Happy Monday. As always NPR has released some new album streams through their First Listen series, but this week is especially mind-blowing.

Most important is the southern rap album you’ve been waiting for, the debut studio album from Big K.R.I.T. — Live From The Underground, out June 5th Island Def Jam / Cinematic. On top of that we get Brooklyn indie-rockers Liars’ sixth album WIXIW (pronounced “wish you”), out June 4th/5th on Mute. exciting second proper LP Celebration Rock, due out on this Tuesday May 29th in Canada and on June 5th elsewhere through Polyvinyl. Kelly Hogan’s I Like To Keep Myself In Pain (ANTI-, June 4th/5th) is also available for streaming.

What are you waiting for?

The accompanying video was directed by Jason Ano, who had previously shot A$AP Rocky’s “Purple Swag.” If you haven’t previously heard about SKYWAY just slam the play button. Their genre-bending sound is so unique it tends to be hard to describe at times. Check out the video below and jump on the SKYWAY.

Look out for a video of their song “Trenchcoats” soon. They’ll be shooting it next week in Florida.

SKYWAY on Tumblr
SKYWAY on Twitter
SKYWAY on Soundcloud

Well, damn. The drama that began with Pusha T’s “Exodus 23:1″ (listen here) just jumped to a whole new level. Lil Wayne had responded with an angry tweet, but now he’s turned that into a full, if brief, diss track. Yawn.

Weezy may have the sales behind him, but this is a snoozeable diss. Nonetheless, it’s a bit surprising to hear him air it out with an entire track, in today’s age of half-disses and subliminal shots. If anything, this will provide quite the buzz for Pusha T, not to mention that if this diss is the best Wayne can do against the Clipse lyricist…he ought to be concerned. Very concerned.

The Brooklyn bliss-rockers of DIIV are preparing to release their new record, Oshin, on June 26th via Captured Tracks. Last month, they released a 7″ to tide us over, with the dreamy and propulsive “How Long Have You Known” as the A-side. Now there’s a video to accompany the track. In the clip, frontman Zachary Cole Smith dons an apron and makes a blended concoction of cassette tape, magazine cut-outs, and whatever else he can find. While we observe his seemingly deliberate addition of ingredients, the rest of the band churns out the song in another room. Stay tuned for the ending, which makes me worry for Smith’s health… just a little bit. Catch the video below, and check back here for our review when the album drops:

Liars’ new album WIXIW (pronounced “wish you”) is out June 5th on Mute records. You can get a preview of the album below with new track “Octagon.” As our friend Franky from LB4YB points out, the Radiohead influence is as strong as ever. Think Amnesiac x In Rainbows.

Check out the album’s first single, “No. 1 Against The Rush” here.

We goofed. Real bad. We were supposed to premiere this beaut of a track on Tuesday alongside our buddies Rawkblog, Listen Before You Buy, The Blue Indian, and We All Want Someone To Shout For but life got in the way: summer jobs, new apartments, several voyages on the dreaded Long Island Railroad, and a couple of drunken blunders with the law.

But enough about us. Long Beach’s Highlands have bestowed us with “Railroad,” the first single off of their debut album Singularity (out June 23rd).

“Railroad” opens with a storm of wooly guitars, instantly creating a rich, dense atmosphere of drone. Highlands hit My Bloody Valentine-territory at times with their shoegaze-y bouts — meaning you won’t be hearing any complaints from me.

Check it out below and let us know what you think below in the comments.

MP3: Highlands – “Railroad”

This track has sure caused some noise. Relations between Kanye West’s G.O.O.D. Music team and Lil Wayne’s Young Money have seemed strained for some time, with Kanye implying Drake thrives off his been-there sounds (removing myself from an unbiased journalistic voice for a moment: he’s right), CyHi da Prynce comparing G.O.O.D and Young Money to headies and mids (that’s good and bad weed, folks) respectively, and so on.

True to his nature, Pusha T has made things a bit less subtle with his latest track, which led to Lil Wayne getting, shall we say, a tad miffed on twitter. Pusha aims at both Wayne, Drake, and producer Young Chop, who spoke out against Kanye using his beat for a remix. Check out the controversial track below, and should Push decide to respond to Wayne with a track…best of luck, Weezy. He’ll need it.

Even though several of its tracks were capable of standing on their own, Love Remains was an album that deserved to be listened to front-to-back. “Ocean Floor for Everything” will likely sound better in context, but there’s one thing it has on display that’s pretty hard to dislike: growth.

Total Loss is due out later this year on Acephale (US) / Weird World (Internationally).

M.I.A.’s still capitalizing on that middle-finger buzz. With her own imprint, N.E.E.T., seeming to be past its best days, the British star has signed a deal with Jay-Z’s Roc Nation. At least as of now, she won’t be releasing her albums under their flag, the deal is more akin to a management partnership, which considering Hov’s handling of artists such as Rihanna and Santigold, will likely play out well for the controversial Maya. Confirming the deal, Roc Nation tweeted, “The nation just keeps growing,” along with a picture of M.I.A.’s artist page.

No date is set as of yet, but look out for M.I.A.’s fourth LP sometime this year, tentatively titled Matangi.

Looking for some upbeat ’80s vibes to liven up your day? Well then, do I have some great news for you: the R&B/synthpop group Lemonade is now streaming the followup to their 2008 self-titled debut. Refinery 29 and Hype Machine are hosting an exclusive stream of the trio’s Diver over here. Diver is slated for a May 29th release via True Panther.

