Birds & Batteries, “Sneaky Times” MP3
- story Sam Hockley-Smith
What if John Carpenter kept up on new music? He’d be like, Why do all these bands play the keyboard like me but with the VHS tracking all fucked up and wobbly? And no one would be able to answer him with anything else except to let him know that it sounds awesome. This Birds & Batteries song is like watching Halloween on a bunch of cough syrup and then having a dizzy and slowed dance party at the end—it’s wildly unsettling and makes us feel kind of nauseous in a good way.
Download: Birds & Batteries, “Sneaky Times”
Woodsman, “Dikembe Mutombo” Mp3
- story Sam Hockley-Smith
It must be pretty fun to be an instrumental band. You can just name your songs whatever you feel like and go nuts. Woodsman did that with “Dikembe Mutombo,” which as far as we know has very little to do with basketball or being from the Congo. But that’s okay! Instead it’s a whirlwind of guitars clamped down by constant drumroll. Maybe they’re hoping to soundtrack the next big, dramatic and inspiring sports movie, or maybe they all just got really stoned and inspired by tall dudes. You can grab Woodsman’s new album digitally on Mexican Summer right now.
Download: Woodsman, “Dikembe Mutombo” (via Weekly Tape Deck)
Video: Warpaint, “Stars”
- story Sam Hockley-Smith
Thank you Warpaint for reminding us that as awesome as New York is, there are other places in which we could light sparklers in the woods, throw sand around and do vaguely abstract synchronized dancing. Also, thank you Warpaint for making tightly wound music that is as uneasy as it is soothing—kind of like how, if you saw these guys dancing in the woods you’d be like, Oh I would totally go over there if I was sure they weren’t going to sacrifice me. But you could never be sure. Probably a better look to keep a safe distance anyway.
Vashti Bunyan: From Here to Before
- story Sam Hockley-Smith
How weird has Vashti Bunyan’s life been? She made an album, was more or less forgotten forever and then dudes that have been on our covers like Animal Collective and Devendra Banhart reintroduced the world to her music and reminded us that it was not necessarily terrible to listen to music that sounded like smiling unicorns. In what seems like such a good move we’re surprised no one did it sooner, Vashti Bunyan: From Here to Before documents not only both sections of Bunyan’s career, but also her trip to retrace her steps as she travels from London to Scotland by horse and carriage. That alone is interesting enough for an entire movie, but the film also features cameos from like everyone who ever liked her music as well as existing as a career retrospective for one of the more interesting and confounding musical figures around. Vashti Bunyan: From Here to Before is playing tomorrow and Saturday at 7:30 at 92Y Tribeca.
Video: Family Band, “Hatred”
- story Sam Hockley-Smith
In our latest issue we profile Family Band, who make eerie folk music directly influenced by the cabin in the Catskills they’ve built for themselves. Their album, Miller Path is full of otherworldly folk songs enhanced by guitarist Jonny Ollsin’s slowed metal guitar flourishes and singer Kim Krans’ husky, world-weary voice. The songs are about the uncertainty of growing older, and although it sounds plain, the uncertainties that come with living in nature in a place that you’ve created. It’s fitting that they’ve linked with director Luke Meyer of SeeThink Films, who has edited down footage of when the couple/band first bought the property and had a trailer wrecking party. It looks like it could have been filmed during some sort of gold rush in the 1800s and you expect a ghost to pop out at any second, which makes sense, considering Family Band built their sound around wonder that is somehow simultaneously wide-eyed and cynical, calm uneasiness, and also living in the middle of nowhere, because that shit is crazy.
Woods Daytrotter Session Is Way Better Than We Expected
- story Sam Hockley-Smith
Along with fall comes a million opportunities to shuffle through the Woods back catalog. Although we’re partial to the newest record, it still can’t touch personal classic At Rear House, which gets busted out pretty much as soon as the thermometer hits 58 degrees. Not to discount Songs of Shame too much, but these Daytrotter sessions are much more related to those older Woods jams. They’re sparse, a little lonelier and a little more desolate, guitarist/singer Jeremy Earl’s falsetto hovering alien-like over the entire thing. If we had no morals and a lot more money, we’d bootleg these onto vinyl and go sell them next to the dude that sells bubbles and copies of the Criminal Minded Deluxe Edition outside of our office.
Download: Woods Daytrotter Session
Video: Grouper, “Hold the Way”
- story Matthew Schnipper
Perusing Beautiful Losers scion Aaron Rose’s blog recently, we noticed he’d used something we found familiar as captions. Rose likes to underscore his photos with bits of prose and poetry, usually from ancient sages. But this was fresher, more familiar, though similarly resonant. Halfway through, we realized it was the lyrics to “Heavy Water/I’d Rather Be Sleeping,” a FADER favorite, spooky and sweet song by Portland’s Grouper. “Hold the Way” is a new track with a creepy video, from Grouper’s upcoming Vessel, that begins with some ominous and aggressive incomprehensible voice over chatter, before washing away into Grouper’s main body, Liz Harris’ wordless voice and tiny bits of lull. We’ve been surprised but pleased by Grouper’s seemingly universal acceptance, as if everyone understood that something overwhelmingly calm every now and then is crucial, and the best way to get that is with Northwestern cassette loops and hushed layers of often wordless, lush and quiet vocals. It’s good when we can agree.
Live: Devendra Banhart Plays A Secret Show at Webster Hall
- story Daniel Arnold
- photo Daniel Arnold
Last Friday Devendra Banhart played a secret show at Webster Hall, it was loose and he looked a whole lot like Frank Zappa. Little Joy performed afterward and Banhart got on stage with them too. After the jump read FADER contributor Daniel Arnold’s rundown of the whole thing, including video and photos.
Alela Diane and Alina Harding, “Bowling Green” MP3
- story Matthew Schnipper
There is a video of Karen Dalton, Billie Holiday-voiced, long-haired folk singer performing at a New York City cafe in 1969, filmed in black and white by some French people, probably come across the Atlantic to bottle her fever, take it home and marvel at its authenticity. It’s a safe bet that at some point, Alela Diane and Alina Hardin, partners on this song—and on their new EP, Alela and Alina, out today—sat at their screen rapt, watching Dalton perform through film grain. It’s not that Diane or Hardin have a similar voice to Dalton, but a similar setting for their songs. Simply put, “Bowling Green” sounds much more like it came from 1969 Greenwich Village, imported from the country for city peace marches and wide-eyed college kids, than 2009 Rough Trade. That’s a good thing. The classic folk song is sung equally harmonized by both women with one guitar for support, recorded almost dully, dutifully, just to commit to tape, not to highlight or harm. Neither are forceful singers, preferring to swing through on a vibe floating somewhere between scarce and intimate. I got me a sweetie/ He loves me all the time they sing, and the song’s as straight forward and easy as that sounds.
Download: Alela Diane and Alina Harding, “Bowling Green”
Stream: Kurt Vile’s Childish Prodigy
- story Sam Hockley-Smith
Finally! For the last couple months we’ve been walking around talking about Childish Prodigy like you could just walk in the store and grab it right off the shelves, which is totally not the case. Although the album doesn’t come out til October 6th (see also: really, really soon), Matador is offering a full stream of the record. Now when you hear people talking about freak trains and hunchbacks you won’t automatically think it’s some kind of dubious Halloween thing and instead will know that it is just us talking about a couple awesome songs from an album full of megajams. We’ve said it many times before, but Kurt Vile’s Childish Prodigy is out October 6th, and right around the same time comes FADER 64, featuring a Gen F on Vile alongside a lot of other incredible stories. Listen below and buy here.
