Family Portrait / Wait

For the last few years, I’ve been sucking the life out of my limited collection of Family Portrait tracks stripped away from compilations and singles. Those few tracks in themselves were enough to credit the band with, but nothing feels as perfect as their debut record. I’ve been anticipating this explosion of sound of my entire life. I was born into this beautiful world searching for this LP and I’ve finally found it. The final result, the gift we’ve all been searching for, is finally here and it’s fucking incredible. Warm sounds bloom into crystal psychedelic melodies that melt and swell and bleed into each other like puddles. Puddles of rainbow liquid. It’s like Alex Mac took acid and went for a puddle-adventure from Munckin Land to the land of Oz, referencing decades of music along the way. Aside from the brilliant song writing, the production is fucking fantastic. It consumes the world around you and sweeps through every crevice of your body, the fullest, most wonderful sound you could possibly imagine. Everything about the record is perfect and it was totally 100% worth the life-long wait. The brilliance manifests itself in every second, every sound, every melodic swell, every munchkin you pass along the way. One of the most mind-blowing records I’ve ever experienced in my long reign as music director. How can you expect anything less from the royal court of the Underwater Peoples Kingdom? YOU CAN’T. It’s the incestuous family affair that Jerry Springer never showed you. Get it via Underwater Peoples here.

Acid Baby Jesus / Losing It

How can I express the excitement one experiences when they realize that Acid Baby Jesus can now be played from a music circle? It’s like the time they turned a scoop of ice cream into a thousand tiny balls. You just can’t explain that shit. Acid Baby Jesus is a Linkin Park inspired filthy garage act hailing from the great land of Athens, GR. A while back, they released a tape that made the good folks of WUSB pee themselves with joy and here they are again, but on a music circle! The b-side explores a side of Acid Baby Jesus that we’ve never experienced before, a sludgier, darker slow jam that sounds like it was born in some musty deserted bar in a desolate ghost town down south. I think I just described a scene from Scooby-Doo, so maybe just ignore the strange visual reference and click the play button.

You can get the music circle here from the good folks at Slovenly.

Thank You

Listening to Thank You is like being in an insane noisy tribal trance. The Baltimore trio just released Golden Worry on Thrill Jockey Records. Their sound is something like Aa meets Angelo Spencer meets Foals. Can't/Can is a track that starts off driving hard into your skull and the bursts into something a bit more poppy with vocals that feel far away and then screws your skull again and then breaks into this very solitary moment with soft percussion and organs and then builds into this kind of monumental orchestral chaos. It almost feels like this really brilliant noisy narrative that fucks your head for a good six minutes, probably one of the greatest six minutes of your life.

Young Prisms

Just listened to what is going to probably be my favorite record of 2011. Young Prisms took CMJ by storm this year and they were honestly the only band that I really wanted to see. I wish it was easy to pick a jam for you, but I can't. So I'm just going to suggest you listen to what is probably the catchiest track, although EVERY SINGLE TRACK IS EPIC. Kanine just released a label sampler that will be in CR1 and you can peep some Young Prisms jams on there! In a mean time, think about how this album will be the best thing in 2011 besides having one year left to live. RIP THE WORLD 2012.