On Instinct, Swedish duo Malin Dahlstrom and Gustaf Karlof, who go by the name Niki & The Dove, deliver a full-length debut packed full of single-worthy tracks, but it’s an experience more rewarding after its songs shed their exteriors following a number of repeated listens, instead becoming moment-to-moment affairs. The record is full of big, anthemic choruses and delicious, cosmic-colored synth hooks, but the tracks are littered with a never-content sense of production detail, pieced together like a bass record by way of Prince’s “When Doves Cry” or Kate Bush’s “Hounds of Love”. In the pantheon of Nordic pop, Dahlstrom and company sit somewhere between Robyn’s feminine, club-friendly electro and Lykke Li’s sincere balladry (with a dash of Deep Cuts-era The Knife). It’s an album like Cut Copy’s Zonoscope from last year that isn’t untimely in its tread of a certain decade’s synth swells, but stands way out by executing with a deeper and more exacting sense of taste.

Instinct thrives on the chemistry between Karlof’s thick, restful production and Dahlstrom’s angelic, soaring vocals.  Karlof likes his alternately toothy and creamy synths, with enough body to give Dahlstrom’s otherwise tender feminine alto some resonant girth. The chorus of opener “Tomorrow” is staggering in the abrupt shift from its lapping nebulas synth waves and chittering percussion, Dahlstrom nearly whispering in introverted wisps before some blunt solidity punches up through the track, synths clawing skyward and vocal layers too numerous to keep track of as the singer belts hungrily above it all. Dahlstrom is a dexterous enough vocalist to clamp down on whatever Karlof throws her way, keeping his borderline histrionic production tendencies reigned in by her deliberate momentum. It helps that ribbons of decayed backing vocals are woven throughout the whole album, but otherwise, man, Instinct is something of a production marvel.

The whole record is precisely and roomily arranged and retains an overall percussive clarity, giving the kick a rounded weight and the peripheral snare clicks and lite-brite synths an outward-facing kinetic quality, each detail pressing prominently against the fabric of each track. “The Drummer” clamps itself to the listener’s brainstem – the consonant sixteenth-note synth hook dinging each end of the stereo field at its chorus is almost assaultive – and “Last Night” overflows with neon pastels running in bruised rivulets between the lackadaisical kick and sputtering textural intricacies. Then there are the unlikely instrumental flourishes like the guitar plucks on “In Our Eyes” and “Mother Protect,” the warped cello sample on “The Fox,” the standup bass on “Under The Bridges,” or the textured strains of percussion lining every inch of Instinct. It sounds like Karlof has gone over the album with a fine-toothed comb, cramming textures in every corner he can find before cutting them up again and making them do weird, unlikely things. Meanwhile, Dahlstrom conquers it all.

But ultimately, there are those moments: the way Dahlstrom shifts the vocal melody on the last chorus of “Tomorrow,” the desperate strain of her voice finishing out the last verse of “The Drummer,” the jaw-dropping transition from chorus to coda on “The Fox,” the freewheeling vocal exultation before the track explodes on the colossal eight-minute tribal ceremony, clap-along closer “Under The Bridges.” Instinct is such a strong pop record from start to finish because the duo focuses their efforts well beyond strong pop songwriting and instead on in-the-moment intricacy, creating a record that’s immensely rewarding on repeated listens, remaining imprinted in resonant bursts well after its vibrant luminescence has faded.

It’s the timing that hurt this track more than anything, for certainly it’s not the track itself that caused it to get ignored. The one-woman-band lists Spiritualized and 90s indie-popsters Pram as influences, a combination that, if not immediately apparent in the track, works to align this track with artists of a greater longevity than your daily buzzband. Featuring the wispy vocals of Melody Pouchet herself paired with a bassline and floaty guitar riff ripped straight from the pages of Ladies and Gentlemen, We Are Floating In Space, “Crystallized” represents a sort of psychedelia carried down carefully throughout the years. Present in the near-cliche mid-career works of Pink Floyd or in later years of Spacemen 3, the spaciousness that “Crystallized” embodies is just the latest in a long line of acid-burned pop songs. Where the track gains its uniqueness is in the way it filters these psychedelic influences through distorted drum samples that wouldn’t sound out of place on the earlier works of the Radio Dept. and through the syrupy sweetness of the krauty records Stereolab put out in the mid 90s.

All that may seem like a laundry list of influences, but it’s all there, and that’s what makes this track so special. “Crystallized” condenses sounds and reference points so diverse into a four minute pop song that is without a doubt one of the more interesting tracks to hit the internet this year. It’s a shame it had to hit the internet on the same day as new songs from Animal Collective, Passion Pit, and Cocorosie. If it hadn’t, I have a feeling you’d be hearing a lot more people talking about Melody’s Echo Chamber.

Okay, okay, we get it. You weren’t the biggest fan of Blunderbuss. It was no White Blood Cells, anyway. It sounded a little lazy. It was occasionally boring.

But it also occasionally kicked ass. Lots of ass.

On May 21st, Jack White stretched the strongest moments from Blunderbuss into a 90-minute set that, with only a few exceptions, focused on his most aggressive material, spanning his entire career and every one of his bands. Though White frequently revisited the material from the days with his ex-wife, he made no attempt to replicate his ex-sound, and man, did the new band sound good. Concert opener “Dead Leaves and the Dirty Ground” sounded even better here than it does on White Blood Cells, thanks in large part to a superb backing band. Everyone was top notch, especially Jack’s new drummer, who showed no interest in mimicking Meg, and his bass player, who proved that even though The White Stripes never sounded like they needed bass, it certainly wouldn’t have hurt.

Jack himself was in top form. For a guy edging ever closer to 40, there was not the slightest indication of a Fat Elvis future. He danced around the stage looking like Jack Skeleton, and man oh man can he still sing. “Sixteen Saltines” sounded great stripped of the double-tracked vocals that bog down the studio recording, and he even adopted a slight country croon on that old Hank tune “You Know that I Know,” which felt out of place here, but in the best way possible. Jack’s voice is as piercing as ever, and if the devil himself could sing, I’d imagine they’d sound a hell of a lot alike.

