The Veruca Valium Vortex: The Hot Toddies' Bottoms Up

I've always had a thing for hazy, garage-style girl groups. The love hatched in the still fledgling years of my musical development: I remember staring longingly at a Veruca Salt album wishing I had the $25 (in 90s Money!) to buy the CD.*  Now music is cheap and easy to get, and I'm all grown up and can have as much as I want. But I'll never forget the ache for that American Thighs album and all the cool I thought it would bring into my life, and I still covet the discovery of those grungy girl bands. Thing is, my angst has waned; he early teens is not the early nineties, and Jimmy Stepchuk is not flirting with my prettier, cooler best friend anymore, so I can afford to lighten up.

That's why I fucking love this EP.

Taken as a whole, this is what it would sound like if Veruca Salt circa American Thighs travelled back in time to 1965, moved to California, popped some pick-me-ups, and cut an album to send  to us, here, in the future. Which, y'know, is probably totally what happened. Science.

The only thing The Hot Toddies did wrong was not make it a full LP.

But I have all five tracks below, for your streaming pleasure. Or buy it.

*Okay, fine: tape.

Today's Swell Tune: Reset/Restore

• Band: We Were Not the Savages
• EP: We Were Not the Savages
• From: Montreal, Quebec, Canada
• Sound: Everyone uses synth in their rock now, but this one actually uses it for good; rock, synth-punk (is that a thing?)
• Buy it: bandcamp (name your price)
• Facebook: facebook

New Russian Apartments EP: Share It or Die in a Week. My Logic is Flawless.

The Russian Apartments have been featured on this blog twice before: once as a mysterious single, and again in an interview.  So I wasn't about to let the release of the new EP, The Last Last You, go without mention. 


Once again, New-Hampshire-based Mike Caulfield brings synthy, subtle bedroom pop that somehow manages ethereal without sounding cold and retro without sounding "done." It's haunting, quirky and as good under the microscope as it is for ambient listening. If introspective ghosts could play synthesizers, it would sound like this.


So here's my theory: maybe they do.  Because Mike is still a pretty mysterious character, if you think about it (who actually lives in Keene, New Hampshire?)  Oh, and he specifically requests sharing over payment on bandcamp and everyone knows ghosts don't need money. Yet he really wants you to share the album.  


Huh. Well I get what's going on here. I've seen The Ring.  So share it, or in exactly one week you will die of... being scared? (Is that what that was? Can that even happen?) Whatever--even if you don't, it would totally be worth it. This album is boss.


The Last Last You is 100% free on bandcamp, and you can keep up with The Russian Apartments via the website and facebook. You've already heard Gods and Miss McGinty's Ghost (coughspookynamescough). I also highly recommend the title track:

The Last Last You by The Russian Apartments

Chilling Out is for Americans: La Femme

I'm the first to say I'm a little bored of the surf trend. Sure I like Best Coast, Wavves, The Morning Benders, Hippies, The Drums... but the fact that the list is so long and could be so much longer is telling.  For the dozens of new songs each week labelled "indie pop" at least half of them seem to be lo-fi surf. It's not a bad sound or anything, but how can anyone expect to stand out on that crowded retro-California wave?

Well, you could be French.

Very aware of the absurdity of a Parisian Beach Boys, La Femme occasionally dons berets and striped sweaters comme le stéréotype, and promotes with posters of frogs and the Eiffel tower. Whether they're laughing with us or at us isn't clear.

What is clear is that it's the that attitude makes Le Podium #1. Because--and I'm just gonna go ahead and say what we all know-- the French are magnificent at acting like assholes*. And it so works here. Their irreverent brand treads the water between taking itself very seriously and not giving a damn about anything, somehow both sillier and sexier than the usual surf-pop offering.

None of that sunny, airy, hippie-dippy, "tasty waves and a cool buzz" stuff for La Femme--this is more "Nous surfons. Fuck you."

Comment-on-dit "far out" en francais?

Buy Le Podium #1 (EP) from their bandcamp.

Their MySpace.
Their Facebook
Their website.

Their current single:

La Femme - 'Sur La Planche' | (from Le Podium #1) by YINMAGAZINE

*I love assholes, for the record.

