Here is video of Beck, Jeff Tweedy, Jeff Tweedy's kid, and Feist jamming on "Lawrence of Euphoria" by Skip Spence. This is another product of the Record Club series I mentioned last summer. They have already done album length covers of of Leonard Cohen and the Velvet Underground, going on to cover Oar, the 1969 solo album by Skip Spence of Jefferson Airplane.

The Big Pink first caught my attention with their single "Velvet," a dreamy collage of industrial beats amidst a droning guitar shred. I played it over and over and over until I got my hands on the debut album A Brief History of Love, which became an automatic favorite. While being more reminiscent of Jesus and the Mary Chain, the band took its name from country soul rockers The Band’s debut album Music from Big Pink. The duo consists of multi-instrumentalists Robbie Furze and Milo Cordell.


The band's debut album, A Brief History of Love, was released in September of 2009 via 4AD. The album opener "Crystal Visions," brings out the shoe gazer in everyone. The memorizing track explodes into a psychedelic explosion of phase-shifting, echoed guitars and a repetitive bass riff which initially reminded of a Black Angels show I attended a few years back. A pervading warped, chilly, haunted ambiance lingers throughout the track’s hook-heavy reverb.

Third track and first single of the album, “Dominos” commences with rhythmic propulsion of drumming followed by the elated, yet heartless chorus “these girls fall like dominos, dominos… these girls fall like dominos, dominos.” The lyrics allude to the fact and unfortunate pleasure of breaking hearts. Despite this, every song on the album has a different take and angle of love, from starlit romance to destructive desire.

The last track, “Count Backwards from Ten,” begins with someone’s heavy foot on the distortion pedal but quickly unfolds into a cascading melody of sadness. Oddly this track is unlike all the others in that it sounds less industrial, machine-made and more like something Oasis would put out. Regardless, this album proves to be a modern masterpiece and an honest ode to the greatest feeling in the world, love.

• The Big Pink - "Velvet"
• The Big Pink - "Dominos"
• myspace.com/musicfromthebigpink

The Big Pink will be playing in Austin on Thursday, April 8 at The Parish with A Place to Bury Strangers. We will be giving away a pair of spots on the guestlist via Twitter, and you can purchase tickets at the link.

Golden Ages is a bedroom producer who creates a mixed breed of psychedelic pop and chillwave. Hailing from Philadelphia, this anonymous music project is influenced by the likes of Panda Bear, Washed Out, Toro Y Moi, Fuck Buttons and Memory Tapes. On the Golden Ages full-length debut, Tradition, he combines pounding beats with chanting, atmospheric vocals and layers of synth loops for a trance-inducing sound.

This is another addition to the short list of really cool things I've heard in 2010. No one seems to know the real identity behind Golden Ages, but I hear he will be appearing at SXSW, so that may change soon enough. Here is a cut from Tradition, which you can purchase on Lala. Hit the myspace for press clips from XLR8R and more. Hit Deerhaus to download the first EP for free.

• Golden Ages - "Everything Will Be Alright"
• myspace.com/wearegoldenages

Produced by Tom Caruana, "Enter The Magical Mystery Chambers" is a remix album combining Wu-Tang verses with Beatles samples, various covers of Beatles songs, and vintage sound clips. It's really good, too. I was initially hesitant to try it out, but I'm glad I did. I don't think the execution of such an endeavor could be done much better than this. The album has been mentioned in New York Times, The Chicagoist, L.A. Times, The Guardian, and Acclaim Magazine has a Q&A with the teacher/producer behind the music. Here are two of the many good cuts from "Enter The Magical Mystery Chambers":

• Wu-Tang vs. The Beatles - "Forget Me Not"
• Wu-Tang vs. The Beatles - "R.E.C. Room"

Head over to Tea Sea Records to peep the tracklist and get your download on.

St. Vincent goes the humorous route on her music video for "Laughing With A Mouth Of Blood," showing her playing an instore performance at Women and Women First, the most feminist of all feminist bookstores. "I could stick around for another song if you guys want?"

• myspace.com/stvincent

The Besnard Lakes are a Montreal collective fronted by husband-and-wife duo Olga Goreas and Jace Lasek. I have mentioned them a time or two in the past, and put their last album near the top of my year-end list in 2007. They have a new album coming in 2010, The Besnard Lakes Are the Roaring Night, set to be released on March 9th via Jagjaguwar. It is their most fully-recognized effort yet, and I can already tell that the album will be making an appearance on my best-of list for 2010.

According to a press release, the album was recorded with a vintage 1968 Neve germanium mixing console used to record portions of Led Zeppelin's Physical Graffiti, and follows a twisting chronicle of spies, double agents, novelists and aspiring rock gods turned violent.

"The Besnard Lakes Are The Roaring Night is a dark bliss-out that folds the eerie guitar epics of the band’s breakthrough, The Besnard Lakes Are the Dark Horse, into a wall of affected drones and atmospherics. The toughened immediacy and grit that gives the form a much-needed shove over the cliffs makes for a haunting, provocative swan dive into the crushing tide."

• The Besnard Lakes - "And This Is What We Call Progress"
• myspace.com/thebesnardlakes

The Besnard Lakes will be making their way to Austin for SXSW, something I don't plan to miss. Singer/guitarist Jace Lasek has also launched a new side project with Besnard Lakes co-founder Michael Gardiner. Dubbed The Soft Province, their self-titled debut album will be out sometime this year through Three Ring Records.

"Written In Reverse" is the first single from Spoon's new album, Transference. This is the seventh album from Spoon, their fifth on Merge Records, and their first made without the help of an outside producer. The band play Austin again on March 17 at Stubb's for the SXSW kickoff.

