I’m leaving for Austin in a few days to cover South by Southwest for the Boston Phoenix. Before I leave, here is a playlist of ten or so bands I’m really keen to see. (All these bands are playing more times than listed.)

Japandroids

Japandroids are responsible for the best show I’ve ever seen in Boston. Four-chord grunge anthems about drinking too much, falling in love and forgetting about it all the next day inspired the entirety of great Scott to crowd surf and stage dive. I wish drinking actually felt like Japandroids.

(mp3) Japandroids – Young Hearts Spark Fire

3/17 @ Emo’s

3/18 @ Yard Dog Gallery

DD/MM/YYYY

When I saw DD/MM/YYYY, it was like the Blood Brothers vocals fronting Animal Collective’s rhythm. Shit was epic, totally insane and undeniably compelling. Dueling drum sets beat out schizophrenic rhythms deep within whirlwinds of guitar and bass. It had me reeling for days. I’m not sure whats real anymore.

3/17 – Verge FM Radio Session

3/18 Magic Jewels Party

(mp3) DD/MM/YYYY – Bronzage

The Black Angels

The Black Angels play droney, psyched-out acid rock that sometimes sounds like the Velvet Underground blown through a shit-ton of post-production distortion, sometimes like the smooth descent into a one-way coma. All drenched in reverb, all slightly reminiscent of a punch in the face. But in a good way.

(mp3) The Black Angels – Black Grease

3/17 @ Emo’s

3/18 @ Mohawk

Beach Fossils

I was recently introduced to Beach Fossils at the Butcher Shoppe in Allston. Their song “Vacation” follows sparkling arpeggios along waves of reverb, above choppy, syncopated drums and a tremolo’d vocal melody. Sounds like a vinyl left undiscovered in your parents collection for the last thirty years. Sounds like something recorded in your kitchen yesterday.

(mp3) Beach Fossils – Vacation

3/17 @ Red 7

3/18 @ 2908 Cole Street

Sleigh Bells

Like the Stooges Raw Power, the production behind Sleigh Bells is intended to destroy any and all sound systems it touches. The guitar fuzz on single “Crown on the ground” had me thinking I’d blown my speakers. I was pissed, until the smooth M.I.A. style vocals dropped, rounding out this part club-banger, part basement thrasher.

(mp3) Sleigh Bells – Crown on the Ground

3/17 @ Parish

3/18 Mexican American Cultural Center

Bear in Heaven

Bear in Heaven sound like the reasons why people like the Knife, only way better.  Their most recent release, “Beast Rest Forth Mouth,” is underscored by chugging, minimalist keyboards that somehow evolve into soaring I-want-to-be-drunk-and-seventeen-style choruses. With a fat, drony low-end, and a shrill tenor lead vocal, Bear in Heaven are sure to kill live.

(mp3) Bear in Heaven – Lovesick Teenagers

3/17 @ Emo’s

3/19 @ Red House Pizzaria

Magic Magic

Magic Magic are at the point locally where I’m out of things to say. Smooth, surf-guitar leads, crooning chamber-pop vocals a-la Grizzly Bear/Beach House blah blah blah. They’re sweet, they’re local, they’ll own SX.

(mp3) Magic Magic – Sleepy Lion

3/17 @ Spill Bar

Local Natives

I wanted to not like Local Natives. They play a type of sincerely melodramatic alt-country akin to Okervil River or even Death Vessel and sing choruses like “I want you back” and “I promise not to lose her again“ and “Omg, like so in love.” Ok, so that last one was just me being bitter. Still.

(mp3) Local Natives – Sun Hands

3/18 @ Parish

3/19 @ Emo’s

No Age

By now everyone knows No Age, since they pretty much did for noise rock now what the Strokes did for garage rock in the 2000s. Still, these guys are pretty rock and roll. From their album Nouns, “Eraser” feels like a summer’s day, all swaying guitars under the sun and “Teen Creeps” is a punk epic, distorted vocals over a handful of disgusting, swirling chords. Easy listening recorded at the outskirts of a hurricane.

