In The Pharmacy #8 – May 2012 by Nickpeters on Mixcloud

The 12 best songs I’ve heard in the last couple of weeks featuring songs that sound like:
• The Beta Band gone country
• (early) The Cure
• Lee Hazelwood and Nancy Sinatra gone electronica
• the soundtrack to a John Hughes movie
Plus the best pop song I’ve heard so far this year and new tracks from Spiritualized, The Walkmen, Silversun Pickups and more.

AlunaGeorge ‘Just A Touch’
UK duo with 90s R n B influences. The best pop song I’ve heard so far this year.
[Aluna George]

Spiritualized ‘Too Late’
My favourite track on the brilliant Sweet Heart, Sweet Light album. Half yearning / half resignation. A song about love, rather than a lovesong.
[Spiritualized]

Silversun Pickups ‘Gun-Shy Sunshine’
An early favourite off forthcoming album number three ‘Neck of the Woods’. The whole album is streaming over on Soundcloud.
[Soundcloud] [Silversun Pickups]

The Walkmen ‘Heartbreaker’
Second track to be aired from the forthcoming album ‘heaven’ I would have opened with this if I hadn’t already started the last cloudcast with the title track.
[The Walkmen]

DIIV ‘Doused’
Previously called Dive, the side project of Beach Fossils’ Zachary Cole. This is clearly indebted to The Cure’s early years without being a carbon copy.
[DIIV]

Purity Ring ‘Obedear’
Signed to 4AD, this electropop duo from Canada create a sweet but slightly creepy atmosphere which makes for beguiling tunes like this one. Download it for free on the website:
[Purity Ring]

Eternal Summers ‘ Millions’
Bright indiepop from Virginia. Short and sweet.
[Eternal Summers]

Twin Shadow ‘Five Seconds’
Twin Shadow is one of those artists who seems to yearn for an 80s that he was too young to experience. Like the best work of M83 and Ariel Pink, this sounds like it could have come straight off the soundtrack to a John Hughes film.
[Twin Shadow]

Au Palais ‘Some Velvet Morning’
I’ve lost track of the number of covers of this Lee Hazelwood and Nancy Sinatra classic. They never seem to diverge that far from the original. Here though, the Anglo Canadian electro goth pop drag it out of the 60s and if they don’t quite bring it up to date, they do make it as far as the 80s.
[Au Palais]

Sonny and the Sunsets ‘Pretend You Love Me’
This Bay Area band usually deal in lo-fi 60s influenced indie rock but this is from their forthcoming country album ‘Longtime Companion’. But while there’s some plaintive slide guitar and the title and lyrics are very much classic tropes, this isn’t straight country. There’s a loping bassline and some playful flute and the whole thing comes across a bit like the Beta Band if they were from Tennessee.
[Sonny and the Sunsets]

Field Report ‘Taking Alcatraz’
Wisconsin’s Chris Porterfield is a longtime buddy and collaborator of Bon Iver’s Justin Vernon. This is an unmastered version of a track from his forthcoming album.
[Field Report]

One Little Plane ‘Hold You Down’
Kathryn Bint, Chicagoan Four Tet collaborator with chilled out, gentle folk.
[One Little Plane]

Twelve shining gems from the last two weeks of new music. Along with the return of The Walkmen and Beach House you’ll find: a track that sounds like Teenage Fanclub if Gerard Love came from San Francisco; a cover of 80s Glaswegian post-punk types The Wake; a slacker guitar solo that wouldn’t sound out of place on Everybody Knows This Is Nowhere; a Pet Shop Boys cover; the most jubilant electronica instrumental of the year.

