New Tunes

Ladytron – Witching Hour

My brother found this band for me on low-and-behold…myspace. They also did a version of Like Eating Glass on the Bloc Party remix record. Their name is fitting – two girls in low, icy harmony, alluding to that blue-light sci-fi movie from the 80s. High Rise opens with a single distortion-laced guitar and menacing thumping bass drum. From there my playlist remains untouched until the last peaceful fades of All the way… It’s that solid of a record.

Shpongle

No particular record for this band, since I dled the entire discography. I’d heard a few select bits on DI.fm chillout mixes, the real jungle/goa/psytrance stuff like Behind Closed Eyelids and Hallucinogen. It’s a distinct body of work by two aging hippies from Greenwich Village. They mix quotes of Timothy Leary, William S Burroughs, Indian mystics and clips of old shitty MST3K films, then layer it with odd, bouncy electronica and some decent flute solos. Are you Shpongled contains the essential pieces, and the Remix album cuts short the weirdness into digestible (and danceable) chunks.

Secret Machines – Ten Silver Drops

It’s odd to have an album six weeks before the release date, but thus goes the way of the interweb. The brothers open with the slow, anthemic Alone, Jealous and Stoned, which plods out of smiling haze into hearty strums. There’s enough pretentious sorrow it cries out “Emo!”. But sometimes saccharine is fun, especially in Lightning Blue Eyes – just take the lyrics: “remember watching while your lightning blue eyes reflected sunrise”. They decend off the sugarhigh in the grungy space rock Daddy’s in the Doldrums, and the noir-ish I hate pretending. Still, Ten Silver Drops falls short of their debut Now Here is Nowhere.