I’m sick.  Raging fever, various other unmentionable ailments directly tying me to the bathroom.  Regardless, Sub Pop’s signing of Shabazz Palaces is something to celebrate.

Briefly.

Shabazz Palaces - 32 leaves dipped in blackness making clouds

You’re going to be hearing the whole “sounds like Madlib drinking Pina Coladas off the coast of Dominica” comparisons in the weeks and months to come about Monster Rally, and rightly so.  This is chopped up tropics, filtered through the finest mesh of hip-hop, and then stretched and pulled until its the speed of slippin’ molasses.  This is the relaxation of a day at the beach turned and twisted, intertwined and layered until you’re watching your multi-coloured umbrella and coco-butter skin lotion from every angle.

I can’t say it’s even remotely summer in San Francisco, but this track smells like aloe and tastes like coconut water.

Monster Rally - Holiday

Something about the name Male Bonding put me off from this recent Sub Pop signee.  Perhaps its my increasingly lengthy tenure in San Francisco, but the sound of a band entitled Male Bonding raises my hackles, makes me think of popped collars and Chrissy Field.  I shouldn’t doubt Sub Pop though, they’re a label that signs many but not in an annoying way, in a way that brings fresh faces and big stars to the table alike, and giving a Sub Pop band a listen is always at least rewarding in some way.

Male Bonding, a bunch of Brits, skirt the line between punk and new wave and hardcore in an entirely pleasant way, and though a video involving the green-screened ocean might not of been exactly my visual choice for this song ‘Weird Feelings’, it somehow works.

Check out this other, more brooding, introspective track Franklin.

Male Bonding - Franklin

Where To See ‘Em?

Seattle - September 13th @ The Sunset Tavern w/ Young Mammals

San Francisco - Nowhere yet suckers.

Somehow this track from Magic Kids entranced me this morning. It’s so early 90s it makes my cavities hurt, but it sets a nice little bit of pop-joy for the weekend.

Enjoy.

Last time I posted this grimy bit of Australian lady-garage, I found a duo more attuned to atonal noise (spiked with the lingering remains of influences past).  To listen to them now though, it sounds as if Super Wild Horses have dug up a box of their parents old girl group ’45s from the late 50s and beyond.  Oh yes, the acidic drip at the back of Super Wild Horse’s throat is still as caustic as ever, but it’s softened by a sort of unruly melody in their voices, a more refined twang in their electric gee-tars.

Super Wild Horses - Mess Around

Where To See Them:

Seattle: Sorry charlies, Seattle doesn’t get a nod on this tour.

San Francisco: They’ll be playing the Hemlock on the very 1st of October, with Royal Baths and local favorites, The Mantles.

Magic (tenetivley…sorry mike) by The Mallard from Elliott Johnson on Vimeo.

How is one woman responsible for such garage swagger? Simple:

Kick Drum: Right Foot
Hi Hat / Tambourine: Left Foot
Guitar: Left and Right Arms
Singing: Mouth

Or not so simple, as it were, but The Mallard has forgone the easy route to be a one-woman lo-fi spectacular. And considering she’s responsible for some of my favorite songs of 2010, most notably the jangly “Ex” and “Floating,” which is equal parts lead and lace, taking the road less traveled has served her well. Everything The Mallard makes sounds as if it came from a long lost and cherished cassette that you inherited from your cool Aunt. The one who let you take drags off her cigarette as she told you about her wild child days, as long as you promised not to tell your Dad she still smoked. It sounds too good and too roughly ragged to be new. But it is, brand new.

You can see this one woman show in action this Sunday for free at The Bourbon Bar at Columbia City Theater. The Mallard flies at 9pm, don’t miss her.

Yesterday was probably the hottest day I’ve ever experienced in San Francisco.  And trapped within the coffee box I call a job, it felt somewhere between a sauna and a prison cell.  Having this sunnily layered little jam by sadly nomenclatured unouomedude (you know you owe me dude) blasting in the background certainly could’ve alleviated some of the sweltering depression at being kept inside.

unouomedude takes the idea, at least on this song buildings of an early 90s beach jam, rife with vocal overlays and the sort of crunchy synth that would come to define so many popular musicians and builds them on top of each other, over and over and over again.  what emerges is the early-afternoon apex of bbq-fueled beer blast at the beach … but hipper.

unouomedude - Buildings

‘Ambient, electronica’ means dark and broody to me.  Chunks of voided space travel and the echo of sound reverberating across the phone lines come to mind.  Strange then that Arp (the solo project of Alex Georgopoulos, he of The Alps and The Soft Wave) produces tracks described as ‘ambient, electronica’ that thrum with a sort of gentle energy.  ’White Light’ especially feels better suited to a slow crawl up the shoreline, than the heady drug-trips ‘ambient, electronica’ has inspired in me so many times indulge in.  Oh of course, the brooding sounds of independently produced ambience still hover in the background, the wispy bits of fuzz, the remnants of a computers memory, but here they’re entangled with a sort of tropical energy typically unheard.

Arp - White Light

Source: Raven Sings The Blues

Where To See Them:

San Franciscans, you can catch them at the increasingly interesting sounding On Land Festival. A sort of celebration of ambient sound that features TDCed artist Robert A.A. Lowe amongst other great acts.

Seattle, you’ll just have to wait your turn.

I know, I know, I know - I’ve posted two tracks by The Mallard already, name-checked her shows on countless occasion and am generally a complete and total sycophant when it comes to her music, new and old.  That said, I can barely contain my excitement for this track from her new, very hard to find, cassette and this track “Old Hates Tatestale” - a churning bit of blues and garage and flat-lining melodies that spins and spuns and unravels in to a white-capped pool of noise.

Northwest, you are a lucky region, as The Mallard is diving in to her jalopy for a short jaunt up the coast.  Portland, Seattle and Bellingham will all get to experience this impressively one-womaned show, one I’ve seen countless times and am blown away a little bit more every go.

Dates:

Kimo’s - San Francisco, CA - August 25th (with other amazing act Dylan Tidyman-Jones)

The Bourbon Bar at Columbia City Theater - Seattle, WA - August 29th (Free! 9pm)

The Mallard - Old Hates Tatestale

I’m on a video streak these last few days, and I have no real impetus to stop.  Something about just immersing myself in visual imagery fits my sort of torpid demeanor right now. Especially when the song surrounding those flickering images is so beautifully depressing.