Tips for Good Music Vol. 03

The first track from Tired Pony's new album 'The Ghost Of The Mountain' which is out now in the UK/Intl. and in the US on October 1st 2013.

Pre-order/Buy the album now (UK/Intl.) at Fiction (CD) - http://trdpny.com/FictionCD / Fiction (Vinyl) - http://trdpny.com/FictionVinyl / iTunes - http://trdpny.com/iTunes

The Ghost Of The Mountain

All Things All At Once

"C'mon Stimmung" from the album 'An Object', out August 20th on Sub Pop Records

Pre-order 'An Object': http://u.subpop.com/183QMGi

No Age Online: http://noagela.org/
No Age on Twitter: twitter.com/NoAgeLA

Sub Pop on Facebook: facebook.com/subpoprecords
Sub Pop on Twitter: twitter.com/subpop


An Object

C'mon, Stimmung

No Age - C'mon, Stimmung

“Star Crawl” appears on Nature Noir, Out Now

iTunes- http://hyperurl.co/naturenoir
CD/LP- http://bit.ly/25DAg0H

Website:  http://www.crystalstilts.com/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/crystalstiltsofficial/
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/crystal_stilts/

TOUR DATES: https://www.facebook.com/crystalstiltsofficial/app/123966167614127/

Crystal Stilts - Star Crawl

title track from new album No Enter, to be released by Chapter Music on Friday September 6, 2013.

download this from http://chaptermusic.bandcamp.com/album/no-enter

www.facebook.com/bushwalkingband

Bushwalking - No Enter

Taken from the album "Stars Are Our Home."
Out now on Slumberland Records (US) and Sonic Cathedral (UK)

Order the digital download from iTunes: http://smarturl.it/bhb-itunes
Order the LP/CD: http://smarturl.it/bhb-album

more info: http://www.blackheartedbrother.com
Black Hearted Brother Official Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/pages/Black-Hearted-Brother/210615915729479

It was Alfred Bester, if I recall correctly, who called 'the stars my destination', in his brilliant novel of the same name from 1956. Long considered a libertarian science fiction classic, it's also notable for featuring one of the very first accounts of synaesthesia in English-language fiction. This might be drawing a particularly long bow, but the title of Black Hearted Brother's debut, "Stars Are Our Home", immediately brought Bester's book to mind – and there's definitely something of the synaesthesic experience about this album, overflowing with enraptured, glowing textures, flaring white light like magnesium, in consort with brilliant red-blue waves of psychedelia.

Of course, the first thing that might crane your head towards "Stars Are Our Home" is the group's membership: Neil Halstead, the éminence grise behind Slowdive and Mojave 3; Mark Van Hoen, an original member of Seefeel, subsequently working solo and as Locust; and Nick Holton, the main mover behind Holton's Opulent Oog, and member of Coley Park, who have released albums on Halstead's Shady Lane label. They had previously converged on Halstead's 2001 solo album, "Sleeping On Roads," though Van Hoen also co-produced Mojave 3's "Out Of Tune" (1998), "Excuses For Travelers" (2000) and "Spoon & Rafter" (2003), while Holton took up production duties for Halstead's "Palindrome Hunches" (2012). Van Hoen and Halstead go back much further still, to 1992, when they were in Seefeel and Slowdive respectively: 'Mark taught Neil much that was electronic and ambient music.'

You could hear that education bearing fruit with Slowdive's late-period masterpiece, 1995's "Pygmalion." In some ways, "Stars Are Our Home" echoes that album's experimental process, if not the outcome, as Black Hearted Brother are a very different, distinctive beast, often indulging in what Halstead, self-deprecatingly, describes as 'a lot of very long and indulgent space rawk.' And indeed, that space-rock drive is writ loud and clear on the album's opening title track, an instrumental bliss-out that navigates through ocean-tides of FX-drenched guitar. But there's a lot more to it: 'The idea was to just make a record that was in some ways "unedited",' Halstead continues. 'To not worry about a particular sound or style, but to just go with the flow. We all make quite focused records individually so, as Mark says, it's our "guilty pleasures" album.' That seems about right, except with "Stars Are Our Home," the outcome is no guilt, all pleasure.

'Neil and Nick had, I think, started a few months before they asked me to join the party,' Van Hoen recalls. 'I think they had a few songs on the go, and needed an extra hand to add a few funny noises and generally add to the chaos – or maybe bring some order to the chaos.' Van Hoen has picked up on the dialectical nature of "Stars Are Our Home" here, its "order" and its "chaos": it's a rich, compelling album full of unexpected twists and turns, at times overloading the sensorium with so much material you're drenched in noise, but it'll just as quickly flip back on itself and drift through a glazed-eye, agrarian moment of acoustic melancholy (see the start of "Time In The Machine", which, as if to prove my point, takes less than a minute to build into a clangorous, droning monster).

