New Releases


Battles – Gloss Drop
In a sense, Battles is the double-aughts version of a progressive rock band, featuring virtuoso musicianship pretty much unheard of in indie rock circles. All that was missing were lyrics about gnomes and fairies and the ilk. Battles was a band that was looking backward as much as they were looking forward, and it all began to make a heck of a lot more sense to me under that reflective prism.

That brings us to the sophomore album and yes, I had to wonder where Battles would go from Mirrored. That record captured a particular style of post rock-cum-prog, and my fear was that there would be a temptation to repeat the formula and do the same thing twice. Happily, with Gloss Drop, this is not really the case, although the driving musicianship and some of the trademark whimsy of Mirrored shines through. Gloss Drop is not merely a sequel to Mirrored, it’s an album in its own right, one that incorporates world music on a somewhat prominent basis, and one that sees the band move more in a pop-oriented direction. Read the Full Review on Pop Matters


Arctic Monkeys – Suck It and See
[Suck It and See] takes as its starting point Humbug’s least representative track, Cornerstone, a sighing, richly melodic lament at odds with the lurching, Josh Homme-produced darkness evident elsewhere. The result is the first Arctic Monkeys album that tries to ensnare the listener with its tunes, rather than guitar riffs or Turner’s lyrics. Oddly, what its mid-tempo stew of thick basslines, feedback-laden guitar lines, churning chord progressions and thumping drums occasionally recalls – presumably unwittingly – is the ooh-look-at-the-cosh-boys Morrissey of the mid-90s, though anyone who feels their spirits understandably sinking at the mention of that particular juncture of Morrissey’s career should note that the contents of Suck It and See are noticeably tighter, lighter on their feet and infinitely more fun than anything on Southpaw Grammar. Read the full review on The Guardian UK


Tyler, The Creator – Goblin
There is no need to introduce this man at all. You should know his name, his crew, his height, his favourite food and, especially, the name of his enormously awaited sophomore album. He expects you to, because the first entry in his Goblin journal is detailed with a furiously direct account of the hurricane of Odd Future references that has consumed Twitter and every second webpage on the internet in the past few months. It’s as if Tyler is narrating his own career in a third-person perspective. At the forefront of an eerily hellish beat, he calls out his critics, attacks the nay-sayers and compiles all his angry tweets (they’re more like ticks really – he just says what he wants, when he wants) against ‘White America’ into the 6:49 he has assigned himself: “N****s getting offended/They don’t wanna fuck ‘cos I do not fuck with religion/Well see that’s my decision you fuckers don’t have to listen/Here, put this middle finger in your ear.” Read the track by track review on Hip Hop Isn’t Dead it’s just Sleeping.

What’s New at Pure Pop: Sarah’s picks

In need of some stellar  summer tunes?  Come check out what’s on sale in the listening stations at Pure Pop!

Perhaps you’ve heard the first single, “Pumped Up Kicks,” from Foster the People‘s debut album, Torches. The punchy bass line and catchy melody of “Pumped Up Kicks” are characteristic of Torches, which will appeal to fans of Peter Bjorn and John or Franz Ferdinand. This will be your guilty pop pleasure of 2011.

Here’s another great track, “Helena Beat,” from Torches:

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-alNv_rtA6U]

 

 

 

Fitz and the Tantrums’ debut LP, Pickin’ Up the Pieces, errs on the funkier side of things. Combining equal parts rock and  soul influences, Pickin’ Up the Pieces is 36 minutes of breathless, uptempo groovy fun. Fans of Sharon Jones and the  Dap Kings or Wanda Jackson will dig this album.

While Pickin’ Up the Pieces’ first track, “Breakin’ the Chains of Love”, has received the most attention over the airwaves, “Don’t Gotta Work It Out” is just as good. Check it out in this awesome live performance:

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=81c3nn-7EUU]

 

New Releases


My Morning Jacket – Circuital
My Morning Jacket’s new album, Circuital, does dial back the weirdness of 2008’s Evil Urges. It’s a tight, 10-songs-in-45-minutes affair, kicking off with the echoing, epic rockers “Victory Dance” and “Circuital,” then moving on to the yearning, poppy ballad “The Day Is Coming” and the sweetly sappy “Wonderful (The Way I Feel).” Neither the performances nor the arrangements are rote; “The Day Is Coming” puts a chunky beat under a celestial choir, for example, while “Victory Dance” includes what sound like Native American war cries, before culminating in apocalyptic screech. But they’re familiarly, enjoyably My Morning Jacket-like, as are the two slow, forlorn tracks that end the record. Read the full review on AV Club


