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Republic: Now With More Serene!

Published by

tyler

August 27, 2007 in summertime, prerelease hype, horns, fuzz, toronto and tunes. 0 Comments

This Republic not what one might think. Musically: a powerhouse of a band that sits comfortably among the ranks of another Arts & Crafts borderline-white-noise electro-pop act Broken Social Scene, The Republic is the embodiment of tranquility in the notion of sensory overload.

Having matured since their debut, the newest offering is instrumentally a powerful series of cascades in the grandest sense one might think that layerings of drums, bass, guitars (three), piano, and horns/bowed instruments may produce.

In calculus everything is a matter of limits. The way each mathematical concept will approach infinity, and most importantly, the speed at which that is achieved. It’s no grand stretch to put music into these same terms, with white-noise as our aural anchor of infinitude we can think of music as growing, expanding, approaching its own limit. Yet, the idea is never to reach it, as we all know white noise is not a pleasant thing (think: your TV’s snowy cackle). It’s enough to drive a man into the outer-reaches of madness.

We’re not there though. The snow is absent as this Republic makes clever use of its cast of seven members, in a way that each participates in order to build toward that central point. Each instrument adds a proverbial floor, wall, and cathedral ceiling to the body of sound all the while keeping a steadfast harmony, a clear and decisive plotted course, and more often than not leaving some head-space for vocals.

“Humble Peasants” is the most illustrative track of the band’s direction. It picks up pace as you hear each member don their instrument and find a place in the sound until the inevitable climax (infinity it is not). I can imagine this track playing inside the cabin of the space-elevator as it launches clear through our bubble, emerging from a made-for-theatre dust cloud meant to represent the atmosphere (fainciful, yes).

Population is a fitting title for the album, especially with a track like “Present of Future End” which dawdles around one lowly voice harking unto the world until at around the 2:20 mark it erupts into a crowd. You know those musicals where everyone has the same fanciful dream, and everyone’s mind is running the same circle of inner monologue as their feet run imagined dance-steps around the drabness of their everyday lives? Yeah, it’s just like that, only with drums and fuzz and horns.

The album is a hard thing to describe, but as Ryan Lenssen remarks (in one awesome article):

“[Population’s] juxtaposition between the music and the lyrics is just so grand,” Lenssen says. “The music itself sounds almost—almost—happy. People will look at the cover and see all the beautiful graphics but then they’re going to get into the philosophy of the record and that is much, much darker.” “If people were to truly understand what we were really saying and all of the musical choices and why they were there…this is way more calculated. This is murder in the first degree. This is malicious, unbridled anger and I think we’re sort of a little insane because of the way we present it. We are that scary clown. We are stabbing you in the front and smiling, brushing your cheek, saying ‘Isn’t it lovely? Isn’t it lovely?’”

It is, it really is.

listen (headphones recommended):
The Most Serene Republic - Humble Peasants
The Most Serene Republic - Present of Future End
The Most Serene Republic - Sherry And Her Butterfly Net

Population will land October 2nd, and A&C should like to have your back on the pre-ordering front soon enough.

Tim Harrington is to Wolves, as Dan Deacon is to Candy.

Published by

tyler

August 20, 2007 in punk-revival, prerelease hype, summertime, fuzz, 'real' indie 'rock' and tunes. 0 Comments

After a loosely defined 2 year hiatus, NYC indie rock outfit Les Savy Fav (lay-SAH-vee-FAHV) is really back. As if the singles and compilation stand-ins weren’t enough to keep them in step, they’ve hit the touring circuit already a month before their record is slated for release. I’ve been waiting for this for the last 3 years, and not without good reason.

These guys have always had a vibe that is much more drenched in screaming vocals than it is in experimentalism. A sound that is distinctly idiosyncratic and imbues the same decade that gave birth to such notables as Q and Not U, and The Dismemberment Plan. One part punk, and one heavy part rock they’ve always made use of bass hooks and angular guitar work to bleed fuzz and drums around Harrington’s vocals, and the vocals (the words) are the shining point to the whole act.

The words, often a stinging air of critique for the very industry they participate in, and sometimes almost bleakly autobiographical like “Meet Me In the Dollar Bin” from Inches. “Meet me in the dollar bin” Tim pleads, “it’s a band I once was in; haven’t done much better since.” It reads as a tribute to all the artists who try and fail at the game; the lightning crashing, the day-job at the cannery, and the poor performing conditions all leave the impression of a struggling youth in the biz, “we passed and we passed, we passed out when we could”. That was probably my favourite of their last offerings, and it demanded to be on a dozen different mixtapes in the last 3 years.