Lead single “Love Interruption” was surprisingly absent from the set, but no one seemed to mind. When White started into “Seven Nation Army” at the end of the night, I imagine he could have spent the previous hour and a half playing Norah Jones songs on the harpsichord and the audience would have still left feeling like they’d gotten their money’s worth. He didn’t, but he could have, and I know at least one guy that would have left smiling.

Alabama Shakes

Hot on the heels of February’s outstanding release DC Snuff Film, Teen Suicide’s Sam Ray got in touch with us the other day to let us know about some of his summer plans. Keeping up with their typically busy release schedule, Teen Suicide is readying a tape for release at some point this summer, but while that tape is in preparations, they’re treating us to a short free EP called Goblin Problems. While that entire EP has yet to surface, we have an exclusive taste from that forthcoming release entitled “Goblins Cry Too.” Check that track out for a prime slab of lo-fi punk-indebted indie rock, and head over to their bandcamp for some of their previous work. Stylistically, it’s certainly a far cry from the last track of theirs that we’ve had up on the site, but it’s enough to get us excited for everything that the band has coming up.

MP3: Teen Suicide – “Goblins Cry Too”

By now, at least a bit of Father John’s backstory has entered the blogosphere’s collective conscious — former Fleet Foxes drummer and solo performer, J. Tillman quits the Foxes, buys “enough mushrooms to choke a horse” (his words, not mine), does some soul-searching, and finds himself holed up in Laurel Canyon. At this point in the narrative, it’s far too easy to imagine Father John Misty as a Sasquatch-like, Southern Californian urban legend: a bearded man well versed in the shamanic ways, spacey, and a bit too eager to get in on some of your mushrooms. Fortunately for the throngs, this story leads not only to an immensely talented musician resisting monotony in favor of personal catharsis, but also to an artist finding fruition, and composing one of the most refreshingly honest records of the past ten years. Hyperbolic? Perhaps a bit — especially considering this album has been out for a whopping seven days — but in a world where it’s perfectly normal for Chris Brown to guest on a Rihanna song, transparency is key.

As for the music itself, Fear Fun, is full of absurdities. From the Willie Nelson style country honk of “Tee Pees 1-12” to the gritty “Jesus Christ, girl[s]” of the Aubrey Plaza certified “Hollywood Forever Cemetery Sings,” Mr. Misty does not hold back. These twelve tracks are full, they’re self-aware, they’re straight up funny, and it’s these traits that immediately separate Father John Misty’s folk-rock from what Fleet Foxes do. At first listen, it might seem easy to pigeonhole Father John Misty into the same brand of dreamy folk-rock championed by his former band, but where Fleet Foxes rely on bombast and drama to cultivate an identity, Father John Misty simply says fuck it; crafting a distinct mythos is his forte. On “Only Son of the Ladiesman,” Father John Misty takes on the persona of the rightful heir to the throne of his “ancient hero of the Sunset Strip,” swearing “that man was womankind’s first husband,” with the bravado of someone with the weight to fill the shoes of a man who just knows women.

That’s the great thing about Father John Misty — he doesn’t need to embody one single attitude because his urge to self-mythologize exudes hilarity and sincerity instead of the pretention and modernity from which he’s escaped. The lyrical highpoint of this album also perfectly encompasses the type of openness that is important to Father John Misty, as his disco-embracing, falsetto-fueled tune, “Nancy From Now On” starts with what could very well end up being one of the best opening lines I’ve ever heard: “pour me another drink/ punch me in the face/ you can call me Nancy.” Dig in.

* I can’t offer very many straight-faced endorsements of these bands, but I do feel compelled to stress that, in the case of Finger Eleven at least, you shouldn’t get too turned off by preconception or what you might have already heard (you do remember “One Thing,” don’t you?). Their first two records, 1997′s Tip and 2000′s The Greyest of Blue Skies, are actually quite good, especially if you’re contrasting it against other radio-ish alt-rock stuff. That said, you should totally avoid their most recent albums, Them vs. You vs. Me and Life Turns Electric.

The band formed in 2001 under the guise of Downside, but by 2003 they’d changed their name and then a year later had their first album, a self-titled release, on record store shelves (Sam Goody!). That album, which ended up contributing a song to Madden 2005 and The Punisher soundtrack, is what lured me to the band. The simplicity and generic nature of some of the lyrics — “I am on the brink of losing everything/Hanging on the edge of every word she says/And you were never there/You were never there” forms the intro to “Never There (She Stabs)” — is probably enough to make a Sufjan Stevens fan’s head explode, but sophistication is secondary in this case. The fact is, the music sounds fantastic. The production is spectacularly smooth for a debut, the hooks and climaxes are undeniable, and from a composition standpoint, Strata is a hell of a lot more Lateralus than, say, We Are Not Alone. Don’t let the nu-metal, post-grunge, alt-rock tags deter you.

Three years after the release of their debut, the band dropped Strata Presents The End of the World. Instantly, the band’s sound, structure, and lyrical composition — actually, everything — took a jarring left turn. The new album sounded like… well, kind of like an indie rock record (okay, fine: an “indie rock-ish” record). The hooks were still prevalent and the production was just as clean, but the nu-metal skin in which the band had previously slithered had been completely shed. In lieu of fist-pumping, anthemic rock songs, the band went atmospheric, building a foundation on the juxtaposition between light instrumentation and oftentimes dark subject matter. “Cocaine (We’re All Going to Hell),” for instance, is a poppy dance tune aesthetically, but the lyrics themselves are about a girl fascinated with the club scene who goes home with someone, overdoses, and then has her corpse disposed of like a bag of raked leaves.

