// Category Archive for: Current Faves

Weep, Worn Thin

By Less Lee Moore

You may have thought that Weep was just a one hit wonder.

You were wrong.

Worn Thin is the new album from the band and it’s wonderful.
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Erland & The Carnival, Trouble In Mind EP

By Less Lee Moore

If you didn’t know better, you might think that Trouble In Mind, the new EP from British folk band Erland & The Carnival, was recorded sometime in the mid-to-late-sixties and just unearthed last week.

Interestingly, the title track is the most modern-sounding song on the EP, with its gentle, yet catchy, vocals and harpsichord.

After the opening of “My Name Is Carnival,” which recalls the intro to Cream’s “White Room,” the rolling drumbeat, tremolo guitars, spacey keyboards, and striking harmonies conspire to transport the listener into the past, perhaps a concert scene from a documentary about British folk rock or Haight-Ashbury.
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The Legendary Pink Dots, Seconds Late For The Brighton Line

By Hanna

Seconds Late For The Brighton Line is called the Legendary Pink Dots‘ 30th anniversary album, and while I can’t find anything specifically 30th anniversary about it, it does fit that title to some extent.

The album is not an overview of all their styles; in fact, it has a rather specific style, especially for an LPD album, but in other ways, it is extremely typical and in some ways, familiar. This is helped by the the fact that several of the songs were premiered during the band’s 30th anniversary tour. “Hauptbahnhof 20:10” and “Russian Roulette” were both very impressive live, and do not sound much different on the album.
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Let Me In

By Lisa Anderson

As the leaves turn and the air grows colder, a few extra horror movies always make their way into theaters. This year, one of the most anticipated new releases is Let Me In, a remake of the 2008 Swedish vampire film, Let The Right One In. Transplanted from 1980s Stockholm, Sweden to 1980s Los Alamos, New Mexico, this version is helmed by Cloverfield director Matt Reeves.

The basic storyline is the same: a bullied 12-year-old boy in a dreary, snowbound apartment complex befriends a mysterious new neighbor his age. At first, their relationship appears to be typical preteen love, albeit between two strange children. It turns out though, that she is a vampire, and the adult human who lives with her has been committing murder to obtain blood for her. Before the story is over, vampire, boy, and man all see their lives change permanently.
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Kristian Hoffman, Fop

By Hanna and Matt Keeley

Kristian Hoffman is perhaps best known for working with the brilliant Klaus Nomi; he was Nomi’s musical director and the wordsmith behind Nomi’s original songs. If you’ve sat down with the records, you know how good those songs were and still are, both in performance (there’s a reason Nomi’s one of Rush Limbaugh’s favorites) and in songwriting. Nomi should have conquered the world; instead, he died too early.

Hoffman, on the other hand, didn’t sleep, and has been working with loads of cool people, including James White and the Contortions, Rufus Wainwright, Sparks, Lydia Lunch and. . . look, this’ll just be a laundry list of who’s who in good music, so just rest assured: if they’re talented, he’s probably worked with ’em. He’s also done solo records, of which Fop is the newest. It’s such an event that Popshifter enlisted TWO, count ’em TWO, reviewers to cover it.
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Let’s Have Fun With Shonen Knife: A Video Interview

By Matt Keeley

I have been listening to Shonen Knife for literally half my life. I’m 30 now, so do the math! That being said, I’ve only been able to see them live twice: once on the Gokigen Tour in 2005, and recently for the new album Free Time. There’ve been line-up changes since the first time, but the sound is the same and just as good as it always was.

I was so thrilled to interview Shonen Knife before their show at the Tractor Tavern in Seattle—the first stop on the new US tour. I got to talk to all of them and ask Naoko Yamano about her songwriting, finding records in Japan when she was growing up, Japanese vs. English, writing about animals and food, and more, including the band’s recent experience playing in China. She even tells a scary story, seeing as it is the Halloween issue and all!
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It Came From Korea: My Super-Quick Intro To Korean Horror Films

By Jim R. Clark

Korean Horror Films, or K-Horror, are horror films made in South Korea. Not North Korea!

NOT THIS KOREA, THE OTHER ONE!

K-Horror films have enjoyed a surge in popularity starting around 1998, and subsequently winning worldwide acclaim in international film festivals and among horror film fans.
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Electric Six, Zodiac

By Less Lee Moore

Since it continues the mythology of the band—self-perpetuation through self-aggrandizing self-deprecation—there’s likely no more appropriate title for the new Electric Six album than Zodiac.

Zodiac is more ambitious than any E6 release since I Shall Exterminate. . ., more structured than Flashy yet more ridiculous than Kill.
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From Coast To Ruby Coast

By Less Lee Moore

Ruby Coast are a five-piece band from Aurora, ON. They’ve been around since 2006, released an EP in 2008 called Projectable Collections, and toured with bands like Passion Pit, Tokyo Police Club, and Ra Ra Riot, in addition to Toronto’s own Born Ruffians.

The band wrote and recorded their first full-length album this spring with Howard Bilerman (Arcade Fire, Wolf Parade), and Brian Paulson (Wilco, Dinosaur Jr., Beck). It won’t be out until 2011, but don’t be sad: you can listen to a couple of tracks on their MySpace page now.
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It’s Raining MEN!

By Less Lee Moore

From MEN‘s press release:

MEN, the Brooklyn-based band fronted by Le Tigre’s JD Samson . . . began in 2007 as the DJ/production/remix team of Le Tigre members JD Samson and Johanna Fateman. When the duo began to write new songs, it made sense to merge with JD’s live band named Hirsute, which she had formed with Michael and Ginger. JD Samson, Michael O’Neill and Ginger Brooks Takahashi now comprise the core of MEN, with Johanna and artist Emily Roysdon contributing as writers, consultants, and producers.

But what do they SOUND like?
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