Scrawl - Velvet Hammer

 1993; 12 tracks  Scrawl was an underrated grunge/shoegaze (I have no idea) three-piece band from Ohio formed in the late 80s by Marcy Mays (guitar, vocals), Sue Harshe (bass, vocals), and Dana Marshall (drums). I'm pretty sure they were discovered by Steve Albini, and their first show was a 20-minute opening for the Meat Puppets. Scrawl were active throughout the 90s, and Velvet Hammer was the band's fourth full-length. It is a simple, emotional record, containing an atmosphere potentially that of a "coming-of-age" story. I don't know. It's a river full of stories that I could relate to.


do you wanna scream?
do you wanna take a swing?

Uncle Wiggly - There Was An Elk

1993; 24 tracks

Uncle Wiggly was a New York-based band formed in 1988 by a college student/radio announcer and a few of his friends. They went on to create a number of albums and cassettes throughout the 90s. Their sound is best described as a mixture of their favorite music, which included Pink Floyd and The Minutemen. Full of shimmery, summery music about frogs (and other things) delivered with cleverly-written lyrics, Uncle Wiggly shares some complex but lighthearted indie/soft rock.



i wish to be the space between your back and the wall

The Hollow Men - Cresta

1991; 10 tracks

The Hollow Men were an indie rock/acoustic pop band from Leeds, England who, from 1985 to 1994, released four albums and several singles. Cresta is their third album.

There are many nice and poppy, 90s-sounding songs on here, many absorbed with the classic Leeds-rock feeling. My favorite track on Cresta would definitely be "Tongue Tied," even though it is the shortest and slowest one - it is pure magic.

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Mew - A Triumph For Man (Re-issue, Disc 2)

2006 (recorded in 1996); 9 tracks

This is the second disc of the 2006 re-issue of Danish rock band Mew's first ever release, A Triumph For Man. The original album was recorded and released in 1997, and this second disc, released on the re-issue as bonus material/acoustic/demos, was recorded in 1995-1996 in Copenhagen, Denmark. The reason I am putting up only the second disc of the re-issue (I uploaded the first disc here just in case you'd like to hear it as well) is because I am usually much more fond of demos than finished, polished pieces. I do love the album as it was released, but for some reason these 9 looks into the band's most intimate and vulnerable moments of songwriting and experimenting seem to say so much more to me than the rest do. For one, the songs are all incredibly beautiful. Sometimes Jonas Bjerre's voice is so soft you can barely make out the words, and sometimes you can hear background noise and other things that weren't meant to happen. It's just perfect, to me. This disc does not include demos or other versions of every single song on the original album, which has 14 tracks, but I believe that the loveliest ones are these on the second disc. Dreamy, pretty and addictive.

01 Studio Snippet #1
02 Say You're Sorry (ATFM Session)
03 Beautiful Balloon (Acoustic)
04 Web (Demo)
05 Chinese Gun (Demo)
06 Studio Snippet #2
07 I Should Have Been A Tsin-Tsi (For You) Demo
08 Wheels Over Me (Demo)
09 Superfriends (Demo)

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Quasi - The Sword of God

2001; 14 tracks

Interesting and sometimes positively yummy indie/math rock from the Portland-based ex-husband and wife duo, Quasi.

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Polvo - Cor-Crane Secret

1992; 11 tracks

I am so in love with this album. It is so alive - pulsing, breathing, ever-changing. As you listen, you will get a sense of what I mean.

The first release by the NC-based noise/math rock band (personally I think they transcend mere "math rock") Polvo, Cor-Crane Secret is a treasure trove of wonderful things. They do everything right, but the rhythm changes are so unpredictable you may as well give up on following along (when "Kalgon" is first getting started it could go in a variety of directions, but it builds up to an incredible stop-and-start melodic pattern that is really astounding) - but I think that might be what draws me so much to Polvo's sound. The unpredictability, the impreciseness, the layers upon layers of musical ideas and approaches, they all add up to one beast of a debut release. I love the song names, too: "Vibracobra," "Ox Scapula," "The Curtain Remembers." I really, really recommend this.


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Polvo - This Eclipse EP

1995; 5 tracks

This is MELODIC and EDGY and BRILLIANT. Those are in ALL-CAPS because I am EXCITED about this album. YAY for POLVO.


bombs that fall from your eyes

The Clean - Vehicle

1990; 13 tracks

The Clean was a leading and influential indie-rock band from the Dunedin music scene, and have now begun touring again and recently released a new album. Anyway, this album was their first. Enjoy some heavily light-hearted indie pop-rock/whatever you call this stuff.

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The Bats - Daddy's Highway

1987; 17 tracks

The Bats are an influential New Zealand-based band with a discography that is still growing. This was their debut album - cold and melancholic, yet poppy.



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East Village - Drop Out

1993; 10 tracks



This is an incredibly lovely album, the melodies mild and flowing. Highlights: "Shipwrecked," "Black Autumn," and "Everybody Knows."



"Formed in the mid '80s by two brothers, Martin & Paul Kelly, East Village (originally Episode 4) were the sound of the Byrds relocated to surburban Southern England. Martin and Paul were unique amongst their peers in that they were influenced heavily by The Byrds, Dylan and The Beatles at a time when most people were obsessing over acid house, pills and the width of their trousers. After a couple of years as Episode 4, the Kelly Brothers relocated to East Village, where they were joined by Johnny Wood (guitar/vocals) and Spencer Smith (drums)."



While the band was only Martin & Paul, a rare EP entitled Strike Up Matches was recorded for £78 in one day. After Drop Out was released in 1993, a compilation album, Hotrod Hotel, that contained all of their singles and some unreleased songs, was released in 1994. Try this, you will like it!