The Walkmen ‘Heaven’
Ten years, six albums and a handful of labels in, The Walkmen are on a roll with their last two albums,You & Me (2008) and Lisbon (2010) being easily their best. This is the title track of the next one due out in June. It features the usual circular motifs of drunken trebly jangling guitars and Hamilton Leithauser’s imploring vocals.
[The Walkmen]

Beach House ‘Lazuli’
Mesmeric dream pop from Baltimore. This is one of the stand out tracks from their forthcoming album Bloom.
[Beach House]

Beachwood Sparks ‘Forget The Song’
It’s been 10 years since the last Beachwood Sparks album. If you like classic rock, Cosmic American music and and Teenage Fanclub, you’ll probably agree that this was worth the wait.
[Beachwood Sparks]

Felix ‘Oh Thee 73’
Can’t quite put my finger on who these UK guys remind me of, although for some reason I’m getting Shannon Wright meets Edie Brickell.
[Felix]

MV & EE ‘Too Far To See’
Matt Valentine and Erika Elder are incredibly prolific and deal in combining eastern and western instruments, often with a psychedelic, folk and raga flavour. This is from the aptly titled ‘Space Homestead’ album due out next month. About a third of the way in it becomes a vehicle for a lazy guitar solo that could comfortable sit bewteen Neil Young’s ‘Down By the River’ and ‘Cowgirl In the Sand’.
[MV & EE]

Ed Schrader’s Music Beat ‘When I’m in A Car’

73 seconds of conceptual punk from Baltimore featuring No Age’s Randy Randall on guitar. Intense.
[Ed Shrader’s Music Beat]

Field Music ‘Rent’
Half of Pets Shop Boys is of course North Shields’ favourite son Neil Tenant. Here they get covered by fellow North East boys Field Music (from Sunderland). Recorded specially for a Record Store Day 7” (with a cover of the PSB’s Heart on the flip).
[Field Music]

Blouse ‘Pale Spectre’
Portland based band take on this track originally by Glasgow post-punks The Wake. Their ethereal electropop reminds me of Clan of Xymox meets mid-80s indiepop.
[Blouse]

Zulu Winter ‘Silver Tongue’
London based band recently signed to Candian indie Arts & Crafts, where their charming homage to 80s pop will no doubt be at home.
[Zulu Winter]

Doseone ‘Last Life’
Doseone (aka Adam Drucker of cLOUDEAD / 13 & God and co-founder of Anticon) was talking about a supergroup with Tunde Adebimpe of TV On The Radio and Mike Patton as far back as 2008. I don’t think the results have seen the light of day, but for sure that’s Adbimpe providing some of the backing vocals here? While the main vocals deserve credit for channelling a bit of Mark Linkous.
[Doseone]

Solar Bears‘Cosmic Runner’
Wonderful retro electronica from this Irish duo.
[Solar Bears]

Unicorn Kid ‘Pure Space’
20 year old Glaswegian makes uplifting and joyous electro-house anthem.
[Unicorn Kid]

The fourteen best songs I’ve heard in the last couple of weeks. This latest Cloudcast features indie and electronica, a track that’s heavily indebted to Daft Punk, a track that sounds like a lost James Bond theme, a track that sounds like a cross between Joy Division and The Stereophonics, a track that shares a title with a Duran Duran song but isn’t a cover, and plenty of Krautrock influences (or maybe I just hear those everywhere). It opens with a track by one of Sydney’s best bands, includes a remix of another Aussie band and closes with a cover version from a Melbourne post-punk icon collaborating with a New York new wave icon on a song from a legendary LA band.

Royal Headache ‘Down the Lane’
Sydney lo-fi retro rockers with a keen ear for melody and a ramshackle esthetic. Very catchy. Their self-titled debut album is due out in May. WARNING: their online presence is even more ramshackle than their music.
[Royal Headache]

Best Coast ‘The Only Place’
Carefree indiepop, the title track from the LA band’s forthcoming second album. This seems more polished than anything on Crazy For You but retains that 60s feel with a dash of country in Bethany Cosentino’s vocals. Download it for free from their website.
[Best Coast]

Pop Etc ‘Hungry Like the Wolf’
The Morning Benders’s Big Echo was one of my favourite albums of 2010. They’ve now changed their name to Pop Etc. (read all about it here) and seem to be going in a more electronic direction. Sadly, this is not a cover of the Duran Duran classic, but it is nearly as good. Available as part of a free 12 track mixtape which you can download from their website.
[Pop Etc]

