Austin Sound

For all you kids out there missing Voxtrot’s shimmering pop angst, Ramesh Srivastava isn’t going to leave you completely high and dry after the band called it quits last spring. Ramesh has returned with a new EP, which is streaming up on his website. Also, definitely worth noting in the mishmash of that splash page is the odd combination of Chronicle scribe Austin Powell’s name above some sweetly sultry lyrics! Wow, we really had no idea! Hot stuff. As for the songs on Ramesh’s EP 1, “The King” sounds like a paired down tune off of an early Voxtrot EP and is quite good, “Romeo (Void)” kicks a little too Eighties’ danceparty for our taste, and the final “Recording Heathen Earth” is a nice, if kinda pointless, lush strings and piano instrumental number. No word on when or if there might be a physical release of the EP, but you can check out all of the tunes here, and our friends over at Texas Music Matters have posted “The King” up for download as their song of the day. Also, we didn’t bother seeing what the QR code on the website led to, but if it’s something cool, let us know!

Okkervil River has slowly been showcasing some new tunes leading up to the release of their new album, I Am Very Far, which according to Jimmy Fallon here, won’t be out until May 10th. We can, however, look forward to the new Okkervil single, “Mermaid”, which Jagjaguwar will release on Feb. 8. Chances are though that it will be hard to get much better than the band ripping through a song like “Wake and Be Fine” with as much firepower as they did last night on Fallon, bringing not only Roots’ ?uestlove and Damon Bryson to bear in backing, but also for some reason the New Pornographers’ A.C. Newman. “Wake and Be Fine” is a raw and raucous affair with Sheff spouting some serious ferocity atop the strings and brass. Also, in case you missed you missed it last week, Fallon gave over his stage to another local luminary when Iron and Wine debuted some new material on the show from their album coming out later this month. But get your taste of the new Okkervil River sound below:

While Austin City Limits gets ready to move into their new downtown home next month, the awesome ACL Satellite Sets series continues to roll in the old studios. If you’re not familiar with the Satellite Sets (formally called ACL Stage Left), these are where the ACL folks let local bands loose in the Hall of Fame-enshrined venue and give them the full-on expertly edited live video treatment, and then post the shows up on the Web. Recent sets have included Brownout, Monahans, and Quiet Company, but we were excited to see Grand Champeen showcase some new tunes on series. Grand Champeen has supposedly been sitting on a follow-up to their excellent 2007 album, Dial T For This, for a while now, which at least as of last year was tentatively titled Feelgood, M.D. When that might come out, who knows, but judging from this new tune, we excited to hear more! You can check out their entire show here, and plan to catch Wiretree (who we caught during Free Week and were sounding fantastic) on January 27. You can RSVP for that here. Watch “Records & Tapes” below:

It’s a rainy afternoon here in Austin today, so why not see if All in the Golden Afternoon can brighten things up a bit. The dreamy psych duo has been trying their damnedest to get their debut LP and follow up to their 2008 EP out for a while now, but have unfortunately run into the typical label frustrations. So for now, Magic Lighthouse on the Infinite Sea is available for digital download, or you can pre-order the vinyl and still get the download on January 15. In the meantime, you can get a taste for the duo’s (actually a trio for this song, thanks to some keyboards from Chad Merritt) new music with a download of “Gulf Coast Highway” below. The album also apparently features some additional help from the Octopus Project’s Yvonne Lambert, which we assume means some hot theremin action! Unfortunately it doesn’t look like All in the Golden Afternoon have any local gigs coming up, though if you happen to find yourself in Croatia at the end of March - well, then you probably have bigger problems to worry about than catching AitGA.

Given the success of last year’s Casual Victim Pile compilation, we suppose it’s not surprising that Gerard Cosloy has decided to put out a sequel. So say hello to the Casual Victim Pile franchise! What could possibly go wrong? After all, if Blues Brothers 2000 taught us anything, it’s that recapturing the magic is indeed possible. According to the Statesman, Cosloy will be putting out round II of CVP as a limited edition vinyl on the revamp of his old 12XU label, and it is due out February 22. There will be another three day release party at Beerland like last year, this one taking place right before SXSW on March 3, 4 and 5. We have to say that we’re pretty approving of this year’s cut, and you can check out the known artists being showcased below, though we’re really surprised that the Boxing Lesson didn’t make the cut. (Via the Statesman - we assume “Expensive Expletive” is actually Expensive Shit, but we don’t have the Statesman’s rigorous moral and family values to uphold, so fuck it).