Nurses Play Chatroulette from Into The Woods on Vimeo.

In case you only stumbled on to furious masturbating when searching for Nurses on Chatroulette in late February, the band, with the help of Into the Woods, have turned their wild web adventure into a brand new NSFW music video. The band’s foray into this  new (and naughty) online forum crashed Chatroulette, but before it did, there were plenty of interesting encounters.  As the band plays “So Sweet” they run into all kinds of, shall we say, characters.

While the people (and peen) watching is fun, it’s no surprise what we love most about this video is Nurses and their inspiring inventiveness, both in their sound and the venue they chose to share it in.

Unless there’s a repeat of last year’s full-on Decemberists crowd sex, you can see Nurses with a lot less naked people on Saturday May 29th at Sasquatch.

It’s no wonder that Girls Names is a duo out of Ireland, as their music almost pulses with the countries vibe.  Though I’ve never been, and I’m sure to come off sounding daft, but from the opening booms of the tom-drum, I can almost feel the lush greens of the Irish countryside.  Toss in those almost tribal sounding guitars lines and I’m breathing in the country air, staring out over the rolling, moss covered hills.

One might wonder why this sort of woodsy bit of propulsion was deemed “Graveyard”, but there’s a certain creaking haunt to lead-singers Cathay Cully’s voice that reminds one of a peat-covered tombstone, a fresh pile of dirt looming above it, a crowd of mourners drifting towards their cars.  It’s creepy, but in that poppy way.

Girls Names - Graveyard

Source: Pitchfork

Macklemore ::: photo by Josh Lovseth

We won’t be donning green today to celebrate St. Patrick’s day, but we will be listening to Macklemore’s “Irish Celebration” a couple of times. We recommend you do the same.

It’s as if I’m in the waking stages of a coma this week.  The music I’m picking seems to be the introductory strains to my reemergence in to a physical reality.  There’s no theme to the music, but it’s a gentle sort of lull, a mixtape for newly-experience reality.

Free Kisses fits in to the end of this cycle.  The darkness of the coma is fading to the sides and perhaps you hear a woman’s voice.  Your hearing is off, anvils and stirrups rusted with disuse, and the voice echoes, wavers, slowly flits about the newly reactivated space between your ears.  You want to reach out, and grasp this ethereal strain, but by the time you can muster the strength, it’s already faded back to blackness.

Free Kisses - No Map Book

Source: Weekly Tape Deck

Tour is always an adventure. Tour with 9 guys, double the instruments, a broken trailer, a killer soundtrack and over a thousands miles of driving in four days is the making of an awesome first Maldives tour vlog.

We’ll be following and sharing The Maldives tour adventures here on Sound on the Sound. Not only will we be sharing the boys’ video blogs, we’ve also equipped them with cash for the most obscene postcards they can find, postage, and a couple disposable cameras. We’ll share whatever arrives in our mailbox from the Maldives with you.

If you, like us, just can’t get enough of The Maldives you can also follow their tour blog Straight Chooglin’.

Robert A.A. Lowe has a healthy bit of credibility behind his name: keyboardist for TV on the Radio; guru-like figure in OM; drone maestro as Lichens.  Yet, it’s in this collaboration with Rose Lazar that I find the most enjoyment.  As if drawn from a New Age video game, one where your pixelated avatar might strive for self-enlightenment and not air-bobbing coins, Lowe and Lazar’s music is an exercise in restraint.  Each note, each tiny synth artfully tweaked and tangled with the soft pregnant silence that hangs at the edges.  I find myself, when the music hovers in the air around me, to be calmer, the anxiety of the day less present, immersed in a sort of electro-synth aromatherapy.

Eclipses is out now on Thrill Jockey.  Purchase it HERE.

Robert A.A. Lowe & Rose Lazar - Suno vidis

Source: Raven Sings The Blues

Archeology | By the By | Music Video from shieldsfilms.com on Vimeo.

Sound on the Sound is pleased to premiere “By the By,” the first video from Archeology’s debut full-length release Memorial, out tomorrow. If you’re not from Portland, this is probably the first time you’ve heard of the band, but I suspect it won’t be the last.

Much like the band’s name,  Memorial seeks to explore the past in hopes of finding insight on the present and future. In spite of the cheery pop orchestration, Memorial excavates the childhood demons of weekends spent on church pews long abandoned,  all the while glaring boldly back at blind faith. Lyrically the band examines these former beliefs just as we look upon artifacts from another era-with curiosity, confusion and the clarity of 20/20 hindsight. Musically, the band recalls fellow Portlander’s Bark Hide and Horn and Drew Grow and the Pastors’ Wives, as well as a touch of twee Okkervill River and Matt Pond, PA.

For their debut video, Archeology stayed true to their name and the religious reckoning that occurs throughout the album. The video was filmed in part at Oregon’s Meier Archeological Site, and it tells the story of a priest who after denouncing his faith; lures, murders and dismembers the band in an act of wild rebellion against every belief he once held dear, only to be haunted by the band’s memory. It is a potent visual metaphor for anyone who has left behind a long-held belief (or belief system), done everything they could to rid themselves of the reminders, only to find that they are everywhere.

The band will be celebrating Memorial’s album release with a show at The Comet Tavern this Friday, March 19th.  In April they’ll be bringing Memorial to the rest of the West Coast with a string of tour dates from Sacramento to Salt Lake City to Tuscon. See if Archeology will be stopping your town on the band’s Myspace.

