who's the boy you like the most?

Two fine records—Phoenix's Wolfgang Amadeus Phoenix and Grizzly Bear's Veckatimest—came out today, go buy them!

can you hear the crickets playing

Watch Cocoanut Groove performs one of my favourite songs of last year, "Walking to Madeleine Street" at Telefonplan.

dd/mm/yyyy: black square

It is quite difficult to pinpoint DD/MM/YYYY’s Black Square to a single genre as the 35-minute record features a collection of diverse styles. Black Squares begins with "Bronzage" and "No Life"—two up-tempo noise punk sensations! The album takes a sudden turn by the third track as the mellow pacing of "They" provides a nice break from the two noisy openers. The band experiments with yet another style by song four; "Infinity Skull Cube" is very rhythm driven and almost math rock sounding. The next two tracks are both instrumental; yet, they sound very different from each other—"My Glasses" is a drone noise track while "Birdtown" is progressive/math rock sounding. From "Sirius" onward, Black Square feels more cohesive as the band alternates/experiments between noise punk and math rock. Black Square might be hard to digest at first because of its disjointed style; but do not be afraid, it is one of those albums that gets better with each listen. The disjointedness makes sense after a while and it is also what makes Black Square a fine record.

Bronzage
Sirius
Real Eyes

visit DD/MM/YYYY's MySpace here
buy Black Square here

some people pay for thrills but I get mine for free

Dizzee Rascal's brand new single, "Bonkers" charted at #1 on the UK Singles Chart!


buy the single here

an ending fitting for the start

Amazing—The Libertines (minus John Hassel) reformed and played together last Friday in London for the first time since 2004... NME was there to catch all of it!

counting all different ideas drifting away

Head over to Dazed Digital for an exclusive interview with Christian Mazzalai and Deck D’Arcy of Phoenix + watch the awesome video for "1901"!

the horrors: primary colours

The Stooges/garage-punk sound of Strange House is gone from The Horrors’ follow-up; in fact, their style changed so dramatically that I thought I was listening to a different band the first time I heard Primary Colours. Leaving the early 70s, The Horrors traveled to the late 70s/mid-80s and learned from bands like Suicide, Joy Division and The Jesus and Mary Chain. The result is truly astonishing; they have once again successfully taken the best elements from a popular classic genre and reinvented it to create an absolutely brilliant record! I would go as far as to say that Primary Colours is the best record of 2009 so far! I can go on and on about this album and do a track-by-track thing like I did for The Thermals’ Now We Can See; but you probably don’t want to read an essay on Primary Colours and frankly, I am too lazy to write a long review! Nevertheless, I will tell you that my favourite tracks are "Who Can Say", "I Can’t Control Myself", Primary Colours and of course, the 8-minute epic Sea Within A Sea! Oh, and did I mention, Primary Colours is the best record of 2009!

Who Can Say [wicked-cool song]
Primary Colours [super-wicked-cool song]
Sea Within A Sea [super-wicked-cool song]

visit The Horror's MySpace here
buy Primary Colours here

his synthesizer sails galactic landscapes

Looks like Patrick Wolf will be in Toronto on June 17th at the Mod Club with Jaguar Love! Kind of weird that Jaguar Love is opening... but that's fine with me since I am a fan of them/The Blood Brothers (R.I.P.). Oh, and I think this event is part of NXNE.

Here are the rest of Patrick's North American tour dates (via NME):
Seattle, WA El Corazon (June 5)
Vancouver, BC Richard’s on Richards (6)
San Francisco, CA Slim’s (8)
West Hollywood, CA The Roxy (9)
Denver, CO Oriental Theater (12)
Minneapolis, MN Fine Line Music Café (14)
Chicago, IL The Bottom Lounge (15)
Toronto, ON Mod Club (17)
Buffalo, NY Tralf Music Hall (19)
Philadelphia, PA North Star Bar (20)
Boston, MA Middle East Downstairs (21)
New York, NY Highline Ballroom (23)
Washington, DC Rock & Roll Hotel (24)
Carrboro, NC Cat’s Cradle (26)
Atlanta, GA The Loft at Center Stage Atlanta (27)
Dallas, TX Granada Theatre (30)
Austin, TX Antone’s Nightclub (July 1)

old abram brown: alive in winter

I am not sure how I came across Old Abram Brown, but after hearing their debut, Alive in Winter for the first time, I knew that the band’s pretty special. Old Abram Brown borrows plenty of elements from Cold War Kids. Alive in Winter features that similar country-blues/folk sound as well as the wonderful soulful rhythms and melodies... the crashing piano and recurring horn throughout the record is absolutely fantastic! On the other hand, they tend to experiment more with the rhythms and the structures in their music; the last track, "Muddy Bricks" reminds me of "Popplagið" by Sigur Rós. Old Abram Brown's debut is a really fascinating record; and it is quite gorgeous sounding as well. Although the title is Alive in Winter, it feels more like a summer album to me; it is such a 'sit in your front porch and read a book' chill out album!

Will Our Garden Grow [wicked-cool song]
Ten Pounds [wicked-cool song]
***all files expire in 7 days or until bandwidth reaches its limit

visit Old Abram Brown's MySpace here
buy Alive in Winter here

there ain't no cowboy in my hair

The Tallest Man on Earth on The Take-Away Shows... watch the videos here!