Antlers – Burst Apart
Burst Apart begins with “I Don’t Want Love”, a lush track whose upbeat guitar seems to contradict the seriousness of the lyrics. It’s like the clearing of the clouds right after a brutal storm, though, climaxing with the sun coming out and Silberman’s signature falsetto triumphantly ringing atop whirring noise and percussion. It’s moments like this, with Lerner’s drums pounding, Cicci’s soundscapes, and the falsetto seamlessly coming together that make Burst Apart so powerful, not only through emotional catharsis, but through sonic harmony. That’s not to say that the lyrics suffer, though, at all. The Antlers’ songwriting remains visceral and emotive, notably in slower tracks such as “Corsicana”. The thematics throughout the album vary, yet each one is a relatable vignette of something everybody has felt and dealt with. When Silberman croons on “Coriscana” that “We’ve lost our chance to run/now the door’s too hot to touch/we should hold our breath, with mouths together”, the imagery and romantic desperation are nothing short of moving. Read the full review on Consequence of Sound


Friendly Fires – Pala
With a primary-coloured zeal that frequently borders on the absurd, ‘Pala’ proves the perfect tonic for fans let down by Klaxons’ transition from inspired chancers to jobbing rock band last year. Where ‘Surfing The Void’’s protracted birth throes sucked the mojo clean out of the new rave dons, ‘Pala’ is that rarest and most refreshing of propositions: a second album that actually sounds like it was a blast to make. It’s a record whose arena-sized ambitions work with rather than against the music, lending poise and focus to a sun-soaked carouse whose freewheeling spirit is a joy to behold Read the full review on NME

Sick of the same ol’? Feed those ears fresh tunes!

Down at Pure Pop we have a bunch of new releases that are yours for the previewing! Feast your ears on some of the summer’s diverse newcomers (Parachute) and recent masterpieces from old veterans (Moby), selected by Under The Radar for June 2011! Sample an entire album (as well as many others) parked at one of our listening stations, but the following newbs you’ll find on sale!:

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Moby‘s been spinning ambient electronica for more than two decades now, and after plenty of Grammy noms and various MTV and Billboard awards, he may just have the album to snag him that golden gramophone. Destroyed, released May 13th, has a hunting ethereality that reflects his chronic insomnia while on tour. Written by Moby on the road during small  hours of the night, the new effort “finds a way to make permanent midnight weirdly inviting” (Rolling Stone). Having been entirely inspired by the anonymity of mundane hotel rooms, airports, backstage waiting areas and silent urban nightscapes, his 10th studio album may be his most eerily beautiful music yet. A newbie to Moby‘s chillout beats? Check him out if you’re into  The Chemical Brothers, Röyksopp or Air.

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6bTpid3jbAA

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Free of the pressure and expectation of writing a third album for his indie pop/folk band The Elected, singer/songwriter and Rilo Kiley member Blake Sennett had decided that he was totally done with music by the Spring of 2010. Before he peaced out, though, a friend of his insisted he not give up, but head into the studio without songs written or preconceived ideas…just to see what would happen. The result was The Elected‘s Bury Me In My Rings,a Camera Obscura-esque pop album reminiscent of mid 90s twee but written by dudes. Super pleasant for the upcoming summer day / daze, it’s a sure hit with fans of Rilo Kiley or Tilly & the Wall.

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6cMmzR7ez4

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Nursing Home, English indie rock band Let’s Wrestle‘s latest album, is the pop punk stuff you swore by in high school. Not quite Blink 182 and not quite Taking Back Sunday, they’re a comfy place in between…the place you know you still kinda have a soft spot for. Poppy, angsty with a teenage attitude, these guys are grown men making songs that would’ve made appearances on all of your nostalgic mix CDs. As the second studio album by Let’s Wrestle, Nursing Home is heavier …perhaps because it was recorded alongside Steve Albini (former member of Big Black who has worked with Pixies and Nirvana). It dropped on May 17th – come check it out if you’re a fan of Pete & the Pirates or Johnny Foreigner!

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q1creF0DkvQ

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“With roots in Charlottesville, VA, the five members of Parachute have developed a sound that mixes full-throttle rock with dollops of blue-eyed soul, vintage R&B and melodic pop radio anthems.” It’s true, The Way It Was sounds like it was ripped right from The OC soundtrack compilations, delivering some wholesome catchy teen rock a la Rooney and the All American Rejects. The band’s debut brought them to the open road with pop sensations like Kelly Clarkson, radio rock band Three Doors Down and O.A.R and earned them millions of fans. Expect nothing less than sincere, anthemic pop rock from Parachute.