Drew Grow and the Pastors’ Wives ::: photo by Abbey Simmons

Often the hardest things for me to write about are the things I love the most. No one wants to be the blogger who cried “best band ever” over and over again, and there’s more self-imposed pressure to find the perfect description for what you find to be most compelling. That’s why there’s been nary a mention of what was quite possibly my favorite show and live discovery of 2010 thus far: Drew Grow and the Pastors’ Wives.

Hailing from Portland, Drew Grow plays with the riveting passion of a revival tent preacher, full of captivating apocalyptic bombast. And just like that revival preacher, Drew Grow controls the audience. When I saw him at The Comet in January you could’ve heard a pin drop by the end of his set. An unassuming man and band takes the stage, and with no antics, just a pure and righteous emotional force, a prophet steps off, inevitably amidst a sea of stunned converts. Grow’s songs are his visions and parables, and with crash and crescendo they stir the soul.

Vocally and in terms of the emotional wallop per note, Drew Grow most reminds me of a Grace-era Jeff Buckley. There is a broken but beautiful timbre to Drew Grow’s voice, just as there was to Buckley’s, that seems to tug directly at the heart strings. I should have known when a music teacher told me she’d never had a “more moving experience with music than at a Drew Grow show” that he was the Truth, but it’s the kind of performance you have to witness for yourself to actually believe. If you haven’t seen Drew Grow or discovered his soaring spirituals yet, I sincerely can’t recommend that you check them out enough.

Seattle will have to wait about a month for their chance to see Drew Grow again, as he’s playing the Tractor Tavern on April 28th with another Sound on the Sound favorite Ravenna Woods, for what I assure you is the makings of an unmissable show. Portland, you lucky bastards, don’t have to wait that long for Drew Grow and the Pastors’ Wives since the band will be celebrating the release of two new songs “Do You Feel It” and “Bon Voyage Hymn” this Friday at The Woods. This show will sell out, so be sure to get your tickets in advance lest you miss out.

Us, well we’ll be anticipating Drew Grow shows throughout the summer: the band will also be performing on June 26th with Grand Hallway during the Grand Opening celebrations of the Columbia City Theater and making a return trip to the Doe Bay Festival this August. Two events, I assure you, you want to put on your calendar now. Keep reading Sound on the Sound for more exciting announcements about both Columbia City Theater and Doe Bay.

Here’s some video proof of Drew Grow’s powerful live performance and the band’s effect on a crowd. This video was  shot at a sold out show in Tacoma (r.i.p Warehouse) and the crowd is so quiet you can hear Drew breathing between notes.

Drew Grow & The Pastors’ Wives - I Want You to Come Home Now from Jake Rohr on Vimeo.

Song Release Show & West Coast Tour Dates:
March 19th - Portland, OR - The Woods
April 28th - Seattle, WA - Tractor Tavern (w/ Ravenna Woods)
May 23rd - San Francisco, CA - Hotel Utah
May 24th - Sacramento, CA - Old Ironsides
May 26th - San Diego, CA - Bar Pink
May 27th - Davis, CA - Aramdillo Records
May 27th - Davis, CA - Sophias Thai Kitchen
May 28th - Chico, CA - Cafe Coda
May 28th - Eugene, OR - Sam Bonds Garage
June 26th - Seattle, WA - Columia City Theater (Grand Opening w/ Grand Hallway)
Aug 14th - Olga, Orcas Island, WA - Doe Bay Festival

I posted the sort of beat-down, island-steel cruise of Future Island’s “Tin Man” a while back, and thus was turned gooey on the inside when my good friend T. Pruthers Internet brought to my attention that lead singer J. Gerrit Welmers had a solo project.

Moss of Aura does not have the raw-throated churn of Future Islands.  Where Future Islands makes me shake with  the unchecked chortle of energy, Moss of Aura makes me yearn for a wicker couch on a deck overlooking a quiet city block.  It’s light and airy, always building, bits of synth, weave in to the air creating ambiance as they slowly tie together.

The sun is fading on this first day of Daylight Savings and I can’t help but think that Welmers and Moss of Aura aren’t a perfect compliment to the newly extended golden hour.

Moss of Aura - Swilling

Thanks to Weekly Tape Deck for the nod.

Currently dominating my playlist is NY band Dinosaur Feathers’ new record Fantasy Memorial. They playfully channel the vocal heavy, world music influenced pop that’s so in style right now into some of the catchiest, most dancinest pop songs I’ve heard in 2010. “Dancinest” is a word, right? It should be.

mp3: “Vendela Vida” by Dinosaur Feathers from Fantasy Memorial

If I could be at SXSW this week, this would be the band that I would probably have to see more than once. There sure are plenty of opportunity’s…

DINOSAUR FEATHERS at SXSW

3/18 - SXSW - Dominican Joe’s Coffee - All Your Friends Party - 2pm
3/18 - SXSW - Homeslice Pizza - Music by the Slice party - 5pm
3/18 - SXSW - Creekside Lounge - Pop Tarts Suck Toasted party - 9pm
3/19 - SXSW - Agave - Ghost Town day party - 1pm
3/19 - SXSW - Galaxy Room - Official SXSW showcase - 8pm
3/20 - SXSW - End of Ear - In-Store - 2pm

I eagerly await some west coast dates.