Baby Birds Don't Drink Milk [MT2, Solid Melts]

Drew, from one of my new favorite bands BBDM, over the weekend sent another track off of the band's latest album, Skeletor & Me. The track is pretty different sounding than some of the other songs that I've posted here from the album as this one is a lot more noisy, chaotic and distorted (or was that Soundcloud messing up). The album is currently available on vinyl on Fire Talk Records or as cassette on Solid Melts and will be shipped out late October.

Baby Birds Don't Drink Milk - MT2

Herbcraft [Papers, Woodsist]

By far, Brooklyn label Woodsist has got to be my favorite because founder Jeremy Earl has that sort of ear for raw psychedelic music that I absolutely love. Recently a couple tapes were released on FIT, one of them being Herbcraft (the other being Ducktails), a band I knew little of until a few days ago. One of my favorite blogs and Altered Zone contributee, Raven Sings The Blues, featured a couple tracks from the cassette and was instantly drawn in by the psychedelic music Matthew Lajoie makes. The cassette features five new tracks plus a couple live rehearsals and is a follow up to the band's earlier release Herbcraft Discovers The Bitter Water of Agartha on Hello Sunshine Records.

One Thousand Papers

The tape can be picked up here

mp3[via]

Dead As Digital / The Road Goes Ever On / Stadiums and Shrines [Collaborations Cassette]

Collaborations are always something interesting to listen to; the mash up two or more different artists with their own distinct taste and style of music and seeing what the end result is brings on a lot of excitement and anticipation. Case in point with this new cassette release put out also by a collaboration of music bloggers: Dead As Digital, The Road Goes Ever On and Stadiums & Shrines. The concept behind the project was to bring both bloggers and musicians together to make some music and put it out for the world to listen to and enjoy; its a beautiful thing really. The artists featured on this tape represent a lot of the names that have been going around the blogosphere over this last year in the DIY/electronic genres and to be honest, I was quite impressed with this lineup (track list below).

After giving the compilation a listen to three songs really stuck out from the rest. I don't know weather it was my appreciation for Hip Hop but the track "Breaking" caught my ear; all credit due to Star Slinger's tight production and Emay's incredible rhyme schemes and flow. And as an added bonus, Blackbird Blackbird supports with backup vocals and getting in his own verse. Collectively they go by the name Seeing Suge.

The second was performed by one of my favorite new artists, Holy Spirits who collaborated with Massachusetts' Gem Club. The track is another gorgeous layering of vocal harmonies and sound that give a feeling of absolute bliss; the violin was a nice added touch. The third I'll give mention to is the track that wrapped up this project. Another Star Slinger production this time featuring Texas' Pandit who used a sample of the song by Atlantic Starr with "Second To None", which could also be found on the Madlib / MF DOOM collaboration Madvillainy. Star Slinger produces his own beat for the sample with Pandit adding such ambient vocals that the song would make one want to cool out except for a little somethin' else going on in the track (just don't bump this at work) that scratches that idea.

Even though I mentioned only three tracks on the compilation, there are many more worth checking out. This project not only is loaded with good music but it brought the whole DIY and blogging communities together. It seems like everyone is getting behind this project and I hope that this will bring on more to come in the future. The tape can be picked up here

Seeing Suge - Breaking

Holy Spirits & Gem Club - Fingertips


Star Slinger & Pandit - Self Love

Track List

Side A
1. Top Girls and Guerre – Melt
2. Teen Daze and Jaded Hipster Choir – Low Glow
3. Weed and Foxes In Fiction – Teenage Dream
4. Closed Cassette and Top Girls – For Now
5. Ghost Animal and Rachel Levy – We Don’t Care
6. Ghost Houses – Ritual

Side B
7. Holy Spirits and Gem Club – Fingertips
8. Seeing Suge (Star Slinger, Emay and Blackbird Blackbird) – Breaking
9. Pepepiano and Warm Waves – Air
10. Gay Boiz (Kumon Plaza and Rachel Levy) – High Level Alchemy
11. Star Slinger and Pandit – Self Love

Expo 70 [The Vanishing World Within, Solid Melts]

The experimental record The Vanishing World Within Expo 70 has been re-released on Solid Melts and limited to 100 black cobalt tapes which can be summer up best below:

Comprised of skeletal recordings started over a year ago, finally finished. “The Vanishing World Within” presented in five phases, cultivates a body of sounds new and familiar for Expo ’70. “Phase I” is a lesson in meditation with reverberating organ drones cascades into “Phase II” where things get weird with pulsating synths and textured tonal waves of electronics, the Goblin vibe is heavy on this. “Phase III” closes side A with a heavy locked guitar riff summoning Hawkwind backed by Neu! syncopated drumming by David Williams (Sounding the Deep), looped guitar echoes intertwine layered guitar lines alongside a thick doomed-out guitar riff.

