From: Mos Def & Talib Kweli are Black Star – 1998 – Rawkus Records

posted by: Harold Johns III

Currently adding the final flourishes to their forthcoming 4AD studio album, Los Angeles outfit Ariel Pink’s Haunted Graffiti will release “Round and Round” on April 26 as a limited 7″ and digital single.

Evolved from a solo venture into a fully-fledged band (currently comprised of frontman Ariel Pink, Kenny Gilmore, Aaron Sperske and Tim Koh), “Round and Round” and its flipside “Mistaken Wedding” are collaborative efforts that showcase the band’s unmistakable motif which combines the hazy nostalgia for folk rock from the 70’s with the experimental lo-fi pop music of today.

Fans can hear “Round and Round” on 4AD.com as of today. New subscribers to the band’s mailing list can also download an MP3 of the track with the media player below.

Ariel Pink’s MySpace

posted by: Brent Carter

Matthew Cooper, aka Eluvium, has created a blend of ambient shoe gaze drone flirting with piano pop sentiments in his latest release Similes. The incorporation of brevity into his compositions makes the album both expansive and digestible all at once. From minimalist techno drone to looped, sampled laptop layering; Eluvium creates an interesting background blend for his rich piano and vocals.

“The Motion Makes Me Last” starts off with a digitally delayed and repeated drone that bleeds into Cooper’s voice, a previously uncharted area for Eluvium – and a feat, as Cooper’s vocals go exactly where he intends. “Nightmare 5” is lush and carefully woven, with the audible attention oscillating from passionate piano riffs back to great walls of gorgeous ambient drone. And the power of the piano writing takes the forefront on “Making Up Minds.”

Although clocking in at a minimal length unusual for most ambient enthusiasts, the album feels rewardingly deep. With Similes, Eluvium’s subtle craft unfolds slowly, reading like a weathered hardcover classic. As the album comes to a close with “Cease to Know,” electronic wisps carry the listener out, a perfect complement to nighttime drivers lost in both the luminescent blur of a city’s lights and the catalog of their own scattered history.

More info about Similes can be found via Temporary Residence

by: Bene Garcia

Yeasayer has marked the release of their latest single “O.N.E.” with a new video directed by Radical Friend, aka Kirby McClure and Julia Grigorian, the duo behind the mind-melting video for “Ambling Alp.” The setting is a post-apocalyptic future world that may lack societal constraints like traffic laws but still has radio stations, a banging dance club that homeless people can’t get into, choreographed dancers and what appears to be a glass microphone. The trippy game board you see the main characters messing with is supposed to represent the “psychological warfare in which these otherworldly club kids engage.”  So basically it’s what LA would be like if civilization were to crumble in the not so distant future.

Download “O.N.E.” here (right click + save as)

posted by: Harold Johns III

From The Psychedelic Sounds of the 13th Floor Elevators (originally released in 1966, reissued by Sunspots in 2003).

“Featuring the yelping vocals and visionary, occasionally demented lyrics of Roky Erickson, the 13th Floor Elevators were one of the original acid rock bands. Formed in Texas in the mid-’60s, the Elevators started as a garage rock outfit, scoring their one and only modest national hit with ‘You’re Gonna Miss Me.’ While Erickson’s loopy persona and Tommy Hall’s odd ‘jug’ percussion were the band’s most distinguishing features, several members of the group’s original lineup contributed strong material to their albums. Although these inconsistent efforts sometimes wander off into a cloudy haze, they also include sturdy folk-rock tunes and driving psychedelic rockers. Trips to San Francisco established the group as an up-and-coming underground favorite, but Erickson’s problems with drugs and the police led to the singer’s commission to a state mental hospital in the late ’60s, an ordeal from which he has never fully recovered.” (source: All Music Guide)

posted by: Harold Johns III