(mp3) No Age – Eraser

3/20 @ Barberella

School of Seven Bells

Since shoegaze became cool again, School of Seven Bells is the band that most effectively captures the My Bloody Valentine sound without sounding like a total knockoff. Their album “Alpinisms” has all the shoegaze staples: droning guitars, harmonies swirling in the ether, and a female lead to fall in love with.  The songs feel effortless, yet could easily score a John Huges film in that same self-indulgent way as M83’s “Saturdays=Youth.”

(mp3) School of Seven Bells – Half Asleep

3/19 @ La Zone Rosa

3/20 @ Stubbs

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I’ll be tweeting from @musicfloss (IndieMuse’s Twitter!) and from the phoenix’s blog (thephoenix.com/sxsw). Interviews with most of the above mentioned to come.

Ramona Falls is Brent Knopf, programmer, general Renaissance man and one third of the superb Menomena. The band takes its name from an idyllic waterfall somewhere in Oregon, which seems a fitting reflection of Inuits effortless, nearly organic beauty.  I have passing cycles of musical ADD, fleeting affairs with different albums from week to week. This is the first album to stick in a while. For anyone familiar with Menomena, it bears Knopf’s signatures: fluid but hesitant piano leads, jagged guitar harmonics, a casual tenor delivery.  The production is immaculate, encompassing an army of instrumentation, but never anything toward the superfluous. Every percussive blast, every guitar strum, every ethereal harmony and horn flare is precise.  In this way Intuit touches on and expands the great parts of Menomena’s Friend and Foe, hitting a solid pop sensibility with a flair for the insane. From moment to moment I’m hearing the harsher parts of Mount Eerie records, the more lofty parts of Flaming Lips records and something undeniably unique swirling in the ether.

The minute mark on opener “Melectric” hits with a melodramatic surge in instrumentation: mandolin backed by sparse piano, brutal kick hits propelling the visceral tug of Knopfs vocals: “Please, don’t give me false hope/you’re free to go.” At this point Intuit could go straight for the forlorn love epic and remain engaging,  but it decides to go straigh rock n’ roll with the following track “I Say Fever.”

“I Say Fever” exemplifies Knopf’s mind for structure and pacing. It strikes humble beginnings on a post-apocalyptic western guitar groove, peppered again with fragile piano leads and a hesitant vocal delivery. It’s almost like he’s scared of what happens next: a neck-bending guitar breakdown, soaring vocals and fractured harmonies. I defy you not to throw your hands in reverence toward the sky when the chorus in “I Say Fever” hits. Reverence of what? I don’t know. Just shit in general, I guess.

As epic as the aforementioned gets, “Bellyfulla” is the song keeping me up at night.  Intuit finds it’s most intimate moments in Bellyfulla’s sweeping harmonies, in the scattered yet gentle pacing of the acoustic guitar. Knopf drops metaphors speaking to a vague restlessness, while the strings fasten an ephemeral existence as they sweep to and from existence. It’s the defining moment many records hint toward but never hit, a type of resolution that people strive for but can’t find. After the darkness of “I Say Fever” and “Going Once, Going Twice” (where he laments “I’m desperate just to find a respite for my mind”) Knopf has found something in “more happiness than a body can hold.” Hell, I want that. And hell, I nearly find it in those harmonies.

From Intuit:

Ramona Falls – I Say Fever

Ramona Falls – Bellyfulla

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I talk about Pretty & Nice a lot. (Like Here and Here.) It’s getting bad. But I’ve taken my obsession to something of a more dignified level. Recently, my friend Addison Post and I produced a video for the Boston Phoenix to showcase a new Pretty & Nice song. They wrote it for a new montly segment called “Homework” where the Phoenix tasks a Boston bands with writing and recording a song under unreasonable deadlines with a bunch of zany critieria. Check out the video here and stream the song below.

From the Boston Phoenix’s Homework Assignment:

Pretty & Nice – Massive U.

Next month we grade Hallejuah the Hills.

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