Picking one track (Two Coins) from Ex-Easter Island Head‘s Twenty-Two Strings does the band a bit of a disservice and, more importantly, it sits real weird on a playlist. A snippet of hypnotic, rhythmic guitar hammering robbed of any context amidst a sea of… songs. But I did it anyway.
Here’s Twenty-Two Strings in its thoroughly excellent entirety.
If it were up to me, every song would sound like an early 4-track demo of itself. Lina Tullgren knows what I mean, Watchdog seems like it’s bleeding through the walls from another room wherever you listen to it. The bass, drums and guitar grumble beneath Tullgren’s distant muffled, but very lovely voice. She’s signed to Captured Tracks whose CT5 Sampler is as good an introduction to the label as any.
Stick with it through the slow start and Quilt’s Eliot St. eventually rewards you with a chorus that showcases the band’s ear for vocal harmonies and string arrangements. It really is a good chorus.
I know nothing about Arborist beyond A Man of My Age which brings to mind the semi-guilty MOR pleasures of Josh Rouse who I’ve just looked at the Spotify profile of and… Goddamnit, Josh is that a trilby? Jesus can you not just be cool? You’re making me look like an idiot.
(Can’t argue with “Nothing Gives Me Pleasure” though)
Parquet Courts‘ Human Performance has what I believe to be “undeniable swagger”. If you enjoy it, I would also direct you to “Uncast Shadow of a Southern Myth”. That’s right, today’s a twofer.
The jangliest of jangle-pop from San Fransisco garage foursome Cool Ghouls. Just listen to that jangle on Sundial. Hot damn!
Hey, The Avalanches are back! I mean, look, I can’t pretend that I was exactly awaiting their return with bated breath, but on the evidence of Colours maybe I should have been? I wanted to say it sounds a little like Zoo Brothers’ Fourth of July, which soundtracked the end of a spoof hoverboard video from 2014, but I listened to Fourth of July again and it’s not that good a comparison. Why am I telling you this? Because it took a lot of googling to find out what that hoverboard song was called and I didn’t want that time to be wasted.
Define “Wasted”.
Touché.