Let’s Stay Friends showcases the same energy these guys had back in years prior, however modernized it is in terms of a playlist-begging pop-repeato drill-into-your-brain appeal, and laid out in the same distinct bleeding-throat vocals Tim does (that are horribly lacking among contemporaries - where is all the sensical screaming at?).

“Ragin In The Plague Age” is a new track that speaks to me, and not because I’ve been leaking from the ears or eyes or anything like that. Alber Camus’ The Plague is a book I’ve been reading on and off lately, and it concerns itself with the trails of a small town in France inflicted with the bacillus plague back in 194X. Savy Fav’s version is much less dun-dun-mysterious, and told from the eyes of a king back when kings were important. Here’s the gist: Scene one, King goes ill. Scene two, king is sacked. Scene three, the town gets trashed for lack of a solution. It is glorious, to say the least.

Right up until the release date of September 18th, there’s a video contest going on that is as humble as it is enticing, and judging from the looks of it there are some pretty awesome entries going up as we speak. Win 1000 clams and a trophy as they invite you to dress like them, go wild, and most importantly to get it on tape - this ain’t no sunday-morning dress-up, unless of course you like that sort of thing, power to you man.

listen up:
Les Savy Fav - Meet Me In The Dollar Bin (from Inches)
Les Savy Fav - Raging In The Plague Age (don your hazmat suit!)
Les Savy Fav - What Would Wolves Do? (awesome 80s drum machining)
Les Savy Fav - The Equestrian

You can pre-order Let’s Stay Friends over at Newbury Comics (with a limited edition autographed booklet that you should be too punk to care about).

Numbers Numbers Numbers.

Published by

matt.

August 17, 2007 in the fall, dichotomies, lo-fi, classy ladies, fuzz, indie and tunes. 0 Comments

Going back to school in a few short weeks? Dreading the imminent stress of it all? The projects, the exams, the dime-a-dozen PowerPoint presentations? Has summer flown by, leaving you with little to proud of in it’s wake? Well, yeah. Sucks to be you.

But, at least, rejoice in the fact that in a few short weeks you will be able to put on Numbers’ Now You Are This as you return from your varied homes back to the chaotic web of life that is the “University Experience”. For, unlike previous recordings of this summer, we finally have an album that perfectly melds with it’s release date.

It is sloppy post-punk - with drums crashing everywhere, people shouting, guitars crunchin’ & distortin’… flailing epically between hopefulness & rejoice to soul-crushing worry. Even the song titles reflect this dichotomy, as the band goes from “Hey Hey Dream” to “I Ripped My Own Heart Out”, or “Everything is Fine” to “What Happened To You”. It is weaved from the less serious (we certainly ain’t talkin’ about a Kronos Quartet requiem or anything here) emotional tapestry that tends to accompany everyday life. And the band brings it all together with the same sense of lo-fi ease that accompanies my memories of classic Eric’s Trip or Sonic Youth.

The band cites some classy Krautrock in their influences, from NEU! to Can & Kraftwerk… and it shows. From the incessant drumming to the electronic, static & moog flourishes, it seems like Numbers wish to reinterpret the extremes of the genre in 3 to 5 minute pop songs. Which is a formidable endeavor. As far as contemporaries go, I’d say check this out if you dig the harmonized female/male vocal combos on The Evens albums but wish that the music behind the voice was a bit less conventional.

All I know, is that I can definitely imagine walking to school come September, listening to “Leila Mila” as the orange leaves fall towards the ground around me. It is a memory I look forward to living.

under a fuzz red sky:
Numbers - Kosmos Love.
Numbers - I Want To Believe.

Now You Are This will be released from Kill Rock Stars on August 21st. You can preorder it over here. It is certainly in your best interest to do your Numbers homework - you never know what kind of treats might be hidden therein.

How HRSTA ruined my morning.

Published by

matt.

August 13, 2007 in not-summertime, atmospheric, indie, montreal, fuzz and tunes. 0 Comments

Even before moving to la belle province four years ago, I have always held a soft spot in my heart for all things Constellation Records. I can honestly say that, through the small independent Montreal label’s early offerings (such as GYBE!’s F#A#∞, Sofa’s Grey & Exhaust’s self-titled debut), the label has played a pretty damn pivotal role in my musical development - inspiring me to delve deeply into everything from post-rock to European gypsy.

