Tuesday, August 24, 2010

Record Review: Oryx & Crake - Oryx & Crake

Oryx & Crake is an nine-person Atlanta music collective made up of SCAD grads and English teachers, parents and friends. They celebrate their record release this Saturday at The Earl with Venice Is Sinking and Book of Colors.

For Stomp and Stammer:



Oryx & Crake
Oryx & Crake

Self-released

Is there such a thing as quietly epic? Caught somewhere in the twilight in-between that isn't quite post-rock and isn't quite folk and isn't quite pop, Oryx & Crake's self-titled debut album at times revisits the waves of tinny sound that populated the years of '90s alternative while paddling its feet in the wading pools of orchestral rock and experimental electronica...[Read more]

Visit their website for songs.

Also, check this out.

Tuesday, August 10, 2010

Record Review: Mt. St. Helens Vietnam Band - Where The Messengers Meet


For Tiny Mix Tapes:

Mt. St. Helens Vietnam Band
Where The Messengers Meet

Dead Oceans

We all know the saying about what happens when you assume. And we also know that a band’s name usually has little to do with its sound or its genre (see: Conifer). But Ben Verdoes and his Mt. St. Helens Vietnam Band seemed to uninitiated ears to promise something either ramshackle or violent or both, a troupe of minstrels preaching peace and protest or waging nothing less than sonic war.

Neither is true....[Read more]



[MP3] Mt. St. Helens Vietnam Band - "Hurrah" (via Dead Oceans)

Tuesday, August 3, 2010

Record Review: The Harvey Girls - I've Been Watching a Lot of Horror Movies Lately


For Tiny Mix Tapes:

The Harvey Girls
I've Been Watching a Lot of Horror Movies Lately

Circle Into Square

I’ve Been Watching a Lot of Horror Movies Lately needs to see a psychiatrist. Rarely does a record possess such clearly split personalities, and even less often does one do it so successfully. In fact, never mind. Let’s leave it unmedicated.

The Harvey Girls, a Portland husband-and-wife duo that shares its name with a 1946 Judy Garland film based on a book by Samuel Hopkins Adams, do so much more than two people reasonably should. Melissa Rodenbeek and Hiram Lucke infuse each of the album’s nine songs with their own personality, one that may or may not make any sense whatsoever in the album's context.

Fortunately, all of Horror’s songs play well with others...[Read more]