The End of the World subtracted a lot of the cut-and-paste lyricism of their debut in favor of a more narrative-oriented songwriting method. “Poughkeepsie, NY” tells the story of an encounter with the embodiment of Satan in a dank New York bar, while “The New National Anthem” is an onslaught against the war in Iraq, a critique of those who stand to gain the most from the bloodshed, and an assertion that patriotism is defined by more than just flags and yellow ribbons (which is absolutely true, by the way). “Hot/Cold (Darling, Don’t)” is a little bit campy (“Look at the map on the wall/Put your fingers on where we are/No matter where I go we’re just an inch apart”), but it doesn’t feel like the product of a formula. Throughout the record, even the weakest of words are forgiven in the name of strong sounds.

Of course, this new approach should have come as no surprise. In 2006, the band’s singer and creative force, Eric Victorino, released his first book of poetry and prose, Coma Therapy (The End of the World features a track of the same name). Around the same time, Victorino began a loose partnership with Giovanni Giusti, who at the time produced beats under the moniker of Nozebleed*. Their demos were far more reminiscent of Death Cab for Cutie’s work than anything Strata had ever put their name on, foreshadowing what was to come for Victorino’s band.

* Victorino and Giusti are now known as The Limousines. “Very Busy People” marks their most recognizable track to date and, if you haven’t already, it most certainly begs hearing. Full disclosure: I reviewed The Limousines’ debut record, Get Sharp, back in the summer of 2010 and when Giusti came across it, well… he wasn’t happy. It wasn’t a particularly offensive review (in my mind), but it wasn’t glowing either. I’d forgotten all about that altercation — can you really call a spat over Twitter an altercation? — until midway through this writing. The past is the past, but it seemed to warrant mentioning. And no, I won’t be linking that review.

About six months after the release of The End of the World, Victorino left the band to explore other creative endeavors. Ryan Hernandez and Adrian Robison, Strata’s guitarist and drummer respectively, would go on to form Beta State, who released their debut album, Stars, in September 2010.

The one thing that most certainly will not be a part of the experience for someone listening to The End of the World for the first time is the nostalgia that I get from it on a personal level. Strata dropped their first album when I was 19. They just happened to be opening a show for another band (whose name I can’t even remember now) and I was dragged along by a friend. At the time, my music tastes were still forming*. Save for the timeless stuff, there aren’t many bands that I listened to then that I still enjoy now. But Strata’s music still resonates for me. It doesn’t necessarily provide the literary or emotional depth of a Hospice or The Monitor (to pull examples out of thin air), albums that stimulate the more mature parts of my brain that didn’t exist eight years ago, but it certainly helps my mind escape to a place and time where things were a little bit easier, where the constant, swarming pressure of adulthood wasn’t relentlessly poking at my ribs.

* Consider that in 2004, when I was 19, the internet hadn’t yet become the platform for music discovery that it is today. MySpace (which was really the first popular social network for teenagers and young adults) and Facebook were just getting off the ground, Google wasn’t a publicly traded company until August 2004, and indie music giant Pitchfork was more or less a seed. Music downloading was just taking off, but you had to do it one corrupted, screeching track at a time. To make things worse, I vividly remember introducing friends to The College Dropout that same year, so I wasn’t exactly surrounded by people on the cutting edge of music, either.

Every now and then I wonder about the icons of music that were lost at a young age, before their talents ever had a chance to fully bloom. You know the names. Each time, I end up asking myself whether or not their passing was ultimately a good thing for their legacy. Don’t get me wrong; their deaths were certainly not “good.” But there’s something to be said for the way in which death can crystallize one’s prominence, preventing a star from tarnishing and keeping the questions about what would have and could have been forever ignited. A band calling it quits and fading off into the sunset (relatively, at least) provides a similar function.

As such, Strata Presents The End of the World made for an excellent note on which to walk away, a testament to reinvention. Years ago, seeing them open for bands that have gone on to sell out arenas and saturate radio waves (and maybe even accrue less than glistening reputations among the probably-smaller-than-you-think artsy, hardcore music fan population), I recall thinking to myself, “man, how are these guys not more well-known?” These days, I’m content to hit play on what became their final record and enjoy not just the unheralded addictiveness of the music, but the soft solace that comes with knowing I’m in on something that so many others seem to have let slip past.

You can download the track in exchange for an email address over at the band’s website.

A new SBTRKT track, “Gamelena,” has been released by the superproducer on Soundcloud as he works in the studio. He only comments:

back in the studio. working towards eps/ album/ etc…. something new – no plan for it – just thought id share

Check it out below.

For fans anxiously awaiting, here’s another track off of Metric’s approaching LP. Look out for Synthetica on June 12th and check out the track below.

It’s not a mixtape this time – the ever-prolific Lil B randomly dropped this album of “classical” material, titled Choices and Flowers, boasting 17 instrumental tracks, which of course the Bay Area rapper considers to be life-changing, history-making material.

You can grab the album over at iTunes, think of it as a way to pay the Based God back for all the freebies.

In our latest installment of Discussions, Ryan Nichols and Cole Zercoe tackle Trent Reznor’s Nine Inch Nails.

COLE ZERCOE: Since a big part of these discussions revolves around opinion, it feels fitting to start with a question tied to that subject. It seems like the critical opinion of Trent Reznor and the Nine Inch Nails catalogue has risen pretty substantially in recent years, despite the fact that Reznor’s masterworks, The Downward Spiral and The Fragile, are each over a decade old at this point. Why do you think that is?