James Curd ‘Guide Me (Gigamesh Mix)’
Chciago DJ makes a great Daft Punk / Stardust / Superman Lovers indebted
70s space disco funk number (with handclaps).
[James Curd]

Canyons ‘When I See You Again (Nick Zinner Remix)’
The Yeah Yeah Yeahs’ guitarist takes this track from the Aussie band’s Keep Your Dreams album and gives it an Italo / electro house makeover that plays up the piano and acoustic guitar riffs and adds some cowbell.
[Canyons]
 
Black Mouth Super Rainbow ‘Spraypaint’
New track from Pittsburgh’s folk-tinged electronic psychedelic pop veterans.
[Black Moth Super Rainbow]

Jai Paul ‘Jasmine’
Jai Paul’s ‘BTSU’ single passed me by completely – check out some of the hilariously negative reviews of it on his MySpace page. This, on the other hand,  is a great piece of bedroom space funk with loads going on.
[Jai Paul]

Suckers ‘Chinese Braille’
Brooklyn band return with a tune with a real 70s vibe to it.  Hints of Bowie and Ronson at their most glam and ELO’s Beatles plundering. There’s other stuff going on, but I can’t quite put my finger on it.
[Suckers]

Dirty Projectors ‘Gun Has No Trigger’
I’ve found in the past that for every Dirty Projectors’ tune I’ve loved, there’s been two that left me cold. The fact that this sounds like a lost James Bond film theme came as a pleasant surprise.
[Dirty Projectors]

John Maus ‘No Title (Molly)’
A good song from the one-time Ariel Pink associate, despite the fact that after a few listens I’ve decided it sounds like he’s channelling Ian Curtis singing The Stereophonics ‘Dakota’.
[John Maus]

Liars ‘No.1 Against The Rush’
Another stylistic shift for Liars. This has a Krautrock-meets-glitch feel to it, an almost motorik rhythm and clearly they’ve been listening to some Kraftwerk.
[Liars]

Lower Dens ‘Propagation’
Like fellow Baltimore band Beach House, Lower Dens deal in the woozy, hazy dreampop but with more of a downbeat, Krautrock feel to it. This is the second track to surface from their forthcoming album Nootropics, out April 30. (The first track ‘Brains’ was featured in ITP Cloudcast #1 back in January).
[Lower Dens]
 
jj ‘Beautiful Life’
This is the lead track from the Swedish band’s forthcoming EP jj no.4 due out May 8. A lovely slice of chilled out indie pop.
[jj]

Nick Cave and Debbie Harry ‘Breaking Hands’
Fire of Love was the undeniable classic, but I always rated Mother Juno, The Gun Club’s 1987 album whence the original of this fine tune resides. This is the second time Cave and Harry have teamed up to record one of the late Jeffrey Lee Pierce’s songs, this is featured as part of the Jeffrey Lee Pierce Sessions Project second album The Journey Is Long.
[Jeffrey Lee Pierce Sessions Project]

The 16 best songs I’ve heard in the last couple of weeks, some may be new to you, some not, but I hope you’ll find them all of the highest quality. This latest Cloudcast features a lot of rock and soul plus some electronica, glitch, glam, pop, post-dubstep, indie rock, space disco, indie pop and ambient gospel. You’ll find tunes that sound a bit like Queens of the Stone Age, Dinosaur Jr playing the Buzzcocks, Lana Del Rey on helium and chilled out club tracks. A lot of these tracks can be legally downloaded for free, so please follow the links if you like them and support the artists.

