The Kabbs / Down This Road

The Kabbs are a band from San Diego that make country-garage rock tunes. It kind of sounds like cowboy punk, maybe if punks invaded mining towns in the gold rush era.

Trailer Trash Tracys / Turkish Heights

Okay, let’s be real, Trailer Trash Tracys might be one of the worst band names of 2k12, or possibly one of the worst band names ever. They popped into the music world with one of the most banging debut singles of any dreamy synth pop blog band. Their new LP, Ester, throws down more hits and continues to expand the superstar legacy of this fresh UK act. At the tail-end of Ester, the Tracys throw down a slow one that will definitely melt your heart. Turkish Heights oozes with dreamy shoe-gazey synth notes bleeding into drowsy vocals, making sense with a bass line so damn simple, yet mind-blowing with every note. #ooze

Pokey LaFarge / Pack It Up

For the last year or so, Third Man has been pouring out brilliant 7” singles from an incredibly diverse range of artists. Jack White deserves a hell of a lot more praise from finding artists from so many different locations, genres, and levels of success. Anyway, recently I’ve been really excited by Pokey LaFarge’s addition to the Third Man singles collection. LaFarge, hailing from St. Louis, sounds like the celebration of traditional America as we know it from movies and stories from American history textbooks circa high school. It’s so distant and almost confusing in a time where music has become something temporary, something that has to defy everything else happening at the moment, something that creates a new sound with an influx of trendy bands to follow. LaFarge has a sound that is timeless and almost isolated from a music industry that feasts on the wires of the world wide web. Even his biography reads like the tale of a hero from some film based on a younger America. LaFarge doesn’t simply settle for being incredibly unique at a time when everyone else is trying so hard; he is also exceptionally talented, carrying terrific effortless vocals and an immaculate talent for song writing. His old school traditional American blue grass that carries imagery of lazy rivers and folks swing dancing late at night in the town pub is probably the punkest, most bad ass thing I’ve heard from any musician in the last decade. The upbeat B-side of LaFarge’s new single, Pack it Up, opens with a sweet little guitar rhythm that gets swept up with LaFarge’s modest vocals met by wonderful harmonies during the chorus. It’s all carried by the rhythm of a stand up base and becomes perfect with LaFarge’s epic guitar solo towards the end. Pokey LaFarge; the punkest thing in America.

Davila 666 / Diablo

Tan Bajo is full of fuzzy raunchy bad ass rock numbers, but there are some warm heart melting gems hidden beneath the fuzz. I have no idea what they’re saying, but it feels sweet and the guitar hooks coated in sugary vocal melodies will tickle you in all the right places. Check them out in NYC this week!

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.

Top Records

1 DIRTBOMBS Party Store In The Red
2 RINGO DEATHSTARR Colour Trip Sonic Unyon
3 COMPUTER MAGIC Electronic Fences [EP] White Iris
4 PAUL REVERE & THE RAIDERS Essential Sony Legacy
5 SONIC YOUTH SYR 9 Simon Werner A Disparu SYR
6 DELICATE STEVE Wondervisions Luaka Bop
7 WAGON CHRIST Toomorrow Ninja Tune
8 PAINS OF BEING PURE AT HEART Belong Slumberland
9 LYKKE LI Wounded Rhymes Atlantic/LL
10 CUT COPY Zonoscope Modular
11 PJ HARVEY Let England Shake Vagrant-Island
12 PETER ROWAN Legacy Self-Released
13 DAVILA 666 Tan Bajo In The Red
14 DEATH SET Michel Poiccard Counter
15 HUNX AND HIS PUNX Too Young To Be In Love Hardly Art
16 CRYSTAL STILTS In Love With Oblivion Slumberland
17 RAINBOW ARABIA Boys And Diamonds Kompakt
18 PONYTAIL Do Whatever You Want All The Time We Are Free
19 TRENT FOX & THE TENANTS Mess Around [EP] Kind Turkey
20 XRAY EYEBALLS [EP] Hozac
21 DEVOTCHKA 100 Lovers Anti
22 IS/IS This Happening [EP] Guilt Ridden Pop
23 OBN III'S [EP] Tic Tac Totally
24 KURT VILE Smoke Ring For My Halo Matador
25 DUM DUM GIRLS He Gets Me High [EP] SUB POP
26 SILK FLOWERS Ltd. Form Post Present Medium
27 KILLS Blood Pressures Domino
28 GIL SCOTT-HERON AND JAMIE XX We're New Here XL
29 PETER BJORN AND JOHN Gimme Some Star Time
30 GO! TEAM Rolling Blackouts Memphis Industries

ADDS

1 ASHANTI Broken Dreams In The Red
2 KE$HA Lost Virgin Sub Pop
3. JUSTIN BIEBER Eating Raw Potatoes Hardly Art
4. GREG ALLMAN The Day I Loved Ke$ha Slumberland
5. MICHAEL JACKSON Wish Bieber Came to Neverland Ninja Tune

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.