RYAN NICHOLS: Since Trent returned in 2005, the fan base has dramatically shifted. Some fans of Nine Inch Nails may still be into the rock bands of the 90’s era, but many, (including the band itself) have shifted their musical tastes. Because of this, what Nine Inch Nails’ music is associated with has changed. Nine Inch Nails were always a great deal deeper than most of their hard rock contemporaries in the 90’s, but only recently has that depth been acknowledged. Now that Trent’s contemporaries are artists considered to be working at a higher level, I think Nine Inch Nails and Trent Reznor’s musical output is finally being held within that same higher regard. A perfect example of this is the reaction to the reissue of Pretty Hate Machine. The majority of critics held the reissue in high regard, despite the fact that a few years ago, the album had nowhere near the same amount of critical praise it received in 2010. This isn’t a coincidence.

COLE: I’ve never thought of it that way, but I’d definitely agree. Despite the Nine Inch Nails/Reznor aesthetic remaining relatively steadfast throughout the years – the perception of what Nine Inch Nails is and what is associated with it has, without a doubt, changed. It’s a bit unfair, really, given that the depth to Reznor’s musical output has always been there. Since you touched on different Nine Inch Nails eras, maybe we should move toward exploring that area. What do you think of Nine Inch Nails circa 2005 and onward versus the “classic” Nine Inch Nails of 1989 to 2000?

RYAN: Clearly the depth has been there. Even before The Fragile, Reznor had a tendency to go deeper with his music as opposed to his contemporaries at the time. Musically, I prefer the 1989-2000 “classic” times for Nine Inch Nails. I feel Trent’s best two albums came from this period with The Downward Spiral and The Fragile. There was a stronger focus on emotion and intensity as opposed to the modern day Nine Inch Nails’ focus on instrumental prowess and political themes. Not that this is bad. I think Year Zero is Reznor’s third best record, and on some days, it’s my favorite. I’m a huge fan of the more “mature” Reznor – with his newfound approach to electronic work and songwriting. Even weaker albums like With Teeth and The Slip still have their strengths. There’s actually a lot of similarities to the work of Reznor and his frequent collaborator, director David Fincher. Fincher’s Seven and Fight Club are my two favorite works, but the more focused and mature Zodiac can be a favorite too, and is often overlooked, much like Year Zero.

COLE: It’s funny because I feel like Reznor has all the same tools and talent at his disposal, but for some reason has chosen to take the Nine Inch Nails sound into a more – I don’t want to say straightforward – but perhaps a less risky territory than what was presented with The Downward Spiral and The Fragile. I’ve always thought Ghosts I-IV has been the closest Reznor has gotten in recent years to that creative space he was in with both The Downward Spiral and The Fragile. There’s some tracks on there that really beg to be fully formed songs, like “4 Ghosts I.” I listen to a track like that and it feels like the natural, true progression from where Reznor left off in 1999.

RYAN: I completely agree with that, With Teeth and The Slip seem a lot more basic. While With Teeth has a few of his strongest songs, (“Beside You in Time” and “Right Where it Belongs,” for example) the harder tracks such as “The Collector” come off as Reznor on auto-pilot. Not that those songs are necessarily bad, but something about them is lacking. It’s the same case with The Slip. The first six tracks are aggressive, sure, but still seem somewhat basic compared to the risks Reznor took in the 1990’s. I don’t expect him to write lyrics with that sort of intensity anymore, that makes sense. He’s matured. Plenty of great lyricists go through a dramatic shift. But still, musically, something is missing. Ghosts was more promising. With that level of instrumental and emotional depth, plus his recent soundtrack work, I could see the new Nine Inch Nails material coming in 2012 being much deeper, and more in the vein of the classic works.

COLE: And it’s not even the lyrics that are really the issue, to me. Don’t get me wrong, there’s a lot to be liked in the recent Nine Inch Nails output. “Me, I’m Not” and “The Great Destroyer” are some of the best tracks Reznor’s ever done. But I feel like Nine Inch Nails is at the height of its powers when it’s operating, instrumentally, in a mode that is a little more off-kilter, when the songs work more as movements than as closed-ended pop songs. The Fragile and Still are probably the best examples of what I’m talking about. Both of those works were created with an atmosphere in mind that often took precedence over the individual tracks. They work best when taken as a whole. It’s a skill Reznor’s always had, which makes his choice to get into film scoring come as no surprise. It’ll be interesting to see what form the next Nine Inch Nails album takes. A part of me loves the idea of Reznor returning to it with his film experience in tow, but another part of me is nervous. Hopefully his time working in that particular form hasn’t worn him out on the idea of letting the music breathe. The one thing that has me really excited with what Nine Inch Nails could be in its next iteration is the track Reznor did for Tetsuo: The Bullet Man. What did you think of that track?

RYAN: Yeah, I think Reznor’s music works really well when it doesn’t necessarily hinge on a melody. Take “La Mer” or “The Way is Out Through,” for instance, or something like “The Great Below.” While these all have some sort of melody within them, their greater aspect is this almost cinematic atmosphere that songs such as “Letting You” or “Capital G” lack. I’d be interested to see Reznor do more things like the Tetsuo theme. That track seemed to incorporate the sounds of a lot more of his modern influences, which is great. It was noisy, cruel, and in some parts almost evil. I’d be interested in seeing Nine Inch Nails taken in this direction, now that Reznor has How to Destroy Angels to serve as his lighter musical outlet.

COLE: I think the reason I like the Tetsuo theme so much isn’t necessarily because of its heaviness, but because it works in such a chaotic space. That track is all over the place instrumentally, yet in a very controlled way. It’s probably the best modern example of Reznor’s precision when it comes to crafting something that sounds so unhinged yet so carefully constructed at the same time. There’s also a grandness to it that many of his recent output somewhat lacks, a sort of density in sound to the point that it almost feels suffocating. And yet, there’s as much beauty to the track as there is abrasiveness. On that note, I’m curious as to what space you think Reznor works best in. I’m getting the feeling you gravitate more toward the aggressive side, so let me ask – musically, what’s your favorite Nine Inch Nails song?

