for a while, and now I'm happy to report that Will from Happy Family has started Wigflip Records, which will function as an outpost for the collectives recorded material. Wigflip is already hosting free full-length downloads of Run DMT's Bong Voyage, as well as the recent Run DMT/Happy Family collaborative mix tape Amanda Huggankiss.

While DMT & HF produce sample based hypnosis, The Treehouse, who has two EPs for free download on the Wigflip site, creates random collections of molecules that make one feel like they are living in an isolation tank. Wigflip describes it as "Chihei Hatakeyama meets Growing in the woods," which flipped my lid, and is a pretty choice description of the ambient stylings on The Roots The Sun and Songs About Little Things In Nature, which should give you an even better idea of the sort of sound Christoper Masciari crafts as The Treehouse.

While your at it, download Dygn + Happy Family's installation collaboration Barely Caring, which was "created for the bathroom at Soft Fest" in Baltimore this past October. Barely Caring is like the longest, deepest breath you've ever taken, looped for an hour while a Lunar tide pulls its heart strings back and forth, back and forth, until you wake up in bed holding a half eaten sandwich.

Download The Treehouse's Two EPs

Download Dygn + Happy Family's Barely Caring

mp3: Pigeons "Tendress"

"Lowest"
A few months ago a little birdie whispered some words in my ear about Pigeons. I vaguely remember searching for Pigeons, then getting sidetracked when I found myself inside a Walton Ford painting. It took months to escape, but when I did, the first thing that flew my way was Pigeons.

Probably one of the most slept on songs of 2009, "Tendress", the first track on the Lunettes 7-inch released on Soft Abuse, is the sort of super reverb'd psych Tarantino, filling the role of music director would use to a score a Neil Krug film. (see: example) One part understated desert psych, one part mystic sorcery, Pigeons exist in the ghostly halls of the Bronx, NY, free to conjure spirits from the nearly departed realm. Something tells me the group has spent some time on Hart Island, and if not, they really should try to get out there sometime soon. Rumor has it a forthcoming LP will be released on OESB, in the meantime, pick up Lunettes from Soft Abuse.

Pigeons- Tendress