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zyVZ4uVHYRw

 

 

 

New Releases


Lady Gaga – Born This Way
It is perhaps no small wonder that democracy today appears as a specifically feminine, and perhaps feminist, art. < > presents herself here as a giant womb of freedom, large enough to hold Whitman himself, if not Bob Seger and the Silver Bullet Band. A Lady Liberty for the < >, she’s not afraid to get her robes dirty, throw back a few shots, and spread democracy in a venereal fashion. As she makes clear in one of her more spiritually-minded songs, “In the most Biblical sense, I am beyond repentance/ Fame hooker, prostitute wench, vomits her mind/ But in the cultural sense/ I just speak in future tense/ Judas kiss me if offensed/ Or wear ear condom next time.” But, in a way, this album seems beyond all politics — governmental, identitarian, or otherwise. Read The Full Review on Tiny Mix Tapes


Thurston Moore – Demolished Thoughts
For starters, Beck produced Demolished Thoughts. And regardless of him being a bat-shit Scientologist in real life, as a musician in the studio, Beck’s palette is bat-shit catholic. Might we get some Thurston “Bonus Noise,” a la Stereopathetic Soulmanure? (Moore did pen a liner essay for Odelay‘s deluxe, so there was at least a chance of a Branca-bustin’ cover of “Electric Music and the Summer People.”) Second, this is still a Thurston Moore record. And most of his part-time loves — The Bark Haze, Northampton Wools, etc. — have essentially been dirt-kink affairs. But just as skronk would have it, turns out that Demolished Thoughts is more akin to the dub narcotic folk of Beck’s One Foot in the Grave than anything Wylde Ratttz ever did. Read the Full Review on Dusted


Amon Tobin – ISAM
Upon hitting play, Amon takes the listener on a journey through twelve tracks that switch from chilled and laidback to gritty and at some points hectic, but always vivid and never lacking a theme. Journeyman opens the album with a dark and twisted lullaby that becomes progressively more psychedelic along the way, after which more sonic warfare is transposed on tunes such as the brilliant Autechre-y Goto 10 and the stunning listening experience that is Wooden Toy, a tune that sounds deceivingly stripped but actually bursts with layers of melancholy and depth. Unlimited creativity is the keyword here. Genres, or any conventional programming really, are put aside. Read the full review on Beats & Beyond

New Releases


Danger Mouse & Daniele Luppi Present ROME
Rome stays fully on-message from beginning to end, accurately mimicking the style, sound and recording techniques of the film scores from classic Westerns. Many of the tracks are instrumentals, but Jack White adds his Bluegrass-inspired vocals to a handful of songs. He first pops up on “The Rose With the Broken Neck,” somewhat taking on the persona of the prototypical “depressed badass” cowboy to stay with the theme. Read the full review on Hop Hop DX


Hank Williams III – Hillbilly Joker
First things first: If my bootleg Hank III collection (what, you don’t have one?) is to be believed, a large percentage—80%, to be exact—of the tracks on Hillbilly Joker have been floating around the interwebs in a quasi-legal status since 2003 under the album title This Ain’t Country. (Some tracks also appear on III Shades of Hank; use this information however you’d like.) That said, even with a new moniker, the old This Ain’t Country is a pretty apt title—as Williams fans who dig his hard rock side project, Assjack, know, there’s more to the man than his souped-up, hellbound take on his grandfather’s genre. Hillbilly Joker splits the difference between Hank III proper and Assjack, and as a result, will either offer something for both sets of fans or disappoint them, depending on your level of cynicism. Read the full review on Pop Matters


Ben Harper – Give Till It’s Gone
The 10th studio album from L.A.-based rocker Ben Harper suggests a cathartic confessional. Pointedly a solo effort (previous Harper albums have largely co-billed backing bands the Innocent Criminals and Relentless7), it’s also his last with longtime record label Virgin and comes after a very public split with his wife, actress Laura Dern. (Yes… that Laura Dern… we know.) Read the full review on the LA Times

New Releases


Okervil River – I Am Very Far
Some albums take time, slowly revealing their meanings and aims only after repeated listening. Others seem to announce their intentions the moment you put them on, as does the sixth album by Texan quintet Okkervil River. It opens with a slightly archaic but nevertheless familiar sound: even 20 years after it fell from fashion, nothing says “we are aiming for the stadiums” quite like the booming thwack of a gated snare drum, the 80s sonic signpost of big rock music with big ambitions. Read The Full Review on The Guardian


Greg Brown – Freak Flag
After Greg Brown’s last studio album (2007’s “Yellow Dog”), the singer/songwriter harbored doubts as to whether he’d record again, but — after the longest hiatus of his luminous, three-decade career — he’s returned with a solid-sender that more than holds its own among the finest of his two-dozen full-length discs.