RYAN: It is controlled chaos. I’d actually say that’s a great way to describe a ton of Nine Inch Nails’ music. Most of The Fragile is controlled chaos, in lyrics, music, and composition. But musically, I actually go more for the lusher, more beautifully composed bits than I do the aggression. I’d have to say “La Mer” is probably my favorite, because it blends both elements of what makes Reznor’s music work. There’s beautiful, pensive moments alongside a really intense, aggressive middle section that, in a way, hits you harder than some of Reznor’s heavier tracks. Granted, a song like “Letting You” or “Big Man With a Gun” is very blunt in its heaviness, but there’s something about the dynamics of a song like “La Mer” that makes it much stronger. There’s a lot going on in that track, and it’s a tremendous piece of music. The best part of songs like “La Mer,” The Fragile, and works in that vein is that they have this deeply cinematic feel, but in a way that’s much more powerful. I can’t separate “La Mer” from the lily pads and water droplets of And All That Could Have Been, nor can I separate the images played during “The Great Below” from that same live work, yet I couldn’t picture those songs in a movie. So it makes sense in a way that Reznor’s scaled back a bit with his film scores. They’re powerful, but in a different way than the tracks I just mentioned.

COLE: In a lot of ways, the various musical spaces Reznor works within have never been more segregated than they have been in recent years. When you think of How To Destroy Angels, or the soundtrack work, or even individual Nine Inch Nails records, everything has been compartmentalized. For instance, we got a collection of purely instrumental tracks in Ghosts, followed by a collection of mostly rock songs in The Slip. This wasn’t really the case in the first Nine Inch Nails era. In those days, you’d have a track like “Big Man with a Gun” followed immediately by something like “A Warm Place.” This allowed for a lot of strong musical contrast and movement in those records – which in turn created a greater sense of the almost cinematic feel you’re referring to. I think lumping things together has somewhat lessened their respective impacts, but at the same time, it’s a bit early to really know how these various different outlets will eventually influence one another. With How to Destroy Angels’ first full-length due this year and the inevitability of a new Nine Inch Nails record, hopefully we’ll see things start to blend together again.

As for my favorite track, it has to be “And All That Could Have Been” off of Still. There’s something about that song’s ability to sound as immense as it does intimate that summarizes the entirety of The Fragile era within one track. In fact, all of Still acts as a bleak, but fitting epilogue to that era. It’s definitely Reznor at his most broken, and in turn it can be difficult to listen to, but there’s such a beauty to how vividly portrayed Reznor’s headspace was in that record. It’s something very few albums ever manage to successfully capture – and a major reason why I’m continually drawn to both that song and Still as a whole. It’s a moment in time – a portrait of a man at rock bottom without any indication whatsoever that he’ll make it out alive. A large amount of Nine Inch Nails’ output revolves around that sort of thematic space, but I don’t think it ever got as precise or as unrelenting as it did during that period.

RYAN: The segregation of his material is an interesting point, and makes me wonder if Reznor is trying to ditch the limitations and expectations that come with the Nine Inch Nails name. Generally, the fans have been very receptive to these various different projects, but I wonder how fans would react to material without Trent’s name or established musical history attached to it. It feels as if he’s continually tried to break away from it in recent years. Your choice of “And All That Could Have Been” is linked to that, in a way. That Trent doesn’t really exist in his current material – it’s a version of him that feels almost alien at this point, given his current musical identity.

COLE: It’s precisely that sense of breaking away that has made Reznor’s music of 2005 and beyond feel like a period that is predominately defined by transition. I don’t think Reznor has completely figured out where he wants to go from here, but there’s something commendable about an artist that is willing to hit the reset button so deep into a career. It’s a choice that comes with a lot of risk, but also a great deal of possibility, and if there’s anyone that has the ability to use that possibility to their advantage, it’s Reznor. We’ll just have to wait and see.

Other Discussions:

Tom Waits
The Velvet Underground
Led Zeppelin
Sigur Rós
Pavement
Radiohead
Bob Dylan
Prince
M83
U2
Andrew Bird
David Bowie
Pearl Jam
Pink Floyd
Jay-Z
The White Stripes

Even from the opening track, which is ostensibly a sequel to “Through The Trees” from Wind’s Poem, Elverum sings lines like “Misunderstood and disillusioned/I go on describing this place/and the way it feels to live and die.” A more pithy approximation of Elverum’s songwriting focus couldn’t have been more readily constructed. As Elverum has recently discussed in interviews, Clear Moon in particular seems tied to his intimate knowledge of his hometown of Anacortes, Washington, both in its distinct imagery and in the overall feel of the music. Where such specific focus could be alienating, Elverum makes a record that is instead inviting. Though the synths that litter the record could easily mirror the environments that Elverum interacts with in Anacortes, they could similarly soundtrack late-night walks in New York City or, say, long drives through harsh storms in Central Florida. I guess what I mean to say, is although Elverum instills this record with images, both musically and lyrically, that are so distinctly representative of the environment in which he created them, they are still universal enough, or perhaps malleable enough that they can be retrofitted to any experience that the listener undertakes.