One of the main people behind many of the “core” Constellation bands is Mike Moya, founding member of Godspeed You! Black Emperor, who was also a lead member in both Set Fire to Flames and Molasses before forming HRSTA. As far as post-rock related resumes go, Moya is as well-decorated as one would think possible.

HRSTA’s previous work (see, especially, 2005’s Stem Stem Electro) were brazen affairs - featuring violas, organs & violins screeching alongside guitars & pianos over top drums & bass, the album was almost hard to listen to… but after repeated listens, it has since become one of my favourites. Check out “Swallow’s Tail” from the album over at Bricolage Fantasy’s Beautiful Summer Afternoon mix.

September 10th will mark the band’s latest offering, Ghosts Will Come and Kiss Our Eyes. Now, don’t get me wrong: the album is brilliant. Each song drones like the fog which settles over Lennoxville in the early morning, perfectly suited for film. Mike’s hushed vocals mix with Jackie-O Motherfucker’s Brooke Crouser’s pump organ beautifully, making music that is simultaneously both haunting & kitsch. The siren song, “Saturn of Chagrin”, which follows the epic “Hechicero del Bosque” build-up gives the album great contrast, with fuzzed out & disturbed vocal snippets, that sound like they were taped off of an old-tyme radio back in the 50’s, just adding to the atmosphere.

But, here is the thing - it is most certainly not a summertime album. Listening to Ghosts Will Come and Kiss Our Eyes this morning at work made our balmy 30 degree weather feel like -20. There is just something about HRSTA’s sound that makes me yearn to revisit this album come snow. Hell, even a song entitled “Beau Village” (which literally translates into “Beautiful Village”) sounds haunted & ominous.

The album is definitely a welcome release for both Constellation (the label is currently celebrating it’s 10 year anniversary) and the band. It is good to see Moya back at the helm, even if the ship is one as sombre & reflective as HRSTA.

slow-ghost-dub-motions:
HRSTA - Entre la Mer et L’Eau Douce.
HRSTA - Hechicero del Bosque.

COVER ART: available here.

To purchase Ghosts… check out Constellation Record’s store. For more information on the band, check out their official site & take a gander at some live pics, taken by yours truly, during their opening for the Evens over here.

The Sunburn of October.

Published by

matt.

August 13, 2007 in freak folk, glitch, indie, psych-freakout, fuzz and tunes. 2 Comments

Sunburned Hand of the Man are one of those ridiculously prolific modern psychedelic “freak” folk bands. A quick perusal of their discography yields over 30 releases since ‘99, some of which were given proper distribution (like 2002’s fantastic Headdress), while others have only seen the light of day via a limited run of 50 cassette tapes. Probably needless to say, I wouldn’t consider all of the band’s output to be necessary purchases but it definitely holds true that, when the band do hit their stride, their music can be pretty damn powerful, in a free-jazz meets hippie jam band kind of way.

October will see the release of two more LPs to join the ranks of that ever-growing list, Fire Escape on Smalltown Supersound Records while, under the moniker the Sunburned Circle, The Blaze Game will be available through Conspiracy Records. Exciting times, indeed.

Out of the two records, my excitement was undeniably higher for Fire Escape as, the story goes, Kieran Hebden (also known as the electronic entity Four Tet) fell in love with Sunburn’s albums. He decided that he must make a point to travel in search of the band & ended up befriending them. One thing lead to another (with Sunburned opening for Four Tet on a few occasions), and soon it was decided that Kieran would be able to take the band’s latest recordings to produce - making Fire Escape a Sunburned/Four Tet hybrid of sorts.

And it shows. The album features glitched-out interludes (check out the opening track, “Captain Knowhere” or around the 6 minute mark of “Nice Butterfly Mask”) and the cleanest production I can remember on any of the band’s releases. It suits them.

As far as the music itself goes, I’m finding the jams really reminiscent of classic Krautrock - they plod along, slowly building, mixing in traditional instrumentation with all sorts of rhythmic but bizarre noises. Imagine if NEU! superimposed their melodic/easy access tracks (i.e. Forever) with their ambitiously experimental ones, and you would probably be par for course.

