Ringo Deathstarr

Mon 11 Oct 2010

Blue Monday/ Hazy Sunday

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Crunchy gazy guitars and whining distortion abound on Ringo Deathstarr’s latest offering ‘Imagine Hearts’, available as a free download from RCRDLBL’s website. The Austin, Texas trio have been jangly pop junkies since their inception in 2005, but they now seem to be going through a softer transition, surrounding themselves in rich layers of distortion and pedal feedback. Their earlier work had elements of New Zealand’s famed Flying Nun sound, bands such as Bailter Space and HDU; but with time they’ve become sweeter, less concerned with razor sharp rhythms and more interested in forming crisp melodies. A downgrade in band size, from four to three has also influenced their sound, with the departure of guitarist Renan McFarland making the double guitar sound disappear, stacking them now with hollow point chord changes and crackled beats, and with Alex Gehring on vocal duty the band has relinquished some of it’s masculinity.

Despite already having a rather lengthy career, the band has just one EP and a 7″ to their name. However in early 2011 that will change, with the release of their debut album Colour Trip. ‘Imagine Hearts’ is the first single from the album and it has been released with an accompanying low-budget music video, viewable on their myspace page. 

Ringo Deathstarr- Imagine Hearts: MP3

 Ringo Deathstarr- Myspace

 

Posted by Nick Fulton under Austin, Texas, U.S.A
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Dharma

Wed 26 May 2010

 Post-Mental Anaconda 

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If you’ve sat around in a smoky post-mental state at any point in your lifetime then there’s a good chance that you will be able to relate to Dharma’s wretched mutant grime-pop. This is the type of noise you’d expect to hear if HEALTH, Sun Araw, TFF and Caribou met in the Amazon jungle and jammed out some psychic tribal rhythms, but more impressively it is all made by one person in Austin, Texas, spun from a bedroom deep beneath the sand with some spiny cacti and poisonous spiders levitating around the dusty rafters. It’s dirty, rusty and bleak, cracking a dark, moody vibe that stems more from East coast hip-hop than the electro-grime underworld. In a way the two come together nicely and the result is brutally obnoxious and disturbing, sounding more like death than the spawning of new life.

You can buy Dharma’s first instalment of cyborg, flesh-eating pop from Skrot Up’s online store. Titled Flesh, it is only available on cassette tape.

Dharma- Material Equivalence: MP3

Dharma- Myspace

 

Posted by Nick Fulton under Austin, Texas, U.S.A
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Harlem

Sun 10 Jan 2010

Shake It Up

Harlem

Incorporating the ecstasy prescribed by The White Stripes’ early raw blues-soaked rock and roll and the charming glow of ’60s pop warmed through vinyl, Harlem distills that glorious free spirit so many bands are chasing but so few have managed to pin down. Skewing their songs with love and heartache, their jangly party rock and roll anthems bubble with a ghetto trash punk aesthetic, with hooting and hollering through echoey vocal effects and shimmying, shattering drums. Even in their slower moments (‘Sometimes’ and their cover of Royal Trux’s ‘Junkie Nurse’), there’s a frenetic quality inherent in the jovial drums and speedy guitar, and in even more introspective moments they can mimic the freak folk of contemporaries such as Grizzly Bear. But while they’re a multi-pronged act, it seems Harlem’s real spirit is in their party music. Their forthcoming debut album Hippies, slated for release in April on Matador, seems set to continue that party.

Harlem- South of France: MP3

Harlem- Friendly Ghost: MP3

Harlem- Myspace

 

Posted by Sarah Gooding under Austin, Texas, U.S.A
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