But back to the darkness for a bit. Though Elverum’s turns as Mount Eerie have taken wildly diverging paths, there’s that underlying darkness that’s pinned them all together. Whether in the understated folkiness of his collaboration with French-Canadian singer-songwriter Julie Doiron or in the heaviness of Wind’s Poem, his most recent full length, he never strays too far from these darker tones, both lyrically and musically. There’s something special about the way he explores these darker more existential tones on Clear Moon, however. Not since his landmark work, The Glow Pt. 2 has he synthesized songwriting elements in a way that felt as fresh as this record does. Sure, his previous records as Mount Eerie were special in their own way, near everything he does is, but the terrestrial crash of songs like “Samurai Sword” had always been a creative high point. Only Clear Moon seems to approach those visionary tracks. The terrifying psuedo-chant of “Over Dark Water” exemplifies this new vision. The burbling electric guitar lines that underpin the whole of the song, while a choir of female voices ominously intones over the top, provide the subtle touches that have been missing on recent Mount Eerie records, the touches that take an album from being a great Phil Elverum record to one of the more outstanding records of the year. Pair that with the transition into the overbearing synth tones of the title track and you have an album where Elverum is pushing himself creatively while still exploring the same thematic regions of the human psyche that he has over his whole career.

While all that may sound hyperbolic, especially with the knowledge that Clear Moon is meant to function as the lighter side of sorts to Elverum’s second album of the year, Ocean Roar, I assure you that that’s not the case. When you’re lost in the cacophony of the title track or the understated beauty of “Yawning Sky” it becomes immediately clear that this isn’t a record to hear and quickly dispose of. This record, as much of Elverum’s work is, is a grower in the most beautiful sense, and one that I can’t imagine will lose its brilliance any time soon.

Nootropics is definitely the kind of album that needs to be taken with a little perspicacity. While the casual listener might find one or two points of interest in Lower Dens sophomore album, appreciating it feels like something more than just hitting play and letting the music run its course. It’s a dense record, but never hopelessly deep; there’s always points of entry, such as the krautrock shuffle of “Brains,” or the noir-ish slow-step of “Candy.” It’s often murky and grey, but never pitch black; it’s considered and thought-out, but often moves at a casual pace; it’s mystifying, but never distinctly attractive. It not so much a record that juxtaposes itself, but rather one that sways between the two sides of whatever spectrum you put it in.

Aforementioned “Brains” is a concise and inspired track that marries the band’s own brand of cloudy and drowsy desolateness with an established genre (krautrock, as said); it’s the album’s best track here and the band seem to realise this, as they let the groove continue into two-minute instrumental “Stem.” Elsewhere “Nova Anthem” lulls the listener with an almost hypnotic bobbing, like empty life-jackets on the ocean’s surface, before widening itself into a dramatic build that feels strangely unexpected but also completely natural. “Lamb” also offers a similar kind of crescendo, in that it’s not out of place, but it can catch you off guard as it emerges from a stuttering grey film soundscape.

However, the murkiness reigns supreme for the most part, casting its shadow over the majority of the material here, making the instruments sound tense, if not worried. And it also helps lead singer Jana Hunter sound all the more intriguing and mysterious, as her words resonate into deserted streets. Her lyrics tend to match the mood, too, referencing post-apocalyptic wastelands; like Pop. 1280’s album, The Horror, Nootropics brings to mind the film The Road, albeit a more ruminated version. On “Brains,” when the dust cloud of minor chords hits at the chorus, she seems to describe a horrific incident of some sort, mumbling to herself, like recounting the whole incident is a painful and tedious task, whereas “Propagation” has the characters of the song reassuring their survival by addressing the fact they will have to reproduce to last. Final track “In The End Is The Beginning” has Hunter singing at her clearest, poignantly pondering “I feel different now,” as synths that sound like distant alarms go off over and over, while the track slowly falls in on itself over the course of twelve minutes.

The acuity then is helpful in appreciating Nooptropics, in not only being able to form a tighter grasp of the album as a whole, but also of the more subtle and darker stuff here. Upon first listens it can feel easy to treat Nootropics as an album that struggles to find a place to rest itself, and even as something can come off as pretentiously indecisive. But it’s Hunter’s elusive and strangely alluring voice that ties this all together, always resurfacing at the right points before anything starts drifting off too aimlessly (though, “In The End…” could be a little guilty of doing so). Her outlook is often bleak, making her lyrics read like doomsday poetry, but, as said before, it the combination of her and the music that makes it its best. It’s a shame, perhaps, that they never make a drop into that pitch black territory, as the end result not only has potential to sound and be deeper, but also just to create a more densely intriguing result. The band seem to hover above any firm ground – even “Brains” and “Candy” have a looseness to them that never sets them in the one place – and consequently can have the listener pining after something that feels like more of an affirmative statement. And Nootropics certainly proves that the Lower Dens are smart enough to produce this kind of end result.

The best Slash moments from history typically came courtesy of his subtle interplay with rhythm guitarists Izzy Stradlin and Gilby Clarke. Producer Eric Valentine seems to have an understanding of this by attempting to bring out more of Slash’s rhythmic jamming and the interplay between the band members, but there’s still too much going on at once; it’s hectic, and not in a good, crazy rock-n’-roll kinda way. Slash has often been compared to Hendrix and Richards; now he’s just treading water. Richards released the awesome, bluesy Talk is Cheap after his frontman dicked him around; Slash seems incapable of doing so, and thus should either get back with Weiland (Axl seems an impossibility at this time) or work with a better producer (and better songwriters, for that matter) on the next record (Where’s Izzy, anyway?).
 
Apocalyptic Love isn’t bad. Nor is it particularly good. It just sort of…is. There’s potential here but it’s sadly unrealized.

Tom Krell, better known by his stage name How To Dress Well, will follow up to his much beloved 2010 album Love Remains this Fall with a new LP entitled Total Loss (a title which almost seems to contradict that of his debut album).

Details on the release are scarce, but we do know it will be coming out through Acephale in North America, while Weird World has the honor of releasing Total Loss internationally. No confirmed dates have been given, but we do have a brand new track to check out called “Ocean Floor For Everthing.” You can hear that below as well as see the handful of dates that HTDW has upcoming.

