Wednesday, May 14, 2008

Artist: My Education
Label: Strange Attractors Audio House
Genre: Instrumental

It has been awhile since My Education has been a hot topic of discussion, but the act once praised by the Rolling Stone is making sure that they aren't just part of the past with a sweeping new effort that will more than likely put some epic qualities into your summer. Are you ready?

5/13/08
We can't wait for Dana Falconberry to release her follow up to 2006's stunning Paper Sailboat EP. With that short album, Falconberry, also known for lending her dulcet tones to Peter and the Wolf's Lightness, proved herself one of the most promising singer-songwriters in town. Her songs are rife with poetic emotion without being melodramatic, instead relying on the flexible power of her voice and beautifully poignant narratives as the backbone of her mesmerizing songs.

Her debut full-length, Oh Skies of Grey, will be coming out in June and she has put together this video for the song "Love Will Never Leave You Alone." So true, so true. It's a haunting and gritty number, aided by Falconberry's own jittery animation. The video was produced and directed by Roy Taylor and also features the impressive harmony talents of frequent Falconberry sidekicks Erika Maassen and Gina Dvorak. Check it out below, and you can see Falconberry this Thursday, May 15, at the Opera House on South 1st.

Scorpion Child rocks like 1975, like somebody scrawled Physical Graffiti all over southern rock. The local quintet reworks killer bluesy riffs in the unmistakable vein of Zeppelin, while frontman Aryn thrashes his long locks like Robert Plant and moans both soulful and bruising. The group is working on their debut album, which will be out later this year, but catch them live for the real, incomparable Scorpion experience. Scorpion Child will be playing this Saturday, May 17 at Red 7 with an insane lineup that includes Scott Biram and Nashville Pussy.

5/12/08
Is this really news? Well, kinda. Though Jonathan Meiburg, the angelic voiced frontman and songwriter for Shearwater, hasn't played with Okkervil River for a while, he had never really left the group that he helped found with Will Sheff. In fact, as Sheff himself noted in our interview with him way back last year, Meiburg is all over Okkervil's latest album.

Shearwater, of course, has their highly anticipated Matador debut (not counting the exquisite re-issue of Palo Santo last year on the label) coming out on June 3, and with Okkervil's continuing success, it seems reasonable that Meiburg can't keep up with both. (Download the first single from Rook here. And here is the official announcement from the press release:

Monday, May 12, 2008

Artist: Indian Jewelry
Label: We Are Free Records
Genre: Experimental/Psych Rock

With everyone and their second cousin focused on the Black Angels' Directions To See A Ghost it should come as no surprise that anyone operating an even slightly similar sound would be overlooked. However, that's what we're here for. Let's talk Indian Jewelry.

Austin’s The Sword may be, as their latest full length album claims, the Gods of the Earth, but that doesn’t mean the gods-on-high have forgotten them. Following up on what was called by many the essential metal album of 2006, as well as an endorsement by a certain video game that shall remain nameless, the Sword had a lot of pressure coming from all sides. Can a band that owes so much of its style to now-defunct metal legends continue its trend of wanton, no-holds-barred retro metal without having the irony fade? The answer, simply, is yes: if this is Th Sword’s sophomore slump, I can’t wait to see what lies ahead.

For a third of the year now we've been following Haunting Oboe Music as they feverishly release an EP a month. So far, each month's offering has proven interesting, and the group has presented some excellent new songs as they stretch their sound in new directions. The group's release for April, however, is by far their most impressive overall offering.

The EP is the most eclectic of their releases, but the range swells surprisingly coherent. Four different band members contribute to the songwriting, accounting for the distinctiveness of the songs. Opener "The General," presented for download below, builds to a beautifully mellow melody, perhaps HOM's most tender song to date. "Time and Energy" takes the country leanings of last month's EP to a new level of disturbed folk, incorporating a banjo leading the down-in-a-well vocal echo. The quiet effects-laden instrumental "Homeless" interweaves some samples from the streets, while "Wrist" and "Stab You" work through their more familiar dark vocal harmonies and chants, the former across sparse guitar, the latter through electronic bleeps and seering shouts.

5/7/08
Low Line Caller has always had an impressive visual element to their performances, especially from their instrumental days. Since adding vocalist Marc Ferrino of Black Before Red to their lineup about a year ago, the now-quintet have progressed even further beyond their melodic post-rock while retaining that core of hypnotic guitars. They also haven't lost their love for off-beat cinema, as evidenced by their new videos for songs off their upcoming album Hi Def Soft Core.

We're told that the accompanying visuals to "Killing the Cool" below "depicts the fire bombing of a drive-in movie theater in the 1950s by well-dressed Cuba revolutionaries." Sounds ominous, though it doesn't exactly feel that way. It does, however, have us excited about the new album. There are also two more videos that you can check out, for "Heartstrings Playing Notes" and "Built Over Gasoline".

Aliens is perhaps the most unique band in Austin, at least in terms of not quite fitting in with the "scene," so it is somewhat ironic that Aliens and Misc. Music mastermind Blake Sandberg and I are sitting in the interview capital of the city - Spider House. Since moving to Austin from New York, Sandberg has started the Misc. Music label, which boasts such extraordinary and off kilter talents as Daniel Johnston, Jad Fair, and, of course, Aliens, who recently released their excellent debut LP, Head First. Crammed into a secluded booth in a corner of the coffee house, Sandberg shares his ideas on the nature of "genre labels," the exclusivity of "the Austin sound," radio commercials and, most importantly, Aliens.

Hayes Carll fits fairly comfortably in the tradition of Texas troubadours, meaning his songs work the ever-fertile, if often over-plowed, subjects of beer, women, highways, and, of course, Texas. But Carll is one of the best young guns working over the sound to come along in a while, and his third album and debut for Lost Highway, Trouble in Mind, is garnering attention nationwide. This is good news, as Carll is the just the kind of excellent songwriter we’d like to be representing Texas Country to the rest of the world.