Hi... They're In... Delaware: Mean Lady

R&B. Radio scans. Music boxes. Clapping. Tambourines. Beats. Ukelele. Samba. Psychedelia. Banjo. Birds. Bells. Rain. Shrieking children. Old-time piano. Sleigh bells. A choir. Electric guitar. Vintage strings. Laughter. Sweet, soulful female vocals. And something that sounds like hooves. 

In five songs.

If you assume it would be noisy and disorienting, you're obviously not Mean Lady. On their debut EP Kid Friendly, Katie Dill and Sam Nobles effortlessly mix all of it into an undeniably beautiful 23 minute span. 

I can't even mix a martini that doesn't taste like olive water.  

The duo from Newark, Delaware claim it all started as a hip-hop project. But experimentation and curiosity have clearly taken them far beyond that territory and into a world they've made up for themselves. The final result is a surprisingly listenable, dreamy work that unfolds like a sunny-day acid trip.

Take a hit below and then download free from bandcamp. 

**Note for those with musical ADD: Be sure to get past at least the one-minute mark for the full effect**

Lonely (Mean Lady) by Mr.Shuffleupagus

Indian Sun (Mean Lady) by Mr.Shuffleupagus

Mod is the New Lo-Fi: Introducing Chalk and Numbers

For the past couple of years, indie pop has been all but dominated by a Beach Boysish retro sound, almost as though everyone stumbled across their dad's copy of Pet Sounds at the same time. And as much as I love The Drums, The Morning Benders, et cetera et cetera and so forth, I think I've had enough.  Time to move past the sunny, ultra low-fi bubblegum.  Trends, by their very nature, have to evolve.

Enter Brooklyn-based twosome Chalk and Numbers.  Their more sophisticated pop rides in on the same wave of heavy 60's nostalgia but moves the inspiration from west coast to east, swapping laid-back vibes for something more swinging. Think less LA and more NYC, when hep cats were hipsters and Greenwich was Williamsburg. Think pop art. Think turtlenecks. Think Beatle boots. Skinny suits. Mary Quant. Edie Sedgwick. Artists' lofts. Motown. Mod.

Yes. 

It's time to take production back up a notch.  This is shinier, sexier, and proves that pretending you don't care means you're trying way too hard.

They're giving it away, so get the entire EP for free here

He Knew (Chalk and Numbers) by Mr.Shuffleupagus

I Hope You Do (Chalk And Numbers) by Mr.Shuffleupagus

The Tallest Man on Earth: "Sometimes the Blues are Just a Passing Bird "



Photo by Kyle Dean Reinford


Every period in your life has a soundtrack of sorts. This summer, The Tallest Man on Earth was on mine. I had a lot of time off--rich person amounts of time off--and more than a few afternoons were spent lying around listening to The Wild Hunt, and doing little else. I mean, after a hard day of volunteering, obviously. For, like, the kids in the wheelchairs... with the...illnesses. So sad. 

So yeah, while I was totally about those wheelie kids, I also spent a lot of time enjoying Kristian Matsson's work. The intimate, deep-south inspired pop-folk album was perfect for lazy, sunny afternoons. Expecting a followup, I was excited for the new EP.

My enthusiasm waned for just a moment when I learned that the album is going by Sometimes the Blues are Just a Passing Bird because...well, dammit, that is a terrible title. It is an awkward mouthful and impossible to remember. It is a bad date title. Thankfully the album itself has a lot more grace and charm. Though it really can't be said to be a follow up album to The Wild Hunt. Matsson's trademark raw, Dylanesque vocals are as vulnerable and hopeful as ever, but there is definitely a darker, more caged feeling to Sometimes. While the last album was deep, it was also upbeat, uplifting. This time around there are no pick-me-ups. To be honest, despite its beauty I was glad it clocked in at just 17 and a half minutes and five songs. With lyrics like: “I said oh my Lord, why am I not strong? Like a branch that keeps, hangmen hanging on, like a branch that will take me home” it's some emotionally dense stuff and some days that's all you can take.  Admirably, it manages to never cross the line to dreary, but there is definitely something more wistful, more brooding, and more wounded this time around.

This isn't a warm summer album. This is one is colder for the winter months and darker days. Seems appropriate enough and I'll be listening to it.  

After I do my work for the sick kids in the skichairs, of course.


01 Little River by Mr. Shuffleupagus


03 Like the Wheel by Mr. Shuffleupagus