HTDW tour dates:

06-05 New York, NY – TBA
06-07 Toronto, Ontario – The Drake
06-08 Montreal, Quebec – Il Motore
06-09 Brooklyn, NY – Public Assembly
06-13 Vancouver, British Columbia – Waldorf Hotel
06-14 Portland, OR – Holocene
06-15 San Francisco, CA – Rickshaw Stop
06-16 Los Angeles, CA – The Echo
06-23 Calgary, Alberta – Sled Island Festival

Last week we received the sad news that Dan Boeckner’s band with his wife Alexei Perry had called it quits, seemingly leaving Boeckner at a loose end, but apparently this is not the case at all; it appears he was just getting the one project out of the way so that he could focus on his next: Divine Fits.

Divine Fits brings together Boeckner with Spoon’s front man Britt Daniel (who was seen joining Handsome Furs on stage in LA last year – perhaps then we should have suspected something) and Sam Brown of New Bomb Turks. There isn’t much information about Divine Fits yet, but we’re informed that they will be releasing their debut record, which was produced by Nick Launay, through Merge later in 2012.

Divine Fits have a website at divinefits.com, but there isn’t much on it yet except a place to sign up for their mailing list and the above picture. You can also follow the band here on Twitter.

Some exciting news for Yeasayer fans: following the relatively abrupt release of single “Henrietta” last week, Yeasayer has already followed up with the details of their third LP. The album is titled Fragrant World, and will release on August 21st.

Speaking to Under the Radar, band member Anand Wilder unveiled some of what to expect from the album, and it may surprise some fans. He explained, “I wanted to make a record that was legitimately, to use a bad word, funky. Listening to Teddy Pendergrass and then Aaliyah records. Something that legitimately has a sway to it, tempos I call mid-tempo come-ons, BPM ranges that you’re seeing in more R&B kind of stuff and some really sub-y bass tones.”

Intruiging, to say the least. Check out the tracklist below, and listen to “Henrietta”. Beneath that you can also see the dates of a small pre-album tour the band is heading out on.

Fragrant World track list:

01. Fingers Never Bleed
02. Longevity
03. Blue Paper
04. Henrietta
05. Devil and the Deed
06. No Bones
07. Reagan’s Skeleton
08. Demon Road
09. Damaged Goods
10. Folk Hero Shtick
11. Glass of the Microscope

Tour dates:

6/19: Richmond, VA @ National
6/20: Asheville, NC @ Orange Peel
6/21: Knoxville, TN @ Bijou Theater
6/22: Nashville, TN @ Cannery
6/23: Louisville, KY @ Headliners
6/24: Cincinnati, OH @ 20th Century Theater
7/02: Vienna, Austria @ Szene
7/04: Gdynia, Poland @ Heineken Open’er Festival
7/07: Bruges, Belgium @ Cactus Festival
7/08: Lieges, Belgium @ Les Ardentes
7/09: Utrecht, Holland @ Tivoli De Heling
7/13: Norfolk, England @ Latitude
7/15: Grafenhainichen, Germany @ Melt Festival

After a long wait for the buzz process leading to their sophomore album, The xx have been making quite a bit of noise lately. When they announced a European tour, most believed it meant new material was near; when they debuted a new song at Chats Palace in London, fans became all the more sure.

Now The xx have taken the next big step: they’ve announced a few American dates, sadly, few in number due their lengthy European festival plans. Check out both their American and other tour plans below.

05-29 Bordeaux, France – Le Rocher De Palmer
5/30 Toulouse, France – Le Phare
5/31 Barcelona, Spain – Primavera Sound
6/8 Turin, Italy – Traffic Festival
6/9 Porto, Portugal – Primavera Sound
6/15 Aarhus, Denmark – Northside Festival
6/16 Hultsfred, Sweden – Hultsfred Festival
6/22 Scheessel, Germany – Hurricane Festival
6/23 Neuhausen, Germany – Southside Festival
6/27 Haervic, Norway – Hove Festival
6/29 Arras, France – Main Square Festival
6/30 Werchter, Belgium – Rock Werchter
7/7 Gdynia, Poland – Heineken Open’er Festival
7/14 Joensuu, Finland – Ilosaarirock Festival
7/23 Los Angeles, CA – The Fonda
7/25 Seattle, WA – Showbox at the Market
7/28 Toronto, Ontario – Phoenix Concert Theater
7/29 Montreal, Quebec – Metropolis
7/31 Boston, MA – Wilbur Theatre
8/2 New York, NY – Terminal 5
8/9 Sibinek, Croatia – Terraneo Festival
8/10 Budapest, Hungary – Sziget Festival
8/11 St Pere, France – La Route du Rock
8/18 St Polten, Austria – FM4 Frequency Festival
8/19 Biddinghuizen, Netherlands – Lowlands Festival
8/31 Laois, Ireland – Electric Picnic
9/7 Isle of Wight, England – Bestival

Los Angeles’ The Deadly Syndrome are returning with their third full-length album on August 7th, titled All In Time. The album will once again be self-released (as was their previous record, 2010′s Nolens Volens) and features a jammy first tasted in the form of “Spirit Of The Stairs.” Check out the tune below.

The Deadly Syndrome – Spirit of the Stairs by The Deadly Syndrome

If I’d ever sat down and thought about what sites I’d never expect to link to for BeatsPerMinute, well, Ryan Seacrest’s website would certainly have ranked highly. For Whitney Houston’s last recorded song, I’ll go ahead and make an exception. Produced by none other than R. Kelly, this duet with Jordan Sparks will feature on the soundtrack to the film Sparkle. Listen now over at Ryan Seacrest’s site.