Fire Escape won’t be for everyone - it lacks structure, any form of traditional vocals & blatantly features “non-musical” noise, but for anyone who is at all interested in this particular genre, I’d say that it is essential listening. Definite Recommendations: if you don’t listen to anything else from the album, make sure to check out the tracks below & the unstoppable title track.

drumz, noise & birds
Sunburned Hand of the Man - Nice Butterfly Mask.
Sunburned Hand of the Man - The Parakeet Beat.

The band has homes on myspace as well as a site on their own domain. You can find out more about Fire Escape from Smalltown Supersound Records.

I am the dotted line.

Published by

tyler

August 10, 2007 in lo-fi, anytime, wordy, fuzz, folk and tunes. 3 Comments

Okay so I’ll admit: I have the habit of moving music (from whatever source) to my iPod as soon as I get it. I feel like if I’m to hear something for the first time, it should be in conditions as close to an isolation chamber as I can manage, and so It’s rare that I feel like auditing something new at home, at the helm of my control tower (as Alley affectionately calls it) where traffic and cat noises abound.

The way I listen to music is not unlike reading an adventure book for the first time. I navigate on whim or fancy, barely taking the time to digest the names what’s being clicked through until something perks my ears, or the adventure suddenly comes to a dead end. It would seem that on my iPod this morning was something like a prophecy.

It’s been within my circle of friends for a while now an intricate series of debates on art, creativity, and essentially what it means to embody culture. Being a mash of artists, philosophers and psychologists, we each tackle these things with a head full of our own ideas, and I usually love what comes of it, but lately it seems that these questions, too, have been headed for dead ends.

After seeing to it that my iPod play something, the first thing that came about was this track by Deer Tick. The words, surreal:

When I talk about these debates we have, I see these dead ends in form of an apparition, which is to say in no form at all. They seem to be headed nowhere because honestly I don’t think anyone is taking them anywhere; part fear, and part fatalism I think we’ve forgotten that life and art are more than simple fill-ins. The mind is more than alchemical, the world is more than mere reductionism, and life is more than simply humble routine.

The trouble I think is in our education: this professional training is more like definitional exercise than mentoring, and when that mentality bleeds into other aspects of life (like the very core of creativity) we somehow think we can change the world by definition. Motile minds we have no more.

Anyway, I know I can only blather in philo-spaek for so long before Matt comes back from vacation and shuns me for being a weirdo. I prefer to talk about something real to me than simply gush about this track, so think about it, and think about this Deer Tick song: “Art Isn’t Real” - it’s more than just strings and strings of words. Pretty strings as they are.

P.S. If you really need a sense of the music, you can go by FEOW!’s description: “[It] is not going to be the record they play at the dance party in the warehouse that you got all done up for. This will be the record you listen to on the drive back, alone and after you’ve sobered up enough to make it.” Personally, it reminds me of a folked-out Black Heart Procession married to a stripped-down, early John Vanderslice.

isolate, (for just a little bit)?:
Deer Tick - Art Isn’t Real
Deer Tick - Standing At The Threshold
Deer Tick - Axe Is Forever

The album, War Elephant lands in just shy of a month on FEOW! Records. You can find Deer Tick’s website here, and then there’s also his Myspace.

Holler, Wild Rose! and Confessions

Published by

tyler

August 8, 2007 in nostalgia, house-special, tall-walls, anytime, reverber, fuzz, 90s and tunes. 1 Comment

This album is fantastic.

From the very second it entered my earphones: John screaming “Holler!” met my ears and my world started to break anchor; at its very onset the drums crash, and the guitar reverbing is already at such a high plateau that you have to wonder where it’ll go from there. You soon find that it’s nothing like your typical build-tension-&-chorus formula, and it has a quality that blocks from the mind these drab flourescent walls, and the damp murky day that awaits beyond them. Even the ache of my growing wisdom teeth is (gratefully) lost somewhere in this noise.

The emotional core of the music will lead you inward, sit you down in a corner of its tangled web, and then toss streamers to the air that sparkle and tint whatever it is your mind might be occupied with. If I were somehow to not have all these duties to work, school, family and friends, I imagine myself sprawled out on the floor enraptured in this & in some kind of trance. Days, weeks would pass by, the world wouldn’t stop spinning by any means, but that wouldn’t matter to me.

I remember this feeling, and I think it was sometime in the 90s, when music was a new phenomenon to me. I’m not ashamed to say that at the time it was Marcy Playground and Radiohead that would take me places, and not that I’m trying to draw stylistic parallels here, but it brings me back to that feeling. Those were the days when there wasn’t a thing on my mind that dwelled outside my small hometown; those truly were weightless days.

