Monday, November 29, 2010

Tan Dollar's "Unofficial" First LP [WRONG!]

Hello, hope you all had a nice holiday. I'm back at work, finally, and back to blogging, too.


As you can see, the blog has a new banner. And after the debacle of last Monday, when I had negative comments for a new album that were immediately picked up by a member of the band and some of its appreciators, I thought this would be a good time to define this blog's purpose, for my own sake as well as for any readers who might be interested.


So what is 8-Tracks Fierce?


The weird name comes from the podcast that I started doing a year-and-a-half ago and quit after five episodes, which you can play in the sidebar player. I would talk about eight recent tracks that I found at least mildly interesting, and the "fierce" part was just sort of added on for kicks.


I started this blog a couple of months ago and plan to reboot the podcast in January (1/11/11, to be exact). The blog was a little all over the place at first, but I quickly started focusing on noise pop and shoegaze. Last week I realized that there is a certain type of shoegaze (I call it "flower-gaze") that I will never appreciate, so it doesn't make sense for me to write about it here.


So from this point forward, this is simply a blog about new noise pop. If a shoegaze album can fit into the noise-pop category, I'll talk about it, but if it's a style that doesn't fit that description, you won't see it here because I would have little good to say about it. By the same token, if a noise-pop album or single comes out and I think it's crap, I will write about it because it's noise pop.


So now that we have that out of the way, let's talk about the new Tan Dollar album, which came out of nowhere just this morning.



Change Your Mind - Download here

  • Tan Dollar - Change Your Mind (Beko) [Blogspot]
    • A sing-songy album from this three-piece from Irvine, CA, with eight tracks that seem to be all about lost summer love. Features a new drummer.
    • Fun, cheap keyboards in the left speaker, jangly guitar in the right on most tracks.
    • Vocals often out-of-tune, but in that noise-pop way that can sound so right when done well, as it does here.
    • Short, no-nonsense, straightforward pop tunes. '60s-inspired bubble gum in the best way.
    • Exactly what So-Cal noise pop should be. Absolutely perfect. And completely free. Beko delivers again, and so does Tan Dollar. 
    • Beko considers it their second LP (the first was the latest Procedure Club album, shared here previously). Could this be considered Tan Dollar's first full-length album? No, but it's a fantastic signifier of what their first album could be like. [Edit: Mr. Sam Farzin left a comment pointing out that Tan Dollar's first album came out last January! It has 13 tracks and is entitled Your Body As a Temple. It was released on the Life's Blood and Mirror Universe labels. Thanks, Sam! I sure feel silly. I'll have to check that out!]
    • Download here.

The B-side opener is a mind-blowing psych-out tune complete with xylophone.

Tan Dollar - "How Can It Be True?" (Change Your Mind; 11/29/2010)

Monday, November 22, 2010

Sway's Album Has Nothing New

This is going to be mostly a skip week, since I'm on vacation and yet swamped with baby care, and my folks are coming up from St. Louis for Thanksgiving. But I've got this for you:
This Was Tomorrow
Download here
  • Sway - This Was Tomorrow (self-released) [swaypop.com]
    • Second full-length from this San Luis, CA, four-piece. Officially released tomorrow.
    • Pretty shoegaze with electro beats, if you're into that. Nothing really new here. 
    • The vocals remind me of Death Cab For Cutie. And I don't say that in a good way.
    • For me, this is about as bad as shoegaze gets. But many will like it a lot.
    • You can stream it for free here if you're interested.
Sorry, I can't be bothered to stream anything from this album for you here, but you're not missing much. Have a great week. I'll be back in full force next week. Happy Thanksgiving!

Tuesday, November 16, 2010

No Joy's New Album Just Kills

The little ones are keeping me awfully busy, but I found some time to hear some great new tunes. Check it out.
Julie
"Julie" - Download here
  • Outer Limits Recordings - "Julie" 7" (Olde English Spelling Bee) [YouTube]
    • One-man band making very melodic and structured noise pop. Strong work.
    • Releases everything through his YouTube channel, but you can buy his latest vinyl from OESB.




Ghost Blonde
Ghost Blonde - Download here
  • No Joy - Ghost Blonde (Mexican Summer) [BandCamp]
    • Possibly the one you've been waiting for. I'm pretty jealous of their sound.
    • It's just the kind of echoey noise pop I love. Kicks my ass. Female vocals. Incredible album, really.
    • From Montreal, but seems to be inspired by a West Coast aesthetic, especially with track titles such as "Pacific Pride" and "Hawaii". 
    • Recently played with Kurt Vile, Weekend, Best Coast and A Place To Bury Strangers. You could say they're going places.
    • Found it here. Enjoy.
Here's "Hawaii".

No Joy - "Hawaii" (Ghost Blonde; 11/16/2010)

Thursday, November 11, 2010

Free Loving Anarchists Comp on Beko

Turns out I did miss something pretty cool the day my kids were born. Beko released a compilation of bands on Houston's Free Loving Anarchists (FLA) label on November 1st, and though it's a week-and-a-half stale, it definitely deserves a late mention here. I never heard of any of these bands, but I'm excited about all of them now. Here's the playlist of previously unreleased tracks:


FLA comp - Download here
Rape Faction - "Future Brain"
Lois Magic - "Desert Colour"
Pink Playground - "Low" (alternate vox demo version)
Young Henry - "Striped Lights"
The KVB - "Into The Night"
Virgo Rising - "To Deal Without It"
Wicked Crafts - "Without You"
Sacred Space - "Tear Me To Shreds"


I'm going to try to keep up with FLA and all these bands from now on. This is perfect music, a real treasure, and completely free. You wouldn't know it from listening to the radio or watching TV, but we're living in amazing times.


Maybe I'll give this to my girls, when they're ready for it, so they can know what kind of mysterious and amazing music was introduced to the world the same day they were.


Download the comp here.


Not all the artists are from Houston. Check out Young Henry (BandCamp), a one-man band from Minneapolis. The blog Unholy Rhythms called his music "cloudgaze".


Young Henry - "Striped Lights" (FLA comp, Beko; 11/1/2010)

Tuesday, November 9, 2010

Weekend Releases Awesome Noise Album

Needed some time off to bring two beautiful little girls into the world. Looks like I didn't miss much. But look what we have now:
"Solo ('4' Claire)" - Stream here
  • Wise Blood - "Solo ('4' Claire)" 7" (Transparent) [MySpace]
    • Sounds like Moby if he were cool. That's probably the best way I can think to describe it. And it is cool.
    • Not officially released until November 22nd, but you can hear both tracks here.



  • Weekend - Sports (Slumberland) [WordPress]
  • Sports
    Sports - Click to order
    • Released today. Streaming at NPR until today, so hurry. You can also stream it at Slumberland's site, but you can't pause it to get a bagel there.
    • 45 minutes of noisy San Fran shoegaze with distant, echoey vocals. Yeah, this is pretty good stuff.
    • Order the MP3s here or the vinyl here.
The second track of Sports blew me away. Check this out.

Weekend - "Youth Haunts" (Sports; 11/9/2010)
Weekend - Youth Haunts by youandmeintheecho

No word yet from Kill Red Rocket or Triple Down on that Bloody Knives/Me You Us Them split. Man, can't wait for that one.