• myspace.com/spoon

The Strange Boys produced one of my favorite releases of 2009, their debut album And Girls Club, and were kind enough to perform at the Covert day party during SXSW. Since then, they have gone on to play some festivals around the US, take a tour of the UK, sign with Rough Trade Records, and even add a couple of new band members. They also wasted no time getting to work on their sophomore album, Be Brave, which will be released later this month via In The Red/Rough Trade. Singer/guitarist Ryan Sambol explains the background of the new record:

"We got back from Europe and I worked out the songs that I had already started, wrote some more and sent cassette tapes of the songs to Tim, Jenna and Seth. When they got the tapes they all called me back and said they didn't know what they were going to play, but they were interested to try. Then the three of us; Greg, Philip and I, drove out from Austin and played a few shows to get to LA. We met up with Tim, Jenna and Seth, went over to our friend John's house, and rehearsed for a couple hours. The next day, we played FYF Fest, two days later we went to Costa Mesa, and two weeks later we came out with Be Brave."

The Strange Boys will be on the road again soon in support of the new album, playing with the likes of Ty Segall, Spoon, and Deerhunter. They are at Emo's on Friday, February 19 with Chain & the Gang, YellowFever, and Cowabunga Babes.

• myspace.com/thestrangeboys

• Futurebirds - "Megachills"
• myspace.com/thefuturebirds
  

• Electric President - "Elegant Disasters"
• myspace.com/electricpresident
  

• The Gary - "Ancient Music"
• myspace.com/thegaryatx
  

• Little Girls - "Youth Tunes"
• myspace.com/littlelittlegirls
  

• Twin Tigers - "Sexless Love"
• myspace.com/thetwintigers
  

• Harlem - "Torture Me"
• myspace.com/harlemduh
  

• Built By Snow - "Beta Ray Love"
• myspace.com/builtbysnow
  

• Future Rock - "Should Have Taken Acid With You" (Neon Indian)
• myspace.com/futurerock

myspace.com/thesournotes

myspace.com/olapodrida

Caribou has been one of my favorite artists over the past few years. I became a fan upon hearing the award-winning 2007 album Andorra, then went into full-on stalker mode after I saw the band live for the first time. Those old feelings are getting stirred up again, as Caribou has a new album entitled Swim coming out on April 20th on Merge Records. They recently offered up the first single, "Odessa", via Caribou.fm.

According to Pitchfork, Caribou mastermind Dan Snaith described the album's sound thusly: "I got excited by the idea of making dance music that's liquid in the way it flows back and forth, the sounds slosh around in pitch, timbre, pan... Dance music that sounds like it's made out of water, rather than made out of metallic stuff like most dance music does."

Swim Tracklist + MP3:

1. Odessa
2. Sun
3. Kaili
4. Found Out
5. Bowls
6. Leave House
7. Hannibal
8. Lalibela
9. Jamelia

from The Milk Of Human Kindness:

• Caribou - "Barnowl"

We caught Bun B the last time he rolled through town, at the Austin Music Hall with David Banner. This afternoon, Port Arthur's finest released a mixtape sponsored by popular clothing line LRG. The 27-track mixtape, dubbed "No Mixtape", contains all of Bun B's recent freestyles along with previews from his upcoming solo album Trill OG. It also contains the rapper's original take on the "Pants On The Ground" phenomenon. Download the whole thing right here, and follow the link to check out a tracklist and such.

• Bun B - "Press Play"
• myspace.com/bunbofugk
  

Beach House recently stopped by Daytrotter to play a few songs from their new album, Teen Dream. Check out "Zebra", then pick up the rest of the session and read a review at the link. The video below shows the band performing at Auditorium Shores during SXSW 2009, opening for Explosions In The Sky if my memory serves correct. I remember seeing them perform at Urban Outfitters a few south-by's ago in front of about 12 people. Beach House are back in Austin on 4/22, with Washed Out at Emo's.

• Beach House - "Zebra"
  
• myspace.com/beachhousemusic
  

Fredrik - Viskra from The Kora Records on Vimeo.

Beach House "Silver Soul" from Sub Pop Records on Vimeo.

Parenthetical Girls "Evelyn McHale" on Vimeo.

Love at 20: 'Waiting' (Music Video) on Vimeo.

The xx - "VCR"



Surfer Blood - "Swim"



Futurebirds - "Dirty D"

Beggars just hooked me up with Black Noise, the latest album from German minimal techno artist Pantha du Prince. Featuring collaborations from Noah Lennox (Panda Bear, Animal Collective) and Tyler Pope (LCD Soundsystem, !!!), the album will be released on February 8th on Rough Trade Records. The album's constant, minimally pulsating beats invite repeated listening, even if for nothing more than stimulating background noise. Fans of The Field and Begone Dull Care-era Junior Boys should definitely take this one for a spin. I got your preorder info right here:

"The music on Black Noise balances precariously on the slippery threshold between art and nature, between techno and folklore. Nature and technology become indistinguishable, all authenticity evaporates. On this album, rifts, fractures, and digressions are not flaws in the system but acoustic micro-vectors that drive the narrative. The intros serve to present the source sounds recorded “out there”—knocking, barking, ringing, tinkling which are then soon caught in the currents of vaguely psychedelic mutations. Noises blend into one another, and the most diverse acoustic designs are in play: steel drums and marimbas as well as physical modeling."

• Pantha Du Prince - "Stick To My Side" (feat. Noah Lennox)
• myspace.com/panthaduprince