I'll get away from the shadows

Polvo - Celebrate the New Dark Age EP

1994; 7 tracks

Polvo is a North Carolina-based indie/math rock band from the 90s. Some call them the originators of the "math rock" genre, something I don't think I'm very familiar with, but this release does seem to contain the integral qualities of "math rock," according to Wikipedia: "rhythmically complex guitar-based style of experimental rock." Polvo work on many different levels, their sound being highly complex and sometimes even hard to follow. It is constantly evolving, transforming and creating something new out of the disorder that just was. The greatest part of Polvo, if I may argue, is the lyrics. They are every bit as circuitous as the music. Look at these, taken from my favorite song on the EP, "Every Holy Shroud":

-

Celebrate the new dark age with us
Calculate the irony with someone you can trust
Feel the holy shroud that keeps us warm
Show me something round and I'll analyse the form
Give us something brown that sticks like glue
I'll recognize the taste and appreciate it too
This is how it works when we write well
Let me hear a bomb I'll compare it to a bell
I don't understand why you don't get it
I can take the time to insure that you regret it
We are seeing through your weak designs
Fellow connoisseurs flip a coin and make a sign

-

This is most definitely a release not to miss. Polvo are a band whose masterful creations, both intense and lovely, are labyrinths in and of themselves.



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Senator Flux - Storyknife

1991; 10 tracks

Senator Flux was a D.C. hardcore band from the late 80s. Their syle is more indie rock, but influences of pop and punk are pervasive in Storyknife. This is a nice record of interesting music, I think I like "Canadia" the most.

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Elysian Fields - Last Night on Earth

 2011; 11 tracks

This is the gorgeous new album of New York-based duo Elysian Fields. I really loved Bleed Your Cedar, but this album retains their early seductive mystery, and it has even matured in some ways. Her voice sounds a little older, more experienced... the plodding, jazzy melodies snare you in their webs in the same succulent way. "Sleepover" and the title track remain my favorite tracks by far, but please try this out.

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Treepeople - Something Vicious for Tomorrow / Time Whore

1992; 13 tracks

Treepeople was an American-based indie/grunge/undefinable band from the 90s. Here is their 1992 full-length album, which includes the 1990 EP Time Whore.

This is one of the most amazing things I have ever heard. In my life. Once you listen, you will know why.



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Ween - The Mollusk

 1997; 14 tracks I've always overlooked Ween due to horrible short-sightedness and stubbornness; this was a mistake. You need to listen to this album with a completely open mind, don't expect it to be perfect and don't expect it to be awful - just listen to it. Personally, I thought it would be juvenile typical 90's alt, but what I got was a stroke of brilliant semi-conceptual music with no distinct genre and moments of absolute beauty. There's some silly stuff on here too but it just works. "Pink Eye (On My Leg)" is my idea of a wonderful song :3

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Lungfish - Indivisible

1997; 11 tracks

"Eleven tracks are present on Indivisible, and five of them are instrumentals. In artwork and mood, this is very much Lungfish's 'black' album. An emotional release is frozen in the active grieving anger that is Indivisible. Sonic Youth-like, distorted but trebly guitar sounds united with a rock-and-brooding rhythm section. Lungfish's art-rock catharsis is marked by dissonance or simplicity for a melody and sparseness or heavy hurtling from drums and warm bass." - Insound

This album is indeed brooding. Someone once told me that, in the case of Lungfish, Feral Hymns was the only album I'd ever have to listen to and I'd be set. I love love love that album, but I only recently realized how foolish it was for me to not try any other albums. I've been listening to this album for the past few days and can say it is quickly becoming almost level with Feral Hymns. I included that description (^) in order to describe the sound, for it is very true, but there is something even -more- to Indivisible. It is very brooding and dark, rhythmic though not unmelodic, slow and plodding at times, and even at the faster parts it is never more than walking-pace. These 11 tracks are highly meditative, as I have come to realize is quite common in all of Lungfish. They are energetic but at the same time laid-back. Repetitive but never old, it is custom for them to play one riff throughout the duration of a track. There is something liberating about this technique of Lungfish's that is unprecedented in the world of indie rock (or whatever you'd like to call this). This album was fantastic and I am never again going to listen to one album from a band and assume the rest isn't as good... and even if it's true, why not try >.>

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purchase

Black Mountain - In the Future

2008; 10 tracks

In the Future combines doom, psychedelic rock, indie rock, and progressive metal to create the perfect sludgey psychedelic album we were all expecting after the debut. 10/10.

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purchase

The Protomen - Act II: The Father of Death

2009; 12 tracks

Act II: The Father of Death is a truly moving album about Megaman. Perhaps it sounds lame, or the cover looks a bit cheesy. The truth is, it brought tears to my eyes. This powerful album is epic in every sense of the word - building upon The Protomen's fantastic debut album and, here, creating a masterpiece.

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Purchase

Mew - And the Glass Handed Kites

2005; 16 tracks

God I fucking love this album. I find the album cover a little annoying and weird-looking, but who cares. I listened to it non-stop in the spring/summer of 2008... I have so many dumb memories associated with it though, I hate it when that happens -.- Anyway, it's basically the epitome of beauty and power, and definitely my favorite Mew album. No one can deny that tracks like "Special," "The Zookeeper's Boy," and "White Lips Kissed" are absolutely essential to understanding and appreciating life and it's many wonders - one of them being this marvelous Danish band Mew.

.....

Wreck Small Speakers on Expensive Stereos - A Child's Guide...

1988; 12 tracks

This is lovely release by the obscure New Zealand indie/experimental/new wave band Wreck Small Speakers on Expensive Stereos.

It combines material from self-released cassettes (1983-1986) and rare live material. Their style ranges from techno-pop to ethereal and acoustic. These tracks are beautiful and deserve more attention!

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