That trademark burnished, favorite-shirt baritone remains a wonder, deftly shading lyrical content with a barely suppressed chuckle, a swallowed sob, a soul-shaking moan or — in the rollicking, Hooker-inspired boogie of “Where Are You Going When You’re Gone” — rolling out an ace falsetto as his “regular” voice’s harpy combatant in a hilarious, no-win beat-down. Read the full review on the Press Citizen


Mountain Man – Self Titled
Mountain Man walk a fine line between Sacred Harp (think Cold Mountain OST), gospel, and Gregorian chant that makes for quite an eclectic mix of tunes. Opener “Animal Tracks” finds all three singers weaving their voices together; their slurring style recalling the rawness of Bon Iver’s debut. One feels, in some nostalgic sense, that the lyrics of the chorus could not be sung in any other way (“And the sweat will roll down our backs / And we’ll follow animal tracks”). It has the sound of some lost childhood anthem of adventure, sung in unison as the three women trudge through the forest. For such a humble recording, its quite devastating. Read the Full blog review on Bohemian Cuddle Box


Raphael Saadiq – Stone Rollin’
From 2002’s Instant Vintage up through 2008’s Grammy-nominated The Way I See It, former Tony! Toni! Toné! standout and relentless mega-producer Raphael Saadiq has gradually resuscitated the energy that characterized his soulful R&B trio as a solo artist. On his excellent, career-finest LP, Stone Rollin,’ Saadiq truly comes into his own, playing virtually every instrument, in addition to writing and producing the album. Read the full review on the AV Club

New Releases


Fleet Foxes – Helplessness Blues
Helplessness Blues is comparatively deeper, more intricate, and more complex, a triumphant follow-up to a blockbuster debut. Working again with producer Phil Ek, they’ve crafted a cavernous record that allows more room for them to breathe and stretch. The album’s longer, episodic cuts contain disquieting shifts in tone. “The Plains/Bitter Dancer”, for example, begins as a spindly, psychedelic folk tune reminiscent of some of the Zombies’ more introspective moments, and then, after a brief pause, bursts suddenly into the type of gangland chorus Fleet Foxes have practically trademarked by now. Read the full review on Pitchfork


Beastie Boys – Hot Sauce Committee Part Two
What makes “Hot Sauce” so vital is that the Beasties sound hungrier than most musicians currently posting their first Internet demos. This is vintage Beasties, all exuberant pass-the-mike battle rhymes and gritty break-beats so funky, it’s near impossible not to head-bob through the entire record — or slam dance, as the hard-core thump on “Lee Majors Come Again” so inspires. These aesthetics prove not so much dated as timeless: The Beasties don’t sound as if they’re repeating themselves as much as creating fresh grooves with a sensibility that’s proved enduring. Read the full review on LA Times


Bill Callahan – Apocalypse
One of his most remarkable tricks– and one he returns to all over Apocalypse– is the ability to sound both controlled and casual at the same time. The songs here are filled with silly, borderline bad ideas that an artist with less confidence might’ve scrubbed after taking a long walk and a good rest. “Baby’s Breath” speeds up and slows down in a way that sounds unrehearsed, devolving into distorted guitar toward the end. The sloppy backing track on “America!” quotes what sounds like Civil War songs and 50s jungle-rock. (It also casts Johnny Cash and Kris Kristofferson as part of an imagined U.S. military force and ends on an acidic joke about American imperialism: “Well everyone’s allowed a past they don’t care to mention.”) A few songs feature, prominently, the flute. Read the full review on P4k

New Releases


Explosions In The Sky – Take Care, Take Care
Take Care, Take Care, Take Care, the band’s fifth ‘proper’ album (and first since 2007’s All Of A Sudden…) makes a mockery of claims that the band are mere peddlers of music that has been done better before, either by others or themselves. Suggestions that the band basically deal in the same sonic material served up by, say, Mogwai or Godspeed You! Black Emperor are both lazy and misleading. Sure, there are elements that connect these (and many more) groups, relationships that can be usefully mapped out, but they all have their own distinctive voices. “Voice” is the right word to use here because it is largely the absence of voice (i.e., of “songs” or “lyrics”) that prompts the comparisons in the first place. But to say that one instrumental rock-informed group drawn to lengthy mood pieces is the equivalent of another is like saying that one jazz group is like another, or that composers of classical music are somehow all the same. Read the full review on Tiny Mix Tapes