–

Confession: It’s not always easy maintain this blog, constantly ebbing and flowing between excitement and boredom, yet always searching for the next great tune to indulge in and then pass on. It’s sort of my duty (and passion) now to keep on the fringe, and sort through the mess of new music. I’d say probably 90% of the time that I feel like a kid at a candy factory, and the rest of the time I feel kind of off-put asking myself all sorts of “whys” and “what-fors”.

Now, I do a lot of baking & cooking (stay with me here), probably more than the average 21 year-old college student, but I only cook when there’s an absolute need, a desire that burbles up from my gut. When I do cook, I like to cook up the most elaborate dishes, and Alley helps quite a bit with that and her worldly cuisine. I can make the meanest German chocolate cake, but I imagine sometimes that if I were to cook always, daily, and without that inner tension, would it just be a job, and would flavour start to fade from everything I taste?

I sometimes get that fear with music, the sweetest of all candies, by merely writing in this space. When I find something like this music here, and it really makes me feel something; it takes me both backwards and forwards, then I really know what I’m in it for. It’s the delight, the pleasure, the feeling, and to write about it, as hard as it is to express sometimes, I’m thankful for that too.

I wonder, who else has to go through this, too?

–

Holler, Wild Rose! has this CD, you know? How about you check out this sampling of my favourite tracks from Our Little Hymnal, and then go buy it in September if you like it. You can keep up to date over at their home on the web, even.

indulge?
Holler, Wild Rose! - Mercy Beat
Holler, Wild Rose! - Holler, Wild Rose!
Holler, Wild Rose! - Captive Train

The Noises of the Monster Bastard Project.

Published by

matt.

August 7, 2007 in not-summertime, atmospheric, epic, indie, instrumentals, dead, fuzz and tunes. 2 Comments

Why are so many bands killing themselves these days? Whether it is to do a zombie jig, to succumb to a cool death or merely to party-down, vampire-style, it seems like everywhere I turn bands are, figuratively, offing themselves. And this analysis doesn’t even begin to look at the goth or industrial scenes.

But, for sake of argument, let us compare the Monster Bastard Project to their own scene, that of post-rock. Now, post-rock, with it’s instrumental crescendo-laden leanings, tends to naturally veer pretty heavily towards the dramatic. For example, both Mogwai’s fantastic Come On Die Young and Tortoise’s Millions Now Living Will Never Die brought the topic of death to the forefront in the scene way back in the pre-Millennium Years. Hell, even on What you lookin’ at? 1998’s “Dead Flag Blues”, Godspeed You! Black Emperor burst out with some pretty heavy shit (remember that awesome Lee Marvin monologue?). So, it appears that, in titling their debut album the Death of the Monster Bastard Project, the band is in good, if not overly melodramatic, company.

Thematic comparisons aside, the EP follows the genres conventions pretty straight up. While the album features the occasional use of samples (all of which deal, in some way, with war or death or being shot) in a similar fashion to classic Godspeed You! Black Emperor, the choice of instrumentation makes the band more akin to a youthful Mogwai. Without being able to rely on half of Montreal to play strings, horns & whatever else is laying around (pst: I still love you Godspeed, get back together… ok?), the boys in the Monster Bastard Project merely focus on the typical three: electric guitar (plus pedals + distortion), bass & drums.

And they do a good job of it, drawing each of the four presented compositions to genre-typical 6-12 minute lengths. What isn’t so typical is the fact that their build-ups are not quite so formulaic as other bands, as they contrast themselves with metal-heavy riffs. The highest praise I can give to a post-rock album these days is for it to make me feel like it is the late 90’s again, and I am discovering post-rock again, for the first time. The Monster Bastard Project do a pretty damn good job of it.

listen loud, on headphones preferably:
The Monster Bastard Project - Ghost.

You can now order The Death of… direct from the band via their myspace (which also has some other songs to sample) for £5. They also have a web-site but it is currently far from complete.

When all of a sudden Neil Young drives past and gives you the finger.

Published by

tyler

August 6, 2007 in lo-fi, not-summertime, wordy, summertime, folk, fuzz and tunes. 3 Comments

French Quarter makes music that is sparse, emotional, and foot-tappingly rhythmic all at the same time.

In this one recording I came across, they were apparently playing live in the alleyway behind the Elna Rae house, and that is not just the location, but also what the recording is called; it was recorded and released by one avid fan to a private music tracker which has since been buried.

