// Category Archive for: Music

Unsane, Wreck

By J Howell

If there was ever a band I thought would be easy to review, it’s Unsane. Don’t get me wrong—I LOVE Unsane—they’ve been one of my top five or so favorite bands since Total Destruction, and one of the best things about the brutal NYC trio has been their remarkable consistency.

While I’m loathe to compare them to a band I dislike, Unsane is just a little bit like a post-whatever noise rock AC/DC: While there has been marked evolution in the band and its sound, it’s remained focused enough to more or less know what you’re gonna get going in. This is not and has never been a bad thing, as I can’t think of a single band that has remained so remarkably satisfying to listen to year after year, record after record. Just as sure as fans knew the album cover would be drenched in blood, it can easily be said that longtime fans of the mighty Unsane won’t be disappointed with Wreck.
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Mixed Up Confusion

By Paul Casey

Since I was seven years old, I have absorbed music through compilations. Obsessive ordering and fear of the new drove it. Mixtapes, playlists, and mash-ups took new sounds to my brain. A new album was orgy time, and the chance of stumbling into some serious bad orifice play was too great. Eye up the single, cruise the opening seconds, and make camp. Listen for the transitions. Synths that keep going. Or cheat and crossfade that sucker. Yes, I made mixtapes for passive-sexual purposes. Passive-aggression? Naturally.

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Dent May, Do Things

By Chelsea Spear

Over the past few years, the ukulele has become to pop music what corn syrup is to soft drinks—a cloyingly sweet element used to thicken and over-sweeten a product of questionable quality. In comparison to his brodora-rocking peers, Dent May’s music is a glass of raw sugar-sweetened lemonade on a hot summer afternoon. His music shares a catchy, melodic quality, but his cracked baritone, lo-fi production values, and grounded lyrical perspective give his music a tart, refreshing quality.
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Rock Me, Shock Me? Musings On Rock Of Ages

By Maureen

Two things most people figure out about me very soon after meeting me are that I love classic rock music and I love musicals. So, naturally, when I started seeing teaser trailers and leaked studio stills from a big-screen adaptation of Rock Of Ages, I was theoretically psyched. Guns ‘N Roses, Poison, Bon Jovi, and more, streaming out of the big screen? Sign me up!
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Assemblog: June 8, 2012

Screencap from Miami Vice Fashion

New this week on Popshifter: a SpaceX celebration mix; reviews of The dB’s Falling Off The Sky, Jherek Bishoff’s Composed; John Singer Sergeant from John Dufilho; and a new band to watch: Sad Baby Wolf.

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John Singer Sergeant

By Jemiah Jefferson

Riffing on the name of the famous 19th Century painter, this intriguing solo project by Apples in stereo alum John Dufilho is a delightfully mixed bag of influences and styles, with each song featuring a singer other than himself. Most of the other instruments are performed by him, though, and as befitting his Elephant 6 associations, he’s good-to-excellent at all of them.
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New Band: Sad Baby Wolf

By Kai Shuart

Sad Baby Wolf is the Albuquerque-based result of the collaborative efforts of Marty Crandall and Neal Langford, formerly of The Shins, Marty’s brother Maury Crandall, and their friends Jason Ward and Sean McCullough. To test the waters, the newly formed band has decided to take their show on the road. They played the Noise Pop festival in February, and are slated to play several music festivals this summer. To whet everyone’s appetite, the band has released their version of the Neutral Milk Hotel tune “Everything Is” to the public.
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Jherek Bischoff, Composed

By Less Lee Moore

Singer/songwriter/producer/etc. Jherek Bischoff spent years working on Composed, which makes its brevity perhaps surprising. The album is fewer than 40 minutes in length, yet it’s anything but slight. Each composition is quite literally bursting with ideas.

Even though Bischoff wrote most of the music (with the exception of an arresting cover of English folk-pop singer Bob Lind’s “Counting”), Composed is an exceptionally collaborative effort. Most of the singers wrote their own lyrics and the 20+ musicians who contributed to the album didn’t even perform in the same room together; the liner notes indicate that many of their instrumental tracks were recorded at their homes or various studios individually.

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The dB’s, Falling Off The Sky

By Less Lee Moore

It’s been 25 years since the dB’s recorded an album; it’s been 30 years since they recorded one with the band’s original lineup of Peter Holsapple, Chris Stamey, Gene Holder, and Will Rigby. Understandably, expectations run high and the urge to compare this new album to their previous ones is strong. As a fan, I wanted to try and avoid this in my review, but damn it if each song on Falling Off The Sky doesn’t sound exactly like the dB’s! Which is a good thing, trust me.

Let’s be clear: the songs on Falling Off The Sky aren’t those of old fogeys. Okay, maybe Holsapple and Stamey can’t hit the high notes like they did in the early ’80s, but there is not one boring or stodgy moment on this album.

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Your SpaceX, Space-y Celebration Mix

By Emily Carney

On May 22, SpaceX’s Dragon capsule became the first commercial space vehicle to be launched and docked with the International Space Station. The footage on NASA TV was gorgeous, epic, and monolitic and reminded me of why spaceflight still remains completely badass and important. The capsule made a successful landing on Friday, May 31.

Sexy cover models:
The crew of Apollo 10 (1969)
Gene Cernan, Tom Stafford, John Young

As everybody who knows me knows, I’m obsessed with spaceflight. So this is what I listened to during the week of SpaceX’s travels in low earth orbit.

SPACE MIX
1. “Apollo 16 Lunar Rover Ride,” by John Young and Charlie Duke, on the Moon, April 1972
2. “Blue Danube (Excerpt),” Johann Strauss
3. “Future,” Cut Copy
4. “Don’t Bring Me Down,” Electric Light Orchestra
5. “Hold Still,” Jarvis Cocker
6. “Time Stands Still,” Cut Copy
7. “National Anthem,” Lana Del Rey
8. “Midnight City,” M83

Check it out here: http://8tracks.com/emilybot/space-mix