Emmylou Harris – Hard Bargain
Because Hard Bargain contains enough uptempo material for contrast, the album’s ballads don’t blur together as they have on some of Harris’s recent records, which makes it easier to appreciate them on their own merits. “Lonely Girl” is a stunning mood piece, while “Dear Kate” pays homage to the late Kate McGarrigle, Harris’s longtime friend and collaborator. Though she’s always been known first and foremost as a song interpreter, Harris’s songwriting here is especially sharp. The gently rollicking “Home Sweet Home” boasts an unconventional melody that heightens the song’s overall sense of displacement, while the ballad “My Name is Emmett Till” finds Harris singing from the point of view of the young African American boy killed for violating the unspoken laws of the Jim Crow-era South. It’s the empathy in Harris’s writing and her intuitive, sensitive phrasing that keep the song from becoming maudlin or cloying. Read the full review on Slant


Prefuse 73 – The Only She Sounds
The Only She Chapters sounds inebriated. Each snare hit has a tail of diminishing echoes, and each ping of a sample is followed by a ripple of overtones. The diversity of rhythms is on par, but each one is unfurled at a snail’s pace. Melodies peak around the usual backdrop pastiche, but they are swaying amidst the drowsily nodding tempos. “The Only Valentine’s Day Failure” sounds like a King Tubby 45 at 33 RPMs. The eddying vocal samples of “The Only Serenidad” must have been created with the audio equivalent of a slowly rotating Paint ’n’ Swirl. During “The Only Trial of 9000 Suns”, the late Trish Keenan (R.I.P.) sounds less like the aloof retro-pop princess she was than that confusing final conversation you had leaving the bar with the pretty girl in the tangerine dress. Read the full review on Dusted

Prefuse 73

New Release

Autechre – EP’s 1991 – 2002
So there’s plenty of pleasure here, but plenty of difficulty as well. As the years went on, Autechre became masters of bright melodies that they then drowned in distortion– their own abstract variation on “noise pop.” 1999’s EP7 might be their most beautiful release, but it’s also one of their most disorienting, built from what seems like several hundred gigs worth of glittering little chunks of sound. From then on, Autechre’s music would be about things endlessly falling apart and rebuilding themselves and falling apart again in spectacular fashion. On “Gantz Graf”, one of their most convoluted beat-and-riff creations becomes subjected to so much abuse that it collapses into screaming noise, as if the track itself is pleading for relief. There’s a lot more to listen to in Autechre’s later music, and a lot less to hang onto. The music constantly mutates, so it’s hard to get bored, but if your attention drifts, it becomes ever harder to figure out how you got from one minute to the next. It’s no wonder they were embraced as much by the free improv community around the turn of the millennium. It’s music that invites a listener to boggle at its moment-to-moment inventiveness or tune it out entirely. Read the full review on Pitchfork

Atmosphere – The Family Sign
The Family Sign is a heavy, moody album. There’s not nearly as much humor here as with Atmosphere’s previous two releases, but that doesn’t make it any less of a quality addition to the group’s catalogue. Slug and Ant are, once again, in near-perfect concert with regard to their vision for what the album should sound like, and what sort of thoughts and emotions it should convey and evoke. Further, it’s fascinating to see Slug settling completely into his role of narrator—one that will assuredly continue to inspire awe for albums to come. Read the full review on Hip Hop Dx

Gorillaz – The Fall
Each track on The Fall hails from a different American city, and unlike on past Gorillaz records, the guest stars are kept to a minimum. An exception comes with perhaps the album’s best song, “Bobby In Phoenix,” a positively enchanting mix of Bobby Womack’s larger-than-life soul-man crooning and a spare, modern bed of Dirty Projectors-inspired acoustic R&B licks and synthetic textures. But the effect isn’t that different on “Revolving Doors,” where Albarn sings a Kerouac-style travelogue over a bluesy jangle and a simple hip-hop beat. The Fall’s overarching mellowness sometimes makes it difficult to sink in, but the end result is more than a tour diary. It’s as eclectic as any Gorillaz record, and nearly as rewarding over repeated listens. Read the full review on The AV Club