Kingswood – ‘Yeah Go Die’
Grunge-y stoner rock from Melbourne. This has blown up over the last couple of weeks, if they have other songs as good as this they’ll be huge. You can download it for free here:
[Kingswood]

Electric Guest ‘This Head I Hold’
Dangermouse produced indie soul from Los Angeles.
[Electric Guest]

King Tuff ‘Bad Thing’
Glam power pop from King Tuff, the alter ego of Kyle Thomas, lead vocalist of the J Mascis side project Witch and freak folkers Feathers. Download it for free over at Sub Pop:
[King Tuff]

Retribution Gospel Choir ‘Maharisha’
One of many side projects for Low’s Alan Sparhawk, this is quite different to the dirty indie rock and roll of the first two RGC albums. A big bright stadium rocker from The Revolution EP. You can download the whole EP for free here:
[Retribution Gospel Choir]

Bobby Womack ‘Please Forgive My Heart’
Last heard on Gorillas’ ‘Plastic Beach’ the soul legend has again teamed up with Damon Albarn to record his first secular album in nearly 20 years, The Bravest Man In The World (due out in June). This first track has a great vocal from Womack that could have come from one of his classic early 70s albums, while musically it’s as modern as you’d expect from a project featuring Albarn and man-behind-Adele / XL head honcho Richard Russell.
[Bobby Womack]

The Men ‘Open Your Heart’
Not sure how this Brooklyn band’s 2011 album ‘Leave Home’ passed me by as these guys are right up my street. This is the title track from their new album and sounds like Dinosaur Jr circa Bug playing The Buzzcock’s ‘Ever Fallen in Love…’.

DZ Deathrays ‘No Sleep’
Caught this Brisbane thrashy blues duo at Laneway at the beginning of February and this was one of the standouts of their set. The video pays homage to Paul Simon’s ‘You Can Call Me Al’ promo, with Arj Barker playing the Chevy Chase role.
[DZ Deathrays]

Jack White ’16 Saltines’
Jack’s voice spitting out the lyrics in it’s most hysterical falsetto pitch. Big crunching riff and a tasty guitar solo. Can’t wait for the album.
[Jack White]

Nick Waterhouse ‘Some Place’
25-year-old San Franciscan plays modern R n’ B in a classic style.  Think Daptone / Mark Ronson.
[Nick Waterhouse]
   
Gossling ‘Wild Love’
From rural Victoria, Helen Croome makes a record that is what I imagine Lana Del Rey might sound like if she stopped pouting, lightened up and sucked on some helium.
[Gossling]

Lotus Plaza ‘Strangers’
Deerhunter guitarist Lockett Pundt prepares to release his second album under the Lotus Plaza name. ‘Strangers’ has sonic similarities to his work with Deerhunter, but with a more lo-fi, dreamy, jangly 80s indie vibe going on.
[Lotus Plaza]

Siamese Twins ‘We Fall Apart (demo)’
More 80s influenced indie-pop, this time from Chicago. The sound quality isn’t great, but I think that just adds to the lo-fi charm. There’s a link on their Facebook page to download the whole six track demo:
[Siamese Twins]

F3 ‘Lonely Land (John Talabot Midnight Club Revision)’
F3 are three brothers from Tel Aviv making space disco. I haven’t heard the original but this remix from so-hot-right-now Spanish dude John Talabot is late night chill-tastic. I keep switching between thinking this is brilliant to feeling physically sick at the thought of being in a club at 2 in the morning.
[F3]

SBTRKT ‘Surely’
Like John Talabot, Aaron Jerome aka SBTRKT can’t seem to do any wrong at the moment. His post-dusbtep music manages to appeal to hipster youth and people like myself who wouldn’t be caught dead in a club playing this sort of music.
[SBTRKT]

Chrome Sparks feat Steffaloo ‘All There Is’
Glitchy electronica from Jeremy Malvin aka Chrome Sparks
jeremy malvin grew up in pittsburgh then moved to ann arbor to study percussion. now he just chills and makes beats in ann arbor when he isn’t playing drums for stepdad.
[Chrome Sparks]

Mister Lies ‘False Astronomy’
Chicago producer Mister Lies deals in what he calls ambient gospel, a good description of this chilled out track from his Hidden Neighbors EP
[Mister Lies]