Side B opens to “Phase IV,” bringing us back to to pulsing electronics with soft haunting melodic synth parts causing cosmic reverberations that are accompanied by analog drum machine leads to “Phase V,” full of sine waves, leading into serene delicate guitar work. - Solid Melts

Sample

The cassette can be found here

Over the weekend, another new cassette was released on Solid Melts from the band Yoda's House. Their music video for "Black Friday" can be found below which is off of the Then Eats Them tape and can be found here

Lay Bac [Stay Out Tonight, Orchid Tapes]

Ever since Washed Out really broke out and got the movement towards DIY electronic chill vibes music going there have many many artists that soon followed. Some imitators and some really taking the genre and putting there own kind of spin on it, and some capturing the essence of chilled out music. Blackbird Blackbird, Houses, Teen Daze, Craft Spells, Gobble Gobble, and Com Truise just to name only but a few have really taken electronic music to new heights and have helped make the genre/sub-genre/sub-sub-genre distinct. Today I got a couple songs sent over from Austin's Lay Bac and will happily add his name to the above shortlist. His music is chilled electronic but there is something different to his sound. The single "Stay Out Tonight" is a throwback to the days of disco and R&B mashed up into a track with echoed vocals that carry's one through the pure grooves.

Stay Out Tonight

Check out a free 10-track album here

Orca Team [Let It Go CS]

"Let It Go" is the lead track off of the Portland trio's latest cassette release. The 10-track album is loaded with surf-pop songs with a vintage sound of days past when surf-rock ruled the airways with a bit of post-punk thrown in. The entire album has a lazy day at the beach feel to it as these songs will definitely lighten any mood. The cassette/CD can be picked up on their current tour or can be found here

Let It Go

Dirty Beaches [Paris Music Video, Night People Records]

There is nothing better than when a great band release material on a great label. Huge fan of both Dirty Beaches and Night People Records, the cassette Night City was released earlier this year and is the second tape to be released by Montreal's minimalist musician Alex Zhang Hungtai. A music video for the track "Paris" was recently released and can be seen below. The images were taken from the 1976 short film C'était un Rendezvous by Claude Lelouch. Dirty Beaches also recently released the True Blue 7'' on San Diego's Zoo Music and can be picked up here

The two Dirty Beaches tapes can be found here

Blackbird Blackbird [Dreams I Create, Orchid Tapes]

It has been a relatively quiet summer for Beko DSL but the label as more than made up for it with releasing now two summer mixtapes; the first which is available for free download here included artists such as Idiot Glee, Tan Dollar and Eternal Summers. The second and newly released compilation is also available for free download at the site, but it can also be purchased as a cassette over at the exciting new tape label, Orchid Tapes (run by Foxes In Fiction's Warren Hildebrand). This releases features some exciting new artists: Blackbird Blackbird, Hard Mix and Foxes in Fiction

Blackbird Blackbird - Dreams I Create

Foxes In Fiction - Bathurst

The tape is limited to 50 copies and can be picked up here

Thousand Owl [ = , Fire Talk]

I covered Unsa Oonm a couple months ago when I first learned that they were gonna have a cassette released on Fire Talk Records. The cassette is now available but the band has undergone a name change. The band is now known as Thousand Owl, but the album's name is still the same, = . No word yet on a tour but hopefully soon in support of the new cassette.

Borders

The cassette can be picked up here

Way Slow Tapes

Way Slow Tapes is a new cassette label from the band Houses out of Chicago. They plan to release limited edition series of tapes centering around dream pop music. They are currently looking for artists to sign and can be contacted here

HORSES [In Photographs, Solid Melts]

The above video is for the song "In Photographs" by the band HORSES from Spokane Washington who have released a new cassette this last week titled Sincerely Jackie Chan over on the Solid Melts label. The cassette can be picked up here as it is a limited run of 50 copies.

Baby Birds Don't Drink Milk [Skeletor & Me, Solid Melts]

Two new tracks, "Last Night Sucked" and "Jeremy Irons Couple Skate" from Kansas band, Baby Birds Don't Drink Milk (BBDDM). The songs keep you focused on the singer's vocals while in the background a lot of interesting music is being played; guitars and bass coming in and out of the speakers when least expecting it. The band have been around for quite some time and already have a very extensive backlog of sold out split cassettes and CD-Rs. Both tracks will be featured on their upcoming release called Skeletor & Me on both cassette and CD later in August. They also have a 7'' coming out on Woodsman label Fire Talk Records.

Last Night Sucked

Jeremy Irons Couple Skate

The cassette can be picked up here and the CD here

Weed Diamond / Tan Dollar [Split Cassette, Bathetic Records]

The new release from cassette label Bathetic Records is a split project between two awesome bands, Denver's Weed Diamond and California's Tan Dollar. Both bands will be touring together along with Dash Jacket (another great band from Southern California) between June and July so make sure to catch a show.

The cassette can be picked up here

Happy Family / Run DMT [Banana Split CS, Wigflip Records]

I stumbled upon this split CS/CD at Chocolate Bobka blog and was totally into the two songs featured on the page. I have been listening more to Run DMT and have really started to like the band more and more but the other artist on the split, Happy Family is just as good. It's great music to put on and escape to. It will be released on June 1st on Wigflip Records.

Happy Family - Youtube

Run DMT - Spruce Bringsteen

Either CS or CD can be pre-ordered here