So, there's a whole lot going on in these grooves, and plenty of it's unexpected, or from unexpected sources. The trio plays fast and loose with what listeners might consider their pre-ordained 'roles'. 'Primarily the songs themselves were started either by Nick or Neil individually,' Van Hoen explains, 'but then edited, developed and generally messed around with and rendered almost unlistenable by either myself or the others. The roles were not always clear cut. Sometimes Nick would be playing keyboards and synths, and myself guitars.' Lyrics on the record feel like another texture, another layer: sometimes they're invocatory chants, sometimes Halstead's and Holton's voices are ghosted by electronic manipulation, as on "Oh Crust". Often there's more going on than at first glance, and an index of the album's lyrical concerns runs to 'romance, sci-fi, places to go on holiday, real UFO abduction, the duality in the meaning of words, lament for the loss of psychedelic freedoms by the masses…'

"Stars Are Our Home" is brave and beautiful, mysterious and resonant. Its experimental edges never forget the importance of the pop moment; the best way to bring people around to your way of hearing is to seduce their ears, and there's seduction plenty here, pure pop like "Take Heart", the Other Green World of "I'm Back", the closing driftwork that is "Look Out Here They Come". A real head-wrecker of an album. And what does the future hold? The trio speaks as one: 'Black Hearted Brother will grow and mature into something very sophisticated in the coming years. A kind of comedic-space-rock-dancehall outfit to define a zeitgeist for the 22nd century, if you like.' Ha, yeah – amen, brothers!

Black Hearted Brother - (I Don't Mean To) Wonder

B-Room

The Truth

Dr. Dog- The Truth

From the upcoming record 'Tides End' out August 6th on Captured Tracks, worldwide.

Pre-order the album here: goo.gl/BYHth

MINKS // Margot

Taken from the album, Herein Wild, released on Fat Possum Records Sept. 24 (US/Canada)/October 8th (UK/EU)

Pre-order Herein Wild from Fat Possum - http://www.fatpossum.com/products/herein-wild

Frankie Rose "Sorrow"

Purchase Let's Be Still from www.theheadandtheheart.com

iTunes - http://smarturl.it/letsbestill
Amazon - http://smarturl.it/letsbestillamz
Sub Pop - www.subpop.com/artists/the_head_and_the_heart

iTunes

The Head and The Heart - Shake

Kelley Stoltz's "Double Exposure" is available here: https://thirdmanstore.com/catalog/product/view/id/976/s/kelley-stoltz-double-exposure-12-vinyl/

While many rocking bands in San Francisco and beyond claim to be 'garage' bands' - Kelley Stoltz has actually recorded his new LP "Double Exposure" in the garage behind his house.  And while the car oil stained floors are covered by oriental rugs and there are no snow shovels laying around - there is a collection of vintage synths, 17 guitars, tape echos, mellotrons, a 50's jukebox, a Teardrop Explodes poster, a tape machine used by The Residents, an amp used by Stooge James Williamson, and a myriad other noise making devices which rear their heads on his new record.  All told the place is called Electric Duck Studio and it's become a muse capturing zone for Stoltz, as well as Sonny & the Sunsets, The Mantles, Tim Cohen, Life Stinks, The Sandwitches and many other tuneweavers big and small. 

"Double Exposure" is Kelley's first album in a while - near on 3 years since his last one, "To Dreamers" came out on Sub Pop. What the heck has he been doing since, you ask?  Well renovating the garage for one, and using said garage studio to engineer, produce or encourage the above named bands… You see time flies when you're having fun.  Add in some love, a little heartbreak, turning 40, deciding to jog everyday, staring at the wall, singing hundreds of songs into the phone, sleeping, recording an album of cover songs with his family, making a couple 45 singles, catching white wine buzzes, getting dropped by Sub Pop, playing keyboards on tour with Rodriguez, and signing on with old supporters at Third Man Records… really it's as good old Sandy Denny sang, who knows where the time goes.

Anyway, if you stir up all that stuff and a few other things we won't mention here, you have the makings of a fantastic and heartfelt record, "Double Exposure" has 10 new jams that Thee Oh Sees main man, John Dwyer, describes thusly, "A piece of gold in your ear, A lovely thought in your mind, A breeze in the sun, This record is perfect…" 

Nicely put there Johnny! And you too will thrill to the sound of delay pedals twisting the keys on "Inside My Head", crane your neck to the backwards guitars of "Are You My Love", ramble and gamble to the clanging cymbals on the title track, question the sanity of a song called "Kim Chee Taco Man", and finally, fall down and weep at the sweet fluted sentiments of "It's Summertime Again".  

For all of you Aussie rules fans, the album was mixed and mastered by Mikey Young of Eddy Current Suppression Ring/Total Control and features Stoltz playing most of the instruments himself and overdubbing parts through his trusty 8 track tape machine.

Kelley Stoltz - "Kim Chee Taco Man" Clip

"Fall Back" appears on Versions, Out Now.

iTunes- https://itunes.apple.com/us/album/versions/id667027545?ign-mpt=uo%3D4
CD/LP- http://www.sacredbonesrecords.com/products/sbr102-zola-jesus-versions

Website:  http://www.zolajesus.com/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/zolajesusofficial
Twitter: https://twitter.com/zolajesus
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/zolajesus/
Tumblr: http://zolajesus.tumblr.com/
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/user/ZolaJesus
Spotify: https://play.spotify.com/artist/78OKNrjc3BvniYTqvpOp6P?play=true&utm_source=open.spotify.com&utm_medium=open

TOUR DATES: http://www.zolajesus.com/tour.html

Tips for Good Music Vol. 03

Goltzman*