The title becomes all the more appropriate once you hear it; and it starts to dig under your skin only after you hear the ambient accompaniment in the form of animals and quiet crowd sing-alongs. There were two dogs that began barking scarcely into their second song and some awkward laughter ensues. He then asks “should we wait for the dogs, or keep going?” and to that comes two crowd responses “no, keep going… play louder,” and as he does the dogs seem to fade into the mix like they were somehow an integral part of the set.

This band is really just one man, Stephen Steinbrink, who describes his own music as “smoking Sandias and listening to In Utero while driving through New Mexico in your Volvo, when all of a sudden Neil Young drives past and gives you the finger.” I’d hate to pin it down as rooted in Neil Youngery, because that never does anyone any justice, but he does have a way with words.

There were more lyrics I wanted to share here, but after typing them out just now they lost something that I just can’t explain.

At the half-way mark on their set comes a gem no one was expecting, but to my delight he manages to twist a Bee Gees hit in ways I never thought were possible. Seriously, there was only one chuckle when Stayin’ Alive came on, and after the first verse it was clear he wasn’t trying to perk any grins. It’s as if his voice commanded something in the words which caused it to lose its 70s groove and take on a whole new meaning. It’s this very callous folksong air that distinguishes him, especially at a live setting like this.

There were no track names given, but I split the recording up into parts for you all (labeling the two cover songs). Enjoy!

listen?
French Quarter - Track 01
French Quarter - Track 02
French Quarter - Track 03
French Quarter - Track 04
French Quarter - Stayin’ Alive (Bee Gees cover)
French Quarter - Track 06
French Quarter - Harvest (Neil Young cover)

You can find him over here, at his Myspace.

MV&EE now walk the Golden Road.

Published by

matt.

August 5, 2007 in indie, lo-fi, grassroots, free folk, fuzz and tunes. 0 Comments

Despite the apparent site-wide face lift, it seems we have been on a pretty lo-fi kick these past few days here at Tunes Consumed. Whether this involves sludge-filled stoner rock to soft folk to the singin’ saws & fuzz laden sounds of the Ohsees, it past week has been nothing if not heavy. And, if you think it just cannot continue in such a fashion… I’m definitely not sorry to say that yes, yes it can.

And for this you can thank Thurston Moore & his Ecstatic Peace Records + Tapes for prepping Gettin’ Gone, the latest LP from Matt Valentine and Erika Elder. The duo, more commonly known as MV&EE, make music reminiscent of classic Neil Young - fuzzed out, burned out modern folk that is built upon a ton of acoustic/electric guitar noodling & somewhat nasally vocals.

MV&EE. The sound is built upon a wide variety of instruments on top of more traditional ones, such as their signature “Bantar” (some sort of modified banjo/sitar contraption), a Swarsangam, an “Octave Divider Bass”, a mellotron, a Cocola Firebird, lap steel, a bowed Dulcimer, mandolins, and a ton of other instruments that I would have to investigate to find out what they actually do.

The duo also have some further tricks up their sleeve: this time bringing along a new backing band (dubbed the Golden Road), composed of J Mascis (of Dinosaur Jr. fame) & John Moloney on drums, Willie Lane on guitar, Samara Lubelski & Ron Schneiderman on bass, Doc Dunn on pedal steel, resonator, bass, drums, & vocals, & Luisa Reichenheim on harmonium. Also included in the credits is a a dog named Zuma, who somehow plays the bells. Another step for pet-kind, for sure.

On top of the expanded line-up, Matt & Erika also bust out custom distortion pedals, grudgingly crafted by Erika’s ex-General Electric engineer father, who had previously devoted his life to removing fuzz - not promoting it. But, all being said & done, their pedals do sound pretty damn sweet.

It is an interesting sound, for sure, and one that definitely must be listened to a loud volumes - mainly to hear the songs over the pronounced muffling fuzz. Which, hell, is why we love lo-fidelity records so much anyhow. Check the samples below to hear a couple of my favourite tracks off the album.

why is it so smoky in here?
MV&EE with the Golden Road - Easy Livin’
MV&EE with the Golden Road - Country Fried
MV&EE with the Golden Road - Sweet People

Gettin’ Gone will be officially released this October through Ecstatic Peace Records + Tapes. In the meantime, check the band’s official web-site for upcoming tour dates and such. Plus, drop by their little residence on the Eclectic Peace site to get exposed to a few more tracks from the album.