Lest their name be taken in jest or as a clever ruse, Clockcleaner set the record straight with their new album Babylon Rules. The band exists to pummel, punish, and taunt, meaning there’s a perfectly good reason why they were dubbed “Philadelphia’s most hated band.”
Music
Stars: In Our Bedroom After the War
As far as standard-issue iPod compendia go, In Our Bedroom After The War, the latest album from Stars, is pretty big-hearted. The fourth album from these Canadian electro-indie soulsters finds them tackling political unrest as seen through the eyes of young and restless lovers.
Telephone Jim Jesus: Anywhere Out of Everything
Telephone Jim Jesus has been one of Anticon Records’ flagship producers since his days in Restiform Bodies. His style has remained consistent — noisy, busy downtempo soundscapes that are more funeral march than boom bap. Anywhere Out of the Everything does little to break the mold.
Heavy Trash Pay Half-Century Homage
In support of their second full-length album for Yep Roc Records, Jon Spencer and Matt Verta-Ray — known together as roots rock outfit Heavy Trash — have been giving American concert goers the finest fifties flashbacks possible.
Fog: Ditherer
Along with a slew of notable guest musicians that include Dosh, Andrew Bird, and Alan Sparhawk (Low), Fog have released an album of sometimes eerie, sometimes transcendent experimental pop with Ditherer.
Weekly Burlesque: Interview with Photographer and Publisher Dale Rio
The burlesque scene has its very own print magazine thanks to Dale “Black Dahlia” Rio, Shimmy Magazine‘s co-owner/editor and photographer who recently relocated to Seattle. She has been photographing burlesque for about five years. A little over a year ago she began editing and publishing Shimmy Magazine, the only print magazine devoted to burlesque.
Dengue Fever to Infect World With Third Album
There’s finally a good reason to look forward to January. International pop/world musicians Dengue Fever are starting 2008 out right with their anticipated third full-length album Venus on Earth, set for release on January 22.
Health: s/t
Recording on archaic equipment from the 1930s, Los Angeles quartet Health creates a massively imposing wall of fuzz and murk that ranges from frenzied noise rock freak-outs (“Girl Attorney”) to echoing non-syllabic chants of “Lost Time.”
Monster in the Machine: Butterfly Pinned
One of two inaugural records to be released by Korn guitarist James Schaffer’s independent label Emotional Syphon Recordings, Butterfly Pinned is a warped odyssey of atmospheric sound.
Grizzly Bear Attacks North America in Preparation of Friend EP
It’s easy to find a friend these days in the continually rising and mesmerizing sound of electro-indie folksters Grizzly Bear. And the band, known for its tantalizing instrumentals and transparent emotions within harmonies, has now put together a compilation of old and new, fittingly titled — you guessed it — Friend.
Helen Money: s/t
Those that recognize the name of cellist Alison Chesley — the woman behind the designation Helen Money — may do so because she was a founding member of Sony Records power poppers Verbow. And though she remains busy as a collaborator and studio musician, Chesley has used the name to debut solo material that is rooted in much of her rock past.
Les Savy Fav: Let’s Stay Friends
Can it really be six years since the last proper Les Savy Fav LP? They’ve kept us so satiated with the brilliant singles that eventually became Inches and their spasms of ferocious touring, we hardly noticed. Let’s Stay Friends was worth the wait, and the art-punk quartet has created perhaps their most mature music to date.