JEFF the Champions

I remember like five years ago I was probably skateboarding in my mom's driveway and listening to Blink 182 and a friend of mine called me and told me I had to get to Grimey's immediately because this band JEFF was playing a show and he had never seen any band play like them.  Then a couple years after that I remember being at their parents' house listening to Jake's reggae records and playing ping-pong and thinking like how these brothers were exemplars of cool without even trying or realizing probably.  And back then, like still, JEFF the Brotherhood was the baddest headbangingest band in town, a heavy metal band with like a rap entourage attitude.  Their house shows used to start with a loop of the intro to this Three Six song and end with all the lights and floor fucked up and everybody sweaty and bruised.  Kids in Nashville were waiting on when they would get their due recognition, since it was palpable that it was a matter of when.

Having signed to a distribution contract with Warner Music Group, having been chosen Rolling Stone's band to watch a couple weeks ago, having been featured on Jay-Z's website last week, and then yesterday with their new LP, We Are The Champions, streaming on NPR--man, and that's not even all of it.  Their dad/label-owner Bob Orrall (who is also an awesome artist) said to the Nashville Scene, "We Are the Champions deserves to be heard by the world."  Hell yeah, Bob.

The album is a refreshingly simple but still fast and fuzzy and fucked up trip towards good vibes having good times with good friends and cheap beer.  So check it out and buy the album on June 21, on Infinity Cat, or your local record store, or your local Virgin Megastore, or wherever music is sold.

SUMMER LOVE 2011

We're making some summer mixtapes, and this is one of them.  It's called Summer Love 2011 and the link is the mp3 which has a little something special at the end but here is the tracklisting w/ some other mp3s, too:



1. "Good Stuff" - UGK
2. "Give Me Your Love" - Curtis Mayfield
3. "LAst Night" - BeachesBeaches
4. "Cowboys In The Void" - QUILT
5. "Got A Feelin'" - The Mamas & Papas
6. "I'd Rather Be With You" - Bootsy Collins
7. "Whxt Txrns U Xn?" - Teams
8. "Playing Your Game Baby" - Barry White
9. "Do Right Woman, Do Right Man" - Dionne Warwick
10. "Paranoiyalackofcommunication" - Flash Forest
11. "Lady Dub" - The Widdler
12. "Touch" - Holy Other

Basically it's some songs that I really think will be nice for driving around with the windows open or drinking beers on the po'ch or laying in the grass or in the sand or travelling, even, and so it's a nice mix for summer.  It's got a lotta soul.  Some of the songs were inspired by mixes from Yvynyl, Flashlight Tag, and The Captain.  Most of the other songs were straight from the heart.

Have A Good Summer and love one another.

Holy Other

Earlier today Altered Zones posted the ninth installment of their now-world famous monthly mix series with songs selected by another Manchester innovator producer hustler the occult brother, Holy Other.  It is a well-rounded set so get it.

Another thing to note about it, though, is the irony that Holy Other made this month's, and next month he'll be what it's made of.  If you haven't listened to the Soundcloud stream thing (also courtesy of Altered Zones) of Holy Other's upcoming EP, With U, indulge yourself:

With U is available for pre-order right now from Boomkat and Ruff Trade but really comes out officially June 7, 2011, on Tri Angle Records, who are running shit doing everything cool and pretty much nothing that don't sound good, you heard. 

John Maus x Molly Nilsson

So I've been eagerly awaiting John Maus's upcoming album We Must Become the Pitiless Censors of Ourselves ever since hearing its abso-fucking-credible first single, "Believer." So when I heard "Hey Moon," the fourth track on the aforementioned fifth album from the reclusive Minnesota native, I figured it was another product of his songwriting genius. Guess I was a little premature. The track is still awesome, but it turns out the song was actually originally written by the equally mysterious Stockholm freeform dream-pop singer Molly Nilsson.

She seems to be closely associated with the Dark Skies Association label, and she's touring the U.S. for the first time in November. She's still booking her tour, so send her a message if you want her in your town. The original version of "Hey Moon!" appears on her 2009 full-length These Things Take Time, and you can grab it below, along with the John Maus cover.

MP3: Molly Nilsson - "Hey Moon!"

MP3: John Maus - "Hey Moon" (Molly Nilsson cover)

Covers Watch

So I haven't been around these corners much, and Adam has been ably stepping in to provide you with sweet tunes coverage these past few weeks, but I'm determined to return. There may possibly be a Johnny Whopper mixtape in the works, and you should be excited about it, but for now, I have to post this absolutely unbelievable track from Barcelona's Hermanos Calatrava. It's a cover of David Bowie's "Space Oddity," but it turns it into equal parts psych-pop freakout and globalization commentary. It's not new - it's part of Finders Keepers' Absolute Belter comp, but it's every bit as fresh-sounding today as when it was released in 1974.

MP3: Hermanos Calatrava - "Space Oddity"

WU LYF

Wu Lyf is the radical band all y'all will be dancing to at house parties by summer's end, and this is a video for their new song "Dirt."  Their upcoming LP, Go Tell Fire to the Mountain, is out June 13 all on their own thing World Unite. These Manchester kids got a whole smart style enterprise together.
4 further reading: what is the meanin of LYF; Guardian article from way back that states "'Wu Lyf are fucking brilliant;'" and sum NME coverage from early this year.  And they were also on the playlist for Episode 21!

Coma Cinema and Teams/Forty Ounce Mix

Last night Coma Cinema was like "I've decided to release the new EP a couple of days early," and I mean I know it's early but in my opinion the new EP, Abandoned Lands, is pretty solid.  The songs come off as successful experiments, smart and vibrant and wild, with lots of blown out synth tricks and fucked up wry attitude.  It's actually pretty weird but its weirdness is a testament to its accomplishment, let's say.  Here's this song where you can kind of tell what I'm saying, with like a metronome of a crystalline beat and lyrics about Satan and it seems like the kind of song you could listen to on a summer night road trippin, so right on.
"Burn a Church" - Coma Cinema


Then, too, a couple weeks ago, versatile kind of avant-electro guy Teams and those busy British entrepreneurs at Forty Ounce who yeah were in the previous post too--together they made a mixtape called the Teams Mixtape, I guess, that is in any case all I've wanted to listen to since I downloaded it.  I've been into mixes lately, and this one is one where I'm listening to it and I can't help but keep re-affirming to myself how cool I think it is.  There's some Pictureplane and Nguzunguzu and James Blake and Lil B so I mean--it's one of those that kind of makes you feel cooler just because you're listening to it and you have it and stuff.  So it's a hot commodity, right?, and it'll get you dancin.  And this summer why the fuck you wouldn't want to be dancin.
Teams Mixtape - Teams/Forty Ounce
And if you haven't already, don't forget to pick up the Teams LP Dxys Xff, available at Bandcamp and AMDiscs.  That album is heavy, but bright you know?  Here, check it out:
"